Waltz Archives - The Automatic Earth

TERROR: The Biden administration released 600 terrorists into the interior as they awaited asylum hearings. In the meantime they were given SSNs, driver's licenses, work permits, and state and federal benefits including stipends, housing allowances, and groceries. pic.twitter.com/vcwVG23oXL

— @amuse (@amuse) April 30, 2025

90%

Elon Musk: My prediction is that long-term, 90% or more of all power on Earth will be solar panels with batteries.” pic.twitter.com/7RB5FTk1Ym

— ELON CLIPS (@ElonClipsX) May 1, 2025

100

pic.twitter.com/U6tI9pdin6

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) April 30, 2025

Dolls

Trump on China: "They made a trillion dollars with Biden selling us stuff. Much of it we don't need. Somebody said, 'oh, the shelves are gonna be open.' Well, maybe the children will have two dolls instead of 30 dolls, and maybe the two dolls will cost a couple of bucks more." pic.twitter.com/6gVbGQ6oJ2

— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) April 30, 2025

Tulsi Fauci
https://twitter.com/bennyjohnson/status/1917957407323705752
https://twitter.com/GuntherEagleman/status/1917961395238309903

Waltz UN Ambassador, Secretary of State Rubio takes over National Security Advisor as well. Not perfect, but doable.

• Trump Acts on Signalgate, Fires Mike Waltz (Margolis)

The Trump White House just sent a clear message: accountability matters. National Security Advisor Mike Waltz and his deputy, Alex Wong, are out at the National Security Council, Fox News confirmed Thursday. Additional departures are expected, and President Trump is slated to speak on the matter himself. Waltz, a former Green Beret and Florida congressman, came under scrutiny after The Atlantic published a report detailing how Editor-in-Chief Jeffrey Goldberg was erroneously included in a Signal group chat with Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth and CIA Director John Ratcliffe, discussing counterterrorism strikes against the Houthi rebels in Yemen.

Though no classified information was divulged in the chat, Democrats pretended like the world had ended because of it and sought to use it to force the resignation or firing of anyone remotely connected to it. Their top target, of course, was Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth. Waltz took responsibility for the inclusion of a journalist in the group chat, telling Fox News’ Laura Ingraham, “I take full responsibility. I built the group,” he said. “It’s embarrassing. We’re going to get to the bottom of it.” White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt told Fox News Digital earlier Monday when asked about reports claiming Waltz and others would be shown the door, “We are not going to respond to reporting from anonymous sources.”

Trump held a meeting with members of his cabinet on Wednesday following his 100th day back in office Tuesday, with Waltz attending the meeting. Following confirmation of Waltz’s ouster, House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries told Fox News, “The National Security Advisor Waltz is out. He’s the first. He certainly won’t be the last.” Neither Hakeem Jeffries nor any other Democrat leader ever demanded accountability from Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin—or anyone else—for the catastrophic Afghanistan withdrawal in 2021. The deaths of 13 American service members apparently weren’t a big enough deal to merit accountability in the Biden administration. Nor was there accountability later, when Austin vanished for a week in a hospital without telling the White House. Silence. No outrage. No consequences. Just business as usual in Biden’s unaccountable administration.

Wong served as Waltz’s principal deputy national security advisor, who was detailed in the Signal chat leak as the staffer charged with “pulling together a tiger team” in Waltz’s initial message sent to the Signal group chat in March, the Atlantic reported at the time. […] Trump told the media April 3 that a handful of other National Security Council staffers had been let go following the Atlantic’s report on the Signal chat leak, which characterized the Trump administration as texting “war plans” regarding a planned strike on Houthi rebels in Yemen.

Whether you agree with this development or not, the Trump administration is willing to hold its people accountable. Compare that to Joe Biden’s disastrous handling of the Afghanistan withdrawal. In addition to the service members killed, billions in equipment were left for the Taliban, and our allies were blindsided. Yet not a single person in the Biden White House lost their job. No resignations. No demotions. No accountability. In fact, they patted themselves on the back and called it a success. That’s the difference. When President Trump sees a problem, he acts. He doesn’t protect insiders just because they’re part of the club. Accountability isn’t just a buzzword—it’s the standard. The swamp may not like it, and the media will no doubt spin it, but this is what leadership looks like.

“..predict that formal talks will not be announced until after the US and China agree on the terms of a tariff deal privately.”

• China Assessing’ US Tariff Talks – Commerce Ministry (RT)

China is “assessing” US overtures to begin tariff negotiations, the Commerce Ministry said on Friday. According to the ministry, senior US officials recently reached out to Beijing through third parties with proposals to start talks. Tensions between the world’s two largest economies have risen since US President Donald Trump imposed 145% tariffs on Chinese imports last month as part of a wider effort targeting over 90 trade partners. Most of the new tariffs were paused for 90 days – excluding China – while a baseline 10% remains in place. Beijing responded with 125% tariffs on US goods and export restrictions. The ministry said China has taken note of recent US messages and is evaluating the possibility of negotiations, adding that while Washington has expressed interest in talks, trust would be undermined if unilateral tariffs remain.

“The US has recently sent messages to China through relevant parties, hoping to start talks with China. China is currently assessing this,” the ministry stated. Trump previously suggested that the tariffs could “come down substantially” and spoke about the potential for a “fair deal with China.” He also claimed that his administration was “actively” engaging with Beijing and that he had spoken to Chinese President Xi Jinping by phone. Secretary of State Marco Rubio claimed on Fox News last week that Beijing was “reaching out” to Washington. China has denied this and accused the US of misleading the public.

In its statement on Friday, the Commerce Ministry reiterated that the US must show “sincerity” by canceling the tariffs if it wants meaningful dialogue. It added that China remains open to talks, but will not be pressured: “If we fight, we will fight to the end; if we talk, the door is open.” It stressed that Beijing will only agree to negotiations in good faith. “Saying one thing and doing another, or even trying to coerce and blackmail under the guise of talks, will not work with China,” the statement read. Analysts expect negotiations will begin soon, citing recent market volatility and the IMF’s downward revision of global growth forecasts due to trade uncertainty. Some observers, however, predict that formal talks will not be announced until after the US and China agree on the terms of a tariff deal privately.

“..possesses enormous resources and a vast domestic market –factors that will enable its economy to withstand any amount of pressure..”

I don’t think so.

• Trump ‘Blundered’ On China Tariffs – Medvedev (RT)

US President Donald Trump’s misplaced tariff policies are hurting America’s allies but will fail to tank the Chinese economy, former Russian President Dmitry Medvedev said on Thursday. In early April, Trump announced sweeping tariffs on most of America’s trading partners, citing what he said was an unfair trade imbalance. After backlash overseas and a negative response from the stock market, he suspended most new duties for dozens of countries – except China – for 90 days pending negotiations.In a tongue-in-cheek post on Telegram on Labor Day, Medvedev, who serves as deputy chairman of Russia’s Security Council, argued that Trump deserved an “exemplary labor” award for “starting the tariff battle.”

The US’s neighbors, as well as its allies in Europe, were “suffering” and “crying” from the duties imposed by Washington, he wrote. “They are all in a really bad position, facing the need to bow down in a ritual known as ‘kiss my ass,’” the ex-president quipped. “China, on the other hand, possesses enormous resources and a vast domestic market –factors that will enable its economy to withstand any amount of pressure. This is where Trump made a blunder,” he added. “Trump’s approval ratings have dipped, while the ‘deep state’ is vigorously resisting him,” Medvedev wrote.

Beijing responded to tariffs of up to 245% on its goods by imposing tit-for-tat duties on American imports. “Bowing to a bully is like drinking poison to quench thirst – it only deepens the crisis,” the Chinese Foreign Ministry said this week, warning that China “won’t kneel down.” Trump has defended his policies, doubling down on claims that Beijing was engaged in unfair trade practices. “They deserve it,” he said, responding to a reporter’s question about whether his tariffs were tantamount to an embargo.

“President Trump has a very different view of Russia from his predecessors.”

• Trump Seeks Cooperation With Russia Instead of Confrontation (Sp.)

The first 100 days of US President Donald Trump’s second term in office have marked a profound shift toward searching areas of cooperation with Russia instead of confrontation, Rhode Island University Professor of Political Science Nicolai Petro told Sputnik. Trump officially took office as the 47th president of the United States on January 20. Upon entering the White House, the president and his team resumed direct contact with Moscow that has been cut off by their predecessors from ex-President Joe Biden’s team after the start of the conflict in Ukraine. “President Trump has a very different view of Russia from his predecessors. Rather than assuming that Russia’s interests must clash with American interests, he assumes that the two can find areas of cooperation, and that such cooperation has the potential to expand,” Petro said.

The expert described this as a “very profound shift” that is not shared by most of the American political elite and media, who continue to portray Russia as a threat to the United States. During the first 100 days of Trump’s second term, he had phone conversations with Russian President Vladimir Putin, while Russian and US officials held meetings in Saudi Arabia and Turkey. Part of the renewed diplomatic push also includes visits by US Special Envoy Steven Witkoff to Russia and by Russian Direct Investment Fund CEO Kirill Dmitriev to the United States. So far, the sides have been actively working on resuming the normal operation of their respective embassies while also discussing the issue of resumption of direct flights between the US and Russia.

“We’ve got the peace proposal out there and issued, and we’re going to work very hard over the next 100 days to try to bring these guys together.”

• US Ready To Spend Another 100 Days On Russia-Ukraine Peace – Vance (RT)

The Trump administration is prepared to dedicate another 100 days to mediating a peace deal between Russia and Ukraine, US Vice President J.D. Vance told Fox News in an interview published on Wednesday. He said the US has made progress by getting both sides to present their ideas for resolving the conflict. “We’ve got this first step,” the vice president said, reflecting on the first 100 days of President Donald Trump’s second term. “We’ve got the peace proposal out there and issued, and we’re going to work very hard over the next 100 days to try to bring these guys together.” Vance noted that before the Trump administration got involved, Moscow and Kiev “weren’t even talking – not to each other, not to anybody. They were just fighting.”

He added: “Now, the work of diplomacy is to try to sort of bring these two sides closer together,” pointing to the “very big gulf between what the Russians want and what the Ukrainians want.” During last year’s election campaign, Trump vowed to end the conflict “within 24 hours” of entering the White House – which he later described as an “exaggeration.” Since taking office in January, he has pressed both sides to reach a ceasefire and has recently shown frustration over the lack of progress. Although Russia praised Trump and his team for better understanding its position than the administration of former President Joe Biden, Moscow insisted that any comprehensive ceasefire must include an end to Ukraine’s mobilization and a halt to foreign weapons deliveries.

Both sides accused each other of violating the month-long energy truce brokered by Trump in March, as well as last month’s 30-hour Easter truce. Moscow has demanded that Ukraine drop its claims to Crimea and four other regions, and abandon its NATO ambitions. On Thursday, Trump’s special envoy, Keith Kellogg, said Kiev had agreed to acknowledge Russia’s control over what it considers “occupied territories,” while stopping short of officially recognizing Russian sovereignty. However, Kiev has repeatedly stated that it will not cede any land to Russia.

“According to Lavrov, “a [30-day] ceasefire in this situation is considered a precondition that will be used to further support the Kiev regime and strengthen its military capabilities.”

• US-Ukraine Deal ‘Important Step To End War’ – Rubio (RT)

The natural resource deal signed between Washington and Kiev is an “important step” toward ending the Ukraine conflict, US Secretary of State Marco Rubio has claimed. The long-awaited agreement, which allows Washington to tap into Ukraine’s extensive mineral reserves in return for assistance with the country’s economic recovery, was signed on Wednesday. Notably, the document does not include any provisions for the US to offer security guarantees to Ukraine, despite this being “one of its initial goals,” as reported by Reuters. The New York Times indicated that the concept of security guarantees was dismissed by the US “early in the process.” In an X post on Thursday, Rubio thanked US President’s Donald Trump leadership, under which the deal was signed. Rubio called it “a milestone in our shared prosperity and an important step in ending this war.”

Negotiations for the agreement stretched on for several months, although both parties intended to finalize it during Ukraine’s Vladimir Zelensky’s visit to the White House in late February. The televised meeting led to a tense confrontation during which Trump accused the Ukrainian leader of ingratitude and “gambling with World War III.” This comes as Washington is in talks with Moscow over a possible peace deal that would end the Ukraine conflict. Multiple media sources indicate that the agreement put forward by Washington entails the US recognizing Russia’s sovereignty over Crimea. Additionally, the proposal reportedly includes a “freezing” of the conflict along the existing front line and an acknowledgment of Moscow’s control over significant portions of four former Ukrainian regions that voted to join Russia.

Russian President Vladimir Putin ordered a halt to all military operations against Ukrainian forces from midnight on May 7 until midnight on May 10, stating that this is being done for “humanitarian reasons.” Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov pointed out that Russia considers the ceasefire “the start of direct negotiations with Kiev without preconditions.” Zelensky branded Moscow’s three-day truce declaration a “manipulation attempt,” saying he wanted an immediate 30-day ceasefire instead. According to Lavrov, “a [30-day] ceasefire in this situation is considered a precondition that will be used to further support the Kiev regime and strengthen its military capabilities.”

“When America is your friend and your partner, your nation is going to be better off. And there is a security component just in our presence..”

• US Rejected Ukraine’s Security Guarantee Demands – NYT (RT)

The US has rejected Ukraine’s request for security guarantees as part of a newly signed mineral resources agreement, the New York Times reported on Wednesday, citing sources familiar with the talks. The nine-page deal, signed the same day after months of negotiations and published on Thursday by the Ukrainian government, gives Washington preferential access to Ukraine’s mineral projects, including rare-earth metals. It also establishes a joint investment fund to support Ukraine’s post-conflict reconstruction. Despite its scope, the final agreement contains no formal pledge of future US military support, a key demand from Ukraine during negotiations. Instead, it vaguely mentions a “long-term strategic alignment” and promises US backing for Ukraine’s “security, prosperity, reconstruction, and integration into global economic frameworks.”

One source told the NYT that the US dismissed the idea of providing Kiev with explicit security guarantees early in the talks. State Department spokeswoman Tammy Bruce defended the agreement, suggesting that US involvement alone offers implicit protection. “When America is your friend and your partner, your nation is going to be better off. And there is a security component just in our presence,” she told Fox Business. Analysts told the NYT that the deal could help secure US President Donald Trump’s continued interest in Ukraine now that he is directly invested, and will potentially open the door to further discussions on military aid and a ceasefire with Russia. Still, critics argued that without binding guarantees, the deal’s impact may be limited if the conflict continues.

Ukraine’s parliament is expected to ratify the agreement within two weeks. The US has framed the deal as a way for Ukraine to repay past military aid – estimated at $350 billion by Trump, though Kiev claims the figure is closer to $100 billion and that the support was unconditional. The debt repayment clause, however, was dropped from the final text. After signing, Trump said the US could “in theory” recover “much more” than $350 billion through the deal. Commenting on the deal, deputy head of the Russian Security Council Dmitry Medvedev said the US has essentially “forced the Kiev regime to pay for American aid with minerals,” warning that all future military supplies will have to be paid “with the national wealth of a vanishing country.”

“Now they will have to pay for military supplies with the national wealth of a disappearing country,”

• Kremlin On Minerals Deal: ‘Trump Has Broken The Zelensky Regime’ (ZH)

The Kremlin has said that what the newly signed minerals deal between Ukraine and Washington does is effectively force Kiev to pay for all future military aid. “Trump has broken the Kyiv regime to the point where they will have to pay for U.S. aid with mineral resources,” Medvedev, a former Russian president and current deputy chairman of Russia’s Security Council, stated on Telegram. “Now they will have to pay for military supplies with the national wealth of a disappearing country,” he said of the Ukrainians. As of yet, the full contents of the newly inked deal, finalized and signed late in the day Wednesday, have not been revealed, but it gives the United States preferential access to new Ukrainian minerals deals and its natural resources like oil and gas, and will fund investment in Ukraine’s reconstruction.

But the Zelensky government was able to get something crucial dropped at the last minute. As CNN details, “Compared to earlier drafts, the final agreement is reportedly less lopsided in favor of the US and is not as far-reaching. It stipulates that future American military assistance to Ukraine will count as part of the US investment into the fund, rather than calling for reimbursement for past assistance.” President Trump’s initial reaction after the signing was seen in the following: Speaking Wednesday in a call with NewsNation, Trump said he made the deal to “protect” Washington’s contribution to the Ukrainian war effort. “We made a deal today where we get, you know, much more in theory, than the $350 billion but I wanted to be protected,” Trump said. “I didn’t want to be out there and look foolish,” he continued, voicing the administration’s longtime complaints that Zelensky only asks for “more and more” – and yet is still losing the war.

Meanwhile, the ceasefire process is still basically stalled, as neither side has backed off of their demands and conditions. President Zelensky has recently reiterated that he can’t even legally give up Crimea. However, Trump presidential special envoy for Ukraine and Russia Keith Kellogg has told Fox News that Ukraine is ready to make territorial concessions, but wouldn’t see any ceded territory as a permanent situion. “Not de jure forever, but de facto, because the Russians actually occupy that and they’ve agreed to that. They know that if they have a ceasefire in place, which means you sit on the ground that you currently hold, that’s what they’re willing to go to,” the envoy said. “You have your line set, and they’re willing to go there,” Kellogg emphasized. But it’s clear the Kremlin sees this as an issue of sovereignty and permanence, given President Putin has described the four annexed territories and Crimea as “ours forever”.

“Trump has finally broken the Kiev regime into paying for American aid with minerals..”

• Trump Has Forced Ukraine To Sell Itself For Aid – Medvedev (RT)

US President Donald Trump has forced Kiev to sell off Ukraine’s mineral wealth for continued military aid, former Russian President Dmitry Medvedev has said. Washington and Kiev signed a long-anticipated deal on the joint extraction of Ukrainian natural resources on Wednesday, after months of contentious negotiations. Trump has advertised the agreement as a way to get back the roughly $350 billion he claims Washington has spent on support for Kiev in the conflict with Russia. The agreement does not mention security guarantees, which Ukraine previously insisted on. Instead, it focuses on future US aid, rather than paying back assistance provided to Ukraine in the past.

“Trump has finally broken the Kiev regime into paying for American aid with minerals,” Medvedev, who currently serves as the deputy chairman of Russia’s Security Council, said in a Telegram post on Thursday. “Now military supplies will have to be paid for with the national wealth of a disappearing country.” In February, Trump and Zelensky had a public spat in the Oval Office just as a deal was widely expected to be signed. After the meeting, the US president temporarily froze military aid and intelligence sharing with Kiev for around a month. The full text of the agreement signed on Wednesday has not been published, but available details suggest it is centered on a joint reconstruction investment fund. Ukraine is to contribute 50% of the revenue for new licenses for future resource extraction projects into the fund.

One potential difficulty with this deal is that as of now, Ukraine’s much-discussed rare-earths – highly sought-after metals used in high-tech production – are still largely untapped and need billions in investments to mine, the Washington Post wrote on Thursday, citing analysts. Additionally, a significant portion of the resources – according to old data from when Ukraine was a Soviet republic – is located in the Donbass region, a large part of which is now part of Russia, the WaPo said. In 2023, Forbes estimated Ukraine’s mineral wealth at roughly $15 trillion, with nearly half of this in Russia’s Donetsk and Lugansk People’s Republics.

“Three Republicans joined Democrats in rejecting the tariffs”,

..and Trump still wins. Forget beating him in the Senate.

• Senate Republicans Block Rebuke Of Trump’s Tariffs (Pol.)

Two absences in the Senate left supporters of the resolution short of a majority. A Democratic effort to rebuff President Donald Trump’s sweeping global tariffs failed Wednesday, thanks to two absent senators. Senators voted 49-49 to reject the national emergency Trump used to impose tariffs of between 10 and 50 percent on many of the United States’ largest trading partners. It came on the same day the Commerce Department revealed that the economy shrank in the year’s first quarter, largely due to Trump’s trade policies. Three Republicans joined Democrats in rejecting the tariffs: Sens. Lisa Murkowski of Alaska, Susan Collins of Maine and Rand Paul of Kentucky. Paul was a cosponsor of the resolution with Sen. Ron Wyden, an Oregon Democrat.

Sens. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-R.I.) and Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) were missing from the vote, leaving supporters of the resolution short of a majority. Whitehouse was absent because he was returning from the Republic of Korea, where he represented the U.S. at a conference on protecting the ocean from threats like climate change, pollution and overfishing. McConnell, the former Republican leader, missed several votes Wednesday. “The Senator has been consistent in opposing tariffs and that a trade war is not in the best interest of American households and businesses,” said David Popp, a spokesperson for McConnell. “He believes that tariffs are a tax increase on everybody.” The vote was largely symbolic: The House has approved a rule to block a vote on the resolution and Trump has threatened to veto such a measure if it makes it to his desk.

And after the resolution failed, Republican leaders immediately forced a vote to table, or kill, it for good, and this time they brought in reinforcements: Vice President JD Vance arrived on Capitol Hill to break the tie. Still, the resolution’s failure hands Trump a victory as his administration tries to maintain support for the aggressive tariff platform among increasingly nervous Republicans. Paul said he felt the vote was more about the debate than the result, because he knew it wasn’t likely to clear Congress. “Most Republicans are just going along with it, but many of them are quietly still on the other side of this,” Paul said. “They just aren’t willing to say anything yet. But I think if we went through another quarter of negative growth and or another scare in the marketplace, I think there will be more visible voices against the tariffs.”

Yet even lawmakers who defended Trump’s tariffs acknowledged the uncertainty that has come with Trump’s attempts to upend the global trading order, an effort that has tanked consumer sentiment in the U.S. and spooked many businesses and investors. “I appreciate that many of us in this chamber have heard from constituents concerned about the economic impact of the tariffs,” said Sen. Mike Crapo (R-Idaho), who chairs the Senate Finance Committee that oversees trade policy. “All of us are watching this issue closely and working with the administration to find ways to minimize its impact on Americans. We should also be working with the administration to address a shared objective: more opportunities for Americans in foreign markets and an end to discriminatory actions in foreign markets.”

“..the media has taken it upon themselves to use the only strategy that the Democratic Party can come up with. And that is to attack Donald Trump..”

• Trump’s Opposition (Victor Davis Hanson)

At the end of the 100 days of the Trump administration, let’s just review for a moment the opposition to it. And it’s actually, if you think about it, a tripartite, a threefold opposition: pollsters, the media, and the Democratic Party and the institutionalized Left. The pollsters have President Donald Trump down four or five points. But when you actually look at the Rasmussen poll or Mark Penn’s poll, a Democratic centrist, Trump is almost even. And then when you look with greater clarity at The New York Times poll that has him way down, you see that only 37% of the people polled voted for Donald Trump. But Donald Trump won by almost a point and a half. Don’t you think it should have been, I don’t know, 51%-49%? So, they were deliberately, in the case of The New York Times, under-polling Trump supporters.

The same was true with The Washington Post. They polled over 2,000 people, but only 840 were identified as Trump voters. Shouldn’t that have been half? So, what am I getting at? We’re getting right back to what happened in 2016 when the polls were completely wrong. The same thing happened in 2020 when they overestimated former President Joe Biden’s strength by four or five points. And then, even in 2024, the NPR poll had—on the last day of the election—they had then-Vice President Kamala Harris winning by four points. The Des Moines Register had Iowa lost to Trump by three points. He won it by 12. So, what the pollsters are doing—not that Trump hasn’t lost some to the controversy over the trade wars—but the pollsters are trying to create momentum, fundraising, and jazz up opposition.

Then we turn to the media. The media’s in a fight with the Democratic Left now because of the scandal of Joe Biden. The Democratic Left is saying, “Well, you were a journalist. If you thought he was demented or cognitively challenged, why didn’t you report it?” But the journalists are saying, “We couldn’t get close to him. He looked OK for us because you had him in such a guarded environment.” In truth, they’re both guilty. Do you remember those press conferences by then-White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre? Did anyone ever hear one question on those daily or three or four times a week press conferences? “Miss Jean-Pierre, is Joe Biden cognitively able to navigate himself to the podium? What is the nature of his cue cards? Have you had a Montreal Cognitive Assessment of him?” There was nothing. It was a combination of the Democratic Party, the Biden insiders, and the media.

And here’s another point, very quickly. The media has gained a lot of influence and power in the opposition because there is no opposition on the Democratic Party. So, in lieu of an alternate agenda, the media has taken it upon themselves to use the only strategy that the Democratic Party can come up with. And that is to attack Donald Trump. Now, what do I mean by that? If you look at the Democratic Party and the Left in general, they have boxed themselves in. On the one hand, they have no institutional power; no ability to pass legislation, losing the House and the Senate; no presidency, White House; no executive orders. Ultimately, all of the cherry-picked district and circuit judges will be overturned by a largely conservative Supreme Court.

In lieu of actual power, then you look at what is the alternative. Maybe the alternative is a 1994 Newt Gingrich Contract with America, an alternate agenda: Yes, we can do better on the border than you can. Yes, we have a better foreign policy with Iran. There’s nothing. There’s no shadow government. There’s not a young Bill Clinton ascendant. There’s no young Barack Obama. There’s nobody. There’s no leaders. There’s no agenda. Nothing. It’s nihilism. And so, let’s look at the third element. Do they have a good old days? Can they say, “Donald Trump ruined things”? “They were so good under Biden. The border was—we liked it open. Twelve million, we could have got 20 million illegal aliens. Let’s go back to that. We had a wonderful retreat from Afghanistan. Picture perfect. We can do it again. The Iran—the theater war in Ukraine and Iran, that wasn’t our fault. Maybe it was inevitable. We had a really good inflation—we had a little hyperinflation of 9%.”

So, there is no alternative good old days. They can’t say Donald Trump wrecked something because they had wrecked the country. So, what are we left with? We’re left with Donald Trump wore a blue suit at the Vatican funeral. Donald Trump is a fascist. No. According to Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker, he is a Nazi. No. According to former Vice President Al Gore, he is a Nazi. No. According to members of the Congress, is he deserving a polite conversation? You have to use the F-word. Or maybe it’s the S-word. It’s smutty mouth, potty mouth video. What is the one principle that ties them all together? We’re gonna talk about that in the next video. But it’s about fear that Donald Trump’s first 100 days are not as chaotic and bad as they tell us. But we might be on the cusp of something that will be very, very successful and will ensure Donald Trump has a successful presidency.

“..Europe “would struggle to put 25,000 troops on the ground in Ukraine”…”

• Europe Just Proved Trump Right About NATO (Green)

In a shocking-not-shocking exclusive report in The (UK) Times, Europe “would struggle to put 25,000 troops on the ground in Ukraine” as part of a postwar peacekeeping force. Defense Editor Larisa Brown “was given a rare insight into conversations between Europe’s defence ministers and military chiefs as they thrashed out plans for a ‘coalition of the willing’ force,” and the results are as disappointing as they are sobering. And you know how much I hate sobering. British defense chief Admiral Sir Tony Radakin asked European defense ministers “if they could put together a 64,000-strong force to send to [Ukraine] in the event of a peace deal.” Britain offered up to 10,000 personnel, but even then, “defence ministers across Europe said there was ‘no chance’ they could reach that number and that even 25,000 would ‘be a push for a joint effort.'” This is not your father’s NATO.

During the Cold War, the British Army of the Rhine stood watch in West Germany for half a century with a force of 50,000 men — and the promise of swift reinforcements almost as quickly as the balloon went up. Today, all of European NATO couldn’t put a peacekeeping force in Ukraine of half that size without wheezing like an asthmatic with a sinus infection hiking up Kilimanjaro. NATO was always a little fractured and weaker than it should have been. Unlike the Warsaw Pact on the other side of the Iron Curtain, NATO members were independent nations, each with its own priorities and needs. Paris could complain about American “hyperpower” all it liked, but we didn’t send in the tanks — like Moscow would have — when France withdrew its forces from NATO command and ordered NATO troops out of France in 1966. We just made do.

And while Washington was correct to ask for more “burden-sharing” from our allies during the Cold War, it wasn’t as though they didn’t take the Soviet threat seriously. The West German Bundeswehr consisted of 10 battle-ready heavy Panzer and Panzergrenadier divisions, plus another division each of airborne and mountain forces — for a total of 38 combat brigades. That was just the Field Army. The Territorial forces consisted of reserve troops — older men called up to defend their cities, towns, and homes — amounting to another 450,000 soldiers. But here’s the rub. West Germany raised those forces from a population of 60 million with a GDP of $1.6 trillion in today’s dollars. Unified Germany has 80 million people, a GDP of $4.7 trillion, and a military of three divisions that are understaffed, under-trained, and unfit for combat.

The balloon went up more than three years ago in Ukraine, and yet the only substantial-sized NATO member seriously rearming is Poland. Milblogger CDR Salamander nailed it yesterday: “Europeans expect hundreds of thousands of Americans to immediately deploy to Europe to defend them against a nation with the GDP of Texas and a population 1/4th the size of European NATO.” This is from countries that admit they could barely muster 25,000 troops for Ukraine, even if their national survival depended on it. So when President Donald Trump complains that European NATO isn’t pulling its weight, he isn’t trying to destroy the alliance, as his critics claim. He’s warning of an existential threat to the alliance’s purpose and its members’ existence — and that America’s patience with perennial laggards is not unlimited. Nor should it be. And Europe’s defense ministers just admitted that, too.

“..zero growth and recession for 3 years running..”

• Why a Strong Euro is an Economic Disaster for the EU (Sp.)

The euro has jumped in value almost 10% against the dollar since January. But before cheering at the thought of cheaper imports of Skippy peanut butter and Jim Beam whiskey, here’s what EU residents should know.
1. Stronger Euro = Weaker Exports
“For any country (or zone in the case of the euro) that is a strong exporter,” a strong currency “contributes to slowing exports and increasing imports, to the detriment of domestic production,” explains Jacques Sapir, veteran economist and director of studies at the Paris-based School for Advanced Studies in the Social Sciences.
2. Monetary Union Trap
Unlike ordinary nations, which can depreciate their currencies at will to restore exports’ appeal, eurozone members are trapped by the monetary union, which offers “quite limited” room to maneuver for big producers or tourism-based earners benefiting from depreciation vs everyone else.
3. Another Hit to Eurozone Economy in Rough Shape
The euro’s growing strength is bad news for a bloc already:
• facing zero growth and recession for 3 years running
• cut off from the source of its export competitiveness: cheap Russian energy
• facing brutal trade competition from the US and China.
4. Tariff-like Effects
“With the dollar depreciating by around 10% since mid-January, it is as if the US has imposed 10% customs duties on European products while subsidizing their exports to the eurozone by 10%,” Sapir says.
5. Tariff Wars Add to Uncertainty
“Major economic players abhor uncertainty…As long as these negotiations last, no one knows what the tariff levels will be and therefore how attractive the American market will be, whether for production or investment,” the economist says.

If there are elections, he’ll run. If they let him.

• Zelensky Sanctions Arestovich (RT)

Ukraine’s Vladimir Zelensky has announced sanctions against his former top adviser. Alexey Arestovich has frequently criticized both Ukraine’s leadership and its military strategy in its conflict with Russia. Arestovich was among several Ukrainians mentioned in a decree released by Zelensky’s office on Thursday. Penalties imposed include asset freezes, restricted trade and financial transactions, travel, and the revocation of state awards. Arestovich served as an adviser to the Office of the President of Ukraine between 2020 and January 2023. He resigned in controversy after claiming that a Russian missile hit a residential building in the city of Dnepr only because it had been downed by Ukrainian air defenses. Following public outrage and accusations that he had discredited the Ukrainian army, Arestovich backtracked, apologized, and submitted his resignation.

He has since become a prominent commentator on the Russia-Ukraine conflict, often presenting views that diverge from the official Ukrainian narrative. Last month, he suggested that Kiev should agree to cede land to Russia as part of a potential US-brokered peace deal, warning that any attempts to reclaim lost territories would only backfire. “Why should we give up four regions? So that in six months or a year we don’t lose another six or eight,” he said, referring to four former Ukrainian territories that in 2022 voted in public referendums to join Russia. Kiev has consistently refused to acknowledge any territorial losses, however..

Arestovich has also accused the Ukrainian leadership of corruption. He has claimed that Zelensky is personally involved in numerous graft schemes and that Kiev’s Western backers are well aware of his activities. He has also signaled that he wants to run for president of Ukraine. Zelensky, whose term expired last year, has refused to call new elections, citing martial law, which has been extended more than a dozen times. Addressing the sanctions, the ex-adviser predicted that the Ukrainian authorities would now try to limit his media reach by cutting off access to his YouTube channel from the country’s territory.

War princess.

• EU Will Never Recognize Crimea As Russian – Kallas (RT)

The EU has reaffirmed its refusal to recognize Russia’s sovereignty over Crimea, the bloc’s foreign policy chief Kaja Kallas has stated. Officials in Brussels are reportedly concerned that a possible peace deal negotiated by Washington and Moscow to end the Ukraine conflict would entail the US recognizing Crimea as part of Russia. The peninsula voted to secede from Ukraine and join the Russian Federation shortly after the 2014 Western-backed coup in Kiev. Speaking to the Financial Times on Thursday, Kallas, the EU high representative for foreign affairs and security policy, stated unequivocally, “Crimea is Ukraine,” underscoring that “no EU country would accept recognition of Crimea as Russia.”

Meanwhile, Trump’s suggestion that lifting sanctions imposed on Russia could be part of a peace deal has also alarmed EU officials, who fear it may prompt divisions within the bloc over maintaining its own sanctions regime, according to the FT. Kallas has warned EU states against following a US policy shift toward Moscow. She told the outlet that the EU is preparing a contingency plan to sustain economic pressure on Russia, should Hungary follow through on its threat to veto an extension of sanctions in July. She noted that this could include allowing national governments to adopt the sanctions individually or for Belgium to issue a decree to seize over $200 billion worth of Russian central bank assets frozen on Belgian soil.

Moscow has warned that seizing its assets would amount to “theft,” hinting at possible retaliatory measures against Western investments in Russia. The diplomat also emphasized that the EU could offer Ukraine financial support if the US withdraws, though military backing would be harder to replicate. “We are still working with the Americans and trying to convince them why the outcome of this war is also in their interest,” Kallas said. Last week, Moscow accused Brussels of obstructing US-Russian diplomatic efforts to end the Ukraine conflict, working instead to prolong the hostilities. “Europe wants war, not talks,” Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said.

“WSJ’s Glazer and her co-authors chose to publish the story—despite receiving a denial from Tesla’s board before publication..”

• Elon Musk Blasts Wall Street Journal’s CEO Search Report (ZH)

Tesla Chairwoman Robyn Denholm denied a Wall Street Journal report claiming the board had begun searching for Elon Musk’s successor, calling the story “absolutely false.” Musk echoed the rebuke, slamming the story as an “EXTREMELY BAD BREACH OF ETHICS” by the legacy media outlet. “Earlier today, there was a media report erroneously claiming that the Tesla Board had contacted recruitment firms to initiate a CEO search at the company,” Denholm wrote in a statement published on X via Tesla.

She emphasized, “This is absolutely false (and this was communicated to the media before the report was published),” adding, “The CEO of Tesla is Elon Musk and the Board is highly confident in his ability to continue executing on the exciting growth plan ahead.” Musk chimed in, calling the WSJ story by Emily Glazer, Becky Peterson, and Dana Mattioli “an EXTREMELY BAD BREACH OF ETHICS that the WSJ would publish a DELIBERATELY FALSE ARTICLE and fail to include an unequivocal denial beforehand by the Tesla board of directors.”

It is an EXTREMELY BAD BREACH OF ETHICS that the @WSJ would publish a DELIBERATELY FALSE ARTICLE and fail to include an unequivocal denial beforehand by the Tesla board of directors! https://t.co/9xdypLGg3c

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) May 1, 2025

WSJ’s Glazer and others cited anonymous sources to indicate that slumping vehicle sales and DOGE-related backlash had damaged the brand, prompting the board to search for a new CEO. Here’s an excerpt: “Board members reached out to several executive search firms to work on a formal process for finding Tesla’s next chief executive, according to people familiar with the discussions. [..] The board narrowed its focus to a major search firm, according to the people familiar with the discussions. The current status of the succession planning couldn’t be determined. It is also unclear if Musk, himself a Tesla board member, was aware of the effort, or if his pledge to spend more time at Tesla has affected succession planning. Musk didn’t respond to requests for comment.[..]

Why WSJ’s Glazer and her co-authors chose to publish the story—despite receiving a denial from Tesla’s board before publication—underscores how legacy media spreads misinformation and disinformation. This is the landscape Musk—and top officials in the Trump administration—are navigating: a hostile leftist corporate media environment that pushes endless streams of misinformation and disinformation.

In case you wonder what we — and President Trump — are up against.

100% NEGATIVE coverage from so-call “mainstream” press in the first 100 days. PERFECT SCORE.

(Come on @RobertKennedyJr & @elonmusk , you guys can do better!) pic.twitter.com/uYi2ebI0RG

— Pete Hegseth (@PeteHegseth) April 30, 2025

“It’s as if the Anglo-Zionist axis is using Kashmir as a volatile lab for a series of live tests – including pushing nuclear powers to the brink of confrontation..”

• Going to Kashmir…Just To Find Alice in Wonderland (Pepe Escobar)

Two overarching taboos reign on the – now shattered – collective West:
• Can’t define the Ukraine regime as Nazi.
• Can’t condemn the psychopathological Israeli genocide in Gaza.

The taboos happen to be inextricably linked to the Forever Wars deployed non-stop by the Empire of Chaos/Zionist axis. Lesser Hybrid Wars though – even carrying the horrifying prospect of turning nuclear – are allowed to come and go. Especially if they are part of the current war on BRICS, a sub-section of the war of factions of the West against the Global Majority. So let’s go to Kashmir – to the sound of Jimmy Page’s hypnotic riff. Both India and Pakistan are escalating the war of decibels. Turkey is offering weapons – to Pakistan. Iran offered a mediator role: no takers. The motive for the war is as dodgy as they come. An all-male tourist bus packing a bunch of merry tourists is roaming around Indian-held Kashmir. Passengers include a just married 26-year-old lieutenant of the Indian Navy – but without his wife (what kind of honeymoon is that?)

Another passenger is Nepalese. The bus is attacked by shady splinter goons loosely affiliated with the Salafi-jihadi Lashkar-e-Taiba outfit. The Empire has been all over the Indian front. The current US Director of National Intelligence (DNI) Tulsi Gabbard was previously fully funded by Prime Minister Modi’s circles. Eyeliner-loaded VP J.D. Vance recently visited India – complete with family Taj Mahal photo op. Then Modi went to visit Saudi Arabia – invited by MbS. After the Kashmir bus terror attack, Hindutva fanatics went on a cyber-attack spree. The crude tactics spell out classic Divide and Rule. Double whammy: revamped weaponization of India, and destabilization of a key Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) China front: the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC). A thing of beauty: splitting BRICS from the inside.

None of that, of course, legitimizes the ghastly Pakistani military, which have thrown in jail, on spurious charges, the man who was trying to bring Pakistan to respectability: Imran Khan. It’s up, once again, to the adults in the room, any room – Russia – to de-escalate. This could be ideally performed inside the SCO – where both India and Pakistan are members, side by side with Iran. Moscow chose to take the initiative, by itself. Deputy Foreign Minister Andrey Rudenko met with both India’s Ambassador to Russia, Vinay Kumar, and Pakistan’s Ambassador to Russia, Muhammad Khalid Jamali. Russian terminology is essential: not only there was a call for both parties to “engage in constructive dialogue”. Moscow stressed, “we are ready to counter the global terrorist threat together.” The operative word is “global”. Delhi and Islamabad don’t seem to be getting the message – yet.

Kashmir as a volatile war lab An infernal machine is predictably on. It’s as if the Anglo-Zionist axis is using Kashmir as a volatile lab for a series of live tests – including pushing nuclear powers to the brink of confrontation. And all that dealt with casual insouciance – practically as a sideshow. Nothing coming from Sultan Erdogan and his intel apparatus could possibly be seen as trustworthy. In Syria, the MIT’s assets – the Headchopper Inc. congregated in Greater Idlibistan – ended up being installed in power in Damascus with their Zionist-friendly gang leader now posing as President. The comprador Yankee junta in Islamabad, for its part, may be facing the abyss – which in itself qualifies as auspicious news. In parallel, suspense accrues on whether Modi will show up for the Victory Day parade on May 9 in Moscow – and what he will tell his Russian hosts.

BRICS members Russia and Iran want the International North South Transportation Corridor (INSTC) running smoothly to India sooner rather than later. The game gets even more complex when we see that the Iranian investigation is finally starting to consider that the horrendous explosion at the Shahid Rajaee port may have been an act of sabotage or an FPV strike. Extra pressure on China is a real motivator for setting up this war lab. Now Beijing not only needs to start worrying about an explosively renewed India-Pakistan front but also extra CIA/MI6 mischief pushing the Pak connection to Uighur Salafi-jihadis. There’s no chance in hell Delhi will really understand Beijing’s geopolitical predicaments. A perfect scenario for the Hybrid War gang. Meanwhile, at the BRICS front, at least there are some signs of rationality – coming, once again, from Grandmaster Lavrov.

https://twitter.com/newstart_2024/status/1917807982898725100

Timeline of the presidents of the United States of America. pic.twitter.com/5fTCUCtvCt

— Civixplorer (@Civixplorer) April 30, 2025

Turns
https://twitter.com/Rainmaker1973/status/1917896792856727785

https://twitter.com/catturd2/status/1917586303337562559

Ice cream

Elon Musk on what it's like to be friends with President Trump and run DOGE:

“We’ll be on Air Force One or Marine One and [Trump] will be like, ‘Hey, do you want to stay over?’ I’m like, ‘sure.’ But I didn’t request it, to be clear,” Musk said, sharing with reporters that… pic.twitter.com/oyzN9wXwG1

— Sawyer Merritt (@SawyerMerritt) May 1, 2025

Moore

Greenpeace co-founder, Dr. Patrick Moore:

"I am firmly of the belief that the future will show that this whole hysteria over climate change was a complete fabrication." pic.twitter.com/8Ozb5y0MnV

— Wide Awake Media (@wideawake_media) May 1, 2025

Owl
https://twitter.com/Rainmaker1973/status/1917882423162896621

Ants
https://twitter.com/Rainmaker1973/status/1917999523122622651

https://twitter.com/NiallHarbison/status/1917901686397632739

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Debt Rattle March 30 2025

Mar 302025

March 30, 2025 Posted by Raúl Ilargi Meijer at 10:00 am Finance Tagged with: Charlie Foxtrot, eurobonds, Iran, loyalty, Musk, SignalGate, tariffs, Tesla, Trump, Vance, VOA, Waltz, X 33 Responses »

David Hockney A Bigger Splash 1967

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

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

• Vance Asked Trump To Fire Waltz – Politico (RT)

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

• Trump Puts the System on Trial (RCW)

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

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

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

• Federal Judge Halts Shutdown of Voice of America (ET)

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

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

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

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

• Joe Rogan Guest Completely Shatters the Vaccine Narrative (VF)

1994

Hillary started it. pic.twitter.com/j69Ma8Mw61

— MERICA MEMED (@Mericamemed) March 28, 2025

Birth rate

pic.twitter.com/kslsp7pgWO

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) March 29, 2025

Painful homework
https://twitter.com/cb_doge/status/1905912268111360510

Details
https://twitter.com/gunsnrosesgirl3/status/1905881343436767284

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

No. 4
https://twitter.com/GUnderground_TV/status/1905546747574710733

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

• Vance Asked Trump To Fire Waltz – Politico (RT)

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

• Trump Puts the System on Trial (RCW)

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

In 2028, the jury will render its verdict.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

@xAI has acquired @X in an all-stock transaction. The combination values xAI at $80 billion and X at $33 billion ($45B less $12B debt).

Since its founding two years ago, xAI has rapidly become one of the leading AI labs in the world, building models and data centers at…

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) March 28, 2025

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

$1 billion a year for a woke relic.

• Federal Judge Halts Shutdown of Voice of America (ET)

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Nobody cares.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

• Joe Rogan Guest Completely Shatters the Vaccine Narrative (VF)

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

https://twitter.com/VigilantFox/status/1905056279409651724

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

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

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

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

Bhakdi

Dr. Sucharit Bhakdi: “All mRNA vaccines are dangerous and are going to threaten life [and] this cannot be allowed to happen”

"Now if I am here today, it's for a very special reason. Four weeks ago, I don't know where you saw the video, released by the WHO where they proclaimed… pic.twitter.com/IfxkAXGA8b

— Camus (@newstart_2024) March 28, 2025

Cows
https://twitter.com/AMAZlNGNATURE/status/1905842442693186021

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

Lovebird

Lovebird collecting flowers
pic.twitter.com/yTasxOOQTa

— Science girl (@gunsnrosesgirl3) March 29, 2025

Ninja
https://twitter.com/Yoda4ever/status/1905721654350868674

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

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

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Debt Rattle January 13 2025

Jan 132025

January 13, 2025 Posted by Raúl Ilargi Meijer at 10:52 am Finance Tagged with: California, FISA-702, Greenland, Jan 6, JD Vance, Meta, Newsom, Overton Window, Tulsi Gabbard, Waltz 67 Responses »

Pablo Picasso Self portrait 1906

• Trump Blew The Overton Window So Wide Open, Anything Seems Possible (Peters)

• Trump’s Plan For Greenland ‘Not A Crazy Idea’ – Former Top NATO Commander (RT)

• Greenland ‘Most Welcome’ To Join US – Musk (RT)

• Trump Energizes Greenland Independence Movement (Mish)

• Trump: California Fires ‘One Of The Worst Catastrophes’ In US History (JTN)

• Ukraine Must Acknowledge Territorial ‘Reality’ – Trump Adviser Waltz (RT)

• Biden Laying Russia Sanctions Trap For Trump – WaPo (RT)

• Anti-Russian Sanctions Killing German Companies – Wagenknecht (RT)

• Poles Tired Of Ukrainians – Defense Minister (RT)

• The Walls Close in on Zelensky (Jim Rickards)

• In the Western World You Become Respectable by Selling Out the People (PCR)

• Weaponizing Law Enforcement Against Americans (Spivak)

• Tulsi Gabbard Now Supports FISA-702 to Get Confirmed as Head of DNI (CTH)

• Biden Eyes Preemptive Pardons Amid Trump’s Return (RT)

• Vance Says Trump Won’t Issue Pardons for Violent Jan. 6 Defendants (ET)

• Biden Calls Meta Decision to End Fact-Checking Program ‘Really Shameful’ (ET)

https://twitter.com/i/status/1878102416429883684

Cali Fire

You can’t make this up

California called for help to neighboring states for firefighters, “Did all those fire rigs and personnel go straight to the fire lines? No, they did not. They went to Sacramento.”

“Why? Because California says if you send us your fire rig, it must first… pic.twitter.com/3xXmNpwQHg

— Wall Street Apes (@WallStreetApes) January 11, 2025

How Trump was made a felon. Listen well.
https://twitter.com/i/status/1878395613018026473

JD
https://twitter.com/i/status/1878456747850956958

Tucker Newsom

Here’s why Governor Gavin Newsom will NEVER resign despite being responsible for the Los Angeles fires and financially destroying California

Tucker Carlson explains the truth about Gavin Newsom “I know Gavin Newsom. I think a lot about Gavin Newsom, many different things about… pic.twitter.com/2qFl8VzhFb

— Wall Street Apes (@WallStreetApes) January 12, 2025

“..the feasibility of a policy idea depends not on its inherent merits but on whether it falls within the range of public acceptance..”

• Trump Blew The Overton Window So Wide Open, Anything Seems Possible (Peters)

“Wayne, would you like to be governor of Canada?” asked Trump, speaking with his buddy Gretzky, tugging at the Overton Window with all his might. “MAKE GREENLAND GREAT AGAIN,” the President-Elect tweeted on Truth Social, sending his oldest son north with a box of red hats. He wouldn’t rule out taking the Panama Canal by force. And with each such suggestion, the window widened further. The Overton Window is a concept in political science and sociology that refers to the range of policies or ideas considered acceptable in public discourse at a given time. Like most things in life, I learned about it rather late. “We’re going to be changing the name of the Gulf of Mexico to the Gulf of America, which has a beautiful ring that covers a lot of territory, the Gulf of America. What a beautiful name,” Trump said at Mar-a-Lago, prying the window open so wide that nearly anything seems possible, plausible, probable.

Say such things enough times, amplify the words using our AI-enabled social media machines, and presto, nothing’s shocking. But not only that, AI will soon converge with quantum computing. “The Willow processor performed a computation in under five minutes that would take one of today’s fastest supercomputers 10 septillion years. It lends credence to the notion that quantum computation occurs in many parallel universes, in line with the idea that we live in a multiverse,” wrote Google, presenting its latest breakthrough, cracking our perception of reality. As the window widens fully, not only is nothing impossible, but almost anything can seem reasonable. The right and left tails of every distribution lengthen and fatten. And we are left unanchored, adrift, in an endless sea of wild possibility, volatility. “I’m going to give you a report on drones about one day into the administration, because I think it’s ridiculous that they’re not telling you about what’s going on with the drones,” pledged the President-Elect.

Windows. John Overton posited that ideas travel through stages, moving from being seen as extreme or unthinkable to becoming widely accepted and adopted as policy. Democracy was once considered unthinkable. Universal suffrage too. Emancipation. Most things that matter have traveled this path.

Here are Overton’s six stages:
• Unthinkable – outside of acceptable thought.
• Radical – at the edge of discussion.
• Acceptable – starting to gain traction.
• Sensible – reasonable and widely discussed.
• Popular – widely supported.
• Policy – acted upon and implemented.

Overton introduced this framework to describe how the feasibility of a policy idea depends not on its inherent merits but on whether it falls within the range of public acceptance. He argued that public policy is constrained by this “window” of acceptable ideas and politicians tend to stay within the window to maintain public support. But what was yesterday’s unthinkable can become tomorrow’s policy as the window widens, shifts left, or right. And what moves the window is naturally tied into one of life’s great mysteries, the superorganism we call humanity. Overton’s framework helps us make sense of society, markets too, risks, opportunities. I try to look at emerging investment themes through this lens. With each move of the window, power structures shift, capital flows adjust, new winners emerge, incumbents struggle or fail. The nimble survive, thrive.

With such stakes, those with influence are desperate to guide the process. Politicians, propagandists, business leaders, religious leaders, union bosses, authors, artists, athletes, advocacy groups, lobbyists, social media influencers, and now AI. There was a time, not so long ago when it was radical or even unthinkable to call network news fake. No longer. And now we openly joke about Canada becoming our 51st state. Where that leads is anyone’s guess, but the window has widened. Greenland’s Prime Minister announced today that he’s ready to speak with Trump. I started trading in 1989 and never in that time has the Overton Window shifted this rapidly across so many dimensions. There’s no precedent for it in modern history. And this dynamic is becoming a new market fundamental.

But it’s not just Trump. Javier Millei has thrown open an anti-statist libertarian window that had been nailed shut for as long as I’ve been alive. Argentina had the best performing stock market in the world last year. This is breathtaking change. And in roughly two short years, we went from the FTX apocalypse to serious talk of strategic sovereign Bitcoin reserves. That window is wide open. Intertwined with both Millei and Bitcoin is radical talk of sovereign insolvency throughout the western world. Before it’s over, make no mistake, we’ll be talking about massive entitlement cuts. But for today, that idea is stuck in the unthinkable stage.

The best idea for Greenland?!

• Trump’s Plan For Greenland ‘Not A Crazy Idea’ – Former Top NATO Commander (RT)

US President-elect Donald Trump’s plan to acquire Greenland from Denmark is not a “crazy idea,” former NATO supreme allied commander in Europe, James Stavridis, has said. He, however, dismissed the possibility of military intervention, instead advocating for economic engagement as a means to strengthen ties with the region. Speaking at ‘The Cats Roundtable’ with John Catsimatidis on WABC 770 radio on Sunday, the retired admiral described Greenland as a “strategic goldmine for the United States,” highlighting its geopolitical position and abundant natural resources. “It sits at the very top of the North Atlantic. It protects approaches to our own country – the Atlantic Ocean – so it is geographically very important,” Stavridis said. He added that the region is rich in rare minerals and likely has vast oil and gas deposits.

“And it’s huge, a huge land mass. It’s three times the size of Texas,” he said, agreeing with the host that Greenland is “almost a better deal than Alaska.” “And here’s my point. We already almost bought Greenland,” Stavridis said. “We almost bought it at the same time when we bought Alaska, back in the 1860s. So it’s not a crazy idea.” The former NATO commander ruled out using “military force to attack Greenland or Denmark,” arguing that the US should focus on economic engagement to counter Russian and Chinese influence in the region. “We could do an awful lot in terms of business, investment, box out the Russians, box out the Chinese, and work very closely with Greenland,” he said. He added that Greenland “doesn’t have to become the 51st state, but it could certainly be an economic objective for us.”

Trump first floated the idea of purchasing Greenland in 2019, a proposal that was swiftly rejected by Danish and Greenlandic officials. He revived the idea last month, describing the ownership of the Arctic island as an absolute necessity” for US security. Greenlandic pro-independence prime minister, Mute Egede, ruled out selling the island but said on Friday that he was “ready to talk” with Trump. “We have a desire to be the master of our own house,” he said. Although Denmark rejected Trump’s proposal, Copenhagen has reportedly floated to Trump the possibility of boosting US military presence on Greenland, which already hosts an American base. A self-governing Danish territory since 1979, Greenland has gradually been pursuing greater sovereignty. The island currently has its own government, but Denmark retains control over foreign affairs and defense.

US needs an arctic base.

• Greenland ‘Most Welcome’ To Join US – Musk (RT)

Tech billionaire Elon Musk has expressed support for Greenland potentially becoming part of the United States, after incoming President Donald Trump renewed interest in acquiring the Danish self-governed island. Musk made the remarks on Sunday, writing on X: “If the people of Greenland want to be part of America, which I hope they do, they would be most welcome!” In doing so, he was responding to a recent poll by the University of Copenhagen indicating that the majority of Greenlanders favor independence. Musk’s comments came after Trump voiced support for the acquisition of the island, describing it as an “absolute necessity” and a “national security” matter. The president-elect first suggested purchasing Greenland during his first term in 2019, but the idea went nowhere at the time due to opposition both from Greenland and Denmark.

Greenlandic Prime Minister Mute Egede has rejected the possibility of selling the island to the US, but said on Friday that “we are ready to talk” with Trump. He noted that “we have a desire for independence, a desire to be the master of our own house… This is something everyone should respect.” On Saturday, Axios reported, citing sources, that Denmark, Washington’s NATO ally, had sent “private messages” to Trump signaling that it is open to discussing boosting US military presence in Greenland. The island of about 60,000 people is already home to a US military base and plays a key role in NATO’s defense because of its strategic location, which allows it to control vital Arctic shipping lanes that are gradually becoming more navigable due to global warming.

An autonomous territory of Denmark since 1979, Greenland has been gradually seeking more sovereignty. The island currently has its own government, but Denmark retains control over foreign affairs and defense. A 2019 poll indicated that 67.8% of Greenlanders favor independence from Denmark within the next two decades.

https://twitter.com/i/status/1878454609720606735

They’ll always depend on someone. Just got to choose who.

• Trump Energizes Greenland Independence Movement (Mish)

The Wall Street Journal reports “Trump’s Talk of Buying Greenland Energizes Island’s Independence Movement”. “Greenland is a self-ruling part of the Kingdom of Denmark. The Danish government says it is willing to grant Greenland full independence if there is local support, and recent Greenlandic elections and polls indicate there is. Trump’s recent threat of a trade war with Denmark is changing the negotiating dynamic, says Ulrik Pram Gad, a senior researcher at the Danish Institute for International Studies. The Danish government now might be more open to agreeing a divorce deal that includes some continued payments to ease Greenland’s path to independence, he says. “My prognosis is that the Danish government will accept it in the next few years,” he says.

“An independent Greenland would then be free to forge its own security or economic ties with the U.S., Denmark or anyone else. In April, Greenland goes to the polls in a vote that could fire the starter gun on independence for the territory of 57,000 people. The last time elections were held, pro-independence parties got 80% of the vote. The prime minister of Greenland made a New Year’s address to the nation saying that a draft constitution for the country has been prepared and that the independence process should be triggered. “It is now time to take the next step for our country,” Múte Egede said. “Like other countries in the world, we must work to remove the obstacles to cooperation—which we can describe as the shackles of the colonial era—and move on.”

“A 2009 Danish law lays out how Greenland can take the first step in the process: It must notify the Danish government, the two must negotiate a divorce agreement and the deal must then be ratified by a referendum in Greenland. The Greenlandic government has commissioned legal experts to work out the details of how step one would work with a two- year deadline. Pro-independence campaigners in Greenland would like to adopt a “free association” model, similar to the relationship between the Marshall Islands and the U.S. or the Cook Islands and New Zealand. Some of Trump’s advisers have privately acknowledged a sale of Greenland is unlikely, but an expansion of U.S. military and financial presence on the island is a possibility. A poll in 2021 showed that 69% of Greenlanders favored more cooperation with the U.S., compared with 39% who favored tighter cooperation with China.”

Trump’s Offer to Buy Greenland. Some people thought I was crazy when I posted Trump’s Offer to Buy Greenland Is Not as Preposterous as it Sounds. A free association model may be more likely, but don’t rule out an outright purchase. There are only about 59,000 Greenland citizens. I proposed an offer of $2 million each. That would only be $118 billion. Greenland would be cheap at double the price if I am correct about the mineral deposits.

Critical Materials Risk Assessment. Our Department of Energy has placed some of the rare earth minerals we need for weapons systems, wind turbines, batteries, semiconductors, cell phones, and aircraft on a critical materials list. Nearly all of them are mined or refined in China. If Trump increases tariffs on China by 60 percent, China could easily shut down rare earth exports. I have been warning about this for years China controls more than 80% of the world’s supply of tungsten and about 90% of global magnesium production China has an effective monopoly over processing major heavy rare earths – Dysprosium (Dy) and Terbium (Tb), and Light Rare Earths – Neodymium (Nd) and Praseodymium (Pr).

On December 3, I commented China Halts Rare Exports Used by US Technology Companies and the Military. This is China’s advance salvo at Trump tariffs. It comes one day after the Biden administration expanded curbs on the sale of advanced American technology to China. The US gets rare earths from allies who get them from China. But don’t rule out the possibility that China shuts off all access.

“There is death all over the place.”

• Trump: California Fires ‘One Of The Worst Catastrophes’ In US History (JTN)

President-elect Donald Trump blasted California and Los Angeles officials for their handling of the wildfires that have been raging for nearly a week. “The fires are still raging in L.A.,” Trump wrote on Truth Social early Sunday morning. “The incompetent pols have no idea how to put them out. Thousands of magnificent houses are gone, and many more will soon be lost. There is death all over the place.” He said that this is turning out to be “one of the worst catastrophes in the history of our Country.” “They just can’t put out the fires. What’s wrong with them?” he continued, according to The Hill. Last week Trump wrote on Truth Social that “Governor Gavin Newscum refused to sign the water restoration declaration put before him that would have allowed millions of gallons of water, from excess rain and snow melt from the North, to flow daily into many parts of California.”

“NO WATER IN THE FIRE HYDRANTS, NO MONEY IN FEMA. THIS IS WHAT JOE BIDEN IS LEAVING ME. THANKS JOE!” Trump posted later that day. Newsom pushed back on X regarding Trump’s claim about the water restoration declaration. Newsweek, among others, fact-checked the claim about the water restoration declaration and concluded, “The notion that Newsom therefore turned down a ‘declaration,’ referring to federal action that Trump introduced anyway, is not accurate. However, it is clear that the governor has opposed Trump’s actions on water policy, drawing a sharp response from Trump in turn.”

The death toll has climbed to 16 as of Saturday evening. LA County has declared a local health emergency as over 40,000 acres have burned, according to Cal Fire. While this is clearly a combination of natural and environmental phenomenon, arson, and government failure and mismanagement, this catastrophe will be analyzed and characterized for decades to come, often through a political lens as the region and the country come to grips with the realities and implications on the ground.

They take it step by step.

• Ukraine Must Acknowledge Territorial ‘Reality’ – Trump Adviser Waltz (RT)

It is not possible to “expel every Russian from every inch” of soil claimed by Ukraine, including the Crimean peninsula, incoming US National Security Adviser Michael Waltz has admitted. Acknowledging “that reality” has become a major step toward resolving the conflict between Moscow and Kiev, Waltz told ABC News in an interview on Sunday, adding that this idea is now in the process of being accepted by Ukraine’s backers. “Everybody knows that this [conflict] has to end somehow diplomatically. I just don’t think it’s realistic to say we’re going to expel every Russian from every inch of Ukrainian soil. Even Crimea – President[-elect Donald] Trump has acknowledged that reality, and I think it has been a huge step forward that the entire world is acknowledging that reality,” Waltz stated.

Waltz suggested that accepting the fact that returning to Ukraine’s original post-Soviet borders is unrealistic now opens the way to addressing the question of “how do we no longer perpetuate this conflict and how… we no longer allow it to escalate in a way that drags in the entire world.” The remarks appeared to be reminiscent of statements previously made by other close Trump allies, including his vice president, J.D. Vance. Shortly ahead of the November election, Vance suggested Kiev could end up in a situation where it decides to cede some lands to Russia.

The stance signaled by the incoming US administration sharply contrasts with the goal repeatedly proclaimed by Kiev of regaining the entirety of its post-Soviet territory. This has been accompanied by an explicit refusal by Ukraine to engage in any meaningful negotiations with Russia. Moscow, however, regards the five formerly Ukrainian regions, including Kherson, Zaporozhye, Donetsk and Lugansk People’s Republics, as well as Crimea, as integral parts of its territory. Crimea broke away from Ukraine in the aftermath of the 2014 Maidan coup in Kiev, joining Russia via a referendum shortly thereafter. The four other regions were incorporated into Russia in late 2022 after the local population overwhelmingly backed such a move during separate referendums. Last year, Moscow demanded that Kiev pull its troops out of the areas it still controls in its former regions in order to begin the long-stalled negotiation process.

“Key obstacles include the legal framework under which the sanctions are authorized and the likelihood of strong congressional resistance..”

• Biden Laying Russia Sanctions Trap For Trump – WaPo (RT)

The administration of US President Joe Biden has set a sanctions trap for President-elect Donald Trump, making it politically and legally challenging to roll back sweeping measures targeting Russia’s energy sector, according to a report by the Washington Post. The newspaper claims that Biden’s actions could create significant hurdles for Trump if he seeks to lift the restrictions. Key obstacles include the legal framework under which the sanctions are authorized and the likelihood of strong congressional resistance. Republican lawmakers have previously pushed for tougher penalties, potentially complicating Trump’s efforts to reverse course. “It’s entirely up to [the next administration] to determine whether, when, and on what terms they might lift any sanctions we put in place,” a senior Biden official is quoted as saying. However, current sanctions laws give Congress the power to block any move to ease restrictions.

This framework leaves Trump with limited options, potentially forcing him to maintain the pressure on Moscow despite his calls for a quick settlement in Ukraine. Michael Waltz, Trump’s incoming national security adviser, has argued for leveraging the sanctions to encourage Russian President Vladimir Putin into peace talks. In an article for The Economist before the election, Waltz wrote: “If [Putin] refuses to talk, Washington can… provide more weapons to Ukraine with fewer restrictions. Faced with this pressure, Mr. Putin will probably take the opportunity to wind the conflict down.” Targeting oil giants Gazprom Neft and Surgutneftegas, as well as 183 oil tankers, the latest US measures are designed to strike at Russia’s energy industry, which helps fund its budget. They also tighten the US Treasury Department’s license, restricting Moscow’s ability to be paid in dollars for energy exports.

The timing – just days before Trump’s inauguration – has drawn accusations from Moscow of deliberate sabotage. “Of course, we are aware that the administration will try to leave the most difficult legacy possible in bilateral relations to Trump and his associates,” Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said ahead of the sanctions announcement. Biden officials have framed the sanctions as a long-term strategy. “We believe our actions are leaving a solid foundation upon which the next administration can build,” one official said, predicting the measures would cost Russia billions in monthly revenue and force “hard decisions” between sustaining its economy. With the sanctions tied to bipartisan legislation, any rollback is expected to face resistance in Congress, leaving Trump constrained as he takes office, the Washington Post added.

“The sanctions have nothing to do with morality, they have nothing to do with human rights, they have nothing to do with the love of peace, they are simply a stimulus program for the US economy…”

• Anti-Russian Sanctions Killing German Companies – Wagenknecht (RT)

Western sanctions imposed on Russia are “killing” German companies and enriching the American economy, Sahra Wagenknecht, the leader of Germany’s left-wing BSW party, said during an election conference on Sunday. The delegates of the Sahra Wagenknecht Alliance – Reason and Justice (BSW) gathered in the city of Bonn to adopt the platform for the Bundestag election that will take place next month. During her speech, Wagenknecht refused to blame Russia for the ongoing Ukraine conflict. “The sanctions have nothing to do with morality, they have nothing to do with human rights, they have nothing to do with the love of peace, they are simply a stimulus program for the US economy and a killer program for German and European companies,” Wagenknecht said.

She called for the restoration of the gas imports from Russia. “We simply have to tie our energy imports with the criteria of the lowest price and not any kind of double standards or ideology,” she stated. The left-wing politician condemned Washington’s foreign policy, alerting the audience about “the blood trail of US proxy wars” around the globe. She stressed that the German chancellor must not be “a vassal” of the US. BSW co-leader Amira Mohamed Ali said that the party stands for “a strong, fair and sovereign Germany.” The right-wing Alternative for Germany (AfD) party held its conference in Riesa, Saxony on Saturday. The delegates rejected a motion condemning Russia and called for a diplomatic resolution of the conflict. The snap election was called after Germany’s ruling three-party coalition collapsed last month due to disagreements over the budget.

“..especially when people here see young Ukrainian men driving the latest cars or staying in five-star hotels.”

• Poles Tired Of Ukrainians – Defense Minister (RT)

Poles are “fatigued” of Ukrainian migrants in their country, Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of National Defense Wladyslaw Kosiniak-Kamysz has stated. The official partially attributed this sentiment to the sight of young men leading an ostentatious lifestyle in the EU nation instead of defending their homeland. Nearly a million Ukrainians currently reside in Poland, according to UN estimates. While Poland opened its doors to those fleeing the neighboring country following the escalation of the Russia-Ukraine conflict in February 2022, attitudes towards Ukrainians among Poles have somewhat soured since then. In an interview to the Financial Times published on Sunday, Kosiniak-Kamysz said: “Of course there is fatigue in Polish society, and it is understandable especially when people here see young Ukrainian men driving the latest cars or staying in five-star hotels.”

In October, the official voiced identical criticisms, arguing that young Ukrainian men flaunting their wealth were an affront to Polish taxpayers, who contribute to Warsaw’s military and financial aid to Kiev. Around the same time, the Center for Public Opinion Research published a poll indicating that some 67% of Polish citizens were in favor of deporting male Ukrainian migrants back home. Referring to a recent spat over the delivery of the remaining Polish MiG-29 fighter jets, the defense chief on Sunday also suggested that the Ukrainian leadership would do well to “remember that when others were only sending helmets, we sent tanks.”

In November 2024, Kosiniak-Kamysz similarly suggested that Ukrainian leader Vladimir Zelensky had a “short memory.” A month prior, Kiev slammed its NATO backers, and Poland in particular, over their failure to provide previously promised Soviet-era warplanes. Warsaw clarified that it needed the remaining MiG-29 fighter jets to ensure its own security before the F-35s that it has ordered arrive. In his interview to the FT, Kosiniak-Kamysz also ruled out deploying Polish peacekeepers to Ukraine once Kiev and Moscow seal a truce, calling for “greater burden sharing and diversification within NATO” instead.

“Trump has his work cut out for him. But he is the only person in the world today who stands a chance at ending this war.”

• The Walls Close in on Zelensky (Jim Rickards)

The walls are closing in on Ukraine’s President Zelensky. In a meeting with allies in Germany this week, the embattled leader requested NATO troops on the ground in Ukraine. “Our goal is to find as many instruments as possible to force Russia into peace. I believe that such deployment of partners’ contingents is one of the best instruments. Let’s be more practical in making it possible.” Nothing about this proposal is “practical”. Even if Zelensky is speaking about peacekeeping troops as part of a settlement, which isn’t clear, it’s still a fundamentally crazy idea. Simply put, it would bring us to the brink of nuclear war. Of course, this isn’t the first time Zelensky has suggested that NATO should send troops to fight and die in this war. But this latest instance is noteworthy because it comes just ahead of President Trump’s inauguration. Given the circumstances, the move signals desperation.

President Trump has stood his ground on this issue thus far. Just this week he acknowledged that NATO’s courtship of Ukraine was a major cause of the war, noting that if Ukraine were to join the Western military alliance, “then Russia has somebody right on their doorstep, and I could understand their feelings about that.” Trump correctly blames Biden for promising Ukraine NATO membership and escalating the war. In early December, Trump’s team conveyed the message that Ukraine would need to make major concessions to end the war. Those concessions will probably involve giving up land already captured by Russia, agreeing to a form of disarmament, and pledging to never join NATO. This was an important shift, as it became clear even to the biggest hawks that Ukraine wasn’t going to recapture much, if any lost territory. And forget about Crimea.

Trump’s views on Ukraine are certainly unique in Washington D.C., But his base is ready for the war to end, and this issue was one of the keys to his landslide victory. Meanwhile, it’s unclear whether Zelensky and the Ukrainian deep state would agree to such concessions. It’s also unclear whether they truly have a say in the matter, unless they’re prepared to go it alone against Russia. But it’s also not clear if Russia would agree to such a deal. Putin could insist upon an end to sanctions on Russia, and a return of their frozen assets.There’s also a chance that Russia won’t want to give Ukraine a break to re-arm itself. NATO has already pulled a fast one on Russia once, during the Minsk accords from 2014-2021. Former German Chancellor Angela Merkel has admitted this peace deal was in actuality a stall tactic to give Ukraine more time to build its military capabilities.

So President Putin may want to press the attack, eliminate Ukraine’s military capabilities, and gain more territory. Russia is advancing along almost the entire frontline. Its use of hypersonic missiles, artillery, drones, and guided glide bombs has devastated Ukrainian strongholds. Ukrainian forces have been forced to fall back into far less favorable defensive positions, and this does not bode well for their outlook. The waste of life in this conflict is exponentially larger than the public has been told. In December of 2024, President Zelensky claimed that only 43,000 of his nation’s troops had been killed in the war so far. In truth, upwards of 600,000 Ukrainian soldiers have likely died. On paper, the Ukrainian army is over one million strong. But across the line, foxholes are empty. Where are all the soldiers?

Russia has likely lost at least 100,000 soldiers KIA as well, though they haven’t released any specific numbers. When the truth about this war comes out, it will shock anyone who is still paying attention at that point. Make no mistake. Trump has his work cut out for him. But he is the only person in the world today who stands a chance at ending this war. I believe he’ll get it done. But the cost in terms of geopolitical capital may be high.

Paul Craig Roberts: “I keep waiting [for] the day that every member of the French Legion of Honor is arrested for being a patriot..”

• In the Western World You Become Respectable by Selling Out the People (PCR)

Two themes to which I return are the difficulty of effecting change and the disappearance of ethnic nations in the West. What is going on right now in France is a story of both together. Marine Le Pen’s political party, National Rally (formerly National Front), is the largest French party, but it is kept from office by all other parties combining against it. Le Pen’s party has stood for French ethnicity as opposed to a diverse Tower of Babel. In Europe an ethnic-based national state has become associated with Hitler’s Third Reich. Consequently, the French establishment has branded the National Rally racist and even Nazi. By branding the National Rally in this way, the French establishment endeavors to make Le Pen’s party, not immigrant-invaders, the main threat to France. The French establishment and French left-wing have equated hating Le Pen with resisting fascism.

But it is not working. Native French are awakening to the fact that their civilization and their culture are being transformed by waves of immigrant-invaders and that France is ceasing to be French. So the French establishment has focused on Marine Le Pen herself with the lawfare made famous in America with the false indictments of Donald Trump. Le Pen faces the prospect of a devastating prison sentence plus five years of political ineligibility on the charge that she used European Parliament funds where she is represented to pay for National Front employees. All parties do the same thing, but the investigation was limited to Marine Le Pen. We are witnessing the French establishment’s selective use of law to eliminate a perceived threat.

On January 7 Le Pen’s father, Jean-Marie, the founder of the party, passed away. The French left-wing, or perhaps it was the Establishment, celebrated his death with fireworks on the Place de la Republique. French Establishment commitment to diversity, the EU, and globalism requires the death of a French patriot to be celebrated. I keep waiting [for] the day that every member of the French Legion of Honor is arrested for being a patriot. One would think that the insult to Jean-Marie and the sentencing of Marine would strengthen Le Pen’s party as France’s only representative. But according to an article by Pierre Levy the National Rally’s new leader, Jordan Bardella, craves respectability. He has succumbed to the temptation of gaining office by making the National Front acceptable to the establishment.

The question in my mind is: Will Trump also choose to become respectable? When change is desperately required, dictatorships are more easily overthrown than democracies. In democracies the system permits well-financed interest groups to dominate the countries political, legal, media, entertainment, and educational institutions. A ruling establishment becomes institutionalized in the countries’ institutions. Attempts to bring governance back to service to the people from service to the establishment requires the equivalent of a religious revival or the blood of a Leninist revolution, the consequences of which can be worst than what was overthrown. Over the course of my lifetime I have witnessed the dissolution of the belief system that is Western civilization. The voices that have attempted to defend civilization have been weak. The very definition of civilization has changed. Are Western peoples sufficiently aware and educated to face this challenge?

“Above all, the administration must not redirect targeting—it must eradicate these stains on the American soul.”

• Weaponizing Law Enforcement Against Americans (Spivak)

Reports released by two House committees in December shine a harsh light on the deceptions and oppressive tactics utilized by numerous federal agencies, the Intelligence Community, and leaders of the Democratic Party. During the last year of the first Trump Administration, agencies within the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), State Department, and Justice Department (DOJ) initiated improper contacts with media in an effort to censor conservative views. These agencies also took steps to interfere in the 2020 election to benefit Joe Biden. The Biden-Harris Administration supercharged the weaponization of the federal government against the American people. With the active participation of the media, the administration followed a whole-of-government effort to collude with, and coerce, the media to suppress and censor conservatives and others who opposed progressive goals.

It threatened parents with terrorist “threat tagging” and visits from the FBI for speaking their minds, stretched statutory authority beyond recognition to prosecute Donald Trump and his supporters, harassed and penalized whistleblowers, invaded bank privacy, sent heavily armed federal agents into private homes, and brought an unprecedented barrage of litigation against states to force them into compliance with the administration’s unconstitutional goals. On December 17, 2024, the House Administration Committee’s Subcommittee on Oversight (Administration Subcommittee) released its report on the events surrounding January 6, 2021 and the politicization of the Select Committee (January 6 Committee) established by then-Speaker Nancy Pelosi to investigate those events. Three days later, the House Judiciary Committee’s Select Subcommittee on the Weaponization of the Federal Government (Justice Subcommittee) released a 17,000-page final report detailing the administrative state’s and the Biden-Harris Administration’s repressive censorship enterprise and other abuses.

Based on the evidence described in these reports, there are two inescapable conclusions: (1) regardless of the administration in office, the Deep State in DHS, DoD, DOJ, IRS, the Intelligence Community, and other agencies have arrogated to themselves unconstitutional and unlawful powers to infringe individual liberties, expand rules, and use force to suppress conservatives’ goals, religion, and free speech; and (2) the Biden-Harris Administration, Pelosi, and leading Democrats endorsed, supported, facilitated, and led the expansion of these efforts. These reports are products of extensive investigations and include copious evidence. Though the Administration Subcommittee’s report can be faulted for its angry tone, a vainglorious pandering to its chairman, Barry Loudermilk, and sometimes hyperbolic conclusions, it provides compelling evidence of wrongdoing.

Broader in scope and more thoroughly researched, the Justice Subcommittee’s report is the product of a detailed inquiry into a broad betrayal of trust. Justice Subcommittee Chairman Jim Jordan is to be commended for uncovering problems and taking steps that have already ameliorated some of these practices. The findings in these reports show why the Trump Administration must clean house. That is why Trump has nominated sometimes controversial individuals such as Tulsi Gabbard, Kash Patel, Pete Hegseth, Pam Bondi, John Ratcliffe, Russell Vought, and Rick Grenell. It explains Trump’s impulsive, properly withdrawn nomination of Matt Gaetz and the creation of DOGE as an advisor outside of government. It is why so many of Trump’s appointees have expressed concern about the agencies they have been selected to lead. Above all, the administration must not redirect targeting—it must eradicate these stains on the American soul.

Feels like the Matrix.

• Tulsi Gabbard Now Supports FISA-702 to Get Confirmed as Head of DNI (CTH)

As the story is told, and it aligns with every scintilla of researched data on the darkest and deepest elements of the Deep State, DNI nominee Tulsi Gabbard has reversed her position and will now support FISA-702, the warrantless searches of American communication and electronic metadata. Apparently the FISA process and the 702 aspect (specific to American citizens) is the line in the sand the Senate Select Intelligence Committee has drawn. If Tulsi Gabbard does not support it, her confirmation is in doubt. As a result, she has reportedly reversed her position and now supports it. This is absolutely par for the course.

It should be remembered, in the last reauthorization of FISA-702 congress exempted themselves from the warrantless search and surveillance system used by the U.S. Intelligence Apparatus. Congress forbids the FBI or any entity with access to the NSA database, from being allowed to use the process to search themselves or their staff. However, every other American does not enjoy this same protection. After spending years asking every representative of consequence why they support the FISA-702 process, I can tell you every one of them says they believe it is needed because the IC tells them there are just too many domestic terror threats that need to be monitored. It is impossible to find a person in DC who will forcefully try to stop FISA-702 reauthorization.

If you ask me why in hindsight, I now take the position that FISA-702 is the gateway to the massive surveillance system currently being put into place using Real ID and the AI facial recognition software provided by Palantir (CIA exploit). In essence, the gateway that allows the full-scale surveillance state, is opened by the prior authorization of FISA-702 that negates any 4th amendment protection. Why? Because all of the surveillance mechanisms within the network being updated and enhanced by AI search and capture, comes from the IC being allowed to exploit the NSA database. That same database access allowance is the targeting mechanism for FISA-702. If warrantless searches of the NSA database were stopped, the Palantir/IC and Tech Bro collaboration could hit a brick wall. Against this backdrop, the SSCI telling Tulsi Gabbard that her nomination approval is contingent upon her support for FISA-702, simply makes sense.

WASHINGTON DC – […] Multiple senators from both parties who met with the former Hawaii lawmaker in recent days told us they emerged from those sessions unsure about Gabbard’s position on the 702 program. During these meetings, senators have pressed Gabbard on her previous public statements on the issue, as well as her votes against 702 reauthorization throughout her eight years in Congress. GOP national security hawks in particular viewed this as problematic, we’re told, fueling renewed doubts about her confirmation prospects. Sen. James Lankford (R-Okla.), a member of the Senate Intelligence Committee, suggested on a WSJ podcast Wednesday that Gabbard should disavow her previous opposition to the 702 program.

“Senate Intelligence Committee Chair Tom Cotton (R-Ark.) also sent us a statement Thursday night supporting Gabbard’s 702 stance — a key indicator of how the GOP leadership is thinking about her nomination. “Tulsi Gabbard has assured me in our conversations that she supports Section 702 as recently amended and that she will follow the law and support its reauthorization as DNI,” Cotton said. That last part is important because, if confirmed as DNI, Gabbard would need to certify the statute annually in order for intelligence collection to continue under the 702 program. This is also a big part of the reason why the DC Deep State will easily confirm Kash Patel to be Donald Trump’s FBI Director. Kash Patel is a big believer in the value of FISA-702.”

“Asked if he would pardon himself, Biden dismissed the idea, saying, “I didn’t do anything wrong.”

What does that say about those he did hand a pardon?

• Biden Eyes Preemptive Pardons Amid Trump’s Return (RT)

US President Joe Biden is considering issuing preemptive pardons for individuals who may be targeted by the incoming administration of President-elect Donald Trump. Trump, who defeated Vice President Kamala Harris in the 2024 election, is set to return to the White House on January 20. “There’s still consideration… but no decision,” Biden told reporters at the White House on Friday, in response to a question regarding potential preemptive pardons. “It depends on some of the language and expectations that Trump broadcasts in the last couple days here as to what he’s going to do.” Biden withdrew from the 2024 presidential race in July after concerns arose within the Democratic Party following a June debate performance against Trump which raised doubts about his viability as a candidate. He ultimately endorsed Harris, who lost the general election to the Republican candidate, Trump.

The president-elect has expressed intentions to prosecute perceived “enemies,” including Harris and “the most corrupt president in the history of the United States of America, Joe Biden, and the entire Biden crime family.” Trump also criticized Biden for pardoning his son Hunter in December. In a reversal of his pledge to not do so, Biden pardoned Hunter, who was convicted of tax evasion and gun charges and was set to be sentenced in December. Trump called the decision a “miscarriage of justice,” while referencing the people who were jailed for the January 6 Capitol riots. “Does the Pardon given by Joe to Hunter include the J-6 Hostages, who have now been imprisoned for years? Such an abuse and miscarriage of Justice!” Trump wrote on Truth Social. The president-elect also called for investigations into former President Barack Obama and Liz Cheney, a high-profile Republican critic of Trump.

Ahead of the November 2024 election, Trump threatened unprecedented prosecution for individuals he accused of potential election cheating. “Please beware this legal exposure extends to Lawyers, Political Operatives, Donors, Illegal Voters, & Corrupt Election Officials,” Trump posted on Truth Social. He previously claimed widespread fraud in the 2020 election. Trump also stated last year that he would fire Jack Smith, the Justice Department’s special counsel overseeing criminal investigations into the Republican president-elect. Smith resigned on Friday. Biden described Trump’s intentions to prosecute political opponents as “outrageous.” Asked if he would pardon himself, Biden dismissed the idea, saying, “I didn’t do anything wrong.”

The president likely possesses the constitutional authority to issue broad preemptive pardons for federal offenses committed in the past, even if charges have not yet been filed. However, this authority does not apply to state crimes or future offenses. The types of pardons Biden might consider would generally fall within his executive power.

More pardons. But these ones are not pre-emptive.

• Vance Says Trump Won’t Issue Pardons for Violent Jan. 6 Defendants (ET)

Vice President-elect JD Vance said on Jan. 12 that individuals who were violent during the U.S. Capitol breach on Jan. 6, 2021, “obviously” should not be pardoned. President-elect Donald Trump has vowed to use his clemency power for people who have been charged in connection with the incident over the past four years. Those who “protested peacefully” on Jan. 6 should receive a pardon, Vance told Fox News. He added that there is also a “little bit of a gray area” in some of those cases. “I think it’s very simple,” Vance said. “If you protested peacefully on Jan. 6 and you’ve had [Attorney General] Merrick Garland’s Department of Justice treat you like a gang member, you should be pardoned. If you committed violence on that day, obviously you shouldn’t be pardoned.”

More than 1,500 people have been charged with federal crimes in connection with the Capitol breach, according to Department of Justice records. A number of people were charged with misdemeanor offenses for entering the Capitol in an unauthorized manner, and some were charged with felonies. Leaders of the Oath Keepers and the Proud Boys groups were convicted of seditious conspiracy for what prosecutors described as plots to use violence to stop the peaceful transfer of power from Trump to then-President-elect Joe Biden. Vance said on Jan. 12 that he believes that “a lot of people” have been “prosecuted unfairly” over the past several years. “We need to rectify that,” Vance said. “We’re very much committed to seeing the equal administration of law.”

Also on the morning of Jan. 12, Vance responded to critics on social media who said that his comments to Fox News didn’t go far enough, with some saying that all Jan. 6 defendants should be pardoned. “I’ve been defending these guys for years,” Vance wrote on social media platform X. “The president saying he’ll look at each case (and me saying the same) is not some walkback … I assure you, we care about people unjustly locked up. Yes, that includes people provoked and it includes people who got a garbage trial.” That comment came in response to a prominent conservative social media account’s statement on Jan. 12 that new footage has shown “cops shooting innocent J6 protesters and [Vance] goes on Fox News and tells the world that only non violent protesters should get pardoned … better rethink what you just said JD.” Vance noted that he donated to a Jan. 6 “political prisoner fund” and was criticized over it during his run for Ohio’s Senate seat.

In a wide-ranging news conference last week at his Florida Mar-a-Lago residence, Trump suggested that he would initiate “major pardons” for individuals arrested in the aftermath of Jan. 6. A reporter asked him, “You said on your first day of office you were going to pardon Jan. 6 defendants. Are you planning to pardon those who were charged with violent offenses?” “Well, we’re looking at it, and we have other people in there,” Trump said. “People that didn’t even walk into the building are in jail right now. “We’ll be looking at the whole thing. But I’ll be making major pardons, yes.” The president-elect has said on multiple occasions that he would carry out the pardons quickly after he is sworn into office on Jan. 20.

Fake anger.

• Biden Calls Meta Decision to End Fact-Checking Program ‘Really Shameful’ (ET)

President Joe Biden has shared his disapproval at Meta’s decision to do away with its current social media fact-checking program. This week Meta, which owns the Facebook and Instagram social media platforms, announced it would stop using its third-party fact-checking program for U.S.-based content review purposes. Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg said he made the decision because the existing fact-checking program has become “too politically biased,” resulting in censorship and a loss of trust. “It’s time to get back to our roots around free expression on Facebook and Instagram,” he said in a Jan. 7 video statement. Asked for his opinion on the move at a Jan. 10 press conference, Biden said, “It’s just completely contrary to everything America is about.”

Up until this week, Meta had partnered with the International Fact-Checking Network (IFCN) to run its third-party fact-checking service. The IFCN is administered by the Poynter Institute, which also operates the PolitiFact fact-checking publication. “The idea that, you know, a billionaire can buy something and say ‘by the way from this point on, we’re not going to fact-check anything’ and you know when you have millions of people reading, going online reading this stuff it’s—anyway, I think it’s really shameful,” Biden said. Meta is not doing away with fact-checking outright. Rather, Zuckerberg said Meta’s platforms will move toward a “more comprehensive community notes” style system, similar to the one employed by social media platform X. He will start the new model in the United States.

https://twitter.com/i/status/1878485939091025933

Rather than relying on a fact-checking organization such as the IFCN to review content, X’s community notes feature allows users to weigh in directly. X users may suggest a fact-checking note on controversial posts on the platform, and then provide feedback on whether a suggested fact-checking note is itself accurate, and necessary for the particular post. Posts that have been flagged with sufficient community input display an attached fact-checking note explaining why the particular post is inaccurate or may be missing important context. Zuckerberg also announced that Meta’s content moderation team will be moved out of California to Texas “where there is less concern about the bias of our teams.” Zuckerberg and other Meta officers have defended the move as needed to restore free speech and expression to their platforms.

In a Jan. 7 blog post, Meta’s chief global affairs officer, Joel Kaplan, said as well-intentioned as their prior fact-checking efforts had been, “they have expanded over time to the point where we are making too many mistakes, frustrating our users, and too often getting in the way of the free expression we set out to enable.” “Too much harmless content gets censored, too many people find themselves wrongly locked up in ‘Facebook jail,’ and we are often too slow to respond when they do,” Kaplan said. Meta’s fact-checking and content moderation decisions had been a point of contention during the 2020 presidential election cycle.

In October 2020, the Meta platforms reduced the reach of posts linking to articles by The New York Post concerning a laptop that then-candidate Joe Biden’s son, Hunter Biden, had reportedly abandoned at a Delaware computer repair shop. The New York Post’s articles detailed the contents of the laptop, including documents indicating the elder Biden had some level of interaction with his son’s foreign business partners. In a Jan. 10 interview with podcast host Joe Rogan, Zuckerberg alleged that officials in the Biden administration routinely contacted Meta, with demands that they remove or suppress certain content, including memes and satirical posts. “Basically these people from the Biden administration would call up our team and like scream at them and curse,” Zuckerberg said.

Starlink
https://twitter.com/i/status/1878673305588359296

Elon Musk stepped up big time, donating Starlink to help Los Angeles firefighters and people stay connected during the chaos. Say what you want about the guy, but who else is making moves like this when it counts? pic.twitter.com/TlKozxKVjs

— Desiree (@DesireeAmerica4) January 12, 2025

Tumbling
https://twitter.com/i/status/1878690946340270500

little men
https://twitter.com/i/status/1878695718132813987

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