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


Giuseppe Arcimboldo Four elements – Earth 1566

 

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

 

 

 

 

Jennings

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

RFK

NYT

 

 

 

 

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

Trump, Peacemaker? (W. James Antle III)

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

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

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

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

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

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

Ramaswamy’s Big Plans (Maitra)

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

A 100-year-old talking about the FBI.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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The broken record plays again from the beginning.

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

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

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

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

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

US Could Buy Nord Stream – Vucic (RT)

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

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

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

Read more …

Everyone’s covering their asses.

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

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

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

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

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

Read more …

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Read more …

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

What Bioweapons is the Pentagon Developing? (Sp.)

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

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

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

Read more …

All pardons are in place?!

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

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

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

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

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Hunter and Xi. Hmm.

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

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

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

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

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

Read more …

A long year from Jim.

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

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

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

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

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

Read more …

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

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

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

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

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

Read more …

 

 

 

 

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

 

 

Who’s first

 

 

Rhino

 

 

Snow

 

 

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

 

 

Trix

 

 

 

 

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

 

 

 

 

 

Dec 132024
 
 December 13, 2024  Posted by at 10:40 am Finance Tagged with: , , , , , , , , , , ,  60 Responses »


Pablo Picasso Women running on the beach 1922

 

Marc Andreessen Gives Insider Peek At DOGE Decisions (ZH)
ProPublica Pats Itself On Back After Hegseth Hitpiece Humiliation (ZH)
Trump Says He Will Not ‘Abandon’ Ukraine (RT)
West Will ‘Betray’ Ukraine – Fico (RT)
Strikes Deep Into Russia ‘Big Mistake’ – Trump (RT)
Trump Wants EU To Send Troops To Ukraine – WSJ (RT)
Six Major NATO States Sign Document On Ukraine’s Accession Plans (RT)
The Centrists Cannot Hold (Patrick Lawrence)
Trump Invites Xi To His Inauguration – CBS (RT)
Trump Says RFK Jr. Will Study Link Between Childhood Vaccines and Autism (ET)
Meta Donates $1Mln to Trump’s Fund as Part of Effort to Mend Ties (Sp.)
Biden Pardons 39, Commutes Nearly 1,500 Sentences (JTN)
Argentina’s First Budget Surplus in 123 Years (Martin Armstrong)
The Kremlin’s Oprichniki Versus The General Staff’s Prigozhniki (Helmer)
Netanyahu’s Trial: Corruption, War Crimes, And An Israel In Crisis (Cradle)
Vultures Feed On The Carcass Of Syria (Pepe Escobar)
The US and Israel Destroyed Syria and Called it Peace (Jeffrey Sachs)

 

 

Lavrov

No, it’s time to leave the wartime mindset behind.

Kash


https://twitter.com/i/status/1867191997871841365

Rogan

AI

Van Jones

Inauguration

 

 

https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1867357433493872874

 

 

 

 

Marc Andreessen fuels the optimism about the process that will lead to Trump II. Formidable people galore.

“He will happily talk to distinguished visitors about who the Vice President should be, and then he’ll ask the caddy.”

Marc Andreessen Gives Insider Peek At DOGE Decisions (ZH)

Billionaire venture capitalist Marc Andreessen gave a wide-ranging interview to Free Press’s Bari Weiss, confirming his involvement with the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) and sharing behind-the-scenes insights on working with President-elect Donald Trump. Andreessen discussed his role in assisting Trump with assembling the next administration and provided a glimpse into what it’s like to spend time with the incoming commander-in-chief. During the two-hour conversation, Andreessen also revisited his experience with Biden administration officials, claiming the government expressed the orwellian desire to take “complete control” over AI development in the United States.

“I’m an unpaid volunteer,” Andreessen said when asked by Weiss about his reported involvement. A recent report from The Washington Post revealed that Andreessen, along with fellow Silicon Valley titans Uber co-founder Travis Kalanick and Palantir co-founder Joe Lonsdale, is contributing to the ambitious program. Andreessen outlined DOGE’s two chief objectives: slashing spending and reducing regulations. “There’s basically two big parts to it,” Andreessen explained. “One is they’re going to do a top-to-bottom review of government spending, and they’re going to cut as much cost as they possibly can. They have a whole theory and strategy on that.” “In conjunction with that and related to it, they’re going to do the same thing for regulations,” the billionaire continued. “They’re going to do a top-to-bottom review of the regulatory—what they call the regulatory state or the administrative state.”

“The connective tissue there, that they don’t talk about in public, is actually quite important. A lot of the reaction of the Doge from institutional Washington is like, well, that’s impossible, you can’t do that; there are all these laws, statutes, and regulations,” he added. Andreessen, along with his A16z co-founder Ben Horowitz, endorsed Trump during the final stretch of the 2024 election. Since Trump’s victory, Andreessen revealed to Weiss that he has spent a great day of time at Mar-a-Lago and the Palm Beach area, assisting the 47th leader of the free world with assembling his administration. While Andreessen said he has spent “maybe half [his] time” at Mar-a-Lago since the election, he is quick to clarify his position: “I’m not claiming to be in the middle of all the decision-making, but I’ve been trying to help in as many ways as I can,” the tech titan told Weiss.

Andreessen explained that his contributions focus on areas where his expertise aligns with Trump’s agenda, including tech policy, business, and economic development. “When I talk about these things, it’s around, as I said, tech policy, business, economics, and then, you know, the health of the country, the success of the country,” he noted. Andreessen shared his observations of Trump’s warm personal approach, highlighting qualities that he believes are often overlooked by his Democrat critics. “Everybody says this who meets with him, but he’s an incredible host,” Andreessen remarked. “For however people think, whatever, he’s an incredible host. He runs his own private worlds.” What stood out most to Andreessen was Trump’s ability to connect with people from all walks of life.

“He treats everybody the same and talks to everybody,” Andreessen said. “He will happily talk to distinguished visitors about who the Vice President should be, and then he’ll ask the caddy.” Reflecting on his involvement in the transition process, Andreessen noted the exceptional caliber of candidates he encountered. “The caliber of a lot of the people that I’ve met has been very high,” he said, adding that recent appointments, particularly at the next level down in staff positions, have included “very impressive people.” Addressing concerns about whether qualified individuals might hesitate to join a Trump administration due to the controversies surrounding his previous term, Andreessen said he has observed the opposite trend: “I think the flow of qualified people from outside the system now is actually much stronger.”

Yet another mainstream media narrative busted. Addressing also reiterated that his support for Trump stemmed from a series of “horrifying” meeting in which Biden officials expressed plans to control AI. “They said, look, AI is a technology basically that the government is going to completely control,” Andreessen revealed. The officials explicitly discouraged the idea of entrepreneurial ventures in AI, stating, “Don’t start, don’t do AI startups… it’s not something that we’re going to allow to happen.”

Read more …

The last gasp of the anti-Pete move?

ProPublica Pats Itself On Back After Hegseth Hitpiece Humiliation (ZH)

Leftist attack dog ProPublica seemed unfazed by the widespread ridicule it faced on social media after its botched attempt at a smear campaign against Pete Hegseth backfired. The publication had plotted to accuse Hegseth of falsely claiming he was accepted into West Point. In response, Hegseth got ahead of the publication and shared his acceptance letter confirming that he had been accepted into the military academy—though he declined the offer. In a now-viral tweet, Hegseth wrote, “We understand that ProPublica (the Left Wing hack group) is planning to publish a knowingly false report that I was not accepted to West Point in 1999.” Hegseth also shared his letter of acceptance signed by Army Lieutenant General and then-West Point Superintendent Daniel Christman.

As criticism mounted against ProPublica, its editor, Jesse Eisinger, attempted to defend the outlet but inadvertently made the situation worse. He claimed West Point had falsely informed the publication that Hegseth was never admitted to the military academy. “We asked West Pt public affairs, which told us twice on the record that he hadn’t even applied there,” Eisinger wrote on X. “We reached out. Hegseth’s spox gave us his acceptance letter. We didn’t publish a story. That’s journalism.” Despite Eisinger’s attempt to save face, Hegseth’s defenders said the real story ProPublica should have published was that West Point had incorrectly discredited Hegseth. Initially, ProPublica quoted West Point as stating, “According to the admissions office – Hegseth had not applied for admission to the U.S. Military Academy.”

After being pressed for clarification, West Point admitted: “A review of our records indicates that Mr. Peter Hegseth was offered admission to West Point in 1999 but did not attend West Point.” West Point confirmed Hegseth had been offered admission for the class of 2023, issuing a statement to correct the record. “An incorrect statement involving Mr. Hegseth’s admission to the United States Military Academy was released by an employee on December 10, 2024,” the academy said. “Upon further review of an achieved [sic] database, employees realized this statement was in error.”

The academy added it was taking “this situation very seriously” and issued an apology “for this administrative error.” ProPublica’s failed attempt to smear Hegseth appeared to be part of a broader campaign aimed at thwarting his nomination as the next secretary of the Department of Defense. Trump announced his decision to nominate Hegseth following his landslide victory in the 2024 presidential election. Despite relentless media attacks on Hegseth’s personal life, the president-elect has stood by his side. “He will be a fantastic, high energy, Secretary of Defense,” Trump wrote on Truth Social earlier this month, later adding: “Pete is a WINNER, and there is nothing that can be done to change that!!!”

Geraldo

Read more …

“I disagree with the whole thing because it should have never happened..”

Trump Says He Will Not ‘Abandon’ Ukraine (RT)

The US will not cut all aid to Ukraine as part of brokering peace with Russia, President-elect Donald Trump has claimed. Time magazine published an extensive interview with Trump on Thursday, after naming the former-and-upcoming US president its 2024 Person of the Year. Among the many topics they touched on was Ukraine, with the outlet repeatedly asking whether Trump would “abandon” Kiev by cutting off Washington’s aid. “I want to reach an agreement, and the only way you’re going to reach an agreement is not to abandon. You understand what that means, right?” Trump replied. The unnamed interviewer apparently did not understand, and repeated the question. “Well, I just said it. You can’t reach an agreement if you abandon, in my opinion,” the president-elect said. Trump also explained why he was reluctant to get into any details of his peace proposal.

“The reason that I don’t like to tell you this is that, as a negotiator, when I sit down and talk to some very brilliant young people… when I start I think I have a very good plan to help, but when I start exposing that plan, it becomes almost a worthless plan,” he told Time. The US Congress has approved over $180 billion in military, humanitarian, and economic aid to Ukraine. Washington also provides targeting and intelligence information to Kiev, while insisting that none of this makes it a party to the conflict with Russia. Moscow has repeatedly warned the West against such escalation, to no avail. “I disagree with the whole thing because it should have never happened,” Trump said about the conflict. He has maintained for years that the Russia-Ukraine conflict would not have escalated had Joe Biden not replaced him in the White House in 2021 and allowed things to get out of hand.

“It’s crazy what’s taking place. It’s crazy,” Trump said about the fighting, lamenting the large number of casualties on both sides. “We’re just escalating this war and making it worse.” Last week, the Pentagon announced another $1 billion in military aid to Kiev, while the US Treasury sent $20 billion in loans, intended to be written off and secured by frozen Russian government assets. Moscow has called the move blatant theft and announced there would be consequences.

Read more …

“..Ukraine “has allowed itself to be dragged into this adventure that cannot end well for the country.”

West Will ‘Betray’ Ukraine – Fico (RT)

Slovakian Prime Minister Robert Fico has claimed that the West will betray Ukraine by agreeing to a redrawing of the country’s borders. Attempts to weaken Russia through economic sanctions have also failed, he added. While Slovakia is a member of both the European Union and NATO, its government has consistently dissented from the blocks’ policies on the Ukraine conflict since Fico assumed office, after which he froze Bratislava’s military aid to Kiev. In May, Fico was shot multiple times at close range by a man who later told police that he was motivated by the prime minister’s refusal to send arms to Ukraine. In an interview on Tuesday with Brazil’s Folha de S. Paulo daily, Fico said that the West had hoped to weaken Russia by means of the Ukraine conflict but had failed. “The Russians are gaining more and more territory [and] the sanctions are not working,” he argued.

According to the official, Ukraine “has allowed itself to be dragged into this adventure that cannot end well for the country.” Fico claimed that Kiev “will lose territory,” possibly up to a third of its land, and “will not be invited to NATO.” The Slovakian head of government added “I believe that the Ukrainians will be betrayed.” The official also predicted that some sort of security guarantees would be offered to Kiev, “such as the presence of foreign troops” in Ukraine. The official also predicted that some sort of security guarantees would be offered to Kiev, “such as the presence of foreign troops” in Ukraine. Addressing Kiev’s NATO aspirations, Fico insisted that on his watch, Bratislava would oppose its accession to the US-led military bloc. The prime minister noted, however, that he has nothing against Ukraine joining the EU.

Fico insisted that there can be no military solution to the Ukraine conflict, with Kiev and Moscow needing to negotiate at last. He also noted that it is unrealistic to expect Moscow to give up Crimea or the Donetsk and Lugansk People’s Republics at this point. The official went on to express cautious optimism regarding US President-elect Donald Trump’s “constructive approach” toward ending the bloodshed. Fico told Brazilian reporters that he wants to “bring relations with Russia back to normal,” emphasizing the need to restore dialogue with Moscow. “And I assure you, once the war is over… it will be ‘business as usual.’ Everyone will go there [Russia], everyone will want to buy and sell,” the Slovakian prime minister concluded. Fico claimed that he supported the ‘Friends of Peace’ initiative led by China and Brazil, and pledged to “offer all our modest capabilities to be able to support this plan in various forms.”

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“..such attacks are “just escalating this war and making it worse.”

Strikes Deep Into Russia ‘Big Mistake’ – Trump (RT)

US President-elect Donald Trump has criticized Ukraine’s strikes deep into Russia using Western-supplied weapons, saying that they only escalate the conflict between Kiev and Moscow. Trump made the statement on Thursday in an interview with Time magazine, which named him the 2024 Person of the Year. “I disagree very vehemently with sending missiles hundreds of miles into Russia. Why are we doing that?” he asked rhetorically. According to the president-elect, such attacks are “just escalating this war and making it worse.” “That should not have been allowed to be done… And I think that is a very big mistake, very big mistake,” he said of strikes deep into Russia’s internationally recognized territory.

Trump returned to the issue later in the interview, saying that “the most dangerous thing right now” is the fact that “[Ukrainian leader Vladimir] Zelensky has decided, with the approval of, I assume, the President [Joe Biden], to start shooting missiles into Russia.” “I think that is a major escalation. I think it is a foolish decision,” he stressed. The US president-elect’s comments came a day after the Russian Defense Ministry reported that Ukrainian forces had fired six US-supplied ATACMS missiles at a military airfield near the southern city of Taganrog. Two of them were shot down and the rest were diverted using electronic warfare during the attack, the ministry said. The fallen debris resulted in some injuries and minor damage to two buildings and several vehicles, it added.

On Thursday, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said that Russia’s response to the strike on Taganrog “will follow at the time and in the way that will be deemed appropriate. But it will definitely follow.” In late November, Russia used its new Oreshnik hypersonic ballistic missile system for the first time, striking the Yuzhmash military plant in the Ukrainian city of Dnepr. According to Moscow, the deployment of the state-of-the-art weapon was a response to Washington and its allies allowing Ukraine to target internationally recognized Russian territory with the long-range weapons they supply to Kiev. Russian President Vladimir Putin warned at the time that if Ukraine’s attacks deep inside Russia continue, Moscow reserves the right “to use our weapons against the military facilities of those countries that allow the use of their weapons against our facilities.”

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No can do.

Trump Wants EU To Send Troops To Ukraine – WSJ (RT)

US President-elect Donald Trump has proposed that EU members send peacekeepers to Ukraine to monitor a potential ceasefire with Russia, the Wall Street Journal reported on Thursday, citing people familiar with the matter. Trump ran for the White House on the promise of negotiating a swift end to the Russia-Ukraine conflict, but has been reluctant to reveal any specific proposals since winning the election. Speaking with French President Emmanuel Macron and Ukrainian leader Vladimir Zelensky last Saturday, Trump argued that “Europe” should play the main role in monitoring a ceasefire and that no US troops would be involved, the Journal reported, citing “officials briefed on the meeting.” The Journal’s sources claimed that the proposal “started as quiet discussions between British and French officials about the possibility,” before including Trump, Zelensky and other governments.

According to one source, Trump also pushed the EU to demand that China pressure Russia to end the conflict, suggesting the use of tariffs as leverage. Discussions are still at such an early stage, according to the Journal, that the questions of which countries would be involved, with how many troops, and any US role in supporting the mission, remain unresolved. The hypothetical peacekeeping or monitoring mission in Ukraine would not be under NATO command but would involve troops from member countries of the US-led bloc, according to the unnamed officials, who admitted this was something they were not sure Russia would accept. It was likewise unclear whether Washington’s European allies would be able to spare the soldiers or have the political support at home for such a mission.

NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte has invited the leaders of the UK, France, Germany, Italy and Poland to meet with Zelensky in Brussels to discuss security guarantees for Kiev, two officials told the Journal. According to unnamed aides, however, Trump is not “wedded” to any particular plan for ending the conflict and “hasn’t thought deeply about the issue” as he prepares the handover of power on January 20. Russia has repeatedly said that Ukraine’s association with NATO would be a threat to its national security. Deputy Foreign Minister Sergey Ryabkov has described Ukraine’s membership in the bloc as “categorically unacceptable” to Moscow, citing it as one of the major causes of the current conflict.

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The EU is a warmonger cabal.

Six Major NATO States Sign Document On Ukraine’s Accession Plans (RT)

Six European members of NATO have released a joint statement backing Ukraine’s plan to join the US-led bloc, and promising to support the peace terms offered by Ukrainian leader Vladimir Zelensky to Russia. Moscow has previously rejected Zelensky’s insistence on restoring Ukraine’s 1991 borders as unacceptable. The foreign ministers of the UK, France, Spain, Germany, Italy and Poland signed a declaration after meeting with the Ukrainian leader in Berlin on Thursday. “The goals of a comprehensive, just and lasting peace for Ukraine and durable security for Europe are inseparable. Ukraine must prevail,” the statement said. The countries pledged to support an end to the conflict in accordance “with full respect for Ukraine’s sovereignty and territorial integrity.” “We reaffirm our commitment to President Zelensky’s Peace Formula, as a credible path towards a just and lasting peace,” the statement read.

Kiev’s backers vowed to “support Ukraine on its irreversible path to full Euro-Atlantic integration, including NATO membership,” as well as “its path towards accession to the European Union.” Ukrainian Foreign Minister Andrey Sibiga thanked the six nations and the EU for “candid discussion and readiness to take concrete steps.” He called for additional sanctions, targeting Russia’s metals sector, shipping, and banks. “We are closely monitoring the increase in trade with the countries that have not imposed sanctions on Russia,” Sibiga said. The meeting in Berlin took place amid uncertainty over whether US President-elect Donald Trump will continue the previous administration’s unconditional military and financial aid to Kiev. Trump, who takes office on January 20, has described Zelensky as “the greatest salesman on Earth” and promised to do his best to quickly end the conflict through diplomacy.

Although he has not yet produced a concrete plan, during the presidential campaign he appeared open to pressuring Kiev to start negotiations with Moscow. Trump has also blasted outgoing President Joe Biden for allowing Ukraine to use American-made missiles for strikes deep into internationally recognized Russian territory. “I think that is a very big mistake,” he told Time magazine in an interview published on Thursday. Russia has rejected Zelensky’s ‘peace formula’ outright, insisting that a peace agreement could only be reached on its terms. Moscow has stressed that Ukraine must renounce claims on Crimea and four other regions, which voted to join Russia in 2014 and 2022. The Kremlin has also said Ukraine should drop its plan to join the US-led military bloc in favor of becoming a permanently neutral country. President Vladimir Putin has cited NATO’s expansion eastward and military cooperation with Ukraine as one of the root causes of the current conflict.

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“..it is difficult to overstate the arrogance of a president who operates with so profound an indifference to his electorate.”

The Centrists Cannot Hold (Patrick Lawrence)

“Turning and turning in the widening gyre
The falcon cannot hear the falconer;
Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;
Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world…”

A lot of us are familiar with these lines from Yeats’s thoroughly anthologized and often-quoted The Second Coming. How can they not come to mind as the French government of Emmanuel Macron, the centrist par excellence, falls in a heap of high-handed hubris? Everyone in Paris is blaming everyone since the Macron government’s energized opposition in the National Assembly forced Premier Michel Barnier from office with a vote of no confidence last week. The truth is that Barnier is a casualty of his own political camp — an arrogant “center” that is not, in fact, the center of anything. It is composed of neoliberal ideologues who hold themselves as high as falcons above voters, refuse to hear them and wage war to remain in power even when they are voted out of it.

What is unfolding now in France is unfolding one or another way across those Western powers that form the walls of the neoliberal fortress. You see variants in Germany, Britain and, understood properly, in the United States. The center is not holding but the center insists on holding. Neoliberalism, after decades during which it has prevailed without effective challenge, is now critically threatened on all sides. And its defenders are fighting a ferocious battle to preserve its ideological primacy. In effect, the Emmanuel Macrons and Michel Barniers of the Atlantic world are destroying what remains of democracy in the name of defending it. It is important to understand this in the clearest possible terms, given what is at stake. It cannot lead anywhere other than some form of authoritarianism unless the Macrons, the Barniers and their kind are turned back or otherwise subdued.

Isn’t this already evident? It can lead, to look at the question another way, to what could easily turn into political anarchy, and this will not be so “mere” as Yeats imagined a century and a few years ago. Macron, a former merchant banker, “president of the rich” as the French call him, is a laboratory specimen for his imperious insistence on the neoliberal orthodoxies. He decided to risk snap elections last summer after his Renaissance Party was trounced in European Parliament polls. Marine Le Pen’s Rassemblement National won 30 seats, with 31% of the vote. La France Insoumise, France Unbowed, Macron’s leftist challenger, took nine more seats. Renaissance went home with 13 seats, 14.6% of the vote. Macron, ever out-of-touch, calculated that snap legislative elections would restore the balance of power in his favor.

In the National Assembly elections last June and July, Macron was outdone once again. The Nouveau Fronte Populaire, a leftist alliance formed just weeks before the polls, won 188 seats, Le Pen’s National Rally 142 and Macron’s centrist alliance 161. In sum, no party had the 289 seats required to achieve a legislative majority in the 577–seat Assembly. The leftist front was the surprise winner, and National Rally had the most votes of any single party. Both then demanded, altogether rightfully, the president name a new premier from their ranks. So did Macron’s anti-democratic defense of French democracy begin — or continue more pointedly, better put. He refused for two months to name anyone to Matignon, the prime minister’s residence and office.

And his eventual choice of Barnier, a conservative dedicated to neoliberal austerity and the European Union’s technocracy, was an in-your-face rejection of last summer’s election results. It is interesting to consider what Macron charged Barnier with accomplishing. In the Assembly he faced hostility to Macron’s centrist regime over both shoulders — either from the left (the Nouveau Fronte Populaire) or from the populist right (Le Pen’s Rassemblement). Barnier’s job was to navigate this stony political terrain while sustaining Macron’s neoliberal economics. I would have called this a mission impossible, a fool’s errand, given the two opposition blocs held 330 seats between them. But it is difficult to overstate the arrogance of a president who operates with so profound an indifference to his electorate.

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Good move.

Trump Invites Xi To His Inauguration – CBS (RT)

US President-elect Donald Trump has invited Chinese President Xi Jinping to attend his inauguration on January 20, CBS News reported on Wednesday. The offer was made in early November, shortly after Trump’s election victory, multiple sources told the media outlet. It remains unclear whether Xi has accepted. In a recent NBC News interview, Trump said he “got along very well” with Xi and that they had communicated the previous week. Trump’s team has suggested hosting other leaders at the Capitol on January 20, in addition to Xi. While ambassadors and diplomats are typically invited, State Department records since 1874 indicate that no foreign leader has ever attended a transfer-of-power ceremony. The apparent olive branch to China comes despite Trump’s incoming administration featuring several hawks on Beijing, including Senator Marco Rubio as secretary of state.

The president-elect has vowed to hit the country with an “additional 10% tariff, above any additional tariffs” unless it takes action against the trafficking of fentanyl, a major contributor to the opioid crisis. During his campaign he threatened tariffs in excess of 60% on US imports from China.On Tuesday President Xi Jinping warned that neither side will emerge victorious in the event of a trade war. Xie Feng, China’s ambassador to the US, read a letter from Xi at a US-China Business Council gala in Washington on Wednesday, emphasizing the importance of dialogue over confrontation, and calling for mutually beneficial cooperation rather than zero-sum games. Xie urged against decoupling supply chains, while US Ambassador to Beijing Nicholas Burns cautioned that Beijing sometimes tries to “sugar coat” the competitive nature of the bilateral relationship.

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Of course he will. Good on him.

Trump Says RFK Jr. Will Study Link Between Childhood Vaccines and Autism (ET)

President-elect Donald Trump said on Dec. 8 that he will give Robert F. Kennedy Jr. the freedom to investigate the potential link between vaccines and autism if the latter gains Senate confirmation to become secretary of health and human services (HHS). Kennedy has said for years that autism is likely tied to childhood vaccines. He was nominated to serve as HHS secretary by Trump last month and has promised sweeping changes to agencies under the HHS department, such as the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), the National Institutes of Health (NIH), and the Food and Drug Administration (FDA). The NIH supports and funds research into autism, as well as potential new vaccines. Kennedy told The Epoch Times in September that he would revamp the NIH to focus on the causes of autism, autoimmune diseases, and neurodevelopment diseases instead of developing drugs and serving as an incubator for pharmaceutical products.

In a Dec. 8 interview on “Meet The Press,” Trump noted that autism cases have increased in recent decades. When asked if Kennedy would explore the issue, Trump said he is “open to anything.” “When you look at some of the problems, when you look at what’s going on with disease and sickness in our country, something’s wrong,” Trump said. “I think somebody has to find out. If you go back 25 years ago, you had very little autism. Now you have it.” CDC information shows that about one in 36 American children today has an autism diagnosis, compared to one in 150 in the year 2000. Fighting chronic disease, improving children’s health, and addressing corporate influence on government agencies were vital parts of Kennedy’s campaign platform when he ran for president as a Democrat and then as an independent.

Kennedy suspended his presidential campaign and backed Trump in August. He told The Epoch Times that it was a “heart-wrenching decision” and a necessary step toward achieving his mission of saving Americans from the chronic disease epidemic. Under the “Make America Healthy Again” campaign, Kennedy intends to curtail what he calls the chronic disease epidemic by addressing the so-called corporate capture of federal health agencies and removing toxic chemicals from the nation’s food supply, among other objectives.

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That’s $1 million for Zuck vs $260 million for Elon Musk.

Meta Donates $1Mln to Trump’s Fund as Part of Effort to Mend Ties (Sp.)

Meta* has confirmed a $1 million donation to US President-elect Donald Trump’s inaugural fund, signaling a significant shift in CEO Mark Zuckerberg’s approach to the incoming administration, the Wall Street Journal reported on Thursday. The donation is a notable departure from Zuckerberg’s previous stance, especially considering his contentious relationship with Trump during the election campaign. Trump had previously threatened to retaliate against tech giants he perceived as undermining his campaign. The paper also reported that as Republicans prepared to take control of both the White House and Congress, tech CEOs were recalibrating their strategies in anticipation of new regulations that could impact their businesses. However, Zuckerberg’s outreach to Trump was not an isolated incident.

The report also noted that Amazon founder Jeff Bezos, who has been critical of Trump in the past, had recently congratulated him on his victory and expressed optimism about the new administration. The report said Zuckerberg’s efforts to forge a stronger connection with Trump included a private dinner at Mar-a-Lago. During the two-day event, Meta’s senior policy executives engaged with key figures in Trump’s administration, including his nominee for secretary of state, Senator Marco Rubio. The tech industry has often found itself at odds with Republican leadership, particularly under Trump’s administration, which frequently criticized social media platforms for perceived bias against conservative viewpoints. In the wake of the 2020 election and the January 6 unrest, the tech entrepreneur banned Donald Trump and some of his supporters on Facebook. In October 2020, both Facebook and Twitter censored the much-talked-about story of Hunter Biden’s “laptop from hell.”

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What a mess.

Biden Pardons 39, Commutes Nearly 1,500 Sentences (JTN)

Just days after pardoning his son Hunter in a widely unpopular move, President Joe Biden on Thursday issued the most sweeping one-day clemency in modern U.S. history by pardoning 39 Americans and commuting the sentences of nearly 1,500 others. The actions were announced in an early morning statement from the White House that signaled more acts of clemency could be coming before Biden leaves office on Jan. 20. “As the President has said, the United States is a nation of second chances,” the statement said. “The President recognizes how the clemency power can advance equal justice under law and remedy harms caused by practices of the past.” Biden commuted the sentences of nearly 1,500 individuals who were placed on home confinement during the COVID-19 pandemic and who have successfully reintegrated into their families and communities for at least one year.

The pardons went to 39 nonviolent offenders, including some convicted of drug crimes. “These actions represent the largest single-day grant of clemency in modern history,” the White House said. The sweeping grant came just 11 days after Biden erased the felony tax and gun convictions of his son Hunter with an unpopular pardon opposed by a majority of Americans, including some prominent Democrats. It also comes as some around the president urge he issue preemptive pardons for members of his party, his administration, or federal bureaucrats who might face prosecution in the next Trump administration. According to the White House statement, those receiving clemency Thursday included:

A decorated military veteran who now assists fellow church members who are in poor health;
A nurse who has led emergency response for several natural disasters and helped spearhead vaccination efforts during the pandemic;
An addiction counselor who “volunteers his time to help young people find their purpose, make better choices, and refrain from destructive behaviors and gang involvement.”

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“Imagine inflation cooling in February at 276% — the situation was dire..”

Argentina’s First Budget Surplus in 123 Years (Martin Armstrong)

Argentina has posted its first budget surplus in 123 years after President Javir Milei took office and demanded an abrupt halt to government spending. Governments worldwide should carefully take note. Milei proudly announced: “The deficit was the root of all our evils — without it, there’s no debt, no emission, no inflation. Today, we have a sustained fiscal surplus, free of default, for the first time in 123 years. This historic achievement came from the greatest adjustment in history and reducing monetary emission to zero. A year ago, a degenerate printed 13% of GDP to win an election, fueling inflation. Today, monetary emission is a thing of the past.” Economic emissions should become a coined phrase as it is far more harmful than anything government is currently trying to conquer.

Argentina was forced to stop printing money back in 2022 after inflation surpassed 60% in July of that year, and their currency became utterly worthless. The central bank raised rates to nearly 70% to no avail as government continued borrowing. The problem with socialism is that they eventually run out of other people’s money. The government was spending over $6 million daily on social programs, but the poverty rate continued to rise, and around 57% of the working population could not find jobs. There were mass strikes since their money could not fund basic goods. Even if they could find employment, what incentive would the people have when the currency is worthless? Since they had no way to pay off their debt, the government simply continued to print more and devalued its own currency in the process. Javir Milei was called a right-wing extremist for denouncing socialism and promising to curtail government spending and social programs.

He understood that socialism COULD NOT WORK. It took President Javier Milei of Argentina a mere two months to push his nation into a surplus. The Economy Ministry declared that the government posted a $589 million surplus back in April, the first surplus in a decade. Milei referred to the government as “a criminal organization,” and recognized that the public sector needed to shrink as 341,477 people were on the government payroll when he took office. Referred to as the “gnocchi” after the Italian pasta dish that is commonly served on the 29th of the month, the same day as payday, are the individuals in Argentina on the government payroll who do absolutely nothing. They were installed by politicians in exchange for favors. Critics claim he is firing at random, but the Milei Administration has assured the public that selecting those who will be laid off will be an “extremely surgical task, done so as not to make mistakes.”

Milei has already eliminated useless agencies such as the Ministry of Culture, Ministry of Health, Ministry of Labor, and Ministry of Social Development. In his words, Argentina is currently a poor country and cannot afford these departments that do absolutely nothing to improve the nation’s economic conditions. He has cut the Cabinet in half and no one has noticed a difference. Milei removed price controls and devalued the currency by 54%. Transport and fuel subsidies were eliminated. It was noted that these measures would at first hurt PPP before the economy could begin to heal. Imagine inflation cooling in February at 276% — the situation was dire. The International Monetary Fund awarded Argentina a $44 billion credit program. The nation is beginning to stabilize very slowly, and it took decades of deteriorating economic conditions for someone to come in and clean house.

He has called his measures a form of “shock therapy” for Argentina’s economy. Milei agreed to devalue the nation’s peso from around 350 to 800 pesos per USD. He has eliminated quotas on imports and exports and removed the licensing that was difficult to obtain. There is a temporary rise in taxes for non-agricultural trade that brings it on par with industry standards. Transportation and energy subsidies have been eliminated. Milei is the same man who stood before the crowd at Davos and criticized their glorification of socialism. “The main leaders of the Western world have abandoned the model of freedom for different versions of what we call collectivism,” Milei said to a hostile crowd at Davos. “We’re here to tell you that collectivist experiments are never the solution to the problems that afflict the citizens of the world—rather they are the root cause.”

Those in charge want us to believe that capitalism equates to greed while collectivism is seen as a form of social justice but, of course, requires the money of others. Free enterprise is under constant attack, and Milei is one of the only world leaders fighting for its existence. “Social justice is not just. It doesn’t contribute to the general well-being,” Milei said to Davos, citing that socialism is “intrinsically unfair” and forces the state to attack the people for taxes. “Can any of us say that they voluntarily pay taxes?” he asked the crowd. He was once called the Donald Trump of Argentina. We can hope that Donald Trump will take swift action to reduce government spending. DOGE appointee Elon Musk congratulated Argentina’s president when news of the budget surplus broke. Unfortunately, America is too far in the hole to recover by slashing programs or cutting government. It would be a massive step forward but our deficit has been permitted to run wild for too long to be tamed.

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“..the situation can be redeemed in the Ukraine. This means the complete and comprehensive defeat of the enemy there.”

The Kremlin’s Oprichniki Versus The General Staff’s Prigozhniki (Helmer)

The defeat of the Russian army in war discredits, not the soldiers who fought and died, but the commander-in-chief and the generals who were in command. Defeat on the battlefield also destroys Russian military honour as a political force in the country, just as its opposite, victory on the battlefield, threatens the civilian commander-in-chief with his replacement by a soldier hero. To protect himself from his triumphant, and also from his disgruntled officers, the commander-in-chief may make his generals scapegoats for the defeat. Joseph Stalin had begun shooting scapegoat officers before the German invasion of June 21, 1941, and then accelerated his purge in the weeks which followed. In 1946, in the aftermath of the Red Army’s victory over Germany, Stalin neutralized Marshal Georgiy Zhukov (for the second time), stripping him of his command powers and sending him into internal exile, all for purely political reasons. Stalin had allowed Zhukov to lead the victory parade in Red Square but only after Stalin had tried himself and failed to stay in the saddle of the white horse.

Stalin’s jealousy of Zhukov’s domestic popularity was compounded by his (not unreasonable) fear of a military putsch and of the Caligula Cure. For most Russians – and this has been a consistent finding of public opinion polling by the independent Levada Centre of Moscow – the President’s popularity, public trust, and approval of his performance run about 10 points ahead of the Russian trust in the Army. However, the two support each other on the upswing in the polls when there are victories to celebrate; and then on the downswing when there are defeats, rising casualties, and war fatigue across the countryside. Between 2022 and now, for example, Russian approval of Putin has risen to the 80% level; for the Army approval has also risen to about 70%. It is the conclusion of the Kremlin and of the General Staff, therefore, that they should either hang together or if not, they will hang each other.

Having opposed but obeyed Putin’s orders forbidding them to fire on Israeli aircraft attacking Syria, or on Turkish ground operations in and around Idlib, Moscow sources believe the General Staff have now told Putin much more than the refrain, he’s heard many times before, “We told you so”. This time the General Staff assessment of the invasion of Syria, refusal of the Syrian Arab Army (SAA) to fight, and the replacement of the Assad regime in Damascus is that grave damage has been done to the protective alliances which Russia has been promoting in Africa, the Americas, China, and North Korea.

“We just have to accept that Iran and Russia have been comprehensively defeated in their non-fight, “a well-informed Moscow source says. “It is the worst defeat of Russia by the Turks in history. If Putin goes on now to make significant concessions in an Istanbul II negotiation with [President Donald] Trump, that will be the cherry on top of the Turkish halva. We are thinking this; no one is saying it. In the end, a defeat in Ukraine is all we care about. If Putin fails to deliver that, then he has a much bigger problem than the one he has just retreated from. Yes, this is a huge dishonour for us, but nothing is served by talking of it. Still, the situation can be redeemed in the Ukraine. This means the complete and comprehensive defeat of the enemy there.”

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“..domestic and international pressure had escalated so much that Netanyahu ran out of excuses by the time he attended yesterday’s hearing..”

Netanyahu’s Trial: Corruption, War Crimes, And An Israel In Crisis (Cradle)

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s entrance into a Tel Aviv courtroom yesterday was anything but understated. Facing trial as the first sitting prime minister prosecuted for corruption, Netanyahu seized the moment to brand his ordeal a “witch-hunt.” Outside the courthouse, tensions simmered as some 100 protesters gathered, blaming him for the deaths of Israeli war prisoners in Gaza, while an equal number of staunch supporters faced them across a police barrier. The embattled premier, set to testify over three days before facing cross-examination, continues to vigorously deny attempts to evade trial since his 2019 indictment on charges of bribery, fraud, and breach of trust. Accused of accepting gifts from wealthy businessmen and granting favors to media moguls in exchange for positive coverage, Netanyahu had ignored his lawyer’s advice to step away from politics at the time.

Declaring on the eve of his hearing that he had “waited eight years for this moment to say the truth as [he] remember[s] it,” Netanyahu launched a preemptive attack on the judiciary, police, and media in a televised press conference on Monday. His critics, however, swiftly countered. Opposition leader Yair Lapid condemned Netanyahu’s self-serving focus amid mounting war casualties, calling his press conference “a shameful collection of lies.” Lapid accused Netanyahu of deploying “every trick possible” in his delay tactic to avoid facing justice, saying the prime minister had prioritized personal survival over the country’s security and stability. He even blamed him for the 7 October Palestinian resistance’s Operation Al-Aqsa Flood, “the [subsequent] war, and the fact that the kidnapped people have not yet returned.”

For nearly five years, Netanyahu maneuvered to postpone this judicial reckoning, citing COVID-19 disruptions, procedural delays, and political gridlock during repeated elections as reasons to delay the hearings. After securing a hardline coalition in December 2022, he intensified efforts to undermine and politicize the judiciary system, proposing “reforms” that sparked mass protests throughout 2023. Those protests dwindled only after Operation Al-Aqsa Flood, when Netanyahu’s response – an unprecedented and brutal military campaign – rightfully drew accusations of genocide and war crimes from the International Criminal Court (ICC). By the time he entered the underground, secured courtroom, the prime minister was under mounting pressure at home and abroad. Together with his former defense minister Yoav Gallant, he faces the allegations of war crimes – the first of their kind within the western alliance of states – along with the repercussions of a collapsing economy and the mass “displacement” of settlers in the north due to Hezbollah’s early involvement in the regional conflict.

But domestic and international pressure had escalated so much that Netanyahu ran out of excuses by the time he attended yesterday’s hearing to spin his side of the story in Tel Aviv. The Israeli prime minister walked into the courtroom with an ICC arrest warrant hanging over his head for war crimes in Gaza, and a broad international consensus that Israel is guilty of apartheid and genocide that has left nearly 45,000 Palestinians killed, the majority of them women and children. Yet, of more concern to Israelis has been the fleeing of nearly half a million Israeli Jews from the occupation state, the potentially permanent displacement of a quarter of a million from the Gaza and Lebanese border since October 2023, tens of billions of dollars in economic losses, and the shuttering of up to 60,000 businesses in 15 months of war.

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“..this is the NATO/Israel combo demilitarizing the former Syria – with not as much as a peep from anybody in the Arab world and the lands of Islam..”

Vultures Feed On The Carcass Of Syria (Pepe Escobar)

The standard modus operandi of the Hegemon is always Divide and Rule. Cornered by the inexorable rise of the multi-nodal (italics mine) reality, they saw an opening for an imperial reboot, betting everything on establishing the “Greater Middle East” outlined still during the Cheney era. The iron axis of Straussian neocons, Zio-cons and Old Testament psychos in Tel Aviv is no-holds-barred obsessed on destroying the Axis of Resistance, using their transnational network of bloody killers to extend chaos and sectarian civil war all across West Asia. Throughout this ideal scenario they dream of mortally hitting the head of the snake: Iran. Sultan Erdogan, playing the role of useful patsy, has proclaimed:”A “bright period” for Syria has begun.” Indeed. A bright period for Black Flag head-choppers and Tel Aviv bombers and land grabbers – feeding on the carcass of Syria.

The Old Testament psycho-pathological killers, via over 350 strikes, have totally destroyed all the military infrastructure of the former Syrian Arab Army (SAA); weapons factories, munitions, bases, fighter jets, including the Mezze air base in Damascus, Russian anti-ship systems, ships themselves (in Lattakia, close to the Russian naval base) and air defense positions. In a nutshell: this is the NATO/Israel combo demilitarizing the former Syria – with not as much as a peep from anybody in the Arab world and the lands of Islam, starting with the Black Flag killers that have taken Damascus. Couple that with trademark land invasion/grabbing, and Tel Aviv officially declaring a definitive annexation of the Golan – which legally belongs to Syria and whose restitution has been demanded by the UN after the 1967 war.

In parallel, Turkish aviation bombed the former Russian-Syrian base in Qamishli, in the extreme northeast. The pretext: prevent that weapons would be grabbed by U.S.-backed Kurds and assorted Arab tribes. For the Russians this may not have been a big deal – as there was enough time to evacuate precious assets from the East of the Euphrates. Russia has given asylum to formidable, and crucially uncorruptible, Suheil al-Hassan – a serious candidate to top military tactician and strategist in the world today. Russians bet on him as early as in 2015 – and provided for his personal security. Nobody in Syria enjoyed Russian bodyguards – not even Assad. He was the only commander who won de facto battles during the 10 days of the Fall of Syria.

Amidst a torrent of doom and gloom, what’s taking place, fast as lightning, is NATO/Israel feeding on the carcass and dividing a dead nation with a gaggle of useful idiots and puppets – from fake woke Salafi-jihadis to Americanized Kurds. Obviously a collective IQ lower than any room temperature prevent this mob from realizing they are fighting for the same Suzerain. Tel Aviv goons have advanced their blitzkrieg across the Damascus countryside and may be as close as 15 km to the south of the capital; a classic lebensraum gambit, part of their colonial project, coupled with obtaining maximum leverage on the Lebanese flank. This is absolutely crucial, and extremely worrying for the Axis of Resistance: now all of southern Lebanon is exposed to a massive attack by the Israeli occupation – as the fertile plains between Chtoura in the Beqaa valley and Aanjar not only hold precious natural resources but provide a direct drive to Beirut.

In parallel, Black Flags have taken over Damascus. There are massacres all across the spectrum – including religious leaders and scientists but mostly former Army officials, former members of Syrian counter-espionage, even civilians accused of being former military. His Eminence, Sheikh Tawfiq al-Bouti, son of the famous sheikh Muhammad Said Ramadan al-Bouti, a former imam of the venerable Umayyad mosque, was assassinated in his Damascus madrassa. Scorpions are predictably turning on each other; rival terror gangs to Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) demand that Jolani’s goons liberate their members imprisoned in Greater Idlibistan, and now threaten to attack HTS. In Manbij, Turk-backed terrorists openly kill Americano-Kurds in hospitals. Syria’s north and northeast are mired in total anarchy.

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“..Before the U.S.-Israel campaign to overthrow Assad began in earnest in 2011, Syria was a functioning, growing middle-income country..”

The US and Israel Destroyed Syria and Called it Peace (Jeffrey Sachs)

In the famous lines of Tacitus, Roman historian, “To ravage, to slaughter, to usurp under false titles, they call empire; and where they make a desert, they call it peace.” In our age, it is Israel and the U.S. that make a desert and call it peace. The story is simple. In stark violation of international law, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his ministers claim the right to rule over seven million Palestinian Arabs. When Israel’s occupation of Palestinian lands leads to militant resistance, Israel labels the resistance “terrorism” and calls on the U.S. to overthrow the Middle East governments that back the “terrorists.” The U.S., under the sway of the Israel Lobby, goes to war on Israel’s behalf. The fall of Syria this week is the culmination of the Israel-U.S. campaign against Syria that goes back to 1996 with Netanyahu’s arrival to office as Prime Minister.

The Israel-U.S. war on Syria escalated in 2011 and 2012, when Barack Obama covertly tasked the CIA with the overthrow of the Syrian Government in Operation Timber Sycamore. That effort finally came to “fruition” this week, after more than 300,000 deaths in the Syrian war since 2011. Syria’s fall came swiftly because of more than a decade of crushing economic sanctions, the burdens of war, the U.S. seizure of Syria’s oil, Russia’s priorities regarding the conflict in Ukraine, and most immediately, Israel’s attacks on Hezbollah, which was the key military backstop to the Syrian Government. No doubt Assad often misplayed his own hand and faced severe internal discontent, but his regime was targeted for collapse for decades by the U.S. and Israel. Since 2011, the Israel-U.S. perpetual war on Syria, including bombing, jihadists, economic sanctions, U.S. seizure of Syria’s oil fields, and more, has sunk the Syrian people into misery.

Before the U.S.-Israel campaign to overthrow Assad began in earnest in 2011, Syria was a functioning, growing middle-income country. In January 2009, the IMF Executive Board had this to say: Executive Directors welcomed Syria’s strong macroeconomic performance in recent years, as manifested in the rapid non-oil GDP growth, comfortable level of foreign reserves, and low and declining government debt. This performance reflected both robust regional demand and the authorities’ reform efforts to shift toward a more market- based economy. Since 2011, the Israel-U.S. perpetual war on Syria, including bombing, jihadists, economic sanctions, U.S. seizure of Syria’s oil fields, and more, has sunk the Syrian people into misery.

In the immediate two days following the collapse of the government, Israel conducted about 480 strikes across Syria, and completely destroyed the Syrian fleet in Latakia. Pursuing his expansionist agenda, Prime Minister Netanyahu illegally claimed control over the demilitarized buffer zone in the Golan Heights and declared that the Golan Heights will be a part of the State of Israel “for eternity.” Netanyahu’s ambition to transform the region through war, which dates back almost three decades, is playing out in front of our eyes. In a press conference on December 9th, the Israeli prime minister boasted of an “absolute victory,” justifying the on-going genocide in Gaza and escalating violence throughout the region:

“I ask you, just think, if we had acceded to those who told us time and again: ‘”The war must be stopped”– we would not have entered Rafah, we would not have seized the Philadelphia Corridor, we would not have eliminated Sinwar, we would not have surprised our enemies in Lebanon and the entire world in a daring operation-stratagem, we would not have eliminated Nasrallah, we would not have destroyed Hezbollah’s underground network, and we would not have exposed Iran’s weakness. The operations that we have carried out since the beginning of the war are dismantling the axis brick by brick.”

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Buffalo herd

 

 

Graze

 

 

Baby hippo

 

 

Cat?

 

 

Orca
https://twitter.com/i/status/1866933591050985706

 

 

Not good

 

 

 

 

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