The Automatic Earth

Caravaggio Adoration of the Shepherds 1609

Alex Jones

Breaking: Trump’s FBI Director Kash Patel calls for immediate declassification of Epstein client list! Also Today Trumps New Border Czar Announced That The DOJ And DHS Will Be Targeting The NGOs And Former Federal Agency Leaders Criminally For Running The Human Trafficking! pic.twitter.com/IZydjsJYaS

— Alex Jones (@RealAlexJones) December 1, 2024

Border patrol
https://twitter.com/i/status/1862978593497718833

Trump academy
https://twitter.com/i/status/1862997542725644733

Comer

When discussing the debanking of crypto entrepreneurs and Trump supporters, it's important to mention the contrasting treatment of the Biden family.

Six major banks, including JPMorgan, Bank of America, and Wells Fargo, filed over 170 Suspicious Activity Reports (SARs) with the… pic.twitter.com/MkmIFSc4Ky

— KanekoaTheGreat (@KanekoaTheGreat) November 30, 2024

Sachs
https://twitter.com/i/status/1862934557332304075

A big threat to many. Epstein list, DIddy list, Russia Russia Russia, etc etc.

• Trump Nominates Kash Patel For FBI Director (ZH)

After weeks of speculation, President-elect Donald Trump announced on Saturday that he’s picked Kash Patel to replace Christopher Wray as the head of the FBI. Patel has been a longtime critic of the bureau who has called for shutting down the agency’s Washington headquarters, cleaning house when it comes to top leadership, and bringing the nation’s law enforcement agencies “to heel.” According to a Saturday post to Truth Social, Trump called Patel a “brilliant lawyer, investigator, and “America First” fighter who has spent his career exposing corruption, defending Justice, and protecting the American People.” “He played a pivotal role in uncovering the Russia, Russia, Russia Hoax, standing as an advocate for truth, accountability, and the Constitution,” Trump continued.

“Patel has been open about what kind of changes he’d pursue if given the chance. His various proposals include reducing the FBI’s footprint in Washington and “dramatically” limiting its authority. He hopes to curb the power of the Justice Department’s Civil Division and jettison a Pentagon office that produces classified assessments of long-term trends and risks, arguing it is just a tool of the “deep state.” Patel has said he also intends to aggressively hunt down government officials who leak information to reporters, and change the law to make it easier to sue journalists. During an interview with Steve Bannon in December, Patel said he and others “will go out and find the conspirators not just in government but in the media.” -AP

Patel has served as both a federal prosecutor and a public defender, and filled a number of administrative roles at the tail end of Trump’s first term, including on the National Security Council and in the Pentagon. And in a sign this is a good move – in 2021 when Trump floated Patel for deputy director of the CIA or the FBI, former AG William Barr said that would happen “over my dead body.” Former FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe said that no part of the FBI would be “safe” with Patel in a leadership position.

In response, Patel told the Washington Post: “Those calling me a danger, let’s just ask them for a proof, a piece of evidence that actually shows I’ve committed any constitutional violations or any ethical quandaries, and I’d love to hear their response to this.” Current FBI Director Christopher Wray will now either have to resign or be fired, assuming Patel makes it through Senate confirmation. And as noted above, Patel has vowed to investigate and possibly prosecute regime-puppet journalists. “Yes, we’re going to come after the people in the media who lied about American citizens, who helped Joe Biden rig presidential elections — we’re going to come after you,” Patel said last year. “Whether it’s criminally or civilly, we’ll figure that out.”

https://twitter.com/i/status/1863016245328756913

Trump’s new FBI Director Kash Patel details comprehensive declassification operation under second Trump term:

"He's going to come in there and maybe give them the Epstein list, maybe give them the P Diddy list and they are terrified."

pic.twitter.com/Et1yLZmTTu

— Benny Johnson (@bennyjohnson) December 1, 2024

Meet Kash Patel, Donald Trump’s choice for FBI Director. Patel has revealed that some members of Congress are connected to the Epstein list, which he promises to declassify on day one.

He also plans to create a 24/7 declassification office to release long-hidden files,… pic.twitter.com/i9X2osEX89

— Shadow of Ezra (@ShadowofEzra) December 1, 2024

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Bondi must be confirmed by the Senate, Musk and Ramaswamy don’t.

• Pam Bondi To Visit Capitol Hill Next Week, Joining Musk, Ramaswamy (JTN)

Attorney General-nominee Pam Bondi will travel to Capitol Hill next week to meet with Senate Republicans as a start to her confirmation process. The presidential transition team for GOP President-elect Donald Trump confirmed Bondi’s visit Friday with The Washington Examiner. She will join Trump appointees Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy, who are expected to meet with Republican lawmakers in the House and Senate. Trump nominated Bondi, a former Florida GOP attorney general, after former Florida Republican Rep. Matt Gaetz withdrew his name from consideration last week. Trump appointed Musk and Ramaswamy to head his new Department of Government Efficiency. They are expected on Capitol Hill, in Washington, D.C., on Thursday. Their appointments do not require Senate confirmation.

Bondi is expected to meet Monday with Iowa GOP Sen. Chuck Grassley, who will be the chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee during the upcoming congressional session, also according to The Examiner. The Judiciary committee will hold the confirmation hearings for Bondi. “Attorney General Nominee Bondi is looking forward to the confirmation process and answering any questions senators might have,” Trump’s presidential transition spokesman Alex Pfeiffer told the news outlet. “Attorney General Nominee Bondi’s life has been dedicated to keeping Americans safe. She looks forward to continuing that work at the Department of Justice.” GOP House Speaker Mike Johnson said Wednesday the meetings with entrepreneurs Musk and Ramaswamy will focus on “major reform ideas to achieve regulatory rescissions, administrative reductions, and cost savings—& revive the principle of limited government.”

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“..nearly 90% of federal government office space in Washington is vacant because most federal workers began working from home during the COVID pandemic and never returned to their offices.”

• A Top Priority for DOGE: Decentralizing the Federal Government (AmG)

One of the best ideas I heard from Donald Trump for his second term is to move as many as 100,000 federal employees to “new locations outside the Washington Swamp” to places “filled with patriots who love America.” This initiative will save tax dollars and help depoliticize federal agencies. There also are important security and fairness reasons to relocate these agencies across the United States. I speak from experience. In the early 1990s, the late Senator Robert Byrd (D-West Virginia) drafted legislation to move thousands of CIA employees to West Virginia. Byrd proposed closing 21 CIA offices in Washington, DC, and its Virginia and Maryland suburbs and moving them to large campuses in Jefferson County, West Virginia. My wife and I were CIA employees at the time, and we were thrilled about the potential move of our office out of the DC area.

We were unable to afford a house without a lengthy commute on our federal salaries because the large presence of federal workers and contractors had driven housing prices through the roof. (Five of the seven wealthiest U.S. counties are in the DC suburbs.) We also disliked the liberal culture and high taxes of the DC area. Unfortunately, the Washington establishment, including many well-paid senior CIA officers and contractors, blocked Senator Byrd’s attempt to relocate CIA offices to West Virginia. As a result, when my wife could no longer work full-time because of the disability of one of our children, we ended up buying a house 50 miles from DC with a roundtrip commute of 2.5 to 3 hours per day. Moving federal agencies out of the DC area to areas with affordable housing and reasonable commutes are two good reasons why the Trump administration should decentralize the federal government.

The current practice of locating these agencies within a few miles of the White House and Congress reflects a bygone era before telephones, email, and video conferences. Most federal employees rarely interact with members of Congress and the White House and can do their jobs more efficiently and economically in more affordable and less congested areas of the country. There’s also the issue of fairness. DC, Maryland, and Virginia receive huge tax revenues from federal employees’ salaries and retirement checks. They also benefit from large federal expenditures like the DC Metro, DC airports, free federal museums, etc. Since technological advances have made it unnecessary for these agencies to be located near our nation’s capital, it is time to share the wealth of federal agencies by spreading them across the United States. There is no reason why this government spending and jobs should continue to be concentrated in one part of the country.

Many of these moves would make these agencies more effective and accountable to the American people. For example, relocating the Agriculture Department headquarters to a farming state would move the agency closer to the Americans it was created to serve. Agriculture employees could interact with farmers and ranchers on a daily basis. The Agriculture Department could also hire many employees who actually live on farms and ranches. The same would be true for moving the headquarters of the Transportation Department to Detroit or the Interior Department to Utah or Wyoming. Other possibilities: move the Department of Health and Human Services to North Carolina’s Research Triangle, move the FBI headquarters to the Redstone Arsenal in Huntsville, Alabama, move the Energy Department headquarters to the Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico, and move the Environmental Protection Agency headquarters to Florida.

Large portions of the Pentagon, CIA, State Department, Department of Homeland Security, IRS, and other agencies should also be moved to locations across the U.S. There are two other crucial reasons for decentralizing U.S. government agencies away from the Washington, DC area. The most important is security. Given growing threats from nuclear, biological, and chemical weapons; drones; and violent demonstrations by radical groups, keeping large numbers of federal agencies and employees in the Washington, DC, area is a significant and avoidable threat to national security and the continuity of government. Spreading federal agencies across the United States would make it harder for a U.S. adversary to deal a devastating blow to the federal government with a single attack. Decentralizing federal agencies also would help depoliticize them and fight the so-called “deep state.”

The resistance by federal employees to the president’s constitutional authority as the head of the federal government is driven by a self-serving Washington, DC, culture consisting of entrenched employees, former employees, federal contractors, think tanks, and the mainstream media. Many of these employees do little work and are extremely hard to fire. Even worse, nearly 90% of federal government office space in Washington is vacant because most federal workers began working from home during the COVID pandemic and never returned to their offices.

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“Everyday Americans have complained about federal bureaucratic hegemony for as long as we can remember, but now they will finally have a president in place with specific plans to do something about it.”

• Schedule F – Trump’s Plan A for Emptying the Swamp (Donner)

Ever since Election Day, much talk has focused on President-elect Donald Trump’s appointments – in record time – of his Cabinet, advisors, and agency directors. This new administration is a diverse mix, but they all have one thing in common: The returning president sees them as loyal to him and his outsized agenda. But what about all the other, more entrenched denizens of DC? Enter Schedule F – Trump’s bold plan to “drain the Swamp.” Washington is abuzz with the extraordinary diversity of beliefs among the new designees. This is far from typical for incoming presidents, who ordinarily populate their administrations with political veterans in lockstep with their ideology.

But after assembling a largely forgettable team upon his arrival in DC as a novice in 2017, the road-tested 47th president has broken the mold, as is his wont, by selecting Republicans and Democrats, hawks and doves, neoconservatives and populists, corporatists and unionists, insiders and outsiders. Trump’s most famously ambitious objective, however, is to drain and ultimately empty the DC swamp of its unelected, unaccountable, and obstructionist bureaucrats who can thwart the will of the president, as they did so often during his first administration. The arrogance of these supercilious apparatchiks is due to the iron-clad protections they enjoy as civil servants. They cannot be fired no matter their behavior, except in the rarest of circumstances. Presidents come and go, they tell themselves, but we will outlast them all and can act accordingly.

You may recall the so-called “all-of-government” approach to the DEI agenda during the current administration, where the goal of equity must be embraced and adopted not only in social planning and policies but across all agencies and cabinet departments. Well, the incoming president will employ that same broad, sweeping approach to weeding out the most unproductive and recalcitrant employees among the federal government’s 2.2 million-strong civilian workforce. And while DOGE – the newly formed non-governmental Department of Government Efficiency to be headed by Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy – has been the talk of Washington, it faces severe limits in its attempts to affect systemic reform. No less than 60% of the government’s $6.8 trillion budget is “non-discretionary” and largely untouchable because it is devoted to Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, and interest on the exploding national debt, now more than $36 trillion. Another 13% is devoted to defense, which Trump has pledged to increase. Thus, Musk’s stated goal of cutting $2 trillion in unnecessary federal spending will be extremely difficult, if not impossible, to achieve.

However, taking an axe to the bloated budget ultimately figures to have less permanent impact than Trump’s audacious plans to alter the federal government’s modus operandi and its entrenched culture. The linchpin for his game-changing reforms is reinstating the innocuous-sounding Schedule F, instituted by Trump in the waning days of his first term but immediately reversed by Joe Biden upon taking office. It will empower massive changes in the bureaucracy, re-classifying thousands of careerists as political appointees. It refers to a section of the Civil Service Reform Act of 1978, exempting some federal employees from civil service protections, specifically those “whose position has been determined to be of a confidential, policy-determining, policy-making or policy-advocating character.” Under Trump’s plan, the number of such employees would jump from roughly 4,000 to about 50,000, signaling a sea change in the way Washington does business.

The outgoing Biden administration, deeply fearful of Trump’s bold plans to upend the DC establishment, is working overtime to “Trump-proof” (as much as possible) the federal government, hoping to minimize the damage to its familiar and comfortable way of life. The danger inherent in Schedule F is the likelihood that the next Democratic president could use the same expanded executive control over the bureaucracy to reverse course from Trump and bring in committed progressives who could do even more damage than the present embedded bureaucrats. So, to make these plans stick beyond Trump’s next term, his administration might attempt to move one or more executive agencies out of Washington. This would wrench thousands of civil servants out of their comfort zone, likely leading to a significant number of resignations by those accustomed to life inside the DC beltway.

Despite setting a risky precedent that could backfire on Republicans in the years ahead, Trump is focused on the here and now, believing the addition of Schedule F will force permanent structural change on what has effectively become a fourth branch of government, namely, the administrative state. Everyday Americans have complained about federal bureaucratic hegemony for as long as we can remember, but now they will finally have a president in place with specific plans to do something about it.

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“On January 20th [..] I will sign all necessary documents to charge Mexico and Canada a 25% Tariff on ALL products coming into the United States, and its ridiculous Open Borders..”

• Mexico, Canada Cozy Up To Trump Amid Tariff Threats, China Goes It Alone (JTN)

The United States’ neighbors seem eager to avoid a major trade-and-tariff standoff with Washington as Donald Trump returns to the White House, but Beijing is readying for round two after trading blows with the Republican president during his first administration. Though Trump has long expressed support for tariffs, he set off an international firestorm this week with his Day One plans to shake up trade relations with key economic partners. “On January 20th, as one of my many first Executive Orders, I will sign all necessary documents to charge Mexico and Canada a 25% Tariff on ALL products coming into the United States, and its ridiculous Open Borders,” Trump announced this week. Trump overthrew Republican free trade orthodoxy during the 2016 primary, criticizing foreign trade practices for which he blamed the outsourcing of American jobs. [..]

Mexico
While there appears to be some disagreement between Trump and his Mexican counterpart over the state of their negotiations, both have deemed their recent talks as productive and indicated that they were prepared to work closely with one another. Despite Trump’s support for strict immigration and tariff policies during his first term, he generally enjoyed a strong relationship with former Mexican President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador. Current Mexican leader Claudia Sheinbaum, however, initially expressed skepticism about Trump’s tariffs plans and suggested they would lead to a direct trade war. “One tariff would be followed by another in response, and so on until we put at risk common businesses,” she said earlier this week. But the pair spoke privately within days and both suggested there was room for discussion.

Trump posted Thursday on Truth Social: “Just had a wonderful conversation with the new President of Mexico, Claudia Sheinbaum Pardo. She has agreed to stop Migration through Mexico, and into the United States, effectively closing our Southern Border. We also talked about what can be done to stop the massive drug inflow into the United States, and also, U.S. consumption of these drugs. It was a very productive conversation!” Sheinbaum disputed that she had made any material commitments but that the pair had discussed immigration and drug trafficking and that tariffs had come up in that context. “It was a good conversation and we are going to keep having conversations,” she said. “Mexico’s stance is not to close borders, but to build bridges between governments and their peoples.”

Canada
Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau on Friday night unexpectedly flew to Trump’s Mar-a-Lago resort home in Florida to talk with him, amid the tariff threat. On Tuesday, Trudeau quickly called Trump after the tariff post to discuss his plans. Trudeau’s government has faced abysmal polling numbers amid widespread economic discontent and frustration over his immigration policies. Some surveys have suggested his Liberal Party faces an electoral wipeout when voters go to the polls and a trade war with the United States could see its prospects fade even further. “We obviously talked about laying out the facts, talking about how the intense and effective connections between our two countries flow back and forth,” Trudeau said Tuesday.

Though not typically viewed as a major factor in the United States’ immigration surge, Canada shares with America the largest undefended border in the world. Ottawa’s own lax immigration policies have contributed, moreover, not just to Trudeau’s low polling numbers, but the security situation for the U.S. During fiscal 2024, U.S. Customs and Border Protection reported a record 198,929 encounters with and apprehensions of illegal border crossers along the Canadian frontier. Among those apprehended were individuals from 97 different countries. Though border security is a significant factor in Washington’s relationship with Ottawa, Canada’s economy is not without some industrial weight of its own and Trump’s primary concern with tariffs seems to be foreign imports.[..]

China
While Canada and Mexico appear at least willing to engage with Trump on his trade and border initiatives, China, the main object of Trump’s ire, is evidently adopting a more bellicose approach to the Republican’s return. “Imposing arbitrary tariffs on trading partners will not solve America’s own problems,” Chinese Commerce Ministry spokesperson He Yadong told reporters. China is already subject to some import tariffs, as Trump’s trade policy pivot carried over to the Biden administration to a degree. In announcing the tariffs this week, Trump further singled out Beijing for additional scrutiny if it did not crack down on the export of fentanyl and other drugs. “Until such time as they stop, we will be charging China an additional 10% Tariff, above any additional Tariffs, on all of their many products coming into the United States of America,” Trump declared, observing that his move followed failed discussions with China to convince them to crack down.

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Trying to save the dollar. Too late.

• Trump Threatens BRICS (RT)

The BRICS nations will be hit with 100% tariffs on their goods if they try to introduce a reserve currency to rival the dollar, US President-elect Donald Trump has warned. Trump has repeatedly threatened to use tariffs to achieve his geopolitical goals. ”The idea that the BRICS Countries are trying to move away from the Dollar while we stand by and watch is OVER,” Trump wrote on his Truth Social platform on Saturday. Trump went on to say that he would ask the BRICS nations to promise not to create a common currency, “nor back any other currency to replace the mighty US dollar,” or they will face 100% tariffs. ”They can go find another ‘sucker!’” he continued. “There is no chance that the BRICS will replace the US Dollar in International Trade, and any Country that tries should wave goodbye to America.”

BRICS previously comprised Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa, and was expanded in January to include Egypt, Iran, Ethiopia, and the United Arab Emirates. Around 30 other nations have expressed interest in joining the group of emerging economies. Russia, which currently holds the group’s rotating presidency, floated the idea of introducing a BRICS currency in 2022. Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva echoed Moscow’s proposal last year, arguing that having the option of trading in another reserve currency would reduce the BRICS countries’ “vulnerability” to fluctuations in the dollar’s exchange rate.

BRICS leaders stopped short of announcing plans for such a currency at their summit in the Russian city of Kazan last month. Instead, the group pledged to set up a cross-border payment system to function alongside the Western SWIFT network, and to increase their use of local currencies in international trade. ”Cooperation within BRICS is not directed against anyone or anything – neither against the dollar nor against other currencies,” Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov stated in October. “It pursues the main goal of ensuring the interests of those countries that participate in this format.”

Using local currencies to settle bilateral trade bills “helps to keep economic development free from politics,” Russian President Vladimir Putin said at the time. Trump has vowed to use tariffs to settle US trade deficits, force offshore manufacturers to return, and achieve a range of geopolitical goals. In addition to proposing a blanket tariff of 20% on all incoming goods, Trump has threatened Canada and Mexico with additional 25% tariffs if they fail to reduce the flow of migrants and drugs into the US. Trump also declared this week that “we will be charging China an additional 10% tariff, above any additional tariffs,” until Beijing “follows through” on punishing the producers and smugglers of fentanyl, a powerful synthetic opioid.

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Homan: “But, look, me and the Denver mayor, we agree on one thing. He’s willing to go to jail, I’m willing to put him in jail.”

• Democrat Mayors Say They Will Use Police To Obstruct Trump’s Deportations (ZH)

There are only two issues that Democrats might care more about than the national legalization of abortion: Blocking the passage of voter ID laws, and, blocking the mass deportation of illegal immigrants. The reason should be relatively obvious – Keeping the border open and illegal immigrants flowing into the US is the key to election victory for progressives in the long run. If leftists are going to exterminate millions of future voters in the womb, then their only other option to fill ballot boxes is to import people from the third world and give them as much free stuff as possible so they’re sure to vote blue. Democrats have been pushing for a sweeping amnesty for illegals for years. If they had won the 2024 election by a comfortable margin it’s a certainty that an amnesty would be at the top of their priority list.

The open border policies and sanctuary actions of the political left are in direct violation of US immigration law, but Democrats act as if these laws are a suggestion rather than the rule. Without federal enforcement squarely in their corner blue cities and states only have one option left – Pretend they have the moral high ground and drum up as much civil unrest as possible. This might work in deep blue sanctuary cities, but the Trump Administration won the election in a landslide which included the popular vote. The majority of Americans want deportations and these cities do not have significant national backing. Despite this fact, some Democrat mayors are threatening to utilize local police forces to obstruct Trump’s mass deportation efforts. Denver Mayor Mike Johnston claims the deportation of illegals is “unconstitutional” and he initially threatened to use local law enforcement to block federal agencies from entering the city to carry out migrant arrests.

He ultimately walked these comments back, but only to a point, saying he’s ‘willing to go to jail’ to prevent deportations. For leftists the standard procedure is to wait and see how effectively they can use activist groups as a shield and then they change their rhetoric accordingly. If they can get the mob to show up on the doorsteps of DHS and ICE officials like they did with Supreme Court judges in 2023 then they may feel emboldened to escalate. Johnston seemed to tone down his chest puffing theatrics after incoming Border Czar Tom Homan gave him a reality check. “You are absolutely breaking the law. All he has to do is look at Arizona v. U.S. and he would see he’s breaking the law, Homan said flatly. “But, look, me and the Denver mayor, we agree on one thing. He’s willing to go to jail, I’m willing to put him in jail.”

Democrats don’t have the testicular fortitude to go into any fight alone, but the deportation debate is within their favorite wheelhouse, which is “resistance against the man”. For the past four years progressives have had the support of every government institution, almost every corporation and every NGO in the US and abroad, yet, they still tried to pretend they were the underdog fighting a rebellion against an oppressor. Now they truly are the underdog and they will certainly try to play to that image using the deportation drama as a background. The Mayor of Tuscon, Regina Romero, has also threatened the use of local police to obstruct deportation arrests. Her messaging is once again centered on the claim that deportations of illegals are a violation of higher moral standards. The law and the will of the voters must therefore take a back seat to the superior virtues of the progressive ideology.

It should be noted that members of the violent Venezuelan gang Tren de Aragua have been intercepted in Denver County and in Cochise County just east of Tuscon. They are specifically organizing in sanctuary cities with lax immigration standards, and they often recruit from illegal migrant shelters already in these areas. Multiple blue cites have stated publicly that they intend to refuse help to immigration agents during deportations. This includes the catch and release of violent criminals in order to prevent their arrest by ICE. In other words, Democrats would rather see rapists and murders back on the streets than hand them over to Trump. The thought process here seems utterly insane, but again, it makes perfect sense when one realizes how much time and energy Democrats have invested in their amnesty model. Without a massive third world voting block bought off with US tax dollars, it’s unlikely that progressives will win another election for a very long time.

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There goes their final bit of credibility.

• CNN Contributor Scott Jennings Joins Los Angeles Times Editorial Board (JTN)

Conservative CNN commentator Scott Jennings confirmed Fridayt that he is joining the editorial board of the Los Angeles Times, after the owner’s paper said he intended to hire more conservative voices. LA Times owner Dr. Patrick Soon-Shiong earlier this month said he was hoping to balance out the editorial section of his newspaper by hiring more Republicans, and floated Jennings as one of the voices he wanted to bring on board. Soon-Shiong previously noted that the editorial boards of newspapers are responsible for what stories are assigned, which can be skewed based on the editor’s personal biases. Jennings praised Soon-Siong for his “important and groundbreaking” mission in returning neutrality and balance to the iconic newspaper, and said he has contributed to the paper over the past few years.

“I’ve written columns for the paper over the last few years and was honored to do so under such a storied and important masthead,” Jennings posted on X. “I love newspapers and believe in strong journalism and strong opinion pages that represent a wide array of views. I approach my commentary jobs by starting with the truth and then providing my honest opinion based on my conservative values and experience.” Jennings was a standout during this election cycle as a paid contributor on the CNN cable news network, frequently the lone conservative among more liberal counterparts in spirited panel discussions on politics. Jennings said that the shakeup at the newspaper, the largest daily in liberal-leaning California, followed management’s decision to withhold an endorsement in the presidential election – a big step in fixing the problems facing legacy media.

“Roughly half (or more) of the country often feels like legacy media doesn’t care what it thinks and has little interest in fairly representing its views and values,” Jennings said. “I plan to represent those Americans who believe they are often ignored or even ridiculed in legacy media and applaud Dr Soon-Shiong’s move to bring balance to the editorial board.” Other news outlets, including the Washington Post, have also tried to bring neutrality and balance back to their publications. Washington Post owner Jeff Bezos highlighted the public’s distrust in the news media in an op-ed last month. “Now more than ever the world needs a credible, trusted, independent voice, and where better for that voice to originate than the capital city of the most important country in the world?” Bezos wrote. “To win this fight, we will have to exercise new muscles. Some changes will be a return to the past, and some will be new inventions … None of this will be easy, but it will be worth it.”

BREAKING: Los Angeles Times reportedly adding pro-Trump voice Scott Jennings to its editorial board. pic.twitter.com/T9X7HmEa7m

— Benny Johnson (@bennyjohnson) November 29, 2024

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When’s the revolt?

• Mass Desertions Crippling Ukrainian Army – AP (RT)

Mass desertion is “starving” the Ukrainian Army and “crippling” Kiev’s battleplans, as troops flee in their tens of thousands, the Associated Press reported on Friday, citing two soldiers who went AWOL, as well as lawyers and a dozen officials, most of whom spoke on condition of anonymity. “We have already squeezed the maximum out of our people,” an officer with the 72nd Brigade told the American news agency, explaining why the problem became so acute. The Prosecutor General’s office lists more than 100,000 soldiers who have been charged over desertion, nearly half of whom quit this year alone, but the actual number is likely significantly higher, AP said. It may be as high as 200,000, one MP told the agency. In some cases, entire units have fled their frontline positions, it was told.

“If there’s no end term [to military service], it turns into a prison – it becomes psychologically hard to find reasons to defend this country,” said one of the deserters, who was named by AP. He was charged shortly after being interviewed. Earlier this year, Kiev adopted sweeping military service reform, hoping it would bolster the rate of mandatory conscription. The US is now reportedly pushing the Ukrainian government to lower the minimum draft age to 18, down from 25. Conscription is being brutally enforced by officers and their civilian helpers. One such official said handling his targets is like “dealing with a cornered rat,” The Telegraph newspaper reported earlier this week. Ukrainian leader Vladimir Zelensky signed a bill into law this week, which waives criminal responsibility for first-time deserters if they volunteer to go back and fight.

In July 2023, Russian President Vladimir Putin warned that a shortage of manpower was the biggest problem facing the Ukrainian military, after a failed “counteroffensive” conducted against Russia earlier that year. “Ukrainian units have suffered huge losses in their suicidal attacks. Tens of thousands of casualties,” he said during a Russian Security Council meeting. “Despite constant raids, the never-ending waves of total mobilization in Ukrainian cities and villages, the current regime is finding that sending reinforcements to the front line becomes increasingly difficult,” he added. “The country’s mobilization reserve is being depleted.” Zelensky has been consistently blaming a shortage of Western-donated weapons for Ukrainian setbacks on the battlefield. Meanwhile Russian officials have accused him of waging a war “to the last Ukrainian” on behalf of the US.

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“As far as the production of relevant missile systems and relevant equipment is concerned, Russia has 10 times more of them than the combined output of all NATO countries..”

• Russia and China Are Rewiring Greek Mythology (Pepe Escobar)

Oh, the wonders chips from dishwashers are able to unleash. How come Zeus, King of the Gods, could not have foreseen it? Especially when his divine intuition was aware that in the future his thunderbolts would be replicated in Russia via Oreshnik – a seemingly harmless hazelnut tree. Mythology prefigures post-everything reality. Now let’s go back to Newton for a bit. Based on his formulas, a one meter long uranium projectile flying at very high speed is capable of perforating 6 meters of hard rock (to the sound of Deep Purple’s Highway Star?) A warhead traveling at 1,200 meters per second is capable of perforating 46 meters of concrete. Now imagine impact velocity greater than the speed of sound; the impact depth, of course, is exponentially fiercer. Impact shock, at very high velocity, turns whatever is ahead into gas. A – kinetic – shock wave pops up as deep as 50 meters, swarming the deep underground and crushing, destroying – actually imploding – everything in its wake.

That’s what happened deep underground at the Yuzhmash plant in Dnepropetrovsk – as Oreshnik was conceived by improving these physical principles. And Russia only used blanks for this first Oreshnik test – instead of warheads. Satisfaction guaranteed or your money back. Now cut to Russia and Kazakhstan’s Presidents Vladimir Putin and Kassym-Jomart Tokayev deepening their strategic partnership face to face in Astana – including a renewed drive for strengthening cooperation within the CSTO. Additionally, Kazakhstan was officially invited to become a BRICS partner. Putin answered quite a few press questions on Oreshnik and the wider NATO proxy war. But arguably what was most intriguing was his speech at a restricted attendance meeting of the CSTO Collective Security Council. Some of it deserves to be quoted at length – not least because of the President quipping about “customer satisfaction”:

“The Russian Iskander missile system and its modifications represent the Russian analogue of all three ATACMS missile modifications. The warhead weight in TNT equivalent is about the same, but Iskander has a longer range. The new U.S.-made PrSM missile is not superior to its Russian counterparts in any specification. The Storm Shadow air-launched missile, the French SCALP, and the German Taurus have a warhead weighing between 450 and 480 kilogrammes in TNT equivalent and a range of 500 to 650 kilometres. The German Taurus missile has a 650- kilometre range. The Kh-101 air-launched missile is the Russian analogue of these systems which is comparable in terms of power warhead, but significantly exceeds each of the European-made systems in terms of range. The new U.S.-made PrSM missiles, as I mentioned earlier, as well as the JASSM, are inferior to their Russian counterparts in terms of technical specifications.

“Without a doubt, we are aware of the number of the relevant weapons systems that are in service of our potential adversaries. We know how many of them are kept in storage facilities. We know their exact location, how many weapons have been supplied to Ukraine, and how many more are planned to be supplied. As far as the production of relevant missile systems and relevant equipment is concerned, Russia has 10 times more of them than the combined output of all NATO countries. Next year, we will increase the production by another 25 to 30 percent. We can see that the Kiev regime ringleaders are begging their masters for military equipment of a different kind. Let no one forget about the Kalibr, Kinzhal and Zirkon hypersonic missile systems, which are unmatched around the world in terms of their technical specifications. Their production is also being ramped up and is going at full speed. More such products may show up shortly on our menu of the products of this class, if I may put it that way. As they say, customer satisfaction is guaranteed.”

Putin compared an Oreshnik strike with the impact from a collision with a meteorite: “We know from history what meteorites fell where, and what the consequences were. Sometimes it was enough to form entire lakes.” Even as he stressed that “publicity is inappropriate when dealing with new weapons”. That was exactly the case with Oreshnik: “We waited until the moment when we conducted the test and, in fact, saw a result. And then we made an announcement.” That sets the context for what Mikhail Kovalchuk, the actual creator of these seemingly innocent hazelnuts, the post-everything replica of the thunderbolts of Zeus, told Izvestia on the sidelines of the IV Congress of Young Scientists in the federal territory of Sirius. Kovalchuk is the president of the Kurchatov Institute National Research Center. Essentially, he remarked how “the materials that Russia has that can withstand ultra-high temperatures made it possible to create the Oreshnik system and will make it possible to create other types of hypersonic weapons.”

The whole planet may be asking how did Russia manage to overtake everyone else: “Because we are one of the five world leaders (…) We have created hypersonic weapons in a short period of time. And these are materials that used to work at 1,500 degrees, then at 1,800, and these at 2,000, and we did it, while others did not.” And there’s more: Kovalchuk said, “other materials that can withstand high temperatures will make it possible to create even more advanced weapons. The next step should be materials that can withstand 2,500-3,000 degrees.” That would make possible, for instance, missiles flying at very low altitudes at Mach 15 or even Mach 20 creating even more utterly devastating impact – including plasma shock – than the already tested Oreshnik. Putin, for his part, also said – almost casually – that the Ministry of Defense is currently “picking targets” for more strikes by Oreshnik, including Ukrainian “decision making centers”, industrial production sites and military facilities. Is NATO listening? Obviously not.

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“X has been elected as the preferred political communication space, becoming the common square in which to share and find information, but also a laboratory for sociological analysis of political mutations.”

• Elon, Are You Musk or Mask? (Pacini)

Let’s not focus on cars, which are a small percentage of Musk’s industries: what is of interest is technological research, which is also favoured by the saturation of market sectors. We have also seen examples of this in the SMO in the Ukraine, when photos and videos of the Tesla Tank Cybertruck used in conflict zones surfaced, and even Ramzan Kadyrov, the leader of Chechnya, has his own, apparently remotely disabled from Tesla HQ. There are strategic geometries that are redefined through the cover of a well-fed collective imagination. It sometimes happens that the most precious and delicate things are hidden… by putting them out in the open for all to see, but no one notices. Musk’s transhumanist aims are neither a secret nor new. He is the man who made brain chips, human-machine connections, humanoid robots, etc. ‘pop’. If previously these topics were for a few insiders or enthusiasts, with Musk they have become a media product to be consumed.

On 30 January 2024, Musk announced the first Neuralink brain implant on a human being. The American billionaire then added another post, writing: ‘Neuralink’s first product is called TELEPATIA. It will allow you to control your phone or computer and, through them, almost any device, simply by thinking. The initial users will be those who have lost the use of their limbs. Imagine if Stephen Hawking could communicate faster than a typist. That is the goal’. The next step is to make these chips communicate with artificial intelligence. And here we are in the era of transhumanism. As Stephen Hawking himself wrote, ‘Artificial intelligence could develop a will of its own. And it will be extremely good at achieving its goals. If these are not aligned with ours, we will be in trouble. You’re probably not an ant-hater who stomps on these insects out of malice, but if you’re in charge of a hydroelectric project and there’s an ant hill in the region that you have to flood, it’s going to end badly for the ants.

Let’s try not to put humanity in the position of ants. AI could either be the best thing that ever happened to humanity, or the worst. Far from demonising AI tout court, what is interesting to understand is the broad scope of this type of research and its political as well as strategic effect. Projects like this completely redefine the criteria of democracy, of political participation of free will, of the definition of being human or not. You don’t put a man like Musk in government by pure chance. Beyond the ‘pro-life’ electoral proclamations, so to speak, made by Trump, one has to wonder what a man who is pro-life is doing inside the entourage of the new American president. They will get over it, or not, the ‘right-wing’ voters from the Catholic world, especially on the East Coast, who have faced numerous battles on bioethics and bio-law, not only on the issues of gender, abortion and euthanasia, but also on experimental medical research, of which Musk is a passionate philanthropist.

It is probable to believe that the research carried out by his laboratories will not stop in the face of some protest. Michael Foucault’s Lectures on Biopolitics come to mind, when in the Paris years he predicted that the introduction of total control over the living body would not necessarily take place by force, but would pass through the subtle ploy of gradual approval by citizens, who would come to legitimise and even justify any ethical violation, without realising it, in the name of ‘science’. Let’s face it: Trump, with business, has a way with it.

Getting Musk on the electoral victory bandwagon was a real businessman’s move. In one fell swoop, and probably with an agreement that had already been made beforehand, Trump has guaranteed himself control of a good slice of strategic sectors that are undergoing a strong development phase. Especially when it comes to the domains of cyberspace and outer space, Musk is an undisputed leader. And, as such, in September 2023 he transferred part of the control of Starlink to the Pentagon, a move that became crucial for the success of some of the attacks by Ukraine in the Donbass during the SMO. The same Musk who a few months earlier, in early 2023, had offered himself as a mediator for the conflict, even inviting the Pentagon to foot the bill for the satellite internet terminals he had donated to Kiev.

Musk is the man who has taken social networking to a more refined level of hybrid warfare, surpassing Mark Zuckerberg in style and numbers. The purchase of Twitter, renamed X, worth a whopping $45 billion, became a so-called ‘free’ social network, changing the rules of the community, with less censorship of content. This aspect proved to be a winning move. X has been elected as the preferred political communication space, becoming the common square in which to share and find information, but also a laboratory for sociological analysis of political mutations.

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“These charlatan leaders are shameless in their Russophobia and surrogacy for U.S.-led Western imperialism – even to the point of killing their own people..”

• European Elites Are Destroying Europe – Again (SCF)

Instead of pushing for a diplomatic solution to the worst conflict on the European continent since World War Two, European political elites are slavishly going along with Washington’s criminal proxy war against Russia, which is in danger of spiraling into a nuclear Armageddon. This week the buffoonish former British Prime Minister Boris Johnson openly admitted that the conflict in Ukraine was a proxy war against Russia. But that didn’t give Johnson pause for thought or shame. He urged the Europeans to send more weapons to Ukraine. Nor did his crass candidness elicit any outcry or condemnation. Johnson, the imbecile, was, in effect, confirming what Russia has been warning is the essence of the conflict in Ukraine – a U.S.-led war using Ukrainian cannon fodder.

Then, we had the chief of Britain’s intelligence agency MI6, “Sir” Richard Moore, holding forth to an audience in Paris that Russia’s Putin was causing “staggeringly reckless sabotage” across Europe. The British spymaster claimed that Russia was threatening the continent with nuclear weapons to weaken NATO support for Ukraine. He omitted the glaring fact that the U.S., Britain, and France have dramatically escalated the conflict by supplying a NeoNazi regime in Ukraine with long-range missiles to strike Russia. Meanwhile, the governments in Germany and Nordic countries are issuing dire public warnings for people to “get ready for war” by building bomb shelters in their homes and stocking up on non-perishable foods. You could hardly make this insanity up except in the dystopian novels of George Orwell. The continent is being led by the nose to disaster by politicians and corporate-controlled media who have lost their minds.

They long ago lost any self-respect or independence and are simply acting as the most pathetic surrogates for U.S.-led imperialism. Even without the ultimate catastrophe of war, Europe has been brought to ruination by elitist politicians who have unquestioningly followed the American agenda of trying to strategically defeat Russia through a proxy war. Central to this U.S. strategic objective is vanquishing decades of mutually beneficial energy trade between Europe and Russia. The sanctions imposed on the Nord Stream gas pipelines by Trump during his first administration, followed by the blowing up of the pipes by the Biden administration in September 2022, are testimony to that bigger picture. None of the European governments or their news media properly investigated that huge crime of state-sponsored terrorism. The proxy war and sanctions on Russian energy that the European leaders happily went along with have caused the European economies to implode.

Critical commentators talk about the deindustrialization of Europe. Even the Financial Times, in a recent in-depth report on Germany’s “broken economy”, sounded aghast at “the most pronounced downturn in Germany’s postwar history.” The report surveys auto, chemical and engineering sectors crucial to the German economy and cites “high energy costs” as the detrimental factor. However, the Western media, even in supposed “in-depth reports” like the Financial Times, are careful not to spell out the obvious cause of Europe’s economic collapse: the U.S.-led proxy war in Ukraine and the consequent damage in Europe’s relations with Russia. Media reports deplore a “jobs massacre” in Germany’s industrial giants like Volkswagen and Thyssenkrupp without explaining the cause as if the calamity is somehow random misfortune. As if that is not bad enough, the incoming Trump administration is lining up heavy tariffs on exports from Europe as well as China, Canada, and Mexico. That will be a coup de grâce for the European economies delivered by its American ally.

Europe is in this appalling predicament – facing economic ruin amid a potential military conflagration – all because it has been misled by people like Ursula von der Leyen, Josep Borrell, France’s Macron, Germany’s Scholz (and Angela Merkel before him), and Netherlands former premier Mark Rutte, who is now the gung-ho head of NATO calling for more European weapons to Ukraine. Many others can be named from the Nordic countries, Poland, and the Baltic states. Rather fittingly, the European elitist political class has a long and vile history of Russophobia, going back to collaboration with Nazi Germany in its genocidal aggression against the Soviet Union. The tragedy of Europe is not something mysterious or ill-fated. It is the direct result of elitist rulers who have assiduously conducted policies that harm European citizens. These charlatan leaders are shameless in their Russophobia and surrogacy for U.S.-led Western imperialism – even to the point of killing their own people through economic devastation or worse – world war.

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Not sure urban planning is the main issue. Being overrun is.

• ‘I Won’t Claim That Milan Is A Safe City’ – Mayor (RMX)

Italian Interior Minister Matteo Piantedosi has announced the deployment of 600 additional police officers to Milan, citing concerns over integration challenges and rising crime rates, particularly in areas with significant immigrant populations. The announcement follows recent unrest in the Corvetto district, where a 19-year-old Egyptian resident, Ramy Elgaml, died in a road accident after a police chase, sparking mass protests by the considerable immigrant population. During a meeting on security with Milan’s prefect Claudio Sgaraglia and Police Chief Vittorio Pisani, Piantedosi confirmed that the reinforcements, planned before the Corvetto unrest, will enhance territorial control and improve public safety.

He offered damning statistics on the disproportionate involvement immigrants have in committing crime, noting that 65 percent of all offenses in the city are committed by foreign nationals despite representing 20 percent of all residents. “These figures highlight integration challenges that must be addressed to reduce marginalization and its consequences,” Piantedosi stated. He denied comparisons to the recent Parisian suburban riots, calling them “very exaggerated,” but acknowledged that the Corvetto unrest signals issues requiring attention. The Italian minister criticized the reliance on issuing residence permits as a solution to integration issues, pointing out the need for more comprehensive measures. He highlighted efforts already underway, noting over 40 high-impact operations and 162 arrests in Corvetto this year, but accepted that much more needed to be done.

“The second-most important city in Italy after Rome deserves all the attention it can get,” he added. Milan’s left-wing mayor Beppe Sala echoed the need for investments in public housing and community centers to foster integration and accepted that the Italian city can no longer be considered a safe place to live. “I won’t claim Milan is a safe city, but it is making an effort to address challenges faced by all international cities,” he said. Sala claimed that migrant crime was a result of shortcomings in creating spaces for young immigrants to engage positively within their communities, linking the lack of such centers to increased alienation in the suburbs.

With over 60,000 public housing units out of Milan’s 800,000 apartments, Sala described the distribution as “disproportionate,” emphasizing the importance of equitable urban planning. Italy’s Deputy Prime Minister Matteo Salvini, whose League party first made its name in the northern Italian city and the surrounding area, remarked on the meeting in a post on X. “Minister Piantedosi’s data are crystal clear. Yet for the left, it is a non-problem, they seek justifications to the point of falsifying reality,” he wrote. “Woe to anyone who criticizes the dogma of indiscriminate reception at all costs, woe to anyone who criticizes environments in which foreign crime thrives in our cities, woe to anyone who wants to harshly apply the law to intervene in an increasingly unsustainable situation,” he quipped.

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Rogan has put the media world upside down. He has become the topic that they talk about. Last week it was RT, now the New York Post and Just the News, both on the same day.

• Joe Rogan: ‘Greatest Media Psy-Op In History’ Was Waged Against Trump (NYP)

Joe Rogan argued that the establishment media that once was friendly to President-elect Donald Trump has since been engaged in a years-long “psy-op” to convince Americans he is dangerous. “The Joe Rogan Experience” is one of the world’s most popular podcasts, and Rogan is seen as having been one of the key players in the 2024 election, for interviewing Trump and then endorsing his bid for the presidency in the 11th hour. The podcaster has since mocked the media for losing their credibility with voters and alienating lifelong liberals like himself. On Thursday’s episode, with comedians Shane Gillis, Mark Normand, and Ari Shaffir, Rogan recalled how friendly people in entertainment and the media once were to Trump, playing clips from his 2012 appearance on “The View” where he was cheered, as well as when he went on Oprah in and she asked him about running for president.

Since then, “The View” has become a frequent source for apocalyptic takes about Trump, and Oprah shredded him while campaigning with Vice President Kamala Harris. Rogan argued that the abrupt shift in tone toward Trump has been shocking in retrospect, “What we saw is the greatest media psy-op in history.” The podcast host continued to hammer legacy media. “What you’re seeing with Trump, regardless of his flaws, is a massive concentrated psy-op,” Rogan said. “They’ve distorted who he is to the point where most people think that way. Most people think that way. They’ve had narratives.” “What is a psy-op? I keep hearing that,” Normand said.

“Psychological operation,” Rogan explained. “Where they’ve decided to distort people’s perceptions of things.” Shaffir replied that older liberals are shocked to hear that former President Obama oversaw more deportations than Trump. “They go, ‘That doesn’t make sense.’ And you go, ‘Right, focus on what’s giving you the reality of the world,’” he said. Rogan then turned to his producer, Jamie, and asked him to show a “wild” quote from former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton from 2008 where she was “saying some wild MAGA-type s—” about “illegal immigrants.” Clinton could be heard in the recording declaring, “I think we got to have tough conditions. Tell people to come out of the shadows. If they’ve committed a crime, deport them, no questions asked.” “She’s a Republican,” Shaffir joked.

In the recording, Clinton continued, “If they’ve been working and are law-abiding, we should say, ‘Here are the conditions for you staying. You have to pay a stiff fine because you came here illegally. You have to pay back taxes and you have to try to learn English. And you have to wait in line.’” The guests expressed their shock at Clinton’s past comments. “’You have to wait in line,’ And everybody’s cheering,” Rogan said. “2008. Hillary Clinton was more MAGA than Trump. But how about that? More MAGA than Trump. It’s all a f—ing illusion. It’s all a f—ing illusion. All of them, when convenient, have said the exact same things.” Rogan argued that this election shows that the tide has turned, however. “They had control of the media up until now. This election was the first time they didn’t really have control of the media anymore,” Rogan argued. When asked why this is, the podcaster replied, “Because of us, because of podcasts. Because of social media, because of X.”

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Fenbendazole
https://twitter.com/i/status/1862727748189401143

Urso

Dr. Richard Urso shares some truth bombs about COVID-19, vaccines, lockdowns, masks…
"Everything was a lie from the beginning. The asymptomatic people don't transmit. Kids were not harbingers of the disease. They don't actually, they're like a break on the disease. Lockdowns… pic.twitter.com/kLFyQEjY2F

— Camus (@newstart_2024) November 30, 2024

Vaccine
https://twitter.com/i/status/1862616283738501504

Lynx

The way this lynx decides to jump across once it hears the ice cracking.. pic.twitter.com/Els82vmq9F

— Buitengebieden (@buitengebieden) November 30, 2024

Dive

pic.twitter.com/Fw5luJUP5Y

— Brutal Nature (@BrutaINature1) November 30, 2024

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