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Debt Rattle November 16 2024

Nov 162024
 
 November 16, 2024  Posted by at 9:55 am Finance Tagged with: , , , , , , , , , ,  48 Responses »


Arnold Böcklin The Isle of Life 1888

 

• This Time Trump Really Means Business (Lukyanov)
• Your Trump Investment Guide (James Rickards)
• The Great ‘Splainin’ Cometh (James Howard Kunstler)
• Democratic Senators Demand Musk Be Probed For Russia Ties (RT)
• There Are No “Easy Wars” Left To Fight (Alastair Crooke)
• RFK Jr. vs. Big Pharma Goliath: Drug Makers, Big Food and the FDA (Sp.)
• Has Matt Gaetz Been Set-up for Eviction from Public Life? (Paul Craig Roberts)
• Tulsi Gabbard Right Pick to Shake-Up US Spy Agencies – Giraldi (Sp.)
• Tulsi and the Establishment Meltdown (Tom Woods)
• Trump Makes Brilliant Choice for the Next White House Counsel (Turley)
• X Sees Return Of Major Advertisers Under Fire From FCC (ZH)
• Germany’s AfD Urges UN to Investigate Nord Stream (Sp.)
• Trump’s Win Means End Of Zelensky – Ukrainian MP (RT)
• No Use Blaming Britain For Kiev’s War Policy – Ukrainian MP (RT)
• Laboratory Head Given Licence To Lie In Novichok Show Trial (Helmer)
• How Did A Puritanical Nation End Up Idolizing Transvestites? (Frascolla)

 

 

Wow.

 

 

Avengers

Blanche

Alina

Tuberville

Target
https://twitter.com/i/status/1857136364531429859

Vivek

Watters

Lara Logan start 5:00min

 

 

 

 

 

 

Perhaps fitting that the best(?!) overview comes from Russia.

• This Time Trump Really Means Business (Lukyanov)

US President-elect Donald Trump has moved quickly to form his proposed new administration. His team is better prepared to take power than it was in 2016 – when neither the candidate himself nor the vast majority of his supporters believed he could win. It’s too early to draw far-reaching conclusions, but in general, the composition of the preferred government reflects the ideological and political coalition that has gathered around the president-elect. From the outside, it may look motley, but so far it is all in line with Trump’s views. Contrary to the perception actively propagated by Trump’s opponents, he is not an unpredictable and inconsistent eccentric. More precisely, we should separate his character and mannerisms, which are flighty, from his overall worldview. The latter has not changed, not only in the years since Trump entered big politics, but more generally in his public life since the 1980s.

It suffices to look through the old interviews of the famed tycoon to see this: ‘Communism (in the broadest sense) is evil’, ‘the allies must pay up’, ‘the American leadership does not know how to make favorable deals but I do’, and so on. Trump’s personal qualities are important. But more importantly, in a somewhat cartoonish way, he embodies a set of classic Republican notions. America is at the center of the universe. However, not as a hegemon that rules everything, but simply as the best and most powerful country. It must be the strongest, including (or especially) militarily, in order to advance its interests wherever and whenever it needs to. Essentially, there is no need for Washington to get directly involved in world affairs at all. Profit is an absolute imperative for the future president (he is a businessman), and this does not contradict conservative ideals. America is a country built on the spirit of enterprise.

Hence his rejection of over-regulation and his general suspicion of the extensive powers of the bureaucracy. In this, Trump joins forces with the equally flamboyant libertarian Elon Musk, who promises to rid the state of a hodgepodge of bureaucrats. Musk himself is unlikely to be hanging around the president’s office for long, but politicians who think along these lines are likely to be there. An important difference between the new Trump cohort and traditional Republicans is a significantly lower degree of ideologization of politics in general and international politics in particular. Domestically, the rejection of an aggressive agenda in the spirit of the Woke movement and the imposition of the cult of minorities (which the Republicans call ‘Marxism’ and ‘communism’) plays an important role. It’s about imposition, because the human right to any lifestyle is not in itself questioned by conservatives.

For example, key figures around Trump – ardent supporter and former ambassador to Germany Ric Grenell and billionaire Peter Thiel – are married to men. In foreign policy, the conceptual difference is that Trump and his entourage do not believe, as the Biden White House does, that at the core of international relations is the struggle of democracies against autocracies. This does not mean ideological neutrality. The idea of the ‘free world’ and criticism of ‘communism’ (in which they include China, Cuba, Venezuela, and by inertia, Russia) plays an important role in the thinking of many Republicans. But the defining factor is something else – intolerance of those who for various reasons do not accept American supremacy.

Trump’s choice for national security adviser, Michael Waltz, for example, speaks negatively and disparagingly of Russia, but not in terms of a need to be ‘re-educated’, but because it interferes with America. Marco Rubio, who is being considered for secretary of state, does not oppose regime change in his ancestral homeland of Cuba, but is otherwise not a militant supporter of American intervention anywhere. The undoubted priority of the Trumpists and those who have joined them is to support Israel and confront its opponents, first and foremost Iran. Last year, Elise Stefanik, the likely US ambassador to the UN, publicly shamed the presidents of leading American universities in Congress for alleged anti-Semitism. It is worth remembering that the only really effective use of force in Trump’s first term was the assassination of General Qassem Soleimani, the head of the special forces of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps.

Trump is not a warrior. Threats, pressure, violent demonstrations – yes. A large-scale armed campaign and mass bloodshed – why? Perhaps because of the peculiarities of relations with China, which is clearly seen as the number one rival. Not in a military sense, but rather in the political and economic sphere, so any ‘war’ with it (forcing it to accept terms favorable to America) should be cold and ruthless. This also applies in part to Russia, though the situation is very different. All of this is neither good nor bad for Moscow. Or to put it another way, it’s both good and bad. But the main thing is that it is not the way it has been up to now.

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How far will Trump go in implementing The American System?

• Your Trump Investment Guide (James Rickards)

Now that Trump is on his way to the White House as the 47th president, it’s not too soon to start building a portfolio that will outperform the stock market in the early years of the new Trump administration. This kind of active asset allocation requires close attention to prospective policy details and their possible impact on specific business models. Not all stocks will perform well under the new administration. Some will perform brilliantly. Let’s first review the likely Trump policies and then consider their impact on certain stocks and sectors. The Revival of the American System. Under the guidance of Trump advisors Robert Lighthizer (former U.S. Trade Representative) and Peter Navarro (former Director of the Office of Trade and Manufacturing Policy), Trump will pursue a twenty-first-century version of what was originally known as the American System.

The American System was invented in 1790 by Alexander Hamilton and supported by a succession of U.S. presidents and leading political figures including George Washington, Henry Clay, John Quincy Adams, Abraham Lincoln, William McKinley, Calvin Coolidge, and Dwight Eisenhower. There were opponents who favored agrarian interests over manufacturing interests, including early members of what later became the Democratic Party such as Thomas Jefferson, James Madison and James Monroe. Yet, their financial failures, including the liquidation of the First Bank of the United States (an early central bank with limited powers) and difficulties in financing the War of 1812 led to the success of the mercantilist and manufacturing programs of the American System leaders.

The American System relied on the following policies:
• High tariffs to support manufacturing and high-paying jobs
• Infrastructure investment (public and private) to support productivity
• A strong army and navy to protect the U.S. but not to fight foreign wars
• A central bank with limited powers to provide liquidity to commerce

To the extent there was government spending, it was for productive projects such as canal and road building and later to support railroads. To the extent that early central banks existed, they were for secure lending to sound entities (including the U.S. government) and not for purposes such as printing money, fixing interest rates or “stimulus.” The entire program could be summarized as sound money, smart investment and a strong military in the service of high-paying American jobs. The American System prevailed from 1790 to 1962 with occasional periods of agrarian ascendency and some disruptions such as the Civil War. Beginning after World War I, the neo-liberal movement of Austrian economists and libertarians began to promote globalist policies of open borders, open capital accounts, and free trade. Of course, free trade is a myth because of subsidies and non-tariff barriers. Comparative advantage is obsolete because the factors of production are highly mobile.

Taiwan had no comparative advantage in semiconductors in 1979, but today they dominate global production. They made that happen through a Taiwanese version of the American System. In contrast, the neo-liberals were living an ideological fantasy in which globalism was to displace sovereignty. At a minimum, their goal was the encasement of sovereigns in a larger orb of multilateral institutions such as the IMF, World Bank, WTO and the United Nations. Beginning with the Trade Expansion Act of 1962, the Trade Act of 1974, and successive rounds under the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (today the WTO), the U.S. embraced the neo-liberal consensus including drastic tariff cuts. As jobs moved offshore to take advantage of cheap labor, capital followed as direct foreign investment.

The result was the hollowing-out of U.S. manufacturing, wage stagnation, slower growth, greater debt, and a succession of failed wars. The open border policy of Biden-Harris is consistent with neo-liberal views on the end of sovereignty but is a death knell for American jobs and social cohesion. Trump, Lighthizer, Navarro, and others will return the United States to the pre-1962 glory days with the revival of the American System. Foreign companies will be free to sell goods to Americans but only if they are manufactured in the U.S. This will lead to a wave of inbound investment in the U.S., a reduction in U.S. trade deficits, a stronger dollar (as the world demands dollars to invest here), and higher wages for U.S. workers. Higher wages will raise real incomes, stimulate consumption, decrease income inequality and expand the tax base to help reduce deficits without raising tax rates.

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“The meltdown has gotten so heavy liberal bureaucrats are ready to form antigovernment militias and fretting about black helicopters” – Max Blumenthal

• The Great ‘Splainin’ Cometh (James Howard Kunstler)

In July 27, 1794, the non-insane members of the Convention, or national legislative body in Paris, suddenly turned on the rabid Jacobin leader Maximillian Robespierre and overthrew his ruling tyrannical bunch — who had killed 40,000 of their fellow countrymen in the paranoid orgy known as The Reign of Terror. The next day, Robespierre rode the tumbrel to his own appointment with “the national razor” and the Thermidorian Reaction was on! By the way, in one of their many acts disordering French society, the Jacobins had changed the calendar, renamed all the months, and changed the weeks from seven to ten days (to eliminate Sundays as a holy day of rest in their anti-church crusade). Thus, Thermidor, the month of mid-summer. This was but a small part of their proto-communist agenda, but you see in it the flavor of their radical extremism.

The Woke Democrats of recent times were our Jacobins, and the election of November 5, 2024, marks the kick-off of America’s Thermidorian Reaction. The crazies have been overthrown and our country awaits a restoration of norms in culture and law. No more sexualizing of children, no more flood of criminal mutts across the US border, no more furtive censorship of public speech, no more creative lawfare, no more women on the battlefield, no more “anti-racist” racism in the workplace, no more intel takeover of everyone’s private life. . . you get the picture. Many abiding mysteries about how this happened — even of what exactly did happen — remain to be sorted out by law and by history. That is probably because so much of the Woke Revolution was provoked by state-of-the-art mind-fuckery out of the giant intel blob’s psy-ops lab.

This blob, you understand, had grown to be a colossal racketeering operation with many branches and ever-spreading roots, and it cast its spells over the populace to protect these interests — which, of course, involved huge revenue streams. Perhaps its most potent spell was the manipulation of women’s emotion, harnessing female psychodrama as the propellant for mass social discord. In a nation of absent fathers, damaged children, and broken male-female relations, Donald Trump was painted as the ultimate archetypal tyrant Daddy figure to deflect the public’s attention from the actual tyranny growing under the US intel blob and its Globalist sidekicks. Case in point: RussiaGate, a long-running hysteria of fabricated accusations, a fabulous medley of scurrilous gossip, engineered at the highest levels of our government for the express purpose of wrecking Mr. Trump’s first term in office. “Witch hunt” was exactly the right term.

Many more psychodramas followed, all of them artificially cooked up by various branches of the blob: impeachments #1 and #2; the FBI-induced J-6 riot and the fake House J-6 inquiry that followed; the roll-out of DOJ-inspired fake criminal and civil cases that tied-up Mr. Trump in courtrooms through the year, and most especially the hostile news media’s presentation of all these things as one great big everlasting frenzy of on-screen women shrieking at the Daddy-figure, Donald Trump, like thirteen-year-old girls in fugues of hormonal disruption. The voters, subject to years of trips laid on them, were eventually able to see through all this induced psychodrama as to how they were being manipulated, and on November 5, they finally revolted.

Their quandary was probably epitomized by the absurdity of watching men in women’s sports — spiking volleyballs on the girls’ heads, bashing them on the lacrosse field, humiliating them in the swim lanes — and, more to the point, being helpless to do anything about it, because the officials in-charge under “Joe Biden” said it must be, no matter what you think and feel about what you are seeing. The New York Times, your field-guide to blob-think, is warning its dwindling readership of psychodrama addicts that Donald Trump will now take out his “grievances” on the noble, self-sacrificing bureaucracy that manages things so well in this land. As usual, The Times misleads and misinforms. These are the grievances of the nation that has seen its law and its culture twisted into new orders of wickedness that leave daily life in the USA perverted, dishonored, and grotesquefied.

So now Mr. Trump has picked a cabinet that scares the blob to death — for good reason. They are aiming to systematically disarm and disassemble the blob. They are a team of serious and intelligent warriors and they mean business, in particular Gaetz, Gabbard, Kennedy, Ratcliffe, and Homan, with Elon and Vivek riding shotgun. (A new FBI Director has not yet been named.) You must wonder how the blob is planning to defend itself, for it surely will resist.

Many of us believe that the two recent assassination attempts against the now-President-elect were blob-sponsored operations. Everybody expects they’ll try again. But it’s possible that the American system still has enough mojo to self-correct. A whole lot of public officials have a whole lot of ‘splainin’ to do. It looks like they will be compelled to now, including the public health officers who brought us Covid-19 and the mandated, ineffective-and-harmful mRNA vaccines. There’s every reason to believe that the ‘splainin’ can take place in correct proceedings according to law: hearings, grand juries, courts. We do have actual laws against racketeering, abuse of power, election fraud, bribery, malicious prosecution, sedition, treason, and conspiracy to commit all those crimes. Pay attention: all that is distinct from lawfare, which is making-up crimes, faking crimes, and faking procedure. You are going to see a demonstration of how law differs from lawfare. It ought to have a salutary effect on our national esprit. And that should motivate us to get on with the job of repairing the damage done to our country.

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Seamlessly switching from Trump to Musk.

• Democratic Senators Demand Musk Be Probed For Russia Ties (RT)

SpaceX CEO Elon Musk should be investigated over media claims that he communicated with several senior Russian officials in recent years, two top Democratic senators have demanded in a letter. Jack Reed, the chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, and Jeanne Shaheen, a senior member of the Foreign Relations Committee, raised concerns about the media allegations in a letter to US Attorney General Merrick Garland and Pentagon Inspector General Robert Storch on Friday. In October, at the height of the US presidential election, the Wall Street Journal claimed that Musk had communicated with several top Russian officials, including President Vladimir Putin, as recently as this year.

Musk oversees billions of dollars in US government contracts as CEO of SpaceX. As the tech billionaire claims to hold top secret level security clearance, and manages extremely sensitive government contracts, his potential communication with Russia is a risk, the senators said. “These relationships between a well-known US adversary and Mr. Musk, a beneficiary of billions of dollars in US government funding, pose serious questions regarding Mr. Musk’s reliability as a government contractor and a clearance holder,” they wrote. Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov blasted the pre-election WSJ claims about the billionaire’s alleged phone calls with Putin as “disinformation.” Historically, there was only one call between the two, he said.

“It was before 2022, they spoke over the telephone,” Peskov stated, adding that they discussed Russia’s scientific progress, and likely future developments. “There were no contacts between Musk and Putin after that, and all claims otherwise are false.” The spokesman noted the claims are likely related to the “extremely confrontational electoral political fight” in the US. After his victory in the US presidential race, Donald Trump announced that Musk will head the future Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE). The initiative will aim to cut trillions of dollars in “waste and fraud” in annual US government spending, “dismantle Government Bureaucracy, slash excess regulations, cut wasteful expenditures, and restructure Federal Agencies,” Trump said on Thursday. Musk said his role in DOGE “is going to be a revolution.”

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“The Israeli media term it a ‘dream team’ for Netanyahu. It certainly looks that way.”

• There Are No “Easy Wars” Left To Fight (Alastair Crooke)

Israelis, as a whole, are exhibiting a rosy assurance that they can harness Trump, if not to the full annexation of the Occupied Territories (Trump in his first term did not support such annexation), but rather, to ensnare him into a war on Iran. Many (even most) Israelis are raring for war on Iran and an aggrandisement of their territory (devoid of Arabs). They are believing the puffery that Iran ‘lies naked’, staggeringly vulnerable, before a U.S. and Israeli military strike. Trump’s Team nominations, so far, reveal a foreign policy squad of fierce supporters of Israel and of passionate hostility to Iran. The Israeli media term it a ‘dream team’ for Netanyahu. It certainly looks that way. The Israel Lobby could not have asked for more. They have got it. And with the new CIA chief, they get a known ultra China hawk as a bonus.

But in the domestic sphere the tone is precisely the converse: The key nomination for ‘cleaning the stables’ is Matt Gaetz as Attorney General; he is a real “bomb thrower”. And for the Intelligence clean-up, Tulsi Gabbard is appointed as Director of National Intelligence. All intelligence agencies will report to her, and she will be responsible for the President’s Daily briefing. The intel assessments may thus begin to reflect something closer to reality. The deep Inter-Agency structure has reason to be very afraid; they are panicking – especially over Gaetz. Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy have the near impossible task of cutting out-of-control federal spending and currency printing. The System is deeply dependent on the bloat of government spending to keep the cogs and levers of the mammoth ‘security’ boondoggle whirring. It is not going to be yielded up without a bitter fight.

So, on the one hand, the Lobby gets a dream team (Israel), but on the other side (the domestic sphere), it gets a renegade team. This must be deliberate. Trump knows that Biden’s legacy of bloating GDP with government jobs and excessive public spending is the real ‘time bomb’ awaiting him. Again the withdrawal symptoms, as the drug of easy money is withdrawn, may prove incendiary. Moving to a structure of tariffs and low taxes will be disruptive. Whether deliberate or not, Trump is keeping his cards close to his chest. We have only glimpses of intent – and the water is being seriously muddied by the infamous ‘Inter-Agency’ grandees. For example, in respect to the Pentagon sanctioning private-sector contractors to work in Ukraine, this was done in coordination with “inter-agency stakeholders”.

The old nemesis that paralysed his first term again faces Trump. Then, during the Ukraine impeachment process, one witness (Vindman), when asked why he would not defer to the President’s explicit instructions, replied that whilst Trump has his view on Ukraine policy, that stance did NOT align with that of the ‘Inter-Agency’ agreed position. In plain language, Vindman denied that a U.S. president has agency in foreign policy formulation. In short, the ‘Inter-Agency structure’ was signalling to Trump that military support for Ukraine must continue. When the Washington Post published their detailed story of a Trump-Putin phone call – that the Kremlin emphatically states never happened – the deep structures of policy were simply telling Trump that it would be they who determine what the shape of the U.S. ‘solution’ for Ukraine would be.

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“If you work for the FDA and are part of this corrupt system, I have two messages for you: 1. Preserve your records, and 2. Pack your bags..”

• RFK Jr. vs. Big Pharma Goliath: Drug Makers, Big Food and the FDA (Sp.)

Donald Trump has tapped Robert F. Kennedy Jr. for HHS chief – the top advisor to the president on health-related matters, and chief administrator overseeing the Food and Drug Administration, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the National Institutes of Health, Medicare and Medicaid. Here’s what he can actually do to make real change. Fixing even a fraction of the problems contributing to America’s health crisis could prove daunting, with the nation facing an obesity epidemic (over 70% of American adults are obese or overweight), an addiction scourge (15% use illicit drugs, 20% suffer from alcohol dependency), a prescription drug crisis (66% use at least one prescription medication), contaminated drinking water (a concern for nearly half of the population), skyrocketing autism (which affects one in 36 children, compared to about one per 1,000 in the 1980s), and other serious health-related issues.

Kennedy has recognized the gargantuan scope of the challenge, saying in a recent interview that the US health care system as it’s presently set up means there’s “nothing more profitable” than keeping Americans sick “for life,” with chronic disease a big business he estimates to be worth some $4.3 trln (i.e. about five times the size of the US’s 2024 defense budget). Kennedy has yet to lay out the details of his agenda as potential Trump Health and Human Services Secretary, including for make good on promises to rein in Big Pharma, but has dropped important hints in recent interviews and speeches about:
• negotiating with drug companies on medication costs,
• barring major pharmaceuticals from being able to spend billions of dollars on television advertising, which he has characterized as a disguised form of lobbying and insurance against media criticism,
• ending vaccine mandates, at least for federal agencies and the military, and lobbying to do so at the state level, while preserving Americans’ rights to make an informed choice,
• reforming vaccine research standards. Kennedy has been outspoken in his criticism of former chief presidential medical advisor Anthony Fauci and others at the NIH over US-funded gain of function research thought to have ultimately caused the Covid crisis.

As Secretary of Health and Human Services, Kennedy would also be responsible for America’s food safety regulations, an area of government he has said repeatedly has been captured by big corporations. On this front, Kennedy could:
• encourage municipalities to get rid of fluoride in tap water, citing fluoride’s long-suspected impact IQ levels in children,
• push to ban or at least restrict artificial food coloring, additives and chemicals,
• restrict processed foods in school lunches, and roll back subsidies for corn and soy,
• end perceive FDA overregulation on “stem cells, raw milk, hyperbaric therapies, chelating compounds, ivermectin, hydroxychloroquine, vitamins, clean foods, sunshine, exercise, nutraceuticals and anything else that advances human health and can’t be patented by Pharma,” as he suggested in a recent X post.
• RFK Jr. also wants federally-funded medical schools to focus more on nutrition, and to create a national fitness standard like the one promoted by his uncle – President John F. Kennedy.

Kennedy has promised to take on conflicts of interest between regulators and the entities they’re meant to be regulating – citing money given to the FDA by Big Pharma, and corporate links to health and dietary advisories. The HSS Secretary job requires Senate approval, meaning Kennedy’s selection could become a daunting uphill battle come January, especially if Big Pharma and Big Food use their lobbying muscle to pull strings to block his appointment. Battle lines are already being drawn, with GOP senators promising to give him a shot, calling his selection “a bad day for Big Pharma,” and his candidacy a “brilliant” move by Donald Trump. Senate Democrats have rushed to dub Kennedy a “fringe conspiracy theorist” spouting “outlandish views on basic scientific facts,” over his much-publicized vaccine hesitancy, and argued that his selection “would be nothing short of a disaster.”

Senior officials from agencies Kennedy would be tasked with overseeing also called him out, with Clinton-era HHS chief Donna Shalala saying he’s “totally unqualified” and “dangerous” to America and the world. Former Obama HHS chief Kathleen Sebilius, meanwhile, has expressed hopes that Kennedy would get bogged down in the agency’s bureaucracy. “He has no organizational management experience, and HHS is one of the largest domestic organizations,” she said, highlighting the agency’s 83,000 employee workforce and massive $1.7 trillion budget. Kennedy has expressed readiness to work with the HHS and its subordinate agencies, but warned naysayers in top jobs, including at the FDA, that he will not tolerate efforts to block his initiatives. “If you work for the FDA and are part of this corrupt system, I have two messages for you: 1. Preserve your records, and 2. Pack your bags,” he wrote in a tweet last month.

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“That the Democrats stood down from stealing the presidency in 2024 doesn’t mean they didn’t steal House and Senate seats..”

• Has Matt Gaetz Been Set-up for Eviction from Public Life? (Paul Craig Roberts)

I have had a horrible thought. Of all of Trump’s appointees, Matt Gaetz and Robert Kennedy will be the most difficult to get confirmed. And Gaetz has resigned from the House of Representatives where he is the most effective member against the ruling establishment. Was his appointment as Attorney General a trick to get him out of public life? Robert Kennedy’s appointment was said to be in doubt because he would be hard to confirm, but so would Gaetz. Gaetz’s high profile powerful position scares to death the corrupt Justice (sic) Department, the corrupt FBI, the corrupt Democrats, and the corrupt ruling elites. Perhaps the Senate will let Trump have his appointments without confirmation as recess appointments, so non-confirmation is not an issue.

It is revealing that there were no confirmation worries about Trump’s appointments of his Zionist war cabinet. Some claim that it is not a war cabinet, that Stefanik, Waltz, Rubio, and Hegseth have been cured of their Zionism by Israel’s massacre of Palestinians. Perhaps, but I have not heard a recantation from a single one of the “die-for-Israel” crowd. Certainly, Huckabee, sent by Trump as ambassador to Israel, and Witkoff, sent by Trump as his Special Envoy to the Middle East, will not take exception to Israel’s claim to title to Palestine. So how are they going to bring about any Israeli restraint? Isn’t it curious that Trump didn’t appoint anyone inclined to rein-in Israel?

That the Democrats stood down from stealing the presidency in 2024 doesn’t mean they didn’t steal House and Senate seats. The Republicans barely did well enough to change a thin Democrat Senate majority into a thin Republican majority, and it seems there was little, if any, change in the House. In contrast, when Reagan won in 1980 the Republicans captured 12 Democrat seats in the Senate. It is suspicious that Trump’s convincing win did not carry over into Congress.

Trump is taking Republican members of Congress as appointees into his administration. Republican governors can appoint replacements until the next election, but the appointed replacements might be vulnerable as they were not elected. Matt Gaetz was secure in his base. Will his appointed replacement be as secure? We can be thankful that Trump has appointed some officials who fight for the correct causes. We can keep hoping that Trump will make a difference.

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“It is likely that Trump appointed her to shake up the intel community, which is regarded by many as the black heart of the deep state..”

• Tulsi Gabbard Right Pick to Shake-Up US Spy Agencies – Giraldi (Sp.)

President-elect Donald Trump nominated the former Democratic congresswoman and a 21-year army reserve veteran to oversee the bewildering array of 18 US spy agencies in his incoming administration. “A foreign policy and national security appointment that has created considerable dissent is that of Tulsi Gabbard as Director of National Intelligence [DNI],” Philip Giraldi, a former CIA operations officer with experience in Europe and the Middle East, told Sputnik. The CIA veteran said much of the dissent comes from inside the ‘intelligence community’, including active officers and former staff of organizations like the CIA and NSA. Objections to Gabbard’s nomination have focused on her lack of intelligence experience, claiming she will “be unable to perceive problems among an unruly 18-member intelligence community,” the pundit said.

But Giraldi countered that she was “smart, experienced and capable enough to gather her own staff around her that will guide her way through the shoals of Washington DC.” “To my mind, she is an excellent choice, coming from outside of the intelligence community ‘club,’ and could be an effective and ethical DNI,” he added. The former CIA officer noted that Gabbard is viewed as a “peace candidate” for her opposition to endless overseas wars, the US military occupation of parts of Syria and the demonization of China. But she is also known for her support for Israel, currently waging a war against the Palestinian territory of Gaza. “It is likely that Trump appointed her to shake up the intel community, which is regarded by many as the black heart of the deep state,” Giraldi said. “She will, of course, be both helped and handicapped by being provided with plenty of ‘direction’ by a president who is fundamentally ignorant of foreign policy and national security issues.”

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“If Gaetz gets in, I do believe he will cut the legs out from under the giant lawfare operation that has grown up around his office in recent years..”

• Tulsi and the Establishment Meltdown (Tom Woods)

[..] let me say a quick something about Tulsi Gabbard as Director of National Intelligence and Matt Gaetz as Attorney General. Tulsi is said to be “unqualified” because she doesn’t come from the existing cabal of liars and propagandists who have never told the American public the truth in their lives. Rep. Abigail Spanberger in particular is horrified at the prospect that our intelligence world might not bombard us 24 hours a day with lies that would insult a second grader: “As a former CIA case officer, I saw the men and women of the U.S. intelligence community put their lives on the line every day for this country — and I am appalled at the nomination of Tulsi Gabbard to lead DNI. Not only is she ill-prepared and unqualified, but she traffics [sic] in conspiracy theories and cozies up to dictators like Bashar-al Assad and Vladimir Putin. As a Member of the House Intelligence Committee, I am deeply concerned about what this nomination portends for our national security.”

Rep. Spanberger is a “former CIA case officer,” which means we should favor the opposite of whatever she says. She claims to be concerned about “conspiracy theories,” when it was contractors with her beloved CIA who spun the absurd theory that Russia had come up with the story about Hunter Biden’s laptop (honestly, if you’re going to pretend a foreign power invented a story, make it not as weird and random as “the president’s son had a laptop with stuff on it”). She is deeply worried about someone who “cozies up to dictators” — the CIA would never do that! It just installs them. Here’s what our friend Dave Smith had to say about the present situation:

“A lot of crazy things have happened in this country over the last few years, so you may have forgotten this one minor story from eight years ago: The US intelligence agencies framed the sitting US President for treason. They all knew that Donald Trump wasn’t involved in a conspiracy with the Russians, but they lied. Well, that President is back AND the boss of the Intelligence agencies is now, not only someone completely outside of that conspiracy, but someone who was slandered with that same accusation, by the same nasty woman whose campaign came up with the whole Trump frame job to begin with.”

Interesting times. As for Matt Gaetz, they really don’t like him. John Bolton says Gaetz “must be the worst nomination for a cabinet position in American history.” National Review Online has a predictable article against him. JD Vance snapped back: “The main issue with Matt Gaetz is that he used his office to prosecute his political opponents and authorized federal agents to harass parents who were peacefully protesting at school board meetings. Oh wait, that’s actually Merrick Garland, the current attorney general.” They’re appalled that the attorney general isn’t being chosen from D.C. swampdom, because that’s what they’ve come to expect. But John F. Kennedy didn’t do that, and neither did Ronald Reagan. If Gaetz gets in, I do believe he will cut the legs out from under the giant lawfare operation that has grown up around his office in recent years — and this, rather than genuine concerns about his qualifications (these people care about qualifications all of a sudden?) is what the people screaming about him are actually worried about.

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“Do not let his various degrees fool you. He is neither an egg-headed nor lace-curtained lawyer. He is an intellectual who knows how to scrap..”

• Trump Makes Brilliant Choice for the Next White House Counsel (Turley)

President-elect Donald Trump’s nomination of Matt Gaetz as Attorney General has consumed most of the media attention in the last week. Indeed, it seems to have sucked the oxygen out of this city. The media frenzy over Gaetz and a couple of other nominations has served to brush over an appointment that should be universally praised: William McGinley as the next White House Counsel. I had the pleasure of teaching Bill at George Washington Law School, and he is ideal for this position, particularly at this critical time in our country. Bill was one of my students in first-year torts in the mid-1990s. He was a gifted student who knew early on that he wanted to work along the borderline of law and politics. It is an area where GW has long excelled, and Bill was quickly recognized as one of the rising stars among young Republican lawyers. (Notably, Bill attended my class a couple years after prior Trump counselor Kellyanne Conway).

Bill received a B.A. in history from UCLA and a master’s in history from California State University. During his first summer, when other students were seeking summer internships with firms, Bill clerked for the Republic National Committee (RNC) and delved into the world of law, politics, and policy. Upon his graduation, his rise in the profession can only be described as meteoric. At a young age, he would serve as Deputy General Counsel to the RNC and coordinate the national campaigns for candidates and ballot initiatives. He also served as counsel to the RNC Standing Committee on Rules, the powerful group that establishes the framework for the party and its conventions. Bill ultimately became the General Counsel to the National Republican Senatorial Committee (NRSC) before becoming a partner at some of the most prestigious law firms, including Patton Boggs and Jones Day.

He also remained active as an alumnus at GW Law School, supporting other students in pursuing their careers in Washington, D.C., and other cities. Bill has all the qualities of an ideal White House Counsel. He can offer the President the clarity of judgment and foresight needed in this position, which requires the authority to give needed direction on the best course for achieving goals and unwanted advice when needed. That is the model of past successful White House Counsels, like the late C. Boyden Gray. It requires the trust of a president that, while the advice is sometimes inconvenient, his counsel seeks to facilitate, not frustrate, his legacy.

Bill is a tenacious and seasoned fighter with the “street cred” to be taken seriously by everyone in this city. He also has a deep-seated love for the law and legal education. Trump found a White House counsel who knows this city and how to get things done despite the deep partisan divides. Do not let his various degrees fool you. He is neither an egg-headed nor lace-curtained lawyer. He is an intellectual who knows how to scrap. He is someone who not only has a deep understanding of history but also someone who knows how to make history. Trump picked wisely with Bill McGinley, and I am particularly proud of his success as a leader in our profession.

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“Section 230 only confers benefits on Big Tech companies when they operate, in the words of the statute, “in good faith.”

• X Sees Return Of Major Advertisers Under Fire From FCC (ZH)

While Mark Cuban and other sore losers are leaving X to shout into the void, several major advertisers have returned to the platform. Comcast, IBM, Disney, Warner Brothers, Discovery and Lionsgate Entertainment have all resumed ad spending on the social media giant – albeit this is more of a toe-dip than a full recommitment. According to Adweek, the brands collectively spent less than $3.3 million on X from January to September 2024, a far cry from the $170 million spent during the same period in 2023. Either way, it’s an admission that pulling ad spend over ‘hate speech’ and ‘antisemitism’ was nothing more than a giant virtue signal, particularly considering Facebook and Instagram’s long history of providing a safe forum for child sexual abuse. While a global survey by Kantar of senior marketers across 20 countries found that 26% of them plan to cut spending on X in 2025, the 2024 election may have changed that.

“X’s owner now has the ear of the president-elect, a man who has a long history of helping his friends, and punishing his enemies,” said Max Willens, senior analyst at Emarketer. “Sending at least a trickle of ad spending toward X may be seen as good for business, albeit in an indirect way.” Speaking of the tide turning, the woke cabal of advertisers trying to starve conservative platforms out of a voice is now coming under fire (have we mentioned lately that we really appreciate our premium subscribers?). In a Wednesday letter to Microsoft, Alphabet (Google), Apple, and Meta, FCC Commissioner Brendan Carr accused them of having “participated in a censorship cartel that included not only technology and social media companies but advertising, marketing, and so-called “fact-checking” organizations as well as the Biden-Harris Administration itself.”

“The relevant conduct extended from removing or blocking social media posts to suppress their information and viewpoints, including through efforts to delist them, lower their rankings, or harm their profitability.” Carr then suggested that their protection from liability under Section 230 may be on the line. “As you know, Big Tech’s prized liability shield, Section 230, is codified in the Communications Act, which the FCC administers. As relevant here, Section 230 only confers benefits on Big Tech companies when they operate, in the words of the statute, “in good faith.” Wow… Carr then set his sights on NewsGuard – which Jonathan Turley notes has been long accused by conservatives “of targeting conservative and libertarian sites and carrying out the agenda of its co-founder Steven Brill. Conversely, many media outlets have heralded his efforts to identify disinformation sites for advertisers and agencies.”

Basically, NewsGuard bombards conservative sites with struggle-session questionnaire emails demanding explanations for the slightest of indiscretions, after which they issue a “report card” that advertisers use to justify pulling ad spend. As Carr notes in the letter; “It is in this context that I am writing to obtain information about your work with the one specific organization – the Orwellian named NewsGuard. As exposed by the Twitter Files, NewsGuard is a for-profit company that operates as part of the broader censorship cartel. Indeed, NewsGuard bills itself as the Internet’s arbiter of truth or, as its co-founder put it, a “Vaccine Against Misinformation.” Newsguard purports to rate the credibility of news and information outlets and tells readers and advertisers which outlets they can trust.” Carr suggests following NewsGuard’s ratings may constitute a violation of Section 230 (this is huge).

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“..we need to find out if members of the German government were aware of this incident before or after it occurred..”

• Germany’s AfD Urges UN to Investigate Nord Stream (Sp.)

The right-wing Alternative for Germany (AfD) party has called on the United Nations to prosecute an inquiry into the Nord Sream pipelines explosions and find out whether government officials were aware of this incident, party’s co-chair Tino Chrupalla said. “We believe that the incident needs to be thoroughly investigated, and those responsible must be held accountable. In particular, we need to find out if members of the German government were aware of this incident before or after it occurred. We have called for the establishment of an inquiry commission in the European Parliament and are now calling for a UN investigation,” Chrupalla told Turkish newspaper Aydinlik.

The Nord Stream and Nord Stream 2 gas pipelines, built to deliver gas under the Baltic Sea from Russia to Europe, were hit by explosions on September 26, 2022. Germany, Denmark and Sweden have not ruled out deliberate sabotage. The Russian Prosecutor General’s Office has opened an investigation into it as an act of international terrorism. Russia has repeatedly requested data on other countries’ investigations into the explosions, but never received it, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov has said.

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“The Ukrainian leader governs like a king leading a “terrorist organization..”

• Trump’s Win Means End Of Zelensky – Ukrainian MP (RT)

Donald Trump’s victory in the US presidential election means that Vladimir Zelensky will soon be removed from power, which will be great for Ukraine, exiled lawmaker Artyom Dmitruk has told RT. The Ukrainian MP fled from his home country earlier this year, saying he feared for his safety after taking a public stance against Kiev’s crackdown on the Ukrainian Orthodox Church. He went to the UK and is currently fighting an extradition request, which he claims is based on fabricated charges issued at Zelensky’s orders. The Ukrainian leader governs like a king leading a “terrorist organization,” Dmitruk said in an interview on Thursday, citing the effects that Zelensky’s policies had on the country. The incumbent government does not care about Ukrainian lives, persecutes political opponents, and enriches officials through corruption, he alleged.

“This man, he has managed to steal more than all previous presidents who robbed Ukraine. His money certainly has more blood on it than anyone’s,” the lawmaker said. Zelensky’s team was counting on Vice President Kamala Harris winning the election, which would have allowed the grift to continue, Dmitruk believes. He sees Trump’s victory as “a clear signal that their power is coming to an end.” “Zelensky must go,” he asserted. “I say: liberate Ukraine from Zelensky. This is my key political slogan.” “As a citizen, I wish Ukrainian issues were decided by Ukraine itself,” he added. “But thanks to all our previous presidents we have lost… sovereignty. Unfortunately, others now have to decide for us.” Dmitruk does not expect Trump to end the conflict “in 24 hours,” which he said he would do if elected. But reaching a peace deal would secure the president-elect’s legacy, which gives him a strong incentive to deliver, he reasoned.

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“When given a choice between peace and war, Zelensky helped himself by choosing war..”

• No Use Blaming Britain For Kiev’s War Policy – Ukrainian MP (RT)

Kiev’s confirmation that former British Prime Minister Boris Johnson derailed peace talks with Russia in 2022 is an attempt to avoid responsibility for Vladimir Zelensky’s decision to seek a military victory, exiled Ukrainian MP Artyom Dmitruk asserted in an interview with RT on Thursday. Moscow and Kiev held several rounds of talks shortly after the conflict escalated in February 2022. In Istanbul, the two sides preliminarily agreed a draft truce, but Kiev later rejected the document and pulled out of the talks. David Arakhamia, the Zelensky-allied MP who led the Ukrainian delegation, confirmed in November 2023 that Johnson, the British prime minister at the time, had advised Kiev not to sign anything and “just continue fighting.” “Don’t put your responsibility on Britain and Boris Johnson personally. What is that? Is that some hide-and-seek game?” Dmitruk, a vocal critic of Zelensky, said.

The Ukrainian leader’s popularity was rapidly dwindling before the hostilities with Russia started, the lawmaker pointed out. The conflict provided justification to remain in power and keep enriching himself and his inner circle, he alleged. Zelensky’s term as president expired in May, but he refused to transfer power to the parliament speaker as mandated by the Ukrainian constitution. “Terrifying things happen during war. Terrifying things that generate huge money, bigger than anything anyone could ever make in Ukraine. And he leads it all,” Dmitruk claimed. When given a choice between peace and war, Zelensky helped himself by choosing war, the MP stated.

Dmitruk fled from his home country earlier this year after publicly criticizing Kiev for its intensifying crackdown on the Ukrainian Orthodox Church, the country’s largest religious organization, to which Dmitruk belongs. He claims to be a victim of political persecution. The lawmaker described the ouster of Zelensky as a key condition that he hopes will clear the way for peace, a new election, and national reconciliation. He hopes that the expected change in US foreign policy under the incoming president, Donald Trump, will help facilitate that outcome.

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It gets crazier as we go along.

• Laboratory Head Given Licence To Lie In Novichok Show Trial (Helmer)

Anthony Hughes, the retired judge (titled Lord Hughes of Ombersley) directing the Dawn Sturgess Inquiry in London, opened the questioning of a senior British Government chemical warfare agent on Wednesday by telling him “you’re not bound by your statement, but by all means use it to refresh your recollection” — page 5. This is a licence to lie. The head of chemical and biological analysis at the Defence Science and Technology Laboratory (DSTL) at Porton Down was given the cipher MK26 to conceal his name — his face screened from view in the videotape of the hearing — to do just that. Hughes also arranged for his assisting counsel, Andrew O’Connor KC, to give the government official this version of the witness oath. “May I ask you,” O’Connor said, “whether you have had an opportunity to read through this statement before giving evidence today? A. Yes, I have. Q. Are its contents true to the best of your knowledge and belief? A. Yes, they are. Q. Thank you.”

As Hughes and O’Connor know very well, the official oath in British courtroom practice is that witness swears his testimony “shall be the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth.” In this case, the judge and his lawyer gave the witness a licence not to tell the whole truth. Just in case these licences to lie and to evade the truth were spotted by the public, O’Connor told MK26 that he and Hughes accepted his “statement does not contain everything that you can say about these matters because there are some further issues, further material that is covered by the restriction [secrecy] orders. A. Yes, that’s correct. Q. As a result, it’s right, is it not, that you will be coming back when the Inquiry sits in its closed sessions to give further evidence and on that occasion you will be able to provide the Chair with the information which you cannot provide today? A. Yes.” — page 6.

According to the exhibits MK26 had signed for the Inquiry, of the two pages of witness statement he had signed to the police on July 16, 2018, everything has been blacked out except one short paragraph giving the official accreditation of the workshops MK26 headed at the DSTL Porton Down. A second witness statement MK26 signed for the Coroners Court on August 20, 2019, comprises five pages, but they have all been censored. The only lines which remain say: “I have complied with, and will continue to comply with, my duty to the court to provide independent assistance by way of objective unbiased opinion in relation to matters within my expertise.” At the Bar this is recognized as the Queen Gertrude defence for lying; it comes from “the lady doth protest too much, methinks”, the well-known line from Shakespeare’s Hamlet. A Defence Ministry employee cannot be independent, or objective, or unbiased in relation to his official work orders.

The political significance of the Porton Down lying has been international. It was the foundation of the claim the British Government made to its NATO allies five weeks after Sergei and Yulia Skripal’s collapse that the UK was the target of a Novichok attack by Russia. According to a letter sent to the NATO headquarters by Sir Mark Sedwill, then the Prime Minister’s national security advisor and supervisor of intelligence operations, “I would like to share with you and Allies further information regarding our assessment that it is highly likely that the Russian state was responsible for the Salisbury attack. Only Russia has the technical means, operational experience and the motive. The OPCW’s. [Organization for the Prevention of Chemical Weapons] analysis matches the Defence Science and Technology Laboratory’s [DSTL Porton Down] own, confirming once again the findings of the United Kingdom relating to the identity of the toxic chemical of high purity that was used in Salisbury.

OPCW have always been clear that it was their role to identify what substance was used, not who was responsible… of course, the DSTL analysis does not identify the country or laboratory of origin of the agent used in this attack…We therefore continue to judge that only Russia has the technical means, operational experience and motive for the attack on the Skripals and that it is highly likely that the Russian state was responsible. There is no plausible alternative explanation.” Sedwill was lying. Porton Down was lying. OPCW repeated the lies it was given by the British. There was, there still is, a plausible alternative explanation. In his appearance at Hughes’s hearing this week, MK26 tried to conceal this with what an independent British organic chemist with comparable expertise to MK26 describes as “camouflage science – faulty assumptions, missing chemical names, speculative findings, a day of witchcraft.”

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Good question.

• How Did A Puritanical Nation End Up Idolizing Transvestites? (Frascolla)

A cause cherished by Mary Shelley and Harriet Taylor Mill’s husband is the equality of women with men. As bad as feminism is, and as bad as the world is for most Western women (who can’t start a family or find fulfillment in their jobs), there’s no denying that, in the 19th century, marriage could leave women to a private despotism of bad husbands. In the 20th century, the Unitarians were advocating for the equality of black people and, later, for gay people. What did the feminist, black and gay causes have in common? The fact that they proposed social reforms that went against society (it’s worth remembering that the U.S. is a country with deep racist roots). In practice, the moral rule ends up being to go against society – and that’s why the U.S. ended up embracing transvestites and putting them to read stories in children’s libraries.

Why did this doctrine gain so much traction in the U.S.? For two reasons, the main one being political liberalism. The United States was even more liberal than England, since, unlike the latter, it never prohibited Catholicism by law. Thus, the United States had nothing remotely similar to the Inquisition, and Unitarianism enjoyed the same freedom as any other religion. There is no room, in the institutional history of the United States, for the category of heretic. Nothing is heresy, everything is religion. Unitarianism spread like wildfire. If in 1774 they founded the first church in England, in 1805 (only 31 years later), they already had the rectorship of Harvard, and in 1825 they already had the sixth president of the United States. The United States became independent and constituted itself as a nation in 1776, that is, only two years after the founding of the Unitarian Church in England. Thus, we can say that the country existed for less than 30 years free of great Unitarian influence.

If the United States, being liberal, cannot adhere to any religious creed, and does not have any strong leader (such as an Emperor or a Supreme Leader), power ends up falling into the hands of technocrats trained by the most important universities. Unitarianism has this convenience of not seeing itself as a religion among others; thus, its principles are easily secularized – so much so that Mill’s On Liberty is a typical work of Unitarianism, but it is not seen as such. In addition to being considered secular, Unitarianism ended up giving rise to theological liberalism (which we have already discussed) and spreading through various churches and even synagogues. Protestants of any denomination ended up being divided between fundamentalists (who denied science) and liberals (who repeated the Unitarians). That is why we see so much transvestites and rainbows in the Episcopal and Anglican Churches, even though the thing arose in the Unitarian Church: both adhered to liberalism, instead of fundamentalism.

In view of this, ladies and gentlemen, what we can conclude is that the adoration of transvestites is an inevitable consequence of liberalism, and that the Inquisition burned too few people.

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