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Debt Rattle January 7 2025

Jan 072025
 
 January 7, 2025  Posted by at 11:18 am Finance Tagged with: , , , , , , , ,  54 Responses »


Jan van Eijk The Arnolfini portrait 1434

 

• Trump Urges GOP to Pass Bill Advancing His Policies (ET)
• Dollar Reverses Losses After Trump Blasts WaPo’s “Fake News” Tariff Report (ZH)
• Curtain to Fall on Merchan’s Hamlet on the Hudson (Turley)
• The Lawfare Sentencing of Trump On January 10 Will Backfire (ZH)
• US Congress Formally Certifies Trump’s Election Victory (ZH)
• Musk and Trump Can Bring A New Era That Blends Technology and Tradition (RT)
• Conspiracies Too Awful to Imagine? (Victor Davis Hanson)
• Prank-O-Rama (James Howard Kunstler)
• Bannon Goes Off On Musk Over “Social Credit Score” Changes On X (ZH)
• Moscow Reacts To Zelensky’s Request To Trump For Frozen Russian Cash (RT)
• Ukraine Should Be ‘Realistic’ – Macron (RT)
• Italy In Talks With Starlink For $1.6 Billion Telecom Security Deal (ZH)
• Pfizergate: What is EC Chief Von Der Leyen Accused of? (Sp.)
• Migrants Arrested For Sex Crimes At Triple The Rate Of Brits – UK Stats (RT)
• Amazon Confirms Melania Trump Documentary (RT)
• Nuclear Fusion Offers Safe And Clean Energy (JTN)

 

 

 

 

Starmer

Galloway

Poilievre

Dana White

 

 

 

 

Less than 2 weeks to go.

“..pass Trump’s legislative policies through a reconciliation bill, which would enable the policies to be passed with a simple majority, bypassing the Senate’s 60-vote threshold..”

• Trump Urges GOP to Pass Bill Advancing His Policies (ET)

President-elect Donald Trump has called on Republican lawmakers to pass “one powerful bill” to advance his policies on border security and tax cuts as he prepares to return for a second term. In a social media post on Sunday, Trump said members of Congress will work on a single bill that is packed with policy items aimed at making America “greater than ever before.” “We must Secure our Border, Unleash American Energy, and Renew the Trump Tax Cuts, which were the largest in History, but we will make it even better – NO TAX ON TIPS,” the president-elect stated. Trump suggested that he plans to offset the taxes by imposing tariffs on imports from countries that “have taken advantage of the U.S. for years.” “Republicans must unite, and quickly deliver these Historic Victories for the American People. Get smart, tough, and send the Bill to my desk to sign as soon as possible,” he stated.

His remarks came after House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) unveiled a plan to pass Trump’s legislative policies through a reconciliation bill, which would enable the policies to be passed with a simple majority, bypassing the Senate’s 60-vote threshold. Johnson told Fox News that the vote on the reconciliation bill could happen as early as April 3, and then move to the Senate. He said the bill could be delivered to Trump’s desk for signature by the end of April. “We’re 15 days out from the inauguration of President Donald J. Trump for his second term. And we want to make sure that we’re jump-starting the agenda now over the next two weeks, so that he’s prepared and ready on day one,” Johnson told the news outlet.

“At the end of the day, President Trump is going to prefer, as he likes to say, one big, beautiful bill. And there’s a lot of merit to that, because we can put it all together, one big up-or-down vote, which can save the country, quite literally, because there are so many elements to it. And it’ll give us a little bit more time to negotiate that and get it right.”

Johnson said that the reconciliation bill would address Trump’s priorities, such as the economy, border security, tax cuts, energy, and incentivizing U.S. companies to manufacture domestically. GOP Senate Majority Leader John Thune said on the Senate floor in December that a reconciliation package “with a once-in-a-generation investment in border security and immigration enforcement” would be passed within the first 100 days of the Trump administration. Thune said the GOP also planned to use the Congressional Review Act to “undo some of the Biden administration regulations that are weighing down our economy” and pass another reconciliation package to expand the tax relief provided to Americans during Trump’s first administration.

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“That is wrong. The Washington Post knows it’s wrong. It’s just another example of Fake News..”

• Dollar Reverses Losses After Trump Blasts WaPo’s “Fake News” Tariff Report (ZH)

Update (0930ET): On Truth Social, President-elect Donald Trump blasted the Washington Post for “quoting so-called anonymous sources, which don’t exist, incorrectly states that my tariff policy will be pared back.” “That is wrong. The Washington Post knows it’s wrong. It’s just another example of Fake News,” the former president said. Right away, we called out this malarkey. WaPo’s fake news reporting sent the Bloomberg Spot Dollar Index tumbling by over 1%, one of the biggest intra-day drops since 2023. There is nothing like fake news from legacy corporate media to start the week.

***
The US dollar slid on Monday after reports emerged that President-elect Donald Trump’s aides are considering a revised, less strict tariff plan. While Trump’s 2024 campaign promised a universal tariff on most imports, the new proposal would focus instead on imposing tariffs specifically on critical imports, according to the Washington Post, citing three people familiar with the plan. Trump repeatedly claimed during the campaign that he would implement a “universal” 10% to 20% import tariff on all foreign-made goods into the United States. He also spoke about a 60% import tariff on Chinese goods and a 100% tariff on all imported cars. According to WaPo: “Two weeks before Trump takes office, his aides are still discussing plans to impose import duties on goods from every country, the people said.

But rather than apply tariffs to all imports, the current discussions center on imposing them only on certain sectors deemed critical to national or economic security — a shift that would jettison a key aspect of Trump’s campaign pledge, at least for now, said the people, who cautioned that no decisions have been finalized and that planning remains in flux.” While the Biden administration has not rescinded most of the existing tariffs enacted under Trump 1.0, a universal blanket of tariffs on all imports would have been part of the ‘America First’ trade policies. However, it seems unlikely that Trump would abandon such a key policy initiative right out of the gate. The sources familiar with the potential tariff change were unclear about which imports would be affected.

More from WaPo… “Preliminary discussions have largely focused on several key sectors that the Trump team wants to bring back to the United States, the people said. Those include the defense industrial supply chain (through tariffs on steel, iron, aluminum and copper); critical medical supplies (syringes, needles, vials and pharmaceutical materials); and energy production (batteries, rare earth minerals and even solar panels), two of the people said.” WaPo’s report sent the Bloomberg Dollar Index tumbling early Monday, breaking below $108. This marked a sharp reversal following the multi-month 9% rally that started at the beginning of October.

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Meannwhile, Merchan has rejected another appeal.

The Supreme Court will throw this out. But that’s not enough. Trump will have to ask them to retroactively strike Merchan’s verdict, so it will no longer be part of the record.

• Curtain to Fall on Merchan’s Hamlet on the Hudson (Turley)

At 9:30 a.m. on Jan. 10, 2025, the curtain will fall on the longest performance of “Hamlet” in history. Acting Justice Juan Merchan will finally decide whether “to be or not to be” the judge to sentence Trump to jail. (Spoiler alert: He appears set to avoid a jail sentence and likely reversal.) Since Trump’s conviction in May 2024, Merchan has contemplated his sentencing options. This was to be the orange-jump-suit moment many longed for over years of unrequited lawfare. They will likely be disappointed. As some of us noted after the verdict, this type of case would often result in an unconditional discharge or a sentence without jail time. That prediction became more likely after Trump was reelected in November. Limits on Trump’s freedom or liberty would likely result in a fast reversal, and Merchan knew it. While various pundits predicted that Trump “will go to jail” after the trial, more realistic lawfare warriors had other ideas.

The next best thing was to suspend proceedings and leave Trump in a type of legal suspended animation. Merchan would hold a leash on the president as a criminal defendant awaiting punishment. But the whole point of a trophy-kill case is the trophy itself. Merchan will not disappoint. While indicating that he is inclined to a sentence without jail or probation, he will finalize the conviction of Trump just 10 days before his inauguration. In so doing, he will formally label the president-elect a convicted felon. It will be punishment by soundbite. Trump will become the first convicted felon to be sworn into office, a historical footnote that will be repeated mantra-like in the media. Merchan seems at points to be writing the actual talking points for the talking heads. In his order, he states grandly that the jurors found that this “was the premediated and continuous deception by the leader of the free world.”

He then adds that he could not vacate the conviction because it would … constitute a disproportionate result and cause immeasurable damage to the citizenry’s confidence in the Rule of Law.” Of course, this did not work out as many hoped. That apparently includes President Biden. Last week, the Washington Post reported that Biden was irate over the Justice Department’s failure to prosecute Trump more quickly to secure a conviction before the election. He also reportedly regretted his appointment of Attorney General Merrick Garland as insufficiently aggressive in pursuing Trump. It appears Garland was not sufficiently Bragg-like for Biden’s lawfare tastes. The sentencing, however, will have another impact. Trump will finally be able to appeal this horrendous case. It has always been a target-rich opportunity for appeal, but Trump could now launch a comprehensive appeal until after he was sentenced.

Those appellate issues include charges based on a novel criminal theory through which New York County District Attorney Alvin Bragg not only zapped a dead misdemeanor into life (after the expiration of the statute of limitation) but based a state charge on federal election law and federal taxation violations. So, after the Justice Department declined to prosecute federal violations, Bragg effectively did so in state court with Merchan’s blessing. The issues also include Merchan’s absurd instructions to the jury. The novel theory demanded a secondary offense, the crime that Trump was seeking to conceal by listing payments as legal expenses. Merchan allowed the jury to find that the secondary offense was any of an array of vaguely defined options. Even on the jury form, they did not have to specify which crimes were found. Merchan did not require even a majority, let alone a unanimous jury, to agree on what actually occurred.

Under Merchan’s instruction, the jury could have split four-four-four on whether this was all done to conceal a federal election violation, falsification of business records or taxation violations. Neither Trump nor the public will ever know. Even CNN’s senior legal analyst Elie Honig denounced the case as legally flawed and unprecedented. Sen. John Fetterman (D-Pa.) recently put it more simply and called the case total “b—s–t.” While expectations are not great for the New York legal system itself, this case will eventually go to the United States Supreme Court. Of course, like so much else in the vortex of Merchan’s courtroom, the final leave to appeal comes at a cost. While Merchan admits begrudgingly that incarceration is no longer “practical,” Trump will now have to appeal this case over the course of his presidency.

When the sentence is imposed on Jan. 10, it is likely to feel comically downsized given the effort. After years and millions spent in the various Trump cases, Trump will likely receive an unconditional discharge and sent along his way . . . to the White House. As predicted, the two federal cases never saw a trial in Florida or Washington, D.C. In Georgia, Fani Willis was dropped from her racketeering case, which has gone nowhere due to her own misconduct. It is like the Allied forces launching the Normandy Invasion to capture Monaco.

In the meantime, the 2024 election proved to be the largest verdict in history after years of lawfare and biased media reporting came to nothing. Merchan showed little self-awareness in claiming that he was only trying to avoid “immeasurable damage to the citizenry’s confidence in the Rule of Law” in continuing the case. Polls show the public saw these cases as lawfare and Merchan is widely viewed as causing precisely that “immeasurable damage” with his handling of the case. Given this record, it may be fitting that the trophy from the New York case is a media talking point, while it lasts. So, Merchan’s performance of Hamlet on the Hudson will close off Broadway long after the audience has left. The reviews will be mixed since few minds will be changed. As the protagonist himself proclaimed, “I must be cruel only to be kind; thus bad begins, and worse remains behind.”

Merchan

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“Every effort has been made to put Joe Biden, Hunter Biden, and Hillary Clinton above the law. And every effort has been made to put Trump beneath the law..”

• The Lawfare Sentencing of Trump On January 10 Will Backfire (ZH)

Update (1220ET): President-Elect Donald Trump is attempting to halt proceedings in his business records case, with his attorneys stating that they intend to file an appeal to reverse a decision setting sentencing for Jan. 10. His request came on Jan. 6, just days after Merchan’s decision on Jan. 3. Trump’s lawyers argued that their appeal should trigger what’s known as an automatic stay, or pause, in the proceedings. If that doesn’t happen, they argued, Merchan should then grant a pause and prevent sentencing from happening on Friday as scheduled. “Today, President Trump’s legal team moved to stop the unlawful sentencing in the Manhattan D.A.’s Witch Hunt,” Trump’s spokesperson, Steven Cheung, said. “The Supreme Court’s historic decision on Immunity, the state constitution of New York, and other established legal precedent mandate that this meritless hoax be immediately dismissed.” As a reminder, in December, Merchan rejected Trump’s various immunity-related objections to the evidence used during trial.

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As MishTalk.com’s Mike Shedlock detailed earlier, MAGA supporters rail against Trump’s sentencing ahead of his inauguration. Instead, they should be pleased. Let’s discuss why… Sentencing on January 10. Politico reports Trump Will Be Sentenced but Won’t Get Jail Time. “A New York judge plans to sentence Donald Trump on Jan. 10 for his criminal hush money conviction, rejecting efforts by the president-elect to sweep aside a jury’s verdict that found him guilty of 34 felony counts. But Justice Juan Merchan indicated he will not sentence Trump to prison time, acknowledging that incarceration is not a “practicable” option. And the judge said Trump may attend the sentencing virtually rather than reporting to court in person. The long-delayed sentencing — unless a higher court blocks it — will force Trump to revisit the sordid hush money case just 10 days before his inauguration.

And by maintaining the jury’s verdict, Merchan all but ensured that Trump will take office with his sole criminal conviction still on his record. In an 18-page decision Friday, Merchan ruled that the Supreme Court’s July decision on presidential immunity does not shield Trump from facing sentencing for the conviction. And the judge rejected Trump’s arguments that the entire case should be thrown out in light of his victory in the 2024 election, calling the suggestion an affront to the justice system. Merchan also sharply criticized Trump for his “disdain” for the legal process. In addition to continually criticizing the case itself, Trump repeatedly argued for Merchan to recuse himself, claiming the judge was biased. During the trial, he disobeyed the judge’s gag order and often appeared to fall asleep in court.”

Democrats Cheer, for Now Sentencing ahead of the inauguration will let Democrats claim Trump will take office with his sole criminal conviction on his record. I view this as mostly good news. Q: Why? A: Sentencing now will speed up the appeals process. This is a sham trial that never should have happened. And the mistakes made by Merchan ensure the case will be tossed out. Had Merchan delayed sentencing, Democrats might have held sentencing over Trump for four more years. Hunter Biden Convicted On June 11, I commented Hunter Biden Convicted, Unlike Trump, Hunter’s Conviction Won’t Be OverturnedHey Joe, how does it feel to have a son convicted of a felony? For now you can call Trump a felon, but that won’t last due to numerous and flagrant judicial errors.

Trump Found Guilty – a Travesty of Justice for America I commented on Trump in my post Trump Found Guilty – a Travesty of Justice for America: I Am Outraged. I am outraged but not surprised. But the hypocrites will cheer hoping for a knockout. They will say “No one is above the law”. Indeed. But no one should be beneath the law either. Every effort has been made to put Joe Biden, Hunter Biden, and Hillary Clinton above the law. And every effort has been made to put Trump beneath the law, including judicial instructions. Everyone should be outraged. The trial was unfair because there should not have been a trial at all. The judge’s actions were outrageous.

Pardon vs Overturned Conviction President Biden lied about Hunter. Then in a disgraceful move, the president pardoned his son. However, accepting a pardon implies guilt. Hunter won’t go to prison where he belongs. But no one can say he wasn’t guilty. If New York Governor Kathy Hochul offers Trump a pardon, he should refuse it on grounds of innocence. And as soon as the Trump conviction is overturned, and it will be, no one will be able to call Trump a felon. Sentencing now will speed up an appeal, and the conviction will be tossed, hopefully with prejudice. So let the hypocrites have another month or whatever of bragging. Then reality will set in with an easy overturn on multiple grounds.

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“For both sides of the aisle, the certification of Trump’s re-election four years later is likely a reminder of the magnitude of the political comeback the president-elect has achieved.”

• US Congress Formally Certifies Trump’s Election Victory (ZH)

Update (1335ET): Trump captured the presidency with 312 electoral votes to Harris’s 226 — a total that was confirmed during the certification on Monday, marking the final step in the election process before Trump formally takes back the White House on Jan. 20.. Republicans gave a standing ovation in the chamber when Harris announced Trump’s victory was now certified. A bipartisan standing ovation broke out in the House chamber after Harris declared the joint session of Congress dissolved. In a video released ahead of the certification, Harris hailed the “peaceful transfer of power” as a bedrock of U.S. democracy, calling her duty a “sacred obligation.” “As we have seen, our democracy can be fragile,” Harris said. “And it is up to each of us to stand up for our most cherished principles.” This year’s counting of the electoral votes was declared a “national special security event,” unlocking federal, state and local resources.

* * *
As The Epoch Times’ Joseph Lord detailed earlier, Congress will formally certify President-elect Donald Trump’s victory in the 2024 election on Jan. 6, marking the final ceremonial step to confirm Trump as the next commander-in-chief. Vice President Kamala Harris, as president of the Senate, will officiate the certification during a joint session of Congress and declare her erstwhile rival the winner in the presidential contest. It’s expected to be largely a quiet, formal process this year. Harris has said she intends to treat her role as ceremonial. Democrats in Congress have already made clear that they accept Trump’s win. For members of both parties, the day can’t help but recall the events that unfolded four years prior. During the certification of the 2020 election results on Jan. 6, 2021, pro-Trump protesters entered the Capitol, placing the certification process on hold and putting an end to a Republican effort to object to certain electoral slates.

Following the Capitol breach, Republican leaders like Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) and Rep. Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) distanced themselves from Trump, joining Democrats in saying he was ultimately responsible for the incident. The House quickly pushed through a second impeachment resolution against Trump, though it failed in the Senate. Pundits believed Trump’s political future was at an end. For both sides of the aisle, the certification of Trump’s re-election four years later is likely a reminder of the magnitude of the political comeback the president-elect has achieved.

The Process. Lawmakers from both chambers will gather in the House chamber, which is traditionally used for joint sessions, at 1 p.m. ET to begin the process of certification. Under the process mandated by law, the official electoral slates will be transported into the House chamber in large mahogany boxes. Harris will then open the sealed electoral slates and hand them to the congressional tellers to be read aloud in alphabetical order. As these votes are read off, lawmakers have the opportunity to raise any objections they see fit, so long as both a representative and a senator sign off on the objection. At that point, both chambers would meet for two hours to debate the objection before returning to a joint session. These objections have been a relatively common fixture of American political life in the 21st century, with objections to certain electoral votes brought in 2001, 2005, 2017, and 2021. This year, however, Democrats have indicated that they expect no objections will be brought against certifying Trump’s win.

Jan. 6, 2021. Though Jan. 6 was once seen as a relatively uneventful day in American political life, for the past four years, the date has been a cultural flashpoint. During a speech at the Ellipse four years ago, Trump, alleging that the 2020 election results were tainted by fraud, told his supporters to go to the Capitol to “peacefully and patriotically“ protest the certification of the results. In the speech, Trump urged then-Vice President Mike Pence to reject certain electoral slates from key battleground states. When the crowd arrived at the Capitol, chaos ensued as some protesters entered the Capitol. Most entered through the main entrances, though a minority entered through smashed windows. Ultimately, the Capitol was cleared of protesters after Trump urged his supporters to leave. Though some damages had been done to the building and some offices, certification proceeded without further objections. Critics of Trump alleged that the Capitol breach was the culmination of an attempted insurrection against the U.S. government. Supporters of Trump say the narratives surrounding the events of the day have been misrepresented and note Trump’s role in ending the breach and how he left office unchallenged on Jan. 20, 2021.

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Archeofuturism.

• Musk and Trump Can Bring A New Era That Blends Technology and Tradition (RT)

Elon Musk’s technological ambitions and Guillaume Faye’s Archeofuturist philosophy come together in a vision where advanced innovation revives ancient values, blending tradition with progress. Under Trump’s conservative leadership, this synergy could forge a future where ancestral spirit and technological power redefine civilization. Elon Musk, the trailblazing entrepreneur behind Tesla and SpaceX, and Guillaume Faye, the French thinker known for his concept of Archeofuturism, converge in their advocacy for a future that harmonizes technological advancement with traditional values. Musk builds rockets, electric cars, and brain-computer interfaces, but beneath the silicon and steel lies a worldview positively aligned with Faye’s vision of a world where cutting-edge technoscience intertwines with the primordial myths and ethoses of ancient societies.

Archeofuturism proposes that mankind’s future must reject linear progressivism in favor of a cyclical model where archaic principles are revived and fused with world-renewing technologies. Musk’s projects are engineering feats as well as vessels of a philosophy that reawakens mankind’s different ethnic souls while propelling it towards the stars. During Donald Trump’s second presidency, a unique synergy will emerge between Musk’s technological endeavors and the administration’s conservative policies. Trump’s emphasis on deregulation and national sovereignty will dismantle bureaucratic obstacles, creating fertile ground for Musk’s Faustian ambition to thrive. While many view Trump’s administration as emblematic of an older, more traditionalist America, Musk represents the forward-facing engine of a society redefining itself.

Together, their approaches provide the scaffolding for a world where technological innovation makes its influence felt without compromising the foundational principles of identity and sovereignty. Faye’s Archeofuturism predicts this dynamic: a synthesis of traditionalism and futurism, where governance nurtures innovation and cultural renewal in tandem instead of pitting them against each other. SpaceX, under Musk’s leadership, is a monumental expression of Archeofuturist ideals. The company’s reusable rocket technology shatters the constraints of old models, both economically and ideologically, paving the way for mankind’s long overdue exploration of the cosmos. Musk’s rhetoric about making life multiplanetary is not science fiction. It brings to mind Faye’s call to reignite mankind’s heroic spirit.

Musk’s planned colonization of Mars is framed both as a technological achievement and a necessity for human survival – a reclamation of the explorer archetype that has driven civilizations since antiquity. During the Trump administration, which celebrates American exceptionalism and a revived interest in space exploration, SpaceX will truly prosper. By partnering with NASA, Musk is able to leverage Trump’s nationalist energy into a cosmic ambition that goes beyond the political, tapping into the primal yearning to break frontiers. Tesla’s rise provides another layer to this Archeofuturist narrative. Electric vehicles have long been seen as symbols of sterile modernity, but Musk reshapes them into icons of power, speed, and autonomy.

Tesla cars, with their sleek design and state-of-the-art performance, marry ecological consciousness with technological dominance, reaffirming Faye’s insistence that future societies must balance environmental concerns with bold, dynamic solutions. Tesla’s emergence as the world’s most valuable car company is not just a market success. It symbolizes the cultural shift towards a future where sustainability is not synonymous with mediocrity. Trump’s administration, which prioritizes reducing regulatory burdens, will allow Tesla to innovate at an unprecedented pace, demonstrating how conservative policies can catalyze technological revolutions aligned with Archeofuturist principles.

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“This was a holistic effort, Ball proudly wrote, that helped guarantee a Biden victory.”

• Conspiracies Too Awful to Imagine? (Victor Davis Hanson)

2. Indeed, during the Trump administration, we witnessed once more undreamed-of efforts to sabotage a presidency:

a) A former Pentagon lawyer publishing a call for either immediate Trump impeachment, 25th Amendment removal, or a military coup.

b) A planning session of the Deputy Attorney General and Interim FBI Director to discuss stealthily recording the President of the United States in hopes of finding enough off-the-record embarrassing conversations to justify a 25th Amendment removal.

c) A later 2020 campaign effort jumpstarted by the current Biden Secretary of State Antony Blinken and the former interim CIA Director Mike Morrell, with help from former CIA Directors John Brennan and Leon Panetta, along with former Director of National Intelligence James Clapper, to round up 51 “former” (but actually many enjoying then-current CIA contractor status) “intelligence authorities” to publicly mislead the public by signing a letter that the incriminating Hunter Biden laptop (then in the hands of and authenticated as genuine by the FBI) was once again a Russian effort to throw the election to Trump. It was an obvious scripted lie, but timely scheduled before the last debate to arm Biden with plausible denials and thus to help swing the election to him. And it likely did.

d) There was, in addition, an effort by the heads of the NIH, Francis Collins, and NIAID, Anthony Fauci, deliberately to obfuscate, and allegedly in the case of Fauci, to lie under oath, about the efforts of American health authorities 1) to evade U.S. prohibitions on gain-in-function viral research, by funding the third-party EcoHealth Alliance to facilitate the transference of American money, instrumentation, and consulting to partner with the Chinese communist Wuhan virology lab; 2) to obfuscate the truth that the lab had somehow leaked the lethal, manmade virus—birthed with the help of U.S. expertise—that was killing millions worldwide; 3) to promulgate a false scenario of a bat/pangolin origin; 4) to deny under oath the American government’s role in the birth of the virus; 5) to suppress dissident scientific voices; and 6) to advise radical quarantine policies that would virtually destroy the U.S. economy along with the Trump 2020 reelection effort, and then shift blame from their own culpability to a false narrative that Trump was the chief driver of a disastrous national shutdown that had ruined the economy and yet was supposedly nearly criminally lax in controlling the outbreak.

e) The Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Mark Milley, took it upon himself to 1) violate his own legal prerogatives as an advisory military official by unlawfully interrupting the chain of command when ordering theater commanders to report directly to him rather than as legally required to the Secretary of Defense in times of national crises, and 2) without presidential or Pentagon written authority, contacted his Chinese communist counterpart, Gen. Li Zuocheng of the People’s Liberation Army. His stated aim apparently was to reassure the Chinese military that in Milley’s own view, if he should diagnose Trump, his own commander-in-chief, as unbalanced and intending to escalate tensions to the threshold of a possible nuclear war, Milley again would first contact General Zuocheng to reassure him that an erratic Trump would then be not in full command of American strategic forces.

Then he, Milley, with others, would seek to de-escalate tensions and preclude a conflict. Milley denied any impropriety. But he could not negate that he had no such authority to act on the part of the executive branch and was doing so in direct opposition to the President of the United States. Milley was also de facto creating a dangerous precedent for any future ambitious, freelancing chairmen of the Joint Chiefs, both to interrupt the chain of command and to self-diagnose their commander-in-chief to justify excluding him from exercising his responsibilities entailed in his oath of office.

f) In the 2020 election cycle, left-wing-funded legal teams systematically and under the guise of the COVID lockdown sued in favorable courts to overturn or modify state balloting laws to ensure the most radical and abrupt changes in U.S. voting procedures in history. The net result was that in many key states, traditional Election Day balloting that had accounted for 60-80 percent of the cast votes was made a mere construct. Instead, some 60-70 percent of voters in many key states cast early- or mail-in ballots, even as the traditional rejection rate of such ballots drastically fell—again, as the numbers to be counted soared.

g) During this same 2020 election, according to liberal journalist Molly Ball, writing triumphantly post facto in Time magazine, a named “cabal” and “conspiracy” of billionaire leftist grandees, Silicon Valley monopolists, Chamber of Commerce, corporate entities, labor, and street activists sought to change balloting laws, street modulate demonstrations, enlist social media to censor and shape the news, partner with the FBI, and provide hundreds of millions of dollars to absorb the work of state registrars by supplying their own adjutant employees and voting materials. This was a holistic effort, Ball proudly wrote, that helped guarantee a Biden victory.

h) During 2021-2024, there were 91 local, state, and federal felony indictments launched against the ex-president and then-current front-running Republican candidate and opponent of the sitting president Biden. The charges were so blatantly political, and the principals in direct or indirect contact with either the White House counsel, the Department of Justice, or each other, that the multifaceted effort could be rightly termed a conspiracy to warp the legal system by destroying a political opponent. The charges would never have been brought against any other political candidate or against Trump himself—had he not publicly announced his intention to run a third time for president.

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“They found a cure for gluttony. Now do narcissism.” — Peachy Keenan

• Prank-O-Rama (James Howard Kunstler)

Poor “Joe Biden” can’t help himself as the sun sets on his ignominious career. He ordered the American flag to fly at half-staff into January 20, inauguration day, to signal grief and distress at Donald Trump’s swearing-in — not realizing, apparently, that Mr. Trump’s first act in office will be to order the flag raised back up, signaling symbolically the end to America’s grief and distress under “Joe Biden.” You might wonder: what other sort of vicious mischief the Party of Chaos has in store in the final ramp-up to a momentous change of government? Well, no sooner had ol’ “JB” draped the Wegovy-slenderized neck of Hillary Clinton with the Presidential Medal of Freedom, than Bill Clinton went on ABC’s The View to declare he was “open to talking with [‘President Biden’]” about a preemptive pardon for Hillary. Say, whu. . . ?

What crimes did Bill have in mind that such a pardon might avail? Skolkovo? Uranium One? The Clinton Foundation’s sketchy activities in Haiti after the earthquake there? Bill preemptively mentioned the old emails bidness as a ruse. Nothing to see there, folks, he protested. (Just don’t look anywhere else!) You must imagine that the incoming Solicitor General, John Sauer’s, first act in office will be to ask SCOTUS for a ruling on the legitimacy of preemptive pardons — blanket pardons for crimes alive perhaps in guilty consciences but nowhere extant as yet in the legal system. The justices might detect a certain logical incoherence in that proposition. “Joe Biden” should have just draped wreaths of garlic around the necks of Mrs. Clinton, Liz Cheney, and Alex Soros (standing in for ol’ George).

Judge Juan Merchan did not get a medal. He’s warming up for his January 10 stunt of sentencing Mr. Trump for the “felony” of recording a payment to lawyer Michael Cohen as a “legal expense” (times thirty-four) so Democrats can holler “nyah nyah, felon!” as Mr. Trump re-enters the Oval Office. Judge Merchan himself has racked-up an impressive list of federal offenses around deprivation of Mr. Trump’s civil and due-process rights as well as judicial misconduct, obstruction of justice, and abuse of power. Justice may await the judge. Today, January 6, of course, is electoral vote certification day in a joint session of Congress. Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-MD) has been making noises about contesting certification on the grounds that Mr. Trump is an “insurrectionist” under the disqualification clause in Section 3 of the 14th Amendment. Don’t be surprised if Jamie makes a show of it to justify all his loose talk, but it will only be a performance.

He might as well bring a chicken into the chamber and bite its head off. The shadowy claque behind “Joe Biden” has been super-busy cooking up documents for the demented old bird to sign before leaving office, anything that supposedly might discommode the incoming Mr. Trump. “JB” is like a bandit fleeing the scene of a crime, throwing his stolen booty into the road off the back of his truck to trip up the police closing in. Close down offshore oil drilling off the Atlantic and Pacific coasts for evermore. . . ban gas-powered water heaters. . . any old thing to make life more uncomfortable for the people of this land. The shadowy claque seems oblivious to the fact that the people won’t appreciate these pranks, that they just give more reasons for them to drive a wooden stake through the heart of the Democratic Party — as if it even had one.

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Does Bannon have evidence that Musk is “owned lock, stock, and barrel by the Chinese Communist Party?”

• Bannon Goes Off On Musk Over “Social Credit Score” Changes On X (ZH)

To say Steve Bannon is not a fan of Elon Musk would be putting it lightly. In 2023, the former White House chief strategist suggested that Musk is a “total and complete phony,” who is “owned lock, stock, and barrel by the Chinese Communist Party.” Then last week, after Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy sparked a firestorm of criticism over H-1B visas, Bannon said that Musk and other tech companies utilizing H-1B labor “want a tech feudalism.” And on Saturday, Bannon suggested that Musk has “masters in Beijing” during a Sunday episode of WarRoom in which Bannon discussed Musk’s decision to change the algorithm on X to reduce “negativity.” “This is the CCP. This is a social credit score,” said Bannon, adding “He’s got a glass jaw…he’s got the maturity of an 11-year-old. It’s obvious, he can’t take criticism.”

“One of his weaknesses is that he needs to be loved. He needs the masses to love him. He needs the masses to love him, you can tell when he’s on the stage, he needs that glory.” Bannon then circled back on the H-1B visa debate for which Musk started catching major shit from the right. “So then when his apparatus turns against him, and particularly people that cheered him who said ‘hey, we hate what you’re doing to this country, we know now that you’re lying to us, bald-faced lie, these are not high-skilled people,’ and they turn, all of a sudden, he has to go to what is a Chinese credit score,” he continued.

“They have a digital ghetto. And to only have raised up what praises him. That is like the little boy’s mentally of ‘I want to be the superhero, I want to put the cape on and kind of skip around.'” “It’s an absolute indication of immaturity, of not being able to deal with things as an adult. And that’s what you’re seeing being implemented on Twitter here,” Bannon said. Musk’s decision to change the X algorithm to “maximize unregretted user-seconds” has not gone over well – particularly among the ‘free speech absolutist’ crowd, which recoiled in shock during the H-1B visa debate when those critical of the program found themselves demonetized or outright banned from the platform.

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“..a “hellish mixture of neo-Nazism and terrorism with drug delirium.”

• Moscow Reacts To Zelensky’s Request To Trump For Frozen Russian Cash (RT)

Vladimir Zelensky’s claim that he told US President-elect Donald Trump that Kiev could use frozen Russian assets to buy American weapons is proof of “deep-rooted corrupt ties” between the Ukrainian leader and the West, Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova has claimed. During his three-hour-long interview with podcaster Lex Fridman on Sunday, Zelensky said he had proposed that Trump give Ukraine the $300 billion in Russian central bank funds that had been frozen by the US and EU after the escalation of the conflict between Moscow and Kiev in February 2022. The money would serve as one of the security guarantees to Ukraine during a possible diplomatic settlement of the conflict, he explained.

According to Zelensky, he told Trump to “take the $300 billion in frozen Russian assets. We will take it. Take money, what we need for our domestic production, and we will buy all the weapons from the US.” Such an arrangement “will be very good for your industry, for the US,” he added. Zakharova reacted to the claim in a post on Telegram on Monday, insisting that the fact that the Ukrainian leader “offered Trump ‘other people’s money in exchange for weapons’ testifies to Zelensky’s deep-rooted corrupt ties with the Anglo-Americans [the US and UK].”

US President Joe Biden has “firmly hooked the Kiev regime on: steal and kill, and then steal again – a bloody scheme in place since the time of Burisma,” a Ukrainian firm which employed the elderly politician’s son Hunter as a highly-paid director in the 2010s, she wrote. As for Zelensky’s interview as a whole, the spokeswoman described it as a “hellish mixture of neo-Nazism and terrorism with drug delirium.” The Ukrainian leader is “completely out of his mind,” Zakharova suggested.

During his conversation with Fridman, Zelensky, among other things, said that it was “bad” that Ukraine did not have nuclear weapons and confessed that he “despises” the Russian people. In late December, exiled Ukrainian opposition leader Viktor Medvedchuk claimed that the “corrupt nature” of Zelensky’s rule is the reason why his country is now ruined. Medvedchuk also suggested that the whole conflict between Moscow and Kiev is “based on one large corrupt scheme that involves leading parties and politicians in Europe and the US.” The Western politicians that support Ukraine are afraid of losing power because it could lead to the new leaders finding out “that they had been robbing their own people under the guise of helping Zelensky,” he said.

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“Continued support for Kiev is vital for the “credibility” of the West..”

• Ukraine Should Be ‘Realistic’ – Macron (RT)

Resolving the Russia-Ukraine conflict will not be quick or easy and will require Kiev to face the issue of territory, French President Emmanuel Macron has warned. Speaking to an annual conference of ambassadors at the Elysee Palace on Monday, Macron addressed a number of global issues, including the conflict between Moscow and Kiev. “The Ukrainians need to hold a realistic discussion on the territorial questions and only they can do that,” the French president said. “The United States of America has to help us change the nature of the situation and convince Russia to come to the negotiating table,” while the European members of NATO have the responsibility to craft security guarantees for Ukraine, Macron added.

While no specific peace proposal has been made public, rumors in the media have suggested that US President-elect Donald Trump intends to propose a ceasefire that would “freeze” the conflict along the current front line. Some Western governments have sought to handle Kiev’s expected objections to this by offering Ukraine security guarantees, while stopping short of NATO membership. The French president also warned that there is “no quick and easy solution” in Ukraine, even though Trump has pledged to end the conflict swiftly once he takes office. Continued support for Kiev is vital for the “credibility” of the West, which would be “undermined” by any compromises brought about by “Ukraine fatigue,” Macron told the diplomats in Paris. “The new American president himself knows that the US has no chance of winning anything if Ukraine loses,” Macron said, adding that “capitulation of Ukraine cannot be good for Europeans and Americans.”

Ukraine’s Vladimir Zelensky has outlawed any talks with Russia so long as President Vladimir Putin is in office and has insisted on a “peace platform” that would see a unilateral Russian withdrawal from all territories claimed by Kiev, payment of reparations, and war crimes prosecutions. Moscow has dismissed Zelensky’s proposal as delusional. Russia’s terms for ending the hostilities insist on Ukraine becoming neutral, demilitarized and “denazified,” while accepting the “new territorial realities” on the ground and guaranteeing all the rights of ethnic Russians and Russian-speakers. Any peace will also require the removal of all Western sanctions on Russia as well, the Kremlin has said.

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Can Starlink cover all internet services for the whole country?

• Italy In Talks With Starlink For $1.6 Billion Telecom Security Deal (ZH)

President-elect Donald Trump hosted Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni at Mar-a-Lago on Saturday. Following the meeting, Bloomberg reported that a deal between the Italian government and Elon Musk’s SpaceX for Starlink satellite internet service could soon be finalized to provide secure telecommunications. Starlink and the Italian government have been in discussions since mid-2023. According to the report, talks are ongoing and centered around a five-year contract valued at $1.6 billion. This contract would provide a broad range of top-level encryption for the government’s telephone and internet services. Sources indicated that Italy’s Intelligence Services and Defense Ministry have already signed a deal with SpaceX. Italy confirmed on Monday that discussions continue, stating that no deal has been reached. Officials added, “The talks with SpaceX are part of normal government business.”

On Saturday, Trump praised PM Meloni as a “fantastic woman” at the former president’s Mar-a-Lago residence in Palm Beach, Florida. “This is very exciting,” Trump said, adding, “I’m here with a fantastic woman, the prime minister of Italy. She’s really taken Europe by storm.” Trump and Meloni were joined by two of his nominees: Senator Marco Rubio (R-Florida) for Secretary of State and Representative Mike Waltz (R-Florida) for National Security Advisor. Following the meeting, Bloomberg reported that a deal between the Italian government and Elon Musk’s SpaceX for Starlink satellite internet service could soon be finalized to provide secure telecommunications.

Starlink and the Italian government have been in discussions since mid-2023. According to the report, talks are ongoing and centered around a five-year contract valued at $1.6 billion. This contract would provide a broad range of top-level encryption for the government’s telephone and internet services. Sources indicated that Italy’s Intelligence Services and Defense Ministry have already signed a deal with SpaceX. Italy confirmed on Monday that discussions continue, stating that no deal has been reached. Officials added, “The talks with SpaceX are part of normal government business.” On Saturday, Trump praised PM Meloni as a “fantastic woman” at the former president’s Mar-a-Lago residence in Palm Beach, Florida. “This is very exciting,” Trump said, adding, “I’m here with a fantastic woman, the prime minister of Italy. She’s really taken Europe by storm.”

Trump and Meloni were joined by two of his nominees: Senator Marco Rubio (R-Florida) for Secretary of State and Representative Mike Waltz (R-Florida) for National Security Advisor. Meloni’s visit to Mar-a-Lago follows her dinner with Trump and Musk in December during the reopening of the Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris. Last month, Reuters reported that Italy plans to begin tests as early as January to see if Starlink internet will boost the rollout of high-speed internet in the country. Musk’s SpaceX is the leader in rocket launches and satellite deployment, allowing the US to be many years ahead of China and Russia in the global space race. Starlink has more than 7,000 satellites in low-Earth orbit, along with next-gen satellites being launched regularly for direct-to-cell satellite services.

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This says Ursula and Bourla used SMS and then deleted the messages. WhatsApp seems more likely, since it is encrypted.

• Pfizergate: What is EC Chief Von Der Leyen Accused of? (Sp.)

A court in Liege, Belgium, is due to consider whether European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen has legal immunity against corruption charges related to her murky involvement in the purchase of coronavirus vaccines. What is the scandal all about? Sputnik explores. In 2022, US media reported that von der Leyen had communicated with Albert Bourla, chief executive of the US pharmaceutical giant Pfizer, about clinching a long-term contract to purchase 1.8 billion doses of COVID-19 vaccines worth €35 billion ($37.6 billion), even before they passed clinical trials. Negotiations on the deal were conducted informally in late 2020 via SMS messages and without prior consent of EU member states.

The European Commission President also texted her husband, Heiko von der Leyen, who serves as the medical director at Orgenesis, a company that collaborates with Pfizer. All the messages were then accidentally deleted, Ursula von der Leyen claimed. As a result, she has been accused of “usurpation of functions and title,” destruction of public documents, and high-level corruption charges that were initiated by Belgian lobbyist Frederic Baldan. The first hearing on his complaint was held on 17 May 2024, when the Liege court confirmed that the so-called Pfizegate case is in line with its jurisdiction and should not be handed to the European Public Prosecutor’s Office (EPPO), created on the initiative of von der Leyen herself, due to an obvious conflict of interests.

The second hearing slated for December 5 was actually disrupted due to a demarche by the EPPO, which sent a counter-request to the court for von der Leyen’s immunity. The EPPO argues that von der Leyen has immunity from prosecution for corruption. European Commission spokesperson Stefan de Keersmaecker said on January 5 that von der Leyen had canceled all “external engagements” in the coming days after contracting “severe pneumonia.”

https://twitter.com/i/status/1876278016722010115

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“According to three separate reports published in 2013, 2014, and 2015, local politicians and police alike opted to cover up the rapes partly out of fear that bringing the perpetrators to justice would be seen as “racist.”

• Migrants Arrested For Sex Crimes At Triple The Rate Of Brits – UK Stats (RT)

Foreigners are more than three times as likely to be arrested for sex crimes in the UK as British citizens, according to a first-of-its-kind analysis by the Centre for Migration Control using data from the Home Office and the Office for National Statistics (ONS). The report comes amid claims that the government has purposefully suppressed information on migrant crime stats, as well as a renewed uproar over institutional cover-ups in the ‘grooming gangs’ scandal. Groups of men across the UK, predominantly of Pakistani origin, have reportedly raped and tortured thousands of underage girls in towns across northern England over the last two decades. Police in England and Wales arrested more than 9,000 foreign nationals for sexual offenses between January and October last year, according to the data, which was released through Freedom of Information (FOI) requests.

That figure represented 26.1% of the total estimated 35,000 arrests for sexual offenses. The data show almost 165 arrests per 100,000 of the migrant population, in comparison to 48 arrests per 100,000 British citizens. In the City of London, foreign nationals accounted for almost 67% of arrests for sexual offenses. Looking at all crimes, the report showed that foreign nationals were arrested at twice the rate of Britons, with 131,000 arrests over the same period last year. While foreigners make up nine percent of the population, they accounted for more than 16% of arrests. Albanians were the nationality most likely to be arrested for sex crimes, followed by Afghans, Iraqis, and Algerians. Romanians accounted for the most arrests for crimes overall, followed by Poles, Albanians, Indians, Pakistanis, and Nigerians.

Robert Bates, the founder of the Centre for Migration Control, told The Telegraph that the government must implement “far stricter visa protocols” for those nationalities with a “disproportionately high propensity to engage in criminality.” A government spokesman said on Monday that the Ministry of Justice “already publishes the data on convicted foreign nationals serving in our prisons” and has a plan for “smashing the criminal gangs” in Britain. Calls have grown for a public inquiry into the grooming gangs scandal in recent days after Tesla CEO and X owner Elon Musk publicly attacked Prime Minister Keir Starmer’s handling of the issue when he led the UK’s Crown Prosecution Service, from 2008 to 2013.

In a series of posts on X, Musk pointed to reports that the Home Office allegedly urged the police forces in 2008 not to investigate sexual exploitation of underage girls. Musk called Starmer a “national embarrassment” and said he “must go.” According to three separate reports published in 2013, 2014, and 2015, local politicians and police alike opted to cover up the rapes partly out of fear that bringing the perpetrators to justice would be seen as “racist.”

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A guaranteed hit.

• Amazon Confirms Melania Trump Documentary (RT)

A documentary about Melania Trump will be released later this year, Amazon has confirmed, touting the forthcoming release as “an unprecedented, behind-the-scenes look” at the former and incoming US first lady. Filming began in December with former Hollywood heavyweight Brett Ratner as the director, Variety reported on Monday. “We are excited to share this truly unique story with our millions of customers around the world,” an Amazon spokesperson told the outlet. “Prime Video will be sharing more details on the project as filming progresses and release plans are finalized.” The film will reportedly be released in theaters as well as on the Prime streaming platform. Trump herself is listed as an executive producer, alongside Fernando Sulichin of New Element Media. Sulichin has worked with Oliver Stone on documentaries about NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden and Brazilian president Luiz Inacio ‘Lula’ da Silva.

Work on the project began about a month after her husband Donald decisively won the 2024 US presidential election. Slovenian-born Melania is Trump’s third wife and the mother of his youngest son, Barron. Amazon’s Executive Chairman Jeff Bezos also owns the Washington Post, which was openly critical of Trump during his first term in the White House (2017-2021). Bezos has recently signaled a change of approach, praising Trump for “tremendous grace and courage under literal fire” after an assassination attempt in Pennsylvania in July. Ahead of the November election, he blocked the Post from endorsing Trump’s rival, Vice President Kamala Harris.

Last month, Bezos also announced he would be making a $1 million donation to Trump’s inauguration fund and another $1 million in-kind contribution by streaming the ceremony on Prime Video. Ratner’s involvement has attracted some controversy in Hollywood. The director of ‘X-Men: The Last Stand’ and the ‘Rush Hour’ franchise has not worked since 2017, when several actresses publicly accused him of inappropriate sexual behavior. No charges were ever filed, however, and the entire episode played out in the court of public opinion at the height of the ‘Me Too’ era triggered by accusations against producer Harvey Weinstein.

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After all these years, the best they can do is “power a small refrigerator for about 3.5 hours”.

• Nuclear Fusion Offers Safe And Clean Energy (JTN)

Virginia Gov. Glenn Younkin announced last month that the largest private fusion company in the U.S. had selected the state to be the location for a multi-billion dollar investment in the world’s first grid-scale fusion power plant. Commonwealth Fusion Systems promises to deliver power to the grid within a decade from a facility 16 miles south of Richmond. Fusion power has been getting a lot of attention lately, including a Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee hearing in September, with a panel of experts speaking optimistically on the development of the technology. Even if developers manage to overcome the technical challenges of bringing fusion energy to fruition, nuclear proponents say that the barriers to development of nuclear fission remain political and not technical or economical. There’s little reason to think the same political challenges could stand in the way of fusion, even if the technology is realized.

The International Atomic Energy Commission explains that while fission splits a heavy element (with a high atomic mass number) into fragments; fusion joins two light elements (with a low atomic mass number), forming a heavier element. In both cases, energy is freed because the mass of the remaining nucleus is smaller than the mass of the reacting nuclei. Nuclear fission power plants have the disadvantage of generating unstable nuclei; some of these are radioactive for millions of years. “Fusion on the other hand does not create any long-lived radioactive nuclear waste. A fusion reactor produces helium, which is an inert gas.” Too cheap to meterFusion works by combining isotopes together, in a process that releases energy. It’s the same process that the sun uses. Theoretically, a fusion reactor could generate massive amounts of electricity, without any carbon dioxide emissions.

It also doesn’t carry the risks of a nuclear meltdown that, while very rare, can occur in a fission reactor, which releases energy by splitting atoms apart. There’s no chance of a chain reaction in a fusion generator. Fusion also doesn’t produce nuclear waste. While the prospect of an abundant, carbon-free energy source is attractive, the promise of fusion is nothing new. At an Atoms for Peace conference in 1955, Homi Bhabha, an influential Indian nuclear physicist predicted fusion would be a reality by the 1970s. “I venture to predict that a method will be found for liberating fusion energy in a controlled manner within the next two decades,” Bhabha said.

The prediction, of course, turned out to be wrong, and 70 years later, there are no commercial fusion reactors powering the grid anywhere in the world. While fission reactors have been deployed and have provided about 9% of global energy in 2023, that technology too had its share of hype, once promising to be “too cheap to meter.” In 2022, the National Ignition Facility at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in California, became the only facility to achieve what’s called “net fusion energy,” which is a fusion reaction producing more energy than the reaction required. The reaction released 3.15 million joules of energy and required 2.05 million joules of laser power to produce it. The 3.15 million joules is the equivalent of 875 watt hours. That could power a small refrigerator for about 3.5 hours.

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Jan 6

 

 

Biden Is ‘Unequivocally’ More Mentally Fit Than Trump

 

 

Errol

 

 

Octopus

 

 

 

 

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