Sep 092024
 


Pieter Bruegel the Elder Two monkeys 1562

 

A Harris Victory in 2024 Makes the US a One-Party State (AmG)
Election Guru In US Claims Harris Will Beat Trump (RT)
$10 mln Is Serious Money – What’s Lacking? Serious Evidence Of Crime (Flores)
Now It Is the White House that Is Smearing Tucker Carlson (Paul Craig Roberts)
PAC Runs Ads In Muslim-Heavy Michigan Lauding Harris For Israel Support (ZH)
Musk Set To Become World’s First Trillionaire (RT)
Elon Musk Reveals When He Will Be Able To Send Humans To Mars (RT)
Elon Musk: First Mars Mission In Two Years; Make America Healthy Again (ZH)
Vive la Démocratie! (Manley)
CIA, MI6 Chiefs Warn Of Threats To ‘World Order’ (RT)
US Military Suicide As A Result Of The Ongoing War On Terror (Van den Ende)
Zakharova Likens US To Hollywood Ax-Wielding Maniac (RT)
Why Turkiye’s Move to Join BRICS as Full Member is Big Deal (Sp.)
Erdogan Wants Greater Islamic Alliance To Combat Israeli ‘Expansionism’ (ZH)
Iran’s New President Wants To Move Capital Out Of Tehran (RT)
China Bans Foreigners From Adopting Its Children (RT)
A Post-Google World (Stoller)

 

 

 

 

https://twitter.com/i/status/1832488452333457440

 

 

Wi.

 

 

Vivek

 

 

Clapping like seals
https://twitter.com/i/status/1832586177268031781

 

 

Bill Clinton’s 1995 SOTU

 

 

Vivek Tucker

 

 

Trump DOJ chief
https://twitter.com/i/status/1832497260867023272

 

 

Tim Pool
https://twitter.com/i/status/1832378642824864033

 

 

 

 

Excellent from James E. Fanell and Bradley A. Thayer.

A Harris Victory in 2024 Makes the US a One-Party State (AmG)

The election of 2024 will be epochal for the United States. It will be as impactful on the course of the nation as the election of 1860 and the ensuing Civil War. This November’s election will determine whether the U.S. remains a viable constitutional republic or becomes a one-party state. If Vice President Kamala Harris wins, the result will be the realization of President Obama’s intent, voiced in his famous 2008 remark, to “fundamentally transform” the United States. Thus, the election is important for all Americans, particularly the voting public, to be aware that should Harris win, then 2024 is likely to be the last free, fair, and competitive election in the U.S. If she does win, then the U.S. by 2028 will be a one-party country, with the Democrats in permanent control, as California, Illinois, Massachusetts, or Hawaii are at the state level today. In the wake of her 2024 election, Harris, by her own words, is certain to take the following actions in pursuit of the agenda of the one-party government.

Harris will target the Supreme Court, as that is the most potent source of resistance to Democratic rule. To defeat the conservative majority on the Supreme Court, the Harris administration will push to pack the Court so that it may nominate justices who support judicial activism and oppose originalism—that the constitution, or subsequent laws, be interpreted by their original meanings. A Harris administration that packed the Court, with new Justices confirmed by a Democratic-controlled Senate, would usher in the one-party state that would never give up power. Additionally, a Harris administration would seek to add states to the Electoral College. Specifically, the Harris administration supports the push to add the District of Columbia and Puerto Rico as states, adding four Senators and at least two Representatives to the House of Representatives. The addition of these states to the Union would give the Democrat Party permanent control over the presidency.

Again, another example of a one-party state, something that is anathema to freedom and liberty and has always resulted in death and destruction to the citizens of the people of other countries. Given the decisions by the Biden-Harris administration to open America’s border, illegal immigration will continue and be accelerated. Although no one knows the total numbers, at least 10-12 million illegal aliens have entered the U.S. during the Biden-Harris presidency. These illegal aliens will be placed on an immediate path to citizenship so that they may vote legally. Conceivably, at least 12 million more illegal aliens can be expected to enter the U.S. during a Harris presidency, and this will only accelerate a permanent pathway for illegal aliens to become citizens. This will open the doors to many more scores of millions of people to enter the U.S. in numbers that are certain to destabilize American society, economy, and politics and forever change the country.

Regarding the economy, Americans can expect a Harris administration to make good on their pledges to institute federally mandated price controls and dramatically increase tax burdens on average Americans, including taxes on unrealized income, also known as wealth taxes. These actions will culminate in even worse hyperinflation, devaluation of the dollar, and the essential establishment of a state-run economy like that run by the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) in the PRC—the disastrous results notwithstanding. Her Department of Justice will build on Biden’s efforts to decapitate the Make America Great Again (MAGA) movement by imprisoning President Trump, senior Trump officials, attorneys, and prospective Republican rivals whose support is rooted in the MAGA movement. Lindsay Graham and other RINOs will be safe, at least in the near term, but not J.D. Vance or Josh Hawley. Censorship in all forms will worsen. Government interference in social media will tighten so that all media, including social media, are de facto state-controlled. Orwell’s “thought police” would become a reality.

Policies to destroy American culture, including the nuclear family, and Western civilization will be expanded to bring America to a “Year Zero” moment, where American society, culture, and family life may be remade in accord with Marxism-Leninism. A Harris administration’s policy towards the People’s Republic of China will continue President Biden’s swath of Engagement policies. The consequence of this will be that the dictatorship of the illegitimate CCP is saved from the crises that they themselves created due to many decades of their political tyranny over the Chinese people. In turn, this will result in Taiwan’s fall to the PRC and introduce tremendous strain on U.S. alliances in the Indo-Pacific and Europe. Americans will find that the world will be very different, very quickly, and for a very long time.

The Beijing-Moscow axis will be emboldened to commit additional aggression in Europe and the Indo-Pacific. Current National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan and Philip Gordon have been rumored to receive major positions, Sullivan as Secretary of State and Gordon as National Security Adviser. This will ensure the deepening of Biden’s disastrous Engagement policies. The rapidity with which a Harris administration will be able to advance this agenda will depend to some degree on its control of Congress. Much will depend on whether the House stays in the Republican hands with a sufficient majority to guarantee that weak Republicans do not cross the aisle. If the House does not remain in effective Republican control, the Democrats’ ambitions will be realized immediately. But if it does in 2024, the principal aim of the Democrats will be to ensure its capture in 2026.

In the meantime, Harris will work through executive orders, pressure, and workarounds to achieve these aims. Harris, who is now 59 years old, will run for reelection in 2028, further solidifying what she achieved since 2024 so that the 2032 election will be decided in the Democratic primary as the Republican party will no longer be a national party, just as it is not a true state-wide party in states like California and New York. At the time that they occur, elections are very difficult to perceive as having a historical impact. For instance, the voters of 1860 did not know that a Civil War was coming. Those voting for Woodrow Wilson in 1916 on his campaign of staying out of World War I did not know that he would take them into World War I. Americans should understand how important this choice is, despite Harris-Walz doing their best to minimize how radical they are by not giving interviews, not being honest about what their policies are, and how radical they would be.

Their campaign is one of profound deceit. Their expectation is that supportive media, pollsters, popular culture, and donors will carry them through the election. In that expectation, they certainly are correct. Their deception reveals that they have nothing but contempt for the Declaration and Constitution and, thus, the American people. Americans must consider why Harris and Walz are so contemptuous of them, whether it is wise to vote for them, and whether they will be better off in 2028 than they are now, or whether that future might be a far worse one—one from which they may never recover. The American people have a choice at the polling booth. 2024 is everything for the future of the American Republic. It is a fork in the road for the U.S. and the American people to choose to continue the path our Founders established in 1776 or a radically different one that will take the U.S. into the ever-worsening tyrannical rule of a one-party state.

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Based on votes? I don’t see it. But there are other ways.

Election Guru In US Claims Harris Will Beat Trump (RT)

Historian Allan Lichtman, widely acclaimed as the ‘Nostradamus’ of US presidential elections, has predicted that Democratic nominee Kamala Harris will beat her Republican rival Donald Trump in November. The history professor at American University says his method shuns polls altogether, and is instead based on a set of 13 true-or-false questions that supposedly hold the “keys” to the White House. Originally, the anticipated GOP candidate was supposed to run against incumbent president Joe Biden. However, following the veteran politician’s dismal showing during a televised debate in late June, the Democrats replaced him with Vice President Harris as their nominee. Speaking to The New York Times on Thursday, Lichtman said: “Kamala Harris will be the next president of the United States – at least that’s my prediction for the outcome of this race.” He explained that of the 13 so-called ‘keys,’ eight favored the Democratic nominee.

He claimed that Harris has gained from the absence of a strong third-party candidate after Robert F Kennedy Jr. pulled out of the race last month. He also cited positive short- and long-term economic indicators, supposed legislative achievements enacted by the Biden administration, and a perceived absence of social unrest or scandal attached to the White House, as stacking the odds in the Democratic candidate’s favor. In addition, Lichtman says, the fact that Harris did not have to undergo a party nomination process, with all the other candidates rallying behind her, is also a plus for the vice president. Speaking to Fox News Digital on Saturday, the renowned election forecaster stood by his prediction, saying that, following the “unprecedented” withdrawal of Biden from the race, the “Democrats finally got smart and united behind Harris.”

Lichtman says he has correctly predicted the outcomes of nine out of ten presidential elections since 1984. The only time he failed was during the contested faceoff between George W Bush and Al Gore back in 2000, the historian insists. That election was decided after the US supreme court ruled in Bush’s favor following weeks of legal wrangling over disputed ballots. Meanwhile, another influential American election analyst, Nate Silver, claimed on Wednesday that Trump’s chances of beating Harris were higher than at any point since the vice president entered the race in July. His prediction stood in stark contrast with several polls over the past few weeks that have consistently shown Harris slightly ahead of Trump.

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$10 mln Is NOT Serious Money in the context of a US presidential election.

$10 mln Is Serious Money – What’s Lacking? Serious Evidence Of Crime (Flores)

The entrenched authorities are bent on inserting Kamala Harris into office using lawfare, despite her resounding unpopularity and anti-populism. On September 4th, 2024, the United States Department of Justice issued a press release from its Office of Public Affairs, detailing and making public a sealed indictment against two Russian nationals, who are said to be employees of RT, for ‘funneling’ US $10mln to various high-profile social media content creators. What strikes us immediately is that this is not a crime, even though the word ‘funneling’ is a strongly loaded term in the sense of neuro-linguistic programming, and so the DOJ’s approach to geopolitical lawfare as an extended form of political warfare in the information sphere, has been to find a legal theory that would support ‘finding’ and ‘creating’ charges on the basis of the two accused having conspired to fail to register as foreign agents.

The opening paragraphs of the DOJ press release read: “An indictment charging Russian nationals Kostiantyn [for some reason DOJ uses the Ukrainian version of the Russian name Konstantin – SCF] Kalashnikov, 31, also known as Kostya, and Elena Afanasyeva, 27, also known as Lena, with conspiracy to violate the Foreign Agents Registration Act (FARA) and conspiracy to commit money laundering was unsealed today in the Southern District of New York. Kalashnikov and Afanasyeva are at large. “The Justice Department has charged two employees of RT, a Russian state-controlled media outlet, in a $10 million scheme to create and distribute content to U.S. audiences with hidden Russian government messaging,” said Attorney General Merrick B. Garland.

“The Justice Department will not tolerate attempts by an authoritarian regime to exploit our country’s free exchange of ideas in order to covertly further its own propaganda efforts, and our investigation into this matter remains ongoing.” “Our approach to combating foreign malign influence is actor-driven, exposing the hidden hand of adversaries pulling strings of influence from behind the curtain,” said Deputy Attorney General Lisa Monaco. “As alleged in today’s indictment, Russian state broadcaster RT and its employees, including the charged defendants, co-opted online commentators by funneling them nearly $10 million to pump pro-Russia propaganda and disinformation across social media to U.S. audiences. The Department will not tolerate foreign efforts to illegally manipulate American public opinion by sowing discord and division.”

Based on the language of the charges, it would appear that the foreign nationals were physically in the United States for the duration, or at least the initiation, of the project. That they are ‘at large’ and have not been taken into custody would seem to imply that this arrest will happen imminently, or that the two accused are no longer in the US. It is important to keep in mind that it is not illegal for Russians to spend money in the US, and it is not illegal for Russians or any other foreign nationals to start a business, or engage in protected 1st Amendment activities such as blogging and news or opinion writing or broadcasting. Assuming that some parts of the described predicate are true, (that a Russian citizen’s money was spent in the US), provided that the individual is not an a US Treasury Department sanctions list, the relevant Executive Order, or legislation, has not obviously been violated.

There are some limitations to speech in the US for foreign nationals, and while there is some nuance here, generally 1st Amendment activities are protected unless there is either a reasonable or articulable risk (which standard may depend on the circumstances) to national security that could reasonably lead to a grand jury indictment – think insider whistle-blowing or releasing government/corporate secrets. ‘Funneling’ moneys to individual content creators – YouTuber Tim Pool is believed to be prominent among these – may or may not have influenced the content they were creating – another important part of the nuanced questions that arise. And if the opinions of said content creators (on the subjects they are known for) had not changed after the influx of private party backing, it is more difficult to make the whole claim that the DOJ is now making.

Garland, for his part, also adds a proviso – the messages are “hidden”. At face value, this would seem to give the accuseds’ lawyers an additional challenge. To the contrary, the opposite would be true: making a charge in which no method of falsifiability can be established, is a baseless charge. It is not a ‘hidden crime’, but an activity indistinguishable from lawful behavior. More to the point, the subjects being discussed, whether influenced by the alleged money or not, were matters already in the public domain, expressing views and sharing information which is already readily available everywhere, and which were commonplace beliefs among an already significant part of the American population. We are not talking state or corporate secrets, calls for violence or other seditious activity, which rise to the level of a national security risk.

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Honest questions.

Now It Is the White House that Is Smearing Tucker Carlson (Paul Craig Roberts)

Tucker interviewed Darryl Cooper whose view of World War II appears to be based in the 50-year research of historian David Irving. It is not the official view established by court historians. Consequently, the “White House condemns Tucker Carlson’s ‘Nazi propaganda’ interview as ‘disgusting and sadistic insult.’” In his well researched books, World War II historian David Irving reported that whereas he found evidence that Jews were murdered in the hundreds of thousands, he cannot find evidence of an organized Holocaust. He said that from all the documents he could find and force out of sealed archives, the crimes against the Jews resulted from decisions unrelated to an organized plan of extermination. No historian has ever found a Nazi plan for Jewish extermination. Such a massive undertaking as a Holocaust could not be undertaken without a bureaucratic organization and an organized plan, but there is no evidence of any such organization and plan.

Hitler repeatedly said that the Jewish question would be settled after the war. He spoke of relocating Jews to Madagascar. Later with the initial success of his invasion of the Soviet Union, Hitler spoke of relocating Jews to the eastern part of the Soviet Union that he would leave to Stalin. Reporting Irving’s findings does not make Irving or me or anyone an anti-semite or holocaust denier. Irving simply reported what he found, and I merely reported what Irving found. It sounds like that is what Darryl Cooper is doing on Carlson’s program. Ron Unz, himself a Jew, has raised his own questions about Holocaust evidence in the Unz Review. Western civilization works by raising questions, not by imposing dogmas. If all research results are denounced by those who don’t like the findings, how is truth established? It seems to me that Jews hurt their case by shouting down with name-calling and threats against reputations and careers every time they hear something that they don’t like or that doesn’t fit the narrative.

If the Holocaust story is accurate, it will stand on its own feet without name-calling and enemies lists. The indoctrinated notion of the unparalleled evil of Nazi Germany rests more on war propaganda than in fact. Irving’s books, Churchill’s War and Hitler’s War are the most researched and most honest books about the war. On the basis of an honest rendition of the record, Churchill comes across as a worse war criminal than Hitler. Read the two books, and make your own decision. Why rely on ancient war propaganda? The widespread view that Hitler started World War II and intended to conquer the world is total ignorance kept alive by court historians. World War II was started by the British and French when they declared war on Germany. What Hitler was doing in Poland was the same as Putin is doing in Ukraine. What Putin is doing is protecting Russian people, who found themselves included in a foreign country by the political decisions made by others than themselves, from persecution and slaughter by Ukrainians.

In Poland Hitler was protecting German people, who were stuck into Poland by decisions made by others than themselves, from persecution, dispossession, and death by the Polish. Hitler’s protection of German people was no business of the British any more than Putin’s protection of Russians is any business of the US. No one has answered David Irving’s findings. They just call him names. That tells you where the stronger case resides. I am not a WW II historian and neither is Tucker Carlson, but we both wonder why views are suppressed if they can be factually disproved. The propagandistic way in which WW II has been presented for 83 years has had major harmful effects on countries, their populations, foreign affairs and world history. Those who bring balance to the story should be celebrated, not demonized.

If you will notice, during the 21st century in every country in the Western world what can be discussed or even mentioned has been massively narrowed. We have reached the point where almost anything said or written is hate speech, racist, misogynist, a threat to democracy, offensive, insensitive, anti-semitic, or Russian propaganda. The great writings in the English language, such as Shakespeare, cannot be read in schools because they violate strictures that have been imposed on language. Bigots now dictate our use of language. Official narratives dictate our understanding of history and current events. A world is being created for us in which facts and truth are objectionable.

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“Harris has done nothing to distance herself from Biden’s policies on Israel and Palestine. Her official campaign site doesn’t spell out any stance on the conflict — or any other issue, for that matter.”

PAC Runs Ads In Muslim-Heavy Michigan Lauding Harris For Israel Support (ZH)

Hoping to further estrange Michigan’s Muslim voters from Democratic presidential candidate Kamala Harris, a Republican political action committee has launched a clever ad campaign that praises Harris for supporting the State of Israel and for putting “supporters of a free Palestine…in their place.” The ads are the work of the Future Coalition PAC. Launched in July, its treasurer is Pennsylvania Republican Ray Zaborney, according to Huffington Post’s Kevin Robillard, who was first to report the campaign. Distributed via digital platforms, the videos feature a female narrator speaking approvingly of Harris: “Vice President Harris has chosen a side — the right side. Harris has made herself clear: She stands with Israel and the Jewish people. She has, again and again. She understands the unbreakable bond between the U.S. and Israel. So when Netanyahu came to DC, Harris hosted the [Israeli] prime minister at the White House.

And when supporters of a free Palestine stood up for Gaza, Harris put them in their place. And supporters of free Palestine? They hate her…because Kamala Harris gets it. You can trust she’ll always support Israel.” While it would be difficult to dispute the general accuracy of the messaging, the ads have Michigan Democrats fuming, such as an anonymous operative who vented to Robillard: “Clearly, this ad is designed to get low-information and low-engagement Arab-American and left-leaning voters to oppose Harris…a classic ratfucking operation by a PAC that is helping a former president that uses ‘Palestinian’ as a slur.” Along with Pennsylvania, Arizona, Nevada, Georgia, North Carolina and Wisconsin, Michigan is one of seven battleground states that will likely decide the 2024 presidential election. It’s also home to one of America’s largest Muslim populations, whose presidential preference could prove decisive in the state.

In the current RealClearPolitics polling average, Harris leads in Michigan by only 1.5% — less than half the 3.3% lead Biden held at the same time in 2020. He officially won by 2.8%. In this year’s Michigan Democratic primary, more than 100,000 Dems voted “uncommitted” to protest the Biden-Harris administration’s lopsided support for the State of Israel in its war in Gaza. Since that protest vote was more than 9 times Donald Trump’s 10,704-vote margin in his 2016 Michigan win over Hillary Clinton, it alarmed Democratic strategists. The Biden-Harris campaign has since struggled to walk a political tight-rope, attempting to give Muslims an audience on the issue while still reiterating unwavering support for Israel. Muslims have generally favored the Democratic Party. However, a poll released in August by the Council on American-Islamic Relations found that Harris is the choice of only 29% of Muslims — putting her in a tie with Green Party candidate Jill Stein; 11% back Trump.

The sneaky GOP ad’s line about Harris putting vocal supporters of a free Palestine “in their place” refers to an Aug. 7 incident at a Harris rally in Detroit, in which pro-Palestinian protesters interrupted her speech with chants of “Kamala, Kamala you can’t hide! We won’t vote for genocide.” Harris reflexively resorted to her trusty two-word debate line that exhilarates low-IQ leftists with its sheen of phony feminism, stating, “You know what, if you want Donald Trump to win, then say, that, otherwise I’m speaking.” Harris proceeded to stare down the protesters as if they were wearing MAGA hats and waving Confederate flags, rather than advocating for millions of civilians being subjected to devastation, disease and malnutrition. According to Palestinian authorities, the confirmed death toll from Israel’s 11-month-long attack on Gaza exceeds 40,000.

However, researchers writing in the medical journal Lancet estimate the eventual tally of dead could surpass 186,000, after factoring in the removal of undiscovered bodies in rubble, and the long-term effects from starvation, disease and destroyed housing and sanitation facilities. While Harris’ “I’m speaking” routine left the likes of vacuous New York Times columnists positively starry-eyed, Harris’ directive that pro-Palestinian protesters should be silent so as to assure Democratic control of the White House left many Michigan Muslims incensed, including one of the protesters at the rally. “Harris belittled us and used her event as a platform to say, ‘You are stuck with me and there is nothing we will do to help Palestinians’,” Salma Hamamy told Foreign Policy.

Joe Biden has long been a zealous backer of Israel. In 1986, he infamously — and bewilderingly — declared from the Senate floor, “Were there not an Israel, the United States of America would have to invent an Israel to protect her interests in the region.” In the wake of the Oct 7 Hamas attack on southern Israel, the Biden White House has poured weapons into the Israeli Defense Forces arsenal, while providing diplomatic cover at the United Nations — to the detriment of America’s reputation in much of the world. Meanwhile, Harris has done nothing to distance herself from Biden’s policies on Israel and Palestine. Her official campaign site doesn’t spell out any stance on the conflict — or any other issue, for that matter.

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“Musk has co-founded six companies [..] Tesla, which has a market capitalization of $669.28 billion, is expected to hit the trillion dollar mark next year..”

Musk Set To Become World’s First Trillionaire (RT)

Tech entrepreneur Elon Musk is on track to become the world’s first trillionaire by 2027, according to an estimate by the global education company Informa Connect Academy. The projection published on Friday is based on Musk’s average annual wealth growth rate which stands at 109.88%. The owner of X (formerly Twitter) is the richest man in the world with a fortune of $237 billion, according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index. Musk has co-founded six companies, including electric car maker Tesla and spacecraft manufacturer SpaceX. Tesla, which has a market capitalization of $669.28 billion, is expected to hit the trillion dollar mark next year. Musk acquired Twitter in 2022, renaming the platform X and promising more fairness and transparency.

Other multi-billionaires who are likely to join the Trillionaires Club in the near future are India’s richest man Gautam Adani, Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang, and Indonesian magnate Prajogo Pangestu. All three are expected to become trillionaires by 2028, Informa Connect Academy said. French businessman Bernard Arnault, the chairman of the world’s largest luxury conglomerate LVMH, is likely to become a trillionaire by 2030. Musk first appeared on the Forbes Billionaire list in 2012 with a net worth of $2 billion. In 2021, he became the world’s wealthiest man, displacing Amazon founder Jeff Bezos. Musk lost this status in December 2022 to Arnault when Tesla stock tumbled, but topped the list once again six months later.

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“..the technology needs to be 10,000 times better. Extremely difficult, but not impossible..”

Elon Musk Reveals When He Will Be Able To Send Humans To Mars (RT)

SpaceX will launch its first crewed flights to Mars in four years if its unmanned landings go well, CEO Elon Musk has said. The first uncrewed Starships to the Red Planet are expected to be launched in two years when the next Earth-Mars transfer window opens, the billionaire announced on social media on Saturday.“These will be uncrewed to test the reliability of landing intact on Mars,” Musk explained in a post on X. He expressed hope that if those landings go well, his space company will launch its first crewed flights to Mars in four years. The idea of building a sustainable human settlement on Mars within two decades is not out of reach, the billionaire pledged. “Flight rate will grow exponentially from there, with the goal of building a self-sustaining city in about 20 years,” Musk said, stressing that being multi-planetary will “vastly increase the probable lifespan of consciousness.”

“We will no longer have all our eggs, literally and metabolically, on one planet,” the SpaceX founder explained. In another post, he said SpaceX had created the first fully reusable rocket stage and, much more importantly, made the launch process economically viable. Making life multi-planetary is “fundamentally a cost per ton to Mars problem,” Musk said. “It currently costs about a billion dollars per ton of useful payload to the surface of Mars. That needs to be improved to $100k/ton to build a self-sustaining city there, so the technology needs to be 10,000 times better. Extremely difficult, but not impossible,” he concluded. In June, a Starship rocket returned from space and successfully landed in the Indian Ocean, completing a full mission around the globe on its fourth test flight.

The entrepreneur is counting on Starship, the largest rocket ever made, to help him achieve his goal of building a spacecraft capable of sending humans and cargo to the moon later this decade and eventually to Mars. The Starship spacecraft is designed to carry “both crew and cargo to Earth orbit, the Moon, Mars and beyond,” SpaceX’s website notes.Mars is one of Earth’s “closest habitable neighbors,” and has “decent sunlight,” the site continues. “It is a little cold, but we can warm it up.” Gravity on Mars is about 38% that of Earth, “making it possible to lift heavy things and bound around,” SpaceX noted. “Furthermore, the day is remarkably close to that of Earth.”In February, Musk said that he wants to take one million people to Mars, claiming that he is working on a “game plan” to achieve this. “Humanity should have a moon base, cities on Mars, and be out there among the stars,” he said.

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“..the Trump-RFK Jr.-Musk team..”

Elon Musk: First Mars Mission In Two Years; Make America Healthy Again (ZH)

SpaceX founder and CEO Elon Musk said via X on Saturday evening that the Starship mega rocket will begin flying Mars missions in two years when the next Earth-Mars transfer window opens. The mission will be uncrewed and aim to test the rocket’s ability to land intact on Mars, as Musk’s dreams of occupying the Red Planet could become a reality within the next two decades. “The first Starships to Mars will launch in 2 years when the next Earth-Mars transfer window opens,” Musk wrote on X. He explained, “These will be uncrewed to test the reliability of landing intact on Mars. If those landings go well, then the first crewed flights to Mars will be in 4 years,” adding, “Flight rate will grow exponentially from there, with the goal of building a self-sustaining city in about 20 years. Being multiplanetary will vastly increase the probable lifespan of consciousness, as we will no longer have all our eggs, literally and metabolically, on one planet.”

Musk’s post quoted his post about making life multi-planetary while quoting billionaire Bill Ackman’s post about ‘Making America Healthy Again.’ Here’s the new Robert F. Kennedy Jr.-Donald Trump’s ‘Make America Healthy Again’ ad…

How occupying Mars overlaps with the dire need to reverse America’s imploding health trends could be explained by attorney and activist Tom Renz: “Perhaps NASA funding would be better used working on projects like this rather than wasting time on nonsense like DEI and climate change. A settlement on mars would be an incredible step forward for humanity… DEI is a step backwards towards the racism and sexism of the past.”

Kids now versus kids in the 1960s… We’re sure there has never been morbidity obese astronauts. Spacecrafts have weight limits after all.

One of the emerging themes from the Trump-RFK Jr.-Musk team could be the unification of America around proper health and the pursuit of becoming a multi-planetary species. Fix America’s health first before Starship makes life multi-planetary.

RFK MAHA

Trump RFK

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“..he thinks we’re going to change everything he did and it’s true that is our intention…”

Vive la Démocratie! (Manley)

In April last year protestors in Paris swarmed BlackRock’s office to protest Macron’s pension reforms. A spokesperson for a French union told reporters at the time that they were there to let the world’s largest asset manager know they were taking workers’ pensions. President Emmanuel Macron appointed Michel Barnier, a right-wing politician who played a major role in the 2016 Brexit Task Force, as the new prime minister of France Thursday. In July Macron accepted the resignation of Gabriel Attal following the president’s electoral defeat. Attal was the country’s youngest ever prime minister and held the position for eight months. Macron’s decision is his effort to break a political stalemate that has grasped France since snap legislative elections which were held in July. In a statement which came from Macron’s office the president said that “the new prime minister and his government will create the conditions for the greatest stability.”

Macron, 46, had failed to appoint a new prime minister for a record period of time following a narrow victory for the leftwing New Popular Front in July. Over 80 lawmakers called for Macron to step down in the following weeks after Macron decided to reject the New Popular Front’s candidacy of Lucie Castets for prime minister, despite the coalition winning the most seats in July’s elections. Castets had voiced her desire to create a political alliance that would allow roll backs on pension reforms and tax hikes for the “ultra rich”. “They are all very worried. Nobody understands what Emmanuel Macron is doing, even the Macronists. He is not giving us [political parties] the chance to work together. If you ask me of course I will say I want our program to be the priority, but if you ask what can we change, what can we compromise on, I say we can compromise,” Castets told The Guardian. In March of last year France’s Senate passed a controversial reform bill to raise the retirement age for French citizens by two years. The Senate passed the bill by 195 votes to 112.

Macron’s decision to push through a bill that is extremely unpopular among voters for the alleged sake of the economy clearly went unforgiven during July’s election. “Macron says the problem is the [New Popular Front] program. He feels threatened because he thinks we’re going to change everything he did and it’s true that is our intention. But we’re not saying we will be able to change everything because we will need to find an agreement on every issue and we are fully aware of this,” Castets added. A study conducted by the French Observatory of Economic Conditions in 2020 found that those who have an unfavorable view of Macron believe him to be the “president of the rich”. The author of the report said the losers of Macron’s economic policy are among the “poorest, the unemployed, and the retired.”

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Democracy or world order? You must choose.

CIA, MI6 Chiefs Warn Of Threats To ‘World Order’ (RT)

The global order is under threat from a number of state actors, the heads of the American and British foreign intelligence agencies – the CIA and MI6 – claimed in a joint op-ed published by the Financial Times on Saturday. In the piece, Bill Burns and Richard Moore pledged that Washington and London would work in lockstep to retain the status quo in a world where technology has considerably accelerated geo-political trends. Following the outbreak of the Ukraine conflict in February 2022, and the sharp downturn in ties with the West, senior Russian officials, including President Vladimir Putin, have repeatedly proclaimed the end of US hegemony and a global shift to multipolarity. In the op-ed, Burns and Moore observed that “there is no question that the international world order – the balanced system that has led to relative peace and stability and delivered rising living standards, opportunities and prosperity – is under threat in a way we haven’t seen since the cold war.”

“Today, we co-operate in a contested international system where our two countries face an unprecedented array of threats,” the top spies wrote. The piece singles out an “assertive Russia” in the context of the Ukraine conflict, which both the CIA and MI6 “saw… coming.” The spy agencies’ chiefs noted that the hostilities have demonstrated the increased role of technology in modern warfare, in particular unmanned systems and satellite reconnaissance. In addition, Burns and Moore accused Moscow of waging a “reckless campaign of sabotage across Europe” as well as spreading “lies and disinformation designed to drive wedges between us.” However, according to the op-ed, in the eyes of the CIA and MI6 “the principal intelligence and geopolitical challenge of the 21st century” is the “rise of China.” Both agencies have already reorganized their processes to “reflect that priority.”

Speaking at the St Petersburg International Economic Forum (SPIEF) in early June, Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova stated: “We are talking about polycentrism, a departure from previous norms, and we see the desperate resistance of the collective West… They see the norm differently, as their own dominance, as a world order based on one rule, that they must dominate as before, and everyone must do only what the dominant power allows them to do.” The diplomat insisted that Western narratives are, however, not shared by the global majority, which has embraced the concept of multipolarity. “We should not forget that the collective West are a minority,” Zakharova stressed at the time.

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“..2,530 soldiers died between 2014 and 2019 from causes ranging from car crashes to drug overdoses to cancer, while more than one-third took their own lives..”

US Military Suicide As A Result Of The Ongoing War On Terror (Van den Ende)

Long ago, the U.S. wanted to give itself the image of a true democracy, the defender of human rights, the policeman of the world, the defender of justice and humanity. Perhaps the “founding fathers” of the American Republic had this in mind, but the ideal was never realized and has been in ruins since the so-called “War on Terror” was launched in 2001. Before this episode, there were already countless wars by the U.S., like the Korean and Vietnam Wars. The Americans tried to justify all that by claiming they had liberated Europe from Hitler’s fascism, and subsequently, they were purportedly freeing the world from “evil communism”. However, a fateful turning point emerged, heralding the demise of the American empire. The terror attack of 9/11 was allegedly by radicalized Muslims. But there are too many questions and above all lies. The U.S. has become an empire of lies about what happened, and who did it.

The biggest lies were told about the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. After all the alleged attackers almost all came from Saudi Arabia. That their leader, Osama bin Laden, would have hidden in the caves of Tora Bora in Afghanistan might be possible, but there was still no justification for the war and bombing of that country back to the Stone Age. As with Iraq, a country which mainly consists of 80 percent Shia, not radical Sunnis typical of Al Qaeda. The Americans then under President George Bush Sr. left these Shia in 1991 to die at the end of the First Gulf War against Iraq. His son President George W Bush Jr. started it again in 2003, reportedly as revenge for the failed assassination plan on his father, justifying it by the so-called 9/11 attack. As Nick Turse details in this article, Suicide Squad, the War on Terror is not over yet and the majority of victims these days are American soldiers and servicemen who commit suicide in large numbers.

The United States, which now spends more on its military than the other top 10 countries combined, has failed to win a single war that matters. It lost the Korean and Vietnam Wars. It lost the never-ending Global War on Terror, and it spent 20 years losing in Afghanistan and Iraq. About 7,000 American soldiers lost their lives in combat during the War on Terror since 2001, but the real epidemic of deaths can be found in the U.S. itself. Approximately 2,530 soldiers died between 2014 and 2019 from causes ranging from car crashes to drug overdoses to cancer, while more than one-third took their own lives. Just 96 soldiers died in combat during those same five years. This is just the tip of the iceberg.

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“Many countries are seeking membership in BRICS because they are tired of the “hidden” and “sometimes open aggression” of the US..”

Zakharova Likens US To Hollywood Ax-Wielding Maniac (RT)

Many countries are seeking membership in BRICS because they are tired of the “hidden” and “sometimes open aggression” of the US and are looking for new forms of cooperation, Maria Zakharova, the spokesperson for the Russian Foreign Ministry, said on Sunday. Earlier this week, Moscow said that Türkiye had officially applied to join BRICS, becoming the first NATO state to seek membership in the non-Western economic alliance. Over 30 countries have so far applied to become part of the group, which currently incorporates ten, including Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa. Commenting to TASS news agency on why various nations are willing to join BRICS, Zakharova said that “the world is tired of American attacks” and “is voting for a different form of relationship.”

Nations would like to keep building ties on the principles of international law, “but since Washington, like some kind of maniac from its own Hollywood movie, destroys everything with a lawn mower, a saw, or some kind of an ax, the world is forced to look for new forms of interaction,” she explained. And these forms are the likes of BRICS, but not NATO, according to the Russian diplomat. On Wednesday, Russian presidential aide Yury Ushakov confirmed earlier media reports that Türkiye has officially applied to join BRICS and added that the group’s member states will consider the bid. According to the official, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has also accepted Moscow’s invitation to attend the BRICS summit next month in the Russian city of Kazan. Russia is currently chairing the organization. BRICS was founded in 2006 by Brazil, Russia, India, and China, with South Africa joining in 2011. The group expanded this year when Egypt, Ethiopia, Iran, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates became full members.

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NATO as well as BRICS.

Why Turkiye’s Move to Join BRICS as Full Member is Big Deal (Sp.)

BRICS may receive a new addition in the near future as Turkiye lodged an application for a full-fledged membership with the economic bloc this week. Turkiye’s membership may be welcome news for BRICS as the Turkish economy was rated by the IMF in 2023 as the 17th largest in the world, with the country’s GPD last year being appraised at a little over $1 trillion. According to the World Bank, Turkiye displayed a steady real GDP growth rate (averaged 5.4%) from 2002 till 2022, as well as a decrease in poverty that dropped from over 20% in 2007 to 7.6% in 2021. Turkiye’s geographical location, right on the boundary between Europe and Asia, along with its control of the Bosporus and Dardanelles Straits linking the Black Sea and the Mediterranean Sea, make the country a natural logistical hub for moving goods between the Global South and Global North.

Ankara’s considerable clout in the Middle Eastern affairs, where it has long been one of the top players, and its influence on the African continent may also benefit Turkiye’s future fellow members in the BRICS. At the same time, better access to the BRICS members’ markets may help Turkiye deal with its own economic problems such as, for example, rampant inflation that remains a concern for Ankara today. Ironically, the World Bank notes that the reliance of Turkish industries on “carbon-intensive processes and fossil fuels” presents a challenge in Turkiye’s cooperation with the EU in light of the latter’s focus on “green” technologies and climate change. Meanwhile, BRICS members are not so fixated on destroying their economies for the sake of an environmental agenda and thus might make much better business partners for Turkiye.

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NATO as well as BRICS AND an islamic alliance.

Erdogan Wants Greater Islamic Alliance To Combat Israeli ‘Expansionism’ (ZH)

On Saturday Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan issued a blistering speech at an Islamic schools’ association event near Istanbul once again condemning Israel. But this time he ratcheted the rhetoric as the remarks came a day after a Turkish-American woman was shot during a protest by Israeli troops in the West Bank. Erdogan essentially called for an Islamic uprising against the Jewish state, saying that a Muslim alliance of countries and populations is needed against what he called “the growing threat of expansionism” from Israel. “The only step that will stop Israeli arrogance, Israeli banditry, and Israeli state terrorism is the alliance of Islamic countries,” Erdogan said.

And in a very rare positive reference to Assad of Syria, he described that recent steps by Turkey to advance ties with Egypt and Syria are aimed fundamentally at “forming a line of solidarity against the growing threat of expansionism.” Interestingly, this would bring NATO’s number two largest miliary into an indirect alliance with Iran. But improvement of Turkish ties with the Syrian state also has a lot to do with squeezing out the Kurds in northern Syria. Both Ankara and Damascus have long wanted to see US troops, who are supporting local Kurdish militias, kicked out of the region. This week Egyptian President Abdel Fattah El-Sisi met with Erdogan in Turkey, and heavily focused their discussions on the Gaza crisis. Egypt-Israel tensions have been evident over accusations from Tel Aviv that Egyptian border troops have turned a blind eye to smuggling and underground tunnels.

Erdogan’s threats against Israel have grown of late, sending Turkey’s relations with Israel spiraling, and with trade embargos on a list of export items to boot. In late July Erdogan had threatened that his country could intervene militarily in Gaza to defend Palestinians against the Israelis. “We need to be very strong so that Israel cannot do these ridiculous things to Palestine. Just as we entered Karabakh, just as we entered Libya, we can do something similar to them,” Erdogan had said in a speech to his ruling Justice and Development (AK) Party. But now given Turkish citizen (and American dual national) Aysenur Ezgi Eygi was killed Friday in the West Bank, such rhetoric from Turkish leaders is set to ratchet further.

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“..the Iranian capital since 1786..”

Iran’s New President Wants To Move Capital Out Of Tehran (RT)

The capital of Iran should be transferred from Tehran to a city closer to the country’s south coast, President Masoud Pezeshkian has said.In a speech on Saturday, Pezeshkian, who took office in July, suggested that it is pointless to keep developing Tehran due to the numerous difficulties faced by the city. The capital is currently plagued by “water shortages, land subsidence and air pollution,” among other things, he said, as cited by the news outlet Javan Online. “Tehran as the capital of the country is facing problems to which we have no solution,” the president acknowledged, suggesting that the best way out would be to “relocate the political and economic center of the country.” Simply telling residents that they should move out of Tehran will not work, and the government “must first go ourselves so that the people would follow us,” Pezeshkian argued.

There are also economic reasons for finding a new capital closer to the Persian Gulf, through which key trading routes pass, he stressed. “Further development of the country is impossible with the continuation of the current trend, when we bring the resources from the south of the country and the sea to the center, turn them into products there and send them back to the south for export,” the president argued. Such a state of affairs “severely depreciates and reduces our competitiveness, and we have no other choice but to transfer the economic and political center of the country to the south and closer to the sea,” he insisted. Gholamhossein Karbaschi, who served as Tehran’s mayor in the 1990s, has disputed Pezeshkian’s idea, arguing that there is no suitable substitute for Tehran. “Where do you want to go?” he said in an interview with the Asr Iran outlet. The former mayor warned that some countries that previously decided to relocate their capitals have ended up losing money and getting two problematic cites instead of one.

Tehran, which has been the Iranian capital since 1786, is located in the north of the country, 100km (63 miles) from the Caspian Sea. The city is home to 9.4 million people, nearly 17 million in its greater metropolitan area, making Tehran the biggest city in Iran and Western Asia, and the second-largest metropolitan area in the Middle East, after Cairo. It is not the first time that the Iranian authorities have suggesting moving the capital out of Tehran. Similar proposals were made during the term of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad between 2005 and 2013. At the time, parliament voted to set up a special council to seek a replacement. However, a final decision on transferring the capital was never made. Pezeshkian was inaugurated as Iranian president in late July after beating his rival Saeed Jalili by 53.7% to 44.3% in the second round of the election earlier that month. The snap poll was called after the death of Iran’s President Ebrahim Raisi in a helicopter crash in May.

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Western “values” change (aka erode) too much too fast.

China Bans Foreigners From Adopting Its Children (RT)

China has officially shut down its international adoption program, the Foreign Ministry has announced. The move comes at a time when hundreds of American families have pending applications to adopt Chinese children, according to the Associated Press. “Apart from the adoption…from one’s collateral relatives by blood of the same generation…China will not send children abroad for adoption. This is also in line with the spirit of relevant international covenants,” Mao Ning, a spokeswoman for the ministry, said in a first official announcement of the rule change. AP reported that in a phone call with American diplomats in China, government officials said they “will not continue to process cases at any stage” other than special cases covered by an exemption clause. Over the last three decades the US has been the most common destination for overseas adoptions of Chinese children.

“We understand there are hundreds of families still pending completion of their adoption, and we sympathize with their situation,” the State Department said.Back in 2007, Beijing toughened the vetting process for foreign adopters, with an emphasis on family lifestyle and age, and only accepting applications from heterosexual married couples. Beijing temporarily suspended foreign adoptions during the coronavirus pandemic, but later resumed for them couples who had travel authorizations prior to 2020. China’s ban follows similar steps from other countries. In January, Denmark’s only overseas adoption agency ceased operations, after concerns were raised over irregularities and fabricated documents. In June, Norway tightened controls over foreign adoptions and is now conducting an investigation into whether past adoptions were legal and ethical.

Citizens of several countries are already prohibited from adopting Russian children. The 2013 ‘Dima Yakovlev Law’ banned adoptions by Americans, after a Russian orphan adopted by a Virginia couple was left in a car for nine hours and died of heat stroke. In August 2022, a proposal was put to the State Duma to expand the adoption ban to all “unfriendly countries.” Sending Russian children there would be a “blow to the future of the nation,” they argued, since the West “destroys traditional values.” President Vladimir Putin objected, however, saying that the way it was drafted, the bill would infringe on the rights of Ukrainians living on Russian territory. Russia banned same-sex couples from adopting children in 2013. The Russian Orthodox Church has since proposed banning international adoptions by couples from countries that allow “gender reassignment” procedures, an idea that was then backed by lawmakers.

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Long overview. Notable: a break up might be lucrative financially. But they would have to abandon their power dreams.

A Post-Google World (Stoller)

When Google first started, it was a high-quality search engine, and its founders believed that advertising presented an inherent conflict of interest for any such product. “Advertising funded search engines,” they wrote, “will be inherently biased towards the advertisers and away from the needs of consumers.” Nevertheless, in 2000, the venture funded company, after failing to build a technology licensing business, started an advertising arm, quickly building up a large number of advertising customers who liked the ability to put text ads next to relevant search results. In the early 2000s, Google started a third party advertising business, cutting deals with publishers that let them put Google Ads on their web pages and take a slice of the ad money. In this way, publishers began accessing the ad demand that Google had control over. But this new line of business introduced another conflict of interest, since Google was now edging closer to controlling both the buyers of ads and the sellers of them, and all the user data advertising and publishing tracked.

In 2007, Google bought YouTube, a source of ad inventory, giving it more power over the selling of ads. In 2008, Google purchased an adtech company called DoubleClick, which had been the leading provider of software to allow publishers to manage their ad inventory, as well as a large repository of data. Slowly, subtly, Google was intermediating as both the buyer and seller in the ad market, an obvious set of conflicts. Before its purchase, Google had tried to enter DoubleClick’s business, but failed, because it’s hard to move from one software platform to another. DoubleClick’s former CEO had observed, “Nothing has such high switching costs. . . .Takes an act of God to do it.” That same year, Google also bought an ad exchange (AdX), where buyers of advertising could match with sellers of ad inventory, in a quasi-financial market.

After buying DoubleClick, Google tied its control over advertising demand to publisher use of its software. As the DOJ put it in the complaint, “If publishers wanted access to exclusive Google Ads’ advertising demand, they had to use Google’s publisher ad server (DFP) and ad exchange (AdX), rather than equivalent tools offered by Google’s rivals.” The result is that it acquired a monopoly across the entire industry, in the software publishers use and the matching engine for advertisers. It also built a ubiquitous service Google Analytics that measured web traffic for publishers, so it did all the measurement as well. One consequences was that Google charged high prices, keeping between 30-50% of every advertising dollar that went through its system. That take rate was bad enough. But Google also acquired surveillance capacity over every publisher and advertiser.

It was as if every night Google could break into the offices of the Wall Street Journal and take its subscriber list, and then go to its own advertising clients and tell them that it could sell them access to Wall Street Journal readers for much cheaper rates when those readers opened Google owned and operated properties, like Gmail, YouTube, search, and so forth. In doing so, Google gained the ability to direct ad revenue away from third party publishers to itself. To buttress its ability to target, in 2016 Google violated a promise it made when it bought DoubleClick. It had told enforcers it would guard user privacy and segment data. Instead, it decided to combine all data across all its different services, from Gmail to YouTube to search, into detailed dossiers of each user. Google now had a machine, where it could spy on users across the open web, and then use that data to manipulate ad auctions, both charging high prices when display ads went on third party sites, and simply moving broad ad demand to its own properties instead of third party sites.

The same template repeated over the next ten to fifteen years. Publishers or ad entrepreneurs would try to find a way into auctions for ads to take some of Google’s margin and protect their data, and Google would respond by either buying their rival, locking out their rival with some sort of tying of its products, or both. There were a host of code words and programs to engage in these kinds of tactics, like “Project Nernanke,” “Project Narnia,” and “Jedi Blue.” And since publishers and adtech startups needed the huge amount of advertising buying power that Google controlled, and advertisers needed Google search and YouTube, it was a chicken and egg problem. You couldn’t get into either market without Google’s permission.

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Media is the biggest threat
https://twitter.com/i/status/1832127702662324409

 

 

Eva DSA

 

 

Thai cat

 

 

Thunderstruck
https://twitter.com/i/status/1832410969382768774

 

 

 

 

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Jan 192024
 


Claude Monet The house at Yerres 1876

 

‘We Are Attacking Iran’ – Netanyahu (RT)
West Aware Zelensky ‘Getting Out Of Control’ – Lavrov (RT)
Zelensky’s Proposal for Russian Surrender Ridiculed (Sp.)
How the West Was Defeated (Pepe Escobar)
Russia Can’t Trust West – Lavrov (RT)
To End The War In Ukraine, Expose Its Core Lie (TLI)
The New British-Ukrainian Defense Agreement Is Great News For Russia (Poletaev)
Strikes On Mercenaries In Ukraine ‘Painful For The West’ (RT)
NATO Personnel In Ukraine Now ‘Fair Game’ For Russia – Scott Ritter (RT)
Johnson Throws Cold Water on Ukraine Funding, Prioritizing Border Security (Sp.)
Anti-Russian Leader A Favorite For Top EU Job – Politico (RT)
Judge In Trump-Georgia Case Orders Fani Willis To Explain Allegations (ZH)
Who Praised Javier Milei’s Anti-Socialism Speech Seen 27 Million Times (CS)
Can the World Afford Its First Trillionaire? (Robert Bridge)

 

 

 

 

98%

 

 

 

 

Yanis Day X

 

 

 

 

Israel can’t even beat Hamas. Fighting Iran would mean US involvement.

‘We Are Attacking Iran’ – Netanyahu (RT)

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has said he is making every possible effort to “prevent Iran from attaining nuclear weapons” and that Israel is already carrying out direct attacks on the Islamic Republic. Answering a reporter’s question in Tel Aviv on Saturday about why Israel is conducting attacks on Iran’s proxies rather than attacking Iran directly, Netanyahu replied: “Who says we are not attacking Iran, we are attacking.” Israel claims Iran was involved in plotting the October 7 attacks, when around 1,200 Israelis were killed and scores taken hostage in the Hamas surprise raid near Gaza. Israel retaliated by shelling the Palestinian enclave with artillery and airstrikes, so far leaving about 24,000 dead, according to local health officials. The operation is aimed at wiping out the militant group, Israel says.Israel has previously openly accused Iran of aiding Hamas “with money, training and weapons and technological know-how” and intelligence.

“Iran is standing behind it. We are in conflict with Iran. Imagine not what Iran can do to us, to destroy us,” Netanyahu said. Israel will only agree to a deal that sees it gain security control over all of Gaza, Netanyahu added. Iran has denied any role in the Hamas assault on Israel, with Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman Nasser Kanani saying such accusations were “based on political reasons.” Netanyahu added that “Iran is the head of the octopus and you see its tentacles all around from the Houthis to Hezbollah to Hamas.” Iran has widely been seen by Israel and the US and as the major destabilizing power in the Middle East, allegedly supplying weapons, military expertise, and training to Hamas in Gaza, Hezbollah in Lebanon, and the Houthi rebels in Yemen.

The US has previously alleged that Iran is “deeply involved” in Houthi attacks on commercial ships in the Red Sea, claiming that it has provided the rebels with drones, missiles, and intelligence. Tehran has denied the allegation, insisting that “resistance groups” are acting independently and “not taking orders from Tehran to confront the war crimes and genocide committed by Israel.” Israel rarely publicly admits to attacking Iran directly, but the Islamic Republic has long been a target of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu during his several terms in power. In December former Israeli prime minister Naftali Bennett revealed that Israel had attacked an unmanned aerial vehicle base in Iran and assassinated a senior Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps commander. Bennett, who was Israeli prime minister from June 2021 to June 2022, made the admission in an op-ed published in The Wall Street Journal.

https://twitter.com/i/status/1748094652912193949

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“..The contradictory rhetoric “only reflects the wish of that individual and his associates… to keep power as much as they can..”

West Aware Zelensky ‘Getting Out Of Control’ – Lavrov (RT)

Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky is becoming increasingly unhinged as he clings to power, and his Western backers are looking for ways to keep him in check, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov claimed on Thursday. Calls for Ukraine to hold a presidential election this year are part of that effort, he believes. A number of Western politicians have suggested that Ukraine should hold general elections that are due in 2024. Normal democratic procedures in the country were suspended under martial law, but the country could amend its laws to allow the election to go ahead. Zelensky has been sending mixed signals on the matter, alternately saying that he is willing to run for another term under certain circumstances and claiming that the Ukrainian people would not want an election while the country is fighting.

The contradictory rhetoric “only reflects the wish of that individual and his associates… to keep power as much as they can,” Lavrov remarked. Meanwhile, the West “would have liked to have more flexibility,” considering Kiev’s failure to score successes on the battlefield, he added. Having Zelensky run a re-election campaign “would put him more in line with Western interests, because he has been increasingly getting out of control,” the Russian foreign minister suggested. The Russian government does not care about Zelensky’s personal fate, Lavrov said. US Senator Lindsey Graham publicly called on Zelensky to hold a presidential election when he visited Kiev last September. He said this would show that Ukraine embraces “democracy and freedom.” Similar calls have come from other officials on both sides of the Atlantic.

Ukraine is due to vote this year not only for a new president, but also for a new parliament. The current composition of the national legislature gives Zelensky’s Servant of the People party a unilateral majority, but it is far from guaranteed to keep it in the event of an election. A survey released last month by the Kiev International Institute of Sociology (KMIS) indicated a drop in public faith in the parliament. In the year since December 2022, the number of people distrusting the institution has grown from 34% to 61%. Zelensky’s own trust rating dropped from 84% to 62% in 12 months, according to the same poll.

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“And on there is Zelensky’s demand for a little pink pony with a little pretty ribbon on top..”

Zelensky’s Proposal for Russian Surrender Ridiculed (Sp.)

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky unveiled a diplomatic proposal to end the long-running conflict in the Donbass region this week, but observers say the controversial leader’s “peace formula” is little more than wishful thinking. “It is the opposite of a peace formula,” said security analyst Mark Sleboda on Sputnik’s The Critical Hour program Thursday. “It is a childish demand for Russian unconditional surrender that Russia should withdraw all of its troops from Ukrainian territory – including Crimea – [and] surrender the people of Crimea and Donbass to the tender mercies of Azov* Neo-Nazis.” Among the elements of Zelensky’s proposition is a call for Russia to put political and military leaders on trial and pay reparations to the Kiev regime.

“And on there is Zelensky’s demand for a little pink pony with a little pretty ribbon on top,” Sleboda added sarcastically. “This is a fantastical, maximalist demand. It is not a peace formula, which is why the Global South is just like, ‘Do we have to sit through another one of these things?’ And spoiler, China didn’t even bother to show up.” Zelensky unveiled the proposal at the World Economic Forum summit in Davos, Switzerland earlier this week. Sleboda noted the venue was likely chosen to improve attendance as Zelensky has struggled to find an audience for such speeches in recent months. Zelensky has released similar proposals in the past although none have gained traction given Ukraine’s struggles on the battlefield. Sleboda noted that even The New York Times admitted Ukraine was losing, although indirectly.

“Even this article in the New York Times – if you scroll down into it long enough – they go through the list of demands and then they say ‘all of these demands are considered by analysts and even politicians backing the proposal to be unreachable, given the current balance of forces on the battlefield.’” Sleboda pointed out. “Which is a nice way of saying the Kiev regime is losing.” Discussion then shifted towards Russia’s recent targeting of mercenary fighters in Kharkov earlier this week. “Unfortunately for the mercenaries, things aren’t working out real well for them on the battlefield,” said host Garland Nixon. “Well, come to think of it, they’re not getting to the battlefield.”

Sleboda pointed out the alleged French mercenaries were reported to be working with the Russian Volunteers Corps, a neo-Nazi group that has been banned in Europe. “This isn’t like a safari tour in Afghanistan or Iraq or somewhere where they go out and kill some largely helpless villagers with AK-47s,” said Sleboda. “You’re fighting a world power that has ballistic cruise and hypersonic missiles dropping 1,500-pound, guided bombs on you and everything else.” “So yeah, newsflash: you don’t belong here. And if you insist on coming here then you’ll be priority target number one.”

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“..Let’s focus on what would be the 12 Greatest Hits of his remarkable exercise..”

How the West Was Defeated (Pepe Escobar)

Emmanuel Todd, historian, demographer, anthropologist, sociologist and political analyst, is part of a dying breed: one of the very few remaining exponents of old school French intelligentzia – a heir to those like Braudel, Sartre, Deleuze and Foucault who dazzled successive young Cold War generations from the West down to the East. The first nugget concerning his latest book, La Défaite de L’Occident (“The Defeat of the West”) is the minor miracle of actually being published last week in France, right within the NATO sphere: a hand grenade of a book, by an independent thinker, based on facts and verified data, blowing up the whole Russophobia edifice erected around the “aggression” by “Tsar” Putin. At least some sectors of strictly oligarch-controlled corporate media in France simply could not ignore Todd this time around for several reasons.

Most of all because he was the first Western intellectual, already in 1976, to have predicted the fall of the USSR in his book La Chute Finale, with his research based on Soviet infant mortality rates. Another key reason was his 2002 book Apres L’Empire, a sort of preview of the Empire’s Decline and Fall published a few months before Shock & Awe in Iraq. Now Todd, in what he has defined as his last book (“I closed the circle”) allows himself to go for broke and meticulously depict the defeat not only of the US but of the West as a whole – with his research focusing in and around the war in Ukraine. Considering the toxic NATOstan environment where Russophobia and cancel culture reign supreme, and every deviation is punishable, Todd has been very careful not to frame the current process as a Russian victory in Ukraine (although that’s implied in everything he describes, ranging from several indicators of social peace to the overall stability of the “Putin system”, which is “a product of the history of Russia, and not the work of one man”).

Rather, he focuses on the key reasons that have led to the West’s downfall. Among them: the end of the nation-state; de-industrialization (which explains NATO’s deficit in producing weapons for Ukraine); the “degree zero” of the West’s religious matrix, Protestantism; the sharp increase of mortality rates in the US (much higher than in Russia), along with suicides and homicides; and the supremacy of an imperial nihilism expressed by the obsession with Forever Wars. Todd methodically analyses, in sequence, Russia, Ukraine, Eastern Europe, Germany, Britain, Scandinavia and finally The Empire. Let’s focus on what would be the 12 Greatest Hits of his remarkable exercise.

1. At the start of the Special Military Operation (SMO) in February 2022, the combined GDP of Russia and Belarus was only 3.3% of the combined West (in this case the NATO sphere plus Japan and South Korea). Todd is amazed how these 3.3% capable of producing more weapons than the whole Western colossus not only are winning the war but reducing dominant notions of the “neoliberal political economy” (GDP rates) to shambles.
2. The “ideological solitude” and “ideological narcissism” of the West – incapable of understanding, for instance, how “the whole Muslim world seems to consider Russia as a partner rather than an adversary”.
3. Todd eschews the notion of “Weberian states” – evoking a delicious compatibility of vision between Putin and US realpolitik practitioner John Mearsheimer. Because they are forced to survive in an environment where only power relations matters, states are now acting as “Hobbesian agents.” And that brings us to the Russian notion of a nation-state, focused on “sovereignty”: the capacity of a state to independently define its internal and external policies, with no foreign interference whatsoever.

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“The West cannot be trusted. Even now, it wants only one thing – to live at the expense of others and to be more clever than others.”

Russia Can’t Trust West – Lavrov (RT)

The Ukraine conflict has helped Russia overcome the misconception that it can trust the West, Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov has said. Speaking at a press conference on Thursday on Moscow’s diplomacy in 2023, Lavrov argued that Russia’s military operation against Kiev has had positive consequences domestically, including a reinvigorating effect on society which has helped to bring people together. He added that the conflict, which also ushered in unprecedented Western sanctions, allowed the country’s economy to make great strides in both civilian and military production. The West’s “hybrid aggression,” which encompassed many areas, played a role in “making us understand how to go on living,” Lavrov said. “If there had been any illusions left over from the 1990s, that the West would open its arms to embrace us and that democracy would unite us all, they have been completely dispelled.”

“The West cannot be trusted. Even now, it wants only one thing – to live at the expense of others and to be more clever than others.” Lavrov’s comments come after Russian President Vladimir Putin admitted last month that he was “naive” early on in his political career, despite having served in the Soviet KGB. He said he believed that there was no fundamental reason for the West and Moscow to be at odds after the collapse of the Soviet Union. However, in reality, the former was seeking to break Russia into several entities with less ability to protect their national interests, the president stated. Putin had previously warned that a breakup of the country could lead to the Russian people ceasing to exist altogether, adding that unity is the key condition for the country’s success.

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“..That falsehood, repeated by President Joe Biden, is that when Vladimir Putin decided to invade, he intended to conquer all of Ukraine and “annihilate” it..”

To End The War In Ukraine, Expose Its Core Lie (TLI)

The essential argument used to avoid negotiation and continue support for the war in Ukraine is based on a falsehood. That falsehood, repeated by President Joe Biden, is that when Vladimir Putin decided to invade, he intended to conquer all of Ukraine and “annihilate” it. Its falsity has been exposed multiple times by military experts, who have pointed out, both before and after the invasion, that Russia could not have intended to conquer all of Ukraine because it did not invade with sufficient forces to do so. Indeed, this was a key reason why senior Ukrainian officials, and even President Volodymyr Zelensky himself, argued just days before the invasion that it would not occur. The mistake that most analysts at the time made (these authors included), was to assume that since the troops mobilized by Russia did not suffice for a full scale occupation of Ukraine, no military operation, not even a limited one, was in the offing.

It was only later that Western political leaders turned this mistake to their propaganda advantage by insisting that Russia had always intended to first take Kiev, then all of Ukraine, and ultimately even attack NATO. But if basic military logic is taken into account, the fact that Putin committed only 120,000–190,000 men to his campaign and did not mobilize more resources until months later, after Kiev rejected the Istanbul peace deal, indicates that his objectives in Ukraine were limited and revolved around guaranteeing the security of the populations of Donbass and Crimea from Ukrainian assaults and Russia from NATO expansion. Given that Ukraine had cut off Crimea’s water and electricity years before, this required a land bridge to the region; hence, the illegal annexations of the Kherson and Zaporozhye regions.

We also have indirect confirmation that territory was not his objective from an unimpeachable source: NATO General Secretary Jens Stoltenberg, who stated that Putin invaded Ukraine to prevent NATO’s expansion. This would explain why, as soon as these goals were within reach when Ukrainian officials initialed the draft of the Istanbul Agreement in March 2022, Putin halted his assault and withdrew Russian forces from Kiev, rather than move further into Ukraine. This background is important, because the argument for increasing Western military support for Ukraine relies so heavily on the claim that Russia always intended to expand further, attack NATO, and reestablish the Russian empire. But, as noted scholar John Mearsheimer has pointed out, “there is no evidence in the public record that Putin was contemplating, much less intending to put an end to Ukraine as an independent state and make it part of greater Russia when he sent his troops into Ukraine on February 24th.”

It was never one of Putin’s stated goals, nor was it ever taken seriously by the Ukrainian leadership. David Arakhamia, the head of Ukraine’s negotiating team in Belarus and Istanbul, recently revealed that the “key point” for Russia was Ukraine not joining NATO, and “everything else was simply rhetoric and political ‘seasoning.’” Putin himself has consistently said that “this conflict is not about territory…[it] is about the principles underlying the new international order.” We should not take him at his word, but it is still worth asking: had Putin’s ambitions been territorial, would he have waited until 2014 to annex Crimea? Would the upper house of Russia’s parliament have rescinded Putin’s temporary authority to use troops in Ukraine in June 2015? Would he have opposed the 2014 independence referendums in Donetsk and Lugansk?

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“..The document practically states that all the activities of the Ukrainian state will revolve around the interests of the UK..”

The New British-Ukrainian Defense Agreement Is Great News For Russia (Poletaev)

So, six months down the line, the current UK prime minister arrived in Kiev and, in between the usual selfies with female train conductors, he signed the first UK-Ukraine agreement. The event didn’t receive widespread attention, but among the experts who have commented on it, opinions have differed markedly. Rishi Sunak’s opponents in the UK insist that it’s merely a PR move – an attempt to raise his faltering ratings, which have plunged to a record low. In Russia, some experts have called it a meaningless piece of paper, without thoroughly reading the document. For their part, Ukrainian analysts have declared the agreement to be an important milestone, an epochal moment, and tried to sell it as even more significant than actual accession to NATO.

The agreement is indeed important and is worth reading carefully. Firstly, the main slogan of the past two years (usually declared on behalf of the entire Western coalition) has been literally incorporated into the text: “The UK will continue to support Ukraine for as long as it needs, so that Ukraine can effectively defend itself.” In other words, it’s just like Boris Johnson said – we will not fight for you, but we’ll do what we can to help you. Secondly, for the next ten years – the entire duration of the agreement – the document notes that no territorial changes will be recognized. “The participants will work together, and with other partners of Ukraine, to ensure Ukrainian Armed Forces and security forces are able to fully restore Ukraine’s territorial integrity within its internationally recognized borders.” As for the actual obligations on the part of the UK, the text includes only one point:

“In the event of a future Russian armed attack against Ukraine, at the request of either of the participants, the participants will consult within 24 hours to determine measures needed to counter or deter the aggression.” It further states: “The UK undertakes that, in those circumstances, and acting in accordance with its legal and constitutional requirements, it would: provide Ukraine with swift and sustained security assistance, modern military equipment across all domains as necessary, and economic assistance.” The amount of future economic assistance corresponds to the current military aid provided by the UK to Ukraine, which is believed to be between £2.3 billion ($2.9 billion) and £2.5 billion ($3.2 billion) in 2023 and 2024.

In the rest of the document, we find non-binding general statements – for example, that the sides will “work together on deepening cooperation and partnership… strengthen [their] long-term relationship… provide advice and support… make significant contributions… create joint working groups…” and blah, blah, blah. All the usual technocratic claptrap of polite, mostly meaningless, words. Despite the general non-binding nature of the agreement, however, it clearly shows that Ukraine is getting tangled up in the web of Western influence and control. The document practically states that all the activities of the Ukrainian state will revolve around the interests of the UK: from the defense industry to civil and military construction, information security, the fight against corruption and organized crime, the distribution of humanitarian aid, and general economic issues. It gives global financial institutions virtually unlimited access to Ukraine.

Moreover, among the numerous Western-style reforms that Ukraine is obliged to carry out, the agreement stipulates “democratic civilian control of the Armed Forces, [as] an important indicator of the non-politicization of the Armed Forces.” This looks a lot like an attempt by Zelensky to enlist the support of the West in his conflict with Zaluzhny. Ukraine has been quick to declare that the Sunak-Zelensky deal will serve as an example for similar agreements with other G7 countries (France will probably sign a similar document next month). Such agreements will provide a legal backbone for the West’s Ukraine policy, which can be explained as follows: Kiev is the West’s tool. It sends the Ukrainians a clear signal: You are our outpost, our weapon, our battering ram, or whatever else, but you are not one of us. We will not put ourselves at risk for your sake, and there’s no place for you under the NATO umbrella.

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“The Russian military said that it targeted a “temporary assembly point of foreign fighters” in Kharkov..”

Strikes On Mercenaries In Ukraine ‘Painful For The West’ (RT)

Russia’s elimination of foreign mercenaries in Ukraine hurts the West because it demonstrates how Moscow can inflict “huge losses” with single precision strikes, Finnish news editor Janus Putkonen has told RT. The Russian military said that it targeted a “temporary assembly point of foreign fighters” in Kharkov on Tuesday, killing 60 foreign fighters and injuring more than 20 others, the majority of whom were “French mercenaries.” The French foreign ministry on Thursday denied the presence of any French mercenaries in Ukraine, although a pro-Russian resistance group in Kharkov told RIA Novosti that French-speaking personnel were present at the targeted building, and that some foreigners there had been “supervising” the RDK, a Ukrainian paramilitary unit associated with the country’s military intelligence agency.

“These kinds of strikes are painful for Western countries for sure, for many reasons,” Putkonen told RT. “[Western countries] are losing the information battle, because these mercenaries are at the forefront in Western propaganda for the war, and losing lots of them at the same time – hundreds of them in just a matter of days – is a major blow.” Tuesday’s strike is a microcosm of “the whole situation that is going on in Ukraine,” Putkonen continued. There are “huge losses” on the Ukrainian side, he explained, adding that while foreign soldiers can fight, they “cannot defend against precision strikes.” “Russia is calling the shots,” Putkonen concluded. Hours before the strike, French President Emmanuel Macron declared that his country could not allow Russia to win the conflict in Ukraine, and pledged further arms shipments to Kiev, including 40 SCALP air-launched cruise missiles. According to French Defense Minister Sebastien Lecornu, the weapons are to be transferred in the first half of this year.

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“..it will make no distinction between the Ukrainian soldiers, foreign mercenaries, or members of NATO militaries operating on Ukrainian soil..”

NATO Personnel In Ukraine Now ‘Fair Game’ For Russia – Scott Ritter (RT)

Russia’s targeting of French-speaking personnel suggests that advisers from NATO countries operating in Ukraine have been put on notice, former US Marine and UN weapons inspector Scott Ritter has said. According to the Russian Defense Ministry, more than 60 “foreign fighters” were killed and another 20 wounded in Tuesday’s high-precision strike on a building in Kharkov. Speaking with Sputnik on Thursday, Ritter pointed to the possibility that at least some of the French-speaking individuals may have been active-duty French military, “who were in Ukraine at the behest of their government, and now they’re dead.” “I think this shows a new mindset for the Russians,” he said. “In the past, Russia has not shown any hesitancy to eliminate foreign mercenaries fighting on behalf of the Ukrainian military. But there has seemed to be some sort of leniency towards military advisers or personnel who belong to NATO countries who are in Ukraine.”

If the fighters killed weren’t simply mercenaries but serving French military professionals, “this shows that Russia has made a decision that everybody in Ukraine now is fair game,” Ritter added. He suggested that this might mean Russia is moving to the “end of the game” in Ukraine, in which it will make no distinction between the Ukrainian soldiers, foreign mercenaries, or members of NATO militaries operating on Ukrainian soil. The Ukrainian side has given conflicting accounts of Tuesday’s strike, first saying the missiles hit an unused hospital and then that a residential building was struck causing civilian casualties. Donbass Insider Editor-in-chief Christelle Neant told RT on Thursday that “many wounded French-speaking individuals were admitted to hospitals” in Kharkov, according to Ukrainian intelligence sources.

Neant said that Kiev uses foreign mercenaries “primarily for media purposes” and that the Frenchmen in Kharkov may have been instructors teaching the Ukrainians how to handle weapons provided by the West. Earl Rasmussen of the Eurasia Center told RT that the Kharkov strike might be a message to Ukraine that Russia won’t treat Western fighters any differently than Ukrainian ones. He also allowed for the possibility the stricken foreigners may have been instructors. Thousands of fighters from the West flocked to Ukraine after the conflict with Russia escalated in February 2022, but their enthusiasm dropped off after up to 180 of them died in a missile strike on base in Yavorov in mid-March. Since then, almost 6,000 of the 13,500 foreigners who came to fight for Ukraine have been killed, and over 5,600 have returned home, the Russian Defense Ministry said earlier this month.

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“..before we even talk about Ukraine, I’m going to tell the president what I’m telling all of you and we’ve told the American people: border, border, border..”

Johnson Throws Cold Water on Ukraine Funding, Prioritizing Border Security (Sp.)

On Wednesday, US House Speaker Mike Johnson revealed his determination to continue with a stalemate between Democrats and Republicans regarding legislation that would pave the way for continued funding to Ukraine. The deal is currently being worked on in the Senate with the aim to pair border and immigration policy changes (what Republicans want) alongside funding for Ukraine (what Democrats are asking for). “I don’t think now is the time for comprehensive immigration reform because we know how complicated that is,” Johnson said early Wednesday. “You can’t do that quickly. I do think it’s past time to secure the border.” Biden called for the top four congressional leaders and other lawmakers, including Johnson to the White House in an effort to move forward with an agreement on legislation for border security and funding for Ukraine. The Senate has been working for weeks in an effort to craft some common ground legislation, but some senators last week said significant disagreements remain an issue.

“With regard to Ukraine, we have needed, we have requested publicly and privately in every form, answers to critical questions: What is the end game and the strategy in Ukraine? How will we have accountability for the funds?” said Johnson, seeming to suggest that a bipartisan deal may not be enough to encourage their support of continued funding for Ukraine. “We need to know that Ukraine would not be another Afghanistan.” “And you see a lot of the American people scratching their heads, having real questions about why that would continue without these appropriate answers. So I’m going to push for those. But before we even talk about Ukraine, I’m going to tell the president what I’m telling all of you and we’ve told the American people: border, border, border, we have to take care of our own house,” the house speaker said at a conference on Wednesday.

“We have to secure our own borders before we talk about doing anything else. And that’s the message I’ve had since day one. It’s the message we’ll continue to have.” Senator Mitch McConnell—who was reported to be one of the people invited to Wednesday’s meeting—said voting on the supplemental legislation could take place as soon as next week. “I am more optimistic than ever before that we come to an agreement,” Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, a New York Democrat, told reporters after Wednesday’s meeting. “There was a large amount of agreement around the table, that we must do Ukraine, and we must do border. There was tremendous focus on Ukraine, and an understanding that if we don’t come to Ukraine’s aid, that the consequences for America around the globe would be nothing short of devastating,” Schumer said.

Johnson said that the meeting was “productive” and that he had emphasized that US border security should be prioritized before Ukraine. “We understand the necessity about Ukraine funding and we want to say that the status quo is unacceptable,” Johnson said on Wednesday. “We need the Commander-in-Chief of this country, the President of the United States, to show strength on the world stage, and not weakness. We cannot continue with the current status quo.”

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“..the “dream team” of women some EU diplomats would like to see leading the bloc..”

Anti-Russian Leader A Favorite For Top EU Job – Politico (RT)

Estonian PM Kaja Kallas, an outspoken critic of Russia, is rumored to be on the “dream team” of women some EU diplomats would like to see leading the bloc after the European Parliament elections in June, Politico EU said on Thursday. The combination would see Kallas take over as High Representative of the Union for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy, the post currently held by Spain’s Josep Borrell, while Danish Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen would become the new chair of the European Council. Ursula von der Leyen of Germany would remain head of the European Commission and Roberta Metsola of Malta would keep chairing the European Parliament. “It’s my dream team,” a diplomat who asked for anonymity to speak freely told Politico. “It would send such a strong message.”

According to Politico, Kallas is a name “increasingly mentioned in corridor chats and over coffee,” given the Ukraine conflict. She has already put her name in the hat to succeed Jens Stoltenberg as the secretary-general of NATO. The Estonian leader has been an outspoken critic of Russia and a partisan of Kiev. Facing calls to resign last August, after Estonian media revealed that her husband Arvo Hallik held a stake in a shipping company operating in Russia despite the EU sanctions, Kallas refused and vowed to stay in power “for the freedom of Ukraine and for Estonia.” With Brussels former European Council President Donald Tusk now the prime minister of Poland, it is “simply impossible to avoid” giving Eastern Europe the foreign policy portfolio given the Ukraine conflict, one EU diplomat said.

The rumored “dream team” would give one leadership post each to the bloc’s east, west, north and south. The scheme would also “make sense” due to the political alignment within the EU, leaving the European People’s Party (EPP) in charge of the Commission and the Parliament, while the socialists run the Council and the “liberals” control the External Action Service. With Christine Lagarde of France as president of the European Central Bank until 2027 and Nadia Calviño of Spain in charge of the European Investment Bank, the EU’s most powerful positions would all be held by women, who are considered “underrepresented” in the bloc. No woman has ever chaired the European Council. Von der Leyen is the first at the head of the Commission. There have been three female chairs of the European Parliament since 1979 and two foreign policy heads – Catherine Ashton of the UK and Federica Mogherini of Italy – since the post was created in 1999.

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“..fatally defective..”

Judge In Trump-Georgia Case Orders Fani Willis To Explain Allegations (ZH)

The judge in the Trump-Georgia case has ordered Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis (D) to answer to accusations that she hired her romantic partner as a top prosecutor on the case. Judge Scot McAfee on Thursday ordered Willis to respond to the allegations in writing by Feb. 2, and has scheduled a hearing on the matter for Feb. 15. The accusation, first found in a court filing by attorney and Trump co-defendant Mike Roman, accuses Willis of hiring her paramour Nathan Wade – whose involvement, Roman argues, makes the indictment “fatally defective.” Roman has asked McAfee to dismiss the charges, and to block the Fulton County DA’s office from further involvement in the case. Wade (who was hired without proper approval), is a private attorney in the midst of a divorce who “has little to no experience trying felony cases, much less complex RICO actions,” according to a 127-page filing in former President Donald Trump’s 2020 election trial in Georgia.

Wade ended up pocketing nearly $700,000 from Fulton county taxpayers – with which he allegedly took Willis on lavish vacations. He also billed taxpayers $2,000 to talk to the Biden White House about prosecuting Biden’s political opponent. Allegations surfaced last week from one of Trump’s co-defendants, Mike Roman, a political operative who served as Trump’s director of Election Day operations on his 2020 reelection campaign, who accused Willis and Wade of engaging in an “improper” romantic relationship. Citing “sources close” to both Willis and Wade, Roman’s lawyer, Ashleigh Merchant, claimed the pair have been involved in an “ongoing, personal and romantic relationship,” and went on vacations together. The filings argued the alleged relationship, which Merchant claims started before the election interference began, makes the indictment “fatally defective” and requests it be dismissed. -The Hill

During a church service last Sunday, Willis appeared to defend her actions. “I’m a little confused. I appointed three special counselors. It’s my right to do, paid them all the same hourly rate. They only attack one.” “I hired one white woman, a good personal friend and a great lawyer, a superstar, I tell you. I hired one white man — brilliant — my friend and a great lawyer. And I hired one Black man, another superstar, a great friend and a great lawyer,” she continued, without referencing Wade by name. “The Black man I chose has been a judge for more than 10 years, run[s] a private practice more than 20 [years],” said Willis. “Represented businesses in civil litigation … served a prosecutor, a criminal defense lawyer, special assistant attorney general.” Willis then pretended to talk to God, asking: “God, isn’t it them who’s playing the race card when they only question one?”

How many of the other attorneys was Fani (allegedly) banging? More recently we learned that Fani was coordinating with the Jan. 6 committee to shape her case against Trump. In mid-April of 2022, Committee staff quietly met with attorneys working on the case in Fulton County for DA Fani Willis, right around the time she was preparing to convene a special grand jury investigation – during which she employed her alleged paramour, Nathan Wade, who would also coordinate with the Biden White House on their case. So – Fani coordinated with both the J6 committee and the White House, who helped them assemble their case against the former president.

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“..Milei’s speech has more views than all other speeches from 2024 combined, including those from the EU President Ursula von der Leyen, Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, and French President Emmanuel Macron.”

Who Praised Javier Milei’s Anti-Socialism Speech Seen 27 Million Times (CS)

A number of high profile figures have lauded Argentinian President Javier Milei’s takedown of socialism and “international organizations” while speaking next to Klaus Schwab at his annual WEF Davos meeting. In what has easily become the most viral speech of the year, and most popular in WEF history, Milei lambasted Western governments for shrouding socialism in the guise of social justice, even taking a shot at the West’s “radical feminist agenda.” The WEF has understandably downplayed the significance of Milei’s speech. In their article summarizing Day 3 of the Davos meetings, Milei’s speech was pushed to the bottom and given an equally brief write-up as it was dry. Conversely, a number of high profile figures have offered praise of Milei’s speech. On X, a post of the speech has been seen over 27 million times.

X and Tesla CEO Elon Musk posted the speech and praised Milei for his “Good explanation of what makes countries more or less prosperous.” Musk also posted a meme on Thursday showing a man secretly watching Milei’s speech while having sex with a beautiful woman. Dr Jordan Peterson chimed in on Wednesday with a simple exclamation mark over another user’s post that read “Javier Milei just told a bunch of WEF socialists at Davos that they are THE PROBLEM, not the solution.”Former Republican candidate, and potential Donald Trump VP pick Vivek Ramiswamy, similarly posted three clapping emojis over the same post that Peterson commented on. Ramiswamy later posted: “The World Economic Forum is really just Old World Europe rearing its ugly head again. We fought a revolution in 1776 to say hell no to the Old World vision. It’s time we say so again: self-governance over aristocracy is what makes America great.”

On Thursday, Former US National Security Advisor General Mike Flynn posted: “The more I think about Argentine President Javier Milei’s speech at the WEF, the more I realize he gave the globalists a double barreled middle finger to them in their own board room. Well done!” Canadian Freedom Convoy organizer Tamara Lich said Milei dropped “truth bombs.” On YouTube, The WEF’s account shows that Milei’s speech has more views than all other speeches from 2024 combined, including those from the EU President Ursula von der Leyen, Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, and French President Emmanuel Macron.

Milei

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“..the U.S. is the most unequal major economy in the world..”

Can the World Afford Its First Trillionaire? (Robert Bridge)

Since 2020, the wealthiest five individuals in the world have seen their fortunes explode, while during the same period some five billion people around the world have become poorer. The net worth of these billionaires – Tesla CEO Elon Musk, Bernard Arnault and his family of luxury company LVMH, Amazon founder Jeff Bezos, Oracle founder Larry Ellison and investor Warren Buffett – has exploded 114% to $869 billion, after taking inflation into account, according to Oxfam’s annual inequality report. Currently, Elon Musk, who runs several companies, including Tesla and SpaceX, is the richest man on the planet, with a personal fortune of just under $250 billion. “We have the top five billionaires, they have doubled their wealth. On the other hand, almost 5 billion people have become poorer,” Amitabh Behar, Oxfam’s interim executive director, told reporters in Davos, Switzerland, the site of this year’s World Economic Forum.

“Very soon, Oxfam predicts that we will have a trillionaire within a decade,” Behar said. “Whereas to fight poverty, we need more than 200 years.” To put the idea of a trillionaire (a thousand billions) into some perspective, the United States currently spends about that much annually on its entire military machine. In total, billionaires have seen their wealth explode by $3.3 trillion, or 34%, since 2020, with their fortunes expanding three times faster than the rate of inflation, according to Oxfam. American billionaires, many of whom accrue their wealth from the equity in the companies they lead, have become $1.6 trillion richer. The driving force behind this massive surge in personal profits is raw corporate power. Seventy percent of the world’s largest business interests have either a billionaire at the helm or a billionaire as its principal shareholder.

Moreover, the top 1% of income earners possesses 43% of the world’s financial assets, according to Oxfam, which pooled its data from Wealth X. In the United States, this group owns 32%; in Asia, it’s 50%. In the Middle East, the top 1% holds 48% of the financial wealth, while in Europe, it’s 47%. About 150 of the world’s largest corporations made nearly $1.8 trillion in profits in the one year leading up to June 2023, Oxfam reported. That’s 52.5% more than their average was between 2018 to 2021. While economic inequality is as old as Rome, in the United States the disparity has increased dramatically over the last four decades. Inequality can be measured in a variety of ways, frequently using income. The Gini coefficient, developed by Italian Statistician Corrado Gini in 1921, is one of the most accurate measures of how income is distributed across the population with 0 being perfectly equal (where everyone receives an equal share) and 1 being completely unequal (where 100 percent of income goes to only one person).

The United States has a Gini coefficient of 0.485, the highest it has been in half a century, according to the Census Bureau, far exceeding that of other advanced economies. This measurement proves that the U.S. is the most unequal major economy in the world. In 1980, the top 1 percent of earners in the United States earned a little over 10 percent of the country’s income. Currently, they bring home about 20 percent, more than the entire bottom half of earners. Despite its massive amount of inequality, Americans have shown tremendous patience with the status quo. The last time there was any sort of backlash against the 1% came in 2011 with the Occupy Wall Street protests, where thousands of protesters railed against economic inequality, corporate greed, and the influence of money in politics.

Americans showed that they had had enough following the 2008 bank bailouts under the George W. Bush administration that utilized taxpayer funds to purchase toxic assets from ‘too big to fail’ banks and financial institutions. Protesters were also enraged by the undue influence of corporate money in the US political process. Today, Wall Street quietly goes about its business of making obscene amounts of money, while much of the public’s attention is preoccupied with other matters unconnected to class, like race, gender, and identity politics, trifles which the corporate-owned mainstream media is only too happy to promote. Whether it will take the world’s first trillionaire to make the people ‘class conscious’ once again remains to be seen.

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Babies swimming

 

 


Squint your eyes, and the diamonds morph into squares.

 

 

Cary Grant

 

 

Petals

 

 

 

 

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