Politics Chases Reality
Analysts,
Gilbert Doctorow: The mysterious ways of Donald J. Trump Last night’s and this morning’s lead stories on the BBC and CNN focused on the latest public statement by Donald Trump that he does not exclude use of military force or economic pressure to take back American control of the Panama Canal and to take possession of Greenland over objections from fellow NATO member Denmark, to whom the world’s biggest island belongs. He claimed that both acquisitions were necessary to further American economic security.
A moment later in these same broadcasts, we are told about Trump’s expressing his ‘understanding’ of Russian concerns over expansion of NATO to Ukraine going back to 2008 and his rebuke to Joe Biden for having restored the issue of NATO membership during his presidency and pursued it to spite Moscow. The news presenters also point to Trump’s revised timetable for ending the conflict in Ukraine from the 24 hours he claimed during his electoral campaign to a period of six months set out today... ..Let us try to make sense of it all, if we assume that strategic logic is to be found in the thinking processes of Donald Trump. I freely admit that this assumption is risky... ..I only can say that we must sit and wait to see what were his intentions behind his appointments and whether his logic prevails. So it is with his latest statements about Greenland and the Panama Canal, on the one hand, and about the Russia-Ukraine war on the other. The logic I see is that a bellicose stand on produced-to-order conflicts that can be solved at little cost to Washington, the proverbial kicking ass that Ronald Reagan practiced to great effect, is intended to provide cover for what otherwise would look like a humiliating defeat for Washington should it cut military aid to Kiev and stand by passively while the Kremlin imposes capitulation on the Zelensky regime.
Indeed, from the statement in response to Trump issued by the Prime Minister of Denmark, it would appear that he has already won that contest without having to send an aircraft carrier detachment to the Jutland coast: she said that it is up to the people of Greenland to decide their future. Up to the 56,000 inhabitants to decide their own future, given that Trump can offer them riches beyond their imagination to get their consent at the ballot box? https://gilbertdoctorow.com/2025/01/08/the-mysterious-ways-of-donald-j-trump/
Moon of Alabama, To Avoid Fighting Large Conflicts Trump Is Creating Smaller Ones Yesterday, during a media event, president-elect Donald Trump held one of his typical ramblings (video, transcript) which jump from issue to issue without any connecting lines.
It was mostly about his plans for his upcoming reign. He promised more tax relief for the rich, repelling environmental regulations and an increase in oil and gas production. But what caught the minds of most observers were his ideas on foreign policy.
Trump is rejecting to further raise conflicts with the most obvious 'enemies' - Russia, China and Iran. He is instead diverting the public by providing new targets - Canada, Greenland and Panama. https://www.moonofalabama.org/2025/01/to-avoid-fighting-large-conflicts-trump-is-creating-smaller-ones.html#more
What Is The Economic Value Of Greenland And Why Does Trump Want It So Badly? Of course the truth is that it all comes down to natural resources.
In particular, Greenland has lots and lots of oil.
According to Wikipedia, Greenland “has some of the world’s largest remaining oil resources”…
Some geologists believe Greenland has some of the world’s largest remaining oil resources:[30] in 2001, the U.S. Geological Survey found that the waters off north-eastern Greenland (north and south of the Arctic Circle) could contain up to 110 billion barrels (17×109 m3) of oil,[31] and in 2010 the British petrochemical company Cairns Oil reported “the first firm indications” of commercially viable oil deposits.[32]...
..And it also turns out that the Chinese are very interested in the rare-earth elements that are buried under the dirt in Greenland. In fact, one particular area of Greenland is “home to one of the world’s largest undeveloped deposits of rare-earth elements outside of China”. https://www.zerohedge.com/geopolitical/what-economic-value-greenland-and-why-does-trump-want-it-so-badly
Greenland: Environment and Mineral Resources https://natur.gl/guidance/miljoe/?lang=en
The $US is slipping as global reserve currency, which allows the financial empire to extract value from the rest of the world. All the oil, especially Saudi oil, being sold for $US was good collateral, but is now called into question. The Bank of England, and other City of London financial interests, like BlackRock, were heavily "invested" in overthrowing Russia and stripping Russian assets again, like the good-old-days of the 1990s. That didn't work out at all, and their "holdings in Ukraine", rich farmland, gas, coal and lithium deposits, are "unrecognized losses" due to now being located in Russia. Trump said, and is to be believed, that he will play hardball to keep the $US as global reserve currency, because it is the basis of the entire western financial system, which is the current form of colonization and wealth extraction in the world. Can he save London and BlackRock? I think Trump was going for a disorienting shock-effect when he talked about taking Canada as a US state, but he probably wants to mark "his" territory against Chinese organized crime, which is suddenly very powerful there. He is also warning China away from the Panama Canal.
Gilbert Doctorow asks the trick-question: How long can an EU member state survive without a government? Colonel Macgregor is counting on an electoral victory by the hard right opposition party, Alternativ fuer Deutschland (AfD) across the whole Bundesrepublik and not just in those states, mostly in the East, which have been the bases of the party’s support. However, I believe such an outcome is highly unlikely. What is more likely is a new grand coalition of the centrist parties which may even include Olaf Scholz in some ministerial post where he can do no harm. And if the CDU boss Friedrich Merz should become chancellor, we can expect ever closer German support for NATO and still more equipment and financial aid to Ukraine. For its part, Emanuel Macron’s France has similar woes that were imposed on it when the president called a snap election in July which he subsequently lost. The premier he then installed was unable to pass a budget through parliament and his government eventually lost a no-confidence vote, the first such instance in many decades. Macron’s latest choice for premier may very possibly experience the same fate, and the political instability, the mounting debt crisis may bring down Macron himself. In these conditions of uncertainty and unsustainable negative budgets, the interest payable on French state bonds recently rose above those of Greece. If this continues, Macron will be forced out of office by the bankers, not by the people, who mostly loathe him but can do little about it. Should this happen, then there will have to be new presidential elections and one cannot exclude the possibility that Marine Le Pen’s hard right Rassemblement National party will take power. That would challenge the geopolitical orientation of the Union, but by itself might not yet sober up Europe. And yet, I would not place a firm bet on Le Pen: ever since 2012, the CIA has effectively stage managed French presidential elections to eliminate the powerful candidates who were outside the U.S. orbit and to ensure a succession of pitiful incompetents taking possession of the Élysée Palace. Please note that neither of the aforementioned EU states has faced a government crisis rivaling that of Belgium about which no one seems to take notice... In fact, the last parliamentary elections in Belgium which were held in June 2024 resulted in no ready coalitions possessing the votes to command a majority in parliament... Bart de Wever, head of the Flemish nationalist party N-VA, has until the end of this month to break the deadlock and assume the reins of power. There are many who expect him to fail... Belgium is the all-time worldwide winner for length of time without a fully functional government. They made the record back in 2018-2020, when there was no proper government for 652 days... ..The lesson to be learned from the Belgian experience is that it will take a much more profound crisis to bring the European Union to collapse, or just to sweep aside the awful elites who are in power in 25 of the Member States (I exclude Slovakia and Hungary). Even a total collapse of Ukraine under pressure from Russian armed forces may not do the trick; the Europeans may perversely just double down on their subservience to Washington and reliance on NATO for their defense. https://gilbertdoctorow.com/2025/01/08/how-long-can-an-eu-member-state-survive-without-a-government/
Mike Mihajlovic explains the high-tech physics of this hypersonic weapons-system. Oreshnik's Warhead - 'Volcano Maker' Thoughts about the Oreshnik's warhead design and composition
Netanyahu will be arrested if he comes to Auschwitz memorial, Polish government confirms
Education Minister Yoav Kisch will be the only representative at the 80th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz on January 27. https://www.jpost.com/israel-news/benjamin-netanyahu/article-834302
After Iraq, Libya, Gaza, Lebanon and Syria, the Pentagon attacks Yemen, by Thierry Meyssan
It is a race against time that the Pentagon has started before President Donald Trump takes office. After destroying Iraq, Libya, Gaza, Lebanon and Syria, it is launching its men against Yemen. https://www.voltairenet.org/article221661.html
The Race Is On Between West And East For Control In Syria, Simon Watkins The removal of Bashar al-Assad has reignited Western and Eastern plans to control Syria’s oil and gas resources.
Syria's strategic position plays a pivotal role in Russian and Chinese plans, including Russia's "Shia Crescent" strategy and China's Belt and Road Initiative.
The U.S., Turkey, and other players are positioning themselves to rebuild Syria’s energy infrastructure. https://oilprice.com/Energy/Energy-General/The-Race-Is-On-Between-West-And-East-For-Control-In-Syria.html
One snippet from Simplicius: Israel's rising threat, Ukraine revelations, and the 'Age of Anti-Westphalian DarkMaga' Most interesting was an adjacent ‘news’ yesterday stating Iran had a secret new deal with Turkey to smuggle weapons to Hezbollah. Keep in mind this is completely uncorroborated and unsourced, and should therefore be taken with a huge grain of salt. But if there’s even a remote glint of truth to this, then Israel’s in deeper schmutz than it had imagined, and would also mean that Iran and Hezbollah have not been weakened at all.
Chris Hedges: Genocide — The New Normal This will be a Hobbesian world where nations that have the most advanced industrial weapons make the rules. Those who are poor and vulnerable will kneel in subjugation. Joe Biden’s parting gift of $8 billion in weapons sales to the apartheid state of Israel acknowledges the gruesome reality of the genocide in Gaza.
This is not the end. It is not even the beginning of the end.
This is a permanent, endless war designed not to destroy Hamas, or free Israeli hostages, but to eradicate, once and for all, Palestinians in Gaza and the West Bank.
It is the final push to create a Greater Israel, which will include not only Gaza and the West Bank, but chunks of Lebanon and Syria. It is the culmination of the Zionist dream. And it will be paid for with rivers of blood — Palestinian, Lebanese and Syrian.
Minister of Agriculture and Food Security of Israel Avi Dichter was probably offering conservative estimates when he said:
“I think that we are going to stay in Gaza for a long time. I think most people understand that [Israel] will be years in some kind of West Bank situation where you go in and out and maybe you remain along Netzarim [corridor].”
Mass extermination takes time. It is also expensive.
Fortunately for Israel, its lobby in the U.S. has a stranglehold on Congress, our electoral process and the media narrative. Americans, although 61 percent support ending weapons shipments to Israel, will pay for it. https://consortiumnews.com/2025/01/07/chris-hedges-genocide-the-new-normal/
Israel to locally produce heavy bombs, reducing reliance on US after shipment holdup
Elbit Systems also contracted to establish manufacturing plant for raw materials, in deals worth $275 million; Israel hopes to reach ‘full independence’ in munitions manufacturing https://www.timesofisrael.com/israel-to-locally-produce-heavy-bombs-reducing-reliance-on-us-after-shipment-holdup/
Israeli strikes kill dozens in Gaza, including 7 children
At least five strikes targeted parts of Khan Younis, including one in the Al-Mawasi area where thousands of displaced Palestinians are living in tents https://www.newarab.com/news/israeli-strikes-kill-dozens-gaza-including-7-children
Chile lawyers demand arrest of Israeli soldier over Gaza war crimes At least 620 attorneys in Chile have sought the arrest of a discharged Israeli soldier from Battalion 749 for his role in crimes against humanity and genocide during the war on Gaza, local media reported.
Saar Hirshoren is now traveling in the South American country, and, according to the complaint, was involved in the deliberate destruction of "residential neighborhoods, cultural sites and essential facilities in Gaza, committing inhumane, cruel and degrading acts, causing ethnic cleansing and forced displacement of the population."
The lawsuit was supported by testimony from a Palestinian lady residing in Chile, whose family members had been victims of Israeli aggression in Gaza.
Lawyer and former Chilean ambassador Nelson Haddad stressed Friday that the complaint was made in order to ensure an investigation takes place and "as a preventive measure, the immediate arrest of this Israeli soldier is carried out so that he can be held accountable for the crimes committed and take responsibility before international criminal justice."
At a news conference, Haddad stated that the arrest must occur "before the imminent escape attempt". https://english.almayadeen.net/news/politics/chile-lawyers-demand-arrest-of-israeli-soldier-over-gaza-war
Deep-State no-like: Senate Democrats Throw a Big Wrench in Tulsi Gabbard's Confirmation Hearing Democratic Sen. Mark Warner of Virginia, vice chair of the Senate Intelligence Committee, is balking at the idea of holding a hearing for Gabbard early next week.
“Warner has pointed out that the committee has not yet received Gabbard’s FBI background check, ethics disclosure or a pre-hearing questionnaire, a source familiar with the matter told us. Committee rules require the background check a week in advance of a hearing,” the news outlet said... ..A source working with Gabbard told Axios that she completed her background check process last week and has an active security clearance. Further, she submitted an initial pre-hearing questionnaire already and will have a second one in on time by a Thursday deadline, the source said. Gabbard currently is a lieutenant colonel in the Army Reserves. The combat veteran also did stints on the Homeland Security, the Armed Services, and the Foreign Affairs Committees, while a member of Congress from 2013 to 2021. https://www.westernjournal.com/senate-democrats-throw-big-wrench-tulsi-gabbards-confirmation-hearing/
Is he legally competent? Biden Confirms He's Considering Preemptive Pardons https://www.zerohedge.com/political/biden-confirms-hes-considering-preemptive-pardons
Meryl Nass MD, Five Big Problems with the UN Cybercrime Treaty/ Center for Family and Human Rights And links to two more articles detailing troubling features of the treaty, particularly regarding sexualization of children I just now became aware of this report on the treaty that is worth knowing about: how a treaty to allegedly prevent cybercrimes actually redefines certain highly questionable behaviors that most thought of as crimes, such as pedophilia and child pornography, so they are no longer crimes!
Meryl Nass MD, Very interesting article delves into the mechanics of the UK's psychological warfare contractors We need to grasp the broad insidious nature of the ways we were manipulated and forced to comply--and harm ourselves
Meryl Nass MD calls Kiwis to Rise Up! New Zealanders: sign the referendum to Exit the WHO. Join with others in a new organization Turn Jacinda Ardern's legacy around. Don't adopt WHO-based domestic laws either!
FDA Updates Warnings on RSV Vaccines Abrysvo and Arexvy Due to Guillain-Barré Syndrome Risk https://www.trialsitenews.com/a/fda-updates-warnings-on-rsv-vaccines-abrysvo-and-arexvy-due-to-guillain-barre-syndrome-risk-80f02046
I worked with Josh Green MD in North Kohala, where he would do ER shifts, from 2008-2013. He was pretty good, elected as a State Senator then. Josh really liked doingdeals. Josh got tied into promoting the cyber-city project on Maui,and he has been looking bad in all his post-Lahaina pictures. Josh Green MD may be owned by the globo-cap mob these days. Physician governor urges Capitol Hill to block RFK Jr.'s confirmation: 'Our children's lives depend on it'
The Democratic governor penned an op-ed published in The New York Times on Tuesday, continuing to drill at Kennedy's anti-vaccine efforts in 2019 amid Samoa's measles outbreak. According to Greene, Kennedy "used misinformation to scare all the people of Samoa away from being vaccinated" and served to "torpedo" the country's vaccination efforts. "Too much depends on our commitment to truth and the lifesaving power of vaccines to entrust Mr. Kennedy with the direction of these programs. Our children’s lives depend on it," Green wrote. https://www.foxnews.com/politics/physician-governor-capitol-hill-rfk-confirmation
RFK Jr. and the Samoan Measles Outbreak When the nomination of Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. as Health and Human Services Secretary comes before the Senate, the specter of the Samoan measles outbreak of 2019 will dramatically be invoked to challenge him. Kennedy’s critics have repeatedly relied on this topic, citing stories that claim he was responsible for an epidemic in 2019 that caused at least 83 children to die due to vaccine hesitancy...
..The most convenient and generally accepted explanations of the outbreak claim the epidemic was the result of vaccine hesitancy, causing the population to be under-vaccinated. Measles, mumps, rubella (MMR) vaccination rates were reportedly low due to the deaths of two infants given improperly formulated injections in Samoa a year earlier... However, the Samoan Government Health Ministry reported (p. 9) in June 2019 — three months before the measles outbreak began — that 80% of 12-month-old babies had received the MMR vaccine... ..No deaths from measles have occurred in the U.S. in the last five years. From October through December of 2019, 1.5% of Samoan children with the disease died — over one in a hundred — at a minimum, tenfold more deaths than any previous outbreak in recent years... ..Edwin Tamasese, a health advocate who questioned Samoan government policies during the outbreak, gave Kennedy some insight into what was happening. Tamasese was concerned about the number of sick and dying Samoan children and began to assist families whose children were severely ill... In an interview after the outbreak subsided, he said, “We were very careful to take statistics when we were going in to try to identify trends. When we assessed our numbers, 98 percent of those who were getting ill had been vaccinated consistently six to seven days prior to illness. The excuse was that the vaccine did not have time to become effective. However, according to an immunologist on the team, the six to seven-day period was also the length of time it would take an under-attenuated vaccine to make the recipient sick.” The MMR vaccine is a live, attenuated vaccine that contains weakened live strains of measles, mumps, and rubella (German measles).
Doctors in hospitals also reported that the very ill and dying children did not have symptoms consistent with normal cases of measles. When the outbreak began, blood from the first thirty-nine cases had been sent to Australia; only seven samples were positive for measles...
..Neighboring Pacific island countries, Tonga and Fiji, which had concurrent outbreaks of the virus — and had a different source of the measles vaccine — did not suffer the same dramatic mortality rates. This should have raised concerns, yet there hasn’t been an inquiry into why the Samoan government switched vaccine sourcing from India to Belgium midway through the crisis.
A renewed effort to vaccinate with this alternate supply began in the first week of December 2019; it was hailed as the reason the outbreak subsided. Measles vaccines take at least 10 days before creating an immune response. There has been no explanation for the data confirming that the onset of cases dropped dramatically two weeks before this vaccination drive could have had any effect.
The government response was not driven by factual analysis; the effort focused on promoting the vaccine and silencing those questioning authority...
..While worldwide attention on Samoa ignored dramatic inconsistencies, Kennedy was one of the few people who asked detailed and important questions. His views were marginalized; it was easier and politically correct to blame the tragedy on low rates of vaccination. https://brownstone.org/articles/rfk-jr-and-the-samoan-measles-outbreak/
Dr Ah Kahn Syed has this, The Killing Fields of Samoa, What happened in Samoa in 2019 and why is it so important now? from 11/19/2022 So why was the Samoan outbreak such a problem that it was reported worldwide while the Fiji/Tongan outbreaks were ignored? Well, kids were dying. A lot. In fact, the death rate in the Samoan measles outbreak of November 2019 was 40 times the usual death rate for measles in developed countries...
..So there are two aspects to the devastating and fatal Samoa outbreak:
Why did a measles outbreak occur in 3 neighbouring islands at the same time, just weeks after a delivery of UNICEF vaccines to those very islands?
Why did the death rate in the Samoan outbreak reach such high levels far in excess of what would be expected in a country with access to healthcare?... ..There is one piece of the puzzle of Samoa that has been bothering me. That is, why did a relatively vaccinated population manage to fare so badly with a measles outbreak? In order for that to happen it had to be an unusual strain. However, the official line was that the strain was a D8 strain, not a "vaccine-related A strain".
What has always niggled me is that I have not been able to find any genomic confirmation of the Samoa measles strain in Genbank. The only strain documented from 2019 is from Western Samoa, not Samoa. So how do we know that it was a “natural” measles strain? We don’t. Now comes the insidious bit. The bit that links the fact that there is emerging evidence that SARS-CoV-2 appeared before December 2019.
Imagine that the world’s worst psychopaths (that is, gain-of-function virologists were to create a chimaera of one of the most infectious viruses known to man (aka measles) and SARS-Cov-2. Well they did it, and I've been banging on about it for a year. It's this little gem...That’s right. A measles-SARS-CoV-2 chimera. The measles component is supposedly taken from this paperand uses a construct from Roberto Cattaneo (Genbank MH144178)published in 2015. So, why would they use this one?.... ..The publication is marked Dec 2020 but it was submitted in July 2020 and included mice studies, which usually take months. It’s therefore very possible - and entirely in keeping with Baric’s MO - that this construct was made before December 2019...
..Now, that strain is supposed to be an inactive strain A measles. The only problem is that, when we run a BLAST on this strain (or on the Chimera) we get a pretty good match to a D8 strain measles... ..So…here we have a very unusual set of circumstances. Let me recap:
An unusually virulent measles outbreak occurs in 3 neighbouring Pacific islands after delivery of a vaccine from UNICEF
On one of the islands, the death rate of the outbreak is unusually high(and of the order of magnitude of the first COVID wave)
The outbreak is used to test the compliance of the population for lockdowns and forced vaccinations. There is very little resistance.
Around the time of this outbreak, Ralph Baric - implicated in the origin of SARS-Cov-2 - is involved in the construction4 of an unusual measles-coronavirus chimera in which the measles component is homologous to strain D8 measles (the strain declared in Samoa).
When Samoa gets its first official wave of COVID infections there are no deaths suggesting a prior immunity.
Study of 9 Million Exposes DEVASTATING Neurological Damage Surge Among Covid-Vaccinated
An explosive new study involving almost 9 million participants has exposed a devastating surge in deadly neurological and psychiatric damage among those who received Covid mRNA “vaccines.”
Steve Kirsch, Pfizer's secret documents reveal that their COVID vaccine actually made you 8.7% more likely to get COVID Buried in the documents that Pfizer wanted hidden from public view for 75 years there was a table that revealed that their vaccine actually had negative efficacy.
Physicist, Josh Mitteldorf tells a tale of intrigue: Cold Fusion is a suppressed technology Out of town for the weekend, Pons got a panicked phone call from his student. The glassware was shattered; the lab table had been destroyed; and there was a hole in the concrete floor of the laboratory, where the experiment seemed to have melted through.
Both professors rushed home and met in the lab. They became convinced in that moment that “cold fusion” is real. There is no chemical reaction in the world that could generate that kind of damage from a tiny chip of metal, 1/16 of a cubic inch. It had to be nuclear.
More from Physicist, Josh Mitteldorf,. Do recall how colonial power elites used their control of industry and global trade to enslave their colonies and also their subjects. What is a ‘Breakaway Civilization’? technologies of the future, here in the present Richard Dolan was first to use the phrase, though I first heard it from Jason Jorjani. The idea is that there are whole communities built on technology far advanced from what is in the public domain. They are somewhere on this planet — perhaps in underground cities, perhaps under the ocean or Antarctica. It is the world’s biggest secret.
Inhabited for thousands of years until the 1920s. Turkey's underground city of 20,000 people The ancient city of Elengubu, known today as Derinkuyu, burrows more than 85m below the Earth's surface, encompassing 18 levels of tunnels. The largest excavated underground city in the world, it was in near-constant use for thousands of years, changing hands from the Phrygians to the Persians to the Christians of the Byzantine Era. It was finally abandoned in the 1920s by the Cappadocian Greeks when they faced defeat during the Greco-Turkish war and fled abruptly en masse to Greece. https://www.bbc.com/travel/article/20220810-derinkuyu-turkeys-underground-city-of-20000-people
The 12,000 year disaster cycle, based upon recurring galactic space weather-conditions rocking our planetary boat, which is due to return in 11-22 years or so. The first 3 videos take less than 20 minutes to watch. An underground city would be a good place to stay if it would avoid flooding.
This 3 part series from The Ethical Skeptic looks at the effects of the last episode of bad space weather 12,000 years ago, positing that the Egyptian pyramids were built prior to that, and display evidence of the events. Master Exothermic Core-Mantle Decoupling – Dzhanibekov Oscillation (ECDO) Theor We propose that the unique features observed on the Khufu and, most notably, the Khafre Pyramids indicate a prolonged period of oceanic displacement, lasting between 50 and 200 years, that submerged the Giza Plateau in antiquity. This inundation reached a height of 576 feet above current sea level, leaving a distinctive ocean water karst erosion band near the top of the Khafre Pyramid. The sustained and stable nature of this inundation strongly suggests that it was caused by a change in the georotational dynamics of the Earth sometime within the last fourteen millennia. This constitutes ‘dead body’ evidence, and it must be addressed. https://theethicalskeptic.com/2024/05/23/master-exothermic-core-mantle-decoupling-dzhanibekov-oscillation-theory/
Surface Dwelling Human (pictured closer-up in post freeze tomato-less garden)
Many who go into politics have their own personal agenda...without any thought, except how will this job benefit me? Most don't go into politics for altruistic reasons. The reality for them is the money they can make.
To avoid large conflicts... this title makes me think of a newspaper article from long ago "in order to avoid an accident, I drove into another car".