The RealTruth Blog

Fair Use Notice: This site may contain some copyrighted material the use of which has not always been specifically authorized by the copyright owner. We are making such material available in our efforts to advance understanding of vital issues which already exist in the public domain. – Note: These links are posted at the top of the page as the week progresses. Links from previous weeks can be found under the “Current Quicklinx” button.Zionist Internet Propaganda War (Video 14 min) – from Dailymotion –

Israel puts much effort into controlling the narrative to further the Zionist agenda by engaging in what they refer to as ‘hasbara’. This includes a controlled effort of editing Wikipedia and influencing social media. – Article by Alison Weir, ‘How Israel and its partisans work to censor the Internet,’ published March 8, 2018: https://israelpalestinenews.org/israel-partisans-work-censor-internet/ – “Numerous well funded, organized projects by and for Israel work to flood social media with pro-Israel propaganda, while blocking facts Israel dislikes. The projects utilize Israeli soldiers, students, American teens and others, and range from infiltrating Wikipedia to influencing YouTube. Some operate out of Jewish Community Centers in the U.S… Recently, YouTube suddenly shut down the If Americans Knew YouTube channel. This contained 70 videos providing facts-based information about Israel-Palestine… People going to the channel saw a message telling them that the site had been terminated for “violating YouTube guidelines”—implying to the public that we were guilty of wrongdoing. And ensuring they didn’t learn about the information we were trying to disseminate… When we tried to access our channel, we found a message saying our account had been “permanently disabled.” We had received no warning and got no explanation… After five days, we received a generic message saying YouTube had reviewed our content and determined it didn’t violate any guidelines. Our channel became live once more… So why was it shut down in the first place? What happened and why?.. As it turns out, Israel and Israeli institutions employ armies of Internet warriors—from Israeli soldiers to students—to spread propaganda online and try to get content banned that Israel doesn’t want seen… Perhaps like our videos of Palestinians killed by Israeli forces… What happened – A few days before the termination of our channel, we received a form email from YouTube, telling us we had gotten “one strike” for a short video about a Palestinian man killed by Israeli soldiers. The video was part of our series of videos to make Palestinian victims, usually ignored by US media, visible to Americans… It takes three minutes to view the video and see that it contains nothing objectionable, unless revealing cruelty and oppression is objectionable: https://youtu.be/YLeft0e7ul8 – YouTube’s email claimed we had somehow violated their long list of guidelines but did not tell us which one, or how. It simply stated: ‘Your video ‘Ahmad Nasser Jarrar’ was flagged for review. Upon review, we’ve determined that it violates our guidelines. We’ve removed it from YouTube and assigned a Community Guidelines strike, or temporary penalty, to your account.’.. Such a penalty is not public and does not terminate the channel… Three days later, before we’d even had a chance to appeal this strike, YouTube suddenly took down our entire channel. This was done with no additional warnings or explanation… This violated YouTube’s published policies… YouTube policies say there is a “three-strike” system by which it warns people of alleged violations three times before terminating a channel. If a channel is eventually terminated, the policies state that YouTube will send an email “detailing the reason for the suspension.”.. None of this happened in our case… We submitted appeals on YouTube’s online form, but received no response. Attempts to find a phone number for YouTube and/or email addresses by which we could communicate with a human being were futile… YouTube’s power to shut down content without explanation whenever it chooses was acutely apparent. While there are other excellent video hosting sites, YouTube is the largest one, with nearly ten times more views than its closest competitors. It is therefore enormously powerful in shaping which information is available to the public–and which is not… We spent days working to upload our videos elsewhere, update links to the videos, etc. Finally, having received no response or even acknowledgment of our appeal from YouTube, we decided to write an article about the situation. We emailed YouTube’s press department a list of questions about its process. We have yet to receive any answers… Finally that evening we received an email with good news: “After a review of your account, we have confirmed that your YouTube account is not in violation of our Terms of Service. As such, we have unsuspended your account. This means your account is once again active and operational.”.. Our channel was visible once more. And YouTube had now officially confirmed that our content doesn’t violate its guidelines… Ultimately, the YouTube system seems to have worked, in our case. Inappropriate censorship was overruled, perhaps by saner or less biased heads. In fact, we felt that there might at least be one positive result of the situation—additional YouTube employees had viewed our videos and perhaps learned much about Israel-Palestine they had not previously known… But the whole experience was a wakeup call that YouTube can censor information critical of powerful parties at any time, with no explanation or accountability. Israeli soldiers paid to “Tweet, Share, Like and more”.. Israel and partisans of Israel have long had a significant presence on the Internet, working to promote the Israel narrative and block facts about Palestine, the Israel lobby, and other subject matter they wish covered up… Opinionated proponents of Israel post comments, flag content, accuse critics of “antisemitism,” and disseminate misinformation about Palestine and Palestine solidarity activists. Many of these actions are by individuals acting alone who work independently, voluntarily, and relentlessly… In addition to these, however, a number of orchestrated, often well-funded projects sponsored by the Israeli government and others have come to light. These projects work to place pro-Israel content throughout the Internet, and to remove information Israel doesn’t wish people to know… One such Israeli project targeting the Internet came to light when it was lauded in an article by Arutz Sheva, an Israeli news organization headquartered in an Israeli settlement in the West Bank… The report described a new project by Israel’s “New Media desk” that focused on YouTube and other social media sites. The article reported that Israeli soldiers were being employed to “Tweet, Share, Like and more.”.. The article noted, ‘It is well known nowadays that what happens on Facebook, Twitter and YouTube has great influence on events as they occur on the ground. The Internet, too, is a battleground.’ It was “comforting,” the article stated, to learn that the IDF was employing soldiers whose job was specifically to do battle on it.”1984/2024 – the Hidden Hope in Orwell’s Warning – by Paul Cudenec, January1, 2024 – https://truthcomestolight.com/1984-2024-the-hidden-hope-in-orwells-warning/ –

“Forty years have now passed since the year in which George Orwell situated his imaginary dystopian society… The novel Nineteen Eighty-Four was never meant to be a literal prophecy, of course, but, for the first three-and-a-half decades after its publication in 1949, it held a powerful hold on the public imagination, at least in Britain… When I was growing up in the 1970s, the four figures “1984” were a terrifying byword for the totalitarian future that we all somehow knew was just round the corner, if we didn’t remain vigilant… I think that Orwell’s book, along with Aldous Huxley’s 1931 novel Brave New World, helped stave off the advent of the kind of world they were both warning us against, by making it abundantly clear that nobody, regardless of political affiliation, welcomed such a future… The date lost much of its power, of course, when the year came and went. Suddenly 1984 was just part of everyday life – it was the year that your girlfriend left you, that you passed your driving test or that Everton beat Watford in the FA Cup Final… And although many of us still remained concerned about the prospect of a Big Brother state strengthening its grip, there was no longer the sense of counting grimly down to that fateful year – instead people started looking forward to the bright new future heralded by The Year Two Thousand… Now, however, the date 1984 has passed back into a semi-abstract condition, especially for all those born after that date, and the title of the book seems much less important than the content, which is all too relevant today… Some of the outer form of the story is admittedly now rather dated. Re-reading it for the purposes of this article, I was struck by the way in which Orwell is very much describing a bomb-damaged post-war London that had already disappeared by the time I was born and which he imagines being inhabited by a white working class (the “proles”) that has now been largely displaced… The idea that “one literally never saw” foreigners walking the streets of London [1] would already have sounded a little strange in real-life 1984, let alone today!… I also noticed a bit of a plausibility flaw in the plot, in that Winston Smith, having taken such painstaking care never to be seen talking to his lover Julia in public, merrily brings her with him to meet O’Brien, whom he merely hopes is on his side… He then blurts out, within seconds of arriving at the official’s home: “We are enemies of the Party”! [2] and goes on to agree to “corrupt the minds of children”, “disseminate venereal diseases” and “throw sulphuric acid in a child’s face” [3] if asked to do so by the underground resistance known as the Brotherhood. – Would anyone really do that? – But these are small quibbles in comparison with the uncanny way in which Orwell foresaw so much of the psychological control and manipulation we are enduring today… For instance, we can immediately recognise, in the pages of the novel, those who are currently imposing the Great Reset and its United Nations Sustainable Development Goals… “What kind of people would control this world had been equally obvious. The new aristocracy was made up for the most part of bureaucrats, scientists, technicians, trade-union organisers, publicity experts, sociologists, teachers, journalists, and professional politicians… “These people, whose origins lay in the salaried middle class and the upper grades of the working class, had been shaped and brought together by the barren world of monopoly industry and centralized government”. [4] – Likewise with the extent to which their control is exerted: “Even the Catholic Church of the Middle Ages was tolerant by modern standards. Part of the reason for this was that in the past no government had the power to keep its citizens under constant surveillance… “With the development of television, and the technological advance which made it possible to receive and transmit simultaneously on the same instrument, private life came to an end… “Every citizen, or at least every citizen important enough to be worth watching, could be kept for twenty-four hours a day under the eyes of the police and in the sound of official propaganda… “The possibility of enforcing not only complete obedience, but complete uniformity of opinion on all subjects, now existed for the first time”. [5] – The globalist agenda of the current criminocracy is also clearly depicted: “The two aims of the Party are to conquer the whole surface of the earth and to extinguish once and for all the possibility of independent thought”. [6] – The three warring zone of Orwell’s multipolar world have ideologies that are only superficially different: “In Oceania, the prevailing philosophy is called Ingsoc, in Eurasia it is called Neo-Bolshevism, and in Eastasia it is called by a Chinese name usually translated as Death-Worship… Actually the three philosophies are barely distinguishable, and the social systems which they support are not distinguishable at all”. [7] – Orwell’s fictional tyrants even indulge in the same long-term date-related planning for their ramping up of control, declaring that by 2050: “The whole climate of thought will be different. In fact there will be no thought, as we understand it now. Orthodoxy means not thinking – not needing to think. Orthodoxy is unconsciousness”. [8] – They are out to abolish natural human life – “all children were to be begotten by artificial insemination (artsem, it was called in Newspeak) and brought up in public institutions” [9] – and are proud of the success of their social distancing project – “we have cut the links between child and parent, and between man and man, and between man and woman”. [10] – Alongside this goes the mobilising of indoctrinated youth to impose the official dogma. “It was almost normal for people over thirty to be frightened of their own children. And with good reason, for hardly a week passed in which The Times did not carry a paragraph describing how some eavesdropping little sneak – ‘child hero’ was the phrase generally used – had overheard some compromising remark and denounced its parents to the Thought Police”. [11]

The myth of Progress plays an important part in maintaining social licence for this fictional totalitarian regime… “Day and night the telescreens bruised your ears with statistics proving that people to-day had more food, more clothes, better houses, better recreations – that they lived longer, worked shorter hours, were bigger, healthier, stronger, happier, more intelligent, better educated, than the people of fifty years ago. Not a word of it could ever be proved or disproved”. [12] – Central to Ingsoc’s psychological control over the population is the invention and development of Newspeak, a politically-correct jargon aimed at inserting the Party’s worldview into the very terms needed to think and communicate… To talk and write using words in their original sense was regarded as Oldspeak [13] and thus doubeplusungood [14] and might even lead to an extended stay in a joycamp. [15] – Newspeak serves an important role in the regime’s criminalisation of freedom… Orwell adds: “To do anything that suggested a taste for solitude, even to go for a walk by yourself, was always slightly dangerous. There was a word for it in Newspeak: ownlife, it was called, meaning individualism and eccentricity”. [17] – Alongside the mental techniques of doublethink and crimestop, which I described in a previous article, [18] we find blackwhite – “a loyal willingness to say that black is white when Party discipline demands this” and also “the ability to believe that black is white, and more, to know that black is white, and to forget that one has ever believed the contrary”. [19] – Vaccines are safe and effective. Women can have penises. Critical thinking is dangerous… Even when old words are not actually abolished, they are stripped of their essential meaning… Orwell explains: “The word free still existed in Newspeak, but it could only be used in such statements as ‘This dog is free from lice’ or ‘This field is free from weeds’. It could not be used in its old sense of ‘politically free’ or ‘intellectually free’, since political and intellectual freedom no longer existed even as concepts, and were therefore of necessity nameless”. [20] – This manipulation has a real impact in creating a safer and inclusive social space which is free of disinformation, hate speech or any kind of conspiracy theory or denialism: “In Newspeak the expression of unorthodox opinions, above a very low level, was well-nigh impossible”. [21] – One of the most memorable lines from the novel is the Party’s insistence that “who controls the past controls the future: who controls the present controls the past”. [22] – Any inappropriate content that has previously been published has to be sent into oblivion down the memory hole… “It is intolerable to us that an erroneous thought should exist anywhere in the world”, [23] stresses Inner Party man O’Brien and we learn that no item of news or any expression of opinion which conflicts with the needs of the moment is “ever allowed to remain on record”. [24] – The result is a totally disorientated population. “Everything faded into mist. The past was erased, the erasure was forgotten, the lie became truth”. [25] – “In the end the Party would announce that two and two made five, and you would have to believe it. It was inevitable that they should make that claim sooner or later: the logic of their position demanded it. Not merely the validity of experience, but the very existence of external reality, was tacitly denied by their philosophy. The heresy of heresies was common sense”. [26] – O’Brien’s words take on a certain postmodernist tinge when he insists: “We control matter because we control the mind. Reality is inside the skull… Nothing exists except through human consciousness”. [27] – Above all, the ruling mafia want to conceal the unpalatable reality of their control. “All the beliefs, habits, tastes, emotions, mental attitudes that characterize our time are really designed to sustain the mystique of the Party and prevent the true nature of present-day society from being perceived”. [28] – Fake opposition is another tool used by Ingsoc to trick and crush potential dissidents, in particular the cartoonish figure of arch-subversive Emmanuel Goldstein, author of a book called The Theory and Practice of Oligarchical Collectivism, [29] who has a definite whiff of Karl Marx about him… Rather than being denied the oxygen of publicity by the regime, as one might expect, his face and words are constantly served up on the telescreens as a hated binary opposite of Ingsoc figurehead Big Brother… “Goldstein was delivering his usual venomous attack upon the doctrines of the Party – an attack so exaggerated and perverse that a child should have been able to see through it, and yet just plausible enough to fill one with an alarmed feeling that other people, less level-headed than oneself, might be taken in by it”, [30] writes Orwell… Although Goldstein is “advocating freedom of speech, freedom of the Press, freedom of assembly, freedom of thought”, he does so in “rapid polysyllabic speech which was a sort of parody of the habitual style of the orators of the Party, and even contained Newspeak words: more Newspeak words, indeed, than any Party member would normally use in real life”. [31] – Deliberate and malignant inversion of meaning is as much a part of Orwell’s dystopia as it is of today’s world, most famously with the Party slogan “War is peace. Freedom is slavery. Ignorance is strength”. [32] – Ingsoc and the other similar global ideologies are said to have grown out of philosophies to which they still pay “lip-service”, while reversing their original ideals in “the conscious aim of perpetuating unfreedom and inequality”. [33] – “The Party rejects and vilifies every principle for which the Socialist movement originally stood, and it chooses to do this in the name of Socialism”. [34] – “Even the names of the four Ministries by which we are governed exhibit a sort of impudence in their deliberate reversal of the facts. The Ministry of Peace concerns itself with war, the Ministry of Truth with lies, the Ministry of Love with torture, and the Ministry of Plenty with starvation”. [35] – Combined with this demonic inversion of value comes a malevolent obsession with power, all too familiar to us today… O’Brien declares: “The Party seeks power entirely for its own sake. We are not interested in the good of others; we are interested solely in power… We know that no one ever seizes power with the intention of relinquishing it. Power is not a means it is an end. One does not establish a dictatorship in order to safeguard a revolution; one makes a revolution in order to establish the dictatorship. The object of persecution is persecution. The object of torture is torture. The object of power is power”. [36] – In another of the chilling phrases for which Nineteen Eighty-Four is so renowned, he adds: “If you want a picture of the future, imagine a boot stamping on a human face – for ever”. [37] – It is important to the regime that its control is so complete that it becomes impossible even to imagine that it could one day come to an end… O’Brien tells Winston: “If you have ever cherished any dreams of violent insurrection, you must abandon them. There is no way in which the Party can be overthrown. The rule of the Party is for ever. Make that the starting-point of your thoughts”. [38] – Alongside the well-known Ingsoc concept of thoughtcrime there is also facecrime – “to wear an improper expression on your face (to look incredulous when a victory was announced, for example)”. [16]

The sense of powerlessness imposed by the Party seems to work on Winston, at least with regard to the prospects of his personal micro-rebellion, and he considers it “a law of nature that the individual is always defeated”. [39] – The fact that he ends up betraying his principles under torture in Room 101, denouncing his Julia and conceding that he loves Big Brother, can leave the reader with a heavy and disempowering feeling of defeat and I have long considered this to be a flaw in the book… But a closer look reveals that there is something else going on there as well, a deep counter-current of hope flowing against the tide of totalitarian repression… Some of that hope is seen by Winston in the 85% of the population known as the “proles”, even though their gullibility and lack of imagination frustrate him: “They needed only to rise up and shake themselves like a horse shaking off flies. If they chose they could blow the Party to pieces to-morrow morning. Surely sooner or later it must occur to them to do it? And yet – -!” [40] – He also finds encouragement in the ability of someone such as Julia to see through the lies peddled by the regime, despite the towering wall of deceit it has constructed around its activities… She startles Winston “by saying casually that in her opinion the war was not happening. The rocket bombs which fell daily on London were probably fired by the Government of Oceania itself, ‘just to keep people frightened’.” [41] – The human capacity to see the truth and to remain faithful to it in the most difficult of situations is key to Orwell’s despite-it-all variety of hope… “Being in a minority, even a minority of one, did not make you mad. There was truth and there was untruth, and if you clung to the truth even against the whole world, you were not mad”. [42] – He also describes an innate feeling of right and wrong which enables us to sense that there is something deeply awry with the society in which we are living… Winston, reflecting on his own unease, muses: “Was it not a sign that this was not the natural order of things… Why should one feel it to be intolerable unless one had some kind of ancestral memory that things had once been different?” [43] – It is this source of hope beyond the fallible and mortal individual to which Smith tries to cling during his interrogation… He tells O’Brien: “Somehow you will fail. Something will defeat you. Life will defeat you… I know that you will fail. There is something in the universe – I don’t know, some spirit, some principle – that you will never overcome”. [44] – Orwell, his health fading as he wrote the novel, could project no prospect of immediate change on to his fictional society… However, he has Winston say to Julia: “I don’t imagine that we can alter anything in our lifetime. But one can imagine little knots of resistance springing up here and there – small groups of people banding themselves together, and gradually growing, and even leaving a few records behind, so that the next generation can carry on where we leave off”. [45] – These are not the words of a man who has surrendered to despair… But the most important element in this concealed counter-current of Orwellian optimism is something I only noticed in my most recent re-reading… The appendix, ‘The Principles of Newspeak’, looks back on the Ingsoc period in the past tense, from the vantage point of a more distant future in which the Big Brother nightmare has evidently come to an end and in which some kind of freedom and common sense have been restored… It remarks, for instance: “Only a person thoroughly grounded in Ingsoc could appreciate the full force of the word bellyfeel, which implied a blind, enthusiastic acceptance difficult to imagine to-day”. [46] – So over the horizon there is a “to-day” in which the “blind, enthusiastic acceptance” of totalitarianism is not only a thing of the past, but even “difficult to imagine”… Confirming the point, the unknown writer of this pseudo-historical account notes that “the final adoption of Newspeak had been fixed for so late a date as 2050”. [47] – These are the very last words on the last page of the book and Orwell is telling us here, right at the end of his account, that the Ingsoc regime fell before it was able to achieve its long-term agenda of completely erasing human freedom! – The Party could be overturned! The boot didn’t stamp on a human face for ever! – And how was this possible, in the face of the overwhelming full-spectrum control of people’s lives and minds that Orwell describes to such terrifying effect? – It can only have been by people refusing to let go of the truth and having faith in the spirit of the universe that will eventually prevent death from prevailing over life, slavery over freedom, or power over humanity… Orwell must have written Nineteen Eighty-Four out of desperate, inspired, need to play his part in the struggle against the forces of darkness which lay ahead… He did what he could and, as I said, for many years his warning helped hold back the advance of tyranny… Now it’s up to us to take the baton of deep defiance that he is holding out to us, across the decades… It’s up to us to draw inspiration from our ancestral memory of natural order, to see through the system’s lies, to band together in small groups and form knots of resistance that will keep the tattered flag of freedom flying proudly in the years to come… We have to do so without any hope that victory will necessarily be achieved in our lifetimes, but must simply aim to do all that is needed in order that, in Orwell’s words, “the next generation can carry on where we leave off”… On the other hand, who knows? – Maybe the fall of the system is coming sooner than we might think… Orwell has Winston remark that “the only victory lay in the far future”. [48] – But then he wrote that 75 years ago… Perhaps that far future is now!”How Israel’s Jewishness is overtaking its democracy – by Shibley Telhami – March 11, 2016 – https://www.brookings.edu/articles/how-israels-jewishness-is-overtaking-its-democracy/ – “Editors’ Note: According to a new Pew poll, half of Israeli Jews have come to seek not only a Jewish majority but even Jewish exclusivity in Israel. That doesn’t bode well for Arab-Jewish coexistence in Israel, writes Shibley Telhami—even aside from what happens in the West Bank and Gaza… When U.S. leaders and commentators warn that the absence of a two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict will make it impossible for Israel to be both a Jewish and democratic state, they generally mean that a Jewish democracy requires a Jewish majority; if Israel encompasses the West Bank and Gaza, Arabs will become a majority. What they may not have realized is that, in the meantime, half of Israeli Jews have come to seek not only a Jewish majority but even Jewish exclusivity… That is one of the most troubling findings of a new Pew poll in Israel. And it doesn’t bode well for Arab-Jewish coexistence in Israel—even aside from what happens in the West Bank and Gaza… This major study was conducted from October 14, 2014, to May 21, 2015, among 5,601 Israeli adults ages 18 and older. (Disclosure: I served as an adviser to the project). It found that 48 percent of all Israeli Jews agree with the statement “Arabs should be expelled or transferred from Israel,” while 46 percent disagreed. Even more troubling, the majority of every non-secular Jewish group, including 71 percent of Datim (modern orthodox Jews) agreed with the statement.

arabs_expelled – While age is not much of a factor when it comes to attitudes toward expelling Arabs from Israel, younger Israelis are slightly more likely to agree with the statement that Arabs should be expelled than older Israelis. arabs_expelled_age – These attitudes are anchored in a broader view of identity and of the nature of the Israeli state. Overall, only about a third of Israeli Jews say their Israeli identity takes precedence over their Jewish identity, with the overwhelming majority of every group, except for secular Jews, saying their Jewishness comes first. jewishness_first – This view has consequences for citizen rights. Not surprisingly, the overwhelming majority of all Jewish Israelis (98 percent) feel that Jews around the world have a birthright to make aliya (immigration to Israel with automatic Israeli citizenship). But what is striking is that 79 percent of all Jews, including 69 percent of Hilonim (secular Jews) say that Jews deserve “preferential treatment” in Israel—so much for the notion of democracy with full equal rights for all citizens.

birthright_preferential_treatment – These attitudes spell trouble for Arab citizens of Israel who constitute 20 percent of Israel’s citizens. It’s true that attitudes are dynamic; they are partly a function of Jewish-Arab relations within Israel itself, but also outside, especially within the broader Palestinian-Israeli conflict. Like their Jewish counterparts, Arab citizens of Israel (mostly Muslim, but also including Christians and Druze), identify themselves with their ethnicity (Palestinian or Arab) or religion above their Israeli citizenship. And these ethnic/religious identities intensify when conflict between Israel and the Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza intensifies. There is no way to fully divorce the broader Palestinian-Israeli conflict from Arab-Jewish relations within Israel… In recent years, this latter linkage has become central for two reasons: loss of hope for a two-state solution, and the rise of social media that has displayed extremist attitudes that used to be limited to private space. In the era of Facebook and Twitter, Arab and Jewish citizens post attitudes that deeply offend the other: An Arab expresses joy at the death of Israeli soldiers killed by Palestinians, while a Jew posts a sign reading “death to Arabs.” Hardly the stuff of co-existence. Leave it to opportunist politicians, extremists and incitement to do the rest… But there is also an American responsibility—not so much with regard to failure of diplomatic efforts, but with the very positing of the nature of the conflict itself, and the nature of the state of Israel. As President Obama considers steps he could undertake on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict before leaving office, he may contemplate addressing what has become a distorting and detrimental discourse that serves to give a pass to non-democratic attitudes, and diversion of attention from core problems… First, there is something wrong with positing the possibility of Arabs as constituting a demographic problem for Israel. It legitimizes the privileging of Jewishness over democracy. It also distorts the reason why Israel is obligated to end occupation of the West Bank and Gaza; it has nothing to do with the character of Israel as such, but with international law and United Nations resolutions… Second, while states can define themselves as they wish (and are accepted by the international community accordingly), the American embrace of the “Jewishness” of Israel, cannot be decoupled from the Palestinian-Israeli context, or from the overarching American demand that all states must be for all their citizens equally… In part, this is based on the notion that the UN General Assembly (Resolution 181) recommended in 1947 dividing mandatory Palestine into an “Arab” and a “Jewish” State. In part, it’s based on the notion that the Palestinian-Israeli conflict is a political conflict that can be resolved through two states, one manifesting the self-determination of Jews as a people, and one manifesting the right of self-determination of Palestinians as a people. The two were bound together. An embrace of a Jewish state that excludes a Palestinian state defeats the principle… If two states become impossible, America chooses democracy over Jewishness. In fact, this has been consistently reflected in American public attitudes across the political spectrum, most recently in this November 2015poll; in the absence of a two-state solution, 72 percent of Americans would want a democratic Israel, even if it meant that Israel ceases to be a Jewish state with a Jewish majority… More centrally, even with two states—one manifesting Jewish self determination and one Palestinian self-determination—an overarching, principled American position takes precedence: If Israel is a state of the Jewish people, it must also be above all a state of all its citizens equally; (and if Palestine is to be a state of the Palestinian people, it must also be a state of all its citizens equally). This democratic principle, highlighted front and center in a reformulated American position, can help avoid legitimizing undemocratic attitudes in the name of Jewish identity.”Iran says at least 103 killed in ‘terror’ blasts near grave of slain general Soleimani – At least 141 injured in explosions on 4th anniversary of killing of senior Revolutionary Guard terror chief; outlets say blasts caused by suicide bombers or remote detonation – from The Times of Israel – Note: this article is behind a paywall. To access it, click This Link, and put the URL below into the search bar. – Question: Who would want to attack civilians in Iran, who were celebrating the assassination of Soleimani? – https://www.timesofisrael.com/iran-says-at-least-103-killed-in-terror-blasts-near-grave-of-slain-general-soleimani/ – “At least 103 people were said to have been killed on Wednesday in two explosions near the grave of General Qassem Soleimani, the head of Iran’s elite Quds Force who was killed in a US drone strike in Iraq exactly four years ago, in what a local Iranian official claimed was a “terror attack.” – Babak Yektaparast, a spokesperson for Iran’s emergency services, was initially reported as saying 73 people had been killed and 170 injured. State television said later that at least 103 people had been killed and 141 injured. Iran’s state television announced that the government had declared a national day of mourning… Iran has multiple foes who could be behind the assault, including exile groups, armed organizations and state actors. While Israel has carried out attacks in Iran over its nuclear program, it has conducted targeted assassinations, not mass casualty bombings. Sunni extremist groups, including the Islamic State group, have conducted large-scale attacks in the past that killed civilians in Shiite-majority Iran, though not in relatively peaceful Kerman… Iran also has seen mass protests in recent years, including those over the death of 22-year-old Mahsa Amini in 2022. The country also has been targeted by exile groups in attacks dating back to the turmoil surrounding its 1979 Islamic Revolution… Iranian state television said the blasts occurred in the central city of Kerman during a ceremony to mark the fourth anniversary of the death of the Revolutionary Guard Corps’ terror chief Soleimani… The live broadcast had shown thousands of mourners participating in the commemoration… “The blasts were caused by terrorist attacks,” Rahman Jalali, the deputy governor of Kerman province where Soleimani is buried, told state television… The semi-official Nournews had said earlier that “several gas canisters exploded on the road leading to the cemetery.” – State TV showed Red Crescent rescuers attending to wounded people at the ceremony… “Our rapid response teams are evacuating the injured… But there are waves of crowds blocking roads,” Reza Fallah, head of the Kerman province Red Crescent told state TV… Sources on the ground told local media that the explosions came from suicide bombers in two separate locations, but that was not confirmed by an official statement… Other witnesses told the Tasnim news site that the explosions were caused by explosive-laden suitcases, detonated by remote control… Iranian media denied reports on social media that a senior IRGC commander was also killed in the explosions.

Soleimani was the architect of Iran’s regional terror activities and is hailed as a national icon among supporters of Iran’s theocracy.
Soleimani, who led the elite Quds Force of Iran’s Revolutionary Guard, was credited with helping arm, train and lead armed groups across the region, including the Shiite militias in Iraq, fighters in Syria and Yemen, the Lebanese Hezbollah terror group, and Palestinian terror groups in the West Bank and Gaza.
The US held him responsible for the deaths of many of its soldiers in Iraq.

southern Iranian city of Kerman on January 3, 2024. (MEHR NEWS / AFP)

At least 103 people were said to have been killed on Wednesday in two explosions near the grave of General Qassem Soleimani, the head of Iran’s elite Quds Force who was killed in a US drone strike in Iraq exactly four years ago, in what a local Iranian official claimed was a “terror attack.” – Babak Yektaparast, a spokesperson for Iran’s emergency services, was initially reported as saying 73 people had been killed and 170 injured. State television said later that at least 103 people had been killed and 141 injured. Iran’s state television announced that the government had declared a national day of mourning… Iran has multiple foes who could be behind the assault, including exile groups, armed organizations and state actors. While Israel has carried out attacks in Iran over its nuclear program, it has conducted targeted assassinations, not mass casualty bombings. Sunni extremist groups, including the Islamic State group, have conducted large-scale attacks in the past that killed civilians in Shiite-majority Iran, though not in relatively peaceful Kerman… Iran also has seen mass protests in recent years, including those over the death of 22-year-old Mahsa Amini in 2022. The country also has been targeted by exile groups in attacks dating back to the turmoil surrounding its 1979 Islamic Revolution… Iranian state television said the blasts occurred in the central city of Kerman during a ceremony to mark the fourth anniversary of the death of the Revolutionary Guard Corps’ terror chief Soleimani… By signing up, you agree to the terms – The live broadcast had shown thousands of mourners participating in the commemoration… “The blasts were caused by terrorist attacks,” Rahman Jalali, the deputy governor of Kerman province where Soleimani is buried, told state television… The semi-official Nournews had said earlier that “several gas canisters exploded on the road leading to the cemetery.” – Revolutionary Guard Gen. Qassem Soleimani, center, attends a meeting with Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and Revolutionary Guard commanders in Tehran, Iran, September 18, 2016. (Office of the Iranian Supreme Leader via AP) – State TV showed Red Crescent rescuers attending to wounded people at the ceremony… “Our rapid response teams are evacuating the injured… But there are waves of crowds blocking roads,” Reza Fallah, head of the Kerman province Red Crescent told state TV… Sources on the ground told local media that the explosions came from suicide bombers in two separate locations, but that was not confirmed by an official statement… Other witnesses told the Tasnim news site that the explosions were caused by explosive-laden suitcases, detonated by remote control… Iranian media denied reports on social media that a senior IRGC commander was also killed in the explosions… Soleimani was the architect of Iran’s regional terror activities and is hailed as a national icon among supporters of Iran’s theocracy… Soleimani, who led the elite Quds Force of Iran’s Revolutionary Guard, was credited with helping arm, train and lead armed groups across the region, including the Shiite militias in Iraq, fighters in Syria and Yemen, the Lebanese Hezbollah terror group, and Palestinian terror groups in the West Bank and Gaza… The US held him responsible for the deaths of many of its soldiers in Iraq… Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi vowed to “definitely take revenge on those behind the terrorist attack in Kerman,” the Al Arabiya news outlet reported… sIran’s First Vice President Mohammad Mokhber accused Israel of having a hand in the attack, saying that “the representatives of the Zionist regime” had spilled blood with the blast, the BBC’s Persian-language website reported… Iranian Interior Minister Ahmad Vahidi also promised vengeance, declaring that “this terrorist act will be met with a powerful and crushing response from the security and military apparatuses in the shortest possible time,” according to the outlet. Al Jazeera cited Vahidi, who is also a commander in the IRGC, as saying “the enemy is launching psychological operations.” – He asked the Iranian public to not believe any speculation or rumors about the explosions. Speaking to state media, Vahidi said there was “important information” available about the blasts but that it would only be released later, after a proper review and when it is verified, according to the report… The head of Iran’s judiciary, Gholam-Hossein Mohseni-Eje’i, said that “the agents and perpetrators of this grievous crime will undoubtedly be punished,” Al Jazeera reported in an English translation of a statement he released. “Responsible intelligence, security and law enforcement agencies are obligated to promptly pursue all the evidence and perpetrators and hand them over to the Judiciary,” he said… Iran has in the past blamed Israel for attacks that were apparently carried out by domestic armed groups… “There is no way that Israel would have carried out an attack like this. The attacks [in Iran] that are always blamed on Israel [by the Iranians] are surgical actions in which citizens are not hurt,” Yaron Bloom, a former senior Shin Bet officer, said on Channel 12 news. “This is an attack characteristic of Islamic State.” – Iran’s intelligence ministry claimed in July that it had disbanded a major network allegedly sponsored by Israel’s Mossad spy agency, which it claimed was planning to blow up Soleimani’s tomb. Iran frequently claims to arrest, and execute, individuals it says — without evidence — are involved in Israeli plots… Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps said last week that Hamas’s devastating October 7 attack on Israel was in revenge for the killing of Soleimani, a claim swiftly denied by the Gaza-based terror group… In remarks made by IRGC spokesman Ramazan Sharif about the killing of another top officer in an airstrike Iran has blamed on Israel — Brig. Gen. Razi Mousavi, who was close to Soleimani and was killed in a strike on his home in Damascus — he tied the October 7 massacres to Soleimani… Hamas confirmed that seven people in total were killed in the explosion — the others besides Arouri were identified as military commanders Samir Findi and Azzam Al-Aqraa, along with Hamas figures Mahmoud Shaheen, Muhammad Bashasha, Muhammad al-Rayes and Ahmed Hammoud… According to reports, Findi oversaw Hamas military activities in Lebanon — including the firing of rockets at Israel — and was considered the terror group’s point man with the Iran-backed Houthi rebels in Yemen. Al-Aqraa reportedly orchestrated terror activities in the West Bank from overseas.”Hamas deputy leader Saleh al-Arouri killed in alleged Israeli strike in Beirut – Israel mum on blast at Hamas office in Dahiyeh suburb said to kill 7 including terror chief; all eyes on Hezbollah, which said it would respond to any targeting of Hamas in Lebanon – Note: this article may behind a paywall. To access it, click This Link, and put the URL below into the search bar. – from The Times of Israel –https://www.timesofisrael.com/hamas-deputy-leader-saleh-al-arouri-killed-in-alleged-israeli-strike-in-beirut-suburb/ –

“Hamas’s deputy leader abroad Saleh al-Arouri, wanted for years by Israel and seen as the group’s prime orchestrator of West Bank terrorism, was killed Tuesday evening in an Israeli strike in the Beirut suburb of Dahiyeh, officials with Hamas and the Lebanese terror group Hezbollah said.

Lebanon’s state-run National News Agency said the blast was carried out by an Israeli drone… Israeli officials declined to comment. Unnamed US officials told the New York Times and Washington Post that Israel was responsible… The explosion shook the Lebanese capital’s southern suburbs, which are a stronghold of Hezbollah, an ally of Hamas. The explosion caused a fire on Hadi Nasrallah Street, south of Beirut… Hamas confirmed that seven people in total were killed in the explosion, a precision strike on a third-floor apartment said to serve as an office for the terror group. The others besides Arouri were identified as military commanders Samir Findi and Azzam Al-Aqraa, along with Hamas figures Mahmoud Shaheen, Muhammad Bashasha, Muhammad al-Rayes and Ahmed Hammoud… According to reports, Findi oversaw Hamas military activities in Lebanon — including the firing of rockets at Israel — and was considered the terror group’s point man with the Iran-backed Houthi rebels in Yemen. Al-Aqraa reportedly orchestrated terror activities in the West Bank from overseas… Israel has vowed to target all leaders of Hamas after the terror group’s devastating October 7 attack on Israel that killed some 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and saw the abduction of over 240 others… If Israel is behind the attack it could mark an escalation in the regional conflict. Hezbollah has been carrying out attacks against Israel’s north since the war in Gaza began, citing support for Hamas, leading to limited but daily clashes along the border amid concerns of a larger war… Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah has vowed to retaliate against any Israeli targeting of Palestinian officials in Lebanon. Arouri was regarded as close to Nasrallah, and was reportedly scheduled to meet with the Hezbollah leader on Wednesday… Based in Lebanon, Arouri, 57, was one of the founders of Hamas’s military wing, deputy head of the terror group’s political bureau and considered the de facto leader of Hamas’s military wing in the West Bank, though he has long resided elsewhere. He was regarded as the most notorious Hamas figure in orchestrating West Bank terrorism against Israel… “The cowardly assassinations carried out by the Zionist occupation against the leaders and symbols of our Palestinian people inside and outside Palestine will not succeed in breaking the will and steadfastness of our people or in undermining the continuation of their valiant resistance,” senior Hamas official Izzat al-Rishq said in a statement, claiming that the strike “proves once again the abject failure of the enemy to achieve any of its aggressive goals in the Gaza Strip.” – The Ramallah branch of Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas’s Fatah party announced a general strike for Wednesday in response to the deadly strike… MK Danny Danon (Likud) tweeted on X that he congratulated “the IDF, the Shin Bet, the Mossad and all security forces” for Arouri’s killing. Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich also tweeted, though more ambivalently, quoting the Book of Judges: “So let all thine enemies perish.” – Channel 12 reported that cabinet secretary Yossi Fuchs sent a directive to ministers ordering them not to speak publicly about the alleged Israeli strike. Neither Danon nor Smotrich deleted their tweets, however… At a November 22 press conference in Tel Aviv held alongside members of the war cabinet, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said he had “already instructed” the country’s Mossad spy agency to target the heads of Hamas “wherever they are.” – At the same November press conference, Defense Minister Yoav Gallant weighed in to say all Hamas leaders were walking dead men. “They are living on borrowed time,” Gallant said of the terror chiefs. “The struggle is worldwide: From gunmen in the field to those who are enjoying luxury jets while their emissaries are acting against women and children — they are destined to die.” – A long history of terrorism – Israeli intelligence officials believe that among numerous other attacks, Arouri helped plan the June 2014 kidnapping and murder of three Israeli teens — Gil-ad Shaar, Eyal Yifrach and Naftali Fraenkel… He served several terms in Israeli jails, and was released in March 2010 as part of efforts to reach a larger prisoner swap for Gilad Shalit, an IDF corporal kidnapped by Hamas in 2006. Arouri went on to be involved in sewing up the deal that provided for the release of more than 1,000 Palestinian prisoners from Israeli jails in return for the freeing of Shalit in 2011… He relocated to Istanbul but was later forced to move when Israel briefly patched up ties with Turkey amid years of acrimony (ties have once again soured amid the latest war in Gaza)… After spending time in Syria, Arouri eventually moved to Beirut. From there he managed Hamas operations in the West Bank, pushing terror activities and arranging the transfer of funds to pay for attacks… He was also one of the Hamas officials most closely connected to Iran and the Hezbollah terror group in Lebanon. There, Arouri is believed to have established a local Hamas force from activists in Palestinian refugee camps in Lebanon… On October 7, while watching Hamas terrorists livestream their brutal attack on Israel, Arouri, along with the head of the Hamas political bureau Ismail Haniyeh, and other members of Hamas leadership was seen in a video “prostrating in gratitude,” apparently in Qatar.”200 Servicemembers Demand Military Leadership Be Court-Martialed for Forced “Experimentation” on Troops – At the same time, health insurers begin declining coverage for injuries caused by “declared and undeclared wars…” – by Sasha Latypova – https://sashalatypova.substack.com/p/200-servicemembers-demand-military – “This is a short post with a couple of related pieces of news here: First, information about the open letter by 200+ servicemembers was forwarded to me by one of the signatories, Ted Macie…- Over 200 service members demand Biden’s military leadership be court-martialed and FIRED for forced ‘experimentation’ on troops with COVID-19 vaccine mandate leaving ‘significant’ physical and mental scars: ● The mandate enacted in August 2021 led to the forced firing of over 8,000 service members who refused the shot on religious or medical grounds; ● The service members say their ‘suffering continues to be felt financially, emotionally, and physically’; ● Biden’s military leadership is accused of ‘continuing to ignore’ their pleas to correct the ‘injuries and laws that were broken’; ● They are threatening to bring Biden’s top leaders out of retirement so they can be court-martialed and held to account;… Full letter with signatures in the linked article by Daily Mail, UK... While implementing the COVID-19 vaccine mandate, military leaders broke the law, trampled constitutional rights, denied informed consent, permitted unwilling medical experimentation, and suppressed the free exercise of religion. Service members and families were significantly harmed by these actions. Their suffering continues to be felt financially, emotionally, and physically. Some service members became part of our ever-growing veteran homeless population, some developed debilitating vaccine injuries, and some even lost their lives. In an apparent attempt to avoid accountability, military leaders are continuing to ignore our communications regarding these injuries and the laws that were broken. For GEN Milley, ADM Grady, GEN McConville, ADM Gilday, ADM Lescher, Gen Brown, Gen Berger, Gen Smith, VADM Kilby, VADM Nowell, VADM Fuller, LTG Martin, Lt Gen Davis, MG Edmonson, GEN Williams, ADM Fagan, VADM Buck, Lt Gen Clark, MG Francis, LTG Dingle, Lt Gen Miller, RADM Gillingham, and numerous others; These individuals enabled lawlessness and the unwilling experimentation on service members. The moral and physical injuries they helped inflict are significant. They betrayed the trust of service members and the American people. Their actions caused irreparable harm to the Armed Forces and the institutions for which we have fought and bled. These leaders refused to resign or take any other action to hold themselves accountable, nor have they attempted to repair the harm their policies and actions have caused. Since there has yet to be any accountability, the undersigned give our word to do everything morally permissible and legally possible to hold our own leadership accountable. We intend to rebuild trust by demonstrating that leaders cannot cast aside constitutional rights or the law for political expediency… Second piece of news – I find this report interesting in this context. Large health insurer in CA – Cigna, is updating their 2024 coverage to disallow injuries from war (declared or undeclared, hm). Changes to health insurance coverage (check your own health plan and post in comments if you see similar language on it)… Link to video on Rumble”New election ordered by judge after voter fraud sways results – from The Horn News – https://thehornnews.com/new-election-ordered-by-federal-judge-after-voter-fraud-sways-results/ – “A judge voided the result of a Louisiana sheriff’s election that was decided by a single vote and ordered a new runoff be held, saying early last month that there is evidence that illegally cast ballots may have changed the results from the Republican candidate to the Democratic candidate… Just before Christmas, an appeals court upheld the order and ruled that evidence of voter fraud was “sufficient to make it legally impossible to determine the result of the election.” – Ruling in early December, specially appointed Judge E. Joseph Bleich ordered a new election for sheriff in Caddo Parish, one of Louisiana’s most populous parishes, in the northwest corner of the state… Democrat Henry Whitehorn had been declared the winner in November after topping Republican John Nickelson by the slimmest of margins, from more than 43,000 ballots cast. A recount produced the same result — a one-vote edge for Whitehorn… It also uncovered something troubling: illegal votes well within the margin to alter the results… Bleich said in his ruling that it was “proven beyond any doubt” that there were at least 11 “illegal votes cast”  and potentially even more — making it “legally impossible to know what the true vote should have been.” – Bleich said at least five absentee mail-in ballots were uncovered that were missing a required witness signature and should not have been counted… In addition, at least two people voted twice and four votes were cast by unqualified people, such as individuals incarcerated for a felony conviction, Mike Spence, the Caddo Parish clerk of court, confirmed to The Associated Press following the recount… In a 3-2 ruling, the Second Circuit Court of Appeal in Shreveport, Louisiana, upheld the order for a new election… The majority, additionally, found no error in the lower court judge’s determination that Nickelson could not have known about the problematic votes before election day… “Considering the one-vote margin between the candidates, the invalidation of these six votes is alone sufficient to make it legally impossible to determine the result of the election,” Judge Jeff Robinson wrote for the majority… It is the country’s second election this year in which a judge has voided the result, after a judge last month ordered a redo of a Democratic mayoral primary in Connecticut’s largest city due to video evidence of ballot stuffing, a case that fueled conspiracy theories pushed on social media… The topic of election integrity has also been at the forefront of national politics after former President Donald Trump’s controversial claims about the 2020 presidential election… The one-vote margin in the Caddo Parish sheriff’s race also put a spotlight on Louisiana’s recount process. It is the only state that continues to use paperless touchscreen voting machines, which do not produce an auditable paper trail that experts say is critical to ensure results are accurate… Louisiana’s mail-in absentee ballots currently constitute the state’s lone auditable paper trail that can be tallied again and checked for errors. Absentee ballots accounted for about 17% of the vote in the Caddo Parish race… Election officials including Louisiana Secretary of State Kyle Ardoin have reiterated that the state’s elections are secure and there are checks and balances to ensure voting integrity… The Horn editorial team and the Associated Press contributed to this article”World War 3 Spreads to Lebanon and Turkey: Hamas Leaders Killed in Beirut by IDF as Turkey Conducts Operations Against Mossad Spies and Aligns with Iran – by Brian Shilhavy, Editor, Health Impact News – https://healthimpactnews.com/2024/world-war-3-spreads-to-lebanon-and-turkey-hamas-leaders-killed-in-beirut-by-idf-as-turkey-conducts-operations-against-mossad-spies-and-aligns-with-iran/ – “World War 3 continued to escalate today, as Israeli forces bombed a Beirut suburb in Lebanon, killing two commanders of the Hamas Al-Qassam Brigades, as well as its deputy leader Saleh al-Arouri… Two Commanders of Hamas’ Military Wing Killed in Beirut Blast as Gaza Conflict Escalates – A suspected drone strike by Israel at the Hamas political office in Beirut killed two commanders of Al-Qassam Brigades, which is the Palestinian group’s military wing, state Lebanese media cited Hamas as saying Tuesday… Florida Congressman Mike Waltz, representing the Zionist Republicans, cheered the assassination: ‘If I were any Hamas leader right now, whether you’re in Turkey, Beirut or elsewhere, I would not sleep well at night,’ Waltz told Fox News. “The Israelis will hunt them down.”.. Apparently the Congressman from Florida is not too well informed on intelligence from Turkey as he clearly displayed his ignorance in this statement, because Turkey has made it very clear that they will NOT allow Israel to “hunt down” Palestinians inside Turkey… In fact, Turkish police and intelligence officers have just reportedly completed operations earlier today to round up dozens of spies working with Israel’s Mossad intelligence agency, to prevent such a thing from happening inside Turkey… 34 nabbed over Mossad’s abduction plot in Türkiye –The Chief Prosecutor’s Office in Istanbul issued arrest warrants for 46 suspects in an investigation into Israeli intelligence service Mossad’s alleged plot targeting foreigners in Türkiye… Thirty-four suspects were detained on Tuesday, authorities announced. Operations are underway to capture the other suspects. Authorities said operations were held in eight provinces against people suspected of involvement in espionage activities for Israel… The investigation found that Israeli intelligence was behind activities targeting foreigners residing in Türkiye, from reconnaissance to assaults and abduction attempts. No other details are available regarding the investigation, but Mossad was implicated in the past in investigations about attempts to kidnap Palestinians living in Türkiye… It was also reported today that Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi will visit Ankara this week to meet with President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan to discuss the war… Iran’s Raisi set to visit Türkiye amid Red Sea tensions – President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan is expected to meet visiting Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi on Thursday in the capital Ankara. The long-delayed visit makes Raisi Erdoğan’s first guest head of state this year. It comes at a time of tensions between the West and Iran over the latter’s stance on heating the Red Sea… Like its neighbor Türkiye, Iran is outspoken on the Palestine-Israel conflict and backs the Houthis of Yemen. It reportedly deployed a warship at the Red Sea, at a time of tensions on the key shipping route. The Houthis have been targeting vessels in the Red Sea, those delivering goods to Israel in particular, in response to Israeli aggression targeting Palestinian civilians in the Gaza Strip since October 2023… Media outlets reported that the agenda of the Erdoğan-Raisi meeting will be the humanitarian crisis unfolding in Gaza after Israel’s attacks and the delivery of aid to Gaza. Since October, Türkiye engaged in a diplomatic blitz to end the conflict, highlighting the need for a lasting solution favoring the rights of Palestinians. Ankara has proposed a guarantorship model to ensure a solution… So American politicians need to wake up and realize that Turkey is not their puppet, and will not hesitate to defy Western nations, even though they are part of NATO, as the British just learned today when Turkey refused to allow two British Navy minehunter ships to pass through to Ukraine… Türkiye to prevent minehunter ships donated by Britain to Ukraine – Türkiye will not let two minehunter ships donated by Britain to Ukraine to pass through its waters en route to the Black Sea in line with the Montreux Convention, a statement by the Presidential Communications Directorate said Tuesday… Britain said last month it would transfer two Royal Navy minehunter ships to the Ukrainian Navy to help strengthen Ukraine’s sea operations in its war with Russia… NATO member Türkiye informed allies that it would not allow the vessels to use its Bosporus and Dardanelles straits as long as the war in Ukraine continues, said the presidency’s communications directorate… ‘Our pertinent allies have been duly apprised that the mine-hunting ships donated to Ukraine by the United Kingdom will not be allowed to pass through the Turkish Straits to the Black Sea as long as the war continues,’ it said in a statement posted on social media platform X… When Russia launched its invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, Türkiye triggered the 1936 Montreux Convention, effectively blocking the passage of military ships of the warring parties… The pact exempts ships returning to home bases, but neither Russia nor Ukraine has expressed an intention to pass their warships through the Turkish straits to the Black Sea since the war started… Türkiye also warned non-Black Sea states at the time not to send warships through the straits… So things are progressing from bad to worse in these early stages of WW III, and as I wrote yesterday, I fear most Americans believe that this war will all stay “over there” as it did in Europe during WW II, falsely believing that this war could never come to the U.S. mainland.”

“We Are Going To See ‘Collisions’ All Over The Planet” – Pushback Against Tyranny & Control Will Accelerate In 2024 – from Greg Hunter’s USA Watchdog.com (w/Video interview of Catherine Austin Fitts – 1hr, link at bottom) – https://www.zerohedge.com/geopolitical/we-are-going-see-collisions-all-over-planet-pushback-against-tyranny-control-will – “Just a few of the 2023 stories that documented this massive pushback, according to CAF, are: ● Stories on Constitutional protections, different litigations on the First Amendment and the Second Amendment, and we have one on information sovereignty and infrastructure. ● We have stories on all the pushback against the media, including litigation to hold people accountable and stopping emergency powers. ● We have culture wars about saying no to international organizations. ● Woke capital controls and ESG (Environmental, Social and Governance investing) is toast. ● The state AGs have gone after ESG and Larry Fink (BlackRock CEO), and he’s had to publicly backpedal.  They are steamrolling him. ● We had another story about taking it to the streets and have a whole section on ‘Pushback Heros.’ … ● In 2023, people started to realize that it is kill or be killed.  We have to push back because there is no going along with this. ● They are trying to kill us, number one.  Then they are trying to take all of our stuff, and we can’t let them… CAF also talks about what she calls “massive collateral fraud.”  CAF goes on to say, ‘The collateral fraud is enormous, and we have talked about the money (trillions of dollars) that has gone ‘missing’ for years from the federal government… This is what’s been going on in the United States and around the world for years. You issue debt, you get a whole bunch of money, and then the money disappears… So, there is an extraordinarily fraudulent system going on around the debt markets… The reality is if you are going to run a bubble like that, you need very strict control of the collateral… This is what “The Great Taking” is all about… 2024 is the year the pushback can put us over the top.’.. CAF thinks gold is a “must have” investment for the coming years. The US dollar is being weakened, but it is still “dominant and dangerous.”.. In closing, CAF says: ‘I think we are going see collisions at a spiritual, legal, financial and physical level increasing all over the planet.  This is a real war, and we are in World War III now… The US is going to defend the dollar.’.. There is much more in the 1-hour and 2-minute in-depth interview… Join Greg Hunter of USAWatchdog.com as he goes One-on-One with the Publisher of The Solari Report, Catherine Austin Fitts for 12.30.23. – https://rumble.com/v443gri-pushback-to-tyranny-and-control-increases-in-2024-catherine-austin-fitts.html “January 3, 2024: Personal Message From Reiner Fuellmich – sourced from Reiner Fuellmich telegram channel –
https://truthcomestolight.com/january-3-2024-personal-message-from-reiner-fuellmich/ – “PERSONAL MESSAGE FROM REINER FUELLMICH AT THE BEGINNING OF THE YEAR – Rosdorf, 03.01.2024 – Dear friends, supporters and companions! ❤️ -I wish everyone a Happy New Year and assure everyone that I will continue. We will not let up with our educational work and the subsequent legal investigation into the plandemic… Of course it is very difficult for me to be away from my wife and my dogs and my family and friends. But it helps me a lot that I always receive new information through the many letters and postcards, as well as very personal messages and stories. All this helps me a lot. That’s why I can still say with full conviction and determination: Some crack under pressure, I don’t! – The international colleagues with my friend Dexter and all the others are also still ready to ensure justice for all. This time the broken system will not be able to stand in front of evil… In a somewhat longer communication in the next few days, I will be able to explain important details concerning both the case against me and our international legal work… There is no doubt that things are moving faster and faster in our direction. But there is also no doubt that the other side is fighting for its survival, i.e. remains highly dangerous. Do not be intimidated or even discouraged: We will expose everything that must come to light and we will ensure that the collapse of the system and the transition to a new human coexistence without corruption and without violence is made possible with the help of justice… ❤️ I thank you again for your support, and I thank our ICIC team for their work. ❤️ – I believe that the criminals who are trying to paralyze and financially bleed me and my wife, my family and my friends will not only fail, but each and every one of them will pay. We can be slowed down, but we cannot be stopped… Best regards, Reiner Fuellmich ✳✴✳✴✳✴✳✴ ICIC editor’s addition: Here are the details for 📬POST to Reiner. Please note the following information: 👉 It is NOT ALLOWED to ADD stamps or money to the post in Rosdorf Prison… 👉 The mail will be read and delivery may take two days to two weeks… The address is: JVA Rosdorf Dr. Reiner Fuellmich Am Großen Sieke 8 37124 Rosdorf Germany ✳✴✳✴✳✴✳✴ @icic_law_official  @icic_law_news @ReinerFuellmich @ReinerFuellmichEnglish @ICICommittee22 @ICICommittee”Important Breadcrumb – Pfizer Makes $43 Billion Bet That ‘Turbo Cancers’ Are Going To Explode Around The World – from thaimbc.com – Note: The article text below is protected on the website, and has been converted with OCR… https://www.thaimbc.com/2023/12/18/pfizer-makes-43-billion-bet-that-turbo-cancers-are-going-to-explode-around-the-world/ – Pfizer has stunned the medical world, completing the $43 billion acquisition of Seagen, a small drug company that treats turbo cancers and barely makes $2 billion per year… The acquisition means Pfizer becomes the largest oncology company in the world, capable of treating most turbo cancers caused by mRNA vaccines… However, the nature of the acquisition has left many people scratching their heads. Why would Pfizer, flush with the enormous profits it has reaped through its mRNA vaccine, overpay $43 billion for a small cancer drug company? – Pfizer does not need the cash. It will also issue $31 billion in debt just to purchase Seagen. Everyone is taking this at face value. But there is something very sinister lurking in the details of this deal… So what is happening here? – First, it must be acknowledged that Pfizer (and Moderna) COVID-19 mRNA vaccines are causing turbo cancers at rates previously unseen in the history of the world… Based on descriptions of turbo cancer cases in over 30 medical articles, here are the Top 5 turbo cancers we are seeing by numbers in those vaccinated with at least one mRNA shot: Lymphoma (various types) -Brain Cancers (mostly glioblastoma) – Breast Cancer (mostly triple negative, Stage 3/4) – Colon Cancer (Stage 4) – Lung Cancer (Stage 4) – Rounding out the Top 10 turbo cancers by the number of people affected (in no particular order): Leukemias (worst prognosis) – Melanomas (Stage 4) – Sarcomas (Stage 3,4) – Testicular/ovarian (rapid progression, Stage 1-4) – Kidney (RCC Stage 4) – Pfizer’s new acquisition takes them from being able to “treat” two of these turbo cancers, to being able to treat seven out of 10. Not bad for a company looking to corner the market in treating the same problems it is causing.
● 33% of people WILL get turbo cancer in the future (of this he is certain)
● Entire families WILL be affected (again, he is certain)
● The new cancer treatments are like “missiles” that will target “most” turbo cancers
● Pfizer will produce them AT A SCALE THAT HAS NEVER BEEN SEEN BEFORE
● By 2025 Pfizer will “have a global network”
● Will be produced “AT SCALE”, “just like mRNA”
Think about what Bourla is telegraphing with this information. Why would any company need to produce cancer treatments at a scale never before seen? Why would Pfizer, of all companies, be willing to bet tens of billions of dollars on turbo cancer continuing to explode at exponential rates around the world in coming years? – Seeking Alpha analysis theorizes it is going to take Pfizer at least a decade just to break even from this deal. Financially, this $43 billion acquisition makes no sense for Pfizer… Unless Bourla and his cronies know something about the future they are not telling us.”Megyn Kelly Says the World May Soon Hear “Directly” from Jeffrey Epstein (Video 15 seconds) – “We’re gonna hear a lot more about Jeffrey Epstein in the coming year… and you may even be hearing from him directly. More on that, as I’m allowed to tell it.” – https://vigilantnews.com/post/megyn-kelly-says-the-world-may-soon-hear-directly-from-jeffrey-epstein-video/ – This article originally appeared on The Gateway Pundit and was republished with permission… Guest post by Anthony Scott – Megyn Kelly, during the latest airing of the Megyn Kelly Show, hinted that the world will soon hear directly from Jeffrey Epstein… Kelly stated, “We’re not done with Jeffrey Epstein. I can tell you that for a fact. Can’t tell you how I know, but I can tell you for a fact.” – The former Fox News host continued, “We’re gonna hear a lot more about Jeffrey Epstein in the coming year… and you may even be hearing from him directly. More on that, as I’m allowed to tell it.” – The comments by Kelly automatically caused many users on X to think Epstein is still alive.”

Under the Radar: Major CIA Revelations Expose Secret Agreements and Boundaries in Ukraine – by Simplicius-The-Thinker – https://simplicius76.substack.com/p/under-the-radar-major-cia-revelations – “This past July, one of the most remarkable articles of the entire Ukrainian war flew under the radar. I’ve had it sitting on my tab for weeks now, but could never quite fit the information in. It is so eye-opening, and dispels so many narratives in the West, that I thought it deserving of its own writeup; particularly because it has flown so under the radar for whatever reason, causing most people to miss its many juicy revelations… The article is the following from Newsweek:

Its age does not detract from its significance as the information therein is more pertinent than ever—which is precisely why I chose to do an exposé on it now… The reason is, as the Ukrainian war presently enters a new watershed phase characterized by the slow-acceptance of Ukraine’s now de facto losing position, a proverbial windmill of narratives is churned out from the pro-UA side seeking to somehow reconcile the various cognitive dissonances created by their inability to understand how it is possible that the mighty NATO bloc could be losing to Russia…. This results in their proposing increasingly convoluted theories as to why the US may be “deliberately sabotaging” Ukraine’s otherwise guaranteed “victory”. For instance, a common coping narrative you might hear these days is that the US “fears” Ukraine winning a total and ‘decisive’ victory over Russia because this would cause Russia to “fracture” into many small feudal states, which could precipitate an existential crisis as the warlords of the new states would vie for the now unaccounted for nuclear weapons, etc. Though it is obviously preposterous, this is the type of narrative being floated on pro-UA thinkspaces to try and explain away the US’s perceived weakness and ‘cowardice’ in the face of Russia’s growing dominance… They simply cannot understand how it is possible that the US would not stand up to the putatively “weak” Russia. In their mind, addled by two years of propaganda characterizing Russia as a totally dysfunctional failed state with an unimaginably weak military, it’s simply impossible to reconcile these two quotients. So the only logical inference is that it is an intentional act by the US—the only remaining question being why the US would intentionally condition Ukraine’s loss… But the article dispels such fantasies and reveals some of the real reasons behind US’s seemingly perplexing posture… Firstly, the article revolves around—as per usual—the statements of an anonymous “senior intelligence official” from the Biden administration, who is “directly involved in Ukraine policy planning,” and notes that the topics discussed therein are ‘highly classified matters’… The first significant offering is the following:

That the Ukraine war is a clandestine war, with its own set of clandestine rules, and that one of the CIA’s chief roles is to prevent the war from spiraling too much out of control. This will come into heavier play later… The senior official goes on to clarify the latter position: “Don’t underestimate the Biden administration’s priority to keep Americans out of harm’s way and reassure Russia that it doesn’t need to escalate,” the senior intelligence officer says. “Is the CIA on the ground inside Ukraine?” he asks rhetorically. “Yes, but it’s also not nefarious.” – What he reveals there is likewise significant: the Biden administration has an absolute priority in reassuring Russia to keep Russia from escalating too much. Why would that be? The answer is the broader theme of my entire article… In fact, Newsweek states that the article is the culmination of three long months of intense trail-following and digging into the CIA’s covert operations in Ukraine… Again, they highlight the chief operative pillars: The second official says that while some in the Agency want to speak more openly about its renewed significance, that is not likely to happen. “The corporate CIA worries that too much bravado about its role could provoke Putin,” the intelligence official says… You can see the common theme of the constant prudential tip-toeing around Russia’s redlines so as not to excessively provoke Putin… They go on to express that the CIA is keen to distance itself from any of Ukraine’s more provocative actions, like the Nordstream attack, or strikes on Russian territory… But the key portion of the article, which comes next, is the admission that Biden dispatched CIA director Burns to Russia on the eve of the invasion in late 2021. They had been watching Russia’s troop buildups, and in essence sent Burns to deliver a final warning of consequences should Russia proceed with an invasion. Though Putin ended up “snubbing” the CIA head by staying in a Sochi resort and refusing to meet him in person, he did take his secure phone call from Sochi… What comes next is the heart of the entire article and is one of the most significant and remarkable admissions of the entire war. It is a must read: Read that several times to comprehend the gravity of it, as this one statement alone single handedly explains and encapsulates the entire dynamic of the war… Once again I’m forced to be the bearer of the news that not all is as it seems on the surface. Russia isn’t the 10 foot giant some have built it up to be, nor is it a dwarf. Likewise, the US isn’t some uncompromisingly all-powerful entity that does what it wants at all times with zero qualms or concern for repercussions… This may be a difficult point for some to swallow; after all, how is it possible in actual practice that the US could be fearful of Russia’s reprisal? After all, the US has its vaunted fleets that sail unchallenged through every sea; just the US’s naval air wing alone, believe it or not, makes up the second largest airforce in the entire world. That’s right, just the Navy, which itself pales in comparison to the Airforce, has more planes than the entire Russian airforce. What could such an imposing powerhouse possibly fear from little ol’ Russia? – It stems from the misunderstanding of the actual logistical nuances of the US’s force projection capabilities in the European theater. The people confused by these revelations are those who easily fell prey to a very generalized and caricaturized image of the US military’s operations therein. They’ve developed a blanket image of US forces being able to operate all over Europe, instantly bringing to bear endless stealth craft, unlimited unstoppable missiles, hundreds of thousands of troops, etc… But that’s far from reality. The US is direly overstretched; its most critical bases in Europe—the ones actually capable of fielding the types of platforms that could actually do anything against Russia, are highly vulnerable. The US has further learned from the Ukrainian conflict that its most advanced air defense is virtually helpless against Russia’s top missiles. Reuters recently told us that Ukraine alone has 1/3 of all the air defense of the entire European continent, and yet Russia has no trouble penetrating it… This is not to swing the pendulum too far to the other side and lay unrealistic claim to Russia being able to easily and instantly wipe out all of NATO—no, it’s simply to temper ideas about what US and NATO could realistically do to Russia. At the end of the day, a war between the two could very well be a stalemate but it would come at massive costs to the US/NATO, which is precisely the point that pro-UA supporters have made themselves blind to… But the internal players—the CIA and policy makers—certainly understand this. Which is why they have openly made clear in the above article that a stringent set of ‘rules of the game’ have been laid out between the counterparties. Russia has obviously made it clear that it is willing to strike NATO assets that are assisting Ukraine if things are pushed too far. The US likewise now understands that Russia indisputably has the capability to do so. Thus they have shaken hands and agreed to limit the trampling of each other’s red lines. Russia will allow the US certain clandestine operations within the purview of the gentleman’s agreement, and the US in turn will venture to keep its rabid dog on a short leash and within the narrow bounds of the playpen… We’ve long known and suspected that such rules extend beyond just this locus, and could explain why, for instance, Russia has limited its strikes on Ukrainian rail infrastructure, bridges, etc. We’ve long known the West still receives critical supply deliveries from both Russia and China—particularly of precious metals, rare earths, etc.—by rail through Ukraine. This is simply realpolitik at work, and all wars in history have operated under more or less similar conventions… Just as a final thought experiment to drive the point home for those who remain skeptical or unconvinced. It’s not so much that NATO—in its most “ideal” and purest sense can’t defeat Russia. If we were absolutely certain that NATO could operate under the most ideal circumstances, with full solidarity and a united front, then sure. But the problem is, the real world simply doesn’t operate in “ideals” all the time, or even most of the time. NATO suffers from large internal disputes and friction on critical points… The fear is the following: if Russia were to actually strike NATO territory, what would happen if unity fails, and some members refuse to risk the total annihilation of their state and citizens’ lives to protect another member merely for the sake of something they rationally know was that members’ fault? For instance, if Rzeszow, Poland was struck—why would Hungary and several other states risk being annihilated when they know full well that Poland is acting as a central hub of aggression against Russia, and that Russia could clearly be argued to be justified in protecting itself? – Do the pro-UA people understand what the consequences of a smaller NATO state’s involvement are? It could mean the literal nuclear annihilation of that state if they were to escalate Article 5 and bring NATO vs. Russia to the brink. Why would many of these smaller states want to risk their total erasure from existence for the sake of the scenario above? A single state or two cowing could create a cascade which ripples through the entire alliance. And guess what the implication of that would be? – It could be the total dissolution of NATO as an alliance… Because once the point is reached where Article 5 has been exposed as an irrelevant non-starter, then NATO itself ceases to be—given that the article serves as NATO’s primary existential heart and soul… Arestovich broached this very topic earlier today: So, getting back: knowing the above, why would the US risk such a confrontation that could potentially collapse all of NATO and undo decades of US hegemony over all of Europe? Such a disaster would lead to the US’s entire downfall—the loss of all influence and global power. Is that much of a risk worth it to play brinkmanship games against Russia for mere bragging rights and geopolitical ego? – No, of course not. US elites are smarter than that. Calculated risk is certainly operable in many circumstances, but when the stakes are that high, US planners know when to hedge and when to fold. The loss of Ukraine is not worth risking the loss of their entire global hegemonic order—it’s simply far too much Empire to lose… That means the US is forced to play within the bounds of certain rules set by Russia. The article goes on to emphasize this: “Zelensky has certainly outdone everyone else in getting what he wants, but Kyiv has had to agree to obey certain invisible lines as well,” says the senior defense intelligence official. In secret diplomacy largely led by the CIA, Kyiv pledged not to use the weapons to attack Russia itself. Zelensky has said openly that Ukraine will not attack Russia… Interestingly, we learn not everyone was on board: Behind the scenes, dozens of countries also had to be persuaded to accept the Biden administration’s limits. Some of these countries, including Britain and Poland, are willing to take more risk than the White House is comfortable with. Others—including some of Ukraine’s neighbors—do not entirely share American and Ukrainian zeal for the conflict, do not enjoy unanimous public support in their anti-Russian efforts and do not want to antagonize Putin… Two important points from the above. Firstly, it’s no surprise the UK and Poland are open to “taking more risk” than the US itself. At first glance this appears to imply the US to be the most skittish. But I’ve covered this angle before: the fact remains that the US has the most to lose. Of course the weak Poles would be full of bravado—they know if crap hits the fan, they can run to hide behind the US’s skirts… The UK likewise hasn’t too much to fear from Russia owing to the fact that it doesn’t have much assets in Europe—at least compared to the US. And it’s situated far enough that, unlike even Poland, it needn’t fear much from medium range ballistic missile retaliation. It’s difficult to strike Britain—and therefore harm it in any way—without escalating to a far larger scale of conflict in general. Poland on the other hand can be struck at whim without even changing the tempo of the current war… So the fact remains: such countries are full of bravado precisely because they have “daddy” to hide behind, and neither has as much to lose as the US. But since “the buck stops” with the US, the de facto NATO head doesn’t have the luxury to be so gung ho because it would be the US taking the brunt of Russia’s reprisal if things drastically turned left… The second point confirms what I said earlier about NATO’s hidden internal disunity. They state openly that some of Ukraine’s “neighbors”—which can only refer to countries like Romania, Hungary, Slovakia, etc.—which are all NATO—do not share the same ‘zeal’ for the conflict and do not have public support for it. This means if a scenario developed as I described earlier, it would end precisely as I outlined: NATO disunity on Article 5 would risk tearing the entire alliance apart, and “exposing” its central and founding pillar as fraudulent and ineffective in practice. It’s too grave a risk for US to haphazardly take on… The article adds more details: “The CIA has been operating inside Ukraine, under strict rules, and with a cap on how many personnel can be in country at any one time,” says another senior military intelligence official. “Black special operators are restricted from conducting clandestine missions, and when they do, it is within a very narrow scope.” (Black special operations refers to those that are conducted clandestinely.) – Simply, CIA personnel can routinely go—and can do—what U.S. military personnel can’t. That includes inside Ukraine. The military, on the other hand, is restricted from entering Ukraine, except under strict guidelines that have to be approved by the White House. This limits the Pentagon to a small number of Embassy personnel in Kyiv. Newsweek was unable to establish the exact number of CIA personnel in Ukraine, but sources suggest it is less than 100 at any one time… This is an interesting set of admissions because it asserts that the CIA is operating in Ukraine because nominal US military forces being there would constitute “boots on the ground”—a far stickier situation. However, the real angle to this is that allowing CIA to operate gives the US a sort of plausible deniability to characterize the operations with an image of corporate looking guys in suit-and-ties, black sunglasses, briefcases, merely gathering intel—innocuous by comparison to full-fledged military commandos armed to the teeth… However, in reality we know the CIA has its own clandestine combat forces. Things like the Special Activities Center (SAC), within which lies Special Operations Group (SOG)—considered to be the most secretive unit in the entire US governmental structure. SOG has its own direct combat units, from wiki: As the action arm of the CIA’s Directorate of Operations, SAC/SOG conducts direct action missions such as raids, ambushes, sabotage, targeted killings and unconventional warfare (e.g., training and leading guerrilla and military units of other countries in combat) as an irregular military force. SAC/SOG also conducts special reconnaissance that can be either military or intelligence driven and is carried out by Paramilitary Officers (also called Paramilitary Operatives or Paramilitary Operations Officers) when in “non-permissive environments”. Paramilitary Operations Officers are also fully trained case officers (i.e., “spy handlers”) and as such conduct clandestine human intelligence (HUMINT) operations throughout the world… That’s all to say that bureaucratically limiting “personnel on the ground” to just “CIA” and not “boots on the ground” doesn’t mean a thing: the CIA has its own “boots” and is most certainly using them. It’s just administrative semantics… The article goes on to describe the off-radar logistics operation which clandestinely supplies Ukraine: Now, more than a year after the invasion, the United States sustains two massive networks, one public and the other clandestine. Ships deliver goods to ports in Belgium, the Netherlands, Germany and Poland, and those supplies are moved by truck, train and air to Ukraine. Clandestinely though, a fleet of commercial aircraft (the “grey fleet”) crisscrosses Central and Eastern Europe, moving arms and supporting CIA operations. The CIA asked Newsweek not to identify specific bases where this network is operating, nor to name the contractor operating the planes. The senior administration official said much of the network had been successfully kept under wraps, and that it was wrong to assume that Russian intelligence knows the details of the CIA’s efforts. Washington believes that If the supply route were known, Russia would attack the hubs and routes, the official said… Another small admission at the end. Pro-UA armchair warriors on Twitter believe US is incapable of being challenged and that Russia is weak; in the meantime, the actual CIA people who work the conflict understand the realities quite differently… Then comes another reveal of Russia’s own clandestine capabilities: It then outlines the key role Poland has taken, which obviously goes toward reinforcing the idea that Poland will be made into the “new Ukraine” in the future, after the current one is used up and discarded: Since the end of the Cold War, Poland and the United States, through the CIA, have established particularly warm relations. Poland hosted a CIA torture “black site” in the village of Stare Kiejkuty during 2002-2003. And after the initial Russian invasion of Donbas and Crimea in 2014, CIA activity expanded to make Poland its third-largest station in Europe… In fact, I’m fairly well taken aback that they’re even so openly making such large admissions. The CIA usually doesn’t talk about the CIA unless there’s an advantageous angle to it… And that angle could very well be their attempt to distance themselves from an increasingly erratic and unpredictable Ukrainian ‘mad dog’, which has increasingly gone ‘off the leash’, refusing to play by those previously established rules. The article goes on to highlight this next: One crisis was averted. But a new one was brewing. Strikes inside Russia were continuing and even increasing, contrary to the fundamental U.S. condition for supporting Ukraine. There was a mysterious spate of assassinations and acts of sabotage inside Russia, some occurring in and around Moscow. Some of the attacks, the CIA concluded, were domestic in origin, undertaken by a nascent Russian opposition. But others were the work of Ukraine—even if analysts were unsure of the extent of Zelensky’s direction or involvement… Given the above, could the CIA have been using such publications to absolve itself? This would further play into the chief theme that the CIA is very diligently trying to signal its ‘gentlemanly’ intentions to Russia so that no misunderstandings or un-planned escalations can occur… The article segues this into the Nordstream attacks in such a way as to almost suggest the entire thing was written merely to absolve the CIA of those attacks, and pin the blame entirely on Ukraine… In a clear sign that the CIA feared Russian reprisals, they reportedly “scrambled” to discover the origins of the Kerch and other attacks after a Russian security council began to change its tone in those attacks’ aftermath: Meeting with his Security Council, Putin said, “If attempts continue to carry out terrorist acts on our territory, Russia’s responses will be harsh and in their scale will correspond to the level of threats created for the Russian Federation.” And indeed Russia did respond with multiple attacks on targets in Ukrainian cities… “These attacks only further reinforce our commitment to stand with the people of Ukraine for as long as it takes,” the White House said of the Russian retaliatory strike. Behind the scenes, though, the CIA was scrambling to determine the origins… Once again we see the common thread: contrary to BroSints’ performative gung ho chauvinism, the real movers and shakers are scrupulous and smart enough to fear Russia’s wrath… Though it’s besides the central point, this was an eye-opening revelation indeed: “The CIA learned with the attack on the Crimea bridge that Zelensky either didn’t have complete control over his own military or didn’t want to know of certain actions,” says the military intelligence official… After the foolhardy drone attack on the Kremlin in the center of Moscow, the article notes that even Poland had begun warning the CIA that Ukraine was, in essence, a refractory mad dog: A senior Polish government official told Newsweek that it might be impossible to convince Kyiv to abide by the non-agreement it made to keep the war limited. “In my humble opinion, the CIA fails to understand the nature of the Ukrainian state and the reckless factions that exist there,” says the Polish official, who requested anonymity in order to speak candidly… This is quite interesting for the following reason. Firstly it could explain Poland’s own later distancing from Kiev, the fruits of which we’re seeing now. Even brazen Poland may have started getting cold feet after they realized that Ukraine’s entire MO would likely revolve around trying to rope Poland into WW3. Not only were there several missile attacks on Polish territory for which Ukraine tried to frame Russia, but there were increasing reports in recent weeks from Russian intel sources that Ukraine intended to escalate this plan in the near future… It’s clear that Poland has recently seemed to have a big shift vis a vis Ukraine—the turning point was several months back after the failed NATO summit and Zelensky’s subsequent disrespectful rhetoric. That is when Duda openly called Ukraine a “drowning man that would pull everyone down with him.” It all went down hill from there… But it could also explain the US’s new cold posture and seeming snub of Ukraine. For instance, many are currently complaining that the US has $4B drawdown authority funds remaining yet they’ve announced no further funding will be allotted. This mysteriously comes on the heels of repeated Ukrainian strikes to sensitive targets in Crimea, as well as senseless attacks on Belgorod. Could the CIA have finally seen the light, preached earlier by Poland, and perhaps convinced the Biden administration that this mad dog is getting too unhinged to continue safely supporting? It could at least have something to do with it, if not be entirely responsible for the cold stance switch… In fact, this is suggested by the very next paragraph in the article: In response, the senior U.S. defense intelligence official stressed the delicate balance the Agency must maintain in its many roles, saying: “I hesitate to say that the CIA has failed.” But the official said sabotage attacks and cross border fighting created a whole new complication and continuing Ukrainian sabotage “could have disastrous consequences.” – As one can see, Ukraine’s recalcitrant flaunting of the ‘unspoken rules’ could have finally contributed to making the US realize that it was suicidal to continue supporting such a brazenly fractious mad dog whose sole intention has clearly become to embroil the world in WW3 as a last ditch escape from its own self-sealed fate… In an absolutely demonstrative twist of irony, the comments section under the Newsweek article is filled with the very types of shallow-brained people who inspired my own writeup to begin with. Despite reading the exact pinpoint refutation of their own delusions, they still found the gall to comment things like: “And what would Putin do if US violated his “red lines”?”—implying again that Russia is somehow weak, and the US is this caricaturized unstoppable superpower which owes no compromise or concession to anyone. To such people with utterly shallow and hare-brained understandings of international relations and geopolitics: I beg you, leave your basements, go read a book sometime. Learn how the real world functions. It’s not a one dimensional comic book as you imagine. Believe me, no one in the entire world who actually operates within the halls of power of any major country believes that Russia is some sort of limp pushover to be laughed at and whose red lines are to be ignored. This sort of characterization only exists in the 12 year old minds of videogame addicts who moonlight as military analysts on Twitter. It’s also sometimes done as mere bravado, or a show of grandstanding by two-bit punks like Lindsey Graham on TV—but the tone “behind the scenes” remains in stark contrast to the “character” they portray in their laughable put-ons for the CNN peanut gallery… Ultimately though, this Newsweek article should serve as further proof to brainwashed pro-UA supporters that this really is a proxy war between two giants, with Ukraine merely being a pawn stuck in the middle, whose own infant squalls are ignored in favor of Russia’s far weightier demarches. That should serve as a wake up call for Ukrainians: you are merely being used as disposable puppets in a geopolitical Great Game. And when that game is done, the actual players will shake hands and move on to the next contest while you will be left as the detritus to be ‘swept up’, like the trash and fast-food wrappers strewing the stadium grounds after a big match… No matter how hard you try, no matter how many hundreds of thousands of lives of your own people you throw away, you will never become that Big Player on the stage that you were induced and gaslighted into thinking you could become. The only chance at survival you stand is to join the only one of the two Big Players which actually cares for you and views you as a close blood relative, rather than as a soggy rag to blow snot into then discard… As a last point. I actually predicted much of this long ago, at the start of this year. In one of my earliest reports I wrote how when things would begin to really go down hill for Ukraine, Zelensky would opt for increasingly dramatic actions that would be more threats to his own handlers and sponsors, rather than to Russia. That’s because he knows Ukraine balances on a fulcrum and has the power to cause a wider global war between the two blocs to erupt. So I had proposed that when his back would be against the wall, Zelensky would escalate in such a way as to increasingly bring a wider war closer as a threat: “If you don’t give me what I need—arms and money—I will pull you into the war with me.” – This could very well be one of the reasons the US has decided to pull the plug on Ukraine now. Seeing no other options remaining, they may have been bothered by some of the recent rhetoric, knowing where such unchecked recklessness could lead. For instance, weeks ago after killing Ilya Kiva near Moscow, the Ukrainian SBU head promised big “surprises” for 2024, with the crowning achievement to be some kind of strike that he said would be a “needle to the heart” of Russia: This could very well be a threat of some major assassination as a final logical escalatory precipice, whether of Putin or some other leading figure in Russia. The CIA may have read the internal signals in this direction and decided that the point of no return had finally come in supporting this ‘mad dog’, and if the US doesn’t put the brakes on now, it would be dragged into Zelensky’s existential trap… The other elephant in the room is that such findings as those in this article naturally lead to people wondering whether the entire conflict is just one orchestrated and well-choreographed dance between “two sides of the same coin”. This cleaves to the age old conspiracy theories about Russia and the US both being under some manner of ‘globalist control’, and merely being played off each other as pawns to fool us into some grand theatrical spectacle… This would once more be a fairly uninformed reading of the situation. Typically, such views sprout from people who are only capable of skimming the surface, judging conflicts and developments through very simplistic ‘broad stroke’ lenses. These are the people that subsist on “either/or” and other binary style reductions of everything. Their minds are usually not capable of grasping nuance, or sometimes they’re simply surface-scraping because their lives are too busy to really dig into highly complex situations to truly understand them… In this case, Russia and the US’s informal ‘secret handshakes’ certainly does not equate to their being part of some grand charade to defraud the world together, or that Putin is a secret mole for [insert globalist clan here]. To come to that conclusion is to admit one’s ignorance of history, and how these things really work. This is standard operating procedure for any sort of sensitive geopolitical entanglement and is merely characteristic of the true behind-the-scenes statecraft that underlies the surface level gloss the majority of people ingest via CNN and such outlets. Such ‘handshakes’ represent simple basic diplomatic statecraft, courtesy, and precaution in the form of scrupulous risk-hedging and due diligence, nothing more than that… With that said, this alone doesn’t preclude larger conspiracies of secret collusion between large, ostensibly adversarial nations—I’m simply stating that this specific instance would not qualify as exemplary of that. There are many other actual examples, but that’s beyond the scope of this article… But as always, one must also remember that there are corridors within corridors in each organization, and there are groups within the CIA operating independently—and even antithetically—to the parent organization just as the CIA may itself be operating against the wider interests of the US itself. So ultimately, we’re still only hearing one side of the story, which happens to be the side they want us to hear.”

Fair Use Notice: This site may contain some copyrighted material the use of which has not always been specifically authorized by the copyright owner. We are making such material available in our efforts to advance understanding of vital issues which already exist in the public domain. – Note: These links are posted at the top of the page as the week progresses. Links from previous weeks can be found under the “Current Quicklinx” button.BREAKING: UN Security Council Passes Watered Down Resolution for Palestinian Genocide – WITH BONUS BEAUTIFUL 7 MINUTE CHORAL RENDITION OF “THE 12 DAYS OF CHRISTMAS” (Gaza Style) – by Reinette Senum – https://reinettesenumsfoghornexpress.substack.com/p/breaking-un-security-council-passes – “While we embark on the celebration of Christmas around the world, I have been personally grappling with the prognosis of the state of Israel and the ongoing genocide of Palestinians… For a couple of good weeks, I have been collecting video footage and articles relating to the most unprecedented and genocidal war of all time for my Substack… Because of this, I have been shedding a lot of tears, particularly over the last few days. Much of the video footage and images I have collected regarding the onslaught against the Palestinians are too heartwrenching to share… No human should be subjected to witnessing, let alone experiencing, such events… I find what I have been witnessing on the screen traumatizing…. I can only imagine what so many Gazans, particularly the children, are enduring 24/7 without relief… The above video is part 1 of 2. The second part goes into much more detail about current events… BREAKING: Only hours ago, the United Nations Security Council passed a watered down resolution: …calling for immediately speeding aid deliveries to hungry and desperate civilians in Gaza but without the original plea for an “urgent suspension of hostilities” between Israel and Hamas…. …..and to enhance humanitarian aid delivery to Gaza and demanded the release of hostages held by Hamas. The resolution, which saw 13 countries voting in favor, was not opposed by the U.S., although it abstained from voting alongside Russia… The resolution’s final text, altered after U.S. interventions, calls for adherence to international humanitarian law and condemns attacks against civilians, while urging steps for sustainable cessation of hostilities… The irony is America has been supplying arms for the very attacks it is condemning, most recently bypassing Congressional review for 13,000 rounds of tank ammunition to Israel… The resolution also calls for the appointment of a senior U.N. official to facilitate aid delivery in Gaza… The UAE, the resolution’s sponsor emphasized that only a ceasefire could truly end the suffering in Gaza, currently experiencing a severe humanitarian crisis and famine conditions as the UN claims 1 in 4 Gazan’s are starving.
On December 8th, the UN Security Council held an emergency meeting Friday morning New York time to discuss the catastrophic situation in Gaza. This follows Wednesday’s urgent letter by Secretary-General António Guterres – one of the most powerful tools at his disposal – urging the body to help end carnage in the war-battered enclave through a lasting humanitarian ceasefire. A resolution tabled late afternoon in the chamber calling for an immediate humanitarian ceasefire was vetoed by the United States… In Part 2 I will explore the grim prognosis for the state of Israel, particularly in Gaza and the West Bank, leading to Israel’s eventual downfall. Israel’s military campaign is genocidal, aimed at creating a state exclusively for Jews, while Palestinians are either exterminated or stripped of basic rights. This brutal approach is already showing signs of a backfire, alienating key allies, including younger generations of American Jews and potentially the United States itself… No doubt, Israel’s historical reliance on violence and repression is coming to an end. There is a massive global condemnation of Israel’s actions, including its treatment of Palestinians in Gaza, as evidence of its declining international standing. I will share more on this in my next video… Israel’s actions, and the US government’s (of which many US representatives have dual citizenship with Israel) are not only morally reprehensible but also strategically flawed, leading to increased resistance and diminishing the Israeli and the US’ reputation… I cannot help but see the dichotomy of witnessing such a brutal genocide during the season of celebrating Christ and Peace on Earth… Stay tuned for Part 2.”Data Mining, Artificial Intelligence, and Angels of Death – by Marilyn M. Singleton, MD, JD – https://aapsonline.org/data-mining-artificial-intelligence-and-angels-of-death/ – “Google is universally well known as a search and advertising company. Now Google is tapping into the $3.5 trillion healthcare market. To compete with the Apple Watch, Google acquired FitBit, the wearable exercise, heart rate, and sleep tracking device. Data is king…Voluntarily worn fitness tracking devices are one thing, but Google has entered the realm of the brave new world.A government inquiry has brought to light Google’s “Nightingale Project” that collected private medical data from Ascension Health’s 2,600 sites of care across 20 states and D.C., unbeknownst to the patients. Dozens of Google employees had access to the data which included lab results, physician diagnoses, hospitalization records, and health histories, complete with patient names and dates of birth. Google claims that the project complies with the Health Insurance Portability And Accountability Act (HIPAA) because it is a qualified business associate of Ascension Health. And unlike the ads for socks that appear on your computer a nanosecond after you purchased some tennis shoes, Google promises that the data won’t be combined with consumer data. Fat chance… Amazon, which already knows our every thought, was not satisfied with merely creating software that can read medical records. Now they’ve created Transcribe Medical, a system that transcribes confidential patient-doctor conversations and uploads them directly into the electronic health record. Doctors would relinquish all control over “private” patient records. Google also has been working on its own automatic speech recognition “digital scribe” to upload multiple speaker conversations… Not only is there a problem with inaccuracies that could lead to a patient receiving the wrong treatment, but we all know the ubiquitous problem of hacking—even in the Department of Defense and the federal Office of Personnel Management… Disturbingly, certain circles oohed and aahed over the revelation that Google, using electronic health records (EHR), created an artificial intelligence program that could predict death better than doctors. Fortunately for humanity, many others found the thought of leaving doctors out of the equation horrifying. The cheerleaders crowed that it would decrease work for the doctors; they wouldn’t have to waste their time going through those pesky medical records to arrive at a conclusion. Using an artificial neural network to predict the death of a human being is a far cry from having a computer interpret an inanimate x-ray who is not a daughter, mother, sister, wife, or grandmother… If you put it all together, it adds up to a death panel of one. Google’s software would decide that there is not a high likelihood of walking out of the hospital, no treatment would be given. We are becoming witness to the devolution of humanity… Moreover, the government is incentivizing workforce development in palliative care through the Palliative Care and Hospice Education and Training Act. Perhaps this is why the hospice team seems to greet the patient at the hospital door. Of note, once a person has signed on to the Medicare hospice program, Medicare will not pay for any curative treatment or medications. Medicare will not pay for an emergency room visit unless the hospice team arranged it or someone decides it is not related to the hospice diagnosis… The number of hospice agencies participating in the Medicare program nearly doubled between 2000 and 2016, for a total of some 4,382 providers. In 2000, about 30 percent of hospice agencies were for-profit, compared to about 67 percent in 2016. In that same period, Medicare payments grew from $3 billion to $16.8 billion… Hospice care is lucrative. The minimum Medicare payment is $196 per day regardless of the quantity or quality of services provided on that day. A July 2019 report from the Office of Inspector General for the Department of Health and Human Services found that more than 80 percent of end-of-life facilities in the United States had at least one deficiency, and nearly 20 percent were poor performers with serious problems that jeopardized patient health and safety. It seems the compassionate medical service to care for suffering patients has turned into a heartless cash cow… Is this what we want for our loved ones and eventually, ourselves? Medicare for All promises every type of medical care under the sun, including long-term care. Long-term care is expensive and if done properly, labor intensive. What better way to save money than to promote a computer program that convinces doctors that the patient is going to die no matter what they do. So the hospital tells the family that treatment or home care will drain their finances. For what? I’ll tell you for what. My parents died at home only after they were tired of doctors and ready to go. They strolled into heaven. They were not shoved in with a giant government backhoe.”“It’s Like Martial Law” – Poland’s Pro-EU Govt Seizes Public News Channels In Massive Police Raid – Poland’s public television news stations went off the air yesterday as police conducted massive raids to seize public news station TVP, with fears becoming realized that Prime Minister Donald Tusk would move quickly to crack down on press freedoms once he assumed power. – by Grzegorz Adamczyk – https://www.zerohedge.com/political/its-martial-law-polands-pro-eu-govt-seizes-public-news-channels-massive-police-raid – “A group of senior Law and Justice (PiS) politicians, including party leader Jarosław Kaczyński and former Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki, arrived at the headquarters of state-run TV broadcaster TVP on Wednesday afternoon as the new pro-EU government moved to seize control of state-run press in dramatic authoritarian fashion… Both Morawiecki and Kaczyński said the government’s decision to replace public media chiefs resembled a “coup d’état” and an illegal “takeover by force.” –Kaczyński told reporters that the Law and Justice (PiS) party stood in defense of democracy and a “pluralistic media.”

PiS politicians compared the action to the introduction of martial law in Poland in 1981 in the sense that the government then also shut down TV programs and dismissed scores of journalists. .. There was outrage too at an incident in which a female MP from PiS was assaulted by one of the bodyguards who assisted the new chairman of the TVP Board in taking over an office at TVP… Former Education Minister Przemysław Czarnek said that “this is the most brutal taking of power ever in the EU, with the government using force, assaulting MPs and shutting down media they do not like.” – Meanwhile, Culture Minister Bartłomiej Sienkiewicz told the left-liberal Gazeta Wyborcza paper that the protest “will achieve nothing.” – Earlier in the day, the government informed that the culture minister had relieved the CEOs of TVP, Polish Radio and the Polish Press Agency (PAP) of their duties, and also dismissed the boards of directors of these outlets. Sienkiewicz has appointed new boards of directors for TVP, Polish Radio and PAP, which in turn have appointed new executive boards, the Ministry of Culture added in its statement… It also said that the “necessity and justification” for the move flowed from Tuesday’s resolution by the Polish parliament, which called on the government to “restore the impartiality and credibility of public media.” – Protests continued outside TVP’s headquarters in Warsaw throughout Wednesday… The journalists stopped from having their programs broadcast have been hosted by the independent channel TV Republika, and they are planning to start broadcasting from there starting Thursday.”Pentagon’s Operation Prosperity Guardian “Falls Apart” As Spain, Italy, France Reject Request – by Tyler Durden –https://www.zerohedge.com/geopolitical/pentagons-operation-prosperity-guardian-falls-apart-spain-italy-france-reject-request – “Australia is the latest country to reject a request from the United States to send warships to the Red Sea under the command of the Pentagon’s Operation Prosperity Guardian to protect commercial vessels along the critical maritime trade route from Iran-backed Houthi… Defense Minister Richard Marles told Sky News that Australia’s military would not send a “ship or a plane” to the Red Sea but would triple the number of troops for the US-led maritime force… “We need to be really clear around our strategic focus and our strategic focus is our region,” Marles said… The Pentagon’s formation of Operation Prosperity Guardian, a new task force to protect shipping from Houthi drone and missile attacks in the Bab Al-Mandeb Strait and the Red Sea, requires increased warship patrols by the US and allies. This will create a security umbrella over commercial vessels to defend from attacks… Reuters said about twenty countries have signed up for the Pentagon’s new operation. However, several countries, including Australia, Spain, Italy, and France, have rejected the Pentagon’s request to participate in the operation. .Spain’s Defence Ministry said it would only participate in NATO-led missions or European-coordinated operations – not ones commanded by the Pentagon:

“We will not participate unilaterally in the Red Sea operation.” 

Italy’s Defence Ministry voiced similar concerns, indicating it would send naval frigate Virginio Fasan to the Red Sea but only respond to requests by Italian shipowners… “Operation Prosperity Guardian in the Red Sea has practically Collapsed as France, Spain, and Italy have all announced their Withdrawal from the US Command Structure for the Operation, with the Three Nations stating they will only conduct further Maritime Operations under the Command of NATO and/or the European Union and not the United States,” X account OSINTdefender wrote… Another X user wrote:

“France, Spain, and Italy aren’t withdrawing because they don’t want to escalate the conflict. On the contrary, they’re withdrawing because they don’t believe the operation coordinated by Biden regime will protect their vessels. This is the result of a weak ‘President’ / lack of leadership.”

The number of warships around the Bab Al-Mandeb Strait has increased this week… We reminded readers of Zoltan Poszar’s prediction of central-bank-analogized ‘military protection’ and said it’s soon to become a reality… and just like that, it has:

Protection is a conceptual counterpart to par. When you decide to take money out of a sight deposit, you expect the same amount back that you put in (par).
When you sail foreign cargo from port A to port B, you expect to unload the same amount of cargo that you onloaded.Banks can deliver par on deposits most of the time. When not, central banks step in to help.
Commodity traders can deliver foreign cargo from port A to port B most of the time, but when not, the state intervenes again: not the monetary arm, but the military arm of the state.
What central banks are to the protection of par promises, the military branch is to the protection of shipments: foreign cargo needs to sail on sea routes and through choke points like the Strait of Hormuz, and “par” in this context

As of Saturday morning, the number of container ships in the Red Sea with destinations to Asia, Europe, and the US is less than five… Remember, this critical waterway is responsible for 10-12% of the world’s maritime freight. Vessels are now being diverted around the Cape of Good Hope, adding 1-2 weeks in travel time. Plus, container rates are soaring… The fact that seven major shipping companies, including Taiwanese container shipping line Evergreen and Belgian tanker owner Euronav, have halted sails through the Red Sea shows their lack of confidence in the US protecting the critical waterway.”

Israeli Unit 8200 Tied Company Runs Twitter Verification & WaPo Finds IDF Lied About Shifa Hospital – by Ryan Cristian – Welcome to The Daily Wrap Up, a concise show dedicated to bringing you the most relevant independent news, as we see it, from the last 24 hours (12/22/23). – As always, take the information discussed in the video below (3hrs 3min) and research it for yourself, and come to your own conclusions. Anyone telling you what the truth is, or claiming they have the answer, is likely leading you astray, for one reason or another. Stay Vigilant.

The “Control System” Is Collapsing – ‘The Great Taking’ Looms As Globalism’s Last Gasp – by Mark Jeftovic via BombThrower.com – Comment: This article is a Must Read for anyone trying to find the bottom line for David Rogers Webb’s bombshell of a book. –
https://www.zerohedge.com/geopolitical/control-system-collapsing-great-taking-looms-globalisms-last-gasp – “The Great Taking: The Latest “Anti-Mainstream” Conspiracy – A new book has exploded on the alternative / conspiracy / fringe landscape over the past few weeks – I don’t mean that in a derogatory sense. Zerohedge, Bombthrower Media, et al, we all occupy this space. Let’s call it, “anti-mainstream”… The book is called “The Great Taking” and there is now a YouTube video documentary of it here. You can’t actually find it on Amazon (deliberate choice by author, I presume); I bought my copy via Lulu, but you can download the PDF for free here... At the risk of oversimplifying it: The Great Taking puts forth a warning that a virtually unknown entity called “The Depository Trust & Clearing Corporation” (DTCC) is effectively the “owner” of all the publicly traded companies in the world, and in fact all debt-based assets of any kind:

“It is about the taking of collateral (all of it), the end game of the current globally synchronous debt accumulation super cycle. This scheme is being executed by long-planned, intelligent design, the audacity and scope of which is difficult for the mind to encompass.
Included are all financial assets and bank deposits, all stocks and bonds; and hence, all underlying property of all public corporations, including all inventories, plant and equipment; land, mineral deposits, inventions and intellectual property. Privately owned personal and real property financed with any amount of debt will likewise be taken, as will the assets of privately owned businesses which have been financed with debt.”

Over the course of the book, the author describes a 50-year process by which ownership of shares in public companies, and all debt collateral has been “dematerialized”… In the olden days, you invested in a company – they gave you physical share certificates – and you were now part owner of the company. This is still how many value investors including me think of stock ownership… We’re not invested in all of these companies in The Bitcoin Capitalist Portfolio simply because we’re trying to time the oscillations in the price movements. We think of ourselves as partial owners of these businesses… Michael Saylor, Brian Armstrong, Mike Novogratz, Frank Holmes, Jamie Leverton et al, aren’t just celebrity CEOs in this space (Bitcoin)… they’re our partners. Granted, we’re the minority partners, silent ones, betting the jockeys and just along for the ride; but we don’t think of these positions as just stock charts and price gyrations – we think of them as businesses in which we are part owners… At least I do… According to The Great Taking, author David Rogers Webb, this is not true. We don’t own small pieces of these companies, we own claims on those pieces, because – over the course of decades, through the exigencies of ever-increasing trading volumes, combined with the machinations behind the scenes of diabolical manipulators – stock ownership has been supplanted by “security entitlements”… Webb posits that when the debt super-cycle culminates in its ultimate blow up; the trap will be sprung, and actual ownership over all these companies and assets will be subsumed by the clearing houses. An infinitesimal cadre of elites will effectively own everything, and the masses of the world will be reduced to serfdom… Which sounds familiar; it seems to be the common theme from The Great Taking to the WEF’s Great Reset (or Stakeholder Capitalism, or whatever they’re calling it these days)… It’s the mother of all wealth transfers, one that makes the ongoing wealth transfer of inflation and the Cantillon Effect – or the sharp shock heists that occur during every crisis from the dot-com bust through the GFC to the Covid Panic (the last of which saw an overt war on small business as those deemed “non-essential” were shut down while the megacorps were propped up by the central banks) – seem tame… Here’s my thoughts on The Great Taking: Modernity could be described as humanity’s accelerating pace of technological advancement. Part of that advancement is the ever increasing level of intellectual abstraction… If you’ve been a member or following my writings long enough, you’ll have heard me talk about the W R Clement book, Quantum Jump; written in 1998, it ascribed the entire scientific revolution from the Enlightenment onwards, to the discovery of perspective (then called “God’s space”), in art… That “quantum leap” began the process of rewiring all our brains for ever higher levels of intellectual abstraction. It enabled us to go from ownership of a coal mine, for example, being ascribed to whomever physically occupied the space – including militarily – to people, and even corporatized entities like pension funds or investment clubs, owning fractional pieces of that mine, from far off places, even other countries… Initially we did this using physical pieces of paper to represent that ownership. There is a scene in an Agatha Christie “Miss Marple” mystery, “The Moving Finger”, where a man of leisure (played by William D’Arcy) takes to convalesce in a small cottage in a country town, and he visits the local barrister to register his securities with him, reaching into the inside pocket of his sport jacket and handing him the physical share certificates… Today, he’d just handle everything from a smart phone he carries around in his jeans… That’s increasing abstraction… What The Great Taking is warning us about, is that this increasing level of abstraction comes with a price – that we’re no longer really fractional owners of these businesses, we’re owners of claims on these businesses… And he may be right… Webb is a former high level financier and an expert in the legislation and regulatory framework that governs the space. The book looks to be meticulously documented and the legalities well researched… This is no different, I might add, from our mantra: “Not your keys, not your coins”… In fact as I read through The Great Taking, I found myself marvelling at how closely everything Webb was describing resembled what happened during the crypto carnage of 2022-23, when hapless users who had deposited their crypto with exchanges found their assets rehypothecated, collaterized – even appropriated from under them… It drove home the lesson, hard… Holding shares of Amazon in your E*Trade account may, when the chips are down, be no different from keeping your stack of BTC on an exchange (please don’t)… The businesses to survive an event like The Great Taking, may end up being privately held ones. The assets you keep may be the ones with no counter-party risk – sound familiar? It’s only a core tenet of the entire Bitcoin philosophy… It is possible that in the event of an even larger financial crisis than we’ve seen prior (and in case you haven’t noticed, each one is typically an order of magnitude larger than the previous), everybody holding publicly traded stocks on platforms gets rug-pulled – and some mysterious and shadowy entity winds up with all the marbles… Should that occur, I would expect it to signify the end of the global financial system as we know it, and not in a way wherein the society simply continues as a world of penniless serfs, subservient to about 0.001% of the elites… It would be more of a “last gasp of Globalism” than a final takeover of the world… Some closing thoughts from the book’s author seems to concur:

“I will make a startling assertion. This is not because the power to control is increasing. It is because this power is indeed collapsing. The “control system” has entered collapse.
Their power has been based on deception. Their two great powers of deception, money and media, have been extremely energy-efficient means of control. But these powers are now in rampant collapse.
This is why they have moved urgently to institute physical control measures. However, physical control is difficult, dangerous and energy-intensive. And so, they are risking all. They are risking being seen. Is this not a sign of desperation?”

This has also been my read on it from fairy early in the pandemic, and more so since – especially after the #FreedomConvoy. Official narrative aside, that event sounded the death knell for not only Covid Tyranny, but for WEF-inspired globalism itself… Within a year of that happening, all Covid emergency measures had ended worldwide, vaccination uptake rates went into secular decline, and the mainstream media entered into a full-on death spiral… Webb continues:

“We have entered a time in which their nature is being recognized. Knowledge of their existence has become unavoidable. Their grasping will come to an end, because all of humanity cannot allow it to continue.
Once it is recognized, humans will bond against a common existential threat.
People from all walks of life will join in common cause. We have witnessed this already.”

It follows a theme I’ve been developing for a few years now, one that I didn’t originally conceive but came across and feel is accurate: That theme is that the next, worldwide conflict (“World War III”, in essence) will not be a geo-political struggle of the US vs China, or West vs East, or NATO vs China/Russia: it will be populations against their own governments… When you think about it, it almost fits the historical definition of the Marxist “class struggle”, only we – hopefully – don’t get a Communist “utopia” at the end of it… In fact, I think that’s what everybody will be rebelling against: the imposition of a technocratic socialism that attempts to hoover up the property rights of the rest of humanity… Those attempting to capitalize on this, the elites and the technocrats, have only really had one superpower with which to build their position over time:

“They promote the belief that they are all-powerful. They are not.
All they have had is the power to print money.
The rest, they have usurped from humanity.”

Of course, Bitcoin is the kryptonite to this superpower, the one thing elites had which enabled them to rig the entire system in their favour is basically finished, and they know it… At the risk of going on too long about it here, but wanting to do the topic some justice, The Great Taking scenario isn’t incompatible with what we’ve been calling The Great Bifurcation since the onset of the pandemic, encapsulated by my glib, cynical quip:

“In the future, there will only be one occupation: managing one’s wealth. And most people, are gonna be unemployed.”

We see The Great Bifurcation happening all around us already: tent cities from Burnaby to Toronto, fentanyl zombies roving San Francisco, increasing masses behaving like savages; this isn’t because of race, politics, religion or even a far-reaching global conspiracy to impoverish humanity or depopulate the earth (although there are almost certainly cells of elites who would wish that) – it’s because we’re using debt for money, we can’t stop, and the level of intellectual abstraction that is required to operate, let alone thrive, within a hyper-financialized world, is leaving larger and larger chunks of the population behind… It’s Alvin Toffler’s “Future Shock” (tl;dr: the rate of technological change will accelerate and compound) released in 1971, combined with Clement’ “Quantum Jump” (intellectual abstraction will become increasingly more complex) from 1998, writ large… These two accelerating dynamics conspire to create a veritable “Breakaway society” where those who are positioned and have the cognitive ability to front run the technology live in the future, and the rest, who can’t, fall behind into the past… The main difference that I see is Webb’s Great Taking is a deliberate conspiracy driven by successive generations of insular elites, whereas my concept of The Great Bifurcation is, as I always say, more the result of perverse incentives and dynamics than outright conspiracy… The reality is probably elements of both… Having said all that, we should be clear in our motivations and strategies for what we are holding in our equities portfolios: We hold Bitcoin, in proper self-custody, so nobody can take it from us in the event of a catastrophic collapse of the financial system… We may hold some physical gold, silver, junk silver for the same reasons, and we may have property somewhere, farmland, anything that we can lay physical claim to – although we may find ourselves in a situation where we have to somehow enforce those claims… Stocks, ETFs, even Bitcoin stocks or weird crypto moonshots, we don’t hold these to survive the collapse of the system. We hold these to try and garner out-sized investment returns within the system so long as it continues to function… I don’t know about you, but I actually don’t want the financial system to collapse. I don’t want society to go off the rails, I am not an accelerationist… I’m not hoping for a hyper-inflationary flameout of the entire global economy. That would suck, and I’d prefer to be wrong about that… In other words, were The Great Taking scenario to play out and come true, it would be a permutation of a catastrophic collapse we’ve been positioning for anyway – and we never really considered our equities portfolio (at least we shouldn’t) as part of our toolkit for navigating the collapse of the financial system… One way or another, should the entire system collapse, I expect our stocks to be among the first casualties, via bail-ins, capital controls, forced conversions into government debt, recapitalizing zombie banks or after all those – if we’re unfortunate enough to have been wildly correct about our positions – “windfall taxes” taking much of what’s left. (I am not alone in thinking this; any of you who also read Mark Faber’s Gloom Boom Doom report know he expects to have upwards of 25% of his wealth confiscated by technocrats during some future, exigent crisis)… That’s why I said in the November letter, on this cycle (or the next) we will have to individually make our exits from the equities based on our own financial goals. While we keep our Bitcoin stack forever and make plans for inter-generational succession – and we may do that with some of our stocks (I could see *** and *** being legacy, dynastic holdings) – for the most part we’re in these to strategically profit within the existing system and cash out to meet our financial objectives… Everybody knows I want my lake-house in the Muskokas, and you should know what it is that you want.”Attempted ‘color revolution’ in Serbia: What we know so far – Opposition activists forced their way into Belgrade city hall after claiming a municipal election was rigged – from RT World News – https://www.rt.com/news/589640-serbia-color-revolution-attempt/ – “Opposition forces in Serbia breached Belgrade’s city hall amid mass protests on Sunday. They claim the recent municipal election in the capital, won by the ruling party, was rigged. Senior national officials have described the protests as an attempted “color revolution,” and said they had been forewarned by Russia… Mayorship – Belgrade is home to roughly a quarter of the Balkan nation’s population of over 6.6 million. The office of its mayor is viewed as one of the most important in Serbia… Members of the city council, who vote the mayor in, were elected on December 17 – the same day as a national election and several municipal votes were held… The ruling Serbian Progressive Party (SNS) of President Aleksandar Vucic won the most seats in the Belgrade City Assembly. The opposition Serbia Against Violence (SPN) alliance claims the outcome was achieved through voter fraud… Early violence – In the week that followed the elections, the opposition staged several rallies in Belgrade, some of them marred by violence… During a demonstration in front of the Republican Election Commission last Monday, leading Serbian statistician Milorad Kovacevic and several of his associates were reportedly attacked by activists. Police seized several knives and bats from protesters, local media said… Election officials react – The Election Commission denounced the violence and claimed the rally was an attempt to disrupt its activities. The head of the commission, Vladimir Dimitrijevic, expressed hope that it was an isolated incident and that any future attempts to challenge the election result would remain legal… The body investigated opposition claims that ‘phantom voters’ had been allowed to cast ballots in Belgrade, but reported on Sunday that it had found no evidence that the election had been “stolen.” – Sunday riot – On Sunday evening, hundreds of pro-opposition demonstrators gathered in the center of Belgrade after being rallied by the SPN. Opposition leader Marinika Tepic, who declared a hunger strike last Monday and claims to be living on IV infusions, was barred from entering the Election Commission building. Meanwhile, an improvised stage was erected near the presidential residence, with speakers and performers whipping up the crowd… Later in the evening, some activists stormed city hall, claiming they were seeking “to liberate the institutions.” The police intervened and drove them out… Aleksandar Sapic, head of the temporary city administration, shared images of the damage caused by the rioters in the historic building, calling it “irreparable.” He declared that Serbia must be protected from the use of violence for political gain. He used the term “Maidanization,” referring to the 2014 armed coup in Kiev, which set the stage for the current hostilities between Russia and Ukraine… ‘Color revolution’ – President Vucic denounced the riot, calling it an attempted “color revolution” and claiming that a foreign nation had warned his government about the threat beforehand. Prime Minister Ana Brnabiс thanked the Russian special services for providing intelligence to Belgrade… The term ‘color revolution’ is often applied to the mass uprisings by ostensibly pro-democratic political forces in the 1990s and 2000s, including in Yugoslavia in 2000. Russia and some other nations perceive the wave as masterminded by the West to further its geopolitical goals, and executed through NGOs, media outlets, and parties funded by the US and its allies… The Vucic government has been presented with a dilemma amid the current confrontation between Russia and the West. It is seeking EU membership for Serbia, which would require the realignment of Belgrade’s foreign policy with that of Brussels. However, Vucic has rejected Western calls to cut ties with Russia and join the US-led sanctions campaign against Moscow… READ MORE: Serbia thanks Russia for ‘color revolution’ warning – Responding to the turmoil in Belgrade, Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova claimed it was an “obvious attempt by the collective West to destabilize the situation in the country through ‘maidan coups’,” according to RIA Novosti.”New (UNBELIEVABLE) Terms of Service for T-Mobile Users, from Off The Grid with Doug and Stacy – PHONE UPDATE you SHOULD WORRY ABOUT! DID YOU KNOW…. (11 min)

How the EPA Is Attempting to Kill the Berkey Water Filter – The U.S. EPA is attempting to label the popular Berkey Water Filters a pesticide in order to regulate the product under the Federal Insecticide, Fungicide, and Rodenticide Act. – by Derrick Broze – https://www.activistpost.com/2023/12/how-the-epa-is-attempting-to-kill-the-berkey-water-filter.html – Over the last year, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has been pursuing a case against the owner of the Berkey Water Systems which produces the popular Berkey filters. The EPA is attempting to classify the Berkey filters as pesticides because they incorporate silver in their design, a feature which the EPA claims qualifies the filters as a pesticide under the Federal Insecticide, Fungicide, and Rodenticide Act (FIFRA). The move has already lead to one authorized dealer of the Berkey Water Systems being forced to shut down… On August 9, New Millennium Concepts, Ltd. (NMCL) and the James B. Shepherd Trust, the owners of the Berkey Water Systems, filed a lawsuit against EPA, suing for violations of the Administrative Procedures Act and due process for their attempts to regulate the water filters. The NMCL said the EPA is labeling the filters a pesticide because of the use of silver to prevent biological growth inside the filters, a feature shared by many water filtration systems. NMCL says the silver does not leach into the water itself and thus the filters should not be regulated as a pesticide. Silver is currently a registered pesticide with the EPA… NMCL notes that the EPA has not utilized this new re-interpretation to stop the sale of any other outdoor water filter. They go on to state that the “real issue” is that the EPA does not like that Berkey filters have been advertised as capable of removing the COVID-19 virus from your water… In November, the case was dismissed after the judge claimed that the company doesn’t have standing in their claims. This means that Berkey Water Systems will likely face regulation as a pesticide unless appeals are successful… “We are now in appeal because, amazingly, the district court ruled that New Millennium had not been harmed by the EPA issuing Stop-Sale orders to its dealers, its manufacturing facility and other vendors, and therefore had no standing in that court,” they wrote in a blog response… In October, U.S. Congressman Matt Gaetz (FL-01) sent a letter to EPA Administrator Michael Regan regarding the agency’s new ruling classifying the Berkey Water Systems as pesticides. Gaetz’s letter highlights the EPA’s unprecedented attempt to put Berkey out of business. Gaetz requested the EPA provide specific documents to his office showing the process the EPA used to determine its actions… At a time when Americans are increasingly unhealthy and their water filled with contaminants, such as endocrine disrupters, heavy metals, and ‘forever’ chemicals, such as PFAS, the EPA should be pursuing policies within its regulatory authority that incentivize increased use of water-filtration systems, not less,” the letter states.

“The EPA must end its attack on Berkey Water Systems immediately and focus on the job it was created to do – keep Americans safe – a job Berkey Water Systems has arguably done more effectively.”