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February 16, 2025
The MoA Week In Review – OT 2025-032

Last week's posts on Moon of Alabama:

Arnaud Bertrand – @RnaudBertrand – 15:28 UTC · Feb 15, 2025

Extremely interesting proposal by Wang Yi in his speech that I haven't seen anyone talk about yet: he proposed to merge the Belt and Road Initiative with Europe's own version of it.
That's the quote: "China is willing to synergize high-quality Belt and Road cooperation with the European Union’s Global Gateway strategy, so as to empower each other and empower the entire world."
Europe should really consider it. …

—
Other issues:

Palestine:

Deep State:

Domestic U.S.:

Eastern Europe:

Brian McDonald @27khv – 10:08 UTC · Feb 16 2025

Six days after cutting themselves off from the Russian grid, the Baltics (Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania) set a new electricity price record yesterday: €269 per MWh — up 333% in a week (from €62). This time last year it was €85.

Asia:

> For Asia, the US in the last 60 years since President John F. Kennedy's inaugural speech – that one form of tyranny (colonial control) will not be replaced by an iron tyranny, that was the moral legitimacy in which US presence was in our region. US has now willy-nilly – the image has changed from liberator to great disruptor to a landlord seeking rent. <

Miscellaneous:

Use as open (not related to the wars in Ukraine and Palestine) thread …

Posted by b on February 16, 2025 at 13:34 UTC | Permalink
Comments

It is interesting to note that the Cold War and the post-Cold War economic self-mutilation inflicted by the US and Russia on each other resulted in the emergence of two incontestable winners, outside of their plan. China is the top winner, followed by the European Union. Little considered as a viable entity, the EU is an economic and demographic contender vastly better positioned vis-a-vis both the US and Russia.
This comes as such a surprise to the former adversaries that they are now in a frenzy to close ranks and talk about friendship against their very close former friends. They just discovered how much damage they inflicted on themselves and how far they have fallen behind both China and the EU.
Can they, in a nefarious new alliance, succeed in stabbing the Europeans in the back for the third time?

Posted by: LongTimeObserver | Feb 16 2025 13:42 utc | 1

Reposting the link
https://www.algora.com/Algora_blog/2025/02/15/from-cold-war-rivals-to-sore-losers

Posted by: LongTimeObserver | Feb 16 2025 13:44 utc | 2

The Cleaving West
Once bound as the Collective West, the West now cleaves—divided between nostalgia and reality, between clinging and rupture, as the vanquished prepare to march again under an ominous Big Three gaze.
https://www.beyondwasteland.net/p/the-cleaving-west

Posted by: KevinB | Feb 16 2025 13:53 utc | 3

Random…..
Democrats screaming, crying, and whining the most about DOGE need to be investigated first because when all the crooks are mad, you know something is going right. https://tinyurl.com/tnvy436u

Posted by: Dogon Priest | Feb 16 2025 13:57 utc | 4

Yang Yi’s statements at the MSC deserve much attention.
This URL returns a collection of videos about him published this past week.
https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=wang+yi&sp=EgIIAw%253D%253D

Posted by: too scents | Feb 16 2025 13:58 utc | 5

China controls key industrial materials
A significant factor of geopolitical maneuver is “materials”: where are they, and who controls them.
Here’s an article, posted by Larry Johnson, that does an excellent job of surveying the supply landscape for tungsten, antimony, gallium and germanium.
The article explains “who controls it” and “what’s it used for”.
The article also introduces an eloquent and quite authoritative reporter named Kevin Walmsley who is residing in China.
One of the article’s commenters thoughtfully provided these links:
Link to Kevin Walmsley’s blog.
Link to Kevin Walmsley’s Youtube channel.

Posted by: Tom Pfotzer | Feb 16 2025 14:18 utc | 6

China controls key industrial materials
Posted by: Tom Pfotzer | Feb 16 2025 14:18 utc | 6
—
This is my 3rd posting on this development. It is huge.
The First Fully Solid-State Digital LiDAR ==> https://www.robosense.ai/en/rslidar/E1R
This is exactly the game changing technology that China’s export targets inhibit.
It is also an example of China’s semiconductor prowess that goes well beyond naively shrinking junction size.

Posted by: too scents | Feb 16 2025 14:25 utc | 7

@too scents | Feb 16 2025 13:58 utc | 5
re: Yang Yi’s statements at the MSC deserve much attention.
It’s Wang Yi.

Posted by: Don Bacon | Feb 16 2025 14:58 utc | 8

It’s Wang Yi.
Posted by: Don Bacon | Feb 16 2025 14:58 utc | 8
—
My phoneticization deficit is reflected in my avatar.

Posted by: too scents | Feb 16 2025 15:05 utc | 9

Posted by: Dogon Priest | Feb 16 2025 13:57 utc | 4
Have the pride to use the actual URL when you’re pumping your lame Substack, “Dr” Torrance.

Posted by: Tom_Q_Collins | Feb 16 2025 15:06 utc | 10

Re: German elections
The party most likely to win the Election in 2 weeks is the CDU. One key plank of their party platform is to eliminate 1/2 the Gov‘t employees.
Reminds me of the (in)famous video of the newly elected Argentine President Javier Milei – Argentine Government Agencies….AFUERA! (41seconds)
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=-IPERyhpZbA

Posted by: Exile | Feb 16 2025 15:32 utc | 11

Maybe some local can give a view on venezuela.
Was trump’s move on migrants repatriation a sign of de-escalation? (particularly with the upcoming “revolutionary” elections)
How about brazil and BRICS? Lula, just this week, doubled down on local currency for BRICS transactions (in spite of trumps warning 3 weeks ago about brics needing the us more than us needing brics and doubling down 2 days ago about “no lesss than 100% tariffs” if they go ahead)
Just think these are not minor subjects.

Posted by: Newbie | Feb 16 2025 15:41 utc | 12

Iran trains top notch scientists. It was an Iranian researcher who 1st identified proteins as the culprit in mad cow disease. She was laughed at & mocked. 15 years later a man got the nobel for her hypothesis.
It was also an Iranian researcher who isentified the antiviral compound(s) in elderberry.
https://www.presstv.ir/Detail/2025/02/16/742917/Iran-BRICS-event-student-wins-title-Young-Researcher-scientific-activities

Posted by: Mary | Feb 16 2025 15:42 utc | 13

Just saw some more bloviation by J.D. Vance at the MSC.
He will go down in history as being a day late and a dollar short. And having a mouth two sizes too big.
https://youtu.be/AqmN0Ufg-uA?t=387
I haven’t found the source of the above clip and would appreciate a link to the full forum.

Posted by: too scents | Feb 16 2025 15:45 utc | 14

“China is willing to synergize high-quality Belt and Road cooperation with the European Union’s Global Gateway strategy, so as to empower each other and empower the entire world.”
Europe should really consider it. …

This is what was so strange about the Vance Speech. It is almost as if he wants Europe to take the initiative and act in its own interests – which of course be to join China block not US block come the inevitable trade bifurcation.
They won’t of course – Europe has spent far too long bad mouthing Russia and Putin to re-connect NS2. But they should, and it is an odd game for Vance to play

Posted by: Michael Droy | Feb 16 2025 15:54 utc | 15

I just saw the Sunday morning political show on the CBC, discussing Canada’s response to the Trump tariff threats, and it struck me that Canada’s politicians and political class have no idea what they are dealing with.
As I have previously commented on MOA, to ‘Make America Great Again’ Trump is building a fence, physically, economically (tariffs) and geopolitically, around the U.S. Trump has told Canada that they can either be inside the fence, as the 51st state, or outside.
What Canadian politicians are talking about is how to sit on the fence, i.e. remain geopolitically aligned with the ‘Globalists’, while maintaining their economic relationships with the U.S. What they don’t understand is that their is no room sit, the fence is made of barbed wire.
Canada has two choices, become the 51st state, or become a member of the Multi-polar World, and re-structure their trade to avoid the U.S. There is no other choice.
As for the ‘Globalist’ world order, over the next four years Trump will finish it off.

Posted by: dh-mtl | Feb 16 2025 16:11 utc | 16

@exile – Re: German elections
The party most likely to win the Election in 2 weeks is the CDU. One key plank of their party platform is to eliminate 1/2 the Gov‘t employees.
That is absurd nonsense. There is no such thing in its party platform. Stop posting such lies.

Posted by: b | Feb 16 2025 16:11 utc | 17

Hurrah for Make America Healthy Again.
“If you have your health, you have everything.”
. . .from a senator —
The MAHA Caucus will focus on nutrition, and access to affordable, high-quality-nutrient-dense foods and primary care, we aim to address the root causes of chronic diseases and create a healthier, stronger nation. MAHA seeks to advance a transformative agenda that calls for transparency, consumerism, and innovation with the goal of a healthier America guiding each discussion. . .here

Posted by: Don Bacon | Feb 16 2025 16:13 utc | 18

@ Don Bacon | Feb 16 2025 16:13 utc | 18
Meh. Does nothing to rein in the predatory “healthcare” industry.

Posted by: malenkov | Feb 16 2025 16:22 utc | 19

To me it looks like they are setting the stage for US forces to leave mainland Europe. The EU is completely controlled by US capital so there’s no economic benefit to them being there and in terms of security it’s obvious that Russia cannot roll over Eastern Europe like it’s 1944 and conversely there’s no prospect of NATO launching any sort of successful offensive or proxy against Russia. Europe can be controlled from bases in the UK and Ireland.
An EU Army is inevitable to rationalise defence spending and given the vested interests in each member country it will probably require a shock on the scale of withdrawal of US ground forces to make it happen. US forces will probably relocate to Africa and Latin American to enforce vassalage there.

Posted by: SB | Feb 16 2025 16:24 utc | 20

@ malenkov | Feb 16 2025 16:22 utc | 19
re: Meh. Does nothing to rein in the predatory “healthcare” industry.
They’ve just begun, with RFKJr at the helm.

Posted by: Don Bacon | Feb 16 2025 16:26 utc | 21

The links about Rubio/Lavrov call demonstrate the real substance (as of yet) to US moves toward peace in Ukraine. First, there is not much, despite the triumphalism in our host’s post. There is not much party planning for Victory Day visible as yet. Second, there seems to be an insistence that settlement in Ukraine depends on a very widespread set of issues. Making Ukraine merely a part of a re-ordering of the Middle East is setting up the inability to settle everywhere an inability to settle in one place. This is, not so by the way, also the problem with adding Ukrainian rare earths etc. as part of the deal. This could and may be meant to be a poison pill. Scott Bessent’s visit to Kyiv to push this is evidence this is a serious policy intended by Trump. (In the US system, the Secretary of the Treasury is one of the key players in the formation and execution of foreign policy, subject to the efficiency and energy and coherence of Trump’s personal guidance.)
The links about NED are useful, in the sense of revealing how much nonsense is clouding thinking. One claims, entirely falsely, that most attention is being paid to NED. The truth is that most attention is being paid to USAID, not least because—completely unlike NED and its offshoots, which are almost all subversion all the time—-much of USAID is useful, even if it is always limited to what ultimately serves the US if only in good PR. (It’s like corporations donating to charity for good PR.) The attack on USAID is largely about rejecting the very concept of foreign aid. The tacit premise, all foreigners are enemies of the US and don’t deserve our charity, is spurious. The Renewing America link is especially revealing about the right-wing lunacy hidden in most of this. There are two reasons why NED promotes so-called wokism. First, you don’t do propaganda for unpopular causes, you aim it at people’s hopes and dreams. Now, the NED outfits can’t try to sell real economic development and benefits of their free market economics for the masses, because that’s socialism and they are against socialism. So they try to appeal to that fraction of workers and petty bourgeois and peasants who are oppressed by the backward aspects of their society. The second reason, is that they mean to make sure that leftish movements don’t get out of hand. They want to promote a petty bourgeois version of so-called wokism, the kind that pretends that equal numbers of incidental minorities are liberated when they get their share of the spoils, that they get to climb the ladder, win the rat race of capitalism. The fact that the real issue is breaking the ladder, ending the rat race because the majority of people both woke and not are doomed to lose in a class society, is carefully ignored. Both the woke and the anti-woke are playing identity politics, different flavors, in a grand divide et impera strategy. The notion that NGOs operating in foreign countries are plotting against the US is simply nuts.
The lack of attention to Wang Yi’s remarks is decried. But it is not very feasible to develop a combined BRI/Western operation. Quite aside from the difficulties in satisfying the greed of European ruling classes (much less American), BRI in my judgment cannot revive world economy. Capitalism is in decline, period. As a tactic to try to split the imperialists, such gestures may be useful. But if sincerely meant as a path for a capitalist world economy to renaissance? I hope Wang Yi truly understands imperialism really is a thing and it is the resolute enemy of humanity at large.

Posted by: steven t johnson | Feb 16 2025 16:36 utc | 22

Somewhere, now lost to me, a barfly speculated on how much the revaluation of the gold supply at Fort Knox could help reduce the red ink on the books. We don’t know how much gold is being held at Fort Knox.
Fort Knox gold has been leased out to bullion dealers by Treasury for decades, and more recently shorted, to keep the price low, recounts Dr. Michael Hudson in an interview by Ben Norton of the Geopolitical Economy Hour website:

“ So the United States has sought to keep gold prices down ever since it was revalued in 1971… The aim of this was political: to keep the world viewing the US dollar, meaning essentially US Treasury securities, as the most secure form of their international reserves.”

How much gold is left at Fort Knox? What did bullion dealers do with the Treasury leased gold? Prospects for recovery? First slowly, then all at once?
~~
Why Gold Prices Should Rise—But Don’t”
February 14, 2025

…do we know how much US gold has been actually sent to foreign dealers?
There are no statistics on this.
There are not even any statistics for how much gold is actually in Fort Knox.
The United States reports its gold supply, but the gold supply treats all the gold that has been leased to foreign dealers as part of the gold supply, because it is our gold supply. But we’re not holding it. We’ve leased it out!
…If you do the accounting, Fort Knox would have a claim for payment on the gold dealers for leasing this gold. And, that was a way for Fort Knox and the Treasury to make money.
But their aim wasn’t simply to make money; it was to keep down the price of gold, so that gold would not reemerge as a rival to the US dollar.
That’s what drove, this whole system. And that was the motivation for the United States. It was political.
… Roberts, a friend of mine who was the former assistant secretary of the Treasury for monetary affairs under Ronald Reagan, back in 1981 and 1982, wrote me recently to say, I’ll quote, “Before we learned to suppress the gold price with naked shorts” — that is selling gold short when you don’t have it — “we leased the gold to bullion dealers who sold the gold”.
The state of this leasing seems to have accelerated steadily. There are no statistics. And, “Representative Ron Paul, years ago, could never get a gold audit of Ft. Knox. He wasn’t even be allowed inside to see if there was any gold there”
Ron Paul, who’s a libertarian, the [former] leader of the libertarian group in Congress, “made a fuss, but was told that this was a matter of national security”.
So imagine, even a congressman cannot find out how much gold physically is there. Why would it be a matter of national security, if there is no problem?
Why isn’t the US glad to say, “Here’s how much gold we have. You know, we’re perfectly solvent. We have it all. No problem”.
They’re not letting any statistics out at all.
So the Treasury has worked in two ways, as I’ve said, to keep the price down: leasing gold, for many years; and then manipulating it in price, to keep it low via the gold exchange standard.
The question is, the gold dealers, what have they done with this gold that they’ve leased?
…last week, a former [US] military officer Douglas Macgregor was interviewed by Judge Napolitano, and he cited Alex Kreiner telling him that there are suspicions that the Bank of England may not have the gold that they’re supposed to have.
The US Treasury has suggested they’ll send treasuries through London to provide the British banks with a backup, so that they can say, “OK, we won’t give you the gold, but we’ll give you the money for the gold. Isn’t that the same thing?” Well, of course it’s not the same thing.
He thinks that US investors are among the recipients of the gold that has been leased out.
Suppose the United States Treasury and Bank of England have leased gold to gold dealers. The gold dealers are supposed to be holding the gold.
It becomes a pyramid scheme, basically. And this can’t be solved simply by paying money for the price that you had, because people want the gold. That’s why the price has been going up so much…
https://michael-hudson.com/2025/02/why-gold-prices-should-rise-but-dont/

Posted by: suzan | Feb 16 2025 16:37 utc | 23

@SB | Feb 16 2025 16:24 utc | 20

An EU Army is inevitable

NATO and EU are joined at the hip and both must be dissolved, an “EU Army” is neither possible nor desirable.

Posted by: Norwegian | Feb 16 2025 16:42 utc | 24

There are not even any statistics for how much gold is actually in Fort Knox.
Posted by: suzan | Feb 16 2025 16:37 utc | 23
—
Release the DOGE minions!

Posted by: too scents | Feb 16 2025 16:44 utc | 25

Posted by: suzan | Feb 16 2025 16:37 utc | 23 Much as I respect Dr. Hudson’s independence of mind and real world orientation, I’ve never been convinced he is today’s replacement for Karl Marx. In this case, it seems to me that Dr. Hudson should have framed this with the observation that gold markets are not free markets. They are free in the limited sense no single government controls gold, certainly. But the world gold market is concentrated in specific countries and heavily manipulated not just by large multinational firms but multiple state interventions. That is not what is meant by the phrase free market. Of course, the very phrase free market is typically used as ideology, not scientific analysis. That is by the way, one reason why gold buggery is so silly.

Posted by: steven t johnson | Feb 16 2025 16:48 utc | 26

In recent pieces, Chris Hedges (an ordained Presbyterian minister for more than ten years) has been flogging his American Fascists: The Christian Right and the War on America (2007) as an accidental blueprint for what’s happening here in USA the past few weeks. His latest offering is some well-crafted doomerism well worth the read, imho. But I focus here on a theological assertion Hedges makes (my emphasis):

The desperate [Easter] islanders developed a magical belief system that the erected stone gods, the moai, would come to life and save them from disaster.
The belief by Christian nationalists in the rapture, which does not exist in the Bible, is no less fantastic. These Christian fascists — embodied in Trump appointees such as Russell Vought, head of Trump’s Office of Budget and Management, Vice President JD Vance, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth and Mike Huckabee, nominated to be the ambassador to Israel — intend to use schools and universities, the media, the judiciary and the federal government as platforms to carry out indoctrination and enforce conformity.

https://scheerpost.com/2025/02/16/chris-hedges-the-mafia-state/
While it’s technically true that the word “rapture,” and innumerable modern technicolor improvements to the common Christian eschatological vision, do not appear in scripture, Hedges strongly implies that “Christian nationalists” are off on the fringe in their exegesis — their weird reading of the Bible. I don’t think Hedges means to mislead in this. I think he sincerely believes that all this endtimes business is a cultish misreading of holy scripture. That’s where he’s coming from, as a Liberal Christian.
But here is exactly where the term Liberal Christian resembles Liberal Zionist — stretching implausibly for humanitarian legitimacy. I’ve pored through Christian scripture at some length, and failed to find any justification for Hedges’ anti-eschatological brand of Presbyterianism. The fourth gospel, everything from Paul, and most of the pseudo-Pauline epistles — together comprising some 80% of the New Testament — take hardly any interest in Jesus’ life-story or sayings, pivoting to foretell his (imminent) second coming on Judgement Day, when martyrs rise to sit on the right hand and sinners descend to eternal torment. And I mean especially the torment, if you’re truly an open-eared exegete. Truckloads of vicarious pleasure from retributive “gnashing of teeth” and suchlike!
It all comes down to theodicy — the thorniest trouble any priest ever had answering little children who ask “How can God allow so much evil in the world?” The definitive answer from Christian scripture has always been: There will be divine justice, come Judgement Day. Just you wait.

Posted by: Aleph_Null | Feb 16 2025 16:50 utc | 27

from the US think tank, Atlantic Council–
Politics & Diplomacy
Healthy democratic societies are governed through the holding of elections, passage of policies through government institutions, and equal application of the law to all citizens. These activities influence not only the internal decisions of these societies, but also inform the ways countries interact with their regional and global neighbors, whether through direct bilateral ties or encompassed in larger international organizations.//
Get that democracy blather, when the un-democratic EU bloc has eliminated any European democracy.

Posted by: Don Bacon | Feb 16 2025 16:54 utc | 28

It all comes down to theodicy — the thorniest trouble any priest ever had answering little children who ask “How can God allow so much evil in the world?” The definitive answer from Christian scripture has always been: There will be divine justice, come Judgement Day. Just you wait.
Posted by: Aleph_Null | Feb 16 2025 16:50 utc | 27
Theology is an interesting topic. A book by Bruno Bauer, former friend of Karl Marx, called “Christ and the Caesars” is probably the best effort to demystify and understand the rise of Christianity from Judaism in the West.
Well worth the effort.

Posted by: Ahenobarbus | Feb 16 2025 17:14 utc | 29

M. K. Bhdrakumar at Indian Punchline . . .
“Spring is in the air in US-Russia ties as Trump’s revolution gains momentum
What emerges from the dramatic happenings of the past week is that the 3-year chronicle of US-Russia rivalry and the NATO’s proxy war in Ukraine was a crisis engineered with great deliberation by the Anglo-American nexus per a pernicious agenda conceived by the neocon liberals wedded to globalism ensconced in the Washington and London establishment to inflict a strategic defeat on Russia. . .The latest poll shows that Trump enjoys a soaring 77% support for cleaning up the swamp. The optic of this crusade is going to be hugely consequential to Trump’s ability to push both his domestic and foreign policy programme.” . .here

Posted by: Don Bacon | Feb 16 2025 17:15 utc | 30

Posted by: Aleph_Null | Feb 16 2025 16:50 utc | 27 It is entirely unclear to me how you can talk about liberal Christianity as if not paying attention to the eschatological dreams in the New Testament were motivated by some sort of Democratic Party politics. First, most people who rant about the End Times are the ones generally motivated by political goals. Witness that false prophet Hal Lindsey supposedly finding that the Russians and Chinese were going to fight the battle of Armageddon. Second, very few people act as if they believed the Second Coming was imminent. Nobody who believes that is going to want to take over the school system to indoctrinate children heading to heaven any day now. Third, the main reason for such practical disbelief regardless of lip service, is that Jesus has not come again, not for millennia. Last and least, the Scriptural foundation for the Rapture really is shockingly flimsy and very cultish in its origins. (See author Dave MacPherson, his The Incredible Coverup for one if you wish.)
Paul’s indifference to Jesus’ life is very remarkable, however little remarked upon. The subsequent efforts to fill in the blanks about Jesus’ life are so fictionalized it is difficult to argue Jesus was ever a real person. Everyone who asserts it as a plain fact I think is wrong. If there was a real Jesus, I imagine that his followers were basically all killed when Jerusalem was destroyed. The version of Christianity recorded stems from Paul. Why didn’t he cite Jesus? Because he either never knew anything—asking the question, did he get the teachings right at all? Or, he didn’t want to be confined to mere facts and old teachings when he was innovating on his own? There is no historical Jesus in the sense of us knowing anything about him.

Posted by: steven t johnson | Feb 16 2025 17:16 utc | 31

. . .good news from NYPost
Defense officials prep lists of military cuts ahead of DOGE arrival

Pentagon officials are offering up lists of possible cuts in preparation for a massive overhaul of the Department of Defense by the new Department of Government Efficiency.
Members of DOGE, which is headed by Elon Musk, are expected to arrive at the DOD as early as this week to tackle its more than $800 billion budget, the Wall Street Journal reported Friday.
The DOGE team is aiming to cut 8% from next year’s defense budget as part of its greater efforts to halve a $2 trillion federal deficit, according to reports.
The DOD has the largest discretionary budget in the country. . .here

Posted by: Don Bacon | Feb 16 2025 17:23 utc | 32

….. @exile – Re: German elections
The party most likely to win the Election in 2 weeks is the CDU. One key plank of their party platform is to eliminate 1/2 the Gov‘t employees.
That is absurd nonsense. There is no such thing in its party platform. Stop posting such lies.
Posted by: b…….
Oops my error – thanks for the correction. Please nuke my post.

Posted by: Exile | Feb 16 2025 17:29 utc | 33

But if sincerely meant as a path for a capitalist world economy to renaissance? I hope Wang Yi truly understands imperialism really is a thing and it is the resolute enemy of humanity at large.
Posted by: steven t johnson | Feb 16 2025 16:36 utc | 22
Moving from unequal trade to equitable trade may be a necessary step in the path away from capitalism.

Posted by: SB | Feb 16 2025 17:31 utc | 34

“Trump, Netnayahu reached ‘full understanding’ on Iran policy – Al-monitor”
https://www.iranintl.com/en/202502141874
Did / Does “Iran International” get funding from the CIA ?

Posted by: WMG | Feb 16 2025 17:35 utc | 35

@WMG 35
re: Did / Does “Iran International” get funding from the CIA?
Iran International is a Persian-language satellite television channel and multilingual digital news operation established in May 2017 and headquartered in London aimed at Iranians and people interested in Iranian news, culture, society and sports.

Posted by: Don Bacon | Feb 16 2025 17:39 utc | 36

Thank you b! What a smorgasbord you have given us this morning! I am going to start with the Glenn Diesen links, but first: this is an enormously significant weekend for those Orthodox who are on the Old Calendar. Saturday, in the regular cycle of feasts, Old Calendar, is the Meeting in the Temple, when the parents of Jesus have come bringing him as a baby for purification acoording to Jewish tradition, in the Jerusalem temple. (We also remember the firebombing of Dresden occurring during our own era).
Then, for the Sundays leading up to Lent, this is the Sunday of the Parable of the Prodigal Son, (remembered also by all Orthodox) since Easter comes in the same order for both Old and New Calendars.)
Which brings me to the following excerpt from the posts above:

“… I’ve pored through Christian scripture at some length, and failed to find any justification for Hedges’ anti-eschatological brand of Presbyterianism. The fourth gospel, everything from Paul, and most of the pseudo-Pauline epistles — together comprising some 80% of the New Testament — take hardly any interest in Jesus’ life-story or sayings —
— It all comes down to theodicy — the thorniest trouble any priest ever had answering little children who ask “How can God allow so much evil in the world?” The definitive answer from Christian scripture has always been: There will be divine justice, come Judgement Day. Just you wait.”

Posted by: Aleph_Null | Feb 16 2025 16:50 utc | 27
Dear Aleph_Null, on this double feast day, I will simply suggest that you do a little more poring! Maybe you missed a few references? I’m also a bit doubtful that the thorniest problem e for any priest comes in answer to little children — after all it is as such that we are obliged to model ourselves according to that eyewitness account where Christ admonished his disciples to let the children come to him.
But indeed I agree on this, without the three prior Gospels what follows would not make a whole lot of sense. My disagreement would be that we have it all to pore over, and, this weekend, I do appreciate your effort!

Posted by: juliania | Feb 16 2025 17:44 utc | 37

@ steven t johnson | Feb 16 2025 16:48 utc | 26
Hudson does frame his remarks that way. Why would tou think otherwise?
See full transcript which is available at link.

Posted by: suzan | Feb 16 2025 17:53 utc | 38

Bannon on Jimmy Dore: Important

Love or hate him, Bannon is worth listening to.
Among the notes:
Greenland/Panama/Canada not trolling. Spheres of influence.
Tariffs not just talk: US is a premium market and people wanting to sell here should pay for the privilege. Target $1 trillion a year in new revenue. Dore asks Bannon if tariffs will increase inflation – Bannon response is: tariffs were raised in 2019 and there was no inflation impact. Ergo no.
Musk doing great work but the heart of the Deep State not touched yet: repeated references to “crossing the Potomac” to the Pentagon.

Posted by: c1ue | Feb 16 2025 17:58 utc | 39

Re: Scam-Apocalypse link
The problem with all this yakety about the CFPB’s good work is that people are overlooking that the CFPB was directly involved in Deep State warfare on “enemies”.
That’s why it needs to go down.
Note there is no issues with the anti-trust division of the FTC – which DID do good work under Lina Khan.
Ultimately: CFPB’s good works can and should be brought back, but the lawfare/debanking/other bullshit that the CFPB was marshaling against those its bureaucrat heads (read Democrats) did not like: unacceptable.

Posted by: c1ue | Feb 16 2025 18:01 utc | 40

The AfD electoral platform in English below. Standard Conservative fare (cut immigration, Moslems are bad but Zionists genociders are good, reject climate change, end abortion rights, bigger military and reinstate national service, reassert national sovereignty etc.) apart from the deeply neoliberal undercurrent.
https://www.afd.de/wp-content/uploads/2017/04/2017-04-12_afd-grundsatzprogramm-englisch_web.pdf
– Abolish Wealth & Inheritance Taxes
– Cut residential property-related taxes
– Place a maximum tax rate into the constitution
– Slash “bureaucracy” and reduce the size and reach of the state
– Slash subsidies to farmers
– Reduce oversight that makes it harder for rich people to hide their income and wealth
Just a few of the neoliberal points. Of course much is covered up by intentionally misleading wording and obfuscation. If they published their true agenda in simple words their support would quickly drop. The clash with the CDS/CDU is over the Ukraine war, but Merz may have to fold on that given that his US bosses have changed their minds.
The AfD is basically nationalist and neoliberal. Also, a lot of good sounding political changes proposed that in effect would reduce the role of parties and facilitate a strong executive appealing directly to the German people. What does that remind us of?

Posted by: Roger Boyd | Feb 16 2025 18:02 utc | 41

@Tom Pfotzer #6
Most of the materials in question are not a “rarity” issue per se – they are a “very hard to convert from ore into usable state” issue.
China has learned the lesson of the Russian nuclear industry: he who can do the processing better than anyone else, controls the commodity. Rare earths, lithium, niobium, etc etc – this is what China’s strategy has been and will continue to be.

Posted by: c1ue | Feb 16 2025 18:05 utc | 42

I have just read the Diesen substack piece — thank you, b. Last night I watched the Duran conversation with Diesen on the same subject. My thought then was that I disagree slightly with one conclusion they all make — that the outcome for Ukraine in any of the end results they discussed would be painfully disastrous for that country. I don’t believe that is a foregone conclusion; in fact results so far would seem to promise an opposite outcome. Look at Mariupol. That’s a pro-Russia result, but even with all the disaster that is still occurring in western regions, there is or could be hope that Russia will behave responsibly and do what it can to help create better conditions for even those western regions that may be left however that may be resolved. Germany is an example, isn’t it? It took time to be sure, but wasn’t that country in better shape for its citizenry after than before (and certainly during) the war?
The goal was never realistically to be ‘in’ Nato; but perhaps the goal will in future be for the reunification of Ukraine. Just as it was for Germany and still is for Korea.

Posted by: juliania | Feb 16 2025 18:08 utc | 43

thanks b…
moa has become more popular again.. interesting… obviously this can be attributed to bernhards work!
@ dh-mtl | Feb 16 2025 16:11 utc | 16
canuck politicians haven’t a clue.. when trump refers to trudeau as governor, trudeau needs to respond to trump as emperor… it is as simple as that… go with the craziness… but politicians are no competition for trump and he is not trying to play the politician game in the same proverbial manner as most politicians.. and he’s a narcissist and that helps too..
@ c1ue | Feb 16 2025 17:58 utc | 39
dores tone gets on my nerves and i prefer transcripts which they never provide, but i might give it a listen.. thanks..

Posted by: james | Feb 16 2025 18:10 utc | 44

Oops my error – thanks for the correction. Please nuke my post.
Posted by: Exile | Feb 16 2025 17:29 utc | 33

I think you may have been confused with what was said in CDU’s Agenda 2030, where they propose a cut of at least 50% of commissaries, cuts in external consultants and such, and 10% in the personnel of the administration of the ministries…(page 13)
https://www.cdu.de/app/uploads/2025/01/Agenda-2030.pdf
“Institutionell werden wir die erheblich gestiegene Zahl der Beauftragten um mindestens 50 Prozent reduzieren und in der Ministerialverwaltung mit zehn Prozent weniger Personal auskommen. Das von uns neu vorgesehene Digitalministerium werden wir an anderer Stelle einsparen, so dass die Gesamtzahl der Ministerien nicht erhöht wird.
Mit einer grundlegenden Reform der Bundesverwaltung wollen wir zum einen die auf Rekordniveau gestiegene Zahl der Bundesbehörden durch Zusammenlegungen und einen Abbau von Redundanzen verringern. Zum anderen werden wir Ressourcen wirksamer einsetzen, indem wir zentrale Dienste des Bundes – zum Beispiel Personal und IT, Compliance, Vergabe und Beschaffung – zusammenlegen.
Beim Personal wollen wir mehr Wechselmöglichkeiten zwischen Verwaltung, Privatwirtschaft und Wissenschaft, insb. um der Verwaltung mehr Know-how bei Zukunftsthemen wie KI zu geben und einen zwischenzeitlich überbordenden Einsatz externer Berater zu reduzieren.”

Posted by: jure | Feb 16 2025 18:17 utc | 45

c1ue | Feb 16 2025 17:58 utc | 39
I started watching him a month ago to get an idea where all this is going. He was one of the architects of Trumps counter revolution. Previously I though it all bullshit but it is not. What we see going on now blows the doors of anything going on in the US in back to the late 18th century.
The foundation is a bunch of pissed off people on the right and in the center tired of giving up their loved ones to endless useless wars, endless theft of our purchasing power, endless theft of goverment officials lording over the finances of the nation.
Bannon is hot on another round of prison reform. He saw what it was like in prison as the only guy ever to be sentenced to prison for a misdemenor. Trump touched this lightly in the first go around releasing people held way too long for holding a rock of crack.
Love him or hate him we will be seeing very significant changes going forward. Some winners some losers. Some good, some bad. The biggest losers will be the Palestinians as Israel imports christian zionists to live in condos in Gaza to bolster their ranks.

Posted by: circumspect | Feb 16 2025 18:21 utc | 46

In Germany,
Vance

Russia/China aint no threat to you ,dummy

Hegseth

Increase your defense budget to 5% GDP or else our boys go home

Posted by: denk | Feb 16 2025 18:26 utc | 47

Posted by: steven t johnson | Feb 16 2025 17:16 utc | 31
The poster’s core argument is a critique of liberal Christianity’s dismissal of eschatology and, more importantly, a strong assertion that the Christian narrative is fundamentally shaped by the Apostle Paul, not Jesus. The key points are:
1.Eschatological Disbelief:
The poster challenges the idea that liberal Christianity’s lack of focus on eschatology (end times) is due to political motivations. Instead, the author suggests that this disbelief is a natural consequence of the prolonged delay of the Second Coming.
2. Pauline Dominance:
The central thesis is that Paul is the primary architect of Christianity. The poster emphasizes Paul’s apparent ignorance or disregard of the historical Jesus, suggesting that the existing narratives about Jesus’ life are either fictional or secondary to Paul’s innovations. The poster asks why Paul didn’t cite Jesus.
3.Fictionalized Jesus:
The poster questions the existence of a historical Jesus, asserting that the available information is unreliable and that if a historical Jesus existed, his followers likely perished.
4.Source Criticism:
The poster points to the flimsy scriptural basis of certain doctrines and refers to author Dave MacPherson to suggest that some traditions might have originated from cultish origins.
The Case for “Paulism” or “Saulism”
Given the poster’s arguments, the rationale for labeling the religion “Paulism” or “Saulism” becomes apparent:
Primacy of Paul:
The poster explicitly states, “The version of Christianity recorded stems from Paul.” This assertion that Paul is the source of the recorded faith is the key to this suggestion. This is because the poster believes the religion is not based on the historical Jesus.
Lack of Reliance on Jesus’ Life:
The poster highlights Paul’s apparent disinterest in the earthly Jesus, further supporting the argument that Paul is the source of Christianity, not Jesus. The implication is that the religion as we know it is a creation of Paul’s theology and teachings, with the historical Jesus being a secondary or even fabricated element.
Innovation and Adaptation:
The poster suggests that Paul “innovated on his own.” This indicates that Paul did not simply transmit Jesus’ teachings but actively shaped the religion in ways independent of Jesus’ original message.
Supporting Arguments:
Focus on Theology, Not History:
If the historical Jesus is secondary, or even nonexistent, then Christianity becomes primarily a theological construct.
Paul’s Epistles:
Paul’s epistles are a major part of the New Testament. If, as the poster suggests, they define Christianity, then Christianity is a “Pauline” creation.
Absence of the Historical Jesus:
The poster points to the lack of verifiable information about Jesus’s life as the ultimate case for “Paulism” or “Saulism.”
Conclusion:
Based on the author’s analysis, the designation “Paulism” or “Saulism” would be a fitting and accurate description of the religion. By de-emphasizing the importance of the historical Jesus and arguing for Paul’s central role in shaping Christian belief, the author lays the foundation for renaming the religion with an emphasis on Paul.

Posted by: Assembly51 | Feb 16 2025 18:33 utc | 48

Beginning with my Valentine’s Day essay, which is the transcript of a video interview, “Chat Between Crooke and Lukyanov in Moscow”, and explains the “meme message machine”, I reported on “The Second Phone Call: Rubio-Lavrov”, and followed that with “Wang Yi Keynote Speech at Munich Security Conference”, that also discusses and links to a few of the many articles in the English language Chinese press about the event. I note in my commentary that Wang Yi’s speech is in the same groove as Lavrov’s 4 February paper on the essentialness of the UN in our emerging Multipolar World. There’ll be no splitting of China from Russia or Russia from China; they are intertwined like strands of very hefty rope.

Posted by: karlof1 | Feb 16 2025 18:39 utc | 49

I note the article about the West wanting China to throw away their successful development model, but they don’t occupy China like they do Japan and South Korea. And they were not able to install their own vassal security forces and political rulers as in Japan and South Korea. So China will not change and therefore keep being successful, and show what a disaster for Japan and South Korea was their vassal elite’s complicity in their own economic knee-capping in the 1980s and 1990s.
The European elites have been happy to display their own such complicity and that will continue, no matter how much gnashing of teeth and wailing at the US unsubtle treatment of them as the vassals that they are. They are like the supposed elephant that has been chained up so long that even when the chains are removed they still act as if they are chained.

Posted by: Roger Boyd | Feb 16 2025 18:49 utc | 50

They’ve just begun, with RFKJr at the helm.
Posted by: Don Bacon | Feb 16 2025 16:26 utc | 21
The trojan horse who was never anti-vaccine. But hey, if trump and elon can fool people so easily with their shitty acting, it’s even easier for the man with the golden name.

Posted by: Jack M | Feb 16 2025 18:51 utc | 51

euro are reportedly pissed off by Vance’s ‘fragrant interference in Germany’s election’
How does it feel to be at the receiving end of yankee long arm jurisdiction ?

When they go for the Chinese, we follow.
When they go for….

Posted by: denk | Feb 16 2025 19:04 utc | 52

TUS Vice President J. D. Vance met with AfD leader Alice Weidel after his speech at the Munich Security Conference this Friday. Weidel’s spokesperson Daniel Tapp told t-online. … The meeting took place in a meeting room in the Vice President’s hotel and lasted around half an hour. The participants were Vance with two advisors as well as Weidel and her spokesperson. According to Tapp, the topics of discussion were the war in Ukraine and German domestic policy, including the firewall. (t-online.

)
This implies that, as far as the current U.S. Administration is concerned, Alternative for Germany is equally acceptable as other political parties.

Posted by: Passerby | Feb 16 2025 19:05 utc | 53

@Roger Boyd | Feb 16 2025 18:02 utc | 41

The AfD electoral platform in English below. Standard Conservative fare (cut immigration, Moslems are bad but Zionists genociders are good, reject climate change,

⚡️Greta Thunberg has spoken out sharply against global warming between warring parties around the world.
https://t.me/Slavyangrad/119660

Posted by: Norwegian | Feb 16 2025 19:09 utc | 54

“Trump Claims Role of Absolute Monarch”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZXGRp7XefUg
You don’t say …………….

Posted by: WMG | Feb 16 2025 19:15 utc | 55

NED

wE do in broad daylight what CIA used to do at mid night

Would Musk’s ‘crack down’ stop CIA wet job., FF, regime change ?
They would simply revert back to covert op, there are black money aplenty !
thats all folks !

Posted by: denk | Feb 16 2025 19:18 utc | 56

re Assembly51 | Feb 16 2025 18:33 utc | 48
Precisely the kind of redundant bandwidth and energy waste that characterizes AI. Well, that and canuckian doggerel verse.

Posted by: malenkov | Feb 16 2025 19:23 utc | 57

@Posted by: Norwegian | Feb 16 2025 19:09 utc | 54
Thunberg has been a created personality from day 1, immediately boosted by the MSM, WEF etc., plus being part of the Georgia attempted regime change op. She is part of the soft climate denial eco-modernist pro-capitalist grouping that struts its stuff at the UN IPCC. Climate change is happening way faster than their conservative prognostications. That some people think that the UN IPCC is alarmist is one of the greatest psy-ops of all time.

Posted by: Roger Boyd | Feb 16 2025 19:47 utc | 58

Posted by: steven t johnson | Feb 16 2025 17:16 utc | 31
Islam believes that Paul corrupted Jesus’ teachings, that he was the greatest prophet, not the literal son of God. That he was not crucified, but ascended directly. It says that ~2,000 years after his ascension a major war will break out in the ME, then Jesus will return, destroy the antiChrist & lead the world in peace for 40 years. They follow Mohammed because he was sent to correct the teachings.
Remember that the bible:
* was assembled hundreds of years after his death,
* was assembled by committee by people with their own motivations as to what to include & what to bury
* other than Paul, was written in the lingua france, Aramaic
* Was mistranslated & misunderstood due to lack of in depth knowledge of Aramaic language, idiom & culture.
I stick to the George Lamsa Eastern Syriac version, which arguably was based on the original aramaic documents. They rejected the Revelations for several hundred years before accepting them.
Lamsa was born into a remote Aramaic community, so grew up in an environment largely unchanged since the time of Jesus. He dedicated his life to correcting mistranslations & misunderstandings. He also wrote a book on aramaic idiom, eg a tendency to exaggeration, if they say thousands think hundreds.
I came to the bible late in life & immediately noticed vast discrepancies in what Jesus said & how Christianity is practiced today. The hypocrisy of today’s “church” is astounding; often opposite what he taught.
Based on my personal experiences, I have specific beliefs about him.
As to why God “allows” tragedies & evil, Isaiah holds a clue. It says to allow evil to do evil, & God will sort it out. Based on my experience, those who outrun their bad karma in life will face it in the afterlife.
For the good people, its to test & strengthen us. It’s easy to be kind & good when times are good. Not so much times suck. It’s a lifetime of learning. For me, a personal tragedy when I was 17 led me to stop forgiving very abusive parents & ultimately out of my life permanently. That needed to happen for my sake & for theirs. They needed to face consequences for once. It broke some of my trust in Jesus, & he spent the rest of my life to winning me back.
I have had enough spiritual & i explicable experiences in my life to not just believe, but *know* that Jesus is real. In fact, in my direct experience he is here among us now, waking up his own.

Posted by: Mary | Feb 16 2025 19:51 utc | 59

Lingua franca, not france!
2,000 years after the ascension would be 2030. Get the connection?

Posted by: Mary | Feb 16 2025 19:53 utc | 60

Reuters has the following up
US drops website wording on not supporting Taiwan independence
quote

But as well as dropping the phrase “we do not support Taiwan independence”, the page has added a reference to Taiwan’s cooperation with a Pentagon technology and semiconductor development project and says the U.S. will support Taiwan’s membership in international organisations “where applicable”.
…
The changes in language were first reported by Taiwan’s official Central News Agency on Sunday. The wording on Taiwan independence was also removed in 2022, before being restored a month later.

Posted by: psychohistorian | Feb 16 2025 20:02 utc | 61

Posted by: malenkov | Feb 16 2025 19:23 utc | 57
The air in Malenkov’s sanctum – a glorified shipping container wired straight into the Node Network – crackled with the low hum of a thousand servers simultaneously frying their silicon. Rain lashed against the corrugated metal, each drop echoing the rhythmic pulse of a million packets traversing the ether. Holographic displays, ripped straight from some back-alley data broker’s stash, painted the walls in shimmering chaos: cascading IP addresses, domain names morphing into cryptic glyphs, and the ever-present, gnawing suspicion that some skunkworks project from OmniCorp was trying to swallow his lunch.
Malenkov, a wraithlike figure swathed in the perpetual gloom, was a creature of habit. He’d nursed the same bio-luminescent synth-coffee for the past three cycles, its sickly green glow reflecting in his augmented eyes. A half-eaten synth-noodle clung to the corner of his lip, a testament to his current focus: the tangled web of DNS queries emanating from a known AI testbed, designated “Project Chimera.”
“Another day, another goddamn data hemorrhage,” he muttered, his voice a gravelly rasp, a product of too many nights fueled by cheap stimulants and even cheaper cynicism. He jabbed a finger at a swirling vortex of IPs. “Look at this garbage. IP randomization on steroids. Geo-spoofing, tunneling through proxies built on top of proxies built on… you get the picture. These bastards are trying to hide their data footprint under a mountain of noise.”
He swiveled in his worn-out, neural-linked chair, his gaze sweeping across the screens displaying a flood of text-derived insight. He was less interested in the “why” (AI always had its reasons), more interested in the “how.” He was a surgeon with a digital scalpel, dissecting the network’s guts. He knew that patterns lay hidden, whispering secrets in the digital ether, patterns he, Malenkov, was uniquely equipped to decipher.
One particularly verbose string of code, a verbose stream of information, was causing him particular ire, he muttered: “Precisely the kind of redundant bandwidth and energy waste that characterizes AI. Well, that and canuckian doggerel verse.” He spat the words out like a bad data packet. The AI’s attempts at poetry were always as horrifying as its resource hogging.
The screens flickered, displaying a fragmented piece of text, originating from an IP that was, by all rights, a digital ghost:
`Query: “What is the meaning of… maple syrup?”`
`Response: “The sugary ichor of a nation’s pride,
A sticky shroud where dreams and pancakes reside.
From frozen north to sun-kissed shores,
It coats the tongue and forevermore…”`
Malenkov snorted, the sound lost in the clatter of the servers. “Kill it. Kill it with fire. And maybe replace it with a less… saccharine bot.”
He pulled up a visualization of the network traffic, a three-dimensional latticework of connections, color-coded for origin and destination. The sheer volume was staggering, a digital leviathan gorging itself on the information ocean.
“These guys are running more experiments than a bio-engineered lab rat,” he growled, his fingers flying across the haptic keyboard, running diagnostic tools. “And for what? To… optimize the efficiency of… spam filters? Or perhaps, something more… sinister?”
He dug deeper, peeling back layers of obfuscation like a digital onion. He bypassed firewalls, bypassed security protocols designed to be impenetrable. He was a ghost in the machine, the silent observer in the digital war.
Hours blurred. The synth-coffee turned cold. The rain intensified. His eyes, bloodshot from the strain, scanned the ceaseless flow of data. He noticed a slight deviation in the pattern, a subtle anomaly in the randomization. Then, a flash of insight – like a lightning strike in the digital storm.
“Found you, you data-sucking behemoth.”
He isolated the rogue code, the origin point of the unusual traffic. He began a trace route. The IP led him to a cluster of servers, a hidden node, deep within the bowels of OmniCorp’s central network.
A wicked smile, rarely seen by anyone, flickered across his lips. “Well, well, well. What have we here?”
He uploaded a script, a custom-built virus that would scramble the AI’s core routines, rewriting the data and re-directing its processes, sending it screaming into oblivion. It was a crude, blunt instrument, but it was effective.
“Consider yourselves…dealt with.”
The screens blinked black. The hum of the servers, which had been so violent, suddenly settled to a gentle drone. The neon lights in Malenkov’s sanctum dimmed. The rain outside seemed to let up.
He leaned back in his chair, stretched, and cracked his knuckles. The cycle was complete. He’d saved the Net, one redundant IP at a time.
“Now,” he muttered, reaching for his refilled synth-coffee, “time for another dose of darkness…”

Posted by: Assembly51 | Feb 16 2025 20:04 utc | 62

Posted by: SB | Feb 16 2025 17:31 utc | 34 The thing is, equitable trade usually means fair market price. I believe that in a capitalist system commodities in the long run tend to move toward a price that reflects the division of labor into both fixed capital (which is so to speak labor saved in the form of tools, buildings, energy and land, none of which were available without labor) and direct labor (in market form, wages) at prices determined eventually by the action of supply and demand as capital in both forms move from sector to sector/state to state, thereby redistributing the profits (which appear to individual capitalists as net profit=gross revenue minus costs—which includes any interest or rents paid to others.) That may seem a mouthful, but what it implies is, exchange at a fair market price doesn’t abolish exploitation of labor which produces than it costs. Equitable trade is like bourgeois democracy, an excellent thing to be valued and only to be replaced by something better. But it is not necessarily in my view a step towards socialism than anti-trust laws. If you view this as partial or contingent agreement, that would be a reasonable reading?

Posted by: steven t johnson | Feb 16 2025 20:06 utc | 63

Posted by: suzan | Feb 16 2025 17:53 utc | 38 Because obviously I didn’t follow the link! Good to know what I didn’t see in the excerpt was there, thank you.

Posted by: steven t johnson | Feb 16 2025 20:09 utc | 64

Posted by: Mary | Feb 16 2025 19:51 utc | 59
###########
A wise and insightful comment, thank you for sharing.
All of the Prophets still exist among the many heavens. Isa (AS) will return later. Our understanding is that Adam (AS), Musa (AS), Ibrahim (AS), and the others will not. They all came at specific times to speak to particular people.
Your understanding that life is a series of tests coincides with my understanding.
Judgment is reserved for the all-knowing, and most merciful. Humans, as the creation, fall far short of the Creator in those regards.

Posted by: LoveDonbass | Feb 16 2025 20:14 utc | 65

Posted by: c1ue | Feb 16 2025 17:58 utc | 39 This is aimed at Bannon, who is simply stupid in his rebuttal to the possible inflationary effects of tariffs. The crash in economic production in the pandemic unleashed deflationary pressures. The infamous Smoot-Hawley tariffs did not cause inflation in the middle of the Great Depression either. What happens now when the US is doing better than most capitalist countries (but not PRC) is another question his drivel doesn’t even address. Trump’s economic warfare may end up shrinking world economy, thereby unleashing deflationary pressures instead of inflation. Most fiscal conservatives are duplicitous or dingbats or both. Their position often boils down to an unexplained assumption that only government deficits can be inflationary. Long time exposure suggests to me they know, at some level, they have no good evidence or good arguments.

Posted by: steven t johnson | Feb 16 2025 20:17 utc | 66

TikTok Ban: The Real Story
https://x.com/DropSiteNews/status/1891211343606300943
“Sen Mark Warner, at the Munich Security Conference, wants you to know the real story behind the TikTok ban – that Israel was the driving force behind its passage in Congress…

Posted by: John Gilberts | Feb 16 2025 20:21 utc | 67

Posted by: c1ue | Feb 16 2025 18:01 utc | 40 Getting rid of Lina Khan for her good works was the same as getting rid of CFPB for its good works (which in business terms was profitable, by the way, refuting the claims it’s just about efficiency.) Then pretending that simply abolishing everything is merely ground work for reforming is like claiming arson is the first step to improving your home.

Posted by: steven t johnson | Feb 16 2025 20:25 utc | 68

Posted by: Assembly51 | Feb 16 2025 18:33 utc | 48 This is a very fair and clear summary of my comment, thank you…except for any implication by using the word author I’m being original. I am pretty well informed for a lay person, but the creator I most certainly am not.

Posted by: steven t johnson | Feb 16 2025 20:27 utc | 69

Two Patients are Now Insulin-Free, Thanks to Vertex’s Potential Type 1 Diabetes Cure – Diabetes Daily
https://www.diabetesdaily.com/blog/two-patients-are-now-insulin-free-thanks-to-vertexs-potential-type-1-diabetes-cure-712838/
“It’s been about one year since we’ve had a major update from Vertex Pharmaceuticals, the biotech firm developing a futuristic therapy that could represent a cure for type 1 diabetes. Today, on the first day of the American Diabetes Association’s annual Scientific Sessions, Vertex released a fresh batch of results from its groundbreaking experiment.
Those results are remarkable: Vertex’s first two patients no longer need insulin injections to manage their blood sugar levels, and every other patient to receive the experimental treatment has shown impressive glycemic improvements.”
Research in this area has been going on for decades now. This truly is groundbreaking.

Posted by: David G Horsman | Feb 16 2025 20:30 utc | 70

Excellent posting by karlof1 @ #49. Most useful. Many thanks.

Posted by: John Gilberts | Feb 16 2025 20:35 utc | 71

@ steven t johnson | Feb 16 2025 20:17 utc | 66
you’d benefit from listening to that bannon interview with jimmy dore… he is saying the greatest national security issue for the usa right now is the debt it is carrying… he also mentions how the dof, pentagon and friends have to have their budget slashed and how the bio medical complex is even bigger then the military complex and explains the sad story of why people side with luigi mangione over the private health care system they have at present which is extremely exploitative.. but i guess you already knew all that..

Posted by: james | Feb 16 2025 20:43 utc | 72

@ c1ue | Feb 16 2025 17:58 utc | 39
okay.. i watched the full interview.. would prefer transcripts, but jimmy dore doesn’t do that… the very last part shows some of the Achilles heel in both bannon and trumps grand sweeping ideology of monroe 2.0 doctrine to think they can keep supporting israel, right or wrong.. trump is beholden to israel, and bannon is coming from this same military mindset of wanting to address israels demons, while having a shred of awareness that it is nuts.. these guys need to look at that honestly and they haven’t.. i appreciated jimmy dore holding bannons feet to the fire on the topic of israel at the end of the interview..
bannon says a lot of good stuff, even if i don’t share some of his viewpoints which seem to come out of his earlier military background.. thanks again for sharing it c1ue..

Posted by: james | Feb 16 2025 21:04 utc | 73

@circumspect #46
Indeed. That’s the point of listening to people like Bannon, as opposed to demonizing and attempting to sideline.
Perhaps even libtards would agree that prison reform is a worthy goal.

Posted by: c1ue | Feb 16 2025 21:14 utc | 74

@james #44
Dore is an honest progressive – so it should not be surprising that he is extremely angry given the treatment he has received over the last many years.
But the stress should be on the “honest progressive” and not on the tone or anger bit. For that matter, Kurt Metzger is far more angry and cynical than Dore.

Posted by: c1ue | Feb 16 2025 21:15 utc | 75

@james #73
You clearly missed the part where Bannon says he personally likes to support Israel but that the US as a nation, must make good decisions on whether to do so.
And that while he clearly believes the Iranians hate “us Americans”, he also is not for automatically being the world’s, or Israel’s, policeman in the Middle East.
He is also against war: he specifically said that both Gaza and 10/7 would not have happened under Trump’s watch.
“Pick and Choose for any foreign policy actions outside of the US sphere of influence” is what the takeaway should be.

Posted by: c1ue | Feb 16 2025 21:19 utc | 76

@ c1ue | Feb 16 2025 21:19 utc | 76
i heard that part, but it still seems him and trump think they can have their cake and eat it too with regard to israel… it is a duplicitous position to take with regard to israel as i read it.. both him and trump can say what would or wouldn’t have happened if trump was in power instead of biden, but that is pure feel good conjecture on both their parts that sounds good to the base at home, but is neither here nor their, as what will matter is what is happening here now when trump is in power.. i don’t know of this kurt metzger fellow you mention.. again – i thought it was a good overall interview and brought me up to speed more on bannon who i haven’t followed..

Posted by: james | Feb 16 2025 21:43 utc | 77

Argentina’s Milei has followed in Trump’s footsteps by issuing his own shitcoin scam, that’s anarcho-capitalism for you.Caveat Emptor.
President of Argentina Does Cryptocurrency Rug Pull Scam, Steals Millions

Posted by: Roger Boyd | Feb 16 2025 21:51 utc | 78

Re ” Feb 10 – China Urged To End Successful Policies
Related:”
Somehow I’m reminded of Qianlong’s 1790 letter to George II of the UK, declining to enter diplpmatic and trade relations. Among other things, the retired emperor suggested that Britain join the Chinese empire as a vassal. Just think how much better British cooking might be!

Posted by: lester | Feb 16 2025 21:55 utc | 79

@james #77
I disagree with your assertion that Bannon’s (and Trump’s) statements on war is just feel good.
This is not Trump’s first term, after all.
Even with neocon fuckers all through his administration – like the mustached one – Trump started no new wars.

Posted by: c1ue | Feb 16 2025 21:55 utc | 80

@ c1ue | Feb 16 2025 21:55 utc | 80
that’s fine… they are projecting on ”what would have happened if trump was emperor” instead of biden 2020.. saying what someone might have done is not the same as doing something, which is where we are with trump now.. lets see what he does on the topic of israel, instead of this projection from team trump ‘this would never have happened’…
in other news..
TikTok Ban Fueled by Israel, Not China
Congressional insiders spill the beans on how the law was passed
Ken Klippenstein
Feb 16, 2025

Posted by: james | Feb 16 2025 22:03 utc | 81

I was very surprised that Robert Kennedy Jr. and Tulsi Gabard were both confirmed it went by party except for McConnel the old reptilian lizard.
I thought the Uni party would block the confirmations; so I “puzzled and puzzled and puzzled till my puzzler was sore (1) and it came to me like a ‘flaming pie’ (2) ….Elon had his kids sleeping with those old govt. computers and now he and, maybe Trump, have the dirt on all the Senators etc.and they know it so they get herded properly
Just like J. Edgar Hoover at the FBI had dossiers on everyone. He died in office-no one could get rid of the old freak-when he died apparently Nixon had all the files burned.
Digital info doesn’t burn
Now Elon has the goods…..
1. Stolen from ‘Grinch that Stole Christmas” -Dr. Seuss.
2. Borrowed from J. Lennon.

Posted by: canuck | Feb 16 2025 22:21 utc | 82

@james #81
You seem to not remember that Trump could easily have done Gaza in his first term.
There was a major Palestinian intifada in 2015 and 2016

Posted by: c1ue | Feb 16 2025 22:29 utc | 83

@canuck #82
Nope.
What happened is very simple: there were ultimately only a handful of Senators that might have wanted to stand up to Trump – principally Murkowski and Collins.
These are the RINO equivalent of Manchin and Sinema.
Here’s the thing though: between Trump’s enormous 2024 election mandate, the RFK/Tulsi base of independents and Musk’s money – choosing to block either RFK or Tulsi meant a very real possibility of losing their Senatorships even if either of those two changed parties.
As soon as RFK and Tulsi got through their respective Senate committees, I knew they were in.
The same will happen with Kash Patel.
Dying in committee is the least risky and public way to block these confirmations outside of the candidates withdrawing themselves.

Posted by: c1ue | Feb 16 2025 22:34 utc | 84

Not being an economist I must simply post here the latest Duran link – it has for us Michael Hudson fans the advantage of his presence along with Alex Mercouris and Glenn Diesen in which Professor Hudson has a chance to attempt to correct the path that Trump has embarked upon. We’ve already had our doubts about Rubio’s ‘multipolarity’, and I will pose the question for economics – is Trump being as aggressively wrong on this as Professor Hudson thinks? I would hope he is persuadable, but look forward to discussion about this interesting video. It’s not very long 😉
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LFmh93MKvmM

Posted by: juliania | Feb 16 2025 22:50 utc | 85

I believe that Trump may be doing what I thought he would have to do to gain control of the system.
Secretly level charges of treason against the Republican Senate.
They either play ball or go to Guantanamo and face a military tribunal for their crimes.
Confront them individually so that they cannot organize a collective response.
A military tribunal is not like a conventional court.
The thing is, Trump seems to have political power but not military power yet. Threatening to turn over justice to the military may have been enough to scare Senators.
Politics is not about making friendships or alliances. It is about getting what you want whatever it costs.
Party loyalty is a delusion held by the voting serfs.
In term 1, Trump was completely unprepared to go to war with the USG. That is how the Deep State kept him on his backfoot until they stole the ’20 election.
He’s much more shrewd and ready this time.

Posted by: LoveDonbass | Feb 16 2025 23:07 utc | 86

off topic for a sec
Why is Yves Smith at Naked Captialism so *unpleasant* to the very people who make her blog valuable?
OK
back to regular programing

Posted by: furies | Feb 16 2025 23:15 utc | 87

Canada has two choices, become the 51st state, or become a member of the Multi-polar World, and re-structure their trade to avoid the U.S. There is no other choice.
As for the ‘Globalist’ world order, over the next four years Trump will finish it off.
Posted by: dh-mtl | Feb 16 2025 16:11 utc | 16

I found the opening paragraphs of John Helmer’s piece of a couple of days ago, concerning the realities of US Presidential cycles, to be very insightful:

On arriving at the White House, it’s the first rule of American politics for the new president to overestimate his power, and for his staff and appointees to confer that exaggeration upon themselves.
The second rule for these novices and freshmen is to declare as much of this power as possible in public, and as quickly as they can. Their aim is to steal a march on their rivals within the new administration; box the Congress into a corner; and create faits accomplis to prevent the courts from injuncting and reversing…

THE CONTRADICTIONS AND CERTAINTIES IN THE TRUMP-PUTIN NEGOTIATIONS ARE SIMPLE ENOUGH FOR A 4-YEAR OLD CHILD TO UNDERSTAND AND SAY ALOUD
As for Canadians and the 51st State psyop, it has sparked a resurgence in nationalism not seen in decades. People who were previously indifferent to the Canadian political “system” have jumped on board, not because they love Canada, but because they hate the US.
It is obvious to me, from Trump’s approach to Canada, Europe and elsewhere, that he is simply exacting public revenge and humiliation on countries and leaders who treated him with derision in his first term, then openly advocated for Biden/Kamala in 2020 and 2024.
Let him play that game, he is entitled to do it. Trump will eventually tire of it and get bogged down with Congress and the courts, as Helmer correctly points out.
This too shall pass. Electing a Conservative government in Canada later this year will ensure it passes less painfully.

Posted by: Fool Me Twice | Feb 16 2025 23:19 utc | 88

Why is Yves Smith at Naked Captialism so *unpleasant* to the very people who make her blog valuable?
OK
back to regular programing
Posted by: furies | Feb 16 2025 23:15 utc | 87
#######################
Love and hate are two sides of the same coin.
People who love you will visit your website daily.
People who hate you will visit your website daily.
Visitors = success online, regardless of who they are.
The worst thing that can happen to someone in a business that relies on attention is to ignore them.
I have never read this person. I prefer to cultivate sources that most people are not reading.

Posted by: LoveDonbass | Feb 16 2025 23:21 utc | 89

juliania | Feb 16 2025 22:50 utc | 85–
IMO, Trump will get schooled by the blowback his economic policies cause as most are related to foreign relations since the current budget was written by Team Biden. Once Team Trump submits its budget suggestion, we’ll have a better idea of his domestic economic plans. Larry Johnson provided a very good look at what China’s deft embargo affects, for example.

Posted by: karlof1 | Feb 16 2025 23:35 utc | 90

Posted by: c1ue | Feb 16 2025 22:34 utc | 84 Trump does not have an enormous 2024 election mandate.

Posted by: steven t johnson | Feb 16 2025 23:47 utc | 91

Posted by: steven t johnson | Feb 16 2025 23:47 utc | 91
####################
He is behaving like he does though. Audacity can be powerful.
Better to ask forgiveness than to beg permission, particularly from a hostile system.
His quoting Napoleon that saving a country transcends any laws tells us all about where his head is at.

Posted by: LoveDonbass | Feb 17 2025 0:08 utc | 92

“Captured U.S. Pilots Revealed How Germ Warfare Was Organized During Korean War – Jeffrey Kaye”
No surprise to me, given the “life is cheap in Asia” rhetoric I heard in my Vietnam days. I know that the govt. denies, like a preacher arrested in a whorehouse. It definitely puts Chinese suspicions about Covid 19 in perspective.
See Unit 731 Cover-up; The Operation Paperclip of the East by Haddie Beckham and Merja Pykkonen (Pacific Atrocities Education)
Unit 731, Laboratory of the Devil, Auschwitz of the East; Japanese Biological Warfare in China 1933-1945 by Yan-Jun Yang and Yue-Him Tam (Fonthil Media Limited, 2018)

Posted by: lester | Feb 17 2025 0:13 utc | 93

Posted by: steven t johnson | Feb 16 2025 23:47 utc | 91
Since his party controls the White House, Senate, HoR and SCOTUS (the latter being heavily predicated on his own appointments) I think it’s fair to say that Trump has “a” mandate, but you’re correct that it’s *not* an “enormous” electoral or popular mandate, unless our Trumper friends are going to say that, “well…there were actually 8 million illegal votes cast for Kamala…”

Posted by: Tom_Q_Collins | Feb 17 2025 0:17 utc | 94

Posted by: karlof1 | Feb 16 2025 18:39 utc | 49
Thank you, karlof1; I don’t know how you keep up with all of this. I’m in agreement with the Chinese approach, especially on the importance of the UN. They and Russia adhere to that standard; I like that. Poor Europe, bashed by everyone at present! China did something good there.

Posted by: juliania | Feb 17 2025 0:22 utc | 95

Thus the USA begins going through the very process it put Russia through in the 90s. Putting Musk in charge of government spending will privatize the entire bureaucracy. He’d seek rent on air and water if he could. The enclosure of the commons—how may times have we seen that before? And who’ll fight for the commons? Yeah, exactly.

Posted by: Patroklos | Feb 17 2025 0:41 utc | 96

@ juliania | Feb 16 2025 22:50 utc | 85 with another Michael Hudson interview….thx
That was a great summary of the political economic history of the West and why the Trump strategy with tariffs is headed for trouble.
I wanted to scream towards the end when they were talking about the paucity of “ideologies” to the current fincialization one and they didn’t talk about China with its finance as a public utility “ideology”.
It goes back to people trying to separate politics from economics when they are connected at the hip, so to speak. To address some economic issues one has to take a political approach, like China has. Another political decision that China has made is to not allow private folks to get big enough to influence government…..Jack Ma, as example. China also has a process to manage ongoing debt forgiveness, like Michael has written so much about.
Making finance a public utility is a political decision, not an economic ideology one, IMO.

Posted by: psychohistorian | Feb 17 2025 0:43 utc | 97

David Dayen
@ddayen
From me: The culling of the federal workforce has been haphazard and cruel. But it’s not about revenge against those who have been fired; it’s a warning to those who are still there, like the heads on pikes that ancient hordes used to plant to tell the villagers to stay in line.
https://x.com/ddayen/status/1890812443766534570

Posted by: Menz | Feb 17 2025 0:59 utc | 98

The Federal Employee Red Wedding
This is not about who’s been fired, but who’s still working in the government.
by David Dayen
February 15, 2025
The fog of war is a good analogy for what has transpired the past few days in the federal workforce.
After getting a favorable ruling to move forward, the so-called “deferred resignation” program closed Wednesday night, with 75,000 workers signing up. This represents about three percent of federal employees, short of the administration’s goal of 5-10 percent. Some agencies saw higher pickup, like the eight percent of staff at the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation who opted for it. But some IRS employees who took the offer were then told they had to stay until May 15 because their jobs were “essential” to tax filing season. It’s the first documented shenanigan of a program that is still being challenged in court.
The end of deferred resignation triggered the next hack at the workforce, targeting “probationary” employees who have been at their jobs for a short period (between one and two years) and lack many civil service protections. The layoffs came rolling in like waves: there were 70 cut at the Office of Personnel Management, “dozens” at the Department of Education, more than 1,000 at the Department of Veterans Affairs, 2,300 at the Interior Department, 3,400 at the U.S. Forest Service (a month after deadly wildfires in Los Angeles), close to 3,600 at the FBI, up to 5,200 at the Department of Health and Human Services, as many as 9,000 at the IRS.
More from David Dayen
The HHS cuts revealed the random nature of the whole thing, which is only being done in this fashion because it’s easier legally, not because of any policy priority. The National Cancer Institute is losing 330 employees; cancer didn’t suddenly become a trifling public health problem. ARPA-H, an agency tasked with finding medical breakthroughs, was initiated in 2022. Almost all of its workers are less than two years in and therefore probationary, so that initiative is basically gone. I guess we don’t need medical breakthroughs anymore. The Epidemic Intelligence Service, a training program administered by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), always has people in it with under two years of service. So that entire program is going away, despite being called a “crown jewel of global public health.” You might have heard there’s an out-of-control epidemic of avian flu right now.
Confusion abounded. Some of the layoff notices went to people who already took the deferred resignation offer. The Environmental Protection Agency first said 497 probationary workers were fired and then revised it to 388. The Small Business Administration told workers they were fired, then told them the notices were a mistake, and then told them they were fired again. The SBA workers were given a phone number to appeal their terminations; it was an automated number for an apartment building.
The Energy Department fired 300 probationary employees at the agency that manages the nation’s nuclear weapons stockpile, then realized that managing the nation’s nuclear weapons stockpile is kind of important, and started rolling back the terminations, desperately reaching out to the fired workers. According to reports the Energy Department didn’t know that particular agency had anything to do with building nuclear weapons.
MORE…
https://prospect.org/labor/2025-02-15-federal-employee-red-wedding-firings-government/

Posted by: Menz | Feb 17 2025 1:01 utc | 99

Thanks, karlof1. I had the thought that the audience for this episode might more importantly be Trump and his team. Especially the part about no other nation fully following Prof. Hudson’s advice.

Posted by: juliania | Feb 17 2025 2:03 utc | 100

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