Ellen Brown

The U.S. national debt just passed $36 trillion, only four months after it passed $35 trillion and up $2 trillion for the year. Third quarter data is not yet available, but interest payments as a percent of tax receipts rose to 37.8% in the third quarter of 2024, the highest since 1996. That means interest is eating up over one-third of our tax revenues.

Total interest for the fiscal year hit $1.16 trillion, topping one trillion for the first time ever. That breaks down to $3 billion per day. For comparative purposes, an estimated $11 billion, or less than four days’ federal interest, would pay the median rent for all the homeless people in America for a year. The damage from Hurricane Helene in North Carolina alone is estimated at $53.6 billion, for which the state is expected to receive only $13.6 billion in federal support. The $40 billion funding gap is a sum we pay in less than two weeks in interest on the federal debt.

The current debt trajectory is clearly unsustainable, but what can be done about it? Raising taxes and trimming the budget can slow future growth of the debt, but they are unable to fix the underlying problem — a debt grown so massive that just the interest on it is crowding out expenditures on the public goods that are the primary purpose of government.

Borrowing Is Actually More Inflationary Than Printing

Several financial commentators have suggested that we would be better off if the Treasury issued the money for the budget outright, debt-free. Martin Armstrong, an economic forecaster with a background in computer science and commodities trading, contends that if we had just done that in the first place, the national debt would be only 40% of what it is today. In fact, he argues, debt today is the same as money, except that it comes with interest. Federal securities can be posted in the repo market as collateral for an equivalent in loans, and the collateral can be “rehypothecated” (re-used) several times over, creating new money that augments the money supply just as would happen if it were issued directly.

Chris Martenson, another economic researcher and trend forecaster, asked in a Nov. 21 podcast, “What great harm would happen if the Treasury just issued its own money directly and didn’t borrow it? … You’re still overspending, you still probably have inflation, but now you’re not paying interest on it.”

The argument for borrowing rather than printing is that the government is borrowing existing money, so it will not expand the money supply. That was true when money consisted of gold and silver coins, but it is not true today. In fact borrowing the money is now more inflationary, increasing the money supply more, than if it were just issued directly, due to the way the government borrows. It issues securities (bills, bonds and notes) that are bid on at auction by selected “primary dealers” (mostly very large banks). Quoting from Investopedia:

Because most modern economies rely on fractional reserve banking, when primary dealers purchase government debt in the form of Treasury securities, they are able to increase their reserves and expand the money supply by lending it out. This is known as the money multiplier effect.

Thus, “the government increases cash reserves in the banking system,” and “the increase in reserves raises the money supply in the economy.” Principal and interest on the securities are paid when due, but they are paid with borrowed money. In effect, the debt is never repaid but just gets rolled over from year to year along with the interest due on it. The interest compounds, an increasing amount of debt-at-interest is generated, and the money supply and inflation go up.

U.S. Currency Should be Issued by the U.S. Government

Well over 90% of the U.S. money supply today is issued not by the government but by private banks when they make loans.  As Thomas Edison argued in 1921, “It is absurd to say that our country can issue $30 million in bonds and not $30 million in currency. Both are promises to pay, but one promise fattens the usurers and the other helps the people.”

The government could avoid increasing the debt by printing the money for its budget as President Lincoln did, as U.S. Notes or “Greenbacks.” Donald Trump acknowledged in 2016 that the government never has to default “because you print the money,” echoing Alan Greenspan, Warren Buffett and others. So writes Prof. Stephanie Kelton in a Dec. 2, 2024 blog. Alternatively, the Treasury could mint some trillion dollar coins. The Constitution gives Congress the power to coin money and regulate its value, and no limit is put on the value of the coins it creates. In legislation initiated in 1982, Congress chose to impose limits on the amounts and denominations of most coins, but a special provision allowed the platinum coin to be minted in any amount for commemorative purposes. Philip Diehl, former head of the U.S. Mint and co-author of the platinum coin law, confirmed that the coin would be legal tender:

In minting the $1 trillion platinum coin, the Treasury Secretary would be exercising authority which Congress has granted routinely for more than 220 years … under power expressly granted to Congress in the Constitution (Article 1, Section 8).

To prevent congressional overspending, a budget ceiling could be imposed – as it is now, although the terms would probably need to be revised.

Eliminating the Debt

Those maneuvers would prevent the federal debt from growing, but it still would not eliminate the trillion dollar interest tab on the existing $36 trillion debt. The only permanent solution is to eliminate the debt itself. In ancient Mesopotamia, when the king was the creditor, this was done with periodic debt jubilees — just cancel the debt. (See Michael Hudson, And Forgive Them Their Debts.) But that is not possible today because the creditors are private banks and private investors who have a contractual right to be paid, and the U.S. Constitution requires that the government pay its debts as and when due.

Another possibility is a financial transaction tax, which could replace both income and sales taxes while still generating enough to fund the government and pay off the debt. See Scott Smith,  A Tale of Two Economies: A New Financial Operating System for the American Economy (2023) and my earlier article here. But that solution has been discussed for years without gaining traction in Congress.

Another alternative is to have the Federal Reserve buy the debt as it comes due. For the last few years, the Treasury has been issuing an estimated 30% of its debt as short-term bills rather than 10-year or 30-year bonds. As a result, in 2023 approximately 31% of the outstanding debt came due for renewal. As usual, it was just rolled over into new debt. But the nearly one-third coming due in FY2025 could be bought in the open market by the Federal Reserve, which is required to return its profits to the government after deducting its costs, making the debt virtually interest-free. Interest-free debt carried on the books and rolled over does not raise the federal deficit. If a third of the outstanding debt is too much to monetize in one year to avoid inflation, this maneuver could be spread out over a number of years.

Mandating that action by an “independent” Fed would require an amendment to the Federal Reserve Act, but Congress has the power to amend it and has done so several times over the years. The incoming Administration is proposing more radical moves than that, including eliminating the income tax, ending the Fed, auditing the Fed, or merging it with the Treasury.The federal interest tab nearly doubled after April 2022, when the Fed initiated “Quantitative Tightening.” It reduced its balance sheet by selling over $2 trillion in federal securities into the economy, reducing the money supply, and by hiking the federal funds rate to as high as 5.5%. Arguably the Fed has overtightened and needs to reverse that trend by buying federal securities, injecting new money into the economy.

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How to Avoid Hyperinflation

Alarmed economists contend that a Weimar-style hyperinflation is the inevitable outcome of government-issued money. But as Michael Hudson points out, “Every hyperinflation in history has been caused by foreign debt service collapsing the exchange rate. The problem almost always has resulted from wartime foreign currency strains, not domestic spending.”

Issuing the money directly will not inflate prices if the funds are used to increase the domestic supply of goods and services. Supply and demand will then go up together, keeping prices stable. This has been illustrated historically, perhaps most dramatically in China. The People’s Bank of China manages the money supply by a variety of means including just printing currency. In 28 years, from 1996 to 2024, China’s money supply (M2) grew by 52 times or 5,200%, yet hyperinflation did not result. Prices remained stable because the funds went into increasing GDP, which went up along with the money supply.

Price inflation during the Covid crisis has been blamed on the Fed monetizing Congressional fiscal payments to consumers and businesses, increasing demand (the circulating money supply) without increasing supply (goods and services). But the San Francisco Fed concluded that the surge in global shipping and transportation costs due to COVID, along with delivery delays and backlogs, were a greater contributor than this fiscal stimulus to the runup of headline inflation in 2021 and 2022. The supply of goods could have been increased – producers could have increased production to respond to the increase in demand — were it not for the shutdown of more than 700,000 productive businesses labeled “non-essential,” resulting in the loss of three million jobs.

Swapping Debt for Productive Equity

Money printing is not inflationary if the money is issued for productive purposes, raising GDP in lockstep; but how can we be sure that the new money will be used productively? Today the banks and other large institutions that first receive any newly-issued money are more likely to invest it speculatively, driving up the price of existing assets (homes, stocks, etc.) without creating new goods and services.

Economic blogger Martin Armstrong observes that one solution pursued by debt-ridden countries is to swap the debt for equity in productive assets. This has been done by Mexico, Poland, Croatia, the Czech Republic, Hungary, and the United States itself. It was  the solution of Treasury Secretary Alexander Hamilton in dealing with the overwhelming debt of the First U.S. Congress. State and federal debt was swapped along with gold for shares in the First U.S. Bank, paying a 6% dividend. The Bank then issued U.S. currency at up to 10 times this capital base, on the fractional reserve model still used by banks today. Both the First and the Second U.S. Banks were designed to support manufacturing and production, according to Hamilton’s Report on Public Credit.

Following the Hamiltonian model is H.R. 4052, the National Infrastructure Bank Act of 2023 (NIB) now pending in Congress. The NIB proposal is to swap privately-held federal securities (Treasury bonds) for non-voting preferred stock in the bank. Interest on the bonds would continue to go to the investors, along with a 2% stock dividend. That would not eliminate the debt or the interest, but if the Federal Reserve were to buy federal securities on the open market and swap them for NIB stock, the securities would essentially remain interest-free, since again the Fed is required to return its profits to the Treasury after deducting its costs.

[…]

Via https://www.globalresearch.ca/escape-federal-debt-trap/5874742

HTS leader Jolani is in Damascus’ Umayyad Mosque, celebrating the overthrow of Assad on Sunday.

Zero Hedge

For four days Damascus has been under the control of the Islamist militants led by Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) and backed by Turkey. The country’s President Bashar al-Assad has been overthrown, and his whereabouts are unknown, after the extremely rapid insurgent advance out of Idlib, where city after city fell starting with Aleppo in a matter of about a mere week. And just like that 50 years of Assad family rule has ended, and a new extremely unpredictable era of Syria begins.

Will the country hopelessly fracture as did Iraq and Libya for years after their strongman leaders were overthrown? Will there be mass reprisal killings? Will Christians, Alawites, and Shia be subject to mass persecution and extermination? Will the country, which has already been through over 13 years of horrific proxy war, descend into sectarian and factional chaos and hell? Will Sharia law be enforced by gunpoint? Or will some semblance of a stable transitional government emerge?

One thing is for sure, a US-designated terrorist has emerged as the current de facto ruler of Damascus and of Syria. At this very moment Washington has a $10 million bounty on his head, given his career as a jihadist began with al-Qaeda in Iraq (AQI) which was killing American troops in Iraq. 

The jihadist factions entered Damascus overnight without a fight from the Syrian Army, and videos quickly emerged of armed fighters entering both the presidential palace (or office) as well as Assad’s private residence in Malki neighborhood.

State television stations broadcast a message from HTS leaders urging calm and a stable transition of power. New rules for Damascus include a curfew imposed from 4pm to 5am local time, according to the local Al Watan newspaper.

Rule by ‘Al Qaeda in suits’… technocratic jihad:

While the mood on the streets has been generally jubilant, gunfire has been heard – but more likely this is from anti-Assad fighters firing in celebration into the air. Western mainstream media has also been celebratory, generally ignoring HTS’ obvious Al Qaeda links past and present.

But for every scene the media highlights of a few hundred people celebrating in a central square, there are many more thousands of families huddled and fearful in their homes, not knowing what entity or Islamist faction controls the checkpoint around the block.

So far at least one central building has gone up in flames – the former government’s passport and immigration building. It remains unclear why or what the precise cause was.

Amid all of this Israel has continued to attack some locations in Syria, also with reports overnight that Israeli tanks pushed further into a strip of southern Syria in the Golan area. Other buildings are on fire elsewhere in the Damascus region.

Al Jazeera writes:

Images show a building on fire in Damascus after a suspected air attack. It’s believed that the Israelis may have struck what is believed to be a munitions depot close to the airport.

The Israeli media reported earlier on Sunday that the Israeli air force has bombed weapons depots in southern Syria and Damascus to prevent opposition groups from seizing them.

Syrian Prime Minister Ghazi al-Jalali might be installed to head of a transitional government amid promises of stability, based on a potential deal or ‘security guarantees’ involving Turkey, Russia, Iran, and the Gulf powers.

[…]

Via https://www.zerohedge.com/geopolitical/damascus-now-ruled-al-qaeda-suits-assads-whereabouts-unknown-curfew-imposed

The video transcript:

So here is the shocker, is that we recently were given cancer biopsies to look at this, because our thinking— if you look through the previous literature on this — if you look in all the wrong tissues you won’t find this.

You have to think about where are you most likely to find such events, and in my opinion that’s probably in a tumor, because tumors tend to grow aggressively. And if it happens to be an immunogenisis event it will overwhelm the tissue in terms of copy number, so you’re more likely to find this in tumors; let’s go looking under the lamp post here.

So we got a colon biopsy from a group in Germany that we’ve been working with, and we were quite shocked by the results. This is a person vaccinated four times by Pfizer. One year since vaccination: tumors emerge. Person dead within a month.

We got three biopsies out of them. One postmortem. All of them have SV40 in the origin of replication from the Pfizer vaccine. We performed some sequencing which we’re going deeper on right now, but even at preliminary sequencing shows this is in fact Pfizer’s vaccine. There are sequences in there from spike and other places.

Now, what is shocking in this work is we were never expecting to find the DNA at the copy number greater than the human genome; like if you get an insertional mutagenesis event and that is a driver mutation, that means that tumor is taking off — the insertional mutation should be at the same copy number as another human gene.

What we were expecting to find was that maybe 10 or 20% of the tumor was actually mutated; therefore, it would come out later on PCR that our human gene— we’re seeing the opposite here: this has expanded inside the patient, and that if we— we’re getting signals inside the PCR that are so hot that it looks like we actually have amplified the vaccine directly from the vial, and that’s impossible.

That means after you inject someone with 300 microliters — this person got 4 (Pfizer doses), so 1.2mL’s — you should have a 64,000 fold dilution into their body. So we should see 6CT shift, and where this PCR signal comes out from dilution alone. We don’t see that. We see something where it’s coming in at the same concentration as the original vial, or higher.

That tells us the DNA is replicating.

That tells us the mammalian origin of replication that is in Pfizer’s vaccine is active in human tumors.

So, this filed up. It’s not peer-reviewed. We doing deeper sequencing now, but this may explain shedding…

It is important to appreciate that while shedding may sicken an unvaccinated person with the spike proteins (SP2), it will, unlike the source of the shedding, in no way genetically alter their DNA. So while an unvaccinated person being shed upon is certainly not a particularly optimal situation, they still remain ‘“pure-blooded.”

The implications are staggering:

• Turbo Cancer Epidemic: Aggressive cancers are appearing in vaccinated individuals at an alarming rate, fueled by the DNA integration and the spike protein’s suppression of tumor-suppressor pathways.
• Generational Impact: Once integrated into the genome, this DNA is heritable, meaning the genetic modifications will persist in offspring.
• Immune System Degradation: Alongside the cancer risks, we are seeing immune suppression, lymphocytopenia, and a cascade of immunological dysfunctions that leave individuals vulnerable to diseases they could once fend off.

The bad news:

Anyone who received even a single dose of Pfizer’s C19 “vaccine” is irreparably genetically harmed, as are their progeny.

The good news:

While the Pfizer genetic mutations can never be reversed, the associated lifelong VAIDS symptoms may be effectively managed and kept at bay with a synergistic treatment approach that to readers of this Substack is well known.

The solution:

In the face of this unprecedented global eugenics bioterrorism escalation, Ivermectin and Fenbendazole emerge as lifesaving interventions. Their mechanisms are proven, affordable, and safe.

[…]

Via https://www.2ndsmartestguyintheworld.com/p/catastrophic-bombshell-first-ever

The NATO-Israeli cabal cheering on Damascus’s fall will get more than they bargained for. Power struggles and infighting among extremist militias and civil society, each backed by different regional and foreign actors who want a piece of the pie.

Pepe Escobar

Terror, occupation, and Palestine

The late Hezbollah secretary-general Hassan Nasrallah was adamant when he insisted on the deeper meaning of losing Syria: “Palestine would be lost.” More than ever, it’s up to a Global Resistance not to allow it. 

The short headline defining the abrupt, swift end of Syria as we knew it would be: Eretz Israel meets new-Ottomanism. The subtitle? A win-win for the west, and a lethal blow against the Axis of Resistance.

But to quote still pervasive American pop culture, perhaps the owls are not what they seem.

Let’s start with former Syrian President Bashar al-Assad’s surrender. Qatari diplomats, off the record, maintain that Assad tried to negotiate a transfer of power with the armed opposition that had launched a major military offensive in the days prior, starting with Aleppo, then swiftly headed southward toward Hama, Homs, aiming for Damascus. That’s what was discussed in detail between Russia, Iran, and Turkiye behind closed doors in Doha this past weekend, during the last sigh of the moribund “Astana process” to demilitarize Syria

The transfer of power negotiation failed. Hence, Assad was offered asylum by Russian President Vladimir Putin in Moscow. That explains why both Iran and Russia instantly changed the terminology while still in Doha, and began to refer to the “legitimate opposition” in a bid to distinguish non-militant reformists from the armed extremists cutting a swathe across the state.  

The head-chopper leader of the new Caliphate of al-Sham takes the Ummayyad mosque in Damascus by storm.

Any resemblance with Al-Baghdadi solemnly preaching at the mosque after the ISIS capture of Mosul is of course mere coincidence. pic.twitter.com/nifXPB6Tpx

— Pepe Escobar (@RealPepeEscobar) December 8, 2024

Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov – his body language telling everything about his anger – literally said, “Assad must negotiate with the legitimate opposition, which is on the UN list.”

Very important: Lavrov did not mean Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), the Salafi-jihadi, or Rent-a-Jihadi mob financed by the Turkish National Intelligence Organization (MIT) with weapons funded by Qatar, and fully supported by NATO and Tel Aviv. 

What happened after the funeral in Doha was quite murky, suggesting a western intel remote-controlled coup, developing as fast as lightning, complete with reports of domestic betrayals. 

The original Astana idea was to keep Damascus safe and to have Ankara manage HTS. Yet Assad had already committed a serious strategic blunder, believing in lofty promises by NATO messaged through his newfound Arab leader friends in the UAE and Saudi Arabia.    

MASSIVE air traffic between Iran, Russia and the Russian air base in Hmeimim.

All that with total Turkish consent.

Historically, this is a first.

Call it the the last sigh of the – dead – Astana process.

— Pepe Escobar (@RealPepeEscobar) December 8, 2024

To his own astonishment, according to Syrian and regional officials, Assad finally realized how fragile his own position was, having turned down military assistance from his stalwart regional allies, Iran and Hezbollah, believing that his new Arab allies might keep him safe.

The Syrian Arab Army (SAA) was in shambles after 13 years of war and ruthless US sanctions. Logistics were prey to deplorable corruption. The rot was systemic. But importantly, while many were prepared to fight the foreign-backed terror groups once again, insiders say Assad never fully deployed his army to counterattack the onslaught.

Tehran and Moscow tried everything – up to the last minute. In fact, Assad was already in deep trouble since his visit to Moscow on 29 November that reaped no tangible results. The Damascus establishment thus regarded Russia’s insistence that Assad must abandon his previous red lines on negotiating a political settlement as a de facto signal pointing to the end. 

Turkiye: ‘we have nothing to do with it’

Apart from doing nothing to prevent the increasing atrophy and collapse of the SAA, Assad did nothing to rein in Israel, which has been bombing Syria non-stop for years. 

Until the very last moment, Tehran was willing to help: two brigades were ready to get into Syria, but it would take at least two weeks to deploy them.      

The Fars News Agency explained the mechanism in detail – from the Syrian leadership’s inexorable lack of motivation to fight the terror brigades to Assad ignoring serious warnings from Iranian Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei since June, all the way to two months ago, with other Iranian officials warning that HTS and its foreign backers were preparing a blitzkrieg. According to the Iranians: 

“After Aleppo fell, it became clear that Assad had no real intentions of staying in power, so we started to engage in diplomatic talks with the opposition, and arranged the safe exit of our troops from Syria. If the SAA does not fight, neither will we risk our soldiers’ lives. Russia and the UAE had managed to convince him to step down, so there was nothing we could do.”

There’s no Russian confirmation that they convinced Assad to step down: one just needs to interpret that failed meeting in Moscow on 29 November. Yet, significantly, there is confirmation, before that, about Turkiye knowing everything about the HTS offensive as far back as six months ago. 

Ankara’s version is predictably murky: HTS told them about it, and asked them not to intervene. Additionally, the Turkish Foreign Ministry spun that President-Caliph Recep Tayyip Erdogan tried to warn Assad (no word from Damascus on that). Ankara, on the record, via Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan, firmly denies orchestrating or approving the Rent-a-Jihadi offensive. They may regret this yet, with everyone from Washington to Tel Aviv jumping in to take credit for the fall of Damascus.

Only the NATO propaganda machine believes this version – as HTS has been for years completely supported not only by Turkiye, but also, covertly, by Israel, which was outed for paying salaries to the extremists during the Syrian war, and famously helped rehabilitate Al-Qaeda fighters injured in battle. 

All that leads to the predominant scenario of a carefully calculated CIA/MI6/Mossad controlled demolition, complete with a non-stop weaponizing flow, Ukrainian training of takfiris on the use of FPV kamikaze drones, and Samsonites full of cash bribing high-ranking Syrian officials. 

New Great Game reloaded        

The Syrian collapse may be a classic case of “extending Russia” – and also Iran, when it comes to the all-crucial land bridge that connects it with its allies in the Mediterranean (the Lebanese and Palestinian resistance movements). Not to mention sending a message to China, which, for all its lofty “community of a shared future” rhetoric, had done absolutely nothing to help in the reconstruction of Syria. 

China has – finally – spoken.

Calls for a “political solution” in Syria.

Not good enough.

Please try again.

— Pepe Escobar (@RealPepeEscobar) December 9, 2024

On the geo-energy level, now there are no more obstacles to the resolution of an epic Pipelineistan saga – and one of the key reasons for the war on Syria, as I analyzed it nine years ago: building the Qatar–Turkiye gas pipeline through Syrian territory to provide Europe with an alternative to Russian gas. Assad had rejected that project, after which Doha helped fund the Syrian war to depose him.

There’s no evidence that key Persian Gulf states such as Saudi Arabia and UAE will gleefully accept Qatar’s geoeconomic stardom if the pipeline is built. For starters, it needs to run through Saudi territory, and Riyadh may no longer be open to that. 

This burning question connects to a pile-up of other questions, including, with the Syrian gateway all but gone: how will Hezbollah receive weapons supplies in the future, and how will the Arab world react to Turkiye trying to go full Neo-Ottoman?   

Then there’s the thorny case of BRICS partner-state Turkiye directly clashing with top BRICS members Russia, China, and Iran. Ankara’s new turn may even end up causing it to be rejected by BRICS, and not granted a favorable trade status by China. 

While a case can certainly be made that losing Syria may be devastating for Russia and the Global Majority, hold those horses – for now. In the event of losing the port of Tartous that the USSR-Russia has run since 1971, alongside the Hmeimim air base – and thus being ousted from the Eastern Mediterranean – Moscow would have replacing options, with different degrees of feasibility. 

We have Algeria (a BRICS partner), Egypt (a BRICS member), and Libya. Even the Persian Gulf: that, incidentally, could become part of the Russia–Iran comprehensive strategic partnership, to be officially signed on 25 January in Moscow by Putin and his Iranian counterpart President Masoud Pezeshkian. 

It’s extremely naïve to assume that Moscow was caught by surprise by the staging of an alleged Kursk 2.0. As if all Russian intel assets – bases, satellites, ground intel – would not have scrutinized a bunch of Salafi-Jihadis for months assembling an army of tens of thousands in Greater Idlib, complete with a tank division.

So it’s quite plausible that what’s being played is classic Russia, combined with Persian guile. It didn’t take long for Tehran and Moscow to do the math on what they would lose – especially in terms of human resources – by falling into the trap of supporting an already enfeebled Assad in yet another bloody, protracted ground war.  Still, Tehran offered military support, and Moscow, air support, and negotiations scenarios till the very end.

Now, the whole Syrian tragedy – including a possible Caliphate of all-Sham led by reformed, minority-hugging jihadist Abu Mohammad al-Julani – falls into the full managing responsibility of the NATO/Tel Aviv/Ankara combo. 

They are simply not prepared to navigate the ultra-complex tribal, clannish, embedded in corruption Syrian matrix – not to mention the magma of 37 terror outfits only kept together, so far, by the tiny glue of ousting Assad. This volcano will certainly explode in their collective faces, potentially in the form of horrendous internal battles that may last at least a few years.   

Syria’s northeast and east are already, instantly, mired in total anarchy, with a multitude of local tribes bent on keeping their mafioso schemes at all costs, refusing to be controlled by a US–Kurd Rojava composite that is largely communist and secular. Some of these tribes are already getting cozy with the Turk-supported Salafi-jihadis. Other Arab tribes had this year joined forces with Damascus against both the extremists and Kurdish secessionists.    

Western Syria may also be anarchy territory, as in Idlib: bloody rivalry between terror and bandit networks, between clans, tribes, ethnic groups, and religious groups regimented by Assad, the panorama even more complex than in Libya under former President Muammar al-Gaddafi. 

As for the Head-Choppers’ supply lines, they will inevitably be stretched – and then it will be easy to cut them off, not only by Iran, for instance, but also by the NATO wing via Turkiye/Israel when they turn against the Caliphate, as they invariably may if the latter’s abuses become too media-apparent.   
No one is able to foresee what will happen to the carcass of Assad-dynasty Syria. Millions of refugees may return, especially from Turkiye, which Washington has for years tried to prevent to protect its “Kurdification” project in the north – but at the same time, millions will flee, terrified by the prospect of a new Caliphate and a renewed civil war.

Is there a possible ray of light amongst such gloom? The leader of the transition government will be Mohammad al-Bashir, who was, until recently, the prime minister of the so-called Syrian Salvation Government (SSG) in HTS-ruled Idlib. An electrical engineer by training, Bashir added a further degree to his education in 2021: Sharia and law.

[…]

Via https://libya360.wordpress.com/2024/12/10/syrias-post-mortem/

Svetlana Ekimenko

Benjamin Netanyahu takes the witness stand for the first time in his ongoing corruption trial on Tuesday. Ahead of the testimony, Israel’s first serving Prime Minister on trial insisted that he was eager to “present the truth and finally explode the delusional unfounded accusations, the brutal witch hunt.”

The corruption charges against Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu were filed in 2019.

let’s take a closer look at the allegations that Netanyahu has repeatedly denied.

Case 1000 centers on allegations that Netanyahu and his wife Sara received extravagant illicit gifts like champagne, cigars, and jewelry from Israel-born Hollywood mogul Arnon Milchan and Australian investor James Packer in 2007-2016 to a tune of $186,000. Netanyahu reportedly helped Milchan renew his US visa and extended the tax exemption for returning expatriate Israelis.

In Case 2000, he is accused of fraud over an alleged deal with publisher Arnon Mozes, owner of the Yedioth Ahronoth. He reportedly considered enacting regulatory legislation to weaken rival outlet Israel Hayom, according to the indictment’s summary. Netanyahu did not follow through on that promise.

In Case 4000 (Bezeq-Walla), Netanyahu as communications minister is accused of authorizing regulatory decisions from 2012 to 2017 that financially benefited Israeli telecommunications company Bezeq, then owned by Shaul Elovitch. In exchange, Elovitch provided favorable coverage on his Walla news website. Elovitch and his wife are also on trial and deny wrongdoing. Netanyahu has denied any wrongdoing and rejected calls for his resignation.

[…]

Via https://sputnikglobe.com/20241210/what-to-know-about-israeli-pm-netanyahus-corruption-trial—–1121141891.html

Cynthia Chung

Thank You, Dr Fauci

Directed by Jenner Furst (2024)

Film Review

Can be rented for $9.99 from website: https://tydfmovie.com/checkout/

I have a big problem with this film. While gain of function (ie biowarfare) research is unquestionably dangerous, illegal and immoral, I dispute the filmmaker’s assertion that the Covid19 research funded by Anthony Fauci is responsible for the death of 2 million Americans. Despite solid evidence that Fauci funded illegal gain of function research at China’s Wuhan Lab, the 2 million death figure stems less from his actions than from gross over diagnosis of Covid19, combined with gross medical mismanagement of Covid19 patients.

I particularly object to Hurst’s parting warning that new GOF organisms coming down the pike (particularly bird flu) are poised to kill millions more Americans. The scientifically informed audience this film aims at are totally over the fear porn mentality cultivated by the ruling elite’s tech industry.

Exaggerated Covid Death Rate

As epidemiologists have carefully documented, Covid19 was grossly overdiagnosed throughout the pandemic, assigning violent deaths (from car crashes, etc) as Covid cases if victims manifested a positive PCR test.*  A close look at the data reveals that seasonal influenza epidemics failed to occur in 2020 and 2021 for the first time in more than fifty years. Patients (mainly seniors) who died of complications of viral respiratory illness in 2019 were recorded as influenza victims, while those dying of virtually identical illnesses in 2020, 2021 and 2022 nearly all had PCR testing and were recorded as Covid19 deaths.

Covid19 Low Mortality Illness

Assuming Covid19 was originally designed as a bioweapon, it wasn’t a very good one, given its mortality of slightly under 1%, roughly equivalent to that of severe influenza.

Gross Medical Mismanagement

• Suppression of documented treatments – of the fraction of genuine Covid19 patients who were hospitalized and died, peer-reviewed research documents the vast majority could have been saved by early outpatient treatment with hydroxychloroquine, Ivermectin or even Vitamin D. Western governments deliberately suppressed these treatments, through illegal bans and censorship and prosecution of doctors who prescribed them.
• Failure to diagnose and treat secondary bacterial infections in Covid19 patients, which was most often the main cause of fatal pneumonia.
• Iatrogenic renal failure caused by the highly toxic (and ineffective) antiviral drug Remdesivir.
• Iatrogenic respiratory failure caused by denying Covid19 patients oxygen and placing them prematurely on ventilators.

Intriguing Context

The context of the film is intriguing. Dr Fauci’s office contacted award winning documentary filmmaker Jenner Furst to do a puff piece on his management of the Covid pandemic. Furst’s background research led him down a rabbit hole when he uncovered unquestionable evidence of Fauci’s involvement in gain-of-function research in China’s Wuhan lab.

Prior to viewing Thank You, Dr Fauci, I was unaware former CDC Director Dr Robert Redfield was one of the first to suggest (in January 2020) that the Covid19 virus was the product of gain-of-function research. He was eventually forced out of his job for refusing go along with Fauci’s attempted cover-up of funding he approved for GOF research at China’s Wuhan lab.

Redfield’s conclusion that Covid19 was manmade was largely due to unique genetic material (a furin cleavage site on the spike protein). This could only happen naturally by the virtually impossible scenario of a bat becoming infected by two distinct coronaviruses at the same time.

Following Redfield’s dismissal, whistleblowers leaked an email storm between Fauci and various colleagues (mostly virologists who were dependent on him for grants) orchestrating their coverup of billions of dollars of grant funding he authorized for GOF research at China’s Wuhan lab. According to Peter Daczak of EcoHealth Alliance and other scientists involved in administrating these grants, their alleged motivation was to enable the CIA to spy on Chinese researchers at the Wuhan lab. Release of these emails and other evidence under the Freedom of Information Act eventually led to Fauci’s resignation in December 2022.

*The PCR is a grossly unscientific test that is incapable of differentiating between different viruses or even even nucleic acid particles found in bananas).