Trump scores decisive victory in the first major caucus of the US presidential race as he cements his frontrunner status.

The race for the 2024 US presidential elections has kicked off with Monday’s Republican caucus in Iowa.

Former US President Donald Trump decisively won the caucus ballots and will now head to next week’s New Hampshire primary with a commanding lead over his rivals. Trump also secured an endorsement from opponent Vivek Ramaswamy, who dropped his bid following a disappointing loss.

Primaries and caucuses are ways Republicans and Democrats choose their presidential candidate. The majority of US states hold primaries while some traditional Republican states such as Iowa hold caucuses to elect delegates. Delegates elected at primaries and caucuses vote in the respective party conventions to nominate the party candidate. The Republican National Convention will be held in July.

Here’s what you need to know about the results and highlights.

Results

Trump cemented his status as a frontrunner of the Republican Party with 51 percent of votes. Trump likely received strong support from key voting blocs in the caucus – White evangelicals and very conservative voters.

Trump’s margin was the largest ever in an Iowa caucus, surpassing the previous record of 12.8 percentage points for Bob Dole in 1988.

His win comes despite mounting legal challenges on charges such as conspiracy to overturn the 2020 US election.

Trump garnered at least 20 of 40 delegates, while his nearest challenger Florida Governor Ron DeSantis took eight followed by Nikki Haley at seven, according to provisional tallies.

DeSantis received more than 21 percent of the votes, while Haley finished closely behind him with about 21 percent of votes. Ramaswamy got only approximately 8 percent of votes and gained three delegates.

[…]

Via https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2024/1/16/trump-sweeps-iowa-caucuses-key-highlights-and-whats-next

By Claudia Aoraha, Senior Reporter For Dailymail.Com

But when they descend on the small Alpine resort town of Davos, attendees do more than just discuss global conflicts, the economy, and the evolution of technology. They bond and build business bridges with one another at A-list soirees and parties.

CEOs and dignitaries mingle over caviar bumps, $1,000 bottles of champagne and luxurious parties that only the elite in the world are able to get an invite to.

One person, who attends the forum often, told The NYPost: ‘You can almost smell the magic of the place when you’re there. Everyone’s got an agenda and you never know who you’re going to run into when you come out of the restroom. It could be Bill Gates.

‘You’re around some of the smartest people in the world but one thing you learn is that they’re not always so smart.’

Skybridge Capital founder and chairman Anthony Scaramucci said: ‘If you look up namedropping in the dictionary you’ll see a photo of Davos.

‘But you know what? I’ve never left the mountain without learning something important or making a new friend.’

Scaramucci, who has attended Davos for years, is hosting a wine soirée at the Hotel Europe during the conference – where bottles of wine and champagne will set you back nearly $1,000 a bottle.

In the past, Scaramucci has had the likes of Matt Damon, Richard Branson, Andrea Bocelli and Jill Biden at his WEF parties.

Other world heavyweights, like Tesla CEO Elon Musk, previously declined to attend, in his own words, ‘because it sounded boring af lol.’

Last year, other high-end events and selective soirees organized after the talks ended for the day offered esteemed guests more than just alcohol.

A psychedelics company offered people micro-doses of magic mushrooms to delegates during the 40-session and speaker ‘Medical Psychedelics House of Davos.’

In 2022, Maria Velcova, one of the organizers of Psychedelic House of Davos, said: ‘We spark curiosity with the neon sign out front. Once people get curious and brave enough to come down here, they realize that this isn’t some underground electronic dance party.

In 2016, five Swiss soldiers deployed to protect the World Economic Forum in Davos were sent home after testing positively for cocaine, the Swiss army said.

Seven more were disciplined for cannabis consumption after all 12, returning from leave, were suspected of intoxication.

‘All 12 soldiers consumed cannabis and five of them additionally consumed cocaine,’ Swiss army spokesman Stefan Holder said. ‘These five were immediately sent home. The others are receiving disciplinary punishment during their duty.’

Other debaucheries are also present at Davos. Last year, it was reported that sex workers who descended the snowy Swiss town were charging $2,500 a night for their services during the forum. 

[…]

Via https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-12961819/Global-elites-Davos-debauchery-caviar-champagne-escorts.html

Dr Kate Hudson

Last week’s attack on Yemen by US, UK and other forces is a dangerous escalation of the war in the Middle East. The attack is intended to halt the Houthi support for the people of Gaza that has taken the form of attacks on Israel-bound shipping. But as the Houthis have made clear, the attacks will not end their support for the Palestinians. The only way to stop this unfolding and escalating conflict in the Middle East, is to stop the war on Gaza: to implement an immediate and permanent ceasefire, and to ensure freedom and sovereignty for Palestine, as enshrined in UN resolutions and international law.

The alternative to this course of action is the further spread of war, to Yemen, Lebanon, and even to Iran. This is the most dangerous time for more than two decades in the Middle East and it clearly raises the spectre of nuclear weapons use. Because not only is Israel heavily armed with the most up to date conventional weaponry, it is also heavily armed with nuclear weapons. Its nuclear arsenal, which it refuses to formally acknowledge – its policy of ‘nuclear ambiguity’ – comes under no international controls or inspections. Yet it has an enormous killing capacity – and Israel is the only nuclear weapons state in the Middle East. Recent rhetoric from a number of Israeli politicians suggests a willingness to use their nuclear weapons; if the conflict were to extend to Iran, who can say that Israel would not use its nuclear weapons on non-nuclear Iran?

So what does the Israeli nuclear arsenal look like? Israel’s lack of transparency means that figures are uncertain, but the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI) outlines estimates between 90 and 300 nuclear weapons. SIPRI also reports that since 2021, according to commercial satellite imagery, there has been significant construction taking place at the Negev Nuclear Research Centre near Dimona, in southern Israel. Some may remember that the great Israeli nuclear whistle-blower, Mordechai Vanunu, worked as a technician at Dimona, before revealing details of the secret Israeli nuclear programme to the British press in 1986. The purpose of the recent works isn’t known.

SIPRI information indicates that Israel has air, land and sea-based delivery systems for its nuclear arsenal. Bombs can be dropped from planes, either the F-161 or the F-15 aircraft, and are likely to be stored near air force bases such as Tel Nof airbase in central Israel, or Hatzerim airbase in the Negev desert. Reportedly, when Israel sent six F-16s from Tel Nof to Britain for an exercise in 2019, a US official referred to this as Israel’s ‘nuclear squadron’.

Israel’s nuclear weapons can also be launched on land-based Jericho ballistic missiles. The site of these missiles is thought to be the Sdot Micha Airbase near Zekharia, about 25 kilometres west of Jerusalem. And Israel also operates five German-built Dolphin-class diesel-electric submarines which operate from the port of Haifa on the Mediterranean coast. Some or all of these subs may have been equipped to launch a nuclear-armed cruise missile.

By any estimate, this is a formidable array of weapons of mass destruction and it gives Israel the capacity to inflict catastrophic damage on its neighbours. Of course the impact on Israel of any regional use would be considerable too but there is absolutely no guarantee that would deter an Israeli government from nuclear use if it considered its existence was under threat. How such a threat would be defined is also unknown. The fact remains that nuclear-weapons possession allows Israel to act with impunity, in Gaza, and in the wider region. And that possession is also impacting on how others are willing to relate to Israel.

The questions posed in a recent issue of New Left Review, are highly relevant:

“Is the US, blackmailed by the threat of a Middle Eastern Armageddon, now forced to allow Israel to pursue ‘victory’ at any price? Does Israel’s capacity for nuclear war bestow on the Israeli radical right a sense of invincibility, as well as a confidence that they can dictate the terms of peace with or without the Americans, and certainly without the Palestinians?”

And what can be done about this? Both the US and UK helped Israel to develop its nuclear weapons, against all international law. In 2005, it was revealed from Whitehall documents discovered at the Public Records Office, by BBC Newsnight investigators, that Britain had secretly supplied the 20 tons of heavy water to Israel nearly half a century before, which enabled it to make nuclear weapons. Britain has known for decades about the Israeli nuclear arsenal, clearly supporting and condoning it, whilst taking an outraged and aggressive approach to the possibility of nuclear proliferation by other countries. The double standards and hypocrisy displayed by successive British governments is deplorable and is absolutely to be condemned.

Britain has supported numerous resolutions from the UN General Assembly and Security Council, calling for a nuclear weapons free Middle East, without owning up to its role in Israeli nuclear proliferation. Israeli nuclear weapons pose a particular risk to peace and security in the Middle East region and internationally; not surprisingly they are seen as a significant threat by neighbouring non-nuclear states, and the ongoing catastrophe in Gaza and the extending war is exactly the situation in which they are likely to be used.

There can be few clearer examples of how nuclear weapons are actually weapons of terror and weapons of impunity, as well as being weapons of mass slaughter and destruction. The war on Gaza must end; it must end with a ceasefire, and with peace and justice for the Palestinians. And it must end, to stop the unthinkable risk of a nuclear war in the Middle East.

[…]

Via https://cnduk.org/israels-nuclear-arsenal-what-we-know/

1789 French National Assembly

Episode 8: Peasant Revolt and Abolition of Feudalism

Living the French Revolution and Age of Napoleon

Dr Suzanne M Desan

Film Review

Historically, the political reforms the French won in their revolution were far more radical than Americans won in the American Revolution. Following the Paris uprising on July 4, 1789, French peasants revolted between July 20th and August 16 in an insurrection known as the “Great Fear. In a few regions, peasants (mainly those who evicted them from common lands) put their feudal lords under popular arrest.

Desan identifies three main causes of this insurrection:

1) Hunger – worsened by aristocratic hoarding to increase prices.

2) An increase in organized pillaging of farms by brigands (10% of the population were vagabonds and there were rumors aristocrats were paying them to steal grain).

3) Rumors the king’s brothers were organizing foreign mercenaries to invade France and restore the king to sovereignty.

Rumors were still the main source of information in the countryside as the majority of peasants were illiterate and two-thirds of them still spoke regional dialects (such as Gascon, Occitan, Provençal, etc) rather than French.

In the National Assembly on August 4, 1789, several nobles stood up and called on their fellow aristocrats and church officials to renounce their feudal dues, hunting rights and tithes. The Assembly adopted most of these proposals, only to recant a week later and water down the reforms they had agreed to.

The reforms they ultimately approved included the abolition of

• feudal dues, for using manorial ovens, grain mills, wine presses, etc
• seigniorial court
• dovecotes (housing the lords pigeons and/or doves)
• all unpaid peasant labor

At the same time they set up a committee to

• explore the abolition of all aristocratic titles and to establish a government bureaucracy based merely on merit and equality (abolishing the sale of bureaucratic offices and a merit based system to allow any (male) person to enter the ranks of the church and army.
• guarantee complete religious freedom in all the professions
• explore the complete abolition of the nobility.

They rejected proposals (by a right wing group called the monarchiens) to create an upper chamber in France comparable to the British House of Lords and to give the king an absolute veto of any legislation they passed.

Meanwhile the wives of artisans donated their jewels and merchants their silver shoe buckles to the National Assembly to pay off the national debt. In the countryside, peasants tore open their lords’ dovecoats* and shot the pigeons and doves that were damaging their crops.

By 1793 the National Assembly had effectively abolished feudal dues and peasants now paid rent  or bought small parcels of land they owned outright.

*A small, decorative shelter for pigeons or doves, often built on top of a house.

**Church tithes were eliminated in 1791, when the French government began paying the salaries of priests.

Film can be viewed free with a library card on Kanopy.

https://www.kanopy.com/en/pukeariki/watch/video/149323/149339

James Howard Kunstler

Clusterfuck Nation

You know why the judge let provocateur Ray Epps off the hook for his antics before and during the so-called J-6 “insurrection,” don’t you? Well, yes, it was partly because he was acting at the direction of blob officials, most likely the FBI, but possibly the CIA, Defense Intelligence, or some black-box fed outfit no one ever heard of (but somehow gets half a billion in funding every year). Ol’ Ray pleaded to one year’s probation (no jail time), 100 hours of community service (checking books out at his local library?), and a $500 fine. Say, what. . . ? A speeding ticket on the Rockville Pike would probably cost you more.

You remember those videos of Ray on the DC street the day before the riot, importuning the crowd, a commanding presence with his military bearing and red hat, six inches taller than most of the other men around him, yelling, “Tomorrow we need to go into the Capitol, into the Capitol!”  At which moment the crowd groaned “no-o-o-o. . . !” and then commenced chanting, “fed. . . fed. . . fed. . . !” They had his number. His use of the word need was especially beguiling, as in, who actually “needed” that to happen?

I’ll tell you one reason Ray didn’t get, like, twenty years, nor two years of pre-trial detention in the reeking, roach-infested DC lockup, or massive fines, like other J-6 defendants: Because he told his handlers in no uncertain terms that he would blow their cover and vivisect them publicly on the whole fed J-6 operation if they so much as made him show up in person for any proceeding — and, of course, he “attended” his sentencing by phone, in a Zoom meeting from a remote location.

Okay, I’ll tell you the actual reason that Ray Epps got the VIP powder puff treatment: It was to give half of America a poke in the eye with a sharp stick. . . the old double-barreled middle finger. . . a thunderous fuck you, with the subtext: we can do anything we want to you and you can’t do anything about it. . . and we can rub your faces in it, too, ho ho. . . and then empty a bed pan over your head in case you’re not feeling sufficiently impotent and humiliated. And the purpose of all that is their hope to foment some act of genuine violent resistance against the blob to justify further lawless persecution of the blob’s enemies. They’re really hoping to set off a civil war to justify martial law in order to ensure a free and fair election.

The judge in the Ray Epps case is. . . wait for it. . . the fabulous judicial utility infielder, James Boasberg, now Chief Judge of the DC Federal District Court, a big cheese. Yes, the same rascal who sat on the FISA Court during the FBI’s “Crossfire Hurricane” shenanigans, when they fed all manner of fake documents to that court to enable the FBI to conduct warrantless surveillance on Donald Trump’s campaign, and then afterwards on his presidency.

It was Judge Boasberg who let FBI lawyer Kevin Clinesmith off the hook with probation when he was charged with doctoring an email to conceal the fact that FBI target Carter Page had been an active CIA informer in Russia over the years, not just some schlub swanning around the fringe of the Trump Campaign. Getting a FISA warrant on Carter Page was tremendously advantageous to the FBI, because it enabled them to use the “three-hop rule,” meaning they could also surveil anyone else in the Trump retinue who Mr. Page had communicated with by phone or email.

The disposition of Ray Epps’s case also means there will be no further official inquiries into his behavior that fateful day 1/6/21. The principle of double jeopardy means he can’t be tried for the same thing twice. There will be no further inquiries into what he did that day and on J-6 itself when he appeared at the barricades on the Capitol grounds, apparently goading protesters to bust through them. It’s a dead letter. Chalk up a “W” for the blob.

[…]

Via https://kunstler.com/clusterfuck-nation/poison-spiders-at-the-center-of-the-web/

by Russell Bentley via Sputnik Globe

The Houthis might at first appear to be vastly outmatched by the US/UK armada that has struck Yemen, but militarily and economically, the US and Europe are actually much more vulnerable than the Houthis. To put it simply, in both economic and military terms, the US, UK and Europe, and Israel, have a lot more to lose.

The Houthis are not alone – Hezbollah, considered to be one of the most effective fighting forces in the world today, has an estimated 100,000 highly trained and motivated and very well armed soldiers in Lebanon, and is already at (undeclared, but de facto) war with Israel, and will probably escalate in the next few days. In October, 1983, Hezbollah was able to kill 305 US and French occupation soldiers at a cost of only 2 KIA on the Hezbollah side.

Of the US and French soldiers, 220 were US Marines, the greatest single loss in one day of US Marines since the Battle of Iwo Jima in 1945. In the 2006 Hezbollah-Israeli War, in which Israel invaded southern Lebanon, Hezbollah was able to inflict “unacceptable casualties” on Israeli forces, which resulted in the withdrawal of IDF forces and the signing of UNSC1701. While the Lebanese casualties were significantly higher than Israeli, the conflict is generally seen as a tactical and strategic defeat for Israel. Israel and their US/EU allies would do well to remember both of these battles before continuing to escalate an already extremely volatile situation beyond the point of no return.

Escalation between Hezbollah and the IDF on Lebanon’s southern border will not only expand the current area of conflict into the eastern Mediterranean, it can quickly become a serious threat to the Israeli city of Haifa, only 20 miles from the Lebanese border. Haifa is Israel’s 3rd largest city, with a population of around 300,000. The Port of Haifa is Israel’s second largest by cargo tonnage, and the Haifa oil refinery (the largest, and one of only two in Israel) processes more than 66 million barrels of crude oil per year, more than a million barrels per week. The port, and especially the refinery would be prime targets, and significant damage to either, especially the refinery, would have serious repercussions for the Israeli economy.

The “massive attack” by US/UK naval forces against the Houthis involved airstrikes, as well as approximately 100 cruise missiles, at a cost of more than $1 million each. According to reports published by the Houthi military command and Western media, the attack killed five Houthis. Now, do the math. The US and UK just spent a collective $100 million to kill 5 Houthis and escalate and exacerbate an already volatile situation. Based on assurances from the Houthi government that only Israeli-connected shipping was under threat, the majority of Red Sea shipping traffic had actually continued the Red Sea unhindered.

This is no longer the case. As of January 13th, after the US/UK attacks and their possible continuation, the International Association of Independent Tanker Owners (Intertanko), which represents almost 70 per cent of all internationally traded oil, gas and chemical tankers, said in an advisory to members to “stay well away” from the Bab al Mendab strait, and for vessels travelling south via the Suez Canal to pause north of Yemen. This major disruption of tanker traffic may well have an upward influence on oil prices, coming as it does right on the heels of Saudi Aramco’s announcement of a $2 per barrel discount beginning in February.

The Huthis don’t even have to shoot at any more ships – just the threat of the possibility of Houthi or coalition missiles being fired has been enough to disrupt Red Sea shipping traffic, which carries 12% of all global trade goods, and a staggering 30% of all container goods. It is actually the US/UK “coalition” that has escalated the situation to dangerous levels that now interfere with much more shipping, including tanker traffic.

[…]

Via https://sputnikglobe.com/20240114/asymmetric-warfare-why-the-houthis-can-beat-the-collective-west-1116154913.html

Image via openverse

Casandra’s Box

Vaccine deaths have always existed, and have always been denied. This is a story of some of these forgotten vaccine deaths.

Inoculation Deaths

Inoculation, or variolation, was the practice of deliberately infecting someone with smallpox. This was the practice that was used prior to the introduction of the Jennerian method of deliberately infecting people with cowpox as a method to protect from smallpox.

This practice was very dangerous. The more sensible (if that’s the right word) inoculators admitted this risk, they just argued that the odds were better with inoculation than natural infection since they had observed that people generally only got smallpox once.

A man called Jurin (a pro-inoculator) collected statistical data on the question of inoculation. He stated that inoculation had a death rate of 1 in 48 (13 in 624). But that the natural disease killed 1 in 6, so that the odds were better with inoculation (of course, what this logic ignores is that you aren’t guaranteed to get smallpox, and even if you were, you might get it many years later, meaning many life years lost to inoculation).

The Case of John Baker

When Edward Jenner entered into this discussion, he performed experiments on children to attempt to prove that cowpox protected from smallpox. This bit is well known, what is less emphasised, however, is Jenner’s arguments relating to horse grease and cowpox. Jenner believed that there was more than one form of disease of the cow’s teat – horse grease cowpox and spontaneous cowpox. In his initial text, the Inquiry, he argued that the protective form of cowpox was the horse grease form. Jenner believed that the disease was essentially artificial in the cow. The chain of events was as follows, in Jenner’s mind: the horse developed a disease known as grease which affected the heels of the horse. The farrier would have to dress the heels of the horse, causing the disease to be on his hands. However, he also did double duty milking the cow, and as such, then spread the disease to the cow’s teat. Pustules and inflammation developed on the teat as a result and this was horse grease cowpox (which could protect from smallpox).

This is relevant because Jenner wanted to compare direct horse grease with horse grease cowpox. As such, he vaccinated two children, one with horse grease direct and one with cowpox. The child vaccinated with the horse grease was John Baker, a 5-year-old. Jenner had intended to test his immunity by inoculating him for smallpox, but he was ‘rendered unfit for inoculation’, Jenner said, by a fever he caught in the workhouse. The boy died and the most plausible assumption is that he died as a result of the vaccination experiment.

‘Preserving Vaccination From Reproach’

Vaccination death has always been covered up by the medical establishment. As critics of vaccination have pointed out, one way this is done is to put the symptom on the death certificate, but not the cause of the symptom. In this way it can be stated that the child died of erysipelas or some other condition, without blaming vaccination.

What is of interest is we have one case from the 19th century where a doctor openly stated they concealed vaccination as the cause of death on a death certificate. Henry May, a physician from Birmingham (United Kingdom) stated the following in 1874:

A death from Vaccination occurred not long ago in my practice, and although I had not vaccinated the child, yet in my desire to preserve Vaccination from reproach, I omitted all mention of it from my certificate of death.

Henry May, cited in White 1885

20th Century Deaths

For much of the twentieth century, deaths from vaccination were higher than deaths from smallpox. Smallpox declined due to increased sanitation:

A Mr. John Cryer, an ardent anti-vaccinationist, taught school in Bradford, Eng. One day he noticed a lad of about twelve years—a new pupil in school. He questioned him: “Where did you come from?” “Sheffield, sir.” “How long have you resided there?” “Six years, sir.” “How many are there in the family ?” “Six of us, sir.” “Then you were in Sheffield during the small-pox epidemic ?” “Yes, sir.” “Did any of you have the small-pox?” “Oh, no, sir, we lived in a front street.” That last sentence tells the whole story. It is worth more than a dozen reports of Local Guardians; worth more than whole columns of statistics. It hits the nail square on the head, and locates the disease. Why didn’t the lad say: “Oh, no, sir, we were all vaccinated?”

J.M. Peebles

Vaccination also declined significantly after the mandates were eased and objection clauses inserted.

Nevertheless we have multiple deaths reported from vaccination. Between 1933-1946 there were 89 child deaths from vaccination according to the official statistics. During the same time 28 died from smallpox. This will likely be a large undercount due to the concealment of vaccination deaths.

[…]

Via https://cassandrasbox.com/2024/01/14/smallpox-vaccine-death-a-long-ignored-history/

By Will Potter For Dailymail.Com

• White House employees and staff from more than two dozen federal agencies are set to strike on Tuesday  
• The walk out will mark 100 days of Israel’s siege on Gaza, which has killed upwards of 23,000 people, mostly civilians 
• It comes amid growing internal resentment toward the Biden administration’s handling of the Middle East crisis

There are concerns that Biden’s support for the conflict is costing him significant political currency, particularly with young voters, just as his 2024 re-election campaign heats up.

The walk out is a drastic departure from how top federal employees have shown their disapproval toward White House policy in the past, which was typically reserved to media leaks or public resignations over policy.

But the organizers, who have remained anonymous, say they are intent on changing direction from within, and they expect ‘easily hundreds’ of staffers to join their efforts on Tuesday.

They say they have commitments from people inside 22 federal agencies for the strike, including from the Executive Office of the President, the National Security Agency, Homeland Security, Defense Department, and the FDA.

The Biden administration has so far sent upwards of $14 billion to Israel alongside significant military support, with United Nations estimates placing the number of displaced Palestinians since at 1.9 million people – 85 percent of its population.

One of the organizers of the strike told AI Monitor that they decided to launch the protest as it ‘grew out of a collective desire to do what we could to influence the Biden administration’s policy on this issue.’

‘What you’re seeing with this effort is something very unusual, and that is for dissent to be manifested via a physical act,’ they added.

The unrest has also reportedly seen a number of letters also drafted through the State Department’s private ‘dissent channel’, a way for staffers to raise concerns anonymously that was set up during the Vietnam War.

To curb the internal revolts, White House officials have reportedly held meetings with their aides to hear out their concerns, including ‘listening sessions’ between Secretary of State Anthony Blinken and Arab American, Muslim and Jewish staffers.

The organizer said they had ‘unequivocally’ tried to raise their points internally, but feel the mass walkout is one of their last resorts.

‘It’s one thing to write letters from within, but when policy discussions and dissent cables yield no shift in policy — and in some views, a double down on that policy — then people feel they have no other option because they’re not being heard,’ they added.

While top federal staffers in years past have resigned in protest over disagreements, the organizer said they felt a ‘moral obligation and patriotic duty’ to change Biden’s approach from the inside.

Specific issues cited for the walkout also included America’s obstruction of ceasefire campaigns within the United Nations, and the bypassing of Congress to send weapons to Israel.

The demonstration comes as reports cite growing anger from Washington elites over the attitude of young staffers in showing their disapproval to their bosses.

A series of anonymous letters penned by staffers in the White House, State Department and Biden’s re-election campaign have been levied since the conflict erupted in October, a move that would have been unthinkable decades ago.

James Carville, a longtime Democratic operative and former campaign strategist for President Bill Clinton, told Politico that the letters mark a turning point to how young staffers speak their minds.

‘There’s this whole, “You’re not the boss of me” attitude now. “I might work for you but I have my own views,”‘ he said.

‘If you said you didn’t like some of President Clinton’s policies, the idea that you would go public with that would be insane. Just wouldn’t do that. It wouldn’t even cross your mind.’

[…]

Via https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-12959421/biden-administration-employees-walk-protest-israel-war.html

“Millions” of people in Yemen reportedly took to the streets to protest.

Health Impact News

As I have previously reported, the Red Sea war and the shutting down of the commercial shipping route, has affected Europe negatively as it disrupts their oil imports, but it has increased sales of oil from the US by over 1 million barrels a day.e U.S. Secured Red Sea Shipping Routes? U.S. Oil Exports have Increased by 1.377 Million Barrels A DAY Since Houthis Started Attacking Ships

So I wouldn’t expect the shipping route through the Red Sea to be resolved anytime soon, as this current campaign will drive up the price of oil, just as the U.S. is exporting more oil due to these conflicts in the Red Sea. Resolving this war in the Red Sea would hurt business for the Rockefeller oil industry, even if it costs the lives of Americans serving in the Navy in the area.

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan condemned the U.S. and British airstrikes on Yemen’s Houthi rebels, saying the attack would turn the Red Sea into a “bloodbath.”

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan condemned Friday the U.S. and British airstrikes on Yemen’s Houthi rebels, saying the attack was would turn Red Sea into a “bloodbath.”

“First of all, they are not proportional. All of these constitute disproportionate use of force,” Erdoğan told journalists after Friday prayers in Istanbul.

“It is as if they aspire to turn the Red Sea into a bloodbath.”

The U.S. and British strikes came in response to Houthi attacks on what they deemed to be Israeli-linked ships traveling in the Red Sea.

Erdoğan said his government had received news from various channels that the Houthis were conducting “successful defense and gave successful answers both to the U.S. and Britain.”

Speaking about South Africa’s genocide case against Israel at International Court of Justice (ICJ), he said they had confidence in the Court and added that Türkiye contributed to documenting Israel’s crimes.

“All the documents we have given are seriously working in The Hague and we will continue to provide these documents … I believe Israel will be found guilty,” he said.

“Netanyahu no longer has a hole to run to, no means to defend,” added Erdoğan. (Source.)

Iran, along with their ally Russia, have condemned the attacks as “illegal.”

Iran Strongly Condemns ‘Arbitrary’ US, British Attacks on Yemen

TEHRAN (Tasnim) – Iran has vehemently condemned the military actions undertaken by the United States and Britain in Yemen, labeling them as “arbitrary” and a blatant violation of Yemen’s sovereignty and territorial integrity.

“The attacks are a breach of international laws and regulations,” Foreign Ministry spokesman Nasser Kanaani said in Iran’s initial response to the aggression, emphasizing that such “arbitrary attacks” would only serve to escalate insecurity and instability in the region.

He voiced concern over the motivations behind these military actions, saying that these military attacks are carried out “in line with the continuation of the full support of the United States and the United Kingdom for the last hundred days of the Zionist regime’s war crimes against the Palestinian nation and the oppressed citizens under the complete siege of the Gaza Strip”.

Yemeni officials reported the attacks saying that explosions rocked the cities of Sanaa, Hudaydah, Saada, and Dhamar early Friday, with a US official confirming that the assaults were executed through airplanes, ships, and submarines.

“While the Zionist regime continues its attacks and war crimes in the Gaza Strip and the West Bank in Palestine, the United States and England are trying to detract the attention of the people of the world from the crimes of this fake, criminal, and aggressor regime against the people of Palestine by expanding their umbrella of support for the Zionist regime,” Kanaani said. (Source.)

It was reported last month (December, 2023) that Iran had established a “voluntary navy force” consisting of 33,000 small boats armed with missiles.

Iran announces establishment of Basij voluntary naval force

According to the commander, the unit has already recruited 55,000 members and has 33,000 small vessels that are equipped with 107mm missiles

DUBAI, December 20. /TASS/. Iran has established a voluntary Basij naval force, said Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps Navy Commander Rear Admiral Ali Reza Tangsiri.

“Guided by past experience in conducting maritime operations to free ships seized by pirates, we have concluded that it is necessary to establish a separate Basij unit to carry out maritime missions,” Tangsiri was quoted as saying by Iran’s Tasnim news agency.

According to the commander, the unit has already recruited 55,000 members and has 33,000 small vessels that are equipped with 107mm missiles. (Source.)

Iran’s English language news site has recently been posting photos of many “new warships and speedboats” for their navy.

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