By Patrick Lawrence

Trump’s telephone conversation with the Russian president, which he disclosed at noon Wednesday, Feb. 12, lasted 90 minutes. Trump was quick to note that the exchange marked the start of negotiations to bring the Biden regime’s proxy war in Ukraine, three years running as of Feb. 24, to an end. But there was much more to the conversation, as Trump and the Kremlin described it.

[…]

Since the telephone call, of course, Secretary of State Marco Rubio and other Trump officials have met in Riyadh with Russian counterparts, effectively serving as sherpas in advance of a Trump–Putin summit at some point this spring, if all goes to plan. I read this as a preliminary but important consolidation of Trump’s demarche: The more progress, the better the president is protected from deep state subversions. Trump’s swiftly advancing demarche in relations with Russia, we ought to note, requires that we cast his campaign against the deep state in a broader context.

[…]

We have to consider Trump’s war on the deep state, I mean to say, as something of a global phenomenon, or at least a phenomenon evident throughout the Western post-democracies. Among AfD’s core positions, those that win the party votes, are its opposition to excessive immigration and to the wasteful war in Ukraine, and the need to repair ties with the Russian Federation. In these aspects, AfD’s political combat bears a close resemblance to Trump’s.

Restoring ties with Russia and negotiating a settlement of the Ukraine war would be big-enough blows to the deep state’s interests. Russophobia is a deep state perennial, and Ukraine has been the centerpiece these past years of the MICIMATT’s unceasing campaign to subvert the Russian Federation. But the other items on Trump’s list of topics discussed with Putin are not to be dismissed as knick-knacks. Taken together, they indicate Trump’s intention to end the Biden regime’s project to reduce Russia to pariah status by way of total isolation in the community of nations.

“The great history of our nations,” “the great benefit that we will someday have in working together:” This is a comprehensive restoration project, the neo-détente Trump favored during his first term with a lot of additional bulk to it. Implicit in Trump’s rhetoric is an assumption of equality deep staters such as Hillary Clinton have purposely dismissed. (Remember Barack Obama’s condescending description of Russia as a minor regional power?) In the bargain — I especially appreciate this — Trump acknowledged Russia’s role in the Allies’ 1945 victory over the Reich, which U.S. propagandists have disgracefully sought to erase from history at least since John Kerry’s years as Obama’s secretary of state.

The implications here are huge. The Europeans are in a state of shock — Europanic, we may as well start calling it — having sold their souls, their economies, and the well-being of their citizens to the Biden regime’s sanctions program and its cynical use of Ukraine as a battering ram at Russia’s borders. What now for them? Volodymyr Zelensky is more or less out of the conversation now — and at last. Trump, indeed, just dismissed the autocrat of Kiev as “a dictator.”

[…]

Trump’s proposal for a new détente with Russia was childishly belittled in mainstream media during his first term, this on both sides of the Atlantic — kissed off as a matter of his affection for a dictator and nothing more. There were no significant policy concerns to be considered, no view of a world beyond the binaries the deep state has cultivated since the 1945 victories. We see the same this time. The New York Times coverage, typical of the rest, has been led by Maggie Haberman and Anton Troianovski, the former covering the White House and the latter the Kremlin, and there is no getting a sound report out of either of them. Read the stuff. It is all about Trump playing to his ego and Putin playing Trump with great dollops of flattery. No mention of the new security structure between Russia and the West, which is at bottom the very large and essential question.

Plus ça change, it seems to me so far.

It is far too early to draw conclusions, but I simply do not see the deep state taking this supinely. I have, indeed, been suspicious of Keith Kellogg, the retired general serving as Trump’s special envoy for Ukraine and Russia, ever since he began, immediately after he was appointed, to bark threats of more sanctions and military action against Russia if Moscow did not accept a settlement favorable to Kiev and its sponsors. In this Kellogg strikes me as just the kind of figure the deep state imposed on Trump last time around — John Bolton, H.R. McMaster, et al — who were in place to subvert every good idea Trump had.

I wonder if Kellogg is not a sign of the subterfuge to come. He was not, I note with approval, on the list of officials Trump dispatched to Riyadh this past week.

And so to more of the watching and waiting.

Tulsi Gabbard said some surprisingly gutsy things during her hotly contentious confirmation hearings before the Senate Intelligence Committee earlier this month. And in view of those surprising things, it was a surprise again to read that she has won approval of her appointment as Trump’s director of national intelligence. Hmmm. What further surprises are in store as she takes up her post?

[…]

Gabbard gave as good as she got — or better, indeed — as her interlocutors drilled in with the righteous pomposity common when a candidate not in perfect conformity with Washington’s orthodoxies sits opposite them.

Michael Bennet, a Democrat from Colorado, fairly obsessed on whether Gabbard condemned Edward Snowden as a traitor. The exchange turned into one of those infra-dig “Yes or no, yes or no, yes or no?” scenes until Gabbard, who as a congresswoman sponsored a House resolution calling for all charges against Snowden to be dropped, at last responded handily, “The fact is, he also — even as he broke the law — released information that exposed egregious, illegal and unconstitutional programs.”

[…]

The exchange that truly captivated me, though, concerned Gabbard’s previous statements that the United States in the course of the covert operation to depose Assad, had supported al–Qaeda, the Islamic State, al–Nusra and other savage jihadists of their kind. “What was your motive,” Senator Mark Kelly, the Arizona Democrat, wanted to know, especially since Gabbard’s assertions matched — Gasp! — what the Russians and Iranians were also saying at the U.N. and elsewhere. (Curious, or maybe not at all, that it was the Democrats who wielded the sharpest hatchets here.)

Gabbard in reply:

Senator, as someone who enlisted in the military, specifically because of al–Qaeda’s terrorist attack on 9–11, and committing myself and my life to doing what I could do to defeat these terrorists, it was shocking and a betrayal to me and every person who was killed on 9–11, their families, and my brothers and sisters in uniform. When, as a member of Congress, I learned about President Obama’s dual programs that he had begun, really, to overthrow the regime of Syria and being willing to, through the CIA’s Timber Sycamore program, that now has been made public, of working with and arming and equipping al–Qaeda in an effort to overthrow that regime, starting yet another regime-change war in the Middle East.

[…]

There seems no arguing at this point that Trump decided, during his year in the wilderness of Mar-a–Lago, that, on his return to office, he would pursue a well-aimed, carefully calculated course of action against the deep state in as many of its manifestations as he could take on. Kash Patel, a former federal prosecutor, was confirmed this week as director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation and so is the latest of Trump’s nominees preparing to open another line of attack.

Patel’s appointment has two things in common with Gabbard’s. The FBI, like the intelligence apparatus, was at the very center of the deep state plots that more or less neutered Trump’s first term by way of extravagant disinformation campaigns, breaches of law, and various other forms of corruption. And as Patel made generously plain in the weeks before his Senate confirmation hearings, he, like Gabbard, intends to break with his agency’s entrenched norms. Patel, indeed, has just begun a purge that, if it proceeds as he intends, is certain to go well beyond anything Gabbard may manage.

There is the volte-face in relations with Russia, which Trump and his national security people appear to be consolidating at a remarkable pace since the Feb. 12 telephone call with Putin. And there is Trump’s proposal to convene a summit with Putin and Xi Jinping, a sort of 21^st century Yalta, at which he would negotiate with the Russian and Chinese presidents to cut their military budgets by 50%.

Trump’s first mention of this latter idea was a passing reference, a couple of sentences, during a press conference that covered sundry other matters. I took this to be another of his many improvisations — impromptu proposals that seem to come spontaneously into his head in the course of one or another kind of public exchange. I assumed it would go about as far as asserting sovereignty over Greenland. Then came The Washington Post report that Pete Hegseth has ordered the Pentagon to find budget reductions of 8% per year for the next five years. Since then The Associated Press has reported that Trump’s defense secretary wants to see $50 billion in cuts — not quite 6% of the Pentagon’s declared budget — during the current fiscal year, which ends Sept. 30.

Taking all this bureaucratic commotion at face value, only deep state denizens could possibly object as a new defense secretary takes a run at the military-industrial monster, or as a new D.N.I. commits to giving the White House “clean” intelligence — clean as in accurate daily briefs untainted as they pass through the soiled mitts of deep state ideologues. And if there is one agency that befouled itself more than any other during the Russiagate years, and again during the operations to keep Trump out of politics and protect Joe Biden from impeachment for his everywhere-you-look corruptions, it is the FBI, from Christopher Wray, its disgraced-in-public director, on down to a lot of special agents.

[…]

Two points. One, there are those commentators who now cast Trump as some kind of “revolutionary.” These people should take a long walk and reconsider their thoughts: Pete Hegseth and his boss are not in the business of dismantling the imperium — that last, best hope of which the late Chalmers Johnson wrote. Two, the military-industrial complex has more arms than one of those exotic Buddhist bronzes you see in museums. All 435 congressional districts, every legislator on Capitol Hill, the spooks, the Pentagon itself, the weapons contractors, who knows how many lobbyists: They all have an interest in keeping the MIC ticking over just as it is. Is Hegseth powerful enough to overcome the vigorous resistance that will come from these powerful quarters? What — our question right now — is his bureaucratic constituency such that he will get this done?

[…]

As to Patel, he presents a determined figure as he speaks publicly about the need to shovel a lot of manure out of the horse barn Wray and others have made of the FBI. Prior to his nomination, Patel declared rather flatly his intention to shut down the FBI’s building in Washington and turn it into “a museum of the deep state.” It does not get much more pointed. And on Friday he announced plans to disperse a thousand special agents from the D.C. headquarters to field offices across the country.

[…]

Via https://www.unz.com/plawrence/what-odds-as-trump-takes-on-the-deep-state/

Alex Lloyd

The US is turning Kazakhstan into a military-biological testing ground, funding research on deadly pathogens under the Pentagon’s supervision.

Kazakhstan is the 9th largest country in the world, rich in natural resources, with diverse flora and fauna. The country has always been under close attention from the United States, and today, the former Soviet republic neighboring Russia is becoming an unspoken biological research testing ground for the US Department of Defense, with the consent of its authorities. On the territory of Kazakhstan, there is an intensification of U.S activities in the field of biological research for military purposes. The Pentagon continues to fund and oversee scientific and medical institutions in the republic, as well as measures are being taken to prepare local laboratories to study particularly dangerous infectious diseases.

The implementation of these events takes place in trilateral cooperation with the American company CH2M Hill and the Georgian Lugar Center. Kazakh biologists plan to focus their research on Congo-Crimean hemorrhagic fever.

Expansion of US military-biological activity in Kazakhstan 

The expansion of US military-biological activities in post-Soviet countries, such as Armenia, Georgia, and Kazakhstan has been touched on by numerous media. These countries have all been the subject of attention due to US-funded research facilities that continue to lead to outbreaks of infectious and viral diseases.

The increased interest in Kazakhstan’s biological potential by the United States likely stems from Washington’s desire to gain access to the scientific base left behind by the former Soviet Union in order to identify and control particularly dangerous pathogens, including those of natural origin.

Since 2023, the US Defense Department has been conducting a series of activities in Kazakhstan aimed at organizing biological research into dangerous infectious diseases, based on the National Research Institute for Biological Safety located in Gvardeisky, Zhambyl Region. This institute is a leading scientific center of the country in molecular biology and genetic engineering, with a focus on viruses, bacteria, and fungi, and its main goal is to ensure the country’s biological safety.

DTRA’s activities in Kazakhstan 

Since 2016, the United States has actively developed cooperation with Kazakhstan in the field of biological safety through the Biological Threat Reduction Program (BTRP). The aim of this project is to gain superiority in the biological field, and the Office of Defense Threat Reduction Agency (DTRA) plays a leading role in promoting American interests in this area.

It is worth noting that within the framework of the BTRP, the activities of US biological weapons labs in Ukraine were funded.

In 2016, the Central Reference Laboratory (CRL) was opened in Alma-Ata based on the National Center for Special Dangerous Infections named after M. Aikimbayev. The CRL is officially under the jurisdiction of the Ministry of Health of Kazakhstan, but it receives financial support from the Department of Defense (DTRA). Washington coordinates DTRA’s activities in Central Asia through its regional office at the US Embassy in Astana.

Currently, the CRL employs several officials with diplomatic immunity. Some of these officials were recruited after the dissolution of the Soviet Union, when there was a program to support scientists related to weapons of mass destruction.

Cooperation of DTRA with National Center for Special Dangerous Infections

It is known that since at least 2023, DTRA representatives in Kazakhstan have been actively cooperating with the NIIPB. The Director of the institute is Kerimbayev Aslan Amangeldievich.

The organization’s structure consists of management, 12 departments, and 13 laboratories. It employs a total of 271 people, including 20 senior staff members, 167 scientific laboratory staff members, and 94 departmental staff members.

As part of its operations in Kazakhstan, DTRA engages in trilateral collaboration with the National Center for Special Dangerous Infections, the Georgian Lugar Center, and the CH2M Hill company. These organizations are well-known for their expertise in the field of biology. The Lugar Center is located in Alekseevka, 15 kilometers east of Tbilisi, and officially engaged in studying biological threats and has laboratory facilities that total more than 8,000 square meters, including two BSL-3+ laboratories designed to study pathogens and diagnose human and animal infections. These labs occupy approximately 2,500 square meters and are equipped with cutting-edge equipment. They also have their own production of nutrient media and a vivarium for small and medium-sized animals and primates.

However, while the Lugar Center actively participates in biological research and supports the Kazakh Institute, the CH2M Hill company not only provides training in biosafety but also offers consulting, design, construction, maintenance, and project management services. It serves as a general contractor for DTRA, with its headquarters situated in Inglewood, Colorado, USA.

On the internet, you can easily find claims that laboratories established with funding from the United States operate exclusively within the legal framework of Kazakhstan and are subject to the oversight of the country’s authorities. The most common argument in support of this is that Washington provided financial assistance solely for the construction of the laboratory, and since September 29, 2017, Kazakhstan has been operating the laboratory for its own purposes.

However, let’s take a closer look at a revealing letter from the director of National Center for Special Dangerous Infections, A.Kerimbayev, to the head of the CH2M Hill branch in Kazakhstan, A. Smaglyk, dated June 26, 2024.

In this letter, Kerimbayev expresses gratitude to CH2M for maintaining the operation of the laboratory. Noteworthy is his request for the replacement of 15 metal pipes and the painting of the floor. This appears to indicate a significant financial reliance on US support.

Under the supervision of the DTRA, several interesting events are taking place at the National Center for Special Dangerous Infections. These include:

• Financing projects to study the Congo-Crimean Hemorrhagic Fever, and modeling its spread in Central Asia.
• Holding meetings between representatives of the BTRP program supervised by the DTRA with officials from the Ministry of Health of Kazakhstan and the National Center for Special Dangerous Infections.
• Implementing training programs and training sessions to improve the overall competence of staff at the National Center for Special Dangerous Infections when working with highly contagious pathogens such as HCG and Brucella, as well as preventing the leakage and spread of these pathogens.
• Assessing the general condition of Kazakhstan’s biological laboratories, identifying problems with their provision of specialized equipment, engineering materials, and spare parts.
• Purchasing laboratory equipment and carrying out repair and construction work to increase the possibility of studying pathogens of especially dangerous and dangerous infectious diseases. For reference, Congo-Crimean Hemorrhagic Fever is an acute infectious disease transmitted through tick bites. It is characterized by fever, severe intoxication, and haemorrhages on the skin and internal organs. As for brucella, they are bacteria belonging to the class of α-proteobacteria that can infect humans by inhaling contaminated dust or aerosol. The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention have identified brucellas as militant bacteria that could be used as a biological weapon.

FILE PHOTO: Marco Rubio. ©  Joe Raedle / Getty Images

RT

The potential “reset” will focus on Moscow’s frozen assets and restrictions on American companies, the secretary of state has said

The US and Russia could restore economic ties once the Ukraine conflict is resolved, US Secretary of State Marco Rubio has suggested.

Speaking in an interview with Breitbart on Tuesday, Rubio noted that Moscow and Washington could discuss the economic and business domain, but only after they have ensured the smooth operations of each other’s diplomatic missions and have resolved the Ukraine crisis.

“We have to invite them and see, okay, if you guys are serious about ending this thing, let’s sit down and talk about it,” Rubio said. “I think step three is, if we can end this conflict, what does US-Russian relations look like in the 21st century? Are there things we can work on together geopolitically or maybe even economically?”

According to Rubio, Russia and the US have “opportunities to work together” to achieve a “reset” in relations which will “entail talking about not just Russian assets that have been seized by America, by the Europeans… but also American companies that have been hurt.”

He cautioned, however, that such negotiations remain distant. “We’re not at that step yet… We can’t even really talk about those things or fix those things until we bring this war at least to some sort of enduring ceasefire – hopefully permanent.”

Russian President Vladimir Putin signed a decree in 2023 allowing for the temporary takeover of assets belonging to Russia-based foreign companies from “unfriendly” countries, with several Western companies affected. In October 2024, Russia temporarily nationalized the assets of Glavproduct, a major US-owned food producer.

However, while US-Russian relations sank to historic lows under the administration of US President Joe Biden, his successor Donald Trump has signaled interest in restoring ties. Earlier this month, the two sides held high-profile talks in Saudi Arabia that focused on paving the way for resolving the Ukraine conflict and restoring bilateral ties.

Trump has since indicated that Washington might explore joint ventures in Russia’s mineral sector and suggested that sanctions on Moscow could be lifted “at some point” as part of the broader Ukraine conflict settlement process.

Putin said on Monday that Russia and the US are in talks about “major” joint economic projects, adding that Moscow is open to cooperating with American private companies and government agencies to develop its rare-earth industry.

[…]

Via https://www.rt.com/news/613330-us-open-economic-cooperation-russia/

Zero Hedge

There are those that say all government aid is a scam in one way or another, and so far the revelations surrounding USAID are proving those people right daily.  Democrats and the establishment media, in a bid to muddy the waters and save face, continue to claim that there was never any fraud at USAID and that the Trump Administration is simply labeling projects they “disagree with” as suspect. 

Of course, spending American tax dollars on projects the public never asked for and were never told about is the epitome of fraud, and waste is never a good thing.  Beyond that, the question of billions in missing funds certainly falls into the category of criminality. 

Trump has taken a lot of heat from the media with the shut down of USAID and much of the criticism suggests that without US funds people in third world countries will fall back into desperation.  The Washington Post recently claimed that Trump’s cuts to USAID are a “gift to Haitian gangs” terrorizing the locals; a typical leftist appeal to emotion that assumes most of the funds were getting to the Haitians in the first place. 

Yet another example of this problem has been revealed in a New York Post expose on the audit of USAID which shows a disturbing shortfall in funds surrounding ongoing relief projects in Haiti.  The Post notes:

“Since the 2010 earthquake in Haiti killed as many as 300,000 people, the US government has disbursed around $4.4 billion in foreign assistance to the small island nation.

At least $1.5 billion was disbursed for immediate humanitarian aid, while another $3 billion went to recovery, reconstruction and development.

Of the at least $2.13 billion in contracts and grants for Haiti-related work, less than $50 million, or 2% went to Haitian organizations or firms. By comparison, $1.3 billion, or 56%, has gone to firms located in or near the US capitol. Little wonder USAID is so threatened by the sudden scrutiny.

It remains unclear how exactly the billions have been spent and whether US tax dollars have had a sustainable impact. USAID and its vendors have generally failed to make such data public…”

The exposure of USAID by DOGE actually confirms long running suspicions of mishandled aid.  Some Haitian reporters warned about this disappearing money years ago under the Obama Administration.  USAID funds to Haiti were dispersed in part through the Clinton Foundation. 

The lack of funding transparency was also noted by the Government Accountability Office (GAO) in 2023.  Though, not surprisingly, the impotent agency did nothing about it.  The GOA stated in their analysis of USAID activities in Haiti: 

“The USAID mission in Haiti does not fully track data on its local partnerships, or its activities to strengthen local organizational capacity, which limits institutional knowledge about these efforts and understanding of results and lessons learned to inform future activities.”

“The Administrator of USAID should ensure that USAID/Haiti develops a process to track and assess consistent and complete results information for infrastructure activities, such as the final outputs, outcomes, costs, time frames, and lessons learned.”

“The Administrator of USAID should ensure that USAID/Haiti establishes a process to completely and consistently track and analyze data on awards made to local organizations, such as the amount and percent of total funding awarded and the percent of total awards provided to these organizations.”

Of the five “recommendations for executive action” put forward by the GAO for USAID, two are marked as “completed”.  Transparency was never achieved and no one was held accountable.  The question is, if only 2% of the $4.4 billion allotted for Haitian relief was actually used in Haiti, where did the rest of the money go?

As the New York Post points out, 56% went to firms located in or near the US capitol, and apparently the money stayed there.  A comprehensive forensic accounting of these funds (along with all other missing funds) needs to be undertaken and tracked to the recipients.  Not just because it is is politically advantageous for the Trump Administration, but because justice needs to be served for once in the case of government fraud.  Americans are tired of seeing bureaucratic conmen get away with it. 

The public is welcome to debate whether or not any American taxes should be spent in Haiti (proximity to the US does not mean they are entitled), but if the money was already sent and it never arrived, then whoever took it stole from both sides of the equation – Americans and Haitians. 

Via https://www.zerohedge.com/political/more-usaid-fraud-billions-us-tax-dollars-are-missing-haiti-relief-projects

Richard Stambaugh, Wikimedia Commons

The Winepress

“Not just for food, but for high-value products as well, like pharmaceuticals.”

Scientists are actively creating new foods that are similar to the current Covid vaccines in use, as a way to replace traditional inoculation. Both Pfizer and Moderna Covid vaccines use messenger RNA (mRNA) technology that rewrites a person’s genetic code to fight disease. Moderna refers to this technology as an “app,” “software,” “operating system,” and more.

Currently, mRNA tech used in the Covid vaccines must be stored at cold temperatures to work, or they lose their stability.

However, researchers at the University of California-Riverside are testing ways for this mRNA tech to be functional under normal temperatures. In this case, if they are successful, they would then design plant-based mRNA food for public consumption.

For further development and functionality, the researchers received a $500,000 grant courtesy of the National Science Foundation.

The team seeks to accomplish three goals: first, attempt to successfully carry and transport DNA containing the same mRNA vaccine tech into plant cells, where they can replicate.

From there, the team wants to see if these newly cultured plants can replicate enough to generate sufficient mRNA to replace the traditional injection via syringe. Finally, the group of researchers will establish what the proper dosage will be for the masses to consume to effectively replace vaccinations.

Juan Pablo Giraldo, an associate professor in UCR’s Department of Botany and Plant Sciences, said in a university release:

“Ideally, a single plant would produce enough mRNA to vaccinate a single person.

“We are testing this approach with spinach and lettuce and have long-term goals of people growing it in their own gardens. Farmers could also eventually grow entire fields of it.”

In order for this to work properly, the plant’s chloroplasts are key, says Giraldo and a team of scientists from UC-San Diego and Carnegie Mellon University. Chloroplasts are tiny organs inside plant cells that aid in the conversion of sunlight into usable energy.

“They’re tiny, solar-powered factories that produce sugar and other molecules which allow the plant to grow. They’re also an untapped source for making desirable molecules,” Giraldo added.

Previous studies have been reported to have shown gene expression, which is not a natural part of the plant. This was discovered when Giraldo and his team successfully injected genetic material into the chloroplasts.

Professor Nicole Steinmetz of UC-San Diego worked with Giraldo and the team to utilize nanotechnology to help deliver even more genetic material – identical to how the Covid vaccines work, not just the Moderna or Pfizer ones either.

“Our idea is to repurpose naturally occurring nanoparticles, namely plant viruses, for gene delivery to plants. Some engineering goes into this to make the nanoparticles go to the chloroplasts and also to render them non-infectious toward the plants,” Steinmetz explained.

Giraldo added:

“One of the reasons I started working in nanotechnology was so I could apply it to plants and create new technology solutions. Not just for food, but for high-value products as well, like pharmaceuticals.”

[…]

Via https://thewinepress.substack.com/p/scientists-are-developing-mrna-foods

Jonothan Turley

As the courts hash out the legalities of the orders supporting the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), the public appears to support the effort despite the almost universal condemnations in the media. Despite the prediction from James Carville that the Trump Administration will collapse within 30 days, a recent Harvard CAPS/Harris poll shows that most citizens support the cutting of government spending and size. While the courts must rule on the legal basis for these executive orders, the polling shows continued support for both Trump and his agenda after the election.

Sen. Amy Klobuchar (D., Minn.) also has declared that “remorse” was growing among voters who were souring against the Trump Administration.

Yet, the Harvard poll shows Trump with a 50% approval rating, (43% expressing disapproval). That is consistent with the RealClearPolitics polling average, giving Trump a 49.3% approval rating.

What was interesting amid the ongoing judicial and legislative fight is that 83% of voters preferred cutting government spending to raising taxes.

Some 77% also supported a broad review of government spending. A massive 70% believe government spending is rife with waste and fraud and 69% support cutting spending by $1 trillion.

Sixty percent of voters said that DOGE is carrying out the need of the government to make significant cuts.

Once again, our courts are designed to resist popular demands when they contravene legal or constitutional authorities. However, courts are also sensitive to what is called the “countermajoritarian difficulty.” As Alexander Bickel discussed in his 1962 book, The Least Dangerous Branch, the courts straddle this line between protecting constitutional values and not becoming a type of super-legislature. The political question doctrine and other judicial rules are designed to remove federal judges from making policy or political judgments.

Voters are allowed to bring about significant, even radical, changes in government policies and programs. They are allowed to elect “change agents” to use existing powers to achieve those goals.

[…]

Via https://jonathanturley.org/2025/02/25/harvard-polling-majority-supports-doge-measures-to-reduce-the-size-of-government/

Bullying

RT (2024)

Film Review

Russian with English subtites

Accord to the filmmakers, school bullying has significantly increased in Russia (it hasn’t increased in New Zealand – historically has been an integral part of Kiwi culture, not only in the schools but in the workplace).

The film indicates that 55% of Russian students surveyed reported issues with bullying. Thirty-nine percent of this bullying occurs on social.

The film focuses on a Russian teenager who stabbed a classmate with a knife after a long history of bullying by his classmates, a girl who was bullied for being overweight (which she ended by joining classmates in bullying another fat student) and a third girl who was bullied on social media. Her bullies eventually tried to blackmail her over an obscene photo they posted, leading her to try to sell a kidney online to pay them off.

There is an in-depth interview with the boy’s mother, who has fought for two years to get the school and the bullies’ parents to acknowledge the role of bullying in the knife attack. The filmmakers also play a recorded call with the school principal, who flatly denies any bullying occurred. Her son Vlad remains in a psychiatric hospital two year after the attack.

The filmmakers also show excerpts of a recent Russian play about bullying and a school anti-bullying workshop. The students responding most strongly to the play and the workshop were “onlookers” too scared to report bullying incidents to authorities.  authorities.

By Dean Henderson (2011)

Two centuries and a few decades later this same cabal of trillionaire money changers – mysteriously immune from their own calls for “broad sacrifice” – utilizes the debt lever to ring concessions from the people of Ireland, Greece, Spain, Portugal, Italy and now the United States.

In their never-ending quest to subjugate the planet, the bankers’ IMF enforcer – chronic harasser of Third World governments – has turned its sites on the developed world. To further advance their dizzying concentration of economic power, the whining banksters take a giant wrecking ball to the global middle class as they prepare to eat their young.

No one can argue that the US deficit is not a problem. Much of it accrues paying interest on the $14 trillion debt. Stooped-over Congressional cartel shills with names like Cantor and Boehner argue for slashing entire government departments to satiate the bloodthirsty bond-holders. Liberals argue for higher taxes on the rich and massive Pentagon cuts.

I agree with these latter proposals. The super-rich paid 90% under Eisenhower and 72% under Nixon. Both were Republicans. They now pay 33%. Most corporations and many elites utilize offshore tax havens and pay nothing.

The argument for progressive taxation is that those who benefit more from government should pay more. Cartel apologists propagate the fiction that the poor soak up middle-class tax dollars, sowing division between the poor and middle class. Meanwhile, the Eight Families financial octopus feeds mightily at the public trough be it the SEC (rich investors), the FCC (Gulfstream jet fliers), the USDA (the richest farmers get the biggest checks), Medicaid (insurance fraud, Big Pharma gouging) or the Pentagon (Lockheed Martin, Halliburton, Blackwater).

Still, $14 trillion is an insurmountable debt. Increasing taxes on the super-rich combined with a global American military withdrawal from its current role as Hessianized mercenary force for the City of London banksters, while welcome, will not be enough to deal with this monster debt, what Jefferson termed, this “deliberate, systematic plan of reducing us to slavery”.

The belt-way dialogue on the deficit remains locked in a tiny intellectual box created by the corporate media and their Federal Reserve cartel owners. But there is another way.

It is a myth that most of that $14 trillion debt is owed to the Chinese or other “governments”. The vast majority – around $10 trillion – is owed to the Eight Families Federal Reserve crowd.

In a June 9, 2011 article for Marketwatch, Unicredit’s Chief US Economist Harm Bandholz stated that the Federal Reserve is the largest holder of US debt with around 14% of the total. This does not include debt held by Rothschild-controlled central banks of other nations – including China, Japan and the GCC oil fiefdoms.

Through the recent QE2 program, the Fed purchased another $600 billion in Treasury bonds. They claimed it was a last ditch attempt to save the global economy from deflation. Instead, the banksters who got the interest free taxpayer-backed money pushed us further towards deflation by refusing to lend their welfare bonanza to potential homeowners or small business.

Conversely and inherent in the printing of zero-interest money, they created inflation – speculating in oil, food and gold futures and rolling this increased US debt on the roulette tables at their various wholly-owned global stock exchanges. Is it any wonder the financial parasite class is now clamoring for QE3?

What follows is a ten-step proposal which President Obama and the Congress could enact to lift the $14 trillion debt from the backs of future generations of Americans. These should be done concurrently as part of a single sweeping financial reform bill. Modeled after last week’s release of strategic petroleum reserves by twenty-seven nations, this measure should be enacted in tandem with as many willing nations as possible. The same Rothschild-led cabal controls the central banks of most every nation and there is power in numbers. If these measures are enacted separately or by only one nation, the Eight Families cartel will use their financial clout to target and destroy the US:

1) Introduce a Treasury Department-administered infrastructure investment fund, which workers should be strongly encouraged to opt into using accrued funds from their private 401K plans. This is important because the banker’s stock market casino will crash due to the next nine steps and workers must be shielded from this event. This fund can be used to rebuild America’s infrastructure, with American workers acting as lenders and receiving a fair rate of interest in return.

2) The US needs to withdraw from the Bank of International Settlements, the World Trade Organization, the World Bank, the IMF and all Eight Families-controlled multilateral lending facilities. We would save billions funding these banker welfare schemes while freeing ourselves from rules which prevent our financial emancipation.

3) De-link the dollar from all currency baskets and IMF special drawing rights. Ban trade in dollars on all global exchanges. This will create a demand for dollars and strengthen our badly devalued currency. Impose currency controls by fixing the dollar at 1:1 euro, Chinese yuan, Canadian dollar and Swiss franc; 100:1 Japanese yen. During the 1997 Asian financial crisis, Malaysian Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad fixed the nation’s currency – the ringit. It was the only currency in the region that did not crash when Rothschild front-man George Soros took aim at the region.

4) Nationalize the Federal Reserve. According to a London barrister I have been in contact with, under the Federal Reserve Act there is a provision that allows for the US government to buy back the Fed’s charter for $4 billion. We should pay this fee, revoke the Fed charter and launch a new US dollar issued by the Treasury Department. With the dollar fixed, the vampires cannot crash it.

5) Cancel the $10 trillion debt to the Illuminati bankers. Debt obligations to foreign governments and small bond-holders should be honored at par.

6) Arrest the perpetrators. Prosecute to the fullest extent of the law all fraudulent transactions involving the Fed cartel. Send the FBI to the New York Fed. Seize all documents. Confiscate the world’s largest gold reserves which are stored there. These were stolen from various governments including from our own Ft. Knox reserves.

7) Forget just repealing the Bush tax cuts on the rich. The top tax rate on people who make more than $1 million/ year should be raised to 75%. People making more than $500,000/year should pay 50%. All tax brackets below $75,000/year should see tax cuts. If you get more from government you need to pay for it, instead of soaking the middle-class and blaming it on the poor.

8) Slash Pentagon spending. Shut down all US military bases on foreign soil, including those in Europe, Japan and South Korea. Withdraw ALL troops from Iraq and Afghanistan immediately. Use the savings to pay off government and small bond-holders.

9) Outlaw offshore banking by US citizens and corporations. Bring your money home and pay taxes on it or surrender your US passport/corporate charter. The dramatic increase in tax revenue would be enough to pay off the remaining debt to sovereign governments and small bond-holders, while keeping our obligations to the Social Security trust fund.

10) Introduce single-payer health care and price controls on prescription drugs. The current corporate for-profit health care bonanza depends upon sickness and ill health for its hefty profits. In 2006 Canada government spent $3,678 per person for free single-payer coverage for all its citizens. The US government spent $6,714 per person covering the insurance, pharmaceutical, hospital and AMA cartels. The savings attained from eliminating insurance/pharmaceutical/hospital chain/doctor-perpetrated Medicare/Medicaid/Social Security fraud will save the US Treasury billions. It is the only solution to skyrocketing and unsustainable health care costs.

Using this methodology the US could wipe out both its deficit and its debt within a year. These measures should be planned in secret and introduced swiftly and in rapid succession. Social security and Medicare will be saved. The middle class will see their tax rates go down, while their retirement fund finances the rebuilding of a 21st Century America. Manufacturing jobs will come home, since the Chinese yuan will have seen a dramatic appreciation. Our national security will be enhanced by withdrawing from the role of global policeman.

If we keep thinking inside the banker-manufactured beltway box, our children have no future. They will live in a Third World country which produces nothing, lorded over by debt-collector parasites known as the “financial services industry”.

The wealth-destroying Eight Families banker elite are the perpetrators of the US debt crime. Should a woman who is raped serve the sentence of her rapist? That’s absurd. Then why should Americans or any other nation pay a fraudulent debt foisted upon them by con-men? It is time for Obama and the Congress to get a backbone and force the criminal Federal Reserve cartel to make the “broad sacrifices”.

[…]

Via https://www.globalresearch.ca/federal-reserve-cartel-solution/5818590

By fatheracab

https://twitter.com/i/status/1893526443008590192

“I’m a chicken farmer and they are bullsh*tting you about the reasons why your eggs are so expensive.” “They say the same sh*t every year. I know it ’cause I’m a chicken farmer. I see the same alerts — When you look at these large facilities, a lot of these birds aren’t dying of bird flu. They are dying of neglect.” “They don’t give the vegan vitamins, oregano, all the supplements they are supposed to be getting — In these mega facilities and these birds are dying of disease and neglect and every time and every time a bird dies, they say bird flu. I’m telling you, they’re bullsh*tting you.” This would be why in the Mexico video I shared Mexico was not being impacted by the bird flu… it’s just another lie

• We all know the Biden administration did this for one reason initially. They wanted to push bird flu vacs and draconian lockdowns again. Their timing was a little off so they switched to using it to hurt the economy for Trump. Change my mind.
• So now bird flu is the new fear campaign—just like COVID, just like every other crisis they manufacture to squeeze more money out of us. A chicken farmer is saying they’re lying about why eggs are expensive. Birds aren’t dying from some mass outbreak—they’re dying from neglect in mega facilities, but every death gets slapped with a “bird flu” label to justify skyrocketing prices. How much of what we’re told is another manufactured crisis to control supply, hike prices, and keep us dependent?
• 100% believe this. All other countries doing just fine when it comes to eggs. Speaking of the fear campaign, I talked with my connection in China and she says there is no “pandemic” over there and its just the normal flu and or colds. Get over it in a couple days. All nonsense.
• I live in Mexico. Plenty of eggs available. Never have I heard on the news here or anywhere else that they had to cull a flock. I guess the sick birds just keep flying south. A video of one of my chickens for your enjoyment – Josefina Michele
• Breaking News: Big Pharma’s newest hit single “Bird Flu Blues” featuring special guest star “Neglected Chicken”. Same script, different species – first they came for the humans with PCR tests, now they’re coming for our nuggets. – Politickle

Via https://choiceclips.whatfinger.com/2025/02/23/another-scam-exposed-american-chicken-farmer-says-birds-are-not-dying-from-bird-flu-like-were-being-told-just-like-with-covid-theyre-counting-all-deaths-as-bird/