Authored by Pepe Escobar,

Tehran and Moscow harbor no illusions – and are preparing accordingly. The war on BRICS is just getting started.

Syria as we knew it is being eviscerated in real time – in geographic, cultural, economic and military terms – by an appalling confluence of mercenary Rent-a-Jihadi mobs and psychopathological genocidals praying at the altar of Eretz Israel.

All of that is fully supported by rabid NATOstan hyenas – masters of narrative control – and fully intertwined with the eradication of Palestine.

Across the avowedly dejected Global Majority, there’s a feeling that the momentarily exhausted Axis of Resistance will need to go turbo-Sisyphus to rearrange, resupply and recalibrate the defense of Palestine.

Predictably, there’s not a peep across the NATOstan sphere about Tel Aviv’s feral, indiscriminate bombing and snatching of sovereign Syrian territory. That represents a glaring illustration of the “rules-based international order” in action.

Collective West Think Tankland is in rapture. Chatham House preaches a Syrian rebuilding in this “watershed moment” led by the U.S., EU, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and Turkiye, capable of “forging a consensus around Syria” that “could serve as the foundation for a new regional order.”

The rabidly anti-BRICS Center for a New American Security (CNAS) demands “expelling Russia’s military presence” from Syria and “to close the country as an avenue for Iran’s power projection.”

The Axis of Resistance is being mourned across the spectrum. Not so fast. The deeper meaning of the “ceasefire” between Israel and Hezbollah is that the psycho-pathologicals, for all practical purposes, were defeated, even if they wreaked horrendous havoc on southern Lebanon and Beirut’s suburbs.

Changing the narrative – and the focus – to the Greater Idlibistan offensive allowed an avowedly massive tactical victory not only for Eretz Israel goons but for the assembled NATOstan/Turkiye combo. Yet the real nitty-gritty starts now, even as the partition of Syria is already in effect.

The Rent-a-Jihadi mob, in theory under the control of the aspiring Caliph of Al-Sham, the Saudi al-Jolani, real name Ahmad Ibrahim al-Sha’a, sooner or later may turn against the Eretz Israel project, considering they entertain cozy relations with Hamas in Gaza.

At least for the moment, everything is swell for the Oded Yinon and/or Bernard Lewis plan to subdue West Asia via time-tested Divide and Rule. This harks back not only to Sykes-Picot in 1917, but even earlier, to 1906, when British PM Henry Campbell-Bannerman asserted that,

“There are people [Arabs] who control spacious territories teeming with manifest and hidden resources. They dominate the intersections of world routes. Their lands were the cradles of human civilizations and religions.”

So if these “people” united, they would then “take the fate of the world into its hands and would separate Europe from the rest of the world.”

Ergo, the necessity of “a foreign body” [later constituted as Israel] to be “planted in the heart of this nation to prevent the convergence of its wings in such a way that it could exhaust its powers in never-ending wars. It could also serve as a springboard for the West to gain its coveted objects.”

Pirates of the Levant

The Eretz Israel hallucination does not exactly mingle with Sultan Erdogan’s neo-Ottoman dream, even though they coincide in the broader urge to redraw the map of the Eastern Mediterranean and West Asia.

As for the Exceptionalists, they can barely believe their luck. In a swoop, they just gobbled up the key strategic node of a now buried idea: Arabism, or anti-imperialism in the Levant.

Ever since Barack Obama, in the early 2010s, declared war on Syria under orders from Tel Aviv, the Empire of Chaos had thrown everything and the kitchen sink at Damascus for at least 13 years: the longest and most expensive regime change campaign in U.S. history, complete with toxic, forced-starvation sanctions – until suddenly the big prize fell on their lap.

The prize involves – in theory – smashing an ally of three top BRICS, Russia, Iran and China, with the added bonus of turning it into a geoeconomic black hole while doctoring the narrative to sell “the end of the dictator” to the Global Majority as the precondition for the rise of a new Dubai.

We still don’t know how rump Syria will look like – and even for how long it will be governed by a bunch of neoliberal Salafi-jihadis with trimmed beards and cheap new off-the-rack suits.

The fact is the Hegemon is already controlling at least a third of Syrian territory for at least a decade – and will continue to steal Syrian oil and wheat with absolute impunity: Pirates of the Levant in full regalia.

Playing the role of sidekick, the UK’s MI6 will continue to excel in providing P.R. ops, across-the-board lobbying and gun-running opportunities for the gullible motley crew of mercenary Salafi-jihadis.

When it comes to Tel Aviv, they are destroying Eretz Israel’s largest remaining Arab military opposition; stealing/annexing land non-stop; and dreaming of total domination, aerial and naval, in case Russia loses its bases in Tartus and Hmeimim (that’s a major “if”). Not to mention they somewhat indirectly control the new Caliph, who has meekly asked them to please, don’t conquer too much Syrian land.

The partition will proceed along three other major vectors.

1. Hegemon-controlled land and military bases – which might be used to attack Iraq. Forget about a fake sovereign Syria recovering their oil fields.

2. Turkiye-annexed land which will inevitably lead to the full absorption of Aleppo (already proclaimed by the Sultan on the record).

3. Damascus run by an ISIS offshoot directly manipulated by Turkish intel.

All of the above might lead, already in the first quarter of 2025, to a sort of Salafi-Jihadi Zionization arrangement with just one objective: to ease sanctions from the U.S. and the EU.

As for al-Jolani, real name Ahmad Ibrahim al-Sha’a, for all his woke rebranding, he was Al-Zarkawi’s lieutenant and Emir of Nineveh during the al-Qaeda in Iraq (AQI, later reconverted as ISIS) rampage in Mesopotamia. There’s no way Baghdad will have political relations with a Salafi-jihadi who’s on Iraq’s most wanted list.

An additional headache is the EU’s conditions for normalizing Syria, as spelled out by the unelected batshit crazy Estonian responsible for its foreign policy (and representing nearly 500 million European citizens): Brussels will only lift sanctions if there are no Russian bases and “Russian influence” left in the Caliphate of al-Sham.

Meanwhile, the Empire of Chaos will continue its plunder – in conjunction with Israel. The Syrian oil stolen by the Americans is sold by the Kurds to Israel in Erbil with a huge discount. After all, this oil is “free” – as in stolen. At least 40% of Israel’s oil comes from the Erbil racket.

And it gets worse.

Israel has annexed the Al-Wahda dam in the basin of the Yarmouk river, close to the city of Al-Qusayr in the Dara’a governorate, and near the Jordanian border. This dam provides at least 30% of Syria’s water and 40% of Jordan’s water.

Everything is so predictable: what the NATOstan/Israel combo really wants is an amputated, disaggregated, vulnerable Syria.

Empire of Chaos goes Full Anarchy

Yet the whole toxic equation is far from over. Aspiring Caliph Jolani may be tempted to allow Russia to keep its bases – and to transport their weapons systems out of the country intact. He is in close contact with Moscow, and HTS is de facto protecting Russian assets.

In parallel, Hezbollah signaled it is willing to “cooperate” with HTS, which by the way is also protecting the Iranian embassy in Damascus. ​​

There is no evidence whatsoever that the Greater Idlibistan invasion was a Trojan Horse agreed on the negotiating table by the – dead – “Astana process” even before the fateful Doha meeting on Saturday, January 7.

What is certain is that the analysis in Moscow and Beijing privileges the Long Big Picture. The Chinese for now are extremely circumspect on the record about the whole Syrian drama, apart from declaring themselves “ready to play a constructive role”. Beijing and Moscow see Syria as a temporary setback on BRICS inflicted by an Empire on Desperation Row, along with its equally desperate Eretz Israel ally and a Sultan biting more than he can chew.

The lame duck Biden combo is absolutely clueless on the emergence of a – possible – Israeli-Turkish hegemonic vector in a key node of West Asia. The only thing that matters for Straussian neo-cons and their Tel Aviv psycho-apocalyptic buddies, when it comes to the disintegration of Syria, is the window of opportunity ahead for Israel to attack Iran.

The Times of Israel is in rapture: while previously the “IAF would not fly directly over Damascus when carrying out strikes on Iran-linked targets in the capital, it now can.”

The key to unlock the whole riddle may lie, once again, with Jolani. Everything in West Asia is always in perpetual flux. Only a few days after the fall of Damascus, Sultan Erdogan as well as NATO have refused to help Jolani against the Israeli onslaught in Syria.

Talk about the aspiring Caliphate’s “sovereignty”.

So where Jolani could turn to in a quest for possible allies? And who can he rely on to impose some order in totally disaggregated Syria – including air power to fight ISIS pockets across the desert?

Enter Tehran and Moscow. Ergo, the back channels on overdrive. They would not bat an eye when it comes to “cooperating” with the infant Caliphate – as long as their national interests are not threatened.

The Empire of Chaos will remain unmatched in terms of narrative control, P.R. stunts, monopolizing social media spheres and non-stop psy war. All hybrid fronts. But that’s about it.

The Empire was miserably defeated in both Afghanistan and Iraq. And continues to be humiliated by the Houthis in the Red Sea. Washington has less than zero advantage over Russia on the military sphere – except on electronic warfare (EW), at least on the West Asian theatre, and ISR (Russia is catching up), which instantly translates into inflicting more and more terror.

As for Iran, it’s far from weaker now than before the fall of Damascus. That’s imperial narrative spin, inbuilt in the self-pleasing Exceptionalist mechanism. Ayatollah Khamenei, a fine strategist, does not waste his words. Tehran will eventually develop an alternative supply chain to Hezbollah and the West Bank.

Besides, follow the money. The Iranian Foreign Ministry has already noted that “the new Syrian government will take on all of Syria’s financial obligations to Iran.” That’s a lot of money – that Jolani does not have.

Michael Hudson is adamant: “Anarchy is what the U.S. plan is.” This being West Asia, where backstabbing is an art, there will be blowback. Tehran and Moscow harbor no illusions – and are preparing accordingly. The war on BRICS is just getting started.

Authored by Anders Corr via The Epoch Times,

Russia launched almost 300 drones and missiles in a coordinated attack on Ukraine’s energy infrastructure on Dec. 13. The attack is an apparent attempt to further terrorize Ukrainians into surrender by destroying their heat and light in the middle of winter.

The war has dragged on for almost three years now, and Ukrainians are getting tired. Their army is depleted of personnel and weapons. Gallup’s latest surveys indicate that 52 percent of Ukrainians want to end the war, even if that means giving away land to Russia. Only 38 percent now want to keep fighting until victory, down from 73 percent in 2022.

President-elect Donald Trump is trying to both minimize the risk of escalation and shift more of the war’s burden to European allies that have not paid their fair share of defense expenditures for decades. Such a shift is eminently possible as the United States has so far committed about half of Europe’s $255 billion in aid to Ukraine. After the U.S. election, many European leaders have already doubled their commitments. But they must go much further to fully deter Russia.

The U.S. national debt is growing at an unsustainable rate, and without new revenues, Washington can no longer afford to be the world’s policeman. Given this unfortunate reality, Trump has led calls for a cease-fire that would likely entail a risk: appeasing Russia with Ukrainian land, which would potentially incentivize Moscow and the regime in China to escalate aggression down the road. If Moscow wins in Ukraine, Beijing could try the same in Taiwan sooner, and the axis of evil wars, including those of Iran and arguably North Korea, might have no end in sight.

There is a solution: force Europeans to increase their defense spending, including military aid to Ukraine, to at least 3 percent of GDP. Trump is heading in that direction.

At a meeting in Paris on Dec. 7, Trump said he wants to see Ukraine emerge as a strong and well-armed country. He wants European soldiers, rather than Americans, to be present in Ukraine after a cease-fire as peacekeepers and to bear most of the expense of the continued deterrence of Russia. This will free the United States to better deter China’s communist regime.

Trump wants Europe to help pressure China, including with tariffs, to, in turn, pressure Russia to come to the bargaining table. China has a more powerful economy and conventional military compared to Russia. After North Korea sent troops to fight Ukraine, some, like JP Morgan CEO Jamie Dimon, said that World War III had already started. Others say Russia wants to expand to at least the boundaries of the old Soviet Union. After conquering Ukraine, the Russian army could try to take the Baltic countries—Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania—all of which are now NATO members. Moscow has already stepped up its espionage in these regions and beyond, from Mexico to the Arctic. Some of it targets the United States.

NATO chief Mark Rutte warned on Dec. 12 that the West is “not ready” for an increasing Russian threat over the next five years, which includes a long-term goal of conflict with the West.

“It is time to shift to a wartime mindset, and turbocharge our defense production and defense spending,” he said.

Rutte had praised Trump’s first term for getting NATO countries to increase their defense expenditures.

Now, Trump is doing it again.

He has reiterated his intention to withdraw the United States from NATO if other countries do not reach defense spending of at least 2 percent of their GDP.

He could reasonably increase that demand to 3 percent and add another penalty: tariffs for those that fall below the agreed level.

These tariffs could focus on luxuries and replaceables so as not to disrupt more important U.S. supply lines.

European leaders are beginning to take action and will likely fund any U.S. shortfall to keep the Russian army further away from European capitals. Rutte has called for an increase in the defense spending goal among NATO members. Many NATO countries—namely Italy, Spain, Portugal, Belgium, Luxembourg, Slovenia, Croatia, and Canada—pay less than 2 percent of GDP, while several countries, including the United States, Poland, and the Baltics, spend more than 3 percent.

The United States spent 41 percent of GDP on defense at the height of World War II and 10 percent during the Cold War. It was a lot of money, but our freedom was worth the expense. For those countries looking to get a free ride, Trump should apply his signature tariffs. He has threatened Canada with tariffs and could do so as a penalty for its low defense spending. That strategy could also be extended to other NATO countries that shirk their commitments.

Our strong U.S. economy is in part because people around the world see the United States as not only victorious against our most dangerous enemies but also as a nation with a free-market democratic system as something that they trust, want to emulate, and in which they want to invest. After World War II, that impressive soft power made countries agree to choose New York and Washington as the headquarters of the world’s most important international institutions. But costly wars in Korea, Vietnam, Iraq, and Afghanistan have made most Americans rethink our role as the only “world’s policeman” who makes the world safe for democracy. At the very least, we also want our allies to shoulder their fair share.

*  *  *

Views expressed in this article are opinions of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of The Epoch Times or ZeroHedge.

Authored by Turner Wright via CoinTelegraph.com,

Hailey Welch, the influencer behind the viral ‘Hawk Tuah’ TikTok video, has released a statement after a memecoin bearing her handle pumped and dumped quickly after its December launch.

In a Dec. 20 X post, Welch said she was “fully cooperating” with lawyers who represented investors in the Hawk Tuah (HAWK) token.

The crypto users filed a lawsuit against the project’s creators and partners – Welch herself was not named as a defendant in the suit – alleging they engaged in the promotion and sale of an unregistered securities offering.

A statement posted to X on Dec. 20. Source: Hailey Welch

On Dec. 4, the HAWK token launched, rising to a market capitalization of roughly $500 million before quickly dropping by 90%, prompting many users to speculate there had been a rug pull.

Welch called on anyone affected to contact lawyers, adding she took the situation “extremely seriously.”  

From TikTok stardom to memecoin promoter?

Welch, who rose to internet fame after a June clip of her describing a sexual act went viral on TikTok, has parlayed the incident into her Hawk Tuah nickname and brand.

Her likeness was used on the HAWK token, and she promoted the memecoin on social media.

According to blockchain data, one wallet sniped HAWK tokens shortly after the project launched, purchasing roughly 18% of the memecoin supply and then selling it for more than $1 million in profit.

Many of the memecoin’s investors, however, reported massive losses after the price pumped and dumped.

It’s unclear whether Welch or the project’s founders could face criminal or regulatory lawsuits in the United States as a result of the memecoin launch.

Under Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) Chair Gary Gensler, the regulator has treated the majority of tokens as securities under its purview. However, the SEC is set to change hands to Republican control beginning in January.

New retail price data shows supermarket prices of a dozen eggs have soared to record highs. The surge comes amid an ever-expanding bird flu outbreak that has led to the culling of millions of birds, denting the size of the nation’s egg-laying hen population. 

Bloomberg cited Expana data showing that a dozen eggs in the Midwest cost about $5.67 this week, exceeding the record high of $5.46 set in December 2022. 

Expana’s managing editor for eggs in the Americas, Karyn Rispoli, explained that a “potent combination of avian flu-related production losses and heightened retail demand throughout the holiday baking season” catapulted prices to record highs. 

She said 17 million egg-laying hens and younger birds known as pullets had been culled since mid-October amid a surge in bird flu cases, adding that was one of the worst stretches in the current bird-flu outbreak since the virus first emerged in the nation’s flock in February 2022. 

“The virus also jumped to other species including dairy cattle, while a person was hospitalized with a severe case of H5N1 bird flu in Louisiana this week,” Bloomberg noted. 

Wholesale egg prices via the Urner Barry Egg Index are nearing record highs (again) …. 

Last month, we noted. 

Egg Prices Surge Again As Grocers Face Shortages Amid Bird Flu Outbreak https://t.co/8oikLTnryy

— zerohedge (@zerohedge) November 22, 2024

And pointed out in the November CPI print: “A quarter of the November rise in prices for final demand goods is attributable to a 54.6-percent jump in the index for chicken eggs.” 

This comes as global food inflation has entered a dangerous phase of re-acceleration.

The best way cash-strapped households can hedge over the elevated food inflation storm is to produce their own food. Whether it’s setting up a chicken coop, planting a garden, installing honeybee hives, or creating pastures for a few cows, now is the time to hedge against rising prices. It’s not just about prices – it’s also about health and security. Become ungovernable by taking back the food supply chain from the corrupt food industrial complex that heavily influences federal policy-making.

Authored by Jeffrey Tucker via The Epoch Times,

For all our lives, we’ve been subjected to forced seasonal time change. Spring forward, fall back. That’s how we learn from childhood how to remember this.

We are also told the reason early on. We are extending daylight hours. But only a moment’s thought reveals this to be untrue. The light you gain from a one-hour change is borrowed from later in the day.

Government cannot magically make the day longer.

It’s like the old joke, supposedly from an “old Indian” who points out that you cannot make a blanket longer by cutting off one end and sewing it on the other.

I’ve never met anyone who approves of this massive disruption in our sense of time. Some people prefer Standard Time, while others prefer Daylight Saving Time, depending on their area within a given zone. But regardless, it seems as if everyone agrees that we should stick to one version of time and not change it so brutally in the middle of a year.

To be sure, all this became mechanically easier once time became digital. We don’t have to have friends, family, neighbors, and the TV yelling at us to turn back the clock or bump it forward. But it seems as if there are always a few clocks around that do not automatically change, such as the kitchen clock with the battery or the oven clock. Then we have to figure out how the stupid thing works and fuss with it, twice per year.

Every study shows that this disruption is terrible for health, as it disrupts sleep patterns and contributes to mental fatigue and even depression. It is associated with increased hospital admissions and even car crashes. This should not shock us. Our bodies are regulated by patterns of the sun, more so than we know.

Then there are the missed appointments.

If everyone hates it so much, why does it persist? It keeps happening simply because it keeps happening. No one knows how to get rid of it. While there is widespread public hatred of the practice, there is no real lobbying force to do anything about it.

Forced seasonal time disruptions are the paradigmatic case of a system that just keeps going on because no one really knows how to stop it, even though no one really likes it.

Fortunately, President-elect Donald Trump has an uncanny sense of the public mood. He is the first political figure in my lifetime who has openly blasted Daylight Saving Time and sworn to end it on the federal level. If states want to keep it, fine. My prediction is that it will go away completely. That’s a good thing.

Oddly, I find myself thrilled by this! It thoroughly confuses children, dogs, and adults, too. The whole crazy business began during World War I as a way to conserve energy and cause the daylight to arrive earlier in the day for purposes of munitions manufacturing. Others say there were some agricultural reasons, too.

The reason that this all began had plenty to do with a fashionable scientism of the time. Elites had come to enjoy toying with all things under the general belief that mechanized schemes could override nature itself. This affected so much along with the rise of indoor lighting, flight, steel bridges, internal combustion, telegraphic communications, the telephone, and recorded sound. It seemed as if there was nothing that could not be engineered to perfection, even the rotations of the sun.

Remember that a few decades earlier, there was already a huge controversy over time in the United States. When the railroads came along and gained political power, they pushed hard for unified schedules in zones so that people would not arrive at an earlier time at their destination than when they left.

It was common before about 1885 that every town kept its own version of local time. How was that determined? Very simply: When the sun is overhead, that is noon. Surrounding areas generally deferred to the time on the city and town clocks. This also fits with the sundial. There were no time zones, but rather just normal time. Everyone knew what it was.

Once the railroads came along, they lobbied mayors to adopt a more unified system. As a result, many acquiesced, much to the annoyance of many people who simply could not understand how it was that an industrial power could presume the right to define time in its own profitability interests.

For some years, clocks in the United States commonly displayed the actual time (or local time) plus what they called railroad time.

The railroads eventually prevailed. The United States was divided into four time zones, regardless of local time. For the first time in the history of the planet, the sundial no longer made any sense. What we called time was completely severed from any measurement of time drawn from natural patterns. We came to be managed by industry rather than reality.

If you think about the sheer intellectual arrogance of that, it is rather shocking. I like to think that I would have been among the resistors to this ridiculous trick from 150 years ago.

If you are curious about this, you can look up your actual time in your area right now. You can go to mysolartime.com and see exactly what time it really is right now, no matter what your smartphone says. From where I am typing right now, the actual time is nine minutes later than the clock says.

I urge you to do this, and think about what this means. If you are really feeling rebellious, you can start adhering to your local time just for the fun of it.

Up with local time and down with railroad time!

In any case, there is something wonderful about how everyone seems to be rethinking everything in our times. It seems like we are getting rid of the fluoride in the water after more than half a century of awful medicalization via public water supplies.

The effort to get rid of Daylight Saving Time is very similar, taking on an annoyance that should have ended long ago, finally through an authoritative voice who can do something about it.

Yay! I’m thrilled. But if it were up to me, I would go further and directly target the time zones themselves. They are the real source of the problem and the reason why some people favor Daylight Saving Time and others favor Standard Time, depending on which side of the zone you live.

The truth is that neither is correct. They are both fake versions of actual time. The actual time from the ancient world until relatively recently is a simple matter of the sun. When it is directly overhead, it is the noon hour or high noon. That’s it and nothing more. The rest follows from that.

Again, we have tools now that can tell you with great precision what time it actually is.

How to schedule meetings across long distances? The easy way is to use Coordinated Universal Time. It would take a day or two to get used to, but life would become so much easier. Just one time for the world for scheduling all things, and then we have local time, which is the time standard by which we live in the course of our lives. It’s what we should have done to begin with.

Nonetheless, scrapping time changes is an obvious beginning. The 150-year history of government/industry intervention in time is the classic case of bad policy imposed to fix previous bad policy. It was never a good idea to replace real time with constructed/imposed time. Repealing Daylight Saving is a good start.

Maybe if all goes well, we won’t be springing forward after all. How merciful that would be!

*  *  *

Views expressed in this article are opinions of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of The Epoch Times or ZeroHedge.

Texas has launched a billboard campaign in four Central American countries that uses pointed language — some of it brutally frank — to scare away would-be illegal immigrants from trying to make the dangerous journey into the United States. 

“[The billboards] give potential illegal immigrants thinking of leaving their home country — and those already on the way — a realistic picture of what will happen to them on their journey or if they illegally cross into Texas,” Gov. Greg Abbott said at a Thursday press conference. “These billboards tell the horror stories of human trafficking. They implore those people in Central America to consider the violent, horrific realities of what will happen to the women and children they bring with them.”

Budgeted for approximately $100,000, the campaign has already placed 40 billboards in El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, and Mexico, along with some along the Mexican frontier. Consistent with Mexico’s role as a conduit that funnels immigrants from all over the world, many of the billboards use languages other than Spanish, including Arabic, Russian and Chinese.   

With harsh messaging reminiscent of what some countries mandate for cigarette packaging, some of the 14 billboards unveiled on Thursday are viscerally brunt. They stoke fears not only imprisonment or kidnapping, but of wives and daughters being impregnated by rapists. Here’s a sampling:

• “How much did you pay to have your daughter raped? Many girls are raped by the coyotes you hire.”

• “Your wife and daughter will pay for the trip with their bodies. Coyotes lie. Don’t put your family at risk.”

• “This fourteen-year-old girl was raped by more than 20 men on her way to the border. Protect your family. Change their fate.”

• “Danger Ahead. If you cross into Texas illegally, you will regret it forever.”

• “If you thought the journey to the border was harsh, just wait until you see what life in jail is like.”

“There is a largely unspoken sexual assault crisis impacting women and children migrating to the Texas border,” said Rose Luna, CEO of the Texas Association Against Sexual Assault. “There have been several rape trees and lots of women who have been found beaten and raped in front of our house and left to die.”

Rape trees are said to be places where coyotes sexually assault migrants, and then adorn the branches with the underwear of their victims. Thursday’s press conference was held next to what was described as a burned-down rape tree at Wall Ranch in Eagle Pass. Some knowledgeable people have expressed skepticism that the rape tree phenomenon is real, including South Texas sheriffs and the US Border Patrol — which is not to say migrants aren’t at high risk of sexual assault. 

Abbott has set out to distinguish himself as an aggressive defender of the Texas border. He’s made headlines by shipping illegal immigrants to northern, Democratic cities. Earlier this year, Abbott announced the construction of a military base along the Rio Grand at the border city of Eagle Pass.  Forward Operating Base. Spanning 80-acres, “Forward Operating Base Eagle” will eventually house upwards of 1,800 Texas National Guard soldiers supporting Operation Lone Star — Texas’ border enforcement crackdown campaign — and will be expandable to house 2,300.  

Abbott’s groundbreaking Texas billboard campaign comes as Donald Trump is poised to return to the presidency, bringing with him a promised border and illegal-immigrant campaign even more aggressive than he pursued in his first term — to include mass deportations and an end to birthright citizenship.  

Authored by Andrew Korybko via substack,

Putin commented on Syria’s regime change during his annual Q&A session on Thursday. According to him, Russia’s military intervention succeeded in its goal of preventing the creation of an Afghan-like terrorist enclave. The groups that just seized power there, including terrorist-designated and -affiliated ones, have apparently changed their views over the years. That’s why the West wants to establish relations with them. The regime change therefore can’t be seen as a defeat for Russia.

Putin then defended his armed forces’ conduct during recent events by claiming that Russia no longer had any ground troops in Syria. Moreover, the estimated 30,000 Syrian and “pro-Iranian units” that were defending Aleppo surrendered the city to just 350 militants, after which they gave up the rest of the country to them too with few exceptions. He also revealed that Russia evacuated 4,000 Iranian fighters to Tehran while other allied units fled to Lebanon (a reference to Hezbollah) and Iraq without a fight.

As for the future of Russian influence in Syria, Putin claimed that “The overwhelming majority of [the groups that control the situation there] tell us that they would be interested in our military bases remaining”. He then proposed that they could be used to deliver humanitarian aid. The main beneficiary of the latest events is Israel, in his opinion, since they’ve practically demilitarized Syria and expanded their occupation zone in the country. He condemned those moves and hoped that they’d leave someday.

Putin also took the opportunity to condemn Israel’s illegal settlements in Palestine as well as its ongoing military operation in Gaza. These are all consistent Russian positions and nothing new. Observers might have been surprised though that he didn’t also condemn Turkiye. Instead, he explained that “Turkey is doing everything to ensure its security on its southern borders as the situation in Syria develops”, which he said is aimed at returning refugees and “push[ing] back Kurdish formations on the border.”

In connection with that second imperative, Putin expressed hope that there won’t be an aggravation of the situation like some have reported that Turkiye is planning. He also said that “we need to solve the Kurdish problem. Within the framework of Syria under President Assad, this had to be solved, now we need to solve it with the authorities that control the territory of Syria, and Turkey needs to somehow ensure its security. We understand all this.” This basically amounts to giving Turkiye a free pass in Syria.

Putin’s apparent double standard towards the similar issues of Turkish and Israeli military involvement in post-Assad Syria can be explained by Russia’s complex interdependence with the former. They’re closely tied together through nuclear energy cooperation, air defense systems (S-400s), natural gas, trade, and Istanbul’s prior role in mediating between Moscow and Kiev. By contrast, although Israel hasn’t armed Ukraine nor sanctioned Russia, there’s much less trade and no military-technical cooperation.

There are also optics to consider as well. Although Syria is still politically divided and Turkiye does indeed back the UN-designated Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) terrorist group, there’s no denying that many Syrians support Ankara as do many other Muslims in the region. The same can’t be said for Israel, which is universally reviled in Syria, except among some of the Druze that welcomed the self-professed Jewish State’s forces, and fiercely hated by most Muslims in the region.

It’s therefore better for Russia’s soft power interests to criticize Israel for occupying part of Syria while remaining silent about Turkiye doing the same thing. Likewise, considering the domestic and regional mood, it also makes sense for Putin to remind everyone about the pro-Iranian units’ cowardice in giving up cities without a fight and then fleeing abroad. After all, “Russia Dodged A Bullet By Wisely Choosing Not To Ally With The Now-Defeated Resistance Axis”, so it has no reason to sugarcoat what they did.

Altogether, Putin’s remarks on Syria, Israel, and Turkiye show that Russia eschews responsibility for what just happened in Syria, condemns Israel for its ongoing invasion there, and downplays Turkiye’s own. This is a coldly realist and ultra-pragmatic approach to the latest developments that fully aligns with Russia’s national interests as Putin sincerely understands them to be. It also contradicts the expectations that many members of the diverse non-Mainstream Media community had of him condemning Turkiye.

As can be seen, Putin doesn’t really care that Turkiye is a NATO member nor that it patronizes terrorist-designated HTS since he’s always insisted that the most important factor in their contemporary ties is the excellent working relationship that he has with his Turkish counterpart, Recep Tayyip Erdogan. The Russian leader sang his praises in October 2022 while speaking at the Valdai Club’s annual meeting when he was asked about whether his views on him had changed over the past two years. Here’s what he said:

“He is a competent and strong leader who is guided above all, and possibly exclusively, by the interests of Turkiye, its people and its economy…President Erdogan never lets anyone get a free ride or acts in the interests of third countries…But there is a desire on both sides to reach agreements, and we usually do it. In this sense, President Erdogan is a consistent and reliable partner. This is probably his most important trait, that he is a reliable partner.”

Putin wasn’t playing “5D chess to psyche out Turkiye” like some members of the diverse non-Maisntream Media community imagined at the time but was candidly sharing his views about Erdogan. Those who took his words seriously therefore knew better than to expect him to condemn Turkiye for its actions in Syria. Putin’s responsibility is to ensure Russia’s national interests, not conform to his online supporters’ fantasies about him spewing this or that talking point, which requires maximum flexibility.

“Non-Russian Pro-Russians” and even some Russians might be disappointed with his position towards recent events in Syria, but they should at least understand the reasons behind it. Russia couldn’t stop what just happened, which was the result of the Syrian Arab Army’s and pro-Iranian units’ cowardice in the face of the foreign-backed terrorist-driven blitz, and it won’t go to war with Turkiye over this either. By adapting to this new reality, Putin now has the best possible chance of advancing Russian interests.

It doesn’t mean that he’ll succeed, but there’s no guarantee of failure as would have been the case had he criticized Turkiye after being unable to stop it and unwilling to go to war with it afterwards. Even if things don’t work out like he envisages, Russia’s mutually beneficial bilateral ties with Turkiye won’t be jeopardized, nor will his country’s soft power be damaged since it’s not opposed to the outcome that the domestic and regional majority support. Putin’s pragmatic hedging therefore preserves Russian interests.

American trust in medical institutions and vaccine technology has been plunging the past several years, and though the media treats this as a “troubling” and dangerous development for our society the shift might represent a positive change.  The activities of Big Pharma have gone largely unchecked and unchallenged for many decades.  The FDA has a revolving door policy, allowing pharmaceutical executives to exit their companies and work at the agency with impunity, then leave again and return to their former jobs.  It not hard to understand how this creates a serious conflict of interest at the FDA.

This problem of corruption was never more clear than it was during the covid pandemic.  Since that event, the US population has been losing faith in the ability of the government to scrutinize pharmaceutical products and protect people from potentially disastrous experimental medications and vaccines.  When the love affair between government and Big Pharma was put on blatant display, the American people rightly began to question everything.

Recently, CNN unveiled a poll which proves that US faith in vaccines is in steep decline.  

#6 – CNN shares a devastating poll, revealing that a growing number of parents no longer believe the government’s or media’s lies about vaccines.

Video: @Inversionism pic.twitter.com/uulexk7Iq2

— The Vigilant Fox 🦊 (@VigilantFox) December 19, 2024

The reality is that the vaccines were largely unnecessary.  Infections and fatalities were dropping rapidly well before the first vaccines were introduced to the public, likely because of natural immunity.  Later spikes only prove that the vaccines had minimal effect on the spread of the virus.  

At the height of the pandemic frenzy, the average Infection Fatality Rate of the Covid virus was a tiny 0.23%.  Meaning, 99.8% of the public was under no threat from the illness.  Furthermore those that did become dangerously sick were often elderly people with preexisting conditions.   

This fact was reinforced by data showing that the vast majority of deaths from covid were among people with at least one comorbidity.  If a person died after years of diabetes or cardiovascular disease, but they also had covid, the default of the medical establishment was to list the death as covid related.  That is to say, deaths from covid and deaths from preexisting conditions were mixed together without regard for how this might affect public statistics.

It should also be noted that the IFR of covid did not change from pre-vaccination conditions to post-vaccination conditions.  The death rate was the same regardless of vaccination status, though CDC, WHO and Big Pharma analysis often failed to use unvaccinated people as a control group.  This was likely done deliberately to hide the bigger picture from the public.

Instead, the establishment would use stats like CFR (Case Fatality Rate) or “Mortality Odds”, which discount asymptomatic cases and greatly overestimate the true rate of death.  Few establishment media outlets ever mentioned the real Infection Fatality Rate through the entirety of the pandemic.  

The goal was to pump up the covid death count as high as possible in order to frighten the public into accepting experimental mRNA vaccinations that were rushed into production under FDA emergency approval.  The average vaccine is tested for many years (sometimes a decade or more) in order to meet safety standards.  Covid vaccines were slapped together and shipped out in less than 12 months.  The action was hailed as a “medical miracle”, but the truth is that it was a massive gamble at best, and a draconian con at worst.

Governments around the world exploited pandemic fears and used unprecedented leverage to force the public into taking the jab.  Keep in mind that the Biden Administration almost gained the power to penalize companies employing workers without proof of vaccination (vaccine passports).  That is to say, the government under Biden tried to erase constitutional protections and take people’s jobs away unless they submitted to regular vaccines. It was an epic authoritarian sprint.   

They were only thwarted because of the Supreme Court and the courage of conservative red states defying the agenda. The covid event has created a culture of distrust when it comes to vaccine science.  Now, the public wants independent investigations and assurances on vaccines to prove safety rather than simply taking the FDA and Big Pharma at their word.  It’s not so much a movement against vaccines – It’s a movement to demand transparency, something which Americans should have had to begin with.              

Authored by Jack Phillips via The Epoch Times,

Florida’s governor and attorney general on Dec. 18 accused the federal government of blocking a state investigation into Ryan Wesley Routh, the man accused of attempting to assassinate then-former President Donald Trump at his Florida golf course.

Florida Attorney General Ashley Moody alleged that the Department of Justice informed the state that it had to suspend its investigation into Routh, citing a federal law about prosecuting crimes against significant public figures.

“It was made known that they intended to shut down our investigation and invoke federal jurisdiction in doing so,” Moody said Dec. 18 at a press conference.

“We didn’t believe it should be interpreted in the way that they suggested.”

At the same time, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis wrote that the federal government has “stonewalled Florida’s investigation of the Trump assassination attempt at every turn” and that he supports Moody’s attempts to move forward in their case against Routh.

“The tide will turn on January 20th and we fully expect that the federal roadblocks will be removed,” he wrote on social media, referring to the date that Trump will take office.

“The would-be assassin needs to face the full force of justice and the people deserve the truth about the defendant’s history, motivations and plan.”

The Department of Justice did not respond to an Epoch Times request for comment on Dec. 19.

At the same time, Moody’s office obtained a warrant for Routh’s arrest in mid-September, hours after he was allegedly discovered lying in wait for Trump armed with a rifle in Palm Beach County, Florida. After reportedly being shot at by a Secret Service agent, he fled and was arrested on Interstate 95 in Martin County.

After his arrest, a car crash occurred that injured a 6-year-old girl traveling with her family, Moody said during a press conference. The crash occurred in connection with the pursuit of Routh along the interstate, according to officials.

“As a result of that [accident], we felt compelled to seek justice on her behalf and her family that will never be the same as they cope with her injuries,” she said at a press briefing on Dec. 18.

Moody said the crash occurred after officials shut down traffic on I-95 as they tried to apprehend the suspect. A spokesperson for Moody said prosecutors will file the new charge when Routh is in state custody.

The multi-vehicle crash happened about 30 minutes after Routh’s arrest on I-95, according to the state’s investigation, but Moody alleged it was a result of his actions as he was attempting to evade capture. The girl suffered serious injuries, Moody’s office stated.

According to an arrest warrant affidavit for Routh, the accident occurred while authorities were apprehending him, about three or four miles south of where they stopped his vehicle.

Northbound traffic along the major interstate was halted because of the risk of the traffic stop and because it was not clear whether any weapons or explosives were inside Routh’s car, according to the affidavit. Southbound traffic was also halted as officials attempted to investigate his vehicle.

On Sept. 15, the Secret Service stated that one of its agents allegedly discovered Routh with his gun barrel sticking through Trump’s course perimeter fence as the then-former president was playing a round of golf. The agent opened fire on Routh, prompting him to flee in his vehicle before sheriff’s officials and other law enforcement arrested him along I-95 later that day.

Federal prosecutors said that Routh, whose residence is listed in Hawaii, allegedly waited for the president for about 12 hours and that cellphone data revealed he was in the area around Trump’s golf course and Mar-a-Lago for a month before the alleged assassination attempt.

Later, prosecutors said they discovered Routh had written a note that was left with an acquaintance. The note admitted he wanted to assassinate Trump because of the decision by the first Trump administration to withdraw the United States from the Iran nuclear deal that was signed by the Obama administration. Social media accounts associated with Routh also showed he was an avid supporter of Ukraine during the Russia–Ukraine conflict and had attempted to recruit people to fight.