Europe’s Concern Over Trump Isn’t A Global Opinion
Donald Trump’s inauguration as the 47th president of the United States took place this morning.
While his forthcoming presidency is viewed anxiously among a majority in Europe and South Korea, Statista’s Anna Fleck reports that a new survey by the European Council on Foreign Relations found that this is not the case in many other countries around the world.
As the following chart shows, populations of the founding BRICS nations were more positive about Trump’s second term in office than not.
In India, more than eight in ten respondents said they thought the re-election of Trump is good for their country.
By contrast, respondents in South Korea, the United Kingdom and the EU11 were the most likely to feel negatively about the next Trump era.
According to the ECFR, many respondents think Trump will bring peace or reduce tensions in Ukraine, the Middle East and in terms of U.S.-China relations.
Meanwhile, the writers of the report add that the pessimism of U.S. allies in Europe and South Korea indicates a “further weakening of the geopolitical “West”.”
The survey also found that many around the world expect China to become the world’s strongest power rather than America and consider Europe as a superpower equal to that of the U.S. and China.
The data shown in this chart is based on a survey of 28,549 people, conducted across 24 countries in November 2024 – just after the U.S. presidential election.
The Russian and Iranian presidents met in Moscow last Friday to sign an updated strategic partnership pact that can be read in full here and was reviewed here. The run-up to this development was marked by predictable hype about it being a game-changer, which hasn’t subsided in the days since, but this is an inaccurate description of what they agreed to. The only way in which this might ring true is with regards to gas, not geopolitics, for the reasons that’ll now be explained.
To begin with, Russia and Iran already had close military-technical cooperation before they updated their strategic partnership last week as proven by the rumors of Russia relying on Iranian drones in Ukraine. They also agreed to revive the previously stillborn North-South Transport Corridor (NSTC) shortly after the specialoperation began and the West imposed unprecedented sanctions against Moscow. Therefore, these parts of their updated strategic partnership aren’t anything new, they just aim to strengthen them.
About that, this agreement is fundamentally different from last summer’s Russian-North Korean one in that there aren’t any mutual defense obligations as clarified in Article 3. They only committed to not aid any aggression against the other, including assistance to the aggressor, and to help settle the subsequent conflict at the UN. That was already the case in their relations so explicitly clarifying it is redundant. Under no circumstances will Russia go to war against Israel and/or the US in support of Iran.
Putin is therefore very unlikely to break from this precedent, which observers can confidently conclude by dint of him declining to include any North Korean-like mutual defense obligations in Russia’s updated strategic partnership pact with Iran, which should hopefully put to rest some folks’ wishful thinking. It should also be said that the timing of this document’s signing is important too since it took place after Israel defeated the Resistance Axis and as the region correspondingly enters a new geopolitical era.
The parties had been negotiating their updated pact for several years already, and while work had finally ended last fall, Putin specifically requested during the Kazan Summit that Pezeshkian “pay a separate visit to our country to sign this document and other important documents in a ceremonial atmosphere.” Some at the time casually dismissed this as some form of protocol, but in retrospect, it’s arguably the case that Russia didn’t want to sign such a partnership pact until regional hostilities finally abated.
That’s understandable too since he foresaw that the West and some in Israel would interpret that development as supposedly being aimed against them, with the resultant spin complicating any potential peace talks over Ukraine and risking a crisis in relations with Israel. Putin remains committed to resolving the NATO-Russian security dilemma over Ukraine through diplomatic means and spent the past quarter-centuryexpanding ties with Israel so he wasn’t going to jeopardize either in this way.
From the Iran side, Pezeshkian represents the “reformist”/“moderate” faction of the Iranian policymaking elite, and they too might have been concerned that this development would be interpreted by the West and some in Israel as being aimed against them. Such perceptions could spoil any chance of reviving nuclear talks with the US, and it was still uncertain who the next American President would be, so he and his ilk might have also calculated that it’s better to wait until regional hostilities finally abated.
Observers will note that Pezeshkian gave his first interview to foreign media since the US presidential election just days before traveling to Moscow, during which time he reaffirmed his intent to resume talks with the US. The timing strongly suggests that he wanted to preemptively counteract whatever spin hawkish elements in the new administration might try to put on his country’s updated strategic partnership pact with Russia. This might have even been coordinated with Russia to a degree too.
Moving along to the NSTC component of their updated strategic partnership pact, it’s much more substantive since the aim is to increase their measly $4 billion mutual trade, which will help Russia more easily reach other Global South markets while providing relief for Iran’s sanctions-beleaguered economy. If successful, and it’ll take some time to see either way, then the NSTC can serve as a new geo-economic axis connecting the Eurasian Heartland to West Asia, South Asia, and eventually ASEAN and East Africa.
Once again, these plans were already underway for almost three years before they finally signed their long-negotiated updated strategic partnership pact so none of this is exactly new, it just bears mentioning in the larger context considering that part of this newly signed document concerns the NSTC. Much more important than the military and connectivity parts by far is their ambitious gas plans since Russia and Iran have some of the world’s largest reserves, with the latter’s largely remaining untapped.
It was explained in late August why “Russia Might Soon Redirect Its Gas Pipeline Plans From China To Iran & India”, namely due to the continued pricing dispute with the People’s Republic over Power of Siberia 2 and the latest gas MoUs at the time with Iran and then Azerbaijan. These combined to create the credible possibility of Russia replacing its hitherto eastward export focus with a southward one instead. Their updated strategic partnership pact confirms that the southern direction is now Russia’s priority.
Putin said during his press conference with Pezeshkian that he envisages beginning exports at just 2 billion cubic meters (bcm) a year, presumably due to the lack of infrastructure in northern Iran, before eventually scaling it to 55 bcm. That’s the same capacity as the now-defunct Nord Stream 1 to the EU. His Energy Minister later told reporters that the route will run through Azerbaijan and that negotiations are in their final stages over pricing. Their successful conclusion would revolutionize the industry.
Russian investment and technology could unlock Iran’s enormous gas reserves, thus leading to those two creating a “gas OPEC” for managing global prices amidst the Islamic Republic’s entrance to the market. While they have a self-interested incentive to keep them high, plunging the price could deal a powerful blow to America’s fracking industry and its associated LNG exports, thus imperiling its newfound European market dominance brought about by sanctions, the Nord Stream terrorist attack, and Ukraine.
Additionally, Russian gas projects on Iran’s side of the Gulf could supply nearby India, and/or a swap arrangement could be agreed to whereby Iran provides gas to it on Russia’s behalf even sooner. For that to happen, however, India would have to defy existing US sanctions on Iran or secure a waiver. Trump 2.0 might be convinced to respectively turn a blind eye or extend such in order for India to purchase this gas instead of China, the latter of which is alreadydefying such sanctions on the import of Iranian oil.
Part of Trump 2.0’s expected “Pivot (back) to Asia” is to obtain predominant influence over China’s energy imports, which includes cutting off its supply through a carrot-and-stick approach of incentivizing exporters to sell to other clients instead and creating obstacles for those that don’t. Some possibilities for how this could look with regards to Russia were explained here in early January, while the Iranian dimension could work as described above, albeit in exchange for US-Iranian talks making progress.
Even if India decides not to risk the US’ wrath by unilaterally importing Russian-produced Iranian gas in the event that Trump 2.0 isn’t convinced about the merits of having it replace China as Iran’s top energy client and thus threatens harsh sanctions, then China can just buy it all instead. Either way, Russia’s help in unlocking Iran’s largely untapped and enormous reserves will have a seismic effect on this industry, with the only questions being what prices they agree to and who’ll purchase most of it.
The answer to both is of immense importance for American interests since constantly low prices could kill its fracking industry and inevitably lead to the loss of its newly captured European market while China’s large-scale import of this resource (let alone on the cheap) could further fuel its superpower rise. It’s therefore in the US’ interests to boldly consider coordinating with the potentially forthcoming Russian-Iranian “gas OPEC” as well as allowing India to replace China as Iran’s top energy client.
Circling back to the headline, it’s indeed the case that the updated Russian-Iranian strategic partnership pact is poised to be much more of a game-changer in the global gas industry than for geopolitics, though its revolutionary impact on the aforesaid could have some geopolitical consequences in time. Even so, the point is that the pact isn’t geopolitically driven like some enthusiasts imagined before its signing and others still counterfactually insist afterwards since Russia won’t defend Iran from Israel or the US.
Russia and Iran “reject unipolarity and hegemony in world affairs” as agreed upon in their newly signed pact, but they’re not going to directly oppose it via joint military means, only indirectly via energy-related ones and by strengthening their economies’ resilience. The future of their strategic partnership is bright, but in order to fully appreciate its prospects, observers must acknowledge its non-military nature instead of continuing to fantasize about a joint war against Israel and/or the US like some are doing.
My name is Peder and I suffer from Trump Derangement Syndrome.
My case is not full-blown – I don’t contend that the incoming president is a fascist bent on suspending elections, jailing his enemies, and otherwise erasing our constitutional republic. I find claims that he is a sexual predator as risible as the argument that he launched a coup on Jan. 6, 2021. I gleefully whack-a-mole all the whack-doodle fantasies that pass as conventional wisdom among progressives and conservative Never Trumpers.
And yet, because it is more mild and subtle, my TDS may be more dangerous. Even though I generally support Donald Trump’s policies, I accepted the idea that he is beyond the pale. I agreed that his aggressive tweets, coarse language, and addiction to hyperbole were windows into a damaged soul. He just can’t help himself. I wished that the Republicans had somebody, anybody else to stand up against the Democrats because Trump seemed to lack the temperament and, yes, the character, to be president.
These critiques are not pulled from thin air. Trump is Trump. My mistake was transforming these complaints into condemnation, defining the man by his off-putting traits instead of his manifest gifts. More disturbingly, I probably took this line to prove to his unhinged haters that I had not drunk the orange Kool-Aid.
Not my finest hour.
I offer this confession both to clear my conscience and to offer this message to other Trump supporters who might have a whiff of TDS: Stop! Our embrace of false narratives about Trump’s character gives them credence. It is a major reason why he didn’t defeat the ineffable unqualified Kamala Harris by an even larger margin and why his job approval ratings aren’t higher. They serve as springboard for more extreme attacks against him. Look, even his supporters think he’s off.
Going forward, such wobbly support may undercut his ability to govern. We must continue to criticize him robustly when it is warranted, and those occasions will surely arise. And if there are people out there who think Trump’s perfect, I haven’t met them. But we must stop casting his all-too-human foibles as signs of something sinister.
Instead of trying to brush off the character argument, we should transform it. Donald Trump possesses a quality that has been in short supply in American politics and culture: courage.
This great strength is one source of the enmity against him.
Recall that Trump was an accepted member of elite circles for much of his life – Bill and Hillary Clinton attended his wedding to Melania in 2005. Then, suddenly, he became a pariah in 2015 when he threw his hat into the ring and dared to challenge the assumptions of the ruling class. Trump called out business leaders and politicians from both parties for policies and practices that seemed to line their pockets at the expense of average Americans: dubious trade deals with the repressive Chinese government; a lax approach to immigration that undercut working class jobs and wages; security arrangements that allowed NATO allies to free-ride on American taxpayers for their military defense.
He was an outlier, eager to challenge decades of beltline wisdom. He was a disruptor, determined to shake up a system in which consensus had smothered accountability. He was a powerful voice of dissent against a government where people got ahead by ignoring the hard questions. In a final insult, he became a symbol of our still vibrant democracy by winning not one, but two elections despite the visceral, intense, and highly organized opposition of the powers that be.
These were the real sins his enemies could not and will not forgive. In the face of relentless and unfair attacks, most people would have buckled. It would have been so much easier to play ball. Trump, instead, stuck by his guns. The courage he displayed after an assassin came within in a whisker of taking his life last summer was a true reflection of his abiding character.
The opposition to Trump will not fade during the next four years.
Those who cheered the Biden administration as it opened the borders, defied the courts, and censored critics will continue to claim that Trump poses a singular threat to our Republic. Their fraudulence may be clear for all to see, but their case of Trump Derangement Syndrome seems too far gone to repair.
As we turn a new page in our nation’s history, I am filled with hope because I see that we once again have a president with the character to provide the leadership we need.
Houthis Halt Attacks On Red Sea Vessels As Gaza Truce Holds
The Gaza ceasefire which went into effect Sunday morning, ending a 470-day conflict which has reportedly killed over 47,000 – has continued to hold. Palestinians are returning to northern Gaza in droves, picking through the rubble and seeking to identify their homes and belongings.
Yemen’s Houthis starting last week signaled they would stop their missile and drone attacks on international shipping in the Red Sea. As of Monday, the Houthis have announced a halt to these attacks, but with an important exception.
International ships will no longer come under attack, the Houthis said, but attacks on Israeli-linked commercial and military vessels will continue.
“We affirm that, in the event of any aggression against the Republic of Yemen by the United States of America, the United Kingdom, or the usurping Israeli entity, the sanctions will be reinstated against the aggressor,” the Houthis said in a written statement reported by Reuters.
“You will be promptly informed of such measures should they be implemented,” it continued. The Houthis further said that even Israeli-linked ships will stop being targeted “upon the full implementation of all phases of the agreement.”
The first of three phases is set for 42-days, during which time the terms of the subsequent phases will be negotiated and set. Hamas has already released three Israeli hostages, and dozens of Palestinians who were imprisoned in Israel have been exchanged.
On Friday, just before the ceasefire was implemented, Houthi leader Abdulmalik Al-Houthi had warned that if the ceasefire didn’t hold, the Houthi attacks on commercial shipping would continue. “Any Israeli breach, massacre, or siege — we will be immediately ready to provide military support to Palestinians,” he had stressed.
He said his movement, formally known as Ansar Allah, will “confront any aggression, whether by the Israelis, the Americans, or their allies, or any attempts to divert our country from its liberated jihadist path.”
Bloomberg meanwhile reviewed that “Most Western-linked container ships have over the past year chosen to take the much longer route around southern Africa when sailing between Asia and Europe, and kept clear of the Red Sea. That’s squeezed global shipping capacity, lifting freight rates and boosted the earnings of carriers like Mitsui OSK.”
“Container-shipping giants A.P. Moller Maersk A/S and Hapag-Lloyd AG last year announced a vessel-sharing partnership for the alternative route,” the report continues.
“Crude Oil Dips As Yemen’s Houthi Militia Plans To Halt Red Sea Ship Attacks.” – https://t.co/jdS9M0UO55
Egypt has said its taken a $7 billion hit in revenue decline from the Suez Canal for 2024, which marks about a 60% drop from prior years.
If the Yemeni operations directly against Israel do persist in face of the truce, it would complicate or damage efforts to keep the peace in the Gaza Strip, as it’s already sure to be an extremely delicate and fragile truce. The Houthis have up to this point in the war launched several ballistic missiles on Israel, causing limited damage and casualties.
President Biden’s pardon of Dr. Anthony Fauci may protect the former National Institutes of Health official from immediate criminal prosecution, but some critics say he is not completely out of legal jeopardy and that public sentiment might still condemn the man who became known during the COVID-19 pandemic as “Mr. Science.”
In the days before Biden offered the pardon to Fauci, along with other critics of Donald Trump, some experts who have followed Fauci’s career and handling of the pandemic, as well as members of the Trump transition team, reiterated their assertion that Fauci perjured himself on several occasions during the pandemic – especially regarding his agency’s links to the lab in Wuhan, China, that might have created the virus that causes COVID-19.
The pardon addresses any COVID-related offenses, and is backdated to 2014—the year a U.S. ban on so-called “gain of function” virus research took effect — research Fauci is accused of outsourcing to China.
Despite reporting that Trump is bent on revenge, the appetite among MAGA appointees for holding Fauci accountable hasn’t been particularly vocal. But former Senate investigator Jason Foster, who now runs the whistleblower nonprofit Empower Oversight, says that Biden’s pardon creates new legal jeopardy for Fauci. Sen. Rand Paul has vowed to continue investigating the COVID origins question, and sources tell RealClearInvestigations that Sen. Ron Johnson and House Republican investigators plan to do so as well. When testifying in those inquiries or answering written depositions, Fauci will be unable to dodge questions by invoking his Fifth Amendment protections against self-incrimination. “They can ask him if he lied before, replough old ground,” Foster said. “And if he lies about any prior lie, he can be prosecuted for that or held in contempt.”
Andrew Noymer, associate professor of population health and disease prevention at the University of California, Irvine, said such hearings are necessary for scientific and historical reasons. “I’m hopeful that he will now come clean about everything he knows about the origins of the virus,” Noymer said. “For the sake of public trust in science – explaining what killed 20 million people – that a complete account is much more important than speculation about what criminal penalties he may have avoided.”
“These pardons will not stop Department of Justice investigations,” said one adviser to the Trump transition team, who spoke on the condition of anonymity. “We expected this and look at it as a predicate to get truth from people who can no longer use the Fifth Amendment. Now we can bring every one of them in front of a grand jury.”
There is no consensus on Fauci’s handling of the pandemic. Legacy media outlets have promoted Fauci throughout the pandemic as “America’s doctor” who “sticks to the facts” and applauded him as “the nation’s top infectious disease expert.” When he retired from the NIH after five decades in 2022, the New York Times granted him space on its opinion page to advise the next generation of scientists, citing his own accomplishments.
Numerous social media outlets have provided a polar opposite perspective. Several X accounts have uploaded videos that show Fauci’s inconsistencies. For example, Fauci claimed in early 2022 interviews that he never recommended lockdowns, but later said he recommended shutting the country down. Independent journalist Matt Orfalea circulated another set of clips that show Fauci claiming he kept an “open mind” about how the pandemic started while alleging in others that the evidence points against a lab accident and “strongly” in favor of a natural spillover.
As Fauci’s flip-flops generated attention in Republican circles and on social media, he charged that such criticism was “totally preposterous,” adding, “Attacks on me, quite frankly, are attacks on science.”
Fauci’s many contradictory statements even caught the attention of a New York Times contributing opinion writer, Megan K. Stack, who chastised Fauci for “the largely one-sided nature of his public remarks” about the possibility the pandemic started from an accident at a lab his agency had helped fund – the Wuhan Institute of Virology. Initially, Fauci dismissed as a “conspiracy theory” the possibility of a Wuhan lab accident on a Feb. 9, 2020, podcast hosted by Newt Gingrich. Afterward, Fauci reversed himself, stating in several interviews that he had always kept an open mind.
Later reports zeroed in on Fauci’s secret involvement in prominent March 2020 research, called the “proximal origin” paper, that turned public and scientific sentiment against the possibility of a lab accident. “Our analyses clearly show that SARS-CoV-2 is not a laboratory construct or a purposefully manipulated virus,” the paper concluded, adding, “We do not believe that any type of laboratory-based scenario is plausible.” Published in the prestigious Nature Medicine journal, “proximal origin” is the most-cited scientific paper of 2020.
Subsequent emails showed that Fauci helped guide the “proximal origin” paper to publication, as congressional probers found, “without revealing that he had been involved with its creation and had even, according to the emails, given it his approval.”
Distancing himself from his own emails, Fauci later told the Times that he wasn’t sure he even got around to reading the paper. But the House later released a multi-day deposition of Fauci where he was asked about his involvement in the “proximal origin” paper. Under oath, Fauci admitted to having received and read several drafts of the paper.
But while dissembling to the media is not a crime, lying to Congress is illegal. And the Department of Justice has two referrals from Congress already requesting that Fauci be prosecuted for lying under oath.
Fauci’s habit of bending the truth, as some see it, was notably on display at a July 2021 Senate hearing when Rand Paul, the Kentucky Republican, bore into the funding Fauci approved for gain-of-function research at the Wuhan Institute of Virology. While Fauci attempted to downplay his financial involvement with the Chinese government lab, reports were already percolating.
In April 2020, Newsweek reported that Fauci had approved a grant for risky “gain of function” virus research at the Wuhan lab. The Washington Post editorial board in March 2021 then called for an independent investigation into EcoHealth Alliance, a nonprofit funded by the Fauci-run National Institute for Allergy and Infectious Diseases. With this grant, EcoHealth subcontracted research to the Chinese, the Post noted, to do experiments involving “modifying viral genomes to give them new properties, including the ability to infect lung cells of laboratory mice that had been genetically modified to respond as human respiratory cells would.”
Fox News reported Sunday that the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services has barred EcoHealth Alliance Inc. and its former president, Dr. Peter Daszak, from receiving federal funds for five years. EcoHealth allegedly failed to report dangerous gain-of-function experiments to the government, which eventually led to the five-year ban.
A month prior to Fauci’s hearing with Paul, Columbia University professor Jeffrey Sachs confirmed that U.S.-funded research at the WIV consisted of gain-of-function virus research that could have started the pandemic. “[I]t is clear that the NIH co-funded research at the WIV that deserves scrutiny under the hypothesis of a laboratory-related release of the virus.” At that time, Dr. Sachs led a commission formed by a British medical journal, The Lancet, to investigate how the pandemic began.
But when Paul began grilling Fauci about these details and called him out for what he characterized as evasive answers, Fauci pointed the finger back at Paul. “If anybody is lying here, senator, it is you,” Fauci said. Paul then sent a criminal referral to the Department of Justice requesting they investigate whether Fauci had committed perjury.
“He definitely misled the senator,” said former Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Director Robert Redfield. When Redfield looked at all the evidence, including still-classified information, he said the weight falls in the direction of a lab accident. “Fauci manipulated the public to believe there was only one possible cause for the pandemic, a natural spillover.”
Months after Paul’s referral to the Justice Department, liberal news nonprofit ProPublica released new documents confirming the Wuhan lab had conducted such studies. “Grant money for the controversial experiment came from the National Institutes of Health’s National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, which is headed by Anthony Fauci,” ProPublica reported on September 9, 2021.
“NIH admits funding risky virus research in Wuhan,” Vanity Fair reported a week after ProPublica, referencing a letter NIH sent to Congress.
Paul sent a second referral to the Department of Justice in July 2023, reiterating his demand that Fauci be investigated. At that time, House investigators released emails showing that, in early 2020, Fauci admitted that scientists were concerned the COVID virus had been engineered and researchers in Wuhan were engaged in gain-of-function research.
“Everything he has been telling us from the very beginning has been a lie,” Sen. Paul told Fox News. “We have documented it’s a lie and it’s a felony to lie to Congress.”
Biden’s pardon negates the two Senate referrals for criminal activity. But future hearings could still require Fauci to respond to evidence that he might have perjured himself, and open him up to future prosecution if he stands by statements that can be proven to be false.
Another area of potential inquiry is Fauci’s congressional testimony last summer denying his use of private email to conduct official business, “Let me state for the record that to the best of my knowledge I have never conducted official business via my personal email,” Fauci wrote in his sworn statement to Congress.
This testimony seemed to contradict evidence in a 35-page memo compiled by Republican investigative staff. One email showed Fauci’s second-in-command, Dr. David Morens, suggesting someone speak with Fauci through an unofficial, private channel. In another email, Morens wrote that he would contact Fauci on Gmail.
After Fauci’s testimony, the writer of this article reported in the DisInformation Chronicle that Morens had connected KFF Health News reporter Arthur Allen with Fauci on Fauci’s private email back in May 2021. The NIH did not respond to comment about Fauci’s use of private email to conduct government business with reporters.
In a second example, the New York Post reported that the watchdog group White Coat Waste Project accused Fauci of lying to Congress about his private email use after they released documents showing Fauci was backchanneling with a Washington Post reporter on his private email.
“I will send you an e-mail via my gmail account,” Fauci wrote in an email dated Oct. 29, 2021, to Washington Post reporter Yasmeen Abutaleb.
Fauci’s lawyer told the Post that Fauci was discussing a personal matter with the Washington Post reporter, although he did not explain what this personal matter was.
Justin Goodman, senior vice president at White Coat Waste Project, said the evidence is clear that Fauci contacted the Washington Post about issues regarding his NIH work and then denied it to Congress. “He should be prosecuted, not pardoned.”
Follow the Money
This misleading article helped to absolve Fauci of funding research that led to the pandemic, for a time. See center paragraph from its abstract on “strong evidence that SARS-CoV-2 is not the product of purposeful manipulation.”
Congressional hearings might also delve into Fauci’s involvement in research misconduct with the “proximal origin” paper and a grant he approved for the paper’s lead author, Scripps Research Institute’s Kristian Andersen.
“There needs to be a criminal investigation of this grant and paper,” said a former law enforcement official who has worked with congressional staff investigating Fauci and his grants. “Nobody inside the executive branch has taken ownership of this.”
Shortly after the COVID virus outbreak, Fauci began discussing with several virologists, including Andersen, how the pandemic started. In a Feb. 1, 2020 email, Andersen wrote to Fauci that he had analyzed the COVID virus genetic sequence and “some of the features (potentially) look engineered.” Andersen added that, while opinions could change, he and other virologists felt the virus was not natural or consistent with “expectations with evolutionary theory.”
Later that same day, Fauci held a phone call with Andersen and other virologists and then emailed that the scientists were suspicious that a “mutation was intentionally inserted” into the virus. Other emails show that Fauci was concerned that his funding for research in China may have led to the COVID virus.
Despite their initial suspicions, Andersen and other virologists reversed course six weeks later and published the “proximal origin” paper on March 16, 2020, that absolved Fauci of funding research that led to the pandemic. Fauci then promoted the Andersen “proximal origin” paper to reporters at a White House briefing on April 17 without disclosing that he had helped marshal the study into publication.
A month later, Fauci signed off on an $8.9 million grant to Kristian Andersen. Both Andersen and Fauci have denied the grant was quid pro quo for Andersen publishing the “proximal origin” paper that absolved Fauci, but the group Biosafety Now has called twice for the paper to be retracted.
“It is imperative that this clearly fraudulent and clearly damaging paper be removed from the scientific literature,” reads an online petition signed by over 5,000 scientists.
Richard Ebright, a professor of Chemistry and Chemical Biology at Rutgers University and co-founder of Biosafety Now, said that Fauci should have been prosecuted for “criminal conspiracy” for his secret involvement in the “proximal origin” paper. Ebright added that the grant Fauci gave to Andersen after he published the paper likely also involved criminal behavior.
With Republicans running both the Senate and House, investigations of Fauci will likely continue as members resume digging into any NIH culpability in funding research that started the pandemic. Trump’s CIA nominee, John Ratcliffe, told House members during a 2023 hearing that classified intelligence points toward a lab accident. Ratcliffe is likely to be confirmed, and a Trump transition team source said he would likely then declassify that information, further undermining Fauci’s claims that the pandemic started from a natural spillover.
Ongoing investigations of Fauci, RCI has been told, will only further erode his credibility, even if criminal charges can no longer be filed. “This pardon means he can no longer be brought to justice,” said an adviser to the Trump transition team. “But it guarantees he will be further exposed.”
“I trusted everything Fauci said during the pandemic, and I did everything he told me,” said Bri Dressen, a former preschool teacher in Saratoga Springs, Utah. “I masked, wiped down my groceries with alcohol, kept my kids away from other kids so they wouldn’t catch the virus, and then I got vaccinated.” Dressen ended up injured by AstraZeneca’s vaccine as a volunteer in the company’s clinical trial, and founded React19.org, whose 36,000 members advocate for victims of COVID vaccine harm.
“It was the steepest learning curve in my entire life. The people in authority like Fauci are the ones I shouldn’t have trusted,” Dressen said. “It’s been a huge paradigm shift to see a hero actually turn into a villain.”
As such, we knew a few things early on in the pandemic, and they were as follows:
The average age of death from the virus was in the 80s.
It had almost zero effect on young people and children.
Most people who died from it had three or more co-morbidities — that is, they were old as hell, fat as a hog, and really liked smoking, or drinking, or cancer.
It was in the same class of virus as the common cold.
Once we knew these things, especially the last one, the obvious thing to do was to give up. There was no point crippling the strong for the sake of the weak when the weak depend upon the strong and most of the weak aren’t affected by COVID anyway. We should have put the elderly on welfare and expanded Medicaid a bit and let the rest of us run loose. No — we should have subsidized tickets to bath houses and any place kids eat that has a ball pit.
We like to say “hindsight is 20/20,” but this isn’t hindsight at all. Hell, it was 2020. The stuff I mentioned above was the conclusion every person with regular sight came to the second our government called most workers “non-essential.” Yet this society was immediately cleaved in two. All the healthy and thoughtful people were pitted against the sanctimonious do-gooders, the goose-steppers, and the hysterical weaklings. And they beat us into submission, big time.
And Joe Biden was their champion.
Almost overnight, millions were thrown out of work, and a vaccine was made up that nobody had properly tested, which no company was liable for and, in its experimental form, until the pandemic hit, had never been approved by the FDA. Joe Biden tried to force every American in a company of more than 100 people to take it or lose his job — around two thirds of the whole country, it turned out. Heart attacks in teenagers went through the roof. People had to choose between gambling their health and losing their homes. Pfizer was completely unaccountable and made a windfall. Mom-and-Pop stores across the nation went bankrupt, and gyms and churches were forced shut, and Walmart and Amazon made a killing.
To make up for the mass unemployment Democrats caused and encouraged, Joe decided to print more money than anyone ever did in American history — a bill worth $1.9 trillion, which singlehandedly made the dollar implode. This made everybody in the country take a giant pay cut, effectively, and now most Americans can’t afford the groceries they were buying in 2019. Or used cars. Or (many times) the rent.
Some people escaped this crushing poverty: the ultra-rich, the people who broke the country, and people who broke into the country. The border was left wide open for nearly Biden’s whole term, and depending on where they went, illegal aliens were given not only free housing and medical care, but also smartphones and thousands of dollars.
Haitians and Chinese and Middle Eastern gate-crashers were seen marching in by the thousands. Venezuela went so far as to unload its prisons on us. Independent journalists began spotting obvious gang members and people on the terrorist watchlist. The Texans put up blockades, and the Border Patrol, under Biden’s orders, tore them right down. In some places, gates were broken open to ensure that nobody was denied access. In total, the BBC estimates (and I would say lowly) that over eight million people invaded.
Americans were disturbed by footage of hordes pouring over the border, so Biden closed the airspace so we couldn’t see it. This was in fact his modus operandi whenever we started asking questions. When doctors from places like Harvard and Stanford questioned the vaccine, he sent the FBI to bully Facebook into banning them and anyone who supported them — a clearly illegal move for which nobody, to my knowledge, has been prosecuted. When Ashley Biden’s diary was going to be published, with all kinds of weird information about his behavior, the FBI raided the homes of journalists. When his son’s laptop was found to contain incriminating information, he had the FBI bully social media again during an election season. When his son was finally going to pay for taking quid-pro-quo bribes from the Ukrainians, or for doing crack and hookers on camera and buying guns illegally, Joe Biden pardoned him for everything he ever did over a ten-year period. This was right after he went on TV to say “nobody is above the law” — an attack on, you guessed it, his own political rivals.
Whether or not anyone could measure up to the law, it’s clear that during Biden’s presidency, nobody could measure up to the government. That’s because he was the DIE hirer-in-chief and made sure almost nobody, from top to bottom, was fit for command. He sent a fat and mentally ill man, “Rachel” Levine, to run the United States Public Health Service. He put Ketanji Brown on the Supreme Court — a woman so stupid that she couldn’t define “woman,” thinks being a street junkie is a constitutional right, and doesn’t have (quote) “a judicial philosophy per se.” Despite her not having anything good to say, she speaks more, ex cathedra, according to the Washington Times, than all the other Supreme Court justices.
Because of Joe Biden, Pete Buttigieg, a gay man with zero experience in public transportation, is now the secretary of transportation. Biden wanted his Cabinet to “look like America,” so he stuffed it with Jews and zero Evangelicals. He promised us a black woman as a vice president, and the only person available was the most shrill, obnoxious, embarrassing person in the whole party. When it became clear he had dementia, she was nominated as his successor without the public’s consent.
We could go on for hours. When he abandoned Afghanistan — something that had to be done sooner or later — he did it so badly that not only did we lose billions of dollars of equipment, which immediately fell into the hands of the enemy, but he forgot to evacuate all our civilians, and allies, and green card–holders. Whoopsie-daisy!
Where was Biden when our cities were getting burned down by Black Lives Matter? Why did Antifa rioters get their charges dismissed after attacking federal buildings and officers — half of all charges, according to The Wall Street Journal? And why were the Proud Boys locked up for trying to stop Antifa? Why did he commute almost all the sentences on federal death row but not pardon Daniel Penny for protecting women on a subway train? Joe Biden pardoned former Pennsylvania judge Michael Conahan, who sent falsely convicted children to for-profit prisons in exchange for kickbacks. He left Enrique Tarrio in prison for trying to defend people from rioters.
His whole career has been helping everyone but the talented, the upright, or the American majority. Biden canceled our Keystone Pipeline while approving the Nord Stream pipeline from Russia to Germany. Newsweek said that at the same time he restricted domestic oil and gas production, causing prices to soar, he asked OPEC and Russia to make more oil so we could reduce our prices. The New York Post says FEMA couldn’t find funding for victims of Hurricane Helene — our second deadliest hurricane in the last 50 years, which closed 400 roads and destroyed entire towns — because they’d already spent $1.4 billion on illegal aliens. Israel, from October 2023 to October 2024, got a record $17.9 billion in military aid. According to the Government Accountability Office, since 2022, Ukraine has gotten $174 billion. According to U.S. News, we send foreign aid to more than 180 countries, and FEMA said nobody could find the money for our hurricane victims.
An important question might be asked here. How much of this is really Joe Biden’s fault? This is the guy we caught, on camera, in his first days after the election, mumbling I don’t know what I’m signing here when he was green-lighting executive orders willy-nilly. Biden garbles more sentences than Lil’ Pump. If he’s not directed off the stage, he could get stuck on it.
Like the line between the sovereignty of God and our own free will, we’ll probably never know, until the Final Judgment, who was really responsible. But Biden is the guy we elected to take the blame for it. He chose to be there. The whole Democrat party said for years that he was in great shape. So I say hang him out to dry. He’s a coward, a sleazeball, a crook and a pardoner of crooks, an embarrassment to the already embarrassing Pope Francis, a horrible public speaker, both a profligate liar and a constant dupe, a prosecutor of truth-tellers and truth-publishers, the enemy of unborn children, a defender of everyone’s border but his own, a burden to the hardworking and the virtuous, a friend to the untalented and the envious, a sniffer of women and children, an incapable father, a consistent and regrettable clown, and a stain on the great legacy of this nation.
Go Figure: Walgreens CEO Admits Locking Up Merchandise Makes It Hard To Sell
What genius retail executive mind could have figured this one out – that locking up merchandise in stores actually makes its more difficult for honest, paying customers to get to, and buy what they want?
Walgreens – facing a significant drop in year-over-year earnings – just announced plans to close 450 more stores nationwide, according to Futurism/The Byte.
Efforts to curb “shrink” — losses from theft or fraud — included increased security measures, such as locking merchandise in containers requiring staff assistance.
However, these measures proved ineffective and counterproductive, frustrating customers.
CEO Tim Wentworth said on the company’s earning’s call: “It is a hand-to-hand combat battle still, unfortunately.”
“But it does impact how sales work through the store because when you lock things up. For example, you don’t sell as many of them. We’ve kind of proven that pretty conclusively,” he continued.
The report says that Walgreens is struggling with rising prices, which are making it harder for consumers to afford products. The company faces challenges in its retail business due to inflation and higher interest rates, leading to more cost-conscious shopping and changes in purchasing habits.
In 2021, Walgreens faced backlash for closing five stores in San Francisco, citing “organized” shoplifting, though police records showed only 23 incidents between 2018 and 2021.
During a 2023 earnings call, Walgreens CFO James Kehoe admitted the company may have over-invested in security to address theft, acknowledging the company had perhaps exaggerated the problem. This suggests Walgreens has often used theft concerns as a cover for deeper issues within its retail operations.
Former Oakland Mayor Sheng Thao and three other defendants were charged by federal prosecutors in an eight-count indictment unsealed on Jan. 17 alleging the group participated in a bribery and corruption scheme that sought to benefit a company with nearly $90 million in city contracts.
The recently recalled Thao, who was arraigned during a 10:30 a.m. court hearing in Oakland, pleaded not guilty to six charges and was released on a $50,000 bond.
Thao and Andre Jones, described in charging documents as her “longtime romantic partner,” and businessmen David Trung Duong and Andy Hung Duong, father and son, respectively, are charged with a litany of crimes.
“The public deserves honesty and transparency from City Hall,” first assistant U.S. Attorney Patrick D. Robbins said in a statement.
“When elected officials agree to a pay-to-play system to benefit themselves rather than work for the best interests of their constituents, that breaches the public trust.”
He said communities relying on leaders for critical government services are hurt by their misdeeds.
“The public needs to know it can trust those in charge of City Hall to work for the best interests of the people of Oakland,” he said during a press conference announcing the indictment.
“This public trust is broken when elected officials agree to a pay-to-play system to benefit themselves.”
According to the indictment filed by the grand jury on Jan. 9, in the weeks before Thao was elected mayor in November 2022, and after taking office, she offered influence and city contracts to the Duongs in exchange for campaign support and financial gain.
Thao agreed to purchase units from the Duongs’ housing company, extend a contract with the Duongs’ recycling company, and allow the Duongs to select candidates for certain city appointments.
In exchange, the Duongs allegedly paid $75,000 to fund a negative mailer campaign against Thao’s political rivals, founded websites attacking her opponents, and made $95,000 in payments through Jones to benefit him and Thao.
After taking office, Thao allegedly used her power in office to allow the Duongs to appoint unnamed “high-level” city officials and asked her staff to tour the housing company.
The indictment also alleges the group discussed a $3 million bribe payment if the city purchased 300 housing units from an unnamed co-conspirator’s company. The housing company stood to earn about $90 million, according to the indictment.
In an attempt to conceal the payments, the arrangement was allegedly for the money to be paid as wages to Jones for a no-show job, and fake invoices were created, among other maneuvers.
Prosecutors allege improprieties involving a trip Thao took to Vietnam in July and August of 2023 with the Duongs, which cost tens of thousands of dollars and was partially paid for by the Port of Oakland.
The unnamed co-conspirator was appointed to a city position and received $1.4 million from entities associated with Duong, according to the indictment.
Among the agencies involved in what is described as an ongoing investigation is the Internal Revenue Service’s Criminal Investigation Division.
“The alleged crimes committed against the citizens of Oakland by former Mayor Thao and her co-conspirators are a clear breach of public trust and cannot be tolerated,” Linda Nguyen, special agent in charge for the division’s Oakland field office, said in a statement.
“Public corruption schemes are rooted in greed and typically leave a money trail behind. [Our division] specializes in following that trail and building cases that lead to justice.”
FBI agents also helped unravel the scheme, including raiding Thao’s Oakland home in June 2024. Thao was recalled in November 2024.
“Our communities are entitled to leaders who act in their best interest, free from the shadow of corruption,” Dan Costin, special agent in charge for the FBI, said in a statement.
“Today’s actions demonstrate our resolute determination to protect the integrity of our government and ensure accountability for those who betray the public’s trust.”
U.S. postal inspectors were also involved because the scheme allegedly involved mail fraud.
Earlier in the day, Trump told a yuge crowd at the Capitol One Arena that he was going to “release our great hostages,” referring to the Jan. 6 prisoners.
“As soon as I leave, I’m going to the Oval Office, and we’ll be signing pardons for a lot of people, a lot of people,” Trump continued.
Proud Boys leader Enrique Tarrio, who was convicted of seditious conspiracy, is currently being processed for release from FCI Pollock, a medium security federal prison in Louisiana, NBC News reports. Tarrio had been sentenced to 22 years in federal prison after his conviction.
“He is being processed out,” said his attorney, Nayib Hasssan. “We do not know what type of clemency he is receiving.”
U.S. Navy Corpsman Disciplined Last Year After Trying To Access President Biden’s Health Records
A U.S. Navy corpsman was administratively reprimanded last year after he attempted to access President Biden’s medical records, according to a new report from CBS.
On Feb. 22, at the Naval Medical Readiness and Training Center at Fort Belvoir, Virginia, a Navy corpsman sat at his desk amidst the hum of computers and quiet chatter. Nearby, a licensed civilian nurse and an Army soldier worked.
The routine setting took a turn when a colleague left her workstation, her Common Access Card (CAC) still logged in. This smart card, about the size of a credit card, grants access to secure military networks and facilities.
The group began discussing the security risk of unattended CACs, with one person noting the potential for misuse: “Someone could maliciously use your CAC when you walk away.”
Spurred by “curiosity” and this conversation, the corpsman accessed restricted files. According to a Naval Criminal Investigative Service (NCIS) report obtained by CBS News through a Freedom of Information Act request, the low-ranking sailor attempted to access the president’s medical records.
The investigation led to a nonjudicial punishment for dereliction of duty under the Uniform Code of Military Justice. The corpsman, whose identity was withheld, was demoted from E-3 to E-2, given 20 days of extra duty, and had pay reduced by half for six months. An E-2 with two to three years of service earns about $2,260 monthly.
The CBS report says that during a discussion about the risks of unattended CAC accounts, someone suggested such access could be used to view the president’s medical records. Curious, the Navy corpsman tested this by searching “Joseph Biden” in the Genesis Medical Health System. A single record appeared, with a matching birthdate verified via Google. The file was accessed for about 20 seconds, revealing minimal information, including a doctor’s name, which didn’t match publicly available details.
Realizing the seriousness of his actions, the corpsman closed the file. A female colleague advised him to self-report, but he delayed. Another coworker reported the violation first. The corpsman later confessed, citing curiosity and denying any intent to save, share, or document the record.
NCIS launched an investigation, discovering no link between the corpsman and political motives or hacktivist groups, though a reverse image search on his Instagram profile hinted at potential Anonymous imagery. Searches on his laptop included terms like “Biden” and “Anonymous.” His devices, seized and analyzed, were eventually returned.
The accessed record was later confirmed to be non-legitimate. The president was informed quickly, undergoing an unrelated physical two days after the investigation began, where he was deemed “fit for duty.” The corpsman faced disciplinary action but cooperated fully throughout the inquiry.
