Via The Libertarian Institute, 

As the Ukrainian war effort has faltered, fractures have begun to emerge in Kiev between top officials. The most significant is the division between President Zelensky and the head of Ukraine’s military, General Valery Zaluzhny. The split is alarming US officials. 

“Officials in Washington are concerned differences between Zelensky and his army chief, Zaluzhny, are slowing efforts to crystallize a new strategy,” Bloomberg reports.

“With a decisive breakthrough unlikely in the coming months, Kiev’s allies say designing a clear military strategy for how to defend current positions and then break through Russian lines is crucial,” the report continues.

The fractures emerged between Zaluzhny and Zelensky late last year when the general said that the war had become a stalemate. The admission means that Zelensky’s stated goal of reconquering Ukraine is impossible. 

The president and his military are also at odds over Ukraine’s conscription policy. Zaluzhny is unhappy with the slow pace at which Zelensky has expanded Kiev’s draft. 

The conflict between Zelensky and the Ukrainian armed forces has been brewing for some time. In October, Time Magazine reported that troops had ignored orders to advance even when those orders came from Zelensky. 

Videos of Ukrainians kidnapped on the streets by military recruiters are all over Ukrainian telegram channels.
– As the public becomes increasingly angry with the government, Zelensky will become cautious about arming the angry masses pic.twitter.com/Ggp90jzm2v

— Glenn Diesen (@Glenn_Diesen) January 6, 2024

The military personnel are not the only Ukrainians to break with their president. Last year, an aide to Zelensnky said the president was deluding himself into thinking the war was winnable. The mayor of Kiev, Vitali Klitschko, has warned that Zelensky is turning Ukraine into an authoritarian state. 

What is the global risk landscape in 2024?

Record global temperatures are leading to increasingly harmful impacts, a cost-of living crisis is making everyday life harder for people around the world, and escalating tensions in the Middle East have the potential to widen into a broader regional conflict.

Meanwhile, in 2024 it’s expected to be the world’s biggest election year ever with 4 billion people casting a vote across 60 countries. Will threats such as misinformation and polarization loom large as people head to the polls?

Visual Capitalist’s Dorthy Neufeld created the visualization below to show the biggest risks for 2024, based on the World Economic Forum’s annual survey of leaders around the globe.

Global Risk Profile in 2024

Here are the top 20 risks to the global economy, based on a survey of 1,490 leaders.

Leaders were asked to choose up to five risks that are likely to present a material crisis on a global scale in 2024:

Extreme weather poses the biggest risk according to leaders surveyed. It also ranks second overall in terms of severity over the next two years.

Global economies are widely unprepared for the consequences of acute weather, from shocks to food systems to large-scale infrastructure damage. In fact, some research shows that potentially irreversible changes to the planet could be reached by the 2030s if temperatures continue to rise.

Misinformation and disinformation is the second-biggest risk, which could diminish trust and deepen political divides. It also has the potential to undermine global elections, which are slated across the U.S., Russia, India, Mexico, and dozens of other countries.

The threat of misinformation is especially clear given advancements in AI-generated content. It ranks first overall in terms of risk severity across the list.

Interlinked with misinformation is the risk of societal polarization. In the post-pandemic era, political divides have worsened, and these have been exacerbated by economic hardship and a lack of economic opportunity.

Additionally, the conflict in the Middle East is severely impacting the livelihood of millions of people, and the recent attack in Lebanon raises questions about the outbreak of a wider war. The escalation of interstate armed conflicts ranks as the eighth-highest risk for the global economy in 2024, and the fifth-most severe.

Future Global Risks

How will global risks transform over the next decade?

By 2034, leaders surveyed believe that environmental risks will be most concerning, making up five of the top 10 risks, by severity:

We can see that technological risks of misinformation and the adverse outcomes of AI technologies also remain fairly dominant.

AI has the potential to be highly destabilizing to society, presenting some existential risks due to its role as a “force multiplier”, which means that it can increase the effect of a country’s military systems, data analytics, and other capabilities.

From a broader perspective, key structural forces are influencing global risks looking ahead. They include technological acceleration, climate change, shifts in geopolitical power, and a widening demographic divide.

Authored by Roger Kimball via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

“Who controls the past controls the future. Who controls the present controls the past.”

That line from George Orwell’s “Nineteen Eighty-Four” might serve as a sort of motto for the woke apparatchiks who run our lives today.

Perhaps it’s because they have, as one wag put it, mistaken Orwell’s stern admonition about the dangers of totalitarianism for a how-to manual.

In any event, the present’s attack on the past by those holding the reins of power continues apace.

And the goal, just as in Orwell’s novel, is to revamp the future by redefining the past.

John Calhoun was an apologist for slavery, so the college named for him at Yale must be renamed.

Never mind that he was valedictorian at Yale, a member of the House of Representatives, a senator, Secretary of War, Secretary of State, and vice president.

Never mind, too, that he was one of the most powerful minds and greatest orators of his day.

He had beliefs that the beautiful, pampered people of today find objectionable.

So he had to go.

It was the same with the great mining magnate Cecil Rhodes.

He made a stupendous fortune in what’s now South Africa, endowed Oriel College, Oxford, with part of his fortune, and established the Rhodes scholarship program.

He too was insufficiently enlightened, so a campaign to besmirch his memory and remove all traces of his presence from Oriel College has been underway for years.

From 1924 to 2021, a large equestrian statue of Robert E. Lee stood in a place of honor in Charlottesville, Virginia.

In the wake of the Black Lives Matter riots, the statue was removed. Last fall, in a sort of pyromaniacal ritual, it was cut apart with a blow torch and then melted down.

Last month, President Joe Biden had the 109-year-old Reconciliation Monument removed from Arlington National Cemetery.

Just a few days ago, the Biden administration announced that it was removing a statue of William Penn, the founder of Pennsylvania, from a park that had been his home.

That spot will undergo a “rehabilitation” and, in place of Penn, the administration will place a statute of an American Indian in order, to provide a more “inclusive … interpretation of the Native American history of Philadelphia.”

The attack on the past is proceeding apace.

Its goal is to efface the contributions of white Europeans, especially white male Europeans, to the formation of Western civilization.

Over the past several years, we have seen a rising tide of assaults on statues and other works of art representing our nation’s history by those who are eager to squeeze that complex story into a box defined by the evolving rules of political correctness.

A vocal minority, claiming victim status, demands the destruction, removal, or concealment of some object of which they disapprove.

Usually, the official response is instant capitulation.

It’s worth noting that the monument controversy signifies something much larger than the attacks on the Old South.

Indeed, the attack involves not just artworks or commemorative objects.

Rather, it encompasses the resources of the past writ large.

It’s an attack on the past for failing to live up to our contemporary notions of virtue.

In the background is the conviction that we, blessed members of the most enlightened cohort ever to grace the earth with its presence, occupy a moral plane superior to all who came before us.

Consequently, the defacement of murals of Christopher Columbus—and statues of later historical figures such as Teddy Roosevelt—is perfectly virtuous and above criticism since human beings in the past were by definition so much less enlightened than we.

The psychopathology behind these occurrences is a subject unto itself.

What has happened in our culture and educational institutions that so many students jump from their feelings of being offended—and how delicate they are, how quick to take offense!—to self-righteous demands to repudiate the thing that offends them?

The more expensive education becomes, the more it seems to lead, not to broader understanding, but to narrower horizons.

The iconoclasm that accompanies this existential narrowing takes different forms.

The disgusting attacks on the past and other religious cultures carried out by the Taliban, for example, are quite different from the toppling of statues of Saddam Hussein by liberated Iraqis after the Gulf War.

Different again was the action of America’s own Sons of Liberty in 1776, who toppled a statue of the hated George III and melted down its lead to make 40,000 musket balls.

It’s easy to sympathize with that pragmatic response to what the Declaration of Independence called “a long train of abuses and usurpations.”

It’s worth noting, however, that George Washington censured even this action for “having much the appearance of a riot and a want of discipline.”

While such attacks on the past depend upon a reservoir of iconoclastic feeling, they represent not the blunt expression of power or destructiveness but rather the rancorous, self-despising triumph of political correctness.

The exhibition of wounded virtue, of what we now call “virtue-signaling,” is key.

Of course, impermissible attitudes and images are never in short supply once the itch to stamp out history gets going.

At Charlottesville it was a statue of Robert E. Lee.

But why stop there?

Why not erase the entire history of the Confederacy?

There are apparently some 1,500 monuments and memorials to the Confederacy in public spaces across the United States.

According to one study, a majority of them were “commissioned by white women, in hope of preserving a positive vision of antebellum life.”

A noble aspiration, inasmuch as the country had recently fought a civil war that devastated the South and left more than 700,000 Americans dead.

These memorials were part of an effort to knit the broken country back together.

As at Arlington, our leaders have set about obliterating them in earnest.

What they want isn’t reconciliation but capitulation.

Thomas Jefferson and George Washington and James Madison have all been queued up for “rehabilitation” if not ostracism.

After all, they all owned slaves, as did 41 of the 56 signers of the Declaration of Independence.

As I say, many of our politically correct culture warriors seem to regard “Nineteen Eighty-Four” as a how-to manual.

Orwell saw clearly where it ends.

“Every record has been destroyed or falsified,” Orwell wrote, “every book has been rewritten, every picture has been repainted, every statue and street and building has been renamed, every date has been altered. And that process is continuing day by day and minute by minute. History has stopped.”

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

Authored by Paul Ingrassia via American Greatness,

The following commentary was adapted from remarks I delivered at an event held in Toms River, New Jersey, by the Patriot Freedom Project, an organization, founded by Cynthia Hughes, committed to shedding light on the plight of January 6 defendants and their families.

Today we commemorate the third anniversary of one of the darkest days in our country’s recent history—though not for the reasons the Left believes.

The tragedy of January 6, 2021, was not that it was an “attack on our democracy,” let alone an “insurrection.”

But rather, it was an opportunity for the deep state to finally remove its mask and begin the persecution and imprisonment of American citizens, innocent patriots labeled domestic terrorists merely for exercising their First Amendment right to peaceably assemble on public property, the vast majority of whom did not commit any acts of violence on Capitol grounds. As we later found out, through the disclosures of footage from Capitol grounds that day, many of these peaceful demonstrators only entered the Capitol after being waved on by Capitol police, who actively enabled them to make the alleged breach, only to later turn around and scapegoat them as trespassers and insurrectionists when it became politically convenient to do so.

As we have also found out in the months and years since that fateful day, federal agents were seeded throughout the crowds, both outside and within the Capitol, tasked with openly inciting the demonstrators to violence. Despite that irrefutable fact, an exceptionally small number of them did commit any violence. Absolutely zero engaged in the act of insurrection, which is a legal term of art with a very specific meaning: namely, the Framers of the 14th Amendment, from where that term originates, had in mind preventing Confederate War Generals from returning to government, who took up arms and literally waged war against the Union. Nobody who showed up on the Capitol steps on January 6 engaged in a rebellion—hardly any of them were even armed, and those who were armed were, at most, carrying around pepper spray. Show me an example in the entire history of the world of a successful armed insurrection done with pepper spray.

The tragedy of January 6 continues through the present moment, on the third anniversary, and will remain a tragedy so long as innocent Americans remain locked up, every single one of them denied due process of law. This will likely continue until Donald Trump is reelected this November. As you all know, many January 6 prisoners continue to languish behind bars—many still in the DC Gulag, and some in the most horrific conditions of solitary confinement. The media has constantly demonized these political prisoners (which President Trump refers to as “hostages” of our government) as domestic terrorists. And the treatment they are currently getting is, unsurprisingly, that of a domestic terrorist: cruel and inhumane, deprived of fundamental rights, including the right to meaningful legal assistance, food in some cases, and the bare minimum necessities to stay alive. All for merely showing up on the Capitol, a public forum on which Americans have long enjoyed their rights to assemble and speak for centuries, to contest an election whose results were tainted by the stain of illegitimacy—something that history has vindicated, overwhelmingly, in the months and years since that day.

If the truth shall prevail, here is how history will remember January 6: peaceful demonstrators were finally fed up with a government that had become outwardly tyrannical (and I’m not talking about President Trump).

They saw violence all throughout the previous summer, committed by rogue, militant left-wing organizations such as BLM and ANTIFA. These organizations were allowed to commit untold billions of dollars of damage to public and private property, but the entire regime, including both party establishments and the mainstream media, excused them for every action and even designated them as “peaceful protests,” asking television audiences to deny observable reality, as churches were broadcast literally burning to the ground while businesses were looted and ransacked, and anarchy was unleashed in virtually every major city from coast to coast. This again was the backdrop against which, on January 6, a comparatively tame counter-response took place.

The 2020 presidential election observed all sorts of unprecedented rule changes, late-night ballot drop-offs, conveniently timed “water main” breakages that obstructed the electioneering process, not to mention rampant, government-instigated, top-down censorship of both stories like the Hunter Biden laptop scandal that would have been outcome-determining on the results of the general election, and political candidates, like the President of the United States himself, who was forced off every major social media platform—Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, you name it—thereby censoring his voice in the weeks before he left office.

So, the regime took away the President’s First Amendment right to speak and the people’s First Amendment right to peacefully demonstrate. The people who arrived at the Capitol on January 6 did so not out of retribution towards their government but out of desperation for their political situation—what felt like a last-ditch effort to have their voices heard.

The cause of January 6 is therefore ultimately the cause of the American republic: will it survive or will it too be relegated to the dustbin of history? That cause will be determined, ultimately, by whether President Trump is re-elected this November. So far, we have reason to be cautiously optimistic. He has never polled this well before in his entire political career. The momentum behind him seems to be growing stronger by the day, even as the weaponized justice system gets more and more belligerent, a sign of desperation for sure, with each successive indictment.

We are living through truly historic times, not just for the history of America but for the history of the world, because the 2024 presidential election will have world-historic consequences, for where America goes, so goes Western civilization.

Whether that dwindling light of freedom, which America long stood for, ever gets rekindled will largely come down to what happens in several months from now. It is our duty to continue to spread the truth, the perennial enemy of tyranny, in the lead-up to the election. We need to continue to expose the utterly fake narrative about J6, which was completely discredited for the garbage propaganda it always was by the (partial) release of January 6 footage.

We need to keep the momentum going strong behind President Trump and remain vigilant of left-wing fraud and scheming, which will surely get more desperate as they lose control of the narrative and see all their lawfare prove ineffective.

We must pray for the country, for the President, and for each other—and especially for the victims, including those still locked up—and for the wives and children of many victims, who continue to endure unspeakable hardship—financially and emotionally—each and every day.

We must also, and this is important, remain unified as a movement. Together, we are much stronger than if we merely proceeded individually. A strong, happy, and united front is what the Left fears most about President Trump and his supporters, which is why they are doing everything in their power that they possibly can to bring him down once and for all.

Let us send a clear and unwavering message to them that they cannot break our resolve whatsoever. We are stronger than ever before. They will be met with resistance unlike anything they have ever experienced if they so much as dare attempt to stop our momentum or strike any one of us down. We should accept nothing less than victory, because out of that victory will come true justice—the justice all these political hostages and their families have long waited for and so much deserve.

Thank you.

Despite the fact that the country is running record deficits, has just passed $34 trillion in debt and is, for all intents and purposes, on the precipice of a debt spiral “point of no return”, Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen still seems awfully cavalier about spending.

This past week Yellen said that she “welcomed” larger than expected uptake of tax breaks under the Biden administration’s Inflation Reduction Act, despite the fact that the country doesn’t have any way to pay for it, according to Bloomberg.

Yellen said this week: “What that reflects is the effectiveness, the tremendous response rate, that we’re seeing from the private sector, from cities and states, to these incentives. So you’re clearly having a very major effect on take-up for clean energy investments.”

The 2022 IRA aims to boost clean energy, including electric vehicles, mainly via unlimited tax incentives, ironically producing the opposite result of “inflation reduction”.

While the Congressional Budget Office projected a $238 billion deficit reduction over 10 years, the Brookings Institution warns costs could reach $1 trillion due to higher demand, the Bloomberg article noted. 

Since this is a topic we have covered more or less daily for our 15 year existence, we don’t need to say much suffice to show a chart of total US debt since Zero Hedge launched in Jan 2009, when total US debt was only $10.6 trillion. We sure have come a long way since then.

As we noted a couple of days ago, at this point everyone knows how this ends – certainly the CBO does…

As we wrote about a week ago, at best, one may only prepare for the inevitable hyperinflationary outcome, which would be good news to what is now over $1 trillion in interest expense: after all, someone has to devalue the currency all that interest is payable in.

And since there is no longer a way out, we may as well joke about it so consider this: in the third quarter when US GDP supposedly grew at a 4.9% annualized rate – hardly the stuff of recessions – rising $547 billion in nominal (not real) dollars, the US budget deficit increased by a whopping $622 billion.

Authored by J. Peder Zane via RealClear Wire,

Ever since Henry Ford worked his wonders, most Americans have been able to afford a car, but chauffeured rides long remained the exclusive province of the uber-rich. “Jeeves, have the car ready at 6 to take me to the club.”

Over the holidays I was a regular Rockefeller. Using a handheld computer that astrophysicists could only dream about a few decades ago, I summoned Ubers and Lyfts that arrived lickety-split to take me anywhere I desired. One stop was the airport, where I was whisked across the empyrean like a Greek god (or Santa Claus).

High in the sky, I recalled the late great Tom Wolfe’s observation that the average American enjoys material comforts that would be the envy of the Sun King himself, Louis XIV.

Gen X, Y, and Zers may find it hard to believe, but a mere century ago, there was no air conditioning or television, let alone smartphones. Boomers who are shocked when anybody dies before their 90^th birthday – what happened? – may vaguely recall that the few people who made it to a ripe old age in the olden days were often confined to wheelchairs because they couldn’t swap out their hips and knees. Obesity was not a crisis because few people had too much to eat. And they didn’t smile in pictures because their teeth were a horror show. Worst of all, almost everyone had to drink bad coffee.

And yet, even as I marveled in the blue yonder, annoyance seeped into my bean. I was stuck on an older plane that didn’t offer Wi-Fi service and figured dollars to donuts I’d have to wait a half hour for my checked bag to hit the carousel – assuming it hadn’t been shanghaied to Oshkosh. The pretzels were stale, of course.

Like most people, I am often an ingrate. God or nature seems to have wired us to take the good things for granted. We’re like squirrels who spend less energy appreciating our fat store of nuts than worrying about threats to the stash. This instinct has an immense upside. Dissatisfaction drives far more progress than contentment. Concern is more likely to keep us alive than complacency.

But it also comes at a cost. It engenders a lack of gratitude and a sense of entitlement, which has only grown with our prosperity. The more we have, the more we expect.

Our world is, of course, far from perfect. Everyone suffers, many are in need. Even billionaires have problems. But if our ancestors could see us now they would be confounded by our disgruntlement. They would say: You are living at the apex of human achievement; you enjoy food, shelter and clothing, devices and doo-dads given to you like manna from the heavens. Our lives were short, nasty, and brutish – we ate squirrels and dandelions for goodness sake – while even the poorest among you have comforts our rulers would have envied.

We are not the greatest generation, but we are certainly the most fortunate. We stand on the shoulders of the giants who created the plenty that defines modern American life. As much as we harp on inequality, the history of the last century has largely seen the erasure of the truly consequential differences between rich and poor in this country – who can travel, see a doctor, get enough food, and have sufficient shelter. Gone, too, are most of the legal constraints placed on minorities and women.

As we enter another ugly election year, focus will be placed on the many forces fueling our rampant pessimism and anger, including the rise of political tribalism, demagogic leaders, and the media’s divisive partisanship. But as we dissect the estranging forces that lead us to demonize our fellow citizens, we should not ignore the mindset that makes so many of us susceptible to darkness: a lack of appreciation.

Right, center, and left, few of us ever take a step back and give thanks for our dumb luck. All of us are getting our one go-round in the halcyon days of human history. It might have been cool to live at the time of Plato, Jesus, or Ben Franklin, but I think I’d rather have clean water, antibiotics, and Starbucks. Our inability to acknowledge and actuate this reality has almost become a form of psychosis, as the way we see the world is light years away from the facts on the ground.

Human beings, of course, do not live by bread alone. In many ways we are in the grip of a spiritual and moral poverty. We have plenty of things, but many of us are searching for meaning. The roots of this malaise are deep. During the 19^th century, Nietzsche linked it to the death of God. In the 1950s Norman Mailer wrote about the “psychic havoc of the concentration camps and the atom bomb upon the unconscious mind of almost everyone alive in these years.”

For us, today, more recent events have played havoc with our minds: The collapse of Soviet-style communism stripped America of much of its Cold War moral standing, the belief that the United States was a force for good in the world. The 9/11 attacks and 21^st century crises ranging from the economic meltdown of 2007-2009 to the plethora of mass shootings reinforced our collective sense of vulnerability, introducing the abiding fear that we can lose all in an instant. This is a prime driver of the mental health crisis exploding across the country.

These feelings are real, but they do not reflect reality. Our pessimism and unease are not hard facts, but reflections of how we choose to see things – through a glass, darkly. Part of this stems from our growing sense of entitlement.

The bold opening words of the Declaration of Independence notwithstanding, a democratic society does not, as totalitarian regimes claim to do, bear responsibility for our psychic happiness. It is up to each of us – through family, friends, faith, pastimes, work, and our own inner resources – to find meaning in our lives. Yet, we, who have been given so much, believe this should be somehow handed to us as well.

We cannot solve all our problems with a change of mind. But we can begin to become a happy, healthier people if each of us works to be a little more grateful. Even as we struggle with our own very real challenges and suffering, let’s each of us, each day, intentionally recall, through a sacred (or secular) prayer, all that we have to be thankful for. It can start healing our broken world and ourselves.

The international reaction to the Thursday night US-UK coalition bombing of Houthi positions in Yemen continues to come in, with the more interesting of the statements being issued by Turkey.

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan in Friday statements to the press in Istanbul said that the attack would turn the Red Sea into a “bloodbath”. He also condemned the Western coalition operation as “disproportionate” despite the previous over two dozen attacks on commercial shipping of the last months by the Iran-backed Houthi rebels.

“First of all, they are not proportional. All of these constitute disproportionate use of force,” Erdoğan told journalists. “It is as if they aspire to turn the Red Sea into a bloodbath.”

The Turkish leader has lately been outspoken in support of Gaza, and condemnation of Israel’s military operation, but it remains somewhat surprising that the man who leads the second largest military within the NATO alliance would say things that are actually supportive of the Houthi side. Watch: 

BREAKING — Erdogan says US and UK strikes in Yemen targeting the Houthis are disproportionate uses of force.

“They are eager to turn the Red Sea into a bloodbath. We see that the Houthis are making very successful defenses against the strikes”

pic.twitter.com/AtKolAXdI9

— Ragıp Soylu (@ragipsoylu) January 12, 2024

He also praised South Africa for taking Israel to the International Court of Justice (ICJ), underscoring that Turkey is assisting with this as well: “All the documents we have given are seriously working in The Hague and we will continue to provide these documents… I believe Israel will be found guilty,” he said. “Netanyahu no longer has a hole to run to, no means to defend.”

More predictably, Russia too condemned the strikes on Yemen, with foreign ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova saying Friday, “We strongly condemn these irresponsible actions by the United States and its allies.” She further told reporters that Moscow has called for an urgent meeting of the United Nations Security Council.

“A large-scale military escalation in the Red Sea region could strike out the positive trends that have emerged recently in the Yemeni settlement process, as well as provoke a destabilization of the situation throughout the Middle East,” she warned.

Notably, Russia and China had on Wednesday abstained from a UNSC resolution demanding that the Houthis immediately halt all attacks on international shipping.

Below is a round-up of the Middle East regional reaction to the major Thursday night strikes on Yemen, as cited in various sources including Al Jazeera,, Daily Mail, and Reuters…

Iran’s Foreign Ministry:

“These attacks are a clear violation of Yemen’s sovereignty and territorial integrity, and a breach of international laws. These attacks will only contribute to insecurity and instability in the region.”

Lebanese Hezbollah:

“The American aggression confirms once again that the U.S. is a full partner in the tragedies and massacres committed by the Zionist enemy in Gaza and the region.”

“Hezbollah strongly condemns the blatant American-British aggression against brotherly Yemen, its security and sovereignty, and its free and honorable people, which stood with all strength, courage and responsibility alongside the Palestinian people and their valiant resistance, and did their utmost to break the siege on it by all available means and capabilities.”

Iraq’s Shia militias:

“Today’s aggression against Yemen has doubled the solidarity of the peoples with the Axis of Resistance and the right of its sacred cause to stand against tyranny.”

Saudi Arabia

“The Kingdom is following with great concern the military operations in the Red Sea region and the raids on sites in Yemen. We stress the importance of maintaining the security and stability of the Red Sea region and call for restraint and avoiding escalation.”

* * *

And China is urging calm, with foreign ministry spokeswoman Mao Ning saying, “China is concerned about the escalation of tensions in the Red Sea.” She added: “We urge the relevant parties to keep calm and exercise restraint, to prevent the conflict from expanding.”

Authored by Katabella Roberts via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

A Wisconsin judge ruled this week that the use of a mobile van to facilitate absentee voting violates state election laws, marking a win for Republicans who had challenged the city of Racine after the vehicle drove to various locations throughout the city and collected absentee ballots in 2022.

Racine County Circuit Court Judge Eugene Gasiorkiewicz said in his ruling that the city’s use of a mobile van for absentee voting not only violated state law but also unfairly benefited Democrats in a primary election in August 2022.

In his 17-page ruling, the judge noted that while no statute of state law expressly prohibits the use of mobile voting vans, it also does not explicitly authorize their use.

“The absence of an express prohibition, however, does not mean mobile absentee ballot sites comport to procedures specified in the election laws,” the judge wrote.

“Nothing in the statutory language detailing the procedures by which absentee ballots may be cast mentions mobile van absentee ballot sites or anything like them. Such an interpretation was and is contrary to law.”

The judge further noted that state law “clearly and unequivocally indicates that chosen alternate absentee balloting sites ‘cannot afford an advantage to any political party’” but that the filings in the case “clearly indicated that the alternate sites chosen clearly favored members of the Democratic Party or those with known Democratic Party leanings.”

Van Granted ‘Advantage’ to Democrats

Judge Gasiorkiewicz’s ruling centered on a lawsuit bought by the Wisconsin Institute for Law & Liberty (WILL), a nonprofit conservative law firm based in Milwaukee, on behalf of Racine County Republican Party Chairman Ken Brown, following the 2022 primary.

The lawsuit listed Racine City Clerk Tara McMenamin and the Wisconsin Elections Commission as defendants.

In their lawsuit, plaintiffs argued that using the “election van” as an alternate absentee ballot site violated state law and that the locations the van visited afforded an advantage to citizens who are members of the Democratic Party or have a history of voting Democratic.

The van was purchased with grant money the city of Racine received from the Center for Tech and Civic Life, the nonprofit funded by Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg and his wife, according to The Associated Press.

It was sent to nearly two dozen sites in the two weeks before the primary, where it would stop by for several hours of in-person absentee voting before moving to another site over the course of two weeks.

However, plaintiffs argued the van was only sent to Democratic areas in the city and claimed it increased the chances of voter fraud.

They further claimed that the locations the van visited were not as close as possible to the City Clerk’s office and violated the “shall be located as near as practicable to the office of the municipal clerk or board of election,” clause of state law.

Ruling Bolsters Election Security

Additionally, the plaintiffs claimed city officials had further violated state law by allowing absentee voting in the same physical building (City Hall) where the Office of the City Clerk is located and failed to have alternate site designations in effect for the requisite mandatory statutory time period.

The judge, however, rejected claims that in-person absentee ballot sites should be located as near as possible to the office of the municipal clerk or board of election commissioners, noting that the term “as near as practicable” encompasses “consideration beyond a pure geographic standard.”

“In fact, treating this legal term of art as purely distance-based would be an ‘erroneous concept of law,’” the judge wrote.

The Democratic National Committee, Wisconsin Alliance for Retired Americans, and Black Leaders Organizing for Communities had all joined in seeking to rebuke the claims in the lawsuit and defend the legality of the van, arguing there was no cause shown to believe the law had been broken and no specific prohibition against using it.

In a statement following the ruling, WILL deputy counsel, Lucas Vebber, said the ruling ensures government actors are held accountable to the rule of law at all levels.

“Wisconsin voters should know that their elections are secure, and that election administration does not favor one political party over another. This decision does just that,” he said.

WILL research director, Will Flanders, added, “Every citizen should have an equal opportunity to participate in the electoral process. We are grateful the Court recognized that the City of Racine broke the law. WILL is proud to provide sound research and to help ensure fair elections for all.”

The Epoch Times has contacted the Wisconsin Elections

Authored by Steven Tucker via DailySceptic.org,

Last time around, we considered NASA’s recent attempts to build outer space communications systems, and the strange belief of contemporary Left-leaning scientists and academics affiliated with astronomical organisations like SETI (Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence) that any aliens we did manage one day to contact would inevitably talk in a language every bit as impeccably woke as they themselves do.

A classic illustration of such delusion came in the newly ideologically-captured journal Scientific American in 2022. Under the headline ‘Cultural Bias Distorts the Search for Alien Life’ appeared an interview with Rebecca Charbonneau, a young SETI-linked cultural historian whose paper ‘Imaginative Cosmos: The Impact of Colonial Heritage in Radio Astronomy and the Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence’ had brought her to the attention of the editors.

Rebecca Charboneau

According to Charbonneau, within sci-fi shows like Star Trek, space being “the final frontier” demonstrated how space exploration itself was filled with innate colonialist assumptions, with “first contact with aliens [acting] as a stand-in for [Western] first contact with Indigenous peoples”. 

Weren’t these ideas just fictional literary metaphors upon behalf of the scriptwriters, though? No, because according to the doctrine of Critical Theory that contemporary young pseuds like Rebecca all slavishly subscribe to, words create reality: “Words and socially constructed things are real because we are a verbal, social species. Things that are socially created still have a real-world impact; they’re not imaginary.”

Two particularly damaging social constructs are the words “intelligence” and “civilisation”, these being mere fictional Western concepts which were “tightly bound with the histories of racism, genocide and colonialism”. When Westerners made contact with metaphorically ‘alien’ beings like Australian Aborigines in the past, they just enslaved or wiped them out, Charbonneau argued. “Intelligence”, she warned, is “certainly a dangerous word”, hence her principled complete lack of any such quality herself. 

Un-Scientific American

Rebecca was deeply worried. What if SETI found some E.T.s who didn’t seem terribly civilised or intelligent to us, and just treated them like the British once had the Aborigines? Yet the traditional accepted mission of SETI was indisputably to search for alien intelligence, or alien civilisations. This very idea was dangerous and laden with “intellectual colonial baggage” too, so could easily be “weaponised” by genocidal astronauts, feared the oversensitive academic: she seems to have confused NASA with NSDAP. 

For Charbonneau, it was disappointing that so many of her fellow exobiologists “start their research from a technical search perspective” rather than by asking random Andaman Islanders what they think about all this. Some more traditional SETI scientists objected to her criticism, pointing out that the only off-planet lifeforms humans are likely to discover locally are bacteria and “you can’t offend a germ” by talk of ‘colonising’ Mars – a protestation she dismisses by saying that particular harmful word “might not hurt an alien, but using [it] will hurt people on Earth”. She even appears to disapprove of an old NASA space-shuttle being called Columbus; doesn’t Mission Control know he was an evil genocidal white maniac?

Henceforth, the whole point of SETI should be completely reformed, from listening to unknown groups on Mars, to listening to marginalised groups here on Earth instead: “SETI is designed to listen outward, but… it’s not always so great at listening inward.” It would be hard to imagine a statement better illustrating the levels of self-indulgent solipsism that have now successfully been imposed upon hitherto politically neutral sciences like astronomy. Where would Rebecca like SETI scientists to begin pointing their space-antennae instead, exactly? Up their own arseholes, like where she lives?  

Game, SETI and Match?

According to science writer Lawrence M. Krauss, Dr. Charbonneau’s ilk now dominate SETI every bit as much as Daleks now dominate the Planet Skaro. He points out that she is a Jansky Fellow at the U.S. National Radio Astronomy Observatory, a fellowship supposed to fund “the most promising researchers in radio astronomy”, not woke witch-hunting ideologues. Recent SETI conferences, Krauss observes, have been dominated not by actual science, but endless debates about transphobia, homosexuality and whiteness. 

Krauss has been told many proper SETI scientists despair that it is consequently growing “harder and harder to actually carry out [meaningful] SETI research”, and they fear being pushed out due to being politically incorrect. What’s more, Charbonneau seems to have got her wish, with the very word “intelligence” now allegedly banned by SETI, as it is “a white construct”. Here’s an angry Richard Dawkins, tweeting about it:

Why hasn’t it changed its name to SET, then? 

Safe-Space Invaders

The American Association for Science (AAAS – soon to be renamed ASSS, ‘Astrophysicists Subverting Science Systematically’) has also been captured. During a March 2023 conference concerning “the ethics of space exploration”, a Dr. Pamela Copeland stated that future Western astronauts should endeavour to become “gentle explorers” as, thanks to our worthless colonial history, the very word “exploration” was now “almost synonymous with exploitation”. 

Another conference attendee, Dr. Hilding Neilson, a Mi’kmaq Indian scientist, said that, before landing on the moon, white astro-Nazis should first consult indigenous Canadian Indians, as the moon played an important role in native folklore, and Indians possessed “other ways of knowing” about it than purely scientific ones. Already, light pollution from streetlamps originally facilitated by the Industrial Revolution of the West had blotted out the night stars which played such a crucial role in many native mythologies, something some academics claim is a form of “cultural genocide” – see this academic abstract:

Whitening the Sky: light pollution as a form of cultural genocide

Duane W. Hamacher, Krystal de Napoli, Bon Mott

Light pollution is actively destroying our ability to see the stars. Many indigenous traditions and knowledge systems around the world are based on the stars, and the peoples’ ability to observe and interpret stellar positions and properties is of critical importance for daily life and cultural continuity. The erasure of the night sky acts to erase indigenous connection to the stars, acting as a form of ongoing cultural and ecological genocide. Efforts to reduce, minimise or eliminate light pollution are being achieved with varying degrees of success, but urban expansion, poor lighting design,and the increased use of blue-light emitting LEDs as a cost-effective solution is worsening problems related to human health, wildlife,and astronomical heritage for the benefit of capitalistic economic growth. We provide a brief overview of the issue, illustrating some of the important connections that the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people of Australia maintain with the stars, as well as the impact growing light pollution has on this ancient knowledge. We propose a transdisciplinary approach to solving these issues, using a foundation based on indigenous philosophies and decolonising methodologies.

Was man landing on the moon not just yet another manifestation of this same unthinkingly destructive mindset? Dr. Neilson furthermore explained that various tracts of so-called “treaty land” in North America truly belonged to his indigenous kin thanks to legal agreements signed with the Canadian Government. Such property-deeds may have delineated their land’s limits in length and breadth, but had been carelessly drafted with the “absence of a height limit”, meaning the Mi’kmaq actually owned everything directly above their treaty lands, including outer space and the moon, at least imaginatively speaking. Therefore, if NASA or anyone else Western and colonialist ever decided to go up there and start rocket-raping it, this would be technically illegal.

Today, the West’s chief geopolitical rivals in China and Russia are making serious plans to begin mining vast areas of the moon in search of rare minerals to help them achieve global domination down here on terra firma. Meanwhile, NASA and the European Space Agency appear much more concerned with self-righteously landing the first woman on the moon, sending disabled people spinning out of their wheelchairs into orbit and celebrating lesbian astronauts on stamps (Jeremy Corbyn once wanted to put this last highly pressing issue on the U.K. National Curriculum). Which side do you think most likely to end up dominating tomorrow’s globe?

Blank Space

To be fair to the likes of Rebecca Charbonneau, I do agree with them on one thing; in her interview, the SETI-woman called outer space “a mirror” which reflects human observers’ pre-existing beliefs straight back down at them. 

I once wrote a book called Space Oddities which makes this very same argument; a large portion of it was about communist humans who expected one day to meet communist aliens. Later, I wrote another book, The Saucer and the Swastika, about white supremacist Nazi humans who expected one day to meet white supremacist Nazi aliens. Now, my latest book, Hitler’s & Stalin’s Misuse of Science, features a section about contemporary black supremacist humans who likewise expect one day to meet black supremacist aliens. And so it goes, as I believe they say on Tralfamadore. 

So, I do think Ms. Charbonneau and her woke crowd are sort of correct in one specific limited aspect of what they are saying: namely, that ideologically biased humans often treat outer space as a blank canvas upon which to project their own personal political neuroses. The only question I would ask is: why on Earth do they think this exact same principle doesn’t also apply to them?

Journalist Gonzalo Lira has died while in Ukrainian custody, according to his father.

“Gonzalo Lira, Sr. says his son has died at 55 in a Ukrainian prison, where he was being held for the crime of criticizing the Zelensky and Biden governments,” wrote Tucker Carlson on X. “Gonzalo Lira was an American citizen, but the Biden administration clearly supported his imprisonment and torture.”

Gonzalo Lira, Sr. says his son has died at 55 in a Ukrainian prison, where he was being held for the crime of criticizing the Zelensky and Biden governments. Gonzalo Lira was an American citizen, but the Biden administration clearly supported his imprisonment and torture. Several… https://t.co/F0nOG9qGvv

— Tucker Carlson (@TuckerCarlson) January 12, 2024

In May, Lira was arrested by Ukrainian authorities because he “publicly justified” the Russian invasion, according to a press release by the Security Service of Ukraine (SBU).

The statement from Kiev said that Lira “has the citizenship of one of the countries of Latin America” but omitted that he is also California-born U.S. citizen, as ZeroHedge contributor Space Worm reported at the time.

Gonzalo’s final video before attempting to legally cross the border — there is some irony in that, speaks to the type of man he was. pic.twitter.com/T6rXLnpsxV

— The_Real_Fly (@The_Real_Fly) January 12, 2024

Following his release, Lira said he was tortured in a Ukrainian prison, explaining that “two thugs held my head and used a toothpick to scratch the whites of my left eye, while asking me if I could still read if I had just one.” Lira informed followers that he was making a mad-dash via motorcycle towards the Hungarian border:

Right now, I’m about to try to get out of Ukraine, and seek political asylum in Hungary.

Either I’ll cross the border and make it to safety, or I’ll be disappeared by the Kiev regime.

This is what’s happened to me over the past three months.

1/25

— Gonzalo Lira (@GonzaloLira1968) July 31, 2023

According to journalist Alex Rubernstein, Lira said that he had double pneumonia (both lungs), which was ignored by the Ukrainian prison holding him.

“I have had double pneumonia (both lungs) as well as pneumothorax and a very severe case of edema (swelling of the body). All this started in mid-October, but was ignored by the prison. They only admitted I had pneumonia at a Dec. 22 hearing,” reads the letter. “I am about to have a procedure to reduce the edema pressure in my lungs, which is causing me extreme shortness of breath, to the point of passing out after minimal activity, or even just talking for 2 minutes.”

In response to Lira’s reported death, his father allegedly wrote: “I cannot accept the way my son has died. He was tortured, extorted, incommunicado for 8 months and 11 days and the US Embassy did nothing to help my son. The responsibility of this tragedy is the dictator Zelensky with the concurrence of a senile American President, Joe Biden.”

BREAKING: It is with great sadness I must announce that Gonzalo Lira @GonzaloLira1968, passed away in a hospital according to his father, who has been fighting to get his son much-needed medical attention for the past weeks.

Here is a hand-written note from Gonzalo which I… pic.twitter.com/jY8Mh0xQV3

— Alex Rubinstein (@RealAlexRubi) January 12, 2024

We’re sure this asshole is happy.