Authored by Debra Heine via American Greatness,

Special Counsel Jack Smith demanded information on Twitter users who liked or retweeted former President Donald Trump’s tweets leading up to the January 6 riot, according to a heavily redacted search warrant and other documents released Monday.

Smith’s comprehensive search warrant sought the 2024 Republican presidential primary front-runner’s search history, direct messages, and “content of all tweets created, drafted, favorited/liked, or retweeted” by his account from October 2020 to January 2021.

The special counsel also demanded a list of all devices used to log into Trump’s then-Twitter, now X account, as well as information on users who interacted with the then-president in the months leading up to Jan. 6, 2021, the court filings show.

Among the information Smith sought were lists of all Twitter users who “favorited or retweeted” Trump’s tweets, “as well as all tweets that include the username associated with the account” in “mentions” or “replies.”

The special counsel also requested a list of every user Trump “followed, unfollowed, muted, unmuted, blocked, or unblocked” and a list of users who took any of the same actions with Trump’s account during the aforementioned timeframe.

“There is no benign or reasonable justification for that demand,” wrote former FBI agent/whistleblower Steve Friend on X.

Smith demanded the information as part of the special counsel “investigation into Trump’s actions leading up to the Jan. 6, 2021, riot at the US Capitol.” In August, Smith formally lodged a four-count indictment against Trump, accusing him of a massive criminal conspiracy to reverse the results of the 2020 election.

The court released the warrant after multiple media organizations filed a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request to obtain the document.

Eight of the search warrant’s 14 pages are completely redacted, the New York Post reported.

The warrant included a nondisclosure order instructing the company not to notify Trump about the search.

The social media giant objected to the order, arguing unsuccessfully that it was a violation of the First Amendment and the Stored Communications Act.

The DOJ argued back that notifying Trump would result in “statutorily cognizable harm.”

“For what appears to be the first time in its history, Twitter Inc. (‘Twitter’) has filed a motion to vacate or modify an order that it not disclose the existence of a search warrant,” Smith said, adding that “there is reason to believe notification to the former president, a sophisticated actor with an expansive platform, would result in a statutorily cognizable harm.”

X ultimately complied with the warrant but was fined $350,000 for failing to meet Smith’s demands by deadline, according to the Federalist.

Trump’s legal team has since appealed the order, calling it “unconstitutional,” and has threatened to take the matter to the U.S. Supreme Court.

A male passenger on a five-hour flight to Russia was allegedly the victim of oral rape, after a sex-crazed 29-year-old blonde woman named Valeria insisted on blowing him after departing from Antalya, Turkey.

“On a flight from Antalya to Moscow, a female passenger went on a rampage and [orally] raped her [male] neighbour,” according to Russian new outlet Gazeta.ru (and via the Daily Mail ), which added that there were children on board.

The man, sitting next to her in economy class of the Pobeda Airlines flight, allegedly rebuffed Valeria’s advances – only to ‘stop resisting’ a short time later.

According to the report, flight attendants let him finish before moving the possibly intoxicated woman away – who then tried to bribe them.

‘She pulled down his trousers and committed violent acts of a sexual nature.

‘Later the neighbour stopped resisting.

‘All this happened in front of the flight attendants and other passengers.’

Shot media reported: ‘Surprisingly, the flight attendants waited until the end of the action and only then moved Valeria further away.

‘The woman fought back and did not want to leave her newly-made companion.’

Another male passenger was deputed to guard her during the rest of the flight.

During the flight Valeria ‘scratched the flight crew’ and smoked an e-cigarette despite repeated demands to stop doing so, according to reports citing eyewitnesses.

The woman was detained in Moscow following the incident, however she told BAZA media that she has no regrets, and was able to pay a fine of 500 roubles ($5.62) and move on with her day.

“Everything was fine,” she said. “I had a good time on the plane. Well, that’s a little more than that.”

So, two people got off in this story. All’s well that ends well?

Authored by Naveen Athrappully via The Epoch Times,

A gene therapy treatment used in cancer patients is under scrutiny by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) after the agency received reports of new blood cancers among treated individuals.

The treatment, CAR-T, was first approved by the FDA in 2017 and is used in the treatment of blood cancers. However, the agency has received “reports of T-cell malignancies”—a group of blood disorders—among some of the patients who received CAR-T treatments, according to a Nov. 28 announcement.

The reported malignancies include lymphoma, a cancer of the lymphatic system which includes lymph nodes, the thymus gland, bone marrow, and the spleen.

“Although the overall benefits of these products continue to outweigh their potential risks for their approved uses, FDA is investigating the identified risk of T cell malignancy with serious outcomes, including hospitalization and death, and is evaluating the need for regulatory action,” the agency said.

In CAR-T treatments, a type of white blood cells called T cells are removed from the blood of a patient. These cells are then genetically engineered to make proteins called chimeric antigen receptors (CAR).

The receptors allow T cells to attach to cancer cells and kill them. Once the genetic engineering is completed, the modified cells are then infused back into the patient’s blood, The New York Times reported.

The FDA pointed out that “patients and clinical trial participants receiving treatment with these products should be monitored life-long for new malignancies.”

“In the event that a new malignancy occurs following treatment with these products, contact the manufacturer to report the event and obtain instructions on collection of patient samples for testing for the presence of the Chimeric Antigen Receptor (CAR) transgene,” the agency said.

At present, the FDA has approved six CAR-T products:

• Kymriah from Novartis

• Yescarta from Gilead

• Carvykti from J&J and Legend

• Breyanzi from Bristol Myers Squibb

• Abecma from Bristol Myers Squibb

• Tecartus from Gilead

The risk for developing malignancies applies to all six products, the FDA said.

Surprising Announcement

Medical experts did not expect the FDA’s recent announcement.

“In informal emails among many scientists and physicians in the field, we are all surprised by this announcement,” Marcela Maus, a researcher at Mass General Cancer Center, told health outlet STAT.

Ms. Maus said that the only cases of CAR-T lymphoma or leukemia she heard of were from Australia where the products used a genetic element which was not present in the six CAR-T treatments approved by the FDA.

Bruce Levine, a professor at the University of Pennsylvania Health System, said in a Nov. 29 X post that the FDA report leaves “many questions unanswered,” adding that “colleagues I’ve consulted with are very surprised” by the announcement.

“What was the clinical status of the patients in terms of immunosuppression, prior therapy, conditioning chemotherapy, evidence of prior clonal hematopoiesis?” he asked.

“It’s important to put into context the remote though real risk when compared to conventional chemotherapy that has significant long and short term side effects, including genotoxicity and predisposition to secondary cancers.”

Dr. Mikkael Sekeres, chief of the Division of Hematology at Florida’s Sylvester Comprehensive Cancer Center said in a social media post that he “would love to see absolute risk and some details on likelihood of causality here,” regarding the FDA announcement.

In an interview with The New York Times, Dr. John DiPersio, director of the Center for Genetic and Cellular Immunotherapy at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis, said he hasn’t seen “a single one” of his 500 to 700 patients who received CAR-T treatments develop a new T cell cancer.

CAR-T treatments are reserved for patients who would otherwise die without it, he noted.

“They are all going to die and they are all going to die quickly without this treatment. It saves their life … It works in a substantial portion of patients. The benefit is enormous.”

When a patient’s T cells are genetically modified in the CAR-T treatment, a virus is used to slip new genes into the DNA of these cells. As such, when the modified T cells are inserted back into the blood of the patient, it could potentially disrupt other genes and lead to cancer, The New York Times explained.

However, blood cancers among CAR-T treated patients could also be explained by the fact that individuals who receive such treatments have already undergone other treatments like chemotherapy and radiation, which can give rise to cancers.

Company Responses

Based on an analysis by medical news outlet FiercePharma, 12 total cases of T-cell lymphoma have been reported, with Kymriah accounting for seven cases, Yescarta three, and one each from Breyanzi and Carvykti.

The Epoch Times reached out to the respective companies for comment.

A Gilead spokesperson told FiercePharma that the company is “confident in the overall safety profile of both Tecartus and Yescarta.” Both treatments have been applied on 17,700 patients, with no evidence linking them with development of new malignancies, the spokesperson stated.

“We have a rigorous process in place to continuously monitor for and report adverse events to regulatory authorities. … We have fully cooperated with the FDA’s request for an analysis of our data related to this inquiry.”

Novartis pointed out that over 10,000 patients have been treated with Kymriah and that the company has not identified its link to any secondary malignancies. Bristol Myers Squibb told the outlet that Abecma and Breyanzi have been used among 4,700 patients, with none of them developing T-cell malignancy.

Data from the FDA Adverse Event Reporting System (FAERS) show that the six products have reported the following adverse events:

• Kymriah—2,470 adverse events, including 2,303 serious cases, 662 deaths, and 504 blood and lymphatic system disorders.

• Yescarta—3,729 adverse events, including 3,551 serious cases, 746 deaths, and 567 blood and lymphatic system disorders.

• Carvykti—408 adverse events, including 251 serious cases, 28 deaths, and 18 blood and lymphatic system disorders.

• Breyanzi—202 adverse events, 172 serious cases, 38 deaths, and 18 blood and lymphatic system disorders.

• Abecma—528 adverse events, 454 serious cases, 60 deaths, and 87 blood and lymphatic system disorders.

• Tecartus—609 adverse events, 570 serious cases, 136 deaths, and 58 blood and lymphatic system disorders.

Former Secretary of State Henry Kissinger has reportedly died, according to The Washington Post.

The statesman passed away at the age of 100 at his Connecticut home, according to a statement from his consulting firm, which did not give a cause of death..

Kissinger was the only person ever to be White House national security adviser and secretary of state at the same time, exercising a control over U.S. foreign policy that has rarely been equaled by anyone who was not president.

He notably helped create the “post-World War II world order,” leading the United States through significant foreign policy challenges, according to Kissinger’s website.

Mr. Kissinger, who met with Chinese Communist Party (CCP) leader Xi Jinping during a surprise visit to Beijing on July 20, is revered in China for having engineered the opening of relations between the CCP and Washington under President Nixon during the Cold War in the early 1970s.

However, he was not universally acclaimed…

…with two of the most vociferous critics, Christopher Hitchens and William Shawcross, also branding Dr. Kissinger a war criminal.

Journalist Seymour M. Hersh, in “The Price of Power,” said Dr. Kissinger and Nixon were basically two of a kind:

They “remained blind to the human costs of their actions. The dead and maimed in Vietnam and Cambodia – as in Chile, Bangladesh, Biafra and the Middle East – seemed not to count as the President and his national security adviser battled the Soviet Union, their misconceptions, their political enemies, and each other.”

At the very least, those who did not admire Dr. Kissinger felt that his focus on Cold War realities and his willingness to use force – openly or covertly – to advance U.S. objectives blinded him to humanitarian and human rights considerations.

Laud him or loathe him, we do note that in the last few months of life, he dropped some uncomfortable truths for today’s politicians…

Henry Kissinger: “It was a grave mistake to let in so many people of totally different culture and religion and concepts” pic.twitter.com/CulDSiQDxq

— End Wokeness (@EndWokeness) October 12, 2023

WaPo reports that in his comprehensive biography of Dr. Kissinger, journalist Walter Isaacson came to the conclusion that he “had an instinctive feel for power and for creating a new global balance that could help America cope with its withdrawal syndrome after Vietnam. But it was not matched by a similar feel for the strength to be derived from the openness of America’s democratic system or for the moral values that are the true source of its global influence.”

Isaacson, who had full access to Dr. Kissinger and many of his friends, described him as “brilliant, conspiratorial, furtive, sensitive to linkages and nuances, prone to rivalries and power struggles, charming yet at times deceitful.”

By Simon Watkins of OilPrice.com

Preliminary estimates suggested that Iraq’s Eridu oil field holds between 7-10 billion barrels of reserves.

Senior Russian oil industry sources spoken to exclusively by OilPrice.com last week said the true figure may well be 50 percent more than the higher figure of that band. In either event, the Eridu field – part of Iraq’s Block 10 exploration and development region – is the biggest oil find in Iraq in the last 20 years, and Russia wants to control all of it, alongside its chief geopolitical ally, China.

This is in line with Moscow and Beijing’s objective of keeping the West out of energy deals in Iraq to keep Baghdad closer to the new Iran-Saudi axis and to “end [the] Western hegemony in the Middle East [that] will become the decisive chapter in the West’s final demise,” as exclusively related to OilPrice.com. The approval last week by Iraq’s Oil Ministry for Inpex – the major oil company of key U.S. ally Japan – to sell its 40 percent stake in the Block 10 region that contains the huge Eridu discovery leaves the way clear for Lukoil to take total control of the entire oil-rich area.

Lukoil had held a 60 percent stake in the entirety of Block 10, with the remainder held by the Japanese firm. However, from March it has been looking for ways to push Inpex out of the Block, and with it the last remnants of Western influence in the area. March saw Iraq’s state-owned Dhi Qar Oil Company (DQOC) formally approve the development of Block 10’s reserves, including for the whole Eridu field. Block 10 lies in the southeast of Iraq, approximately 120 km west of the key oil export route from Basra, and just south of the huge oil fields in and around Nassirya. The contract for Block 10 awarded to Lukoil and Inpex back in 2012 in Iraq’s fourth licensing round gives a relatively high remuneration per barrel rate of US$5.99, although at that point the vast Eridu field had not been discovered. In 2021, after some preliminary testing, Iraq’s Oil Ministry said it expected peak production of at minimum 250,000 barrels per day (bpd) from Eridu by, at that point, 2027. The senior Russian oil industry sources exclusively spoken to by OilPrice.com last week, believe peak production could run at least 100,000 bpd higher than the previous figure, contingent on whether the new reserves estimates are correct, although given delays in development since 2021, the date at which that will be achieved is now toward the end of 2029.

Back in 2021 – at least before the U.S. formally withdrew from Iraq by ending its ‘combat mission’ there at the end of December – it was clear that Washington knew what Russia and China were up to long term in the country, and how the U.S. was being manipulated by Iraq. In a moment of insight, the then-U.S. Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense, Dana Stroul, said:

“It’s […] clear that certain countries and partners would want to hedge and test what more they might be able to get from the United States by testing the waters of deeper co-operation with the Chinese or the Russians, particularly in the security and military space.”

This view could equally have been aimed, not just at Iraq, but also at most other countries in the Middle East at that time – most notably Saudi Arabia, and the UAE. That said, this profound insight had no effect on Washington at that point, and posed no impediment at all to either Russia or China’s continued drive to entirely push the U.S. out of the Middle East, as analysed in depth in in my new book on the new global oil market order.

For Iraq, the endgame has been apparent from Russia’s effective takeover of the oil and gas industry of the country’s troublesome semi-autonomous region of Kurdistan in the north. This occurred in the chaos that followed the brutal put-down of the region after 93 percent of its inhabitants voted for full independence from Iraq in September 2017. Russian control over Iraqi Kurdistan was secured via the state’s corporate proxy, Rosneft, through three means, as also analysed in full in my new book. Subsequent to this, Russia has manipulated the region into such a toxic standoff with the central Iraq government in Baghdad that the final stage of the plan to effectively incorporate the Iraqi Kurdistan region into the rest of Iraq, is now proceeding at full throttle. Given this, Russia and China are now moving to secure their dominance over the rest of Iraq, with the removal of Inpex from the vast Eridu field being only the latest example of their broader strategy at work.

Multiple field exploration and development deals, plus countless lower-profile ‘contract-only’ agreements, with Russian and Chinese firms allow the two countries plenty of scope to leverage these out into a harder geopolitical presence across the country, including into the very fabric of its key infrastructure. At a recent Iraq Cabinet meeting, it was agreed that the country should now give its full support to rolling out all aspects of the wide-ranging ‘Iraq-China Framework Agreement’ signed in December 2021, but agreed in principle more than a year before that. This agreement is very similar in scope and scale to the all-encompassing ‘Iran-China 25-Year Comprehensive Cooperation Agreement’, as first revealed anywhere in the world in my 3 September 2019 article on the subject and fully examined in my new book.

A key part of both deals is that China has first refusal on all oil, gas, and petrochemicals projects that come up in Iraq for the duration of the deal, and that it is given at least a 30 percent discount on all oil, gas, and petrochemicals it buys. Another key part of the Iraq-China Framework Agreement is that Beijing is allowed to build factories across the country, with a corollary build-out of supportive infrastructure. This includes – importantly for its ‘Belt and Road Initiative’ – railway links, all overseen by its own management staff from Chinese companies on the ground in Iraq. The railway infrastructure in Iraq will be completed out after the network in Iran has been finished, and this began in earnest in late 2020 with the contract to electrify the main 900-kilometre railway connecting Tehran to the north-eastern city of Mashhad. As an adjunct to this, plans were put in place to establish a Tehran-Qom-Isfahan high-speed train line and to extend this upgraded network up to the north-west through Tabriz. Tabriz – home to several key sites relating to oil, gas, and petrochemicals, and the starting point for the Tabriz-Ankara gas pipeline – is to be a pivot point of the 2,300-kilometre New Silk Road that links Urumqi (the capital of China’s western Xinjiang Province) to Tehran, and will connect Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Uzbekistan and Turkmenistan along the way, before it then runs into Europe, via Turkey. 

These plans, in turn, link into corollary plans by Russia and China to turn the entire southeast region of Iraq – that culminates with the major oil export hub of Basra – into a region criss-crossed by Russian- and Chinese-controlled oil and gas fields and transportation hubs, as also analysed in full in my new book. One such cornerstone deal was Baghdad’s approval of nearly IQD1 trillion (US$700 million) for infrastructure projects in the city of Al-Zubair just to the south of Basra. The city’s Governor at the time the deal was struck, Abbas Al-Saadi, said China’s heavy involvement in the projects was part of the broad-based ‘oil-for-reconstruction and investment’ agreement – part of the general ‘oil-for-projects’ idea signed by Baghdad and Beijing in September 2019.

The Al-Zubair announcement came shortly after the awarding by Baghdad of another major contract to another Chinese company to build a civilian airport to replace the military base in the capital of the southern oil rich Dhi Qar governorate. The Dhi Qar region includes two of Iraq’s potentially biggest oil fields – Gharraf and Nassiriya – and China has said it intends to complete the airport by 2024. This region is also to the immediate north of the huge Eridu oil field and to the northwest of Basra. The airport project will include the construction of multiple cargo buildings and roads linking the airport to the city’s town centre and separately to other key oil areas in southern Iraq. This, in turn, followed yet another deal that will involve Chinese companies building out Al-Sadr City, located near Baghdad, at a cost of between US$7-8 billion, also within the framework of the 2019 ‘oil-for-reconstruction and investment’ agreement.

Data from Bankrate indicates that interest rates for new auto loans with a 60-month term have reached their highest point since the Dot Com bust era. Additionally, the soaring prices of new electric vehicles pose a significant affordability challenge for the average working-class American. Beyond affordability issues, consumer interest in EVs is also waning. This sentiment is echoed by 3,900 auto dealers who have written to President Biden, urging his administration to reconsider the pace of EV mandates, citing a severe decline in demand for these vehicles. 

“Currently, there are many excellent battery electric vehicles available for consumers to purchase. These vehicles are ideal for many people, and we believe their appeal will grow over time. The reality, however, is that electric vehicle demand today is not keeping up with the large influx of BEVs arriving at our dealerships prompted by the current regulations. BEVs are stacking up on our lots,” the dealers said. 

They said 2022 was a year of “hope and hype about EVs” but has morphed into a bust cycle as “supply of unsold BEVs is surging, as they are not selling nearly as fast as they are arriving at our dealerships — even with deep price cuts, manufacturer incentives, and generous government incentives.” 

They warned: “Already, electric vehicles are stacking up on our lots which is our best indicator of customer demand in the marketplace.” 

According to Bankrate data, this may be because new auto loans with 60-month terms have soared from around 3.5% to 7.78% in a very short period – we call this an interest rate shock. Current rates are at levels not seen since the second half of 2001. 

The dealers said most customers are not ready for EVs, citing unaffordability issues. No fiscally conservative American trying to survive the failure of Bidenomics wants a +$1,000 EV car payment. 

They explained most customers don’t have “garages for home charging or easy access to public charging stations” and were concerned about “loss of driving range in cold or hot weather.” 

With that being said, the dealers asked Biden: 

Mr. President, it is time to tap the brakes on the unrealistic government electric vehicle mandate. Allow time for the battery technology to advance. Allow time to make BEVs more affordable. Allow time to develop domestic sources for the minerals to make batteries. Allow time for the charging infrastructure to be built and prove reliable. And most of all, allow time for the American consumer to get comfortable with the technology and make the choice to buy an electric vehicle.

None of this should be surprising to readers. We have well-documented the EV bust this year, pointing out in late summer that dealers struggled to sell EVs with inventories piling up. 

We even showed the ‘rise and fall’ of the EV hype in one chart, Bring A Trailer listings for the GMC Hummer EV.

The letter to the president also comes as the clean energy industry is plunging into turmoil, with shares of solar, wind, and hydrogen stocks crashing this year. 

President Biden’s green revolution stands no chance in a high interest rate environment. 

And we wonder if the EV price war sparked by Elon Musk earlier this year with major automakers means Tesla is soaking up market share – or if they, too, are experiencing demand troubles. 

Authored by Ryan Morgan via The Epoch Times,.

Paul Whelan, a retired U.S. Marine currently imprisoned in Russia, was assaulted by a fellow inmate on Tuesday, according to his brother.

In a press statement shared with The Detroit News, David Whelan said his 53-year-old twin brother had been able to contact their family after the incident and recount the attack he’d endured. David Whelan said his brother recounted sitting at a sewing table in a prison workshop at around 1:30 p.m. Moscow time when a recently arrived prisoner began to obstruct his work.

“A new prisoner blocked part of the production line and Paul asked him to move out of the way. After repeated requests, the prisoner hit Paul in the face, breaking Paul’s glasses in the process, and attempted to hit him a second time,” David Whelan’s statement on the attack read.

According to the statement, the attack occurred in a workshop area of the prison that the guards do not enter, and “Paul was at the mercy of this prisoner.” The American inmate was able to stand up from his workspace to block successive blows by his assailant, and other prisoners eventually intervened to break up the altercation.

The Russian state-owned TASS news agency corroborated the attack in a Wednesday report, but claimed prison staff intervened to break up the fight.

Paul Whelan holds U.S., British, Irish, and Canadian citizenship. After a bad-conduct discharge from the Marine Corps in 2008, he went on to work as a corporate security executive for a Michigan-based international auto parts manufacturer. He was traveling in Moscow in December of 2018 when he was detained by Russian authorities on espionage charges. He was convicted in a Russian court in July of 2020, and sentenced to 16 years in prison.

In his statement for The Detroit News on Tuesday, David Whelan shared his family’s concerns about his brother’s well-being as he continues his prison term at the IK-17 penal facility in the western Russian Republic of Mordovia.

“Paul is a target because he is an American and anti-American sentiment is not uncommon among the other prisoners,” he told the news outlet.

“It is too early to know whether they will take steps to ensure his safety in the future, both from this prisoner and others who may decide they have nothing to lose by attacking Paul.”

David Whelan said prisoners have access to “various sharp implements” in the prison workshop where his brother was attacked on Tuesday, and expressed concern about similar or, potentially, even worse attacks.

Biden Admin Seeking to Free Whelan, Others

The U.S. State Department considers Paul Whelan to be a wrongfully detained U.S. citizen and the Biden administration continues to negotiate for his release, as the five-year anniversary of his detention nears.

Last year, the Biden administration arranged a deal to release Russian national Viktor Bout in exchange for the release of Brittney Griner, a WNBA basketball player who was arrested in Moscow. Mr. Bout was serving a 25-year prison sentence in the United States after being convicted on arms trafficking charges, while Ms. Griner was imprisoned in Russia after being convicted for a drug offense. The Biden administration said it had sought Mr. Whelan’s release as part of the Bout-Griner swap agreement, but that the Russian side refused.

The U.S. Ambassador to Russia, Lynne Tracy, visited Mr. Whelan in prison in September.

The Biden administration and U.S. lawmakers have also pushed for the release of Evan Gershkovich, a Wall Street Journal reporter who had been covering Russia and who was detained in March of this year on spying charges.

Alsu Kurmasheva, a Russian-American citizen who works for Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty (RFE/RL), has also been detained in Russia since June, and was formally arrested and charged last month with failing to register as an agent of a foreign government. The U.S. State Department has yet to designate Ms. Kurmasheva as a wrongfully detained U.S. citizen, despite requests for such designation by her family.

At a press conference earlier this month, State Department spokesperson Matthew Miller said the U.S. side has to gather the appropriate facts before it could make such a determination about her detention. He said the U.S. side hadn’t yet established consular access to meet with Ms. Kurmasheva as her case proceeds through the Russian court system.

Saudi Arabia has for the past month been directly engaging Iran on the Gaza issue, a half-year after the longtime rivals restored official relations in a China-brokered agreement. Prior to that, a decade-long proxy war had raged, chiefly centered on Syria, where Saudi Arabia and its partners backed al-Qaeda groups in an effort to topple Iran-aligned President Bashar al-Assad.

But the potential for major regional conflict has returned in light of the Israel-Hamas war, and Tehran is seen as a key backer of Palestinian Islamist factions now holding Israeli and foreign captives hostage.

On Wednesday, Bloomberg reports the major development that “Saudi Arabia has approached Iran with an offer to boost cooperation and invest in its sanctions-stricken economy if the Islamic Republic stops its regional proxies from turning the Israel-Hamas war into a wider conflict.”

It was only this month that Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi and Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed Bin Salman met in person for the first time, after the restoration of diplomatic ties, during a summit in Riyadh which focused on addressing the Gaza war.

Bloomberg continues, “The proposal has been delivered directly and through multiple means since Hamas’s attack on Israel last month and the ensuing war in Gaza, according to Arab and Western officials familiar with the matter.”

Hamas is widely believed to be funded and trained by Iran, and prior to the Syria war even had an official office in Damascus (after 2012, Hamas had joined the anti-Assad jihadist insurgents), and so Tehran is seen as having the most influence. Qatar too has long had links to Hamas.

“While its unclear how seriously Tehran has taken Riyadh’s overtures, so far a regional war’s been averted,” Bloomberg observes. Hezbollah in southern Lebanon has so far respected the temporary truce which has been on since last Friday.

Yemen’s Houthi rebels, however, have persisted in drone and rocket launches toward southern Israel after ‘declaring war’ on Tel Aviv. Houthi militants have also hijacked an Israeli-linked vessel in the Red Sea. The Shia militants have long been backed by Iran, which also supplies them with advanced drone and missile systems. 

Houthi attacks on international shipping in Mideast waters have ramped up of late…

Iran’s proxies’ aggression and tensions in the Persian Gulf

watch the full discussion here: https://t.co/ZfjDHBo5LO

Vice Admiral (Ret.) Eliezer (Eli) Marom, former Commander of the Israeli Navy, and @JasonMBrodsky, Policy Director of United Against Nuclear Iran, examine the… pic.twitter.com/pf4ICJ8BnQ

— i24NEWS English (@i24NEWS_EN) November 28, 2023

If this fresh reporting of the Saudis offering investment opportunities to Iran proves accurate, it could create deeper tensions between Riyadh and Washington, considering the longtime US sanctions on Iran. US law requires even third parties doing business with Iran to face punishment.

However, this could also have the quiet blessing of the Biden White House, which has sought ways to reverse the prior Trump administration’s ‘maximum pressure’ campaign, also amid efforts to reign in the Islamic Republic’s nuclear program. While a couple of years ago the US was more aggressive in seizing Iranian oil as it shipped globally, these efforts appear to have waned.

Jamie Dimon is nuts for Nimarata, telling the audience at Wednesday’s NYT DealBook Summit “Even if you’re a very liberal Democrat, I urge you, help Nikki Haley too.”

“Get a choice on the Republican side that might be better than Trump,” the JPM CEO added.

DIMON: EVEN IF YOU’RE A LIBERAL DEM, URGE YOU TO HELP HALEY TOO

DIMON: BEEN TALKING TO NIKKI HALEY AS A TRUMP ALTERNATIVE

so she has the neocon and the Wall Street vote: clearly a vote for her is a vote for change

— zerohedge (@zerohedge) November 29, 2023

The endorsement comes one day after Haley won the support of Koch-linked PAC, Americans for Prosperity Action. That said, while Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis’ campaign appears to have stalled following a precipitous drop, he’s still ahead of Haley according to an average of polls tracked by RealClear Politics. 

Haley obviously has a shot of surpassing DeSantis, however look at Trump way up there at the top.

The backing added to momentum the former United Nations ambassador has been building in recent weeks in her efforts to become voters’ main alternative to former President Donald Trump in the Republican primaries. Haley is now in third place, behind Trump and Florida Governor Ron DeSantis, in the RealClearPolitics average of national polls. -Bloomberg

That said, Dimon says he will work with whoever wins the 2024 election.

“I’m not taking myself off the playing field,” he said.

Haley told CNBC‘s Squawk Box that she and Dimon caught up over the phone recently about the US economy.

Ackman joins the herd

Meanwhile, billionaire investor Bill Ackman is the latest talking head to suggest that President Joe Biden needs to hang it up.

“I think Biden’s done a lot of good things. But I think his legacy will not be a good one if he is the nominee,” said Ackman, known for flip-flopping like an air sock. “I do think the right thing for Biden to do is to step aside, and to say he’s not going to run, and create the opportunity for some competition.”

Ackman says he’s ‘intrigued’ by Rep. Dean Phillips’s primary challenge for the Democratic nomination.

“You need to be at your intellectual best. And I don’t think Biden is there,” Ackman said in an upcoming episode of The David Rubenstein Show: Peer-to-Peer Conversations that will debut Dec. 6 at 9 p.m. New York time on Bloomberg Television.

“I don’t say that, you know, with any derision of the president,” he continued. “But I think he’s clearly past his physical and cognitive peak.“

Ackman joins the likes of David Axelrod, Bill Kristol, and former DNC Chair Donna Brazile in suggesting that Biden should step aside.

In a truth-bomb-filled interview with Andrew Ross-Sorkin, at the DealBook Conference, Elon Musk silenced a room full of liberal elites as he proclaimed that: “…if someone wants to blackmail me with advertising, they can go fuck themselves.”

Reflecting on the actions of various companies to his now-viral retweet of a so-called anti-semitic comment – specifically mention ‘Bob’ (Iger from Disney), Musk confirmed he did not want them to advertise while noting that “an advertising boycott will kill X.”

“Don’t advertise. If someone is going to try to blackmail me with advertising, blackmail me with money, go f**k yourself. Go f**k yourself. Is that clear? I hope it is.”

But, he explains, “the whole world will know those advertisers killed the company… and we’ll document it in great detail.”

Sorkin replies “those advertisers will say, ‘we didnt’ kill the company’ to which Musk cuts him off “Oh yeah, tell that to earth.. and let’s see how earth responds to that.”

Fuck you says Elon Musk pic.twitter.com/XailyzZVqZ

— One Tesla Share (@OneTeslaShare) November 29, 2023

With regards to the anti-semtitic tweet, Musk admits his action was:

“perhaps the most foolish thing I’ve ever done… the worst and dumbest thing I’ve ever done.”

Musk clarifies once again the thought process behind his retweet:

“What I was saying was that it’s unwise to support groups that want your annihilation,” he says.

If it encouraged anti-semites, he says:

“I am quite sorry,” adding, “I should in retrospect not have replied to that particular post.”

But, he explains, “I have no problem being hated,” and responding to questions about ‘trust’, Musk points out that his work speaks for itself – if you want to send satellites to space, SpaceX sent 80% of all mass into orbit this year; and, if you want to buy an EV, Tesla makes the best cars in the world – it doesn’t matter what you think of him.

“We make the best cars… Whether you hate me, like me or are indifferent, do you want the best car or not the best car?”

In fact, he reflects, “I’ve done more for the environment than any human,” drawing a smattering of applause before he remarked:

“…I care about doing good… and all I see is people who care more about looking good while doing evil.”

The mood of the discussion turns a little more morose as Musk discusses the “demons of his mind” that drive the storm inside his brain.

Sorkin asks if there is anyone who holds leverage over Musk… Musk succinctly responds “no”.

Simply put, this discussion brought a whole new meaning to the phrase ‘fuck you money!” as Musk says what he thinks without fear of woke retaliation.