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the funnies

Protests and skepticism greet Trump’s ‘Board of Peace’

Gaza not represented on this 'Board of Piss'.

Trump wants to control and replace the UN. 

Look who sits directly behind Trump - Witcoff, Rubio and Kushner. Evidence that this is all one big 'real estate deal'.

All the rest of the lackeys sit on the sidelines. These fools should be embarrassed to be there. One would hope they would catch hell when they get back home from their people.

~ Ramin Mazaheri is currently covering the US elections. He is the chief correspondent in Paris for Press TV and has lived in France since 2009.

U.S. prepares for attack on Iran

Southfront Press

Iran is actively preparing for an attack by the United States and Israel, despite reports of some progress in nuclear talks.

In a clear warning to both the U.S. and Israel, on February 16, the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps Navy kicked off drills in the strategic Hormuz Strait.

The strait was closed for several hours on the second day of the drills due to “security precautions,” and commander of the guard’s navy, Rear Admiral Alireza Tangsiri, stated that Iran is prepared to close the waterway at command.

As the drills were ongoing, the U.S. military began sending dozens of warplanes to the Middle East. At least 18 F-35A Lightning II stealth fighter jets left Lakenheath Air Base in the United Kingdom on February 16 headed for Muwaffaq Salti in Jordan.

The next day, a dozen F-22 Raptors stealth fighter jets left Langley Air Force Base in Virginia heading east. At least six landed at Lakenheath Air Base in the UK.

In addition, at least 48 F-16 Fighting Falcons moved toward the Middle East. The multirole fighter jets took off from Aviano Air Base in Italy, Spangdahlem Air Base in Germany and McEntire Joint National Guard Base in South Carolina.

Two E-3 Sentry Airborne Warning And Control Systems (AWACS) aircraft also landed at Mildenhall Air Base in the UK. At least one U-2 Dragon Lady spy plane was also spotted on the way to the Middle East.

One the same day it was revealed that the USS Gerald R. Ford has already arrived near the Strait of Gibraltar, which means it could join the USS Abraham Lincoln in the Middle East in under a week.

Amid this escalation, an Iranian delegation led by Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi held a second round of indirect talks with U.S. representatives, headed by U.S. envoys Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner in Geneva on February 17.

Araghchi said that Iran and the U.S. reached an understanding on the main “guiding principles” of a new nuclear agreement, and spoke of a “window of opportunity”.

Optimism was short lived, however, as a report published by Axios on February 18 revealed that President Donald Trump was “fed up” with Iran, and that a long, multi-week campaign that starts with a joint U.S.-Israel attack may be just a few days away.

All in all, it appears that the U.S. is nearing a decision on war with Iran. The U.S. and Israel will likely be ready to attack within a week. Iran will likely react with full force. Closing the Hormuz Strait will be an option for the Islamic Republic. 

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Another view by former CIA analyst Larry Johnson of Sonar 21   Read on his site – this is only a snippet.

The massive deployment of US combat air assets to the Middle East, accompanied by two carrier strike groups, is not a negotiating ploy. The USCENTCOM chain of command, along with the supporting military assets (e.g., AFSOC, JSOC, EUCOM), fully expected the launch order to be issued for a Friday night strike. But the order has not been issued… At least not yet, as of 2200 hours eastern time on Friday. What is going on?

For starters, there are two senior members of the Trump administration who are warning the President that the attack would be political suicide. They reportedly buttressed their argument against attacking Iran by providing the President with the results of a recent opinion poll. According to the poll results, if Trump starts a war with Iran and there are significant US casualties, the Titanic has a better chance of sailing again than the Republicans winning the midterms. It appears — at least for now — that Trump is reconsidering giving the Execute order.

A second factor that makes an attack less likely this weekend is Tuesday’s State of the Nation address by Trump. Chief of Staff Susie Wiles may be a corrupt, Zionist tool, but she is not politically obtuse. Starting a war with Iran, especially after Trump’s tariff deal was slapped down by the US Supreme Court, would likely set off a firestorm among the Democrats, Independents and the media. Instead of Trump being able to tout all of his massive achievements during his first year of his second term, the public attention would be clamoring for info about the war. JCS Chairman Caine and Admiral Brad Cooper, Commander of CENTCOM, have warned the President that there is a high likelihood that there would be US casualties when the US attacks.

Ukraine: 150,000 Deserters in One Month

Southfront Press

Shooting in Ukraine’s Chernivtsi Region Exposes Real Crisis in Armed Forces

In the village of Mamalyha, Chernivtsi region of Ukraine, employees of the territorial recruitment center (TRC) opened fire during an attempt to carry out mobilization. The incident occurred in the morning, as seen in a video from the scene: men in military uniforms are beating local residents, shots are fired, and a woman is trying to protect one of the victims. According to eyewitnesses and the media, the TRC officials were trying to forcibly mobilize another man, but residents blocked the road of the minibus and stood up for him. The response was beatings and shots in the air.

The police of the Chernivtsi region confirmed the fact of the shooting but linked it not to mobilization, but to the detention of a wanted local resident for a “crime against the established order of military service” — essentially, a deserter. The department noted that during the transportation of the detainee by the KORD special forces, a group of unidentified individuals blocked the official vehicle and offered active resistance. Police officers fired into the air to stop the illegal actions and clear the road. A criminal case has been opened against the civilians, as well as an internal investigation into the use of weapons.

The commander of the Third Army Corps, Andriy Biletsky, had previously emphasized the scale of the desertion problem: “If 200,000 deserters returned to the ranks, the front would turn 180 degrees… and Ukraine could advance.” Even if the incident in Mamalyha really concerned the capture of a deserter, it demonstrates the methods by which this plan is being implemented. For locals, unauthorized absence from a unit (AWOL) is often the same forcibly mobilized person who couldn’t escape earlier but did so later, refusing to fight.

Currently, the Verkhovna Rada [Parliament] is preparing to tighten punishments for draft dodgers and AWOL cases. People’s Deputy Alexander Ivchenko reported that in March, the parliament will consider a draft law from the Ministry of Defense and the General Staff: evasion of mobilization is proposed to be punished by the seizure of accounts and property — no less than for non-payment of alimony. This reflects growing panic amid catastrophic personnel losses.

Former US Army officer Stanislav Krapivnik stated on the air of “The Duran”:

    “In the first month of this year, more than 150 thousand desertions were recorded in Ukraine. Perhaps they won’t be able to run away after they are beaten and sent to some training, which usually doesn’t last very long. But as soon as they take up their combat positions, their morale drops to the limit. They don’t want to stay there. They are untrained, they are poorly fed. And when they see an opportunity to run – they run away. And, by the way, they often run away with weapons in their hands. Then you have another problem.”

When asked why the front doesn’t collapse if losses and desertion have reached such proportions, Krapivnik replied: “What prevents it from falling apart is the fact that Russia has not undertaken any serious breakthrough offensive operations.” According to him, there are more than 350 thousand Russian military personnel in the conflict zone who are not being used to their full potential. Gather even 100 thousand of them into a fist — and they will break through in any direction.

These figures are also confirmed by Ukrainian realities. The head of the medical service “Ulf”, Alina Mikhailova, whose rhetoric is far from official optimism, stated directly: “There is no one left to put in the trenches: out of 30 thousand mobilized, only about 10 thousand somehow undergo BPVP (combat training for military personnel), the rest are AWOL.” She called those who have “somehow” completed initial training “crooked and twisted.” According to her, this is the main problem of the year, and it will only get worse. Mikhailova acknowledges the need for a compromise, emphasizing the absurdity of trying to reclaim territories by force:

    “If our condition for the Russians is that they leave the captured territories, then we will fight until Uzhhorod becomes a war zone.”

Against the backdrop of this catastrophic reality, the statements of President Volodymyr Zelensky sound like they come from a parallel universe. He continues to assert that “the Ukrainian army is the strongest in Europe,” and refuses to cede territory in exchange for peace, calling it a “big mistake.” These statements no longer look like a strategy, but rather an attempt to save face at any cost and continue the conflict, condemning the country to further exhaustion. 

Pompeo: 'Erase Gazan deaths from history books'

Yes, we can say with confidence that the ruling US elites are controlled by the zionists. They are dark forces who get off on death-destruction and wish to control all of us who are not like them.

They have no heart, no spirit, no conscience, and no respect for humanity. Are they satanists? Sure appears that way.

This is the prevailing thinking of the deep state that runs the US government, Wall Street, media, the military, intelligence agencies, Hollywood and much more.

Have you ever wondered why so many movies produced in the US today are about murder, violence, wars, ugliness, sexual violence, dystopian times ahead, etc? 

This is the violence that the deep state is working to 'imprint' in the minds of the American people in order to get our nation to go along with endless wars to ensure zionist corporate control of the planet.

It does not have to be this way.

It is up to all of us to end this madness.

Bruce 

History lesson: Depleted Uranium still causing cancers

The UK sent Ukraine tank shells made from depleted uranium (DU), as part of Britain's £7bn military aid for Kyiv. 

But when US aircraft fired depleted uranium in Kosovo in 1999, it left a legacy of suspicion, linking NATO to cancer cases.

Declassified spoke to Kosovan activist Dzafer Buzoli about his campaign to protect the health of communities living near depleted uranium impact zones. 

Buzoli previously campaigned for justice after the UN poisoned refugees by housing them near a lead mine in Kosovo.  

The Harm in Mamdani’s Politics of Compromise

Yussra holding 'Shame on US' sign

By Yussra

The Typical Liberal Charmer

I have yet to write about New York City’s hottest new Muslim mayor, Zohran Mamdani.

I’m not a fan.

Bear with me on this one. I’ve held back on sharing my opinion until now to keep observing him from the sidelines before rushing to judgment. I know many of the other mayoral candidates were so much worse, and I know how much hope he has given to the people struggling and caring in NYC. I know he means a lot to many activists fighting for a free Palestine, including people I really respect. I know his wife makes illustrations calling out Israel’s war crimes and his father is a respected anti-colonial academic. I know how cool it is for the Big Apple, which has long been run by Zionists, to have a Muslim mayor who is critical of Israel, especially given how much discrimination we’ve faced as Muslims in the US after 9/11. I also recognize that the man is absurdly charismatic and eloquent… like Obama.

I live by Islam and I spend a lot of my time fighting for Palestinian liberation, so I’ve encountered people who assume I’m happy about Mamdani’s victory. Well, I’m happy Zionists are troubled. But I don’t trust him, I don’t think they’re troubled enough, and my frustration finally outweighs my hesitation, so I’m going to be the jerk who writes an essay criticizing one of the only politicians in the US who has a significant track record of advocating for Palestinian liberation and against Israeli impunity. One could take my critique as a compliment to Mamdani, since the corruption of the vast majority of US politicians is so plain to see that no scrutiny is required. Of course, I could always be wrong, and in this case I’d love to be wrong, so if I’ve misread Mamdani so far or I later turn out to be way off, then I owe him a public apology (not that the public should care about my opinion, but just for the sake of my own integrity). And maybe he will prove me wrong, maybe he can change, maybe his conscience

Even now, I’m expressing more charitable hesitation to call out Mamdani than he afforded the Palestinian resistance, who he was so ready to throw under the bus when prompted by the American political elite, condemning genocide survivors for resisting decades of illegal Israeli occupation sustained by US taxes.

I have to be honest: it only took me a few minutes to clock Mamdani as a sweet-talking opportunist who is willing to compromise on what matters most in order to build power. A true politician. He’s very good at what he does. Tragically, what he does, it turns out, is play diplomat with Zionists. I was disappointed, but I wasn’t shocked, when I heard of his many immediate betrayals of Palestine after running as the “pro-Palestine” candidate (visit the links at the end of this essay for detailed descriptions and evidence of these betrayals). If we’re being honest with ourselves, how could we be that surprised, when he was willing to run as a Democrat in the first place, aligning himself with a party synonymous with genocide? If your instinct is to defend him by saying he’s hoping to change the party from within, then please keep reading to the end.

I don’t know if this essay would upset people, fans of his. That’s not my intention, especially since I’m likely to agree with his supporters on many issues. I know people form emotional attachments to politicians. It’s only human, and the system counts on it. I know people can point to the good Mamdani has done and will do for Palestine and in general, which they might argue goes far beyond the scope of what any of his critics could ever achieve, given Mamdani’s influence, and I get it, I want to like him so badly too, this should have been our moment, and how dare I rain on it?

But let me take you back a second. I remember the moment I first became aware of Mamdani’s existence. I stumbled across a video of his on YouTube, and I watched a minute of a speech from his campaign to become the mayor of New York, in which his energy was undeniable and his ideas simultaneously felt fresh and long overdue. Impressed and excited, I subscribed to his channel, looked up his name, watched him in an interview with Stephen Colbert, and rushed back to his channel to unsubscribe in a whirlwind, trying to shake what I had just witnessed out of my head. It’s amazing how rapidly my first impression of Mamdani shifted from inspiring to unsettling. I was hoping for Mamdani to put the Zionist New York Times in an incredibly awkward position through his rise in popularity, but I quickly realized he wasn’t going to be the one to hold their feet to the fire. On the contrary, he could inadvertently become the answer to their problems, a way for unethical journalists to win back the conscientious public and m

By working with Zionists, Mamdani unwittingly saves their reputations from the brink of oblivion in the eyes of onlookers, doing more to sanitize their image as an anti-Zionist politician than a liberal Zionist ever could.

My excitement deflated as suddenly as it had overtaken me, because when Colbert asked Mamdani a remarkably racist and Islamophobic question about how he’d make Jews in New York feel safe despite his “controversial” comments against Israel’s genocide in Palestine, rather than pointing out the offensive nature of the question, rather than turning it back on Colbert and asking him why he didn’t make Zionist candidates prove themselves to the Palestinian diaspora in New York during an active Zionist genocide against the people of Palestine, the quick-witted Mamdani did not waste the opportunity to pander to Zionists, going on a tangent about October Seven to repeat debunked propaganda from the occupier’s narrative, instead of standing his ground on his right and our collective imperative to condemn close to eight decades of Israeli terrorism from the apartheid settler colony, instead of pointing out that Jewish supremacists feeling safe should not take priority over Palestinians actually being safe.

It might seem harsh, but that single moment of pandering was enough for me to lose interest in what Mamdani has to offer the liberation struggle. Many others within the movement have yet to run out of chances to give him, which is understandable considering his history, but his credibility is precisely why I feel all the more driven to call him out. It’s too easy to reason that maybe he’s playing the long game somehow, that he’s under unique pressures and he has to build political power before he can use it, that he needs to form strategic alliances and lull his enemies before he can act, that this is a rare opportunity for our sidelined cause to gain mainstream popularity. You get it, we’ve heard it all before, and it’s everything I hate about politics, which can have us justifying the most reprehensible transgressions against our own standards in the pursuit of morsels of recognition. But if you’re an activist for Palestine and you’ve ever felt skeptical or suspicious of Mamdani as he’s continued to work w

Of course, I can’t speak to Mamdani’s true intentions. Allah alone knows the inside of his heart. Mamdani probably believes he’s doing the right thing and helping the cause by working with Zionists. But so does Netanyahu, you know? I’m not comparing the two of course, I’m just saying every politician has their rationalizations. I’ve been burned by politicians too many times before, and especially disillusioned by the unforgivable Zionism of figures I once admired like Bernie Sanders and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, so I’ve been thoroughly reminded since Israel’s genocide in Palestine to be wary of US politicians, who are essentially professional liars on behalf of the colonizer, selling the suffering public on the promise of better days to stave off revolution. 

~ See the rest of her story here

Israel ‘dictating terms’ to US – Turkish professor

RT

Israel is effectively dictating US foreign policy, particularly on Iran and the wider Middle East, in a way that is historically unprecedented for a global superpower, a Turkish international relations professor has told RT.

Hasan Unal, who teaches at Baskent University in Ankara, spoke to RT’s Rick Sanchez this week about what he described as a highly unusual power imbalance between Israel and the US.

”We are living in a world now where a small country like Israel is dictating terms to a superpower like the United States on anything and everything, particularly anything pertaining to Israel and to the Middle East,” he said, calling the situation “totally unacceptable.”

Unal added that some analysts have even described it as an “occupation” of US policymaking by Israel, a characterization he said was “almost true.”

He went on to say that pro-Israel lobby influence and the personal involvement of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu were shaping American positions, recalling episodes when Netanyahu “gets on his plane immediately” and flies to Washington “to simply dictate what [US President Donald] Trump should say and should negotiate in the negotiations with the Iranians.”

Unal claimed such a pattern has left Washington “dogging behind the Israeli demands all the time” and cautioned that it risks further destabilizing the Middle East.

Netanyahu has made multiple high profile visits to Washington to engage directly with senior US officials on regional policy. In the past year alone, he has met Trump at the White House at least six times to discuss issues ranging from Gaza and Iran’s nuclear program to military cooperation. His latest trip took place last week, ahead of the second round of indirect US Iran talks in Geneva. Netanyahu later said he had pressed Trump to ensure that Tehran is barred from enriching uranium. The renewed diplomatic push followed joint Israeli-US strikes on Iranian nuclear facilities last year, officially justified as an attempt to stop Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons – an ambition the Islamic Republic denies.

Trump has since sent an ‘armada’ to the Middle East and threatened further attacks unless Iran agrees to a deal on both its nuclear and missile programs. Last week, he raised the prospect of regime change and announced a second carrier strike group deployment, with media reports claiming the US military was ordered to prepare for a sustained multi-week operation if talks fail.

Asked whether Iran poses a direct threat to the US, Unal replied that Tehran does not seek to attack American assets as such and that many of the tensions are tied to Israel’s security calculations.

Unal also suggested what he called the gradual collapse of a “big empire,” referring to the Western-led order, and the emergence of a more multipolar system in which countries such as Russia, China, and Türkiye have greater room to maneuver. 

Closing in on war with Iran

 

We're two to three days from the US and Israeli onslaught on Iran. 

What will Russia and China do? 

This war is for Israel. Again. 

And civil conflict looms in US.  

WW3.... 

 

Lassoing the kids while they are young

Teens in Ukraine filmed performing Nazi salute

 

The Islander 

‘Peaceful activists’ were spotted in Kharkov in front of a local mall.  

This is what Russia has been fighting since the US orchestrated coup d'etat in 2014 that unleashed a US-NATO backed, trained, armed and directed Ukrainian military to head east toward the Russian border to attack the Russian-ethnic populations in the Donbass. 

After years of trying to work out a peace with the west Moscow finally moved into the Donbass to defend the beleaguered people in 2022. 

Since then the west has poured billions of dollars and Euros into keeping the war going in hopes of creating a 'regime change' in Russia.

Didn't work out for the western imperialists. Many have died as a result.

Czech Prime Minister Andrej Babis blames Boris Johnson for derailing a 2022 Kiev-Moscow peace deal. Says sides were close to agreement before the UK ex-PM’s visit to Ukraine. (Many others feel the same way.)

The Soros Foundation (masters at funding regime change) distributed identical instructions to protesters both during the Maidan uprising in Kyiv in 2014 and during the riots in Tahrir Square in Cairo in 2011. The only difference was that one was in Ukrainian, and the other was in Arabic. 

Pivot back to Russia was 'inevitable...Europe needs Russia to survive' — special presidential envoy Dmitriev. Price of US LNG gas 4-5 times higher than Russian gas. EU economies in trouble. So much for that war. Europe, what do you say now?

Is this the future we want?

The future that globalist elites plan for us.

They don't need us nor want us anymore. We are the superfluous populations. Robotics, mechanization, AI, etc make us expendable. 

Cheaper to kill us or let us die early than have to feed us 'useless eaters' as they call us. 

Palestine, Sudan, Congo and soon other places are being used to normalize mass death. 

Oppose neo-feudalism!

Bruce 

Graham is a mobster

 

Senator Lindsay Graham (#! zionist from South Carolina): ‘WARS of the future are being planned here in Israel’.

Greater Israel now attempting to expand to include much of the globe. Iran is next on their list along with several African nations and Thailand in Southeast Asia.

What could go wrong with this aggressive plan? 

Both parties are war mongers

• US invasion of Panama (1989) - Manuel Noriega's government was toppled. Noriega imprisoned in US.
• US invasion of Yugoslavia (1999) - Slobodan Milosevic's government toppled. Milosevic died in his prison cell before his trial finished. 
• US invasion of Iraq (2003) - Saddam Hussein's government was toppled; the country's oil sector was opened to the American companies. Saddam killed..
• US invasion in Libya (2011) - Muammar Gaddafi's government was toppled, Libya's oil sector was opened to American companies. Gaddafi killed.
• US invasion of Venezuela (2026) - Nicolas Maduro was kidnapped, and the oil sector is getting unlocked. 

How Trump’s oily dreams may collapse in a Venezuelan dark pit

By Pepe Escobar 

So the Big Oil Picture in Venezuela is way more complex than the Trump 2.0 gang suspects.

Let’s start with neo-Caligula’s new edicts on the imperial satrapy he says he now owns; not exactly edicts but outright threats directed to interim President Delcy Rodriguez:

Crack down on “drug trafficking flows”. Well, this should actually be directed to Colombian and Mexican smugglers in cahoots with big American buyers.

Expel Iranian, Cuban, and other “operatives hostile to Washington” – before Caracas is allowed to increase oil production. Not happening.

Halt oil sales to “US adversaries”. Not happening.

Hence it becomes a near certainty that neo-Caligula may bomb Venezuela again.

Neo-Caligula, in a separate motormouth offensive, also clarified that he wants to somewhat overhaul the oil business in Venezuela via subsidies. It “could take less than 18 months”; then it morphed to “we can do it in less time than that, but it’ll be a lot of money”; and finally morphed to “a tremendous amount of money will have to be spent and the oil companies will spend it.”

No, they won’t, as several proverbial “industry insiders” have advanced. US energy majors balk at the sight of investing fortunes in a nation that may be engulfed by total chaos if neo-Caligula forces a traitorous government over 28 million people.

According to Rystad Energy Analysis, it would take no less than 16 years and at least $183 billion for Venezuela to produce a mere 3 million barrels of oil a day.

Neo-Caligula’s ultimate dream is to reduce global oil prices to a maximum $50 a barrel. For this purpose, the Trump 2.0 imperial gig will, in thesis, totally control PDVSA, including acquisition and sale of virtually all of its oil production.

US Energy Secretary Chris Wright, at a Goldman Sachs energy conference, let the oily cat out of the bag:

“We are going to market the crude coming out of Venezuela, first this backed up stored oil [up to 50 million barrels], and then infinitely, going forward, we will sell the production that comes out of Venezuela into the marketplace.”

So essentially the neo-Caligula gig will capture, actually steal the sale of crude from PDVSA, with the money theoretically deposited in US-controlled offshore accounts to “benefit the Venezuelan people”.

There’s no way Delcy Rodriguez’s interim government will accept what amounts to de facto theft. Even as Homeland Security Advisor Stephen Miller is bragging that the US is using “military threat” to maintain control of Venezuela. If you are really in control, you don’t need to issue threats.

So what about China?

China was importing roughly 746,000 barrels of oil a day from Venezuela. That’s not much. Beijing is already working on replacing it with imports from Iran. China essentially is not dependent on Venezuelan oil. Apart from Iran, it may also source from Russia and Saudi Arabia.

Beijing clearly sees that the imperial overdrive in the Western Hemisphere and in West Asia is not just about oil, but also to force China to buy energy with petrodollars. Nonsense: with Russia, the Persian Gulf and beyond, the name of the game is already petroyuan.

China is 80% energy independent. Venezuela de facto was accounting for a mere 2% of the 20% China imports – and this according to the US government’s own numbers.

China’s energy relationship with Venezuela goes way beyond cheap American formulas. Here is essentially outlined how “Chinese oil agreements with Venezuela are de facto binding financial contracts, with repayment mechanisms, collateral structures, penalty clauses, and derivative linkages embedded deep into global finance (…) They are connected – directly and indirectly – to Western financial institutions, commodity traders, insurers, and clearing systems, including entities tied to Wall Street. If these contracts are broken, the consequence is not China ‘taking a loss’. It is a cascade event: defaults triggering counterparty exposure, derivatives being repriced, legal disputes crossing jurisdictions, and confidence shock spreading outward. At a certain point, this ceases to be a Venezuelan problem and becomes a systemic global one.”

Moreover, “over the past twenty years, China has become the operational core of Venezuela’s oil industry. Not merely as a buyer, but as a builder. China provided refinery technology, heavy crude upgrading systems, infrastructure design, control software, spare parts logistics (…) Remove the Chinese engineers. Remove the technicians who understand the control logic. Remove the maintenance supply chains. Remove the software support. What remains is not a functioning oil industry waiting to be ‘liberated’, but an inert shell.”

Conclusion: “Converting Venezuela’s Chinese-built oil sector into an American one would take three to five years, minimum.”

Financial analyst Lucas Ekwame hits the major points. Venezuela produces superheavy oil as thick as tar. It doesn’t just flow; it needs to be melted to reach the surface, and after extraction, it hardens again, requiring diluent: no less than 0.3 barrels of diluent need to be imported for each exported barrel.

Compound it with Venezuela’s energy infrastructure shaped by China and at the same time suffering years of American sanctions, even worse than over Iraq in the early 2000s, and neo-Caligula’s faulty oil “strategy” becomes obvious.

That of course does not alter the short-term feast of imperial hedge fund vultures over Venezuela’s carcass, starting with ghastly Paul Singer, the billionaire Zionist hedge fund manager and MAGA super PAC donor ($42 million in 2024) whose Elliott Management acquired the Houston-based subsidiary of CITGO for $5.9 billion in November, less than a third of its $18 billion market value, thanks to the embargo on Venezuelan oil imports.

The speculative money crowd is bound to cash in on up to $170 billion in the debt market; defaulted PDVSA bonds alone are worth over $60 billion.

So the Big Oil Picture in Venezuela is way more complex than the Trump 2.0 gang suspects. Of course on the road ahead we may come to a situation where the Viceroy of Venezuela, the gusano Marco Rubio, cuts off the oil flow from Caracas to Shanghai. Well, considering Rubio’s strategic “expertise”, better start regimenting battalions of lawyers right away.

~ Pepe Escobar is a Brazilian journalist. He writes a column – The Roving Eye – for Asia Times Online, and works as an analyst for RT, Sputnik News, and Press TV as well as formerly for Al Jazeera. Escobar has focused on Central Asia and the Middle East, and has covered Iran on a continuous basis since the late 1990s. Escobar has reported extensively from Afghanistan. 

Palantir was hacked & exposed

Palantir's Peter Thiel (L) and Alex Karp (R) meets Israeli President Isaac Herzog (C) in Israel

 Kim Dotcom
@KimDotcom

Breaking

Palantir was allegedly hacked. An AI agent was used to gain super-user access and here”s what the hackers allegedly found:

Peter Thiel and Alex Karp commit mass surveillance of world leaders and titans of industry on a massive scale.

They have thousands of hours of transcribed and searchable conversations of Donald Trump, JD Vance and Elon Musk.

They have back-doored the devices, cars and jets of world leaders and accumulated the biggest archive of blackmail material.

Palantir is creating nuclear and bio weapon capabilities for Ukraine and is working closely with the CIA to defeat Russia. They believe they are one year away. They plan to achieve this by keeping Russia busy with meaningless peace negotiations.

Palantir is responsible of the majority of Palestinian deaths in Gaza. They have developed the AI targeting for Israel.

Palantir is an arm of the CIA and all data from international clients is copied into a CIA spy cloud.

Palantir has become the most dangerous company in the world. If you work there you have the right to know that this is what Palantir AI is used for, without your knowledge.

The Palantir data the hackers allegedly gathered will be given to Russia and/or China. I was chosen as a trusted partner for this publication. I’m not involved in the Palantir hack and I don’t know the hackers. But I do know that the hack happened.

https://x.com/kimdotcom/status/2023165849721536672

Arsenal of Hypocrisy

 

Long ago

I used a bank

in Orlando, Florida

that changed 

its name to

'Freedom Bank'.

 

I asked myself

'whose freedom,

what kind of freedom

are they talking about'?

 

I closed my account

and moved to another bank.

 

This freedom they talk about

is easy to understand.

 

It is the freedom

to smash and grab.

To steal like pirates. 

To lie and distort.

To attempt to control

everything

and everyone.

The freedom to create

mind numbing intimidation 

and paralyzing fear. 

 

The freedom to protect

big oil, big pharma,

Wall Street banksters,

their pedophile partners,

their sleazy media outlets

that report the CIA scripts

that are handed daily

to well paid editors.

 

The freedom to make

the war mongers 

pockets bulge with

greasy blood money. 

 

The freedom to genocide Palestine,

Sudan, Congo, Cuba, 

and the unwanted poor

all around the globe.

 

Freedom to make war

anytime and any place

that Mr. Big desires.

The freedom to kill

indiscriminately.

 

The freedom

to control

and dominate space. 

 

The freedom to destroy

our own nation

by imperiling 

public trust

and hope for

a democratic order.

 

The freedom to ignite

hate and violence

amongst our own people,

to destroy and bury

national unity

and a sense of

common purpose.

 

This is fascism,

plain and simple.

We know the story,

we've seen it before.

 

Our task

is to let the air

out of this

so-called 

'freedom balloon'.

 

Reveal the hollow

'freedom' word 

for what it

truly is.

A manipulative lie.

 

The public is ready

to hear this truth.

 

Will they dare

to share it,

to speak it?

 

Will they struggle

to save our true freedoms

to speak, assemble,

have free media,

and the right to vote

in fair and honest 

elections? 

 

No matter which

political party

is in power? 

 

Will they fight

for a socialist economy,

good jobs and education,

health care, a clean environment,

social security, 

rather than

allow the 1%

to bleed us

to death? 

 

Bruce 

Pepe Escobar on western imperial collapse

From 9/11 to the Gaza genocide and the exposure of elite impunity, Brazilian journalist Pepe Escobar describes a system entering its slow yet visible decline.  

Sunday song

The liberal order’s last stand at 'Munich Security Confab'

Vladimir Putin speaking at 2007 Munich Security Conference

Munich, 2007: The Day the West Was Told No

The Islander 
 
They like to pretend it came out of nowhere.
They like the bedtime story: Europe was peacefully humming along in its post-history spa — open borders, cheap energy, NATO as a charity, Russia as a gas station with a flag… and then, one day, the barbarian kicked the door in for no reason at all.

That story is not just dishonest. It’s operational. It’s the propaganda you tell yourself so you can keep the addiction going without ever admitting how self-destructive it is.

Because the truth is uglier and far more incriminating:

In Munich, on February 10, 2007, Vladimir Putin stood on the most flattering stage the Atlantic system owns — the Security Conference where Western officials applaud themselves for maintaining “order” and he laid out, to their faces, the skeleton of the coming disaster. He didn’t whisper it in a back channel. He used the microphone to deliver some much needed medicine, however hard it would be for the Empire to swallow.

He even signaled he wasn’t going to play the usual polite theatre — the kind where everyone agrees in public and stabs each other in classified annexes. He said the format allowed him to avoid “pleasant, yet empty diplomatic platitudes.”

And then he did the unforgivable thing, (gasp!) he described the empire as an empire.

He named the unipolar intoxication — that post–Cold War hallucination that history had ended, that power had found its final owner, that NATO could expand forever without consequences, that international law was optional for the enforcer class and compulsory for everyone else.

Putin’s core argument was brutally simple: a unipolar model is not only unacceptable, it’s impossible.

Not unfair. Not rude. Impossible.

(Because in a world with) “one center of authority, one center of force, one center of decision-making” is a world where security becomes privatized — where the strong reserve the right to interpret rules (with exemptions for themselves), and the weak are told to accept it as morality. (And yes, he put it in exactly those terms — one center, one force, one decision — the architecture of domination.)

And when you build that kind of world, everyone else does the only rational thing left: they stop trusting the wall of law to protect them, and they start arming for survival.

Putin said it outright: when force becomes the default language, it “stimulates an arms race.”

This is where the Western client media — professionally disingenuous as ever, clipped one or two spicy lines and missed the larger point: Munich 2007 wasn’t “Putin raging.” It was Russia publishing its red-lines in front of the class.

And then came the part that should have frozen the room. Putin named it - NATO expansion.

Putin didn’t argue it as nostalgia. He argued it as provocation — a deliberate reduction of trust. He asked the question no Western leader ever answers honestly:

“Against whom is this expansion intended?”

And then he drove the blade in: what happened to the assurances made after the Warsaw Pact dissolved? “No one even remembers them.”

That line matters because it goes well beyond grievance — it’s a window into how Russia saw the post–Cold War settlement: not as a partnership, but as a rolling deception. Expand NATO, move offensive infrastructure, then call it “defensive.” Build bases, run exercises, integrate weapons systems, and insist the other side is paranoid for noticing.

Putin’s formulation was clean: NATO expansion “represents a serious provocation that reduces the level of mutual trust.”

Now pause and look at the psychology of the West in that room. They didn’t hear a warning. They heard audacity. They didn’t hear “security dilemma.” They heard “how dare you speak like an equal.”

That’s the cultural glitch at the heart of the Atlantic project: it believes its own core lie and cannot process sovereignty in others without treating it as aggression.

So Munich 2007 became, in Western memory, not the moment Russia told the truth — but the moment Russia “showed its hand.” The implication: Russia’s “hand” was evil, and therefore any response to it was justified. Which is exactly how you sleepwalk into catastrophe.

The real prophecy: not mysticism — mechanics

What was prophetic about Putin’s speech isn’t that he had a crystal ball.

It’s that he understood the West’s incentive structure:

• A security system that expands by definition (NATO) needs threats by definition.

• A unipolar ideology needs disobedience to punish, otherwise the myth collapses.

• A rules-based order that breaks its own rules must constantly produce narrative cover.

• An economic model that offshore-outs its industry and imports “cheap stability” must secure energy routes, supply chains, and obedience — by finance, by sanctions, by force.

Putin was saying: you can’t build a global security architecture on humiliation and expect it to be stable. Russia had lived through the wreckage of Yugoslavia, Afghanistan and Iraq and that this playbook would be used again and again, with Georgia, with Syria, Libya, Iran and Russia itself if Putin did nothing. 

He was also saying and this is where the Russophobic mass hysteria accelerates — that Russia would not accept a subordinate role in its own neighborhood, on its own borders, under a wannabe hegemon’s military umbrella.

This is where the Western catechism kicks in: “neighborhood” is called “sphere of influence” when Russia says it, and “security guarantees” when Washington says it. And so the hysteria machine warmed up.

You saw it in the immediate reception: Western elites, including Merkel and McCain treating the speech as an insult rather than a negotiation offer. You saw it in the years that followed — the steady normalization of the idea that Russia’s security concerns were illegitimate, and therefore could be ignored with moralistic lectures, free of consequences.

Ignore, expand, accuse, repeat.

That loop is your road to 2022 and to today, in Munich 2026. Groundhog day without learning the vital lessons to end the loop of utter madness. 

Munich, Feb 13 (2026): Merz admits the order is dead — and calls it “uncertainty”

Fast forward. Same city. Same conference. Same Western liturgy, just with more panic in the eyes and the nucleus of a terrifying realization.

German Chancellor Friedrich Merz using his best performative courage, murmured that the world order we relied on is no longer there. Framing the post–Cold War “rules-based order” as effectively crumbled and almost begging for a reset in transatlantic relations.

He goes further: he talks up a stronger European defence posture, and pointed to discussions with France about a European nuclear deterrent concept, a “European nuclear shield.”

And then comes the line that should be carved into the marble of the Munich conference hall as Exhibit A: Merz argues that in this era, even the United States “will not be powerful enough to go alone.”

Read that again.

The BlackRock chancellor on NATO’s spiritual home turf is effectively saying: the empire is overstretched, the illusion of old certainties are gone, and Europe will be left hung out to dry. Talk about strategic vertigo!

And it is exactly what Putin was talking about in 2007: when one axis tries to act as the planet’s owner, the cost accumulates — wars, blow-back, arms races, fractured trust, until the system starts to wobble under its own contradictions.

Merz also reportedly begged the U.S. and Europe to “repair and revive” transatlantic trust. Repair trust with what currency?

Because trust isn’t repaired by speeches. Trust is repaired by reversing the toxic and suicidal behaviors that destroyed it.

And those behaviors were precisely what Putin named in 2007: 

• expanding military blocs toward another power’s borders,

• treating international law as a menu,

• using economic coercion as a weapon,

• and then pretending the consequences are “unprovoked.”

Europe is now gasping at the invoice for that policy set: industrial stress, energy insecurity, strategic dependency, and a political class that can’t admit how it got here without indicting itself.

So instead of confession, you get moral performance. Instead of strategy, you get hysteria and cartoon slogans.

Instead of peace architecture, you get escalation management — the art of walking toward the cliff while calling it deterrence.

Merz’s remarks underscore that Europe is being forced to contemplate a harsher security environment and greater responsibility, all of its own suicidal making — but it still frames the Russia question in the familiar moralizing register.

Which is the whole tragedy: they can feel the tectonic plates shifting beneath them, yet they keep reciting the same old prayers that summoned the earthquake.

Why we’re here: the Western addiction to expansion — and the manufactured Russophobia that lubricated it

Russophobia is more than just bloodthirsty prejudice. It’s the (failed) policy tool of choice of the last few empires against Russia.

It’s what you pump into the Mockingbird media bloodstream to make escalation feel like virtue and compromise feel like treason.

You don’t have to love everything Russia does to see the mechanism: a permanent narrative of Russian menace makes every NATO move sound defensive, every EU economic self-harm sound righteous, and every diplomatic off-ramp sound like appeasement.

It creates a psychological environment where: 

• NATO expansion becomes “freedom,” 

• coups become “democratic awakenings,” 

• sanctions become “values,” 

• censorship becomes “information integrity,” 

• and war becomes “support.” 

And once you install that operating system, you can torch your own industry and still call it moral leadership.

That’s the dark comedy of Europe since 2014 — accelerating post 2022: self-sanctioning, deindustrializing pressure, energy price shocks, and strategic submission to Washington’s delusion of carving up Russia, sold as “defending democracy.”

Meanwhile, Moscow reads the West’s behavior the same way it read it in 2007: as a hostile architecture closing in, dressed up as virtue.

Putin’s Munich speech — again, not mysticism — warned that when the strong monopolize decision-making and normalize force, the world becomes less safe, not more.

So what did the West do?

It made the “rules-based order” a brand — while breaking rules (international law) whenever convenient. Exceptionalism at almost biblical levels, God’s chosen people. 

It expanded NATO while insisting the expansion was harmless.

It treated Russian objections as evidence of Russian guilt — which is circular logic worthy of an inquisitor.

And it nurtured a media culture that could not imagine Russia as a rational actor responding to a pattern of ugly regime change behavior — only as a cartoon villain driven by pathology. Not analysis but theological warfare.

The punchline Munich won’t say out loud

Here’s the line Munich still cannot speak, even in 2026, even with Merz admitting the old order is gone:

The West didn’t misread Putin’s warning. It rejected it because accepting it would have meant limiting itself.

Munich 2007 was a chance — maybe the last clean one — to build a European security architecture that wasn’t just NATO with better PR. A chance to treat Russia as a Great Power with legitimate interests, not a defeated adversary to be regime changed and broken apart.

And now, in Munich 2026, they stand amid the wreckage and call it “uncertainty,” as if the storm blew in from nowhere. The BlackRock Chancellor calls for resets, for revived trust, for Europe to become stronger, for new deterrence ideas.

But the reset Munich needs is the one it refuses: 

• reset the premise that NATO will remain a viable alliance beyond the war in Ukraine, 

• reset the premise that Russia must absorb strategic humiliation and accept the inverse, the reality as it is - where it’s in fact Western Europe that is wearing the humiliation. 

• reset the premise that international law is a tool of the powerful, 

• reset the premise that Europe’s role is to be the forward operating base and European sovereignty sacrificed to buy the Empire time. 

Until that happens, Munich will keep happening — every year, more anxious, more militarized, more rhetorical, more detached from the material reality its own disastrous policies created.

And Putin’s “prophecy” will keep looking prophetic — not because he conjured the future, but because he correctly described the machine.