Month: November 2024

Reuters has cited Hezbollah and Lebanese sources to say that Hezbollah believes the number of its fighters killed by Israel over the last year of fighting could be as high as 4,000.

A fragile ceasefire has held for the last three days, and the Shia group backed by Iran has been burying its dead this week. Ground fighting has been most intense in the last two months before the ceasefire was agreed to.

“The sources’ estimate far outstrips tallies published by the group, but skews close to Israel’s announced figure and could provide a window into the extent to which Israel was able to damage the powerful Iranian proxy, which saw its leadership largely decapitated and its rocket arsenal significantly depleted, according to authorities,” Reuters says.

According to more, based on a source cited by Reuters, “the Iran-backed group may have lost up to 4,000 people — well over 10 times the number killed in its monthlong 2006 war with Israel.”

Tens of thousands of Lebanese have been moving back into their southern villages and towns, some of which are in rubble and ruins. Bodies are still being searched for under the rubble.

The Lebanese army is also moving into southern districts in coordination with UN peacekeeping authorities, as part of the truce deal to monitor for potential ceasefire violations.

“The concerned military units are moving from several areas to the South Litani Sector, where they will be stationed in the locations designated for them,” the Lebanese military said in its first statement following the truce going into effect.

Meanwhile, amid a war-weary and devastated Lebanese population, Hezbollah might be more unpopular then ever. The economy was already in tatters even long before Oct.7, 2023.

“Hezbollah’s claim of victory holds little weight outside its core constituency,” Imad Salamey, a Middle Eastern politics professor and analyst at the Lebanese American University, has explained.

“The war was not widely popular among the Lebanese people, many of whom are more focused on the devastating economic losses inflicted during the conflict,” he added.

Despite some positive indicators that the ceasefire will hold, including the cessation of daily rocket fire onto northern Israel, the conflict might not be over

Authored by John & Nisha Whitehead via The Rutherford Institute,

“We must always take sides. Neutrality helps the oppressor, never the victim. Silence encourages the tormentor, never the tormented. Sometimes we must interfere. When human lives are endangered, when human dignity is in jeopardy, national borders and sensitivities become irrelevant. Wherever men or women are persecuted because of their race, religion, or political views, that place must–at that moment–become the center of the universe.”

– Elie Wiesel, Nobel Peace Prize Speech

Once again we find ourselves approaching that time of year when, as George Washington and Abraham Lincoln proclaimed, we’re supposed to give thanks as a nation and as individuals for our safety and our freedoms.

But how do you give thanks for freedoms that are constantly being eroded?

How do you express gratitude for one’s safety when the perils posed by the American police state grow more treacherous by the day?

How do you come together as a nation in thanksgiving when the powers-that-be continue to polarize and divide us into warring factions?

You can see this struggle—to reconcile the hope for a better, freer, more just world with the soul-sucking reality of a world in which greed, meanness and war continue to triumph—in John Lennon’s two songs, “Imagine” (which exhorted us to “Imagine all the people livin’ life in peace”) and “Happy Xmas (War Is Over)” (which was part of a major anti-war campaign, which were released within months of each other in 1971.

Lennon—a musical genius, anti-war activist, and a high-profile example of the lengths to which the Deep State will go to persecute those who dare to challenge its authority—made clear that the only way to achieve an end to hunger, violence, war, and tyranny is to want it badly enough and work towards it.

All these years later, we still don’t seem to want those things badly enough.

Peace remains out of reach. Activists and whistleblowers continue to be prosecuted for challenging the government’s authority. Militarism is on the rise, all the while the governmental war machine continues to wreak havoc on innocent lives.

For those of us who joined with Lennon to imagine a world of peace, it’s getting harder to reconcile that dream with the reality of the American police state.

Those who do dare to speak up about government corruption are labeled dissidents, troublemakers, terrorists, lunatics, or mentally ill and tagged for surveillance, censorship or involuntary detention.

And then there are those who remain silent while the world falls apart.

By doing nothing, the onlookers become as guilty as the perpetrator.

It works the same whether you’re talking about kids watching bullies torment a fellow student on a playground, passersby watching someone dying on a sidewalk, or citizens remaining silent in the face of government atrocities.

There’s a term for this phenomenon where people stand by, watch and do nothing—even when there is no risk to their safety—while some horrific act takes place: it’s called the bystander effect.

Historically, this bystander syndrome in which people remain silent and disengaged—mere onlookers—in the face of abject horrors and injustice has resulted in whole populations being conditioned to tolerate unspoken cruelty toward their fellow human beings: the crucifixion and slaughter of innocents by the Romans, the torture of the Inquisition, the atrocities of the Nazis, the butchery of the Fascists, the bloodshed by the Communists, and the cold-blooded war machines run by the military industrial complex.

Psychological researchers John Darley and Bibb Latane mounted a series of experiments to discover why people respond with apathy or indifference instead of intervening.

According to Darley and Latane, there are two critical factors that contribute to this moral lassitude. First, there’s the problem of pluralistic ignorance in which individuals in a group look to others to determine how to respond. Second, there’s the problem of “diffusion of responsibility,” which is compounded by pluralistic ignorance. Basically, this means that no one acts to intervene or help because each person is waiting for someone else to do so.

Their findings underscore the fact that evil prevails when good people do nothing.

We see it all the time: when people are vocal about politics but silent in the face of human suffering and injustice, tyranny triumphs.

For instance, psychologist Philip Zimbardo’s Stanford Prison Experiment studied the impact of perceived power and authority on middleclass students who were assigned to act as prisoners and prison guards. The experiment revealed that power does indeed corrupt (the appointed guards became increasingly abusive), and those who were relegated to being prisoners acted increasingly “submissive and depersonalized, taking the abuse and saying little in protest.”

This is how imperial presidents preside over police states.

So, what can we do? Be modern-day Good Samaritans and do your part to push back against the darkness. Recognize injustice. Don’t turn away from suffering. Refuse to remain silent. Take a stand. Speak up. Speak out.

“If you think there is even a possibility that someone needs help, act on it,” advises Zimbardo.  “You may save a life. You are the modern version of the Good Samaritan that makes the world a better place for all of us.”

This is what Zimbardo refers to as “the power of one.” All it takes is one person breaking away from the fold to change the dynamics of a situation.

Here’s what I suggest: this holiday season, do yourselves a favor and turn off the talking heads, shut down the screen devices, tune out the politicians, take a deep breath, then do something to pay your blessings forward.

Find something to be thankful for about the things and people in your community for which you might have the least tolerance or appreciation. Instead of just rattling off a list of things you’re thankful for that sound good, dig a little deeper and acknowledge the good in those you may have underappreciated or feared.

When it comes time to giving thanks for your good fortune, put your gratitude into action: pay your blessings forward with deeds that spread a little kindness, lighten someone’s burden, and brighten some dark corner.

Engage in acts of kindness. Smile more. Fight less. Build bridges. Refuse to let toxic politics define your relationships. Focus on the things that unite instead of that which divides.

Do your part to push back against the meanness of our culture with conscious compassion and humanity. Moods are contagious, the good and the bad. They can be passed from person to person. So can the actions associated with those moods, the good and the bad.

Acts of benevolence, no matter how inconsequential they might seem, can spark a movement.

As I make clear in my book Battlefield America: The War on the American People and in its fictional counterpart The Erik Blair Diaries, all it takes is one person to start a chain reaction.

For instance, a few years ago in Florida, a family of six—four adults and two young boys—were swept out to sea by a powerful rip current in Panama City Beach. There was no lifeguard on duty. The police were standing by, waiting for a rescue boat. And the few people who had tried to help ended up stranded, as well.

Those on shore grouped together and formed a human chain. What started with five volunteers grew to 15, then 80 people, some of whom couldn’t swim.

One by one, they linked hands and stretched as far as their chain would go. The strongest of the volunteers swam out beyond the chain and began passing the stranded victims of the rip current down the chain.

One by one, they rescued those in trouble and pulled each other in.

There’s a moral here for what needs to happen in this country if we only can band together and prevail against the riptides that threaten to overwhelm us.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy says he’s willing to end the “hot phase of the war” with Russia – including ceding captured territory – in exchange for NATO membership that includes Ukraine’s internationally recognized borders.

“If we want to stop the hot phase of the war, we need to take under the Nato umbrella the territory of Ukraine that we have under our control,” he told Sky News, adding “We need to do it fast. And then, on the occupied territory of Ukraine, Ukraine can get them back in a diplomatic way.“

Zelenskyy said that a ceasefire was needed to “guarantee that [Russian President Vladimir] Putin will not come back” to take more Ukrainian territory,” or that “he [Putin] will come back.”

In short, to end the war, Zelenskyy wants the thing that started the war.

Ukrainian president @ZelenskyyUa told @ramsaysky NATO membership would have to be offered to unoccupied parts of the country to end the “hot phase of the war”, as long as the NATO invitation itself recognises Ukraine’s internationally recognised borders.https://t.co/yqZZ8aFrwm pic.twitter.com/NuburSX6hw

— Sky News (@SkyNews) November 29, 2024

The comments are a drastic departure from previous statements – as Zelenskyy has long-asserted that Ukraine’s sovereignty is non-negotiable, including over Crimea.

Putting things in recent perspective, Zelenskyy’s comments come as NATO Secretary-General Mark Rutte admitted to Fox News that Ukraine is not in a strong enough position to negotiate an end to the war, explaining that there is not enough battlefield leverage to “prevent the Russians from getting what they want.”

“I think that’s crucial that we have a good deal because the whole world will be watching what type of deal will be struck between Russia and Ukraine when it comes to it,” Rutte said.

“We have to make sure that Ukraine is in a position of more strength than they are at the moment,” Rutte continued, “so that a deal can be struck which is favorable not to the Russians — and therefore to China, North Korea and Iran — because they all will be watching.”

It also comes amid pressure from the Biden administration to lower the draft age in Ukraine to 18 so it has enough troops to continue fighting Russia, aka more meat for the grinder.

Former British PM Boris Johnson – who allegedly scuttled early peace talks in Turkey that might have ended the Ukraine war – has called for NATO troops on the ground in Ukraine, again.

Johnson also asserted that if Russia gets the upper hand in the conflict then Britain may deploy it’s forces regardless in order to “defend Europe.”  Ukraine’s eastern defenses are currently being overrun by ongoing Russian attrition tactics. This reality in combination with Trump’s avalanche election win seems to have triggered establishment ghouls into a frenzy of escalation with Joe Biden giving the greenlight on long range missile strikes coordinated directly by NATO forces.   

Watch the entire interview below:

Two weeks ago, when looking at the recent sharp drop in Indian stocks and the concurrent slide in earnings expectations, we asked whether the Indian stock bubble – one of the most resilient of the past decade – had finally burst.

Today we got another confirmation that the answer appears to be yes, when we learned that India’s economy grew at its slowest pace in almost two years, dampening the outlook for the full year and putting pressure on the central bank to cut interest rates.

GDP grew 5.4% in the three months to September from a year earlier, the Statistics Ministry said in a statement on Friday. That was the worst reading since the fourth quarter of 2022 and lower than the central bank’s projection of 7% for the period. It is also well below the roughly 10% growth pace observed in the pre-covid era.

The data will prompt economists to further downgrade their GDP growth forecasts for the year through March 2025. Investment banks like Goldman Sachs Group Inc. are already predicting growth as low as 6.4%.

The figures will also put pressure on the Reserve Bank of India, which has been predicting growth of 7.2% for the full year, to cut interest rates. The next monetary policy decision is scheduled for Dec. 6. The yield on India’s 10-year bond fell 5 basis points to 6.76% after the GDP release. The rupee was steady, having closed before the data.

“While we expect the RBI to keep the policy rate unchanged at its meeting next week, the possibility of a move in the February policy for a rate cut has increased,” said Sakshi Gupta, an economist at HDFC Bank Ltd.

The slump in last quarter’s growth was largely due to weaker manufacturing and electricity and gas production, while mining contracted.

Slumping company profits, falling wages and inflation have hurt the economy’s breakneck speed in recent months. The central bank has kept rates unchanged for almost two years now, with Governor Shaktikanta Das recently reiterating that a rate cut at this stage would be “very risky” given inflation risks.

Prominent ministers in Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s government, including the finance minister, have recently stated that high borrowing costs are hurting the economy. Weak growth will make it difficult for India to cash in on its demographic dividend. Joblessness, especially among young people, emerged as a key concern for voters in India’s election this year, contributing to Modi’s worse-than-expected showing at the polls.

Despite the rapid slowdown in growth, India’s economy continues to grow notably faster than that of India, which is officially expected to grow by 5% but unofficially is stagnant at best if not contracting.

 

Authored by Jeffrey Tucker via The Brownstone Institute,

Early in the Covid period, the skeptics of government closures and universal quarantines were denounced as favoring a policy of “let it rip.” The phrase has been in use since the 19th century. It is apparently drawn from experience with steamships. When you released power to its maximum extent, it made a ripping sound. 

The implication is that when you let it rip, you let go of all controls and just wait to see what happens. 

Think about the application to infectious disease, at least in the context of the debate over lockdowns. The theory is that if you don’t force people to stay home, force businesses to close, and force schools and churches to shut down, people will mindlessly move about here and there and cause infection to spread wildly. No one will have a clue about what to do about it. 

The implication is that people are unbearably stupid, lack all personal incentive to protect themselves, and somehow cannot but be as reckless as possible.

There will be no strategies, no methods of mitigation, no therapeutics, no limits on the spread of incurable sickness. 

We need geniuses like Anthony Fauci to give us police-enforced guidance in order to stay safe from the consequences of our own choices. We don’t have brains. We don’t have habits born of experience. We don’t have any social mechanisms embedded in our traditions. We don’t have anything. 

We are worse than an anthill, which at least has a rules-based order born of instinct. In this view, human behavior is purely randomized and rote, moving about here and there, fully unable to process information about guidance, lacking completely in any capacity to be careful, wise, or otherwise govern ourselves. 

This is the essence of the push for lockdowns. Anything less than totalitarian control of the human population amounts to utter chaos in which the virus rules us all whereas the geniuses at the controls of government power know all things.

This is the essential worldview of all those who said that lockdown opponents merely want to let the virus rip. 

This was of course the core criticism of the Great Barrington Declaration of which NIH Director-nominee Jay Bhattacharya was the main author. It advocated no such thing as “let it rip.” Instead, it called for public health to recognize the existence of human intelligence and consider the costs of overriding it with police-state edicts that ruin businesses and lives. It came out six months after lockdowns began and already revealed themselves to be devastating. There should not have been anything even slightly controversial about the statement. 

And yet truly there was something about those times that tempted intellectuals toward grave extremes of utopian thinking. Remember the “Zero Covid” movement? Talk about insane. 

I just read an outrageous paper in Frontiers of Health (date March 2021!) that claimed to have the magical solution to Covid. The plan would defeat the disease in “one day” by ordering simultaneous universal testing, forcing all positive tests to isolate, and monitoring all public spaces with concentration camp guards. The authors proposed this seriously, forgetting that a respiratory virus with a zoonotic reservoir cares nothing for such antics. To have signed one’s name to such a suggestion should confine one to a lifetime of ill repute as an intellectual. 

There is also the slight problem of human rights and freedom. But, hey, anyone who yammered on about those topics was then accused of being an advocate of “let it rip.” 

The truth is that we do have intelligence and brains. Older people have always known to avoid large crowds in flu season. Pick up any geriatric magazine and you can discover that this is true. Even our habits of the season reflect that. Intergenerational family units tend to stay indoors as we enter winter months and get out and about in the spring when threats of infectious disease die down. “Focused protection” is embedded in the habits of the calendar year. 

We are also capable of reading data on risk demographics. We knew from February 2020 that Covid posed a medically significant risk mainly to the aged and infirm. There was never a serious risk associated with beach parties or schooling. We knew this at least intuitively, and vast numbers of people also knew to disregard the crazy fear-mongering from the top that was designed to prepare the population for the shot. 

Society knew better than its managers. It is this way in every sector of life in a world in which society is trusted as the primary manager of itself. 

It’s true in economics. Now that Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy are pushing for radical deregulation of all things, the same critique is being offered. They merely advocate that enterprise “let it rip.” It’s the new name for laissez-faire, another smear term from the 19th century. 

But in the same sense that people have the intelligence to judge disease risk, society generates systems and institutions that put limits and guardrails up for enterprise too. The existence of rivalrous competition with easy entry and exit keeps prices, profits, and costs toward an equilibrium. Producer accountability is instilled with user ratings, reputation, and strict liability (unless you are a vaccine maker enjoying full indemnification). 

People forget that the best institutions assuring quality and safety are not government agencies but private services like Underwriters Laboratory, which has been around since the 19th century, long before the federal government had a single agency regulating even food quality. Remove the regulations, abolish the agencies, and competent and well-run private institutions would appear in every area, the same as professional credentialing now. 

Trusting people to manage infectious disease based on realistic risk assessments is no different from trusting property owners, workers, prices, and markets to work out the best possible solutions to the problem of scarcity in the material world. It doesn’t mean full throttle come what may any more than not locking down means zero control over our health. 

In other words, this whole phrase has been deployed against the idea of freedom itself. In fact, the proponents of lockdowns were not opposed to smearing that word too, spelling it as freedumb. 

Early on in the pandemic response, I was interviewed in Germany and the person asked what the best rhetorical strategy would be to push for a reopening. I suggested they campaign for freedom. The response: that is not possible because the word itself has been discredited. My response: if freedom is discredited, we have no cause of hope at all. 

The legacy of Jay Bhattarcharya’s actions during Covid – joining what felt like a half-dozen of us immediate critics of these awful policies – is not only his attention to science and facts; it is also a reverence for the idea of freedom itself, which really means to trust that society can manage itself with the best-possible outcomes apart from the dictates of pretentious and powerful people at the top. 

In a beautiful irony, Jay now inherits the position of the man who called him a “fringe epidemiologist” and called for the censors to do a “quick and devastating takedown” of his work. It’s been a very long journey lasting nearly five years, but here we are, the man who led the opposition to the worst-imaginable public health policies now in a position to make sure that nothing like this ever happens again. 

Savor this moment: it’s a rare one when justice prevails. As for accountability and the truth about what happened in those dark days, there is a good phrase for what should happen to the information flows that should now happen: let it rip. 

Anticipating that President-elect Donald Trump will fulfill his promise of a 25% tariff on all imports from Mexico and Canada and an additional 10% tariff on imports from China, importers are frontloading freight before the tariff wall takes effect in less than two months.

Bloomberg reports that international cargo flights out of the world’s second-largest economy are ramping up to new records in the weeks after the presidential election. 

According to the Ministry of Transport data, there were 3,485 international cargo flights in or out of China last week, the most since March 2023—or about the time when China reopened its economy after a few years of lockdowns. Last week was the third consecutive week with more than 3,400 flights. 

“The threatened tariffs on Canada and Mexico will motivate US importers to frontload imports and accumulate inventories, regardless of whether the tariffs are implemented,” Barclays analyst Pooja Sriram wrote in a note to clients earlier this week. 

Sriram said, “The 25% tariffs could intensify this pull-forward effect, leading to an even stronger surge in imports in late 2024 and early 2025, thereby widening the trade deficit.”

Several Chinese manufacturers, including Shenzhen Lingke Technology, a lighting products manufacturer, told Nikkei Asia that major US retailers have already increased orders.

“The thinking is that American clients want to lock in as many profits as possible before a new round of tariffs kick in,” Wu Zhiqiang, CEO of Shenzhen Lingke, told the media outlet.

Nikkei reported, “Microsoft, HP and Dell are scrambling to obtain as many electronic parts as they can before January.”

“We think shipment could be front-loaded, boosting exports in the first half of 2025 before dampening them in the second half,” other Barclays analysts wrote in a note. Analysts at the bank expect a 30% tariff increase from the U.S. on Chinese goods next year, which would cap China’s economic growth in 2025 to about 4%. 

Mike Beckham, CEO of Simple Modern, which produces drinkware and other lifestyle production in Oklahoma, although it relies on components from China, warned there is a lot of tarrif “uncertainty right now.”

“Some companies are attempting to ship as much as they can right now, but it has not been a major driver of strategy for the companies I am close with,” Beckham said. 

China’s export boom bodes well for logistics firms, such as freight forwarders and carriers, in the short term, as the panic to pull forward as much product as possible before tariffs go into effect early next year. 

A report from Judah Levine, head of research at Freightos, noted that air cargo prices out of China “have still not spiked and carriers report being busy but not overwhelmed even as December approaches,” adding, “Capacity additions to these lanes and shippers who adjusted and planned ahead may prove to be enough to prevent extreme rate climbs and congestion through the end of the year.”

Trump announced earlier this week he intends to levy a 25% tariff on all imports from Mexico and Canada and an additional 10% tariff on imports from China. Tariffs on Mexico and Canada would remain in place until the flow of “drugs, in particular fentanyl, and all illegal aliens stop,” while tariffs on China would remain in place “until such time as [the drugs that are pouring into our country] stop.”  He also stated that on January 20, he would “sign all necessary documents” to implement the tariffs on Mexico and Canada as one of his “many first Executive Orders.”

Overall, the tariff announcement is reminiscent of the first Trump administration, when such tariffs were announced as a negotiating tactic, rather than the more systematic tariff policies (e.g., the 10-20% “universal baseline tariff”) Trump frequently discussed during the campaign.

Deutsche Bank’s chief FX strategist, George Saravelos, wrote a note late this week outlining the ten biggest takeaways his desk had about the incoming Trump tariffs. 

Saravelos pointed out the countries that would be most affected by tariffs, including Mexico, Vietnam, and Canada. 

The great pull-forward of freight to hedge against Trump tariffs is well underway—reminiscent of 2018. The only problem is that freight demand will likely slide once frontloading is over. 

Authored by Jaston Ditz via AntiWar.com,

The Syrian proxy war never really ended, but it certainly had quieted down for a time, with various factions confined to various areas, and the Islamist Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) seeming stuck in Idlib Province. Today the war is flaring up again in a big way.

HTS forces have pushed eastward out of Idlib into the western part of Aleppo Province and toward Aleppo itself, seizing several towns along the way. It is being reported that around 182 people have been killed Thursday alone in the fighting on the ground in the area. That includes 102 HTS fighters and 80 fighters including both Syrian troops and their allies.

The battles are still ongoing, and the toll continues to increase all the time. The Syrian military seems to be seeing substantial backing from Russian air assets in the area. The HTS is also reported using Ukrainian drones against the Syrian forces. It has been reported for months that Ukraine has offered “drones for fighters” to HTS, but this would mark the first time such drones are being used in a big way in combat.

On top of those killed in the ongoing fighting, the Syrian and Russian air forces have caused substantial civilian casualties. 19 civilians were killed in attacks in and around al-Atareb and Darat Izza, and at least 26 others were wounded. Both of those cities are about 25 km from Aleppo itself, the largest city in Syria, underscoring how quickly the HTS has advanced.

A number of other towns and villages reported airstrikes in the area. Al-Nayrab is by far the closest town to Aleppo to have reported strikes, saying they were hit twice. They are only about 10 km from Aleppo, making them virtually a suburb of the major city.

HTS formed in early 2017 as a merger of several Islamist militant groups, centering initially around fighting Jabhat al-Nusra but ultimately merging with them as well. Jabhat al-Nusra was effectively the Syrian wing of al-Qaeda, though they broke with them publicly in 2016. Despite that, HTS maintains much of the underlying rhetoric of al-Qaeda.

Publicly, HTS and their leader Abu Mohammad al-Julani has tried to disavow al-Qaeda and ISIS and has courted favor with the US. He has styled the civilian body in HTS-dominated Idlib the Syrian Salvation Government.

It has long been suspected that this rebranding was more about trying to turn Syrian Sunni Islamist factions into a more palatable partner for Western involvement in the region than any major ideological differences with the international jihadists.

Al Nusra terrorists on the outskirts of Aleppo pic.twitter.com/cS6jbdRl7g

— War Monitor (@WarMonitors) November 29, 2024

The West has a history of backing some of the more local Sunni Islamist groups in the Syrian War. Indeed, the HTS ties with Ukraine’s government underscores that many see them as a practical partner in their respective regional wars.

This could be a growing concern for the Syrian government, as what was once a contained problem in the Idlib Province looks to explode outward starting many of the same fights all over again.

President-elect Donald Trump’s administration is ramping up efforts to dismantle diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) initiatives in higher education. In a significant move, key conservative figure Christopher Rufo has been invited to present a proposal to slash federal funding for universities that maintain such programs.

Rufo, a senior fellow at the Manhattan Institute and a prominent critic of DEI efforts, plans to outline how federal funds could be conditioned on the removal of these programs. The proposal aims to eliminate perceived discrimination in university practices, arguing that DEI programs violate the Civil Rights Act by favoring certain racial, ethnic, or gender groups.

“If you don’t stop discriminating and violating the law, you will no longer be qualified for federal funding,” Rufo emphasized. He anticipates that institutions, particularly Ivy League universities that receive billions annually in federal research funding, would quickly comply.

Rufo’s presentation is part of a broader cultural and political strategy supported by Trump’s incoming administration. Russ Vought, tasked with spearheading government efficiency efforts, is hosting Rufo at Mar-a-Lago to discuss the proposal. Notably, Vice President-elect JD Vance has voiced strong support, citing the need to dismantle DEI in education and proposing significant taxation on university endowments.

According to the Wall Street Journal, Vance views Rufo as “a leading voice in the movement to restore merit and excellence” to universities, adding that Vance believes Rufo “recognizes schools and universities exist to equip American students to face tomorrow’s challenges, not to indoctrinate them with the fringe beliefs of the far left.”

This effort mirrors Trump’s earlier actions during his presidency, including banning federal race and gender bias training programs—a measure reversed by President Biden.

As the WSJ notes:

From his perch outside Seattle, the 40-year-old documentary filmmaker and writer has become one of the country’s most influential—and effective—culture warriors, waging public fights against diversity, equity and inclusion efforts in schools, businesses and government. 

Rufo exposed plagiarism in the academic scholarship of Harvard President Claudine Gay and in the writings of Democratic presidential candidate Kamala Harris. His reports played a role in Gay’s subsequent resignation in January of this year and damaged Harris’s campaign. He has also taken aim at diversity practices in large companies, most recently at Boeing. 

…

Rufo said he is meeting with members of the Trump administration next month. He has said he thinks colleges and universities have been taken over by the left, and he wants to recapture them by cutting federal money to schools that continue to engage in DEI practices. He also wants to excise race-based affirmative action from any institution with which the federal government does business.

Impact on Universities

The proposed restrictions could have profound financial implications for universities reliant on federal grants and student aid. For example, Harvard University received $686 million in federal research funding in the last academic year. Institutions like Harvard, already under scrutiny for race-based admissions policies, have begun scaling back DEI efforts.

Critics of these programs, including investor Bill Ackman, have linked them to broader cultural issues, such as antisemitism and the suppression of free speech on campuses. Protests and demonstrations have intensified these debates, particularly following the recent conflict in Gaza.

“I hope the president turns the screws on DEI in the Ivy Leagues,” Rufo told Bloomberg. “This would put conditions on federal funding, especially the Ivy Leagues, if they practice discrimination regarding DEI.”

While universities are a great start, Rufo says the incoming Trump administration envisions a broader crackdown, including denying federal contracts to corporations that continue DEI efforts. This aligns with growing opposition from corporate leaders like Elon Musk, who recently praised Walmart’s decision to scale back diversity initiatives.

“Now the fight returns to the White House, the center of power for the country as a whole,” Rufo said.

Authored by James Rickards via DailyReckoning.com,

We continue to climb steadily up the World War III escalation ladder.

Last week, Biden foolishly gave Ukraine the green light to strike deep into Russian territory using U.S. missiles.

Now Russia has responded, as Putin promised they would.

On November 21st Russia launched a new hypersonic missile known as the Oreshnik. It is a unique weapon designed to send a clear message.

The Oreshnik utilizes a system similar to MIRV (multiple independently targetable reentry vehicle) technology common on nuclear ICBMs.

This new missile has 6 warheads which each have 6 submunitions. That’s 36 projectiles per missile in total.

Here is a still shot of one of the sets of 6 submunitions just before reaching its target.

It is important to note that the projectiles are not glowing due to rocket engines firing. The warheads separated from the booster engine at a much higher altitude and are now gliding.

The submunitions are glowing due to the plasma bubble created by friction against the dense atmosphere at speeds of around Mach 10 (7,600 mph). That’s 2.1 miles per second.

At such speeds, even if the Oreshnik’s submunitions lack significant explosive payloads, the kinetic energy alone would make for an effective strike asset. This is similar to the sci-fi weapon concept colloquially known as “rods from God”, in which inert tungsten rods are flung down from orbit.

The U.S. and NATO have no defense against the Oreshnik. Targeting 36 independent projectiles traveling at 7,600 mph is a fool’s errand. Striking the missile before the warheads separate is also unlikely, as it has a variable-speed solid rocket engine which makes its trajectory unpredictable.

This new missile adds to Russia’s impressive hypersonic arsenal:

• Kinzhal – Mach 10 air-launched ballistic missile
• Zircon – Mach 9 ship-launched cruise missile
• Iskander – Mach 7 ground-launched ballistic missile
• R-37M – Mach 6 air-to-air missile

Each of these weapons is fully operational, in full production, and has been used successfully during the Ukraine war. To date, these weapons have only been used with conventional explosives. But the first three can also be armed with nuclear warheads.

NATO air defenses have not found much if any, success against Russian hypersonics. And with new options such as the Oreshnik, which would likely target air defenses and ballistic missile sites, the balance in conventional weaponry in Ukraine has moved further in Russia’s favor.

Meanwhile, the U.S. is struggling to get our first hypersonic conventional missile, the Long-Range Hypersonic Weapon (LRHW), in service. The U.S. has long worked on hypersonic missiles, but the engineering challenges are extreme. Traveling at speeds of Mach 5+ generates massive amounts of heat and friction.

America’s bloated defense sector has been unable to meet the requirements so far. Hopefully, Trump finds success in revitalizing our military-industrial complex. Otherwise, we will continue to fall behind.

Nuclear Options

As Biden goads Russia, he is implicitly relying on America’s nuclear weapons stockpile as a deterrent. At this point, we cannot match Russia when it comes to conventional missile technology.

So when Biden willingly crosses Russia’s red lines, he is counting on the threat of American nuclear weapons to prevent full-out war. He also appears to be attempting to sabotage President Trump’s promise to end the war in Ukraine.

This is incredibly reckless behavior. One major problem is that Russia has an even larger and more modern nuclear arsenal.

If Moscow or a nuclear power plant is targeted by Ukraine using American missiles, there is a possibility that Russia retaliates with a nuclear strike. We are in essence calling their bluff. And they need to preserve their own defense deterrence posture, or they could look weak.

From there, things could get very ugly very quickly.

In a nuclear war, there are no winners. Biden and his handlers are playing a dangerous game. They are gambling with hundreds of millions of lives.

All of this is simply to drag out another unwinnable conflict. Have we learned nothing from the War on Terror? America’s reign as a lone superpower is over. That’s a reality that needs to sink in so U.S. policy can adapt accordingly.

The sooner the Deep State realizes this, the better off we’ll all be.

The lessons of the Cuban Missile Crisis were clear. Lesson One is to avoid escalation. Lesson Two is that if escalation begins, it’s crucial to de-escalate. Failure to abide by these lessons is a straight path to nuclear war.

Russia has signaled that it is ready to begin immediate negotiations with the Trump administration. Trump’s upcoming presidency may be the only thing preventing WW3.

Inauguration Day can’t come fast enough.

A new report from TechCrunch reveals that Meta, the parent company of Facebook, Instagram, and WhatsApp—one of the largest drivers of internet usage globally, accounting for about 10% of all fixed and 22% of mobile traffic—is planning to secure its own undersea fiber-optic cables to “avoid areas of geopolitical tension.” This move comes amid alarming sabotage incidents of undersea cables from the Baltics to the Red Sea region.

Sources familiar with the plans say Meta’s new undersea fiber pipe will begin with a project cost of $2 billion and could rapidly expand to upwards of $10 billion as the project expands in the years ahead. 

Sources close to Meta confirmed the project but said it is still in its early stages. Plans have been laid out, but physical assets have not, and they declined to discuss budget. The expectation is that Meta will talk more publicly about it in early 2025, when it will confirm plans for the cable, including intended route, capacity, and some of the reasoning behind building it.-TechCrunch

Ranulf Scarborough, a submarine cable industry analyst, told the tech media outlet that cable ships are in extremely “tight supply” at the moment, adding that many of these vessels are usually booked several years ahead.

Sources explained that the planned 25,000-mile cable project is expected to track from the US East Coast to India via South Africa, then to the US West Coast from India via Australia, essentially making a giant “W” worldwide. 

Sources pointed out that the “W” formation allows Meta to avoid “areas of geopolitical tension,” such as areas in Middle Eastern waters where a cable sabotage incident was reported earlier this year (read here) and the most recent sabotage incident in the Baltics (read here).

For years, Meta has been part-owner of 16 existing undersea fiber networks. However, this new cable project would allow the big tech firm to have first dibs on capacity to support expanding traffic across its platforms in the era of AI.

More from TechCrunch, “Sources close to the project tell us that it’s too soon to say whether AI is part of the equation for Meta in this project, describing it as part of the “long tail” of considerations and possibilities, along with whether Meta would open capacity to other users alongside itself.”