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Authored by former lead Senate investigator Paul D. Thacker via The Disinformation Chronicle,

The House Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Pandemic released their final report earlier this month, concluding that the National Institutes of Health’s (NIH) Tony Fauci funded gain-of-function research at the Wuhan Institute of Virology, where a lab accident likely started the initial outbreak.

Multiple U.S. agencies aided by virologist sought to cover-up this evidence, the Select Subcommittee charged, and several people broke the law by misleading congressional staff including Peter Daszak of EcoHealth, who funded gain-of-function research at the Wuhan lab; NIH employee David Morens who served as Tony Fauci’s advisor; and former New York Governor Cuomo who lied about nursing home fatalities in his state.

The Select Subcommittee’s report will likely serve as roadmap for incoming Trump officials seeking to clean up federal research. However, Scripps researcher Kristian Andersen sought to invert the report’s findings, posting a series of false allegations about the report’s conclusions on Bluesky a social media app popular with Democrats fleeing X. Andersen was previously caught misleading Congress by myself and Ryan Grim at The Intercept, and his latest actions pile on the evidence that the Scripps scientist cannot tell the truth and lacks even a mob lawyer’s fleeting interest in candor.

Follow the Documents

Andersen, a virologist at the Scripps Research Institute in La Jolla, California, emerged as a controversial researcher early in the pandemic, and has been one of the most outspoken cheerleaders for the theory that pandemic started with a natural spillover from an animal to humans outside of a lab. But emails released a year after the pandemic’s beginning showed that Andersen initially thought the virus had been genetically engineered. However, after a phone call with Fauci and another major virology funder, Jeremy Farrar, then with the Wellcome Trust, Andersen reversed course.

Along with other virologists funded by Fauci and Farrar, Andersen then published a March 2020 Nature Medicine paper called “Proximal Origins” which concluded a Wuhan lab accident was not “plausible.” The Nature Medicine paper thus diverted any blame from Fauci for possibly starting the pandemic, as he was funding that same lab in Wuhan. Emails later showed that Fauci and Farrar helped guide the Nature Medicine piece to publication, a fact which Andersen continues to deny.

Emails and other private messages released in the summer of 2023 by Congress also indicated that Andersen’s co-authors on the Nature Medicine paper may have put politics before science.

“[G]iven the shit show that would happen if anyone serious accused the Chinese of even accidental release, my feeling is we should say that given there is no evidence of a specifically engineered virus, we cannot possibly distinguish between natural evolution and escape so we are content with ascribing it to [a] natural process,” Andersen’s colleague, Dr. Andrew Rambaut, wrote to a group of virologists over Slack in February 2020.

“Yup, I totally agree that that’s a very reasonable conclusion. Although I hate when politics is injected into science – but it’s impossible not to, especially given the circumstances,” Andersen replied.

Andersen did not return a request to explain his false statements, nor provide an explanation for who paid his lawyer when he appeared before the Committee.

Follow My Lies on BlueSky

Continuing his political campaign to deny a possible lab accident, Andersen posted excerpts of the House final report on Bluesky. In particular, Andersen posted a screenshot of a memo found on page 20 of the Select Subcommittee report. “This memo proves that Dr. Fauci can’t possibly have orchestrated a cover-up,” Andersen wrote. Andersen then repeated the dishonest claim that the memo is proof that Fauci had no involvement in directing the Nature Medicine paper, despite emails to the contrary.

In a later Bluesky post, Andersen charges that these emails are “a conspiracy theory, to be clear.” But Andersen’s Bluesky posts omit one small detail about this memo found on page 20—the report’s next page, page 21.

On the following page of the report, investigators note that Andersen testified that Fauci had suggested that he write a peer-reviewed paper (this is the Nature Medicine, Proximal Origins paper) on the possibility of a lab accident at Wuhan. Page 21 also reveals that Andersen emailed to Nature that Fauci and others “prompted” the paper:

When Dr. Andersen presented a draft of Proximal Origin to Nature, he stated it was “prompted” by Dr. Fauci and later stated the goal of Proximal Origin was to “disprove the lab leak theory.”

Here’s the report’s page 21 that Andersen failed to post on Bluesky.

And here’s the email Andersen wrote to Nature Medicine, where he explained that the Nature Medicine Proximal Origins paper was “prompted by Jeremy Farrar, Tony Fauci, and Francis Collins.”

To be clear, nothing is stopping Andersen from lying to his followers on Bluesky. He can continue posting truncated portions of the report to falsely assert Fauci had no involvement in his Nature Medicine paper. Lying liars lie.

But Andersen also got caught lying to Congress, and that’s where he can run into legal peril. Unlike lying on Bluesky, lying liars can be prosecuted when they lie to Congress.

Will DOJ Prosecute Lying Liars?

To mediate the Select Subcommittee’s demand for answers and to protect him during a deposition and public hearing, Andersen hired criminal defense lawyer, John P. Rowley, a former federal prosecutor who defended Trump before the Department of Justice.

In testimony Andersen submitted for a July 2023 House hearing, he sought to dismiss the emails showing that NIH officials Anthony Fauci and Francis Collins helped to orchestrate his Nature Medicine Proximal Origins paper.

But after Nature Medicine accepted the paper in March 2020, Andersen sent Fauci and Collins the paper’s draft and a draft of the press release. Andersen then thanked them for “advice and leadership” on the matter. “Please let me know if you have any comments, suggestions, or questions about the paper or the press release,” Andersen wrote the two NIH officials who funded his research.

“Nice job on the paper,” Fauci replied.

But in his July 2023 testimony, Andersen alleged that Fauci had not provided “advice and leadership” on the paper. Instead, Andersend proclaimed some monumental difference between asking someone to comment or offer suggestions about a paper instead of on a paper.

“Note, that I say ‘about the paper’, not e.g., ‘on the paper,’” Andersen testified.

Andersen sought to clarify later in his testimony, “Sending a copy of a paper that has been accepted and is in ‘proof’ (i.e., at a stage where only changes directly requested by the journal can be introduced) is simply a professional courtesy.”

Emails impeach this portion of Andersen’s testimony, as Fauci was provided multiple drafts of the paper. A month before Andersen emailed Fauci and Collins the “proof” of the paper in March 2020, Jeremy Farrar forwarded Fauci a “rough first draft” from Andersen’s co-author Edward “Eddie” Holmes.

“Please treat in confidence—a very rough first draft from Eddie and team—they will send on the edited, cleaner version later,” Farrar emailed Fauci and Collins. The following day, Farrar emailed Fauci and Collins, “Tony and Francis, The revised draft from Eddie, copied here.”

Much of the structure and footnotes are the same of this “rough first draft” and some phrases appear verbatim in the article Nature Medicine later published. Here are a few passages for comparison.

If this is not enough, one more bit to chew on. Andersen stated in his July 2023 testimony that Fauci had received the final “proof” of the article as “simply a professional courtesy.” But we know this is not true. Some months after Andersen’s congressional testimony Fauci testified that he had been sent multiple drafts.

Here’s Fauci discussing Andersen’s Nature Medicine paper starting on day 2, page 71 of his sworn deposition:

Q As the minority said, we’ve talked to all the U.S.-based authors or those who are acknowledged on that paper, so I won’t go through all of the science in it, except for I want — you were sent drafts periodically?

A Right.

Q A couple. I think it was less than 10, more than 5, drafts —

A Right.

Fauci’s January 2024 deposition impeaches Andersen’s July 2023 statement before Congress.

But it doesn’t end there. After Andersen was caught lying in his July 2023 congressional testimony, The Intercept published an expose a few days after, noting Andersen had also lied to Congress about his NIH funding from Fauci.

During the 2023 hearing, The Intercept discovered, Andersen sought to distract Members of Congress about a serious conflict of interest. While writing the Nature Medicine paper, whose conclusions diverted any blame from Fauci for funding research in the Wuhan lab, Andersen was awaiting Fauci’s approval for a major grant.

Here’s The Intercept:

Kristian Andersen of Scripps Research, who testified at the hearing along with Bob Garry of Tulane University, preempted the charge in his opening statement, telling the committee he had no live fundraising requests before Fauci’s agency at the time of the call. “There is no connection between the grant and the conclusions we reached about the origins of the pandemic. We applied for this grant in June 2019, and it was scored and reviewed by independent experts in November 2019,” Andersen testified. “Based on the actual timeline of this grant, it is not possible that the merit-based federal grant awarding process was influenced by a call in February, 2020.”

But Andersen’s testimony was false, The Intercept reported. While Andersen’s grant had been reviewed, it was still waiting for Fauci’s final approval and signature.

The grant wasn’t finalized until May 21, 2020. In other words, it was on Fauci’s desk at the time of the conference call. Andersen’s lab announced the funding in a press release in August 2020, nine months after he claimed it was already finalized. The press release describes it as a “new $8.9 million grant.”

In case you’re still not certain if Andersen is a liar, The Intercept posted a screenshot of Andersen’s grant, showing that Fauci had given final approval on May 21, 2020.

Congress is far from finished with addressing all the problems that happened during the pandemic. Just last week, the Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Government Affairs (HSGAC) sent letters to a dozen federal agencies, demanding they preserve documents pertaining to Covid’s origins.

More to come…

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Now with just weeks to go before the Trump administration takes over the White House, Secretary of State Antony Blinken has issued some interesting and surprising admissions. He told an audience of the Council on Foreign Relations on Wednesday that Biden’s policy on Iran hasn’t been more muscular because Washington’s regime change efforts in the region over the past two decades have basically been failures. 

It’s rare for a top official who is still in office to so bluntly describe that regime change efforts have been doomed. Blinken had been asked specifically of the US supporting Iranian opposition groups to overthrow the government in Tehran.

“I think if we look at the last 20 years, our experiments in regime change have not exactly been resounding successes,” he responded. “So, I think we have to have an appropriate degree of humility in focusing in that way on a problem.”

He also said at one point, “There’s no doubt this has not been a good year for Iran, and we’re seeing that play out every single day.” 

He laid out that Iranian leaders now have to make “fundamental” choices:

“One choice it could make and should make is to focus on itself and focus on trying to build a better, more successful country that delivers for its people … and to stop getting involved in these adventures or misadventures throughout the region.”

Foreign media seized on the comments, particularly state media in Russia and China. For example, Russia’s RT ran a headline which somewhat stretched Blinken’s words to say “US admits attempts at regime-change in Iran.”

“US Secretary of State Antony Blinken has publicly admitted that over the past two decades Washington has conducted experiments seeking regime change in Iran,” the RT report said. “Efforts to topple the Islamic Republic’s leadership, however, have failed, he admitted.”

And China’s Xinhua had this headline: “Blinken admits failure of decades-long U.S. effort seeking regime change in Iran.”

The Chinese state media report also reads a lot into Blinken’s words, claiming that he “publicly admitted Wednesday that his country’s efforts spanning the last 20 years to seek regime change in Iran did not yield much success.”

While it’s clear that countries from Afghanistan to Iraq to Libya to Syria were all targeted for regime change in the last twenty years, it’s uncertain whether Washington ever made a decision to focus efforts on overthrowing the leadership of the Islamic Republic. Certainly, however, there have been efforts to weaken and degrade the country, including Trump’s 2020 assassination by drone strike of IRGC Quds Force General Qasem Soleimani.

Blinken also had some interesting words on Iran’s nuclear program, saying that it is “not inevitable” that Iran will purse and achieve a bomb. “This is something that may be more a question now because they’ve lost different tools. They’ve lost different lines of defense,” he said.

“Sure, you’re going to see more thinking about that, but the costs and consequences for them for pursuing that route, I think, would be severe,” he added.

Authored by Michael Snyder via The Economic Collapse blog,

Are we heading into a year that will be characterized by great turmoil?  Every year, a magazine known as “the Economist” publishes an issue that is dedicated to what is coming in the year ahead.  In the past, many of these issues have turned out to be eerily accurate.  For example, the cover of last year’s issue featured images of Volodymyr Zelenskyy and Vladimir Putin with very large missiles standing next to each of them.  Of course this ended up being one of the biggest news stories of 2024.  Ukraine started firing long-range missiles provided by NATO deep into Russian territory, and the Russians responded with long-range missiles of their own.  Unfortunately, it appears that the cover for this year’s issue could be previewing some very alarming events that are coming in 2025.

The Economist has been one of the most important mouthpieces for the western elite for decades.  It has offices all over the globe, but it is based in the city of London…

Based in London, the newspaper is owned by the Economist Group, with its core editorial offices in the United States, as well as across major cities in continental Europe, Asia, and the Middle East.

The ownership list of the magazine includes prominent families such as Rothschild, Cadbury, Agnelli, Schroder and Layton…

Aside from the Agnelli family, smaller shareholders in the company include Cadbury, Rothschild (21%), Schroder, Layton and other family interests as well as a number of staff and former staff shareholders.

Ordinary people don’t read the magazine much.

It is truly a magazine by the elite and for the elite, and so it provides a tremendous amount of insight into what the elite are thinking.  Below, you can see what the cover for their 2025 preview issue looks like…

The first thing that stands out is how dark and ominous this cover is.

Are they expecting 2025 to be a dark and ominous year?

A black and white image of Donald Trump outlined in red is right in the center of the cover.

Obviously they expect him to be the center of attention.

Interestingly, a raised red fist that is outlined in red can be seen near the bottom of the cover.  Needless to say, a raised fist is often used as a symbol of “resistance” to Trump.

There are several other world leaders on the cover as well.  Just like in 2024, Volodymyr Zelenskyy and Vladimir Putin are featured, and this year Chinese President Xi Jinping also appears.

It is already clear that the conflict in Ukraine will continue to be a major theme in 2025.  Are the elite expecting war with China to break out too?

Right next to Trump, you can see a very tall white missile, and right beneath Trump there is something that looks like a mushroom cloud.

In addition, there are a couple of other symbols on the cover that are related to nuclear war.

This sort of imagery should deeply alarm all of us.

Are they trying to warn us that we are getting dangerously close to nuclear war?

Or could it be possible that they are suggesting that nuclear weapons could actually be used in combat at some point in 2025?

2024 was certainly a year of war, and I fully expect things to go to an entirely new level in 2025.

But let us hope that nuclear weapons are not used any time soon.

Switching gears, directly next to the very tall white missile is an image of a syringe that is more than half-filled with red liquid.

That can’t be related to the previous pandemic, because the previous pandemic has been behind us for quite some time.

So what are they trying to communicate with this image?

Are they suggesting that the world could soon be facing another major pestilence?

Red is a color that is often associated with death.

So the fact that the liquid inside the syringe is red is more than just a little bit creepy.

As I have detailed in previous articles, at this moment global health authorities are dealing with an outbreak of a mystery illness that is being referred to as “Disease X” in Africa, a new strain of the monkeypox that has started to pop up all over the world, an eruption of the Marburg virus in Rwanda, and a bird flu crisis that never seems to end and that has now jumped into humans.

I am convinced that pestilence will be a major theme in 2025, and apparently the Economist does too.

On the cover of the magazine, we also see a dollar sign appear twice, and there are numerous arrows that are pointing both up and down.

Are they anticipating that there will be economic and financial turmoil during the year ahead?

Of course economic problems have already begun in the U.S., in Europe, and in China.  The global economy is rapidly heading in the wrong direction, and many are warning that 2025 is going to be a very hard year.

That is really bad news for those that are on the bottom levels of the economic food chain.  Here in the United States, demand at food banks is already at all-time record highs.  So what will things look like if a full-blown global economic crisis suddenly erupts in 2025?

There are other images on this cover that also seem rather odd.  There is an image of Saturn, there is an image of an all-seeing eye, and there is an image of an hourglass.

An hourglass is often used to depict the fact that time is running out.

And I certainly agree with that.

The truth is that we have been living on borrowed time for quite a while.

The elite love to create order out of chaos, and based on this magazine cover they certainly seem to believe that 2025 will be a year of chaos.

Perhaps the elite hope that the chaos that is approaching will represent an opportunity for them to regain some of the control that they have lost in recent years.

I think that they are starting to understand that the system that they have worked so carefully to construct is beginning to crumble, and now they are desperate to regain the upper hand any way that they can.

*  *  *

Michael’s new book entitled “Why” is available in paperback and for the Kindle on Amazon.com, and you can subscribe to his Substack newsletter at michaeltsnyder.substack.com.

The Kremlin on Thursday revealed that the day prior Ukraine’s military launched six US-made long-range ATACMs missiles and four British-made Storm Shadow missiles against Russian territory.

The projectiles targeted the southern Rostov region, with Russia’s military saying its anti-air defense systems were able to intercept all four ATACMS missiles and three of the four Storm Shadows.

The statement further vowed a harsh response to the attacks, given this is at least third of fourth major wave of long-range attacks. Western missiles have been used perhaps half a dozen times or more against Russian territory at this point, only a month after Washington initially gave Kiev permission.

The ATACMS and Storm Shadow assault on Wednesday was accompanied by other conventional weapons as well. In the overall attack some targets, including an oil refinery, were struck:

Ukraine struck Russian territory with at least 13 missiles and 84 drones, triggering a fire at an oil refinery in the southern Rostov region that burned for hours, Russian officials said on Thursday.

As Russia advances at the fastest pace since the start of the war in 2022, Ukraine has repeatedly tried to strike Russia’s oil infrastructure – which funds a significant chunk of the Russian war economy.

“The actions of the Kyiv regime, supported by its Western curators, will not go unanswered,” the Russian defense ministry said in follow-up.

This retaliation could involve more hypersonic ballistic missile attacks on Ukraine, a threat which has been sounded more frequently of late, specifically more debilitating attacks on Ukraine’s energy grid headed into the cold winter months.

On Thursday, during President Putin’s year-end Q&A session with journalists, Putin warned that more Oreshnik missiles could be used, emphasizing that there is no defense against them.

‘We should have a duel — Oreshnik v NATO missile defense over Kiev’

SUPERCUT: Putin’s biggest statements during annual 4+ hour Q&A pic.twitter.com/M7FYwk4g7y

— RT (@RT_com) December 19, 2024

“There is no chance of shooting down these Oreshnik missiles. Well, if those Western experts you mentioned think they can be shot down, we propose they – and those in the West and the United States who pay them for their analysis – conduct some kind of technological experiment, a high-tech duel of the 21st century,” Putin explained to the press.

“Let them name some object, let’s say, in Kyiv, concentrate all their air defence and missile defence forces there, and we will hit it with Oreshnik and see what happens. We are ready for such an experiment. Is the other side ready?” he posed.

Authored by Connor O’Keefe via The Mises Institute,

In the years leading up to the 2024 presidential election, the Democrats and establishment Republicans who wanted to see Joe Biden, and later Kamala Harris, remain in office went all in on one overarching narrative above all: that Donald Trump represented an existential threat to American democracy.

Biden’s team and their allies in politics and media repeated this claim day after day, essentially trying to convince millions of Americans that elections would literally stop happening in this country if Trump won.

Taking a step back, Trump was framed as the domestic enemy in a broader international fight that saw “autocratic” leaders like Russian President Vladimir Putin, former Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro, former Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, and others facing down a coalition of “democratic” governments.

Democracy versus autocracy was meant to be the defining dynamic of the day. Meaning everything from the war in Ukraine to the fight over climate change was framed as one big battle where the “good guys” were defined purely by their commitment to the democratic process.

And, in that global fight, no effort was more important—we were told—than keeping Trump out of the White House.

But then he won.

Despite the establishment’s efforts, a majority of American voters were not swayed by the “democracy-versus-autocracy” narrative. Or, at least, they demonstrated that they preferred the candidate who promised to close the border, wind down the war in Ukraine, cut down the extremely bloated federal bureaucracy, investigate the weaponization of the DOJ in recent years, and roll back federal climate policies while celebrating and vowing to continue the appointment of conservative judges and justices—among other campaign promises.

Now, President Biden – and, really, all the people around him who are actually running things – are in their so-called lame-duck period. And what are they doing as they wait to hand power over to the next administration? They’re doing whatever they can to make it harder for Trump’s team to implement the very policies voters just sent them to the White House to carry out.

Last week, we learned that the Biden administration is moving unassembled border wall material away from the southern border and selling it at an auction. Groups allied with the president are also calling on him to close immigration and customs enforcement detention facilities before leaving office to hamper Trump’s plans to deport illegal immigrants.

After losing the election last month, the Biden administration escalated the war in Ukraine by helping Ukrainian forces shoot long-range American missiles further into Russia. Now, the president’s team is rushing to send another $725 million to Ukraine before Trump is sworn in on January 20.

Earlier this year, the Office of Personnel Management (OPM) issued a ruling that makes it much harder for Trump’s team to overhaul the federal workforce. While Trump could still carry out this campaign promise, he now cannot do so through executive order. He is required to propose a new rule, which will likely bring years of legal battles.

Biden pardoned his son Hunter after he was facing prison sentences for federal felony gun and tax convictions. Now, the president is reportedly considering “preemptive pardons” for numerous allies that his team expects to be investigated by Trump’s DOJ.

Members of the president’s cabinet are rushing to spend as much money as possible in the various departments they oversee, EPA officials are hurrying to implement as many new environmental and climate policies as they can, and the president and Senate Democrats are racing to fill as many federal judicial positions as they’re able to before losing the White House and Senate.

Depending on where you stand on Trump’s agenda, you could see these efforts as heroic or disgraceful. But because the president and political establishment are ramming through policies that a majority of Americans just voted against, it’s impossible to seriously label these actions as anything other than explicitly undemocratic.

As someone who does not believe democracy is an ethical system or the best way to organize society, this alone does not bother me. But the hypocrisy is still important to call out.

Because, with their actions, the political class has again revealed that they do not actually care about democracy. They only use the fact that much of the public does care about democracy to try and serve their own ends.

The same goes for human rights abuses and crackdowns on dissent carried out by foreign governments that Washington wants to overthrow. When true, these are totally legitimate criticisms to level at these state leaders. But our government officials have demonstrated a complete willingness to ignore, support, and even partake in the same abuses when it’s useful to them. So, again, they are only using the fact that decent people care about these issues to serve their own agenda.

It is important to have principles. But it’s also important to recognize when people who do not share your principles are using your commitment to those principles to manipulate you. The political establishment in recent weeks has shown, yet again, that they do this. It’s time we stop falling for it.

Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau is facing a mounting political crisis within his own Liberal Party, with an increasing number of party members voicing their desire for his resignation ahead of the scheduled 2025 election. This internal discontent has gained momentum after the shock resignation of Chrystia Freeland, Trudeau’s finance minister and a key ally.

Jenica Atwin, a Liberal parliamentary secretary from New Brunswick, openly stated that Trudeau should step down, and says she won’t run for reelection if Trudeau remains in leadership. Atwin’s call was echoed by Chad Collins, a Liberal MP from Ontario, who revealed that around 50 Liberal MPs are part of a faction pushing for Trudeau’s resignation. This represents about one-third of the Liberal representatives in the House of Commons.

“I don’t know who’s giving him advice. I can guess. It’s not good advice,” Collins said. “But the buck stops with him with the decisions he makes, and we’re now seeing the fallout that’s come with what many would consider a very poor decision.”

Monday’s resignation of Chrystia Freeland, Trudeau’s powerful finance minister and his longtime deputy, was a massive shock that has irreparably damaged the prime minister, Collins said in an interview.

Freeland said she quit after being told she would be moved to a different role in the cabinet. Trudeau delivered that news on Friday, she said — just three days before she was due for a major speech that would update the country on its fiscal and economic situation. -Bloomberg

“In terms of who the successor is, I don’t know at this point whether or not we could do much worse,” Collins continued.

Meanwhile, Trudeau has canceled his customary year-end media appearances, only making limited public comments at Liberal Party events. And at a recent press conference, Justice Minister Arif Virani avoided direct questions about Trudeau’s leadership, instead focusing on his role and expressing confidence in the prime minister.

“Decisions will be taken by the parties that are involved,” said Virani, trying to bring the discussion back to an announcement about wrongful convictions. “I have absolute confidence in the prime minister in terms of what he has asked me to do. That is serve as a minister of justice who defends people’s rights.”

According to polling data, Canada’s Conservative Party, under the leadership of Pierre Poilievre, is likely to secure a majority in the next general election. Wayne Long, another Liberal MP from New Brunswick, stressed the urgency of the situation in an open letter, suggesting that the party must act to prevent a historic electoral defeat.

Collins warned that continued support for Trudeau might lead to a significant exodus of experienced politicians from the party, potentially leaving it with a “skeleton crew” of seasoned representatives.

Authored by Daniel Oliver via American Greatness,

Democrats are stumbling all over each other to blame Biden for staying in the presidential race too long. Ha!

Axios reported that “Vice President Harris’ loss raised a feeling among Democrats that Biden’s refusal to leave the race until July cost the party dearly—even as they got caught up in a global anti-incumbency wave.”

Rep. Jesús “Chuy” García (D-IL) blamed Biden: “I think there’s a widespread sense that he took too long to get out and that it made it very difficult for Vice President Harris to run the most impactful campaign.”

Sen. “Hindsight” Chris Murphy (D-CT) said, “Well . . . in hindsight, knowing that he ultimately made the decision to stand down, yes, of course, it would have been better for President Biden to have made that decision earlier. I think there’s no question about it.”

Yup. No question at all. 

Now.

But what about then?

On the first day of Schadenfreude, all Democrats agreed . . . with Rep. Jim Clyburn (D-SC) who said: “I want him to run . . . I see no reason for him not to run . . . . We all age differently. They said the same thing about . . . Ronald Reagan. How many people said Ronald Reagan was too old? Do you remember in his debate with Walter Mondale, the classic line?”

On the second day of Schadenfreude, all Democrats agreed . . . with Sen. Ron Wyden (D-OR) who said: “Everything I read is they’re trying to get him to cut back his hours because he’s got too much energy.”

On the third day of Schadenfreude, all Democrats agreed . . . with Kamala Harris who said that in the days following the October 7 attack by Hamas she had spent countless hours with Biden and other officials and that he was “on top of it all.”

On the fourth day of Schadenfreude, all Democrats agreed . . . with Rep. Dan Goldman (D-NY) who said that “[Biden is] sharper than anyone I’ve spoken to.”

On the fifth day of Schadenfreude, all Democrats agreed . . . with Gov. J. B. Pritzker (D-IL) who said: “I’ve been with the president of the United States many times. He is on the ball. The man knows more than most of us have forgotten.”

On the sixth day of Schadenfreude, all Democrats agreed . . . with Secretary of Homeland Security Alejandro Mayorkas who said: “The most difficult part about a meeting with President Biden is preparing for it because he is sharp, intensely probing, and detail-oriented, and focused.”

On the seventh day of Schadenfreude, all Democrats agreed . . . with Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) who said: “So Joe Biden has vision, he has knowledge, he has strategic thinking. This is a very sharp president in terms of his public presentation. If he makes a slip of the tongue here or there, what’s the deal?” And then, “Anyone who would think that they’re at some advantage because of his age thinks that at their peril, because he’s very sharp.”

On the eighth day of Schadenfreude, all Democrats agreed . . . with Mitch Landrieu (Biden campaign co-chair) who said: “When you go in to brief the president, you better have your big boy pants on. And this kind of sense that he’s not ready for this job, it’s just a bucket of BS that’s so deep, your boots will get stuck.”

On the ninth day of Schadenfreude, all Democrats agreed . . . with Chuck Todd (NBC Host) who said: “There’s an easy way to basically make this report [of Biden’s memory issues] pointless. The easiest way to get rid of this storyline is to get him out there.”

On the tenth day of Schadenfreude, all Democrats agreed . . . with Sen. Patty Murray (D-WA) who said: “I’ve spent time with both of those guys privately. Spent time with Biden and Trump privately. I’ve spent time with every House Speaker over the past thirty years. And Joe Biden, I’m not just—it’s just not close. If you want to talk about international affairs, if you want to talk about how to get bipartisan legislation, Joe Biden is light-years ahead of all of them.”

On the eleventh day of Schadenfreude, all Democrats agreed . . . with House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-NY) who said: “[Biden is] incredibly strong, forceful and decisive.”

On the twelfth day of Schadenfreude, all Democrats agreed . . . with Kamala Harris who, when asked by Axios whether she could “fully assure” voters that there is nothing to be concerned about Biden’s “hour-by-hour performance,” quickly responded, “Of course.”

Things are so bad for the Democrats now they may not even celebrate Kwanza this year.

For the rest of us, however, we can give thanks to an Almighty and Provident God, and say, remembering Ronald Reagan, that America’s best days are yet to come.

Russian President Vladimir Putin in fresh Thursday remarks has emphasized that he is ready for a direct conversation with US President-elect Donald Trump at any time and agrees to meet with him when the US side is ready.

“I am ready for this [conversation], of course, at any time. And I will also be ready for a meeting, if he wants it,” Putin said at Russia’s annual year-end Q&A press conference with the president. He gave this response to an American journalist when asked about a potential future meeting with Trump.

“First of all, I don’t know when we will meet with him. Because he doesn’t say anything about it. I haven’t talked to him at all for more than four years,” Putin followed with, acknowledging the unpredictability of the US side’s intentions.

The Kremlin has still taken a pessimistic view on the possibility of achieving peace in Ukraine anytime soon, given especially that Western long-range missiles are being used against Russian territory.

According to more of the latest context via TASS:

Earlier, Russian Foreign Ministry Spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said that Moscow is ready for contacts with Washington to resolve the Ukrainian crisis, but has not yet received any serious proposals from Trump’s team. According to the diplomat, the Russian Foreign Ministry has recently regularly received many questions about whether Russia is ready to contact Trump and his team.

Trump’s pick for national security advisor, Mike Waltz, explained to CBS News at the start of this week, “What does success look like in line with our interests? How do we end the war? Who’s at the table? How do we drive, you know, all sides to the table, and what’s the framework for an agreement? Those are things that we’re thinking through with his fantastic team that he’s (Trump) assembling.”

He also said that the current Biden administration policy of escalation with no end in sight is a recipe for disaster which could turn the conflict into another “forever war”. He said that a “blank check… just isn’t a strategy.”

And yet it could be President Zelensky himself who stands in the way:

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has rejected the prospect of freezing the conflict started by Moscow to facilitate negotiations to end hostilities, telling French daily Le Parisien that Donald Trump “knows about my desire not to rush things at the expense of Ukraine.”

Below is the key section of this latest Zelensky interview: 

Zelensky told Le Parisien resolving the war was “not easy” and that Trump wanted a peace deal “quickly” but the Ukrainian leader said the Trump team did not yet have access to all the information from diplomatic and intelligence channels.

Zelensky said regardless of what world leaders want, “we are not just going to give in and give up our independence.”

“The danger would be to say—we freeze the war and we will come to an agreement with the Russians,” he added, noting that Putin “has killed many Ukrainians.”

I’m open for a meeting with Trump – Putin pic.twitter.com/UxV4NZB8e6

— RT (@RT_com) December 19, 2024

Freezing the front lines is a central component of what has thus far been reported as ‘Trump’s peace plan’. Moscow hasn’t appeared too keen on it either, and it has less incentive to agree to this, given by all metrics it is winning on the ground in the Donbas.

Still, Trump has pushed forward with his promise to find a swift close to the war which has been raging for about three years. He’s vowing to push the warring sides to the negotiating table from his very first day in office.

Authored by Kit Knightly via Off-Guardian.org,

As the embers of 2024 spit out their dying sparks and tendrils of smoke corkscrew into 2025, I want to ask: what were the important news stories of this year?

Most people will say something international.

The war in Ukraine, the atrocities in Gaza, the fall of Assad.

Maybe some will cite elections, it was a big year for voting after all.

A global shift-change in the corridors of power saw a dozen governments swapped out for new faces, with 2 weeks of the year left it’s still possible Trudeau, Macron or Scholz may join the procession.

The tech minded might talk about advancements in Artificial Intelligence.

Those are the big stories of 2024.

The banner headlines.

Sound and fury and all that signifies. But were they the most important?

No, the important story of 2024 was The Great Reset.

Remember that? It was this pan-global supranational plan to tear down and then rebuild society in a “sustainable”, “inclusive”, “fair” and “secure” way that would – totally accidentally – eradicate civil liberties and individual freedom for every single person on the planet.

It was all the rage a few years ago, you might remember. But when it didn’t go over too well with a lot of people, the powers that be dropped the subject and there’s been very little talk about it since 2022.

Does that mean it’s gone away?

We need to have “object permanence” in politics as in all things. Something doesn’t cease to exist just because you can’t see it anymore. The world doesn’t vanish when you close your eyes.

The Great Reset is still the plan.

It’s still happening. It’s just distributed now.

A compartmentalized strategy uploaded to the cloud, everywhere and nowhere. A million nanobots working a million angles to change a million tiny rules and build a million tiny cells.

Like the end of The Usual Suspects, stand the right distance back and you can see the pattern.

Just last week, the UK’s chief medical officer Chris Whitty published his annual health report. What does he recommend? Sin taxes on “unhealthy” foods and 15 minute cities. Labour have already increased “sin taxes” on sugar, salt, alcohol and tobacco. Next comes red meat, dairy and just “carbon” in general.

Earlier this year the UK introduced licensing for keeping chickens. They banned smoking too.

By 2035 it will be impossible to buy a new petrol car in the UK. Or the EU. Or Canada. Or New Zealand. Or Australia. Or Mexico. Or South Africa. Or California, and 11 other US states.

From that point you and your car  will be anchored to charging points.  Even better  your new car will probably have automatic drive features, speed limiters  – oh and remote kill switches.

This week, all of sudden, the news tells us that wood burning stoves cause cancer. A ban is already being discussed. Since coal is already a no-no for domestic users (since 2023), there effectively  goes your last chance of energy and heat independence. If they ban stoves there will be no heating available to you that can’t be hooked up to a smart meter, surveilled, controlled.

Unless you count burning a candle inside a plant pot. And they’re coming for those too.

The much-publicised murder of Sara Sharif has already been parlayed into a new bill taking away parents “automatic right to homeschool their children” – if the state deems them “vulnerable”.

Digital IDs are coming for everyone from everywhere. Here’s just a selection of reasons –

To secure the border and ensure electoral integrity in the US.

To protect children on social media in Australia.

To promote efficiency in the EU.

To combat illegal immigration in the UK.

To track migrant workers in Russia.

Because they said so in China.

The EU wants to establish an “asset register” and biometric tracking across borders. Online anonymity is being eroded with each “hate crime” attributed to “disinformation” and “hate speech”.

There is persistent and consistent talk of rationing – food and water and travel.

Ban it. Ration it. Monitor it. Control everyone’s everything.

Can’t you see the walls closing in?

These are not disparate issues, they are heads on a hydra.  They form the universal silent agenda that is everywhere. They are bipartisan and cross-bench. They are the things unquestioned, sanctioned and approved by both “sides” of every fake “divide”.

The people at the apex of the pyramid literally spent two years talking about this. Telling you it was the plan and how great it was going to be.

Then, when it didn’t take, they spent two more years pretending they never said it and distracting you with other things like UFOs. Taylor Swift. ChatGPT. Race-baiting.

They are building a prison around every single person on this planet while we argue about Hunter Biden and QAnon and Transgender bathrooms.

The drones over New Jersey – supposing there’s anything really there at all – may as well be a giant jangling key chain in the sky.

That’s what all of it is. The elections. The terrorism. The scandals. The leaked reports.

It’s a laser pointer. It stops the cat from playing with the things he shouldn’t play with.

Today is my birthday. I’m hurtling – faster than I expected or desired – towards 40. My birthday wish is a world worth living in when I get there.

The silver lining of 2025 being as bad I suspect it’s going to be is that it might force people to re-realise everything they’ve forgotten since 2022. And the first step to fixing something is admitting there’s a problem.

About a month after Bloomberg reported that Lattice Semiconductor had offered to purchase Intel’s Altera, the financial media outlet revealed that several private equity firms had also entered the bidding game for the company, which specializes in designing low-power programmable chips.

Sources told Bloomberg that Francisco Partners and Silver Lake Management have joined Lattice in a second bidding round for Altera. Additionally, Apollo Global Management and Bain Capital are considered potential suitors.

The people said Lattice and the PE firms have until the end of January to formalize their offers, adding other PE firms could enter the mix, or the process could end with no sale. 

More from Bloomberg: 

After calling for initial bids prior to the US Thanksgiving holiday in November, Intel has been presented with deal- structure options that range from acquiring a 20% to 30% stake to taking full control of Altera, the people said. Some parties have outlined multiple paths in their proposals, which value the unit at as little as $9 billion to more than $12 billion, according to the people. Intel paid roughly $17 billion to acquire Altera in 2015.

Intel reiterated in October that a stake in Altera was for sale before pursuing an initial public offering of the unit. This is part of a much broader turnaround plan for the struggling chip giant. 

Intel CEO David Zinsner, named interim co-CEO alongside Michelle Johnston Holthaus earlier this month, told investors at an industry conference that the chipmaker “kicked off” the process to engage with outside investors. 

“Our thinking is we’ll get another partner in similar to what we did with the IMS business,” Zinsner said at the Barclays Global Technology Conference last week. 

Separately, Goldman analysts Toshiya Hari and Anmol Makkar recently told clients Intel was a “Sell” and “we have yet to pick up evidence that would indicate Intel has turned the corner.” 

Hari’s 12-month price target was unchanged at $20 a share:

“This is based on 14x our normalized EPS estimate of $1.45. Upside risks to our estimates and our cautious investment thesis include: 1) stronger-than-expected PC/server demand; 2) better execution on process node transitions and, as a result, higher market share than we assume in our base case; 3) business portfolio optimization, 4) early/significant success in foundry, 5) timing/magnitude of government incentives related to the on-shoring of semiconductor manufacturing and 6) better than expected traction in AI acceleration.”

Shares are down 62% on the year, trading around 2013 levels. 

Intel is positioned to continue the turnaround plan’s “next phase of transformation” in 2025.