Tag: finance

Authored by Adam Dick via The Ron Paul Institute,

Upon his inauguration as president, Donald Trump will become the leader of a United States executive branch mired in two major wars via its continuing pumping of money, weapons, and intelligence into support of the Ukraine and Israel governments. Trump has declared his opposition to the continuation of these wars. But, how can he end them?

The means by which Trump can end the wars is simpler than many Americans think. This means just does not come to mind for many Americans because it is far removed from the course US presidents have tended to pursue over the last few decades.

Righty tighty. That’s it. Taking the US out of these wars is as simple as turning off a standard outdoor water faucet. President Joe Biden has turned the handle all the way lefty loosey. Trump should just turn it back all the way. Shut off the money flow. Shut off the weapons flow. Shut off the intelligence flow.

And there is no good reason for Trump to take his time about it. He should turn off the flow of aid in all forms promptly in his presidency.

Doing so would comport with Trump’s stated objectives regarding the Ukraine War and the Israel War during his campaign and since. Trump has repeated his promise to end the Ukraine War in a day. He has also commented on multiple occasions that he wants the Israel War over before he is even sworn in as president.

Without US support, Ukraine and Israel lack the means to continue their wars. Deprived of the means to continue fighting in anywhere near the strength they have, both governments will immediately find themselves in a new situation where their best option is to seek peace.

Without critical US support, the Ukraine government will negotiate what it will give up in its loss to Russia. Meanwhile, Israel, also deprived of critical US support, will have to pare its ambition in its multifront war. Their only other option is suicidal fighting on in a lost cause. Sober military members would probably put a stop to that. No matter, it was never the cause — lost or otherwise — of America anyway.

What about negative political repercussions for Trump from his ending US participation in the wars?  Such participation lacks popular support, so ending it would seem a plus for Trump’s popularity. Further, since Trump won the presidential election portraying himself as the “peace candidate,” even people who dislike his extraction of the US from the wars would not be very convincing complaining of Trump acting inconsistently or hypocritically. Indeed, Trump could proclaim that his action is a promise kept.

There is even a political urgency for Trump to turn the faucet handle righty tighty. If he continues supporting the wars for weeks or, worse, months or even years, the wars will become Trump wars as they have been Biden wars. Americans would feel relief when Trump after significant delay terminates US involvement, but any effort then to praise him as a man of peace will be met with justified skepticism. There would be blood on his hands.

If President Trump quickly turns off the faucet for the Ukraine War, the defeat of Ukraine will be accelerated. Trump can portray such as the much-needed termination of Biden’s deadly folly, reminding Americans as Trump has over the past couple years that the entire conflict would have been avoided had Trump been president. Trump can also claim victory in stopping the killing of people — Ukrainian and Russian — something he has pointed to as his primary objective.

TRUMP: “I refuse to accept another round of endless war in Ukraine.

I want peace, they want money and conflict! Even if it means pushing us to the brink of World War III, which, frankly, is already happening and very quickly.” pic.twitter.com/OKU2JVBvAB

— Ben Swann (@BenSwann_) November 18, 2024

In turning off the war support for the Israel government, Trump is in a different position as he has expressed his particularly strong support for this government. But, Trump, as with the Ukraine war, has also expressed his strong desire for the carnage in the Israel War to end. Trump, when shutting off the faucet, can declare victory for Israel. He can claim the defeat by Israel of Hamas in Gaza and Hezbollah in Lebanon. He can claim also Israel’s elimination of threat posed to it from Syria. The war is over and won can be his message.

Trump will surely face difficult challenges as president, but on the major issues of the Ukraine War and Israel War, the solution is simple: righty tighty.

In better times the West Bank city of Bethlehem, where Christ was born, is festive and bustling with locals and international tourists and religious pilgrims at this time of year.

But the Palestinian city will spend its second straight year of the Gaza War with much more low key celebrations only done inside churches and not the typical huge festive Christmas parades through the main square. Absent is also the main large lit-up Christmas tree which usually dominates the town during the holiday season.

The Bethlehem Municipality has announced that the public celebrations that people often flock there for are cancelled and that events will instead be limited to religious rituals.

“For the second straight year, Bethlehem’s Christmas celebrations will be somber and muted, in deference to ongoing war in Gaza,” Time Magazine reports.

“There will be no giant Christmas tree in Manger Square, no raucous scout marching bands, no public lights twinkling and very few public decorations or displays.”

“Last year before Christmas, we had more hope, but now again we are close to Christmas and we don’t have anything,” the owner of the Nativity Store, Rony Tabash, told Time.

The isolated Biblical town, which lies behind Israel’s large wall which separates the West Bank, has long relied on religious pilgrimage and tourism for its economic survival.

A Time correspondent further details:

The city hosts more than 100 stores and 450 workshops dealing with traditional Palestinian handicraft, Qumsiyeh said. But just a week before Christmas, when the city should be bursting with visitors, Manger Square was mostly empty save for a few locals selling coffee and tea. Only two of the eight stores in the main drag of the square were open for business.

In the early half 20th century it was an almost completely Palestinian Christian town, predominantly Eastern Orthodox, but now this population has dwindled to merely a sizeable minority.

The growth of the Muslim population and the fact that Bethlehem is almost entirely surrounded by Jewish Israeli settlements has contributed to a steady exodus of the Arabic-speaking Christian population in search of better economic opportunity.

West Bank | A silent Christmas march is taking place in Bethlehem mourning the 20,000+ lives lost in the Israeli aggression on Gaza pic.twitter.com/s4XToueL0C

— TIMES OF GAZA (@Timesofgaza) December 24, 2023

In Gaza, despite new recent headlines of revived talks, a ceasefire in reality seems nowhere in sight. The war had long ago spilled over into the West Bank too, marked by Palestinian street clashes with Israeli police and military.

The about 15-month war has resulted in hundreds killed throughout the West Bank territories. Bethlehem, however, has been largely quiet but faces continued economic strangulation.

Authored by Tsvetana Paraskova via OilPrice.com,

European countries need to work out ways to lower taxes on electricity to revive the competiveness of Europe’s energy-intensive industries, Leonhard Birnbaum, president of electricity lobby Eurelectric, told Reuters in an interview published on Monday. 

Power prices in the EU are up to three times higher than in the United States, for example, which further erodes the competitiveness of energy-intensive industries including aluminum, steel making, chemicals, and cement production. 

Europe is losing and will continue to lose competitiveness and jobs if it doesn’t tackle its high energy costs compared to other regions, Morten Wierod, chief executive of Switzerland-based engineering giant ABB, told Bloomberg last month. 

To restore competitiveness for European companies which have been suffering from high energy costs, the EU governments should look to lower the high energy taxes, according to Eurelectric’s Birnbaum. 

“We appreciate that states always need more money, but if you really want to electrify then you can’t have, for example, an over-proportional tax burden on electricity compared to the tax burden on gas,” said Birnbaum, who is also chief executive of German utility giant E.ON. 

The problem with these taxes lies in the fact that part of the levies and fees on electricity are individually set by the single EU countries, where the EU has no jurisdiction. 

Earlier this month, Eurelectric and energy intensive representatives CEFIC and European Aluminium discussed how to strengthen Europe’s competitiveness and electrify industry. 

The group proposed six actions to ease the pressure on energy-intensive industries, which include “level out electricity taxes and levies.”

“Fixing Europe’s perverse energy taxation” is a way to lower energy prices and support electrification, said Eurelectric and the lobbies of the energy-intensive industries.

Taxes on electricity in the EU as a share of the final bill are respectively three and three and a half times higher for household and industrial consumers compared to natural gas, the industry said. 

“A well-functioning market with long-term investment signals, incentives to reinforce infrastructure and lower taxes on electricity are no-regret solutions that can be implemented immediately,” said Eurelectric’s Secretary General Kristian Ruby. 

In a Telegram post on Monday, Ukraine’s main intelligence directorate reported that a cargo ship, sent to Syria to retrieve Russian military equipment, experienced an engine failure while transiting near the Strait of Gibraltar, a narrow waterway connecting the Atlantic Ocean to the Mediterranean Sea.

“The cargo ship Sparta, sent by Russia to retrieve its weapons and equipment from Syria, broke down off the coast of Portugal due to a malfunction in the fuel pipe of its main engine,” Ukrainian intelligence wrote in the update. 

The ship tracking website Marine Traffic shows the Vladivostok-bound cargo ship, Ursa Major, previously registered as Sparta III, drifting on the high seas near Portugal. A tug vessel appears to be approaching Sparta. 

Another view of the vessel…

The Kyiv Independent noted that it could not verify the intel agency’s claim whether Sparta was part of a withdrawal operation from Syria.  

Since the fall of Bashar al-Assad’s regime earlier this month, two Russian military bases in the country—the Hmeimim Air Base and the Tartus Naval Base—have faced constant threats from the Islamist group Hayat Tahrir al-Sham, also known as HTS.

Last week, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters that “there are no final decisions” about Russia’s bases in Syria. Moscow said diplomatic staff were evacuated from the country.

Satellite images from Maxar show that Russian military personnel have been winding down operations at Khmeimim Air Base. 

Russia continues evacuation from Syria.

Satellite images from Maxar show military equipment concentrated at Russian bases in Tartus and Khmeimim, withdrawn from multiple outposts across Syria. pic.twitter.com/S9mz7LMsoi

— Clash Report (@clashreport) December 18, 2024

The big question for the Sparta vessel is whether any US Navy submarines with special forces units lurk beneath.

Authored by Chris Summers via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

Germany’s interior minister said a Saudi national, accused of driving a car into crowds at a Christmas market in Magdeburg on Dec. 20, did not “fit into any existing mold.”

Five people, including a 9-year-old boy, were killed and dozens injured in the attack.

Four women aged 45, 52, 67, and 75 died, as well as the boy, who has been identified as André Gleissner.

German police say the suspect drove into the grounds of the Christmas market using emergency exit points and then accelerated before plowing into the crowds, hitting more than 200 people. He was arrested by armed police.

The suspect—named only as Taleb A, according to Germany’s strict privacy laws that prevent criminal suspects from being identified—had claimed asylum in Germany after fleeing Saudi Arabia 20 years ago because he said his anti-Islamic views put him in danger there.

The 50-year-old psychiatrist’s social media account showed he had voiced support for the Alternative for Germany (AfD) party.

German Interior Minister Nancy Faeser said on Dec. 22 that a criminal investigation into the attack would leave no stone unturned.

“The task is to piece together all findings and paint a picture of this perpetrator, who does not fit any existing mold,” she said. “This perpetrator acted in an unbelievably cruel and brutal manner—like an Islamist terrorist, although he was clearly ideologically hostile to Islam.”

The AfD has strong support in Germany. Opinion polls put it in second place nationally ahead of elections due in February.

The AfD candidate for chancellor, Alice Weidel, has planned a rally in Magdeburg for Monday evening.

Taleb A.’s X account was filled with anti-Islam themes and criticism of the religion, and he regularly congratulated former Muslims who had left the faith.

He had also accused the German government of failing to stop the “Islamism of Europe.”

Several German media outlets said Taleb A. was a specialist in psychiatry and psychotherapy who had lived in Germany since 2006 and practiced medicine in the town of Bernburg, 25 miles south of Magdeburg.

Taleb A. had conducted several media interviews in recent years and said he had been helping people who had renounced Islam to come to Europe from Saudi Arabia and claim asylum.

It remains unclear why he drove a car into the crowd.

Magdeburg, located west of Berlin, is the capital of the federal state of Saxony-Anhalt and was part of communist East Germany until reunification in 1990.

The reaction to Friday night’s attack has been a mixture of sadness, horror, and anger.

The police said there were “minor disturbances” at a demonstration attended by more than 2,000 people on Saturday night in Magdeburg.

Some of the protesters wore black balaclavas and held up a banner with the word “remigration,” a term calling for the mass deportation of immigrants.

Eight years ago, an Islamic extremist drove a truck into a Christmas market in Berlin, killing 13 people. That attacker, Anis Amri, a failed asylum seeker from Tunisia, was fatally shot by Italian police four days later in Milan.

Floral Tributes

Thousands of residents deposited a sea of flowers in front of St John’s Church in Magdeburg, close to the scene of the Friday. attack.

Resident Ingolf Klinzmann said: “This is my second time here. I was here yesterday. I brought flowers and it moved me so much and I had to know today how many flowers were brought.”

A magistrate has ordered Taleb A. to be held in pre-trial custody on five counts of murder and multiple counts of attempted murder and grievous bodily harm.

It is not clear whether a lawyer has been appointed for the suspect.

The Associated Press and Reuters contributed to this report.

Authored by Cynical Publius via American Greatness,

The U.S. military’s growing DEI policies are creating a climate where fear of unfounded accusations erodes leadership and threatens combat readiness – leaving the nation’s future at risk…

As Pete Hegseth’s nomination for Secretary of Defense moves forward, the matter of “Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion” (DEI) doctrines and practices in America’s military is a hot-button issue of significant importance. Our media is awash with stories of “woke” generals and admirals, critiques of women in combat, awful tales of command selection board manipulations based on race or gender, and a generalized sense of uneasiness in the senior ranks of the Pentagon over perceived massive changes to take place once Trump and Hegseth are in charge. However, this current DEI attention focuses almost exclusively on what is happening inside the five walls of the Pentagon and tends to ignore DEI’s most pernicious effect: the way it is obliterating command authority in tactical units in the field and warships at sea.

First, let me tell you how I figured out what is going on. On X (formerly known as Twitter), I have an active account of about 130,000 followers. I know that number is much smaller than that of many other X influencers, but it’s enough to give me some reach. My account focuses primarily on politics and culture, with a heavy emphasis on matters related to the U.S. military. That’s because I’m a retired Army colonel, and my views on military matters seem to resonate with veterans and active duty alike. It is that community of military followers that has fully revealed to me the DEI cancer that is eating away at U.S. military leadership at all levels.

A few days ago, I read an article from Military.com that truly shocked me. That article stated that in today’s Army, roughly half of the officers who are eligible for battalion command are refusing to even be considered for such command. The article’s author, quoting official Army sources, stated that this was a function of officers being unwilling to take on the extraordinary time demands of being a battalion commander and out of a desire for a more sedate form of service for themselves and their families. The article suggests that a career as a staff officer with retirement at 20 years is more palatable than the constant and powerful peacetime and wartime demands of commanding a battalion of many hundreds or thousands of soldiers, even if that decision prohibits ever reaching high rank.

I was shocked. As I posted on X:

“What is going on here? In the Army I grew up in, it was the almost uniform goal of the entire officer corps to become a battalion commander one day. It was the brass ring. It was the validation of all of your training and efforts, and it was the most rewarding job in your career. The only reason to hold tedious staff positions was so you could aspire to one day command a battalion. So now in 2024, officers are happy to wile away the years making PowerPoint slides and making sure the coffee is fresh, and they lack the desire to lead troops? Dear God. The rot in the culture is far worse than I imagined.”

(As background, in all of the military services, not just the Army, command at the O-5 level is the ultimate leadership experience. In the Army and Marine Corps, it means commanding a battalion as a lieutenant colonel. In the Air Force, it means commanding a squadron as a lieutenant colonel. In the Navy, it means commanding a combat warship at the similar O-5 rank of commander. It truly is the greatest reward for those who wish to lead and command, and it is usually the last time in a successful military career that you are down in the dirt (or the bilge) with the troops that you lead. It’s a special time, once coveted by the best leaders.)

I retired from active duty in 2007, so I was looking at this issue from my old-timer perspective. But that’s when X, as the “new news media,” did its job—suddenly my X comments and private messages were flooded with active duty and recently retired officers explaining to me that this phenomenon was not due to a desire to not be overworked (as suggested by the Army itself and the Pentagon-friendly author at Military.com) but was instead due to fear of DEI. DEI has made O-5-level command a risky proposition where a male or a white officer lives in fear of an unfounded DEI complaint that would destroy not only his or her military career but the officer’s reputation as well. The risk of such destruction is outweighing the desire to lead. This is a tragic result.

So let’s say you are a straight, white male Army battalion commander who has a subordinate who happens to be a racial or ethnic minority, or a female, or LGBTQ+. Let’s also say that the subordinate is a poor performer to whom you give a poor efficiency report or is someone engaged in illegal activity that you prosecute under Article 15 of the Uniform Code of Military Justice. Let’s say that such a poor performer or criminal then goes to the Inspector General (IG) and claims what you have done is motivated solely by racial, ethnic, or gender animus, or homophobia. (Or worse, a female soldier falsely claims you sexually assaulted her.) Back in the day, all such a commander needed to do was show the facts surrounding the issue to the IG, and the IG would go away, satisfied. But not today. Today, such claims tend to result in a presumption of guilt against the commander, which must be conclusively disproven.

As if that is not bad enough, there is a related concept here: so-called “counterproductive leadership.” Basically, counterproductive leadership is the idea that a leader’s actions are so toxic that he or she is not qualified to command. Crazily, “counterproductive leadership” (or “toxic leadership”) can be evidenced merely by such abstract concepts as subordinates refusing to look a leader in the eye or leaders holding poor performers to account for their poor performance. I’m fairly certain that iconic military leaders like George S. Patton and William “Bull” Halsey, Jr. would be considered purveyors of “counterproductive leadership” in today’s military environment, and mythical characters like Gunnery Sergeant Thomas Highway would likely be in the stockade.

“Counterproductive leadership” then gets linked to something else: “loss of confidence” by a commander’s chain of command. This is the idea that a commander’s superiors relieved him or her from command for unspecified reasons—including “counterproductive leadership.” In the past ten years, an unprecedented number of senior leaders (O-5 and above) have been relieved from command for this very “loss of confidence” reason. (Do a simple Google search and you’ll see what I mean.)

So let me please break down for you how this is all connected. Despite the fact that many commanders are, in fact, relieved for legitimately horrific reasons, many others are relieved according to the following, specious chain of events:

1. A unit commander disciplines a minority, female, or LGBTQ+ subordinate who legitimately committed some form of wrongdoing or was a poor performer.

2. The subordinate then files a race/ethnicity/gender/religion/sexuality discrimination complaint against the unit commander with the IG, claiming the discipline was unwarranted and was actually motivated by racial/ethnic/gender/religious/LGBTQ+ animus.

3. The unit commander is presumed guilty until proven innocent.

4. The IG then determines the unit commander is innocent.

5. Despite the IG’s determination, the unit commander’s higher chain of command determines that “counterproductive leadership” was the cause of the unfounded and disproven IG complaint—a complaint that presumably would never have occurred had the unit commander displayed “productive leadership.”

6. “Counterproductive leadership” causes the unit commander’s chain of command to determine it has “lost confidence” in the unit commander.

7. The unit commander is then relieved from command duties by his or her higher chain of command due to such loss of confidence.

8. Stars and Stripes and Military.com then publicly report the ex-commander’s relief for cause.

9. The ex-commander then becomes depressed and starts drinking heavily; the ex-commander cannot find a civilian job because his reputation has been publicly destroyed; the ex-commander’s wife and kids leave him; the now-broke ex-commander moves into a seedy one-bedroom apartment in San Francisco’s Tenderloin district, where he is later arrested for fentanyl distribution.

(OK, I made #9 up—but I’m sure you can see how that fear of reputational destruction is valid and real.)

But that sequence of #1 through #8 that I just told you about? It’s real, without any exaggeration. There are senior folks I know personally who have suffered from this exact phenomenon. However, I’m not just speaking on this subject from personal knowledge (and back to X as the real news purveyor of the modern era), as my X feed has been overwhelmed with expressions of just what I wrote above. I have written some controversial X takes before that have garnered millions of views, but none of those resulted in so many detailed recountings of the exact same tale of woe as my discussion on this command issue did.

I’ll offer two examples out of many presented by my X followers.

My first comes from a current DoD member who is uniquely qualified in their duty position to understand the issue of O-5 command selection and the current related problems (and therefore said person requests anonymity):

“I work in a position where I encounter many of the O-5s and E-9s in that group [for prospective command]. An alarming amount of them seem low-key dreading facing the “weaponized investigation” culture that is currently pervasive. Combine that with the paltry manning (but perception from higher that everything must still get done as if they were 100%), and it is absolutely not surprising to me that the command opt-in is down.”

Then this from a recently retired Army colonel:

“100% accurate about jeopardy for commanders. I spent 75% of my last deployment conducting investigations. Did 78 AR 15-6 investigations in 9 months. The biggest problem are the sharp complaints and the “counterproductive leadership complaints.” Those are used for revenge and get out of jail. The “counterproductive leadership” complaints are virtually impossible to counter and even if you do no one escapes unscathed. Finally the religious exemptions for grooming and uniform standards are an EO trap—no matter how ridiculous the claim you have to be crazy to recommend denial because who are you to say it’s not a “sincerely held religious belief?” Deny it and you are prejudiced. Many of the active component majors and lieutenant colonels I worked with said they had zero interest in battalion command or brigade command because they were terrified of the endless investigations. It’s much less of a problem in the National Guard and USAR… until you mobilize. Then it’s the same problem.”

These are merely two of many such communications I have received. Are you sensing a pattern here?

Let me break it down one more time, as it was news to me when I finally figured it out, and it is probably news to anybody else who has not been in the U.S. military fairly recently. Here it is. Our senior civilian and military leadership in the Department of Defense have created a DEI climate across all military services where leadership at the key level of O-5 command is impossible. As a result, the best-qualified O-5s are running from command out of a legitimate fear of life-destroying lies that will stain their reputations like a scarlet letter.

The most disturbing part of all of this, however, is what the DEI cancer does at the tactical unit level to combat readiness. A military unit or warship cannot function as a combat-effective force when its commander lives in the shadow of the fear of unfounded subordinate retribution. It cannot. It is as if there is constant fear of mutiny or a gnawing sense of uneasiness that the unit you command is populated by an unknown number of zampolit. Leadership and discipline fail, unit cohesion crumbles, and the entire system disintegrates as combat effectiveness evaporates. Worst of all, the service members in such a combat-ineffective unit or ship will suffer—and some will die—as a result.

One more thing: if the best and brightest are running in fear from command, who is taking command? Answer: the “woke,” DEI-compliant officers; and because they are the ones taking command, they will necessarily one day become the officers at the top of the pyramid who make all the key military decisions. Or perhaps they are already there.

All of this leads to a very simple and devastating conclusion: if U.S. military commanders cannot command effectively, how can the U.S. military ever again win a war?

Pete Hegseth, please unwind the tyranny and combat ineffectiveness of this DEI cancer at all levels, from the Joint Chiefs of Staff all the way down to the infantry private walking point. Please. Our nation’s future depends upon it.

***

Cynical Publius is the nom de plume of a retired U.S. Army colonel, veteran of Iraq and Afghanistan, and reformed denizen of the Pentagon who is now a practicing corporate law attorney. You can follow Cynical Publius on X at @CynicalPublius.

Authored by Ilene Eng via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

Garry Nolan, a prominent Stanford professor and inventor in DNA gene therapy, is also researching something out of this world: UFOs.

He talked to EpochTV’s “Bay Area Innovators” about how he became interested in UFO research and how he became the founder of the Sol Foundation, a premier research center for unidentified anomalous phenomena (UAP).

Nolan first set foot in the field when he was given the DNA sequence of a six-inch, human-like mummy that was discovered in Chile’s Atacama Desert in 2003. People started calling it an ‘alien mummy.’ In 2012, he started analyzing its DNA and studied it in his spare time. He brought in a larger team of scientists to look at it as well.

“We basically said, OK, this is human, and here are the mutations that we think might relate to what it looks like. And that was really all we did,” said Nolan. “We published it, and I actually didn’t expect it to be that big of a deal. It went worldwide. I mean, every newspaper. I mean, you think about it in retrospect, what’s a better click bait than ‘Stanford professor sequences alien baby,’ right?”

He became one of the few scientists out there who was willing to talk about unexplained phenomena and apply science to it.

Because of that, the government has asked him to help investigate military and diplomatic personnel who were being harmed in unknown ways, some of whom admitted to hearing buzzing in their ears and claimed to have seen UFOs.

“They started bringing out X-rays and MRIs of the internal scarring that had gone on with some of these individuals. And so I said, OK, well, that’s clear. That’s not imagined, that’s not a hallucination,” he said. “And so I then got involved with three or four years looking at these individuals, and it turned out … the majority of those patients that we had were actually the first of the recognized, or what I would think of as recognized, Havana Syndrome.”

According to the National Institutes of Health (NIH), U.S. government personnel stationed in Havana, Cuba, first reported experiencing anomalous health incidents like hearing noise, headaches, dizziness, cognitive dysfunction, and other symptoms, also known as Havana Syndrome. However, when they underwent an MRI scan, there was no significant evidence of brain injury or biological abnormalities. Researchers found that over 80 U.S. government employees stationed abroad experienced these abnormalities.

“I don’t need to agree that they saw a UFO. I need to just understand that they saw something that they interpreted as a UFO. That doesn’t matter to me. It’s what happened to them and medically is what’s important. And if you have it happening in different people around the country, then you’re entering a realm where it’s reproducible, or at least you’re getting people coming in with reproducible experiences. So it’s kind of starting to become science,” explained Nolan.

Later, he became friends with a well-known venture capitalist and UFO researcher, Jacques Vallée. Together they looked at the molten metal remains after an alleged UFO sighting in Council Bluffs, Iowa, in December 1977. They tried to replicate the substance and see if there was anything new they could learn. After conducting a spatial analysis with one of his instruments called the multiplex, they found that the molten remains were an uneven mixture of metals.

“Now I have three other metals from Australia, from nearby, as it turns out, and other places around the world where the same pattern of events occurs,” said Nolan. “Something is seen. It drops off this metal. The metals are different each time. One of them is like aluminum. Another one is almost pure silicon, and pure to the level that you would need a Silicon Valley foundry to make. But it was dropped in the middle of a beach in Ubatuba, [Brazil] pounds and pounds and pounds of it.”

According to Nolan, since there are many questions surrounding such data, he wants to analyze it and put the information out there for others.

“The government has already said UFOs are real in some ways. … At least, the data is real,” said Nolan.

In November, a bipartisan group of lawmakers hosted a congressional hearing on UAP.

Witnesses testified about the threat to national security posed by potential incursions into U.S. airspace, while accusing the Pentagon of shrouding many UAP documents in secrecy.

“Don’t wait for Daddy Government to do something. Disclosure can come from the public. Waiting for the government to make up its mind is like waiting for them to, you know, refund your tax check. Don’t sit around waiting for it. Go out and do it yourself,” said Nolan.

Since the hearing, there have been more reports about drone and UAP sightings across the country, with the most recent reports coming from New Jersey.

Authored by Brandon Smith via Alt-Market.us

It happens every year around December, a predictable flurry of pseudo-psychology articles from low-IQ progressives expounding on the negatives of Christmas. On top of that, there’s been a pipeline of anti-Christmas films coming out of Hollywood the past decade, including some real woke bombs depicting Santa as a corporatist, a racist and a woman hater.

It’s been going on so long that in the early 2000s conservatives dubbed the annual practice the “War on Christmas”. However, at that time people on the political right assumed the vitriol was aimed at Christianity in general. What many didn’t realize is that the hatred wasn’t only about religious differences.

Around 70% of atheists identify as Democrats according to surveys, with 15% identifying as Republican and another 15% having no party affiliation. It makes sense that the majority of Christmas critics are on the political left and that their distaste of the holiday season is driven by their anti-Christian views.

After all, the political left is so obsessed with destroying Christianity that they continue to repeat the false narrative that Christmas is a “pagan holiday” and that all the traditions are stolen and repurposed. This claim is debunked every year and yet every year they keep trying to bring it back.

The pagan celebration of “Yule” often associated with Christmas by ignorant academics has always been a completely separate tradition with separate practices. As Christianity became the dominant religion in Europe, pagan groups would meld elements of their previous traditions with newly introduced Christian holidays. Every serious study of Yule admits the distinct separation between the pagan celebration and Christmas.

The Christmas tree is also a purely Christian idea, based on the stories surrounding Saint Boniface. Boniface sought to convert the pagan tribes of Germany in 725 AD and chopped down what was known as “Odin’s Sacred Oak”, a tree used by the pagans as a site for human sacrifice. A small fir tree grew in its place and was dubbed the “Tree of Christ”.

By extension Santa Claus is often wrongly associated with pagan characters; he is in fact based on the very real Saint Nicholas, a monk who traveled the known world around 280 AD, giving away his wealth and helping children in need. His good deeds became legendary and by the Renaissance he was the most popular saint in Europe. His feast day was celebrated on the day of his death (December 6^th), and it was common practice to buy large gifts or get married around this time every year.

The name “Santa Claus” comes from the Dutch, who first brought the celebration of Nicholas over to the American colonies in the 1700s. They called him “Sinter Klaas”, short for Saint Nicholas. And, if you look at some of the very old fresco paintings of Saint Nicholas you’ll find he looks rather similar to the modern day folk character version of Santa Claus.

When the claims of pagan co-option failed to yield any results, leftists turned to more woke methods to undermine the Christmas holiday. Going beyond religion, progressives have even sought to take down Santa Claus.

You would think a guy that goes around giving away his wealth and helping the poor would immediately appeal to socialist leftists who claim to be the guardians of the underclass, but that’s not really the case. They say the biggest problem is that Santa is “white” and that he represents the western world’s habit of making white people the “default”. I would argue that this is a smokescreen for other problems the leftists don’t want to fully admit to, but let’s start with race…

Black Santa Claus

The leftist trend in recent years has been to hijack Santa Claus and make him non-white (as they have tried to do with almost every other icon of the west). They pushed hard to make “Black Santa” a thing over the past few years and it’s not working out for them.

This is not to say that black people can’t dress up as Santa Claus; they can do as they please. However, the idea of taking a centuries old western figure based on a real person and then co-opting their image and pretending like this doesn’t matter – Isn’t this the evil practice of cultural appropriation that leftists accuse white people of doing all the time?

Let’s be clear, the default of western culture IS white. White people created it and built it and so most of our celebrated figures are going to be white people also. Leftists are never going to successfully sell Black Santa as a cultural norm, just as it would be impossible to steal African folk heroes and turn them white.

Santa Takes Credit Away From Parents?

Another common argument I hear against the idea of Santa Claus is that parents are pressured to purchase gifts for their children on Christmas while telling them that those toys are coming from a fantasy figure (and a white fantasy figure, too! Oh, the horror!). Progressives want their children to give THEM credit for the money spend on gifts, not a magical white guy in a red suit.

Not surprisingly, these people have missed the point of gift giving on Christmas, though it is funny to see leftists essentially arguing in favor of meritocracy and individual recognition.

I see the idea of Santa Claus as very useful, not only as a way to bring a little wonder into the tradition for children, but also as a way to keep adult egos in check. Giving Santa credit for a gift is a valuable exercise in humility that every parent needs. The gift should not be about you, it’s about the happiness that the gift inspires.

Gift giving is not a trade for adoration, but that’s exactly how narcissists see it. And since the political left is absolutely infected with narcissism these days it’s not surprising that they hate Santa Claus for taking attention away from them at Christmastime.

Santa Has A Naughty List, But What If You’re A Moral Relativist?

Keep in mind that a lot of progressive academics that write criticisms of the holidays don’t have any kids. They are childless cat ladies and beta males with no experience in creating and caring for a family. Their opinions are worthless when it comes to child rearing (and most other things). That said, this doesn’t seem to stop them from giving advice on the trappings of teaching kids the value of morality and the consequences of their actions.

It might be a fading tradition but for the longest time parents have told children to be on their best behavior around Christmas because if they don’t they could end up on Santa’s naughty list and get coal in their stockings. Leftists argue that this punishment and rewards system should not be a part of Christmas.

Firstly, people without kids don’t understand that when the youngsters are on a school break for two weeks straight and everyone is stuck together in close quarters in a house in winter there is a need sometimes for extra policing. You use whatever tools are at your disposal because reasoning with children only works half the time. Their brains aren’t fully formed yet (like woke activists), and they tend to act out wildly based on impulse and emotion.

I really don’t think that lefties are particularly upset by the idea of Santa having a naughty list (I’ve never met a well adjusted parent that went beyond the threat and didn’t have presents for their sons and daughters on Christmas). I think they are upset by the idea of moral compass and discipline. They seem to think that children simply raise themselves and that the parents never need to do anything to mold them into proper adults.

This is exactly why our society is in a death spiral today; because progressives have convinced so many parents to stop parenting.

Santa (Like Christ) Represents Individual And Voluntary Charity

Leftists are socialists (or communists) – It’s the foundation of almost all their beliefs, and the root of socialism is the sacrifice of the individual for the sake of the collective. Meaning, the government in the name of the majority must intervene in the affairs of individuals in order to force them to serve the interests of the group.

In other words, leftists believe that the environment determines everything and people will not do good for society unless they are extorted into it by the system. In a way they fulfill their own prophecy by making it almost impossible through the legal environment to do good for others unless you have permission from the authorities.

Over the years I have noticed that one highly destructive side effect of socialism is the exponential decline in personal charity. If the government handles everything, why should the average person take action to help others? Why even care? And if you do still care, it doesn’t matter because the system will punish you for acting on your own accord.

There’s a reason why socialist and communist regimes are mostly atheist and seek to eliminate Christianity through history; the government must become god and they can’t allow any alternatives to exist. When you see progressive governments ban private charity activities or prosecute people who go out on their own to help the homeless, you might be confused and wonder what the motivation could possibly be?

It makes perfect sense when you realize that leftists see voluntary charity as competition with their own god (government). In the past they have even tried to misrepresent Jesus as an early socialist figure, when in fact Jesus promoted individual acts of compassion, not deferring to a government authority.

The underlying impetus for socialism is forced wealth redistribution, but in a world of voluntary charity there is no need for governments to control wealth or property. That is to say, socialists exploit the existence of poverty as an excuse to take control of all personal wealth (and thus control the population). They can’t do that when Christianity, Christmas and symbols like Santa Claus show people there’s a better way.

China’s economy is facing a series of significant challenges, including a property crisis and high youth unemployment.

After decades of rapid growth, the country is now expected to experience less economic growth than other Asian nations.

This graphic, via Visual Capitalist’s Bruno Venditti, illustrates the projected growth of per-capita GDP for selected Asian nations between 2023 and 2026, based on data compiled by HSBC as of November 2024.

Chinese Economy Lagging

India and Southeast Asian nations are projected to achieve an average per-capita GDP growth of 6.5% over the 2023–2026 period.

Most of these economies are expected to thrive, bolstered by youthful demographics, a rising middle class, strong foreign and domestic private investment flows, and a booming technology sector.

China, however, is forecasted to experience an average per-capita GDP growth of just 3.9%. To address these economic challenges, China’s top leaders have signaled plans for stronger stimulus measures to help fill gaps in consumer demand.

Senior Chinese officials have also indicated plans for increased government spending and further interest rate cuts.

The ruling Communist Party faces a “long, long battle” to reflate the economy, according to Robin Xing, chief China economist at Morgan Stanley, who told Bloomberg Television that 2025 will “be the year of trying.”

“Maybe by 2026, they will finally find the right dose of policies — a combination of consumption-centric stimulus plus social safety net reform,” Xing added.

If you enjoyed this graphic, make sure check out The G7 is Looking More and More American, that shows the U.S. alone accounts for more than half of the combined G7 output in PPP-adjusted terms.

Authored by James Taylor via RealClearPolicy,

How do you restore a bloated and misdirected U.S. Department of Energy to its originally intended purpose of assuring affordable and reliable American energy? The answer is to appoint a highly knowledgeable and successful energy producer to the position of Energy Secretary. Donald Trump made the perfect pick in Chris Wright.

A mechanical and electrical engineer by training, Chris Wright is one of the people most responsible for the fracking revolution that freed America from the whims of hostile oil producers like Iran and Venezuela. He is currently the CEO of Liberty Energy, an oil and natural gas servicing company at the forefront of American oil and natural gas production. He also sits on the board of directors of Oklo Inc., an advanced nuclear technology company.

In other words, Wright possesses impressive knowledge and experience regarding a broad array of energy sources and technologies, and he has a track record of successfully bringing those energy options into the marketplace.

Perhaps most appealing about Wright is his refusal to give in to pressure tactics from leftist climate and environment activist groups. “There is no climate crisis, and we’re not in the midst of an energy transition, either,” said Wright on his LinkedIn page. Countering leftist fearmongering, Wright has visually illustrated that fracking fluid is not dangerous by drinking it in public. 

What Chris Wright affirmatively stands for is an America that dictates energy policy to the rest of the world rather than being held captive by it. America has more oil, coal, and natural gas resources than any other nation on Earth, but we rarely act like it. Under presidents Obama and Biden, government policy was to restrict American energy production under climate change rationale and then beg nations like Venezuela and Saudi Arabia to export more oil to us. Under Trump and Chris Wright, American energy policy will return to holding our energy destiny in our own hands.

The beauty of abundant domestic energy production is that if there is a Middle East crisis, or if OPEC decides to tighten its oil production, America is the nation that most benefits from the rising prices, rather than Russia, Iran, and Venezuela. More American energy production means prices are likely to return to Trump-era lows – but any foreign events that put pressure on energy markets will benefit America rather than other nations.

Under Chris Wright, the U.S. Department of Energy will focus on spurring affordable and reliable American energy, not creating massive and ineffective boondoggles for climate change virtue-signaling. This is in stark contrast to the Department of Energy under the Biden administration and current Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm. 

Granholm is a career politician and a partisan Democrat best known for giving overcaffeinated speeches at the 2012 and 2016 Democratic National Conventions. The Democrat-controlled U.S. Senate in 2021 approved Granholm as Energy Secretary despite Granholm having absolutely no specialized experience or knowledge regarding energy issues. The result was predictable. 

The Biden-Granholm DOE website lists climate change as a “top priority” of the DOE and boasts about all the DOE programs and DOE money being spent on climate change – instead of assuring affordable and reliable American energy. Yes, the percentage of wind and solar power in the American electricity mix rose from 11 percent in 2020 to 15 percent in 2024. The result of adding such expensive and unreliable energy to our electricity mix is that electricity prices rose a staggering 23 percent under Biden-Granholm, after rising less than 1 percent per year in the decade before Biden-Granholm.

Biden-Granholm’s effect on gasoline prices is even worse. Gasoline prices averaged just $2.48 under the Trump administration. They are averaging $3.45 under Biden-Granholm, which is 39 percent higher than under Trump.

Americans gave Donald Trump a mandate to halt runaway energy inflation. Americans want affordable and reliable energy rather than climate change virtue signaling. With a Department of Energy under the vision and leadership of Chris Wright, America will once again return to energy affordability and energy dominance. Wright is the perfect man for the job. 

James Taylor (JTaylor@heartland.org) is President of The Heartland Institute.