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"The question is, why are politicians so eager to be president? What is it about the job that makes it worth revealing, on national television, that you have the ethical standards of a slime-coated piece of industrial waste?"

-- Dave Barry

News and Opinion

When The Show Is Over, The Actors Hold Hands And Take A Bow

President Biden and President Elect Trump met at the White House on Wednesday and shook hands and exchanged pleasantries after an emotionally exhausting presidential race in which each side accused the other of presenting an immediate existential threat to the country.

This is it. This is the real story. This image, right here.

Heartwarming to see the genocide baton passed with such decorum and grace pic.twitter.com/3u6pV49FzV

— (@gumby4christ) November 13, 2024

Ignore all the fake drama. Forget all the campaign rhetoric and kayfabe conflict. This is what’s real. This is what deserves your attention.

They do not hate each other. They do not see one another as an existential threat to the nation. They are not enemies. They’re barely even opponents. When the show is over they hug and kiss like boxers after weeks of phony trash talk made solely to sell pay-per-views.

One may say his opponent is the next Hitler, coming to end democracy and take everyone’s votes and destroy the country. The other may say his opponent is a communist dictator, come to do the same. But when the play is over the performers hold hands and bow, and then they go out and have a drink together.

They each pretend to be fighting against each other in defense of you and your interests, when in reality they’re on the same side, fighting against you, in defense of the interests of oligarchy and empire.

You can see it right there. They’re not hiding it anymore. They don’t have to. It was all a show, and they’re openly admitting it. A friendly match, like two rich ladies playing tennis at the Hamptons.

They can show it openly because they know most of you won’t pay attention to what you are seeing, or if you do you’ll forget all about it and get swept up in the heat of the next election cycle. There’s so much messaging reinforcing the illusory partisan divide that these tacit little admissions tend to go completely overlooked.

Don’t get me wrong, the depravity of Trump himself is not illusory. Real people are going to suffer and die under his administration, just as real people suffered and died under Biden’s. But they themselves know they have nothing to fear. They and the powers they serve will go completely untouched by the imperial murder machine. They will die of old age surrounded by wealth and luxury, completely free from any consequences for their actions.

It was all a sham. Always is. The elections are fake and the game is rigged. The empire will march on completely uninterrupted and entirely unchanged, served by one fraudulent president after the next until its eventual collapse.

Dmitry Orlov: Israel Sinking Deeper Than Ever - Ukraine Facing Total Defeat

Turkey cuts all trade with Israel as ties fray

Turkey moved to suspend all trade ties with Israel, the Turkish Trade Ministry announced on Thursday. The ministry said the decision marks the second phase of the measure, which Turkey launched in April by imposing a series of export restrictions in its trade with Israel.

“The Israeli government continues its aggressive attitude, and the humanitarian tragedy in Palestine is worsening, as per observed,” the official statement said. “All export and import transactions concerning Israel have been halted, covering all products. Turkey will strictly and decisively implement the new measures until the Israeli government allows an uninterrupted and sufficient flow of humanitarian aid to Gaza,” the late-night statement added.

The ministry added that it was working with its counterpart within the Palestinian Authority to ensure that Palestinians living in occupied West Bank are not affected by the halt. The move was first reported by Bloomberg earlier in the day.

Israeli Foreign Minister Israel Katz separately said that Ankara had also started to block Israeli imports and exports at Turkish ports. “This is how a dictator behaves, disregarding the interests of the Turkish people and businessmen, and ignoring international trade agreements,” Katz wrote on social media platform X. Accusing Turkey of breaking trade agreements, Katz said he instructed the Israeli Foreign Ministry to pursue alternatives for trade, focusing on “local production and imports from other countries.”

US intelligence official charged after Israel’s plan to attack Iran leaked

A US intelligence official has been charged with espionage offenses following an investigation into the leak last month of highly classified documents detailing Israel’s plans for military attacks on Iran.

Asif W Rahman, who works for the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), will appear in court in Guam on Thursday charged with two counts of willful retention and transmission of national defense information, the New York Times reported on Wednesday. The newspaper said FBI agents arrested Rahman in Cambodia on Tuesday following his indictment last week in federal court in Virginia. ...

The documents related to Israel’s military planning for a retaliatory strike on Iran following the 1 October missile barrage that was Tehran’s largest-ever assault on its regional foe and an escalation of the Middle East conflict sparked by the Hamas terrorist attacks on Israel in October 2023.

Report from Gaza: Palestinians Feel They Are Being "Slowly Exterminated" in Israel's Genocide

Is there any red line that Israel will be held to? Biden has just confirmed the answer is no

This is a story about an apparently invincible fortress: the west’s official narrative about Israel’s war on Gaza. No matter how depraved the atrocity, or overwhelming the evidence, or confessed-to the crime, the fortress will not crumble. In fact, even when Israel flagrantly insults its main sponsor, the US, as it did this week, nothing changes.

The case in point here starts with a letter that the US sent to Israel last month, which set out in detail how life-saving aid was being systematically blocked from entering Gaza and threatened undefined action if specific demands to reverse the siege were not taken within 30 days. As the Democratic senator Chris Van Hollen suggested, the letter was a political ruse to woo voters in the run-up to the election (given most Democratic voters correctly believe that Israel is committing genocide).

And what happened? Despite a coalition of aid agencies concluding Israel “failed to meet any of the specific criteria set out in the US letter”, and indeed “took actions that dramatically worsened the situation on the ground”, offering a score card that detailed Israel’s overwhelming non-compliance with supposed US demands, the deadline passed on 12 November and the US did nothing. “US says no policy consequences for Israel despite lack of Gaza aid”, as a headline in the Washington Post succinctly put it.

Aaron Maté : Is Trump a Neocon?

Unrwa shutdown by Israel would add to Gaza suffering, says top official

Israel’s plan to close the UN Palestinian relief agency, Unrwa, within three months is impossible and unrealistic without causing further untold suffering to the Palestinian people, its director of operations in Gaza has warned.

Just returned from Gaza, where he said he had seen levels of suffering unprecedented since the war started, Sam Rose warned that Unrwa could collapse, with severe implications for schools and hospitals not just in Gaza but in the West Bank if Israel went ahead with its plan.

He was speaking the day after the US government stepped back from taking any action against Israel for failing to meet most of its demands to improve the supply of humanitarian aid to Gaza. The Biden administration said the humanitarian aid operation into Gaza was “not pristine” but Israel was taking steps to meet the US demands, set out in a letter, including opening new crossings.

One of the requirements was for Israel to recognise that Unrwa remained the only viable means of providing services to Gaza. But since that letter was sent, the Israeli parliament in October passed two new laws requiring the Israeli government to end cooperation and contact with Unrwa. The plan is due to be imposed within three months. ...

Elise Stefanik, Donald Trump’s choice as his administration’s ambassador to the UN, has described Unrwa as a “terrorist front” and “Hamas infiltrated”, suggesting US funding for Unrwa, currently suspended until next year, will soon be ended permanently. More importantly, the future Trump administration is not expected to urge Israel to pull back from ending cooperation with Unrwa.

Trump's foreign policy team puts Israel first

What Will US Wars Look Like in Trump's Hands?

When Donald Trump takes office on January 20th, all his campaign promises to end the war in Ukraine in 24 hours and almost as quickly end Israel’s war on its neighbors will be put to the test. The choices he has made for his incoming administration so far, from Marco Rubio as Secretary of State to Mike Waltz as National Security Advisor, Pete Hegseth as Secretary of Defense and Elise Stefanik as UN Ambassador make for a rogues gallery of saber-rattlers.

The only conflict where peace negotiations seem to be on the agenda is Ukraine. In April, both Vice President-elect JD Vance and Senator Marco Rubio voted against a $95 billion military aid bill that included $61 billion for Ukraine.

Rubio recently appeared on NBC’s Today Show saying, “I think the Ukrainians have been incredibly brave and strong when standing up to Russia. But at the end of the day, what we’re funding here is a stalemate war, and it needs to be brought to a conclusion… I think there has to be some common sense here.”

On the campaign trail, Vance made a controversial suggestion that the best way to end the war was for Ukraine to cede the land Russia has seized, for a demilitarized zone to be established, and for Ukraine to become neutral, i.e. not enter NATO. He was roundly criticized by both Republicans and Democrats who argue that backing Ukraine is vitally important to U.S. security since it weakens Russia, which is closely allied with China.

Any attempt by Trump to stop U.S. military support for Ukraine will undoubtedly face fierce opposition from the pro-war forces in his own party, particularly in Congress, as well as perhaps the entirety of the Democratic Party. Two years ago, 30 progressive Democrats in Congress wrote a letter to President Biden asking him to consider promoting negotiations. The party higher ups were so incensed by their lack of party discipline that they came down on the progressives like a ton of bricks. Within 24 hours, the group had cried uncle and rescinded the letter. They have since all voted for money for Ukraine and have not uttered another word about negotiations.

So a Trump effort to cut funds to Ukraine could run up against a bipartisan congressional effort to keep the war going. And let’s not forget the efforts by European countries, and NATO, to keep the U.S. in the fight. Still, Trump could stand up to all these forces and push for a rational policy that would restart the talking and stop the killing.

The Middle East, however, is a more difficult situation. In his first term, Trump showed his pro-Israel cards when he brokered the Abraham accords between several Arab countries and Israel; moved the U.S. embassy to a location in Jerusalem that is partly on occupied land outside Israel’s internationally recognized borders; and recognized the occupied Golan Heights in Syria as part of Israel. Such unprecedented signals of unconditional U.S. support for Israel’s illegal occupation and settlements helped set the stage for the current crisis.

Trump seems as unlikely as Biden to cut U.S. weapons to Israel, despite public opinion polls favoring such a halt and a recent UN human rights report showing that 70% of the people killed by those U.S. weapons are women and children.

Meanwhile, the wily Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu is already busy getting ready for a second Trump presidency. On the very day of the U.S. election, Netanyahu fired his defense minister, Yoav Gallant, who opposed a lasting Israeli military occupation of Gaza and had at times argued for prioritizing the lives of the Israeli hostages over killing more Palestinians.

Israel Katz, the new defense minister and former foreign minister, is more hawkish than Gallant, and has led a campaign to falsely blame Iran for the smuggling of weapons from Jordan into the West Bank.

Other powerful voices, national security minister Itamar Ben-Gvir and finance minister Bezalel Smotrich, who is also a “minister in the Defense Ministry,” represent extreme Zionist parties that are publicly committed to territorial expansion, annexation and ethnic cleansing. They both live in illegal Israeli settlements in the occupied West Bank.

So Netanyahu has deliberately surrounded himself with allies who back his ever-escalating war. They are surely developing a war plan to exploit Trump’s support for Israel, but will first use the unique opportunity of the U.S. transition of power to create facts on the ground that will limit Trump’s options when he takes office.

The Israelis will doubtless redouble their efforts to drive Palestinians out of as much of Gaza as possible, confronting President Trump with a catastrophic humanitarian crisis in which Gaza’s surviving population is crammed into an impossibly small area, with next to no food, no shelter for many, disease running rampant, and no access to needed medical care for tens of thousands of horribly wounded and dying people.

The Israelis will count on Trump to accept whatever final solution they propose, most likely to drive Palestinians out of Gaza, into the West Bank, Jordan, Egypt and farther afield.

Israel threatened all along to do to Lebanon the same as they have done to Gaza. Israeli forces have met fierce resistance, taken heavy casualties, and have not advanced far into Lebanon. But, as in Gaza, they are using bombing and artillery to destroy villages and towns, kill or drive people north and hope to effectively annex the part of Lebanon south of the Litani river as a so-called “buffer zone.” When Trump takes office, they may ask for greater U.S. involvement to help them “finish the job.”

The big wild card is Iran. Trump’s first term in office was marked by a policy of “maximum pressure” against Tehran. He unilaterally withdrew America from the Iran nuclear deal, imposed severe sanctions that devastated the economy, and ordered the killing of the country’s top general. Trump did not support a war on Iran in his first term, but had to be talked out of attacking Iran in his final days in office by General Mark Milley and the Pentagon.

Colin Powell’s former chief of staff, retired Colonel Lawrence Wilkerson, recently described to Chris Hedges just how catastrophic a war with Iran would be, based on U.S.military wargames he was involved in.

Wilkerson predicts that a U.S. war on Iran could last for ten years, cost $10 trillion and still fail to conquer Iran. Airstrikes alone would not destroy all of Iran’s civilian nuclear program and ballistic missile stockpiles. So, once unleashed, the war would very likely escalate into a regime change war involving U.S. ground forces, in a country with three or four times the territory and population of Iraq, more mountainous terrain and a thousand mile long coastline bristling with missiles that can sink U.S. warships.

But Netanyahu and his extreme Zionist allies believe that they must sooner or later fight an existential war with Iran if they are to realize their vision of a dominant Greater Israel. And they believe that the destruction they have wreaked on the Palestinians in Gaza and Hezbollah in Lebanon, including the assassination of their senior leaders, has given them a military advantage and a favorable opportunity for a showdown with Iran.

By November 10, Trump and Netanyahu had reportedly spoken on the phone three times since the election, and Netanyahu said that they see “eye to eye on the Iranian threat.” Trump has already hired Iran hawk Brian Hook, who helped him sabotage the JCPOA nuclear agreement with Iran in 2018, to coordinate the formation of his foreign policy team.

So far, the team that Trump and Hook have assembled seems to offer some hope for peace in Ukraine, but little to none for peace in the Middle East and a rising danger of a U.S.-Israeli war on Iran.

Trump’s expected National Security Advisor Mike Waltz is best known as a China hawk. He has voted against military aid to Ukraine in Congress, but he recently tweeted that Israel should bomb Iran’s nuclear and oil facilities, the most certain path to a full-scale war.

Trump’s new UN ambassador, Elise Stefanik, has led moves in Congress to equate criticism of Israel with anti-semitism, and she led the aggressive questioning of American university presidents at an anti-semitism hearing in Congress, after which the presidents of Harvard and Penn resigned.

So, while Trump will have some advisors who support his desire to end the war in Ukraine, there will be few voices in his inner circle urging caution over Netanyahu’s genocidal ambitions in Palestine and his determination to cripple Iran.

If he wanted to, President Biden could use his final two months in office to de-escalate the conflicts in the Middle East. He could impose an embargo on offensive weapons for Israel, push for serious ceasefire negotiations in both Gaza and Lebanon, and work through U.S. partners in the Gulf to de-escalate tensions with Iran.

But Biden is unlikely to do any of that. When his own administration sent a letter to Israel last month, threatening a cut in military aid if Israel did not allow a surge of humanitarian aid into Gaza in the next 30 days, Israel responded by doing just the opposite–actually cutting the number of trucks allowed in. The State Department claimed Israel was taking “steps in the right direction” and Biden refused to take any action.

We will soon see if Trump is able to make progress in moving the Ukraine war towards negotiations, potentially saving the lives of many thousands of Ukrainians and Russians. But between the catastrophe that Trump will inherit and the warhawks he is picking for his cabinet, peace in the Middle East seems more distant than ever.

NYT CAUGHT Deleting Fake Amsterdam Video

Prof. John Mearsheimer : Should the US Be at War With China?

Key US inflation measure ticks higher for first time since March

The consumer price index (CPI), which measures price growth across a basket of goods, ticked up to an annual pace of 2.6% in October – from 2.4% in September, which had been the slowest rate in more than three years.

Stripping out volatile food and energy costs, the closely watched “core” inflation index held firm at 3.3%. The reading was in line with economists’ expectations.

Though inflation has fallen dramatically since peaking at a four-decade high in summer 2022, many Americans are still under pressure after years of price increases.

Frustration over the cost of living appeared to play a major role in the election, with exit polls indicating that the majority of Republican voters were frustrated with the US economy and their financial situation.

On the campaign trail, Donald Trump proffered tax cuts and tariffs as solutions, but questions have been raised about what such policies will actually mean for inflation.

Media Melts Down Over Tulsi Gabbard's Nomination

Trump’s New “ISRAEL FIRST” Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth

Pentagon stunned after Trump picks Pete Hegseth for defence secretary

The Pentagon has been stunned by Donald Trump’s pick for defence secretary, Pete Hegseth, a national guard veteran and Fox News presenter who has called for a purge of generals for pursuing “woke” diversity policies.

Hegseth has questioned whether the chair of the joint chiefs of staff, Gen Charles Brown, was given the top job because he is black and accused him of “pursuing the radical positions of leftwing politicians”. Hegseth was a major in the Minnesota national guard who served as a prison guard at Guantánamo Bay detention camp and served in Iraq and Afghanistan before becoming an outspoken rightwing critic of the military.

He has argued for faster provision of more US weapons to Ukraine for its defence against Russia, but also called US Nato membership into question. His nomination is also a boost for the far right in Israel, as he has shown support for territorial expansion and suggested that Jews could build a new temple on the sacred compound around al-Aqsa mosque in Jerusalem, known to Jews as the Temple Mount.

Hegseth told an audience in Jerusalem in 2018: “There’s no reason why the miracle of the re-establishment of the temple on the Temple Mount is not possible.” ...

Trump’s nomination of Hegseth, 44, a chatshow commentator with minimal managerial experience, to run the US military establishment with 1.3 million active-duty service members and the nearly 1 million civilian staff has taken Congress and the Pentagon by surprise. Adam Smith, the top Democrat on the house armed services committee, said: “There is reason for concern that this is not a person who is a serious enough policymaker, serious enough policy implementer, to do a successful job.”

Military officials described the choice as having come “out of the blue”, the Army Times reported, and it quoted an unnamed senior military officer as saying the choice raised concerns about whether Hegseth had the experience to manage a government department with a budget of more than $800bn.

Matt Gaetz Picked As Trump AG: Establishment Dems & GOP OUTRAGED

Matt Gaetz resigns from Congress after Trump attorney general nomination

Donald Trump said he will nominate Florida congressman Matt Gaetz to be the US attorney general on Wednesday, tapping a far-right loyalist to one of the most powerful positions in US government.

Late on Wednesday evening, Gaetz resigned from Congress, ending the ethics inquiry by the House ethics committee over allegations including sexual misconduct.

Gaetz’s nomination is one of the most significant to date. As attorney general, he would be the country’s chief law enforcement officer and oversee the legal positions that the government takes on key issues, including abortion, civil rights laws, and first amendment issues. The president-elect has pledged to use the justice department to prosecute his political enemies and there is little doubt that Gaetz will help him fulfill that pledge. ...

“Are you not entertained?” said CNN political analyst and Trump ally Scott Jennings in the wake of the news.

Count the Guardian among the outraged. See the full article to get the flavor of sour grapes.

Biden welcomes Trump for fireside chat as he prepares to watch his legacy burn

Nancy Pelosi once said Donald Trump would be “fumigated out” of the Oval Office if he lost the 2020 presidential election. Joe Biden relished describing him as “the former guy” and “loser”. They thought the American nightmare was over.

Then, like in the movies, Democrats woke up in a cold sweat only to realise it wasn’t a dream after all. Instead they are doomed to be supporting players in a sequel. Trump: The Revenge. This time, it’s personal.

“Well, Mr President-elect and former president … ,” Biden began, shaking the right hand of Trump, whose left hand didn’t quite know what to do as he breathed: “Thank you very much, Joe.” Biden settled on, “Donald, congratulations” – the first time he had used his rival’s first name since the attempted assassination of Trump in July. ...

Yet there is still something jarring about Democrats, who 10 days ago were proclaiming Trump a fascist and an existential threat to American democracy, now treating him like just another politician. The normalisation has begun.

Carville ADMITS DEFEAT: Bernie Was Right!

Meat, oil and pesticide industry lobbyists turned out in record numbers at Cop16

Record numbers of business representatives and lobbyists had access to the UN’s latest biodiversity talks, analysis shows. In total 1,261 business and industry delegates registered for Cop16 in Cali, Colombia, which ended in disarray and without significant progress on a number of key issues including nature funding, monitoring biodiversity loss and work on reducing environmentally harmful business subsidies.

The number is more than double the 613 present at the UN’s previous biodiversity conference in 2022. Overall, the number of attendees increased by 46%, making Cop16 the largest UN nature conference yet, although business and industry increased disproportionately. Industry groups working in pharmaceuticals, oil and gas, agrochemicals, food and beverage processing and tech all had more people registered to attend, according to the analysis by DeSmog.

Some question the influence that these companies might have had on the outcomes of the summit negotiations. Sectors with the greatest increases included food and beverage processing (up 460%) and tech (up 333%). The presence of agrochemical, pesticide and seed companies increased by 40% and 24% respectively since Cop15. “We certainly saw a stronger lobbying push for policies that favour agricultural productivity, and that clashed with the conservation goals and the position of civil society,” said Oscar Soria, director of the Common Initiative thinktank. ...

Some groups appeared to have close state-industry relations, with more than a dozen business representatives registered with country delegations, rather than separate business delegations. These included CropLife, which had three members as part of Canada and Brazil’s country delegations. Three representatives from chemical manufacturing company Basf were registered with Mexico and Brazil, while one industry representative from crop company Syngenta entered with Switzerland. Eight representatives of Biotechnology Industry Association of Brazil, a biotech industry lobby group, attended with Brazil’s government delegation. ...

Rob Cooke, who is a member of the British Ecological Society and attended Cop16 as part of a team from the UK Centre for Ecology & Hydrology, said he felt torn about the size of industry presence. “On the one hand, I optimistically see it as sign that nature is being taken seriously in terms of business and finance. ... On the other hand, the pessimist in me worries that industry representatives may use their influence to water down regulations or delay the necessary actions to halt biodiversity loss. Could their presence have contributed to the stalling and breakdown of implementation negotiations? It’s hard to tell, as these conversations likely happened behind closed doors.”

Argentina withdraws negotiators from Cop29 summit

Argentinian negotiators representing the government of the climate science denier Javier Milei have been ordered to withdraw from the Cop29 summit after only three days, adding to concerns about the stability of the Paris agreement.

More than 80 representatives from the South American country are in Baku, Azerbaijan, for two weeks of negotiations about climate finance for the energy transition. Argentina’s far-right leader has previously called the climate crisis a “socialist lie”, and during his election campaign last year he threatened to withdraw from the Paris agreement, though he has since backed down. ...

There is widespread concern about the future of the climate accord after the election in the US of Donald Trump, who has pledged to exit the agreement for the second time. Before the talks, the UN secretary general, António Guterres, said a second US departure might “cripple” the global deal to limit heating to below 2C above preindustrial levels.

There are fears that other countries may leave the international climate agreements, including those led by climate deniers such as Argentina. On Tuesday, Milei spoke with Trump, after which Milei’s spokesperson said Trump had told his Argentinian counterpart he was his “favourite president”.

Also of Interest

Here are some articles of interest, some which defied fair-use abstraction.

Oct 7 2023 - Netanyahoo Knew The Attack Was Coming - He Let It Happen On Purpose

Israel & the Evidence Gap

Trump Picks 'Lobbyist for War Criminals' to Lead Pentagon

Howard Lutnick, the Wall Street Billionaire Staffing Trump’s Cabinet, Hosted a Fundraiser for Hillary Clinton’s Presidential Bid in 2016

Iraqis Tortured at Abu Ghraib Win $42 Million Judgment Against U.S. Military Contractor CACI

EU Kingdom of the Blind, Orban can see

Alex Jones Infowars BOUGHT By The Onion After BILLION DOLLAR Defamation Suit

America Is DONE With Hollywood’s Preaching! w/ Nerdrotic’s Gary Buechler

A Little Night Music

Big Red McHouston (Mickey Baker) - Stranger Blues

Mickey Baker - Spinnin' Rock Boogie

Mickey Baker - Whistle Stop

Mickey Baker - What'd I say

Mickey Baker - Midnight Midnight

Mickey Baker - Barbecue Sauce

Mickey Baker - Shake It Up

Mickey & Sylvia - Love Is Strange

Mickey Baker - She's Dynamite

Mickey Baker - Baby Let's Dance

Young Jessie w/ Mickey Baker - Hit Git and Split