Stuart Jeanne Bramhall's Blog: The Most Revolutionary Act , page 113

Trump 2.0 Crosses Atlantic

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NATO meeting of defense ministers in Brussels on Feb. 13. (NATO, Flickr, CC BY-NC-ND 2.0)

Eight years ago, at precisely this moment in Donald’s Trump’s first term, the new president was pushing his case for a restored détente with Russia. Trump went on to summit with Vladimir Putin five times and conducted at least 16 telephone exchanges with the Russian president.

This was the count by mid–2019. After that and until the end of his term, the Deep State — notably the intelligence apparatus, the Democratic National Committee, and the mass media — had Trump bound in the rope of subterfuge so thoroughly that the relationship developed no further.

The neo-détente Trump favored — that Trump was correct to favor, better put — never came to be. Joe Biden and his people, to state the obvious, were by contrast neo–Cold Warriors — mere ideologues, neoliberals wholly incapable of autonomous thought, initiative, imagination, or anything else that sophisticated statecraft requires of its practitioners.

Trump began his second term not quite a month ago, having promised throughout his political campaign to end Biden’s proxy war in Ukraine within a day of assuming office. And it is already evident that his ambitions now run far beyond the settlement in Ukraine he has long promised and the modest détente with Moscow he sought during his first four years in the White House.

The Biden project, from his years as Barack Obama’s vice-president and certainly during his term as Obama’s successor, was to isolate the Russian Federation as completely as possible by way of a poorly conceived sanctions regime, covert operations such as the Nord Stream pipeline explosions, a towering wall of propaganda and what coercions were necessary to secure the allegiance of European clients who were, in any case, already wanderers on the world stage with no clue as to their purpose or even their interests.

Biden’s Russia policy left Ukraine waging a deadly proxy war it cannot win and the Continent well on its way to paupery. Joe Biden divided the world at least as severely and dangerously as it was during the Cold War years.

It is precisely these conditions that assuaged the anxieties neoliberals shared with the Deep State during Trump’s first term and the whole of Biden’s. They succeeded in warding off the threat of any kind of constructive co-existence between Russia and the Atlantic alliance —between West and East, this is to say.

This is a pencil-sketch of the world Trump inherited from his predecessor when he moved back into the White house a month ago.

Russia Out of the Cold

Trump seems to have done a lot of thinking during his four years in the political wilderness. A week of exceptional events, each adding more surprise to those preceding it, indicates that Trump and those around him now propose to transcend altogether the binaries Washington has enforced since it assumed its position of global primacy in the late 1940s. Russia is to come in from the cold and the Atlantic is to grow wider.

In this context, extricating the U.S. from the Ukraine quagmire is more than a footnote but nothing like the main attraction. Assuming all goes to Trump’s apparent plan — and we must make this assumption with unsparing caution — the center-stage attraction is discarding what has passed for a world order since the 1945 victories.

To be noted immediately: Sending the ancien régime into the history texts is not the same as constructing a new order to replace it. At this early moment it is not clear whether Trump and his people have an idea for one; yet more doubtful is whether he or any of his people would be up to a project of this world-historical magnitude.

Whatever the future may hold, and seldom does it present such promise and peril as now, Trump and his new cabinet appointees on the national-security side set a lot of wheels in motion last week. A little oddly — a coordination problem here? — Pete Hegseth, the Fox News presenter turned defense secretary, got them rolling last Wednesday morning, some hours before Trump announced his instantly famous telephone conversation with Vladimir Putin.

At a speech in Brussels before NATO defense ministers and various senior Ukrainian officials, Hegseth followed Trump’s habit of bringing several longstanding unsayables into the sphere of the sayable. Retaking land Russian forces now occupy — Crimea, of course, but also sections of eastern Ukraine now formally incorporated into the Russian Federation — is “an unrealistic objective… an illusory goal.”

In addition — a couple of other big ones — Hegseth said the U.S. will not support Ukraine’s desire to join NATO; neither will Article 5 of the NATO charter — an attack on one member is an attack on all — cover the troops of any NATO member dispatched to Ukraine in any capacity.

By the time he said these things, Hegseth had already surrendered U.S. leadership of what is called the Contact Group, a Biden-era creation comprised of 50–plus nations that manages weapons shipments and humanitarian aid — whatever that may mean at this point — to Kiev.

[…]

There was a kerfuffle in political and media circles back home after Hegseth spoke: He didn’t mean it, he couldn’t have meant it, his speechwriters blew it, he has retreated. We are likely to get a lot of this — denial, in a word — from vested interests that simply cannot manage the thought that an order they have presumed to be eternal is about to prove otherwise.

I read news reports to this effect as nothing more than wishful distortion, of which there is much in the coverage of Trump’s new demarches these days. Hegseth said exactly what he meant to say. In a speech Friday in Warsaw, he said his intent in Brussels was to suggest some “realism into the expectations of our NATO allies.” That is clarification, not disavowal.

Trump, as noted, followed Hegseth by a few hours when he announced last Wednesday, just before noon East Coast time, that he and the Russian president had spent (at some point prior) 90 minutes on the telephone together.

It was remarkable enough that Trump immediately described the call as the start of negotiations to achieve a settlement of the Ukraine crisis. And neither Washington nor Moscow is wasting any time getting talks going. Trump named his team of negotiators not long after he put the telephone down. These are Secretary of State Marco Rubio, Michael Waltz, Trump’s national security adviser, and Steven Witkoff, who serves as Trump’s special envoy to West Asia but also dabbles in U.S.–Russian affairs.

[…]

This was far more productive than anything Antony Blinken ever got done as Biden’s secretary of state. To be honest, I didn’t think “Little Marco,” as Trump used to call him, had this kind of thing in him.

[…]

Trump, once again, is merely saying what has previously been unsayable. Zelensky is a classic puppet. It has been a long game of pretend to insist that he and his corrupt, Nazi-infested regime have done anything more than take orders from Washington (along with scores of billions of dollars in unaccounted funds and weapons, of course) since Russia began its military intervention three years ago next week.

Ending Russian Isolation

[…]

What interested me about the Trump–Putin call as much as the initiative on Ukraine were those items — the dollar, energy supplies and other such topics — that are normally considered mere bric-a-brac in diplomatic exchanges between major powers.

“We each talked about the strengths of our respective Nations, and the great benefit that we will someday have in working together,” Trump declared on “X” and his Truth Social digital platform. Notably, this remark preceded Trump’s mention of a settlement in Ukraine.

 

All efforts to isolate Russia are now over: This is Trump’s unmistakable point, and I count it the overriding significance of his call with Putin. Let us all exhale from the bottom of our lungs. If Trump makes good on this, many wasteful, destructive years of dangerous tension, conjured from nothing more than paranoia and propaganda, will now draw to a close.

The implications of this for Ukraine and, more significantly, for Europe, could hardly be more immediate or more momentous.

Vance Unloads

J.D. Vance dropped more realism, immensely more, on those gathered for the annual Munich Security Conference this past weekend. While those present reportedly expected the vice-president to detail Trump’s plans to negotiate a Ukraine settlement, Vance had little to say on the topic.

“The Trump administration is very concerned with European security,” he allowed more or less in passing, “and believes that we can come to a reasonable settlement between Russia and Ukraine.”

That was it. Vance then launched into the subject on which he was obviously intent to unload:

‘The threat that I worry the most about vis-à-vis Europe is not Russia, it’s not China, it’s not any other external actor. And what I worry about is the threat from within, the retreat of Europe from some of its most fundamental values, values shared with the United States of America.”

So began a sort of measured tirade, if there is such a thing, against what is now an openly undemocratic defense of the neoliberal order European elites have mounted in recent years — in the name, of course, of defending democracy.

Vance’s speech was an attack on censorship, on flagrant manipulations of elections, on the incessant frauds of the “disinformation” industry, on the excesses of the wokery liberal authoritarians have so foolishly insisted upon imposing on the more sensible among us.

In a single word, Vance’s speech was an attack on the hypocrisies on which the neoliberal order has come to depend for its survival. These are the remarks, let us not forget, of a political figure, a conservative populist, who has fought all these battles at home.

[…]

Various commentators have compared Vance’s remarks with the famously stunning speech Putin made at the Munich conference in 2007. Putin’s blunt criticisms of America’s unilateral assertion of its power was an early signal of the non–West’s challenge to the post–Cold War order.

It is said that Vance’s speech is of comparable import — an announcement that the Trump administration has lost interest in the postwar Western alliance and intends to abandon Europe to its own devices. I do not read this in Vance’s remarks. At the very least there is a danger of mis– or over-interpretation.

Attack on Neoliberal Order

Here is a transcript of Vance’s speech. Read it carefully. It is a considerable stretch, in my view, to find in it any suggestion at all that it marks “the beginning of the end of the post–WW2 Western alliance,” to quote one commentator of this persuasion.

Vance spoke vigorously in favor of “our shared values,” or, elsewhere, “European values.” He spoke, in other words, for the West’s continued unity, making his case on the cultural plane, the political plane, the plane of democratic principles.

No, Vance’s offensive was against those elites who have abandoned these values, these political norms, these principles. His was an attack on the neoliberal order as he finds it in Europe — in some respects a more advanced case than he has found it at home.

The Europeans at the Munich conference were in a state of shock after Vance spoke, not least because of his criticisms of how the Germans and others seek to block populist parties from their governments. This was the basis of Olaf Scholz’s spirited refutation of the American vice-president.

“The chancellor said Germany ‘would not accept’ suggestions from outsiders about how to run its democracy,” The New York Times reported. “‘That is not done, certainly not among friends and allies,’” Scholz insisted. “‘Where our democracy goes from here is for us to decide.’”

Scholz reflected something I am tempted to call “Europanic,” but the term does not fit. Vance assailed not Europe or Europeans, but the corruptions inherent in European elites’ defense of a crumbling neoliberal order. Scholz, as is there in the Munich transcripts, stood in defense of these antidemocratic corruptions.

[…]

Via https://www.unz.com/plawrence/trump-2-0-crosses-the-atlantic/

Hating Trump no reason to oppose Trump Ukraine peace initiative

Walt Zotlow

Some of my progressive comrades are bombarding social media in opposition to Trump’s peace plan to end the Russo Ukraine war. For the first 2 years, 11 months of America’s proxy war against Russia using Ukrainian cannon fodder, they were largely silent. They were loath to criticize President Biden and Vice President Harris, particularly during a presidential campaign. Their focus was laser like on domestic issues to prevent a return of the despised Trump to the presidency.

Trump not only won, he immediately pivoted to peace in Ukraine. He totally overturned the Biden war playbook. He announced Ukraine (really the US) had lost, must never join NATO, and not get back the Russian leaning Eastern Ukraine Russia annexed.

More. Trump announced a complete reset of the US Russia relationship to include diplomatic engagement and friendly relations with Russia that Biden had jettisoned during his entire term.

More again. Ending the war and reestablishing diplomatic relations will reduce the risk of nuclear war present for every one of the 1,095 days of this senseless war. It makes possible renewing the three nuclear treaties the US abandoned this century, two of them by Trump.

But instead of supporting this astonishing breakthrough, progressives have gone ballistic. They charge dictator wannabe Trump is selling out Ukrainian sovereignty, like Chamberlain did to Czechoslovakia at Munich in 1938. They claim this will allow Russia to recreate the Soviet Union, then march into Western Europe. Preposterous.

In doing so they ignore this war was provoked by Biden to weaken Russia. It would never have resulted in war had Biden honored Russia’s security concerns regarding no Ukraine NATO on Russia’s border.

Worse yet, progressives are blind to the fact that the war was lost on Day One when Biden announced the US would not participate with US military. Why? He wisely advised that would result in WWIII.

The result? Ukraine is on the brink of defeat, having upwards of a million dead or wounded. Over ten million have fled Ukraine for safer climes. Potential draftees are deserting en mass. The economy is on life support. President Zelensky cancelled elections, banned free press, outlawed the Russian Orthodox Church on his march to becoming dictator for the war’s duration. Once it’s over…so is Zelensky.

None of this made a dent in progressives till Trump demanded this madness end and followed thru arranging lightning fast negotiations with Russian leaders to end it. Then progressives surfaced to demonize Trump and his peace initiative. They have joined the most virulent pro war advocates in the Republican Party, the military, the media determined to sabotage the most hopeful development to end further destruction of Ukraine and depletion of US treasure.

Every progressive opposing Trump’s peace initiative enables another 500,000 dead Ukrainians, another $175 billion in squandered US treasure, and no end to Biden’s catastrophic and failed proxy war to weaken Russia.

[…]

Via https://nuclear-news.net/2025/02/24/1-b-hating-trump-no-reason-to-oppose-trump-ukraine-peace-initiative/

For 50 Years Regulators Ignored Report Linking Wireless Radiation to 23 Chronic Diseases

By Suzanne Burdick

The U.S. government has known for over 50 years that wireless radiation is linked to 23 chronic diseases but has failed to protect the public from chronic wireless radiation exposure, according to the authors of a new report.

Richard Lear and Camilla Rees posted their report on Feb. 6 as a preprint on ResearchGate. Lear and Rees are business executives and long-time health and environmental researchers.

The report, which Rees called a “discussion and commentary” on published science related to wireless radiation’s biological impacts, is geared toward an everyday audience.

Lear and Rees posted the report on ResearchGate to make it accessible to the public.

On Feb. 14, Rees shared the paper with attendees of the American Academy of Environmental Medicine’s annual conference in San Antonio, Texas, according to a press release.

Miriam Eckenfels, director of Children’s Health Defense’s (CHD) Electromagnetic Radiation (EMR) & Wireless called the report an “easy-to-understand distillation of pertinent scientific findings that gives the public a sense of how regulatory agencies ignored earlier science and why agencies need to take protective action now.”

In the report, Lear and Rees discuss how the U.S. Naval Medical Research Institute in 1971 issued a report that reviewed 2,311 scientific studies on the biological and health effects of electromagnetic radiation (EMR).

Most of the studies examined by the Navy involved low-intensity EMR signals in the 1 to 4 gigahertz (GHz) range, said Lear and Rees. “These types of wireless exposures are virtually identical with those from modern devices and wireless sources such as cell phones, WiFi, Bluetooth, smart meters, GPS, wearables, and wireless infrastructure.”

The Navy’s review found 132 different biological effects, symptoms and diseases linked to wireless exposures.

According to Lear and Rees, 23 of those are among the fastest-growing chronic diseases and conditions in the U.S. today, including attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder or ADHD, anxiety, asthma, autism, chronic fatigue, diabetes, leukemia, autoimmune disease and celiac disease.

In 2016, Lear examined the growth of chronic disease from 1990 to 2015 and the related economic costs of those diseases. His research found that 36 chronic diseases and conditions doubled from 1990 to 2015.

“Of the 36 chronic diseases and conditions that more than doubled (1990-2015), the U.S. Navy study warned us of the connection between wireless radiation and twenty-three of those chronic diseases, predicting what has indeed happened to the health of Americans,” the authors of the report wrote.

They added:

“By ignoring the earlier science, U.S. regulators failed to protect the American people from the dangers of wireless technologies. In doing so, they imposed millions of unnecessary chronic exposure conditions on the American public.”

Rees told The Defender she hopes U.S. regulators finally take action. “Pressure is needed from all directions to encourage federal regulatory agencies to do their jobs, and to hold these agencies accountable.”

The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) has not updated its exposure limits for wireless radiation since 1996.

In 2021, CHD and other groups won a lawsuit challenging the FCC’s exposure limits.

The groups filed 11,000 pages of evidence of harm from 5G and wireless technology, which they alleged the FCC ignored when it decided to keep its 1996 guidelines. The pages included evidence of widespread sickness due to wireless radiation exposure.

The FCC has yet to comply with a court-ordered mandate to explain how the agency determined that its current guidelines adequately protect humans and the environment against the harmful effects of exposure to wireless radiation.

Lear and Rees plan to send hard copies of their report to all U.S. Congress members and at least 1,000 U.S. business leaders.

“We want this information to get to people who are courageous enough to make a difference, including government leaders, business leaders, religious leaders and media,” Rees said.

Business leaders need to understand the connection between wireless exposures and their employees’ mood, health and therefore productivity, she said.

Rees is a senior policy adviser for the National Institute for Science, Law and Public Policy and founder of Manhattan Neighbors for Safer Telecommunications.

According to the report:

“By 2015, the 23 diseases the U.S. Navy predicted may have added more than $2 trillion in annual health care costs to the U.S. economy due to their negligence.”

The authors acknowledged that other factors have likely contributed to the current U.S. chronic disease crisis, such as sugar consumption, glyphosate and other pesticide exposures.

This article was funded by critical thinkers like you.

‘We’ve been misled about the benefits of wireless’

In the report, Lear and Rees also cite other scientific reports that have shown a link between wireless radiation and negative health impacts, including the BioInitiative 2012 Report.

The BioInitiative Report, updated in 2017, cites more than 2,200 scientific studies that link low-level EMR exposure to dozens of diseases and biological effects, including neurological effects, brain cancer, fetal effects, blood-brain barrier damage, DNA damage, breast cancer, biochemical imbalances, leukemia, decreased fertility and oxidative stress.

The report also discusses studies that suggested a possible biological mechanism for explaining how wireless radiation is linked to chronic disease.

Rees said, “We have been misled about the relative benefits of wireless.”

Wired connections are far superior to wireless for numerous reasons, including connection speed, according to a 2018 National Institute for Science, Law and Public Policy report.

“It is faster, far more energy efficient, higher audio quality, more reliable, more resilient in weather events, more secure, and more enduring, meaning that it is not subject to the costs of planned obsolescence like wireless technologies,” Rees said.

She added:

“We need to start taking responsibility ourselves, and minimize our personal wireless exposure while supporting efforts, such as CHD’s new ‘704 No More’ initiative, to restore local control over cell towers and antennas.”

The 704 No More initiative is raising money to legally challenge Section 704 of the Telecommunications Act of 1996 which prohibits local authorities from denying cell tower applications based on health and environmental effects.

[…]

Via https://childrenshealthdefense.org/defender/50-years-regulators-wireless-radiation-23-chronic-diseases/

Latest Measles Outbreaks Results from Failed Vaccines — Not Failure to Vaccinate

by Sayer Ji

As measles outbreaks continue to surface, the mainstream media is pointing the blame at HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s “anti-vaccine rhetoric.” But measles outbreaks have repeatedly occurred in communities exceeding 95% vaccine coverage, proving the vaccine itself does not provide durable immunity.

As measles outbreaks continue to surface, the mainstream media is now using them as a political weapon, attempting to blame our new U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. for so-called “anti-vaccine rhetoric.”

The Wall Street Journal recently ran an opinion piece insinuating that his advocacy for vaccine safety is responsible for rising measles cases.

This narrative is not only baseless but ignores decades of documented measles vaccine failures — failures that have occurred in highly vaccinated populations all over the world.

Read the CNN article here.

The real issue is not a failure to vaccinate but a failing vaccine. As this article will demonstrate, measles outbreaks have repeatedly occurred in communities with exceeding 95% vaccine coverage, proving that the vaccine itself does not provide durable immunity.

The ongoing effort to scapegoat RFK Jr. is simply a distraction from the deeper scientific and historical evidence that challenges the mainstream vaccine narrative.

A long history of measles vaccine failures

For over 25 years, outbreaks have been reported in populations with vaccination rates exceeding 95%, undermining the mainstream assumption that vaccines are the singular solution to measles control. Here is a documented historical record of such vaccine failures:

1985, Texas, U.S.: A study published in the New England Journal of Medicine in 1987 analyzed a measles outbreak in Corpus Christi, Texas, where 99% of students were vaccinated and more than 95% were immune. The researchers concluded: “Outbreaks of measles can occur in secondary schools, even when more than 99 percent of the students have been vaccinated and more than 95 percent are immune.”1985, Montana, U.S.: An article in the American Journal of Epidemiology examined an outbreak of 137 measles cases in Montana, despite a 98.7% vaccination rate. The researchers stated: “This outbreak suggests that measles transmission may persist in some settings despite appropriate implementation of the current measles elimination strategy.”1988, Colorado, U.S.: A measles outbreak at a Colorado college infected 84 students, even though over 98% had documented immunity due to strict vaccination policies. Researchers concluded that “measles outbreaks can occur among highly vaccinated college populations.”1989, Quebec, Canada: Initially blamed on low vaccine coverage, a study published in the Canadian Journal of Public Health concluded: “Incomplete vaccination coverage is not a valid explanation for the Quebec City measles outbreak.”1991-1992, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil: A study published in the Revista da Sociedade Brasileira de Medicina Tropical found that 76.4% of measles cases in this outbreak had been vaccinated before their first birthday.1992, Cape Town, South Africa: A study in the South African Medical Journal documented an outbreak where 91% of children were vaccinated, and vaccine efficacy was only 79%. The researchers concluded that primary and secondary vaccine failure contributed to the outbreak.

These are just a handful of examples from an extensive body of literature documenting measles outbreaks occurring in highly vaccinated populations — clear evidence that vaccine-induced immunity is neither lifelong nor consistently effective.

DIgnoring history won’t make vaccine failures disappear

Public health officials continue to ignore these well-documented failures while insisting that stricter vaccine mandates are the only way to prevent measles. However, history shows that vaccination does not equal immunization.

The widespread belief that vaccines alone can eliminate measles is more faith-based than evidence-based, as seen in the knee-jerk blame placed on the unvaccinated whenever outbreaks occur.

Ironically, those who highlight peer-reviewed evidence of vaccine failures are dismissed as “anti-vaccine,” even though they are merely pro-truth and pro-vaccine awareness.

The global health agenda, led by organizations such as UNICEF and the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, continues to push mass vaccination campaigns while ignoring the real issues: poor sanitation, malnutrition and compromised immune health.

The media’s attempt to pin measles outbreaks on RFK Jr. is not based on science but on political opportunism. RFK Jr. has consistently advocated for vaccine safety and medical choice — principles that are far from “anti-vaccine.”

If anything, his warnings about vaccine-induced injuries and failures are validated by the very outbreaks being reported today.

Measles: A disease with real risks — and real benefits

Measles is a real disease, and while it can have serious complications, it is largely determined by an individual’s immune status. Before widespread vaccination campaigns, measles was a common childhood illness that conferred lifelong immunity.

Now, due to waning vaccine-induced immunity, adults — who are at higher risk for complications — are increasingly affected by outbreaks.

However, what mainstream medicine rarely acknowledges is that measles is not just a disease to be feared — it also has long-documented health benefits.

Emerging research shows that natural measles infection plays a critical role in immune system development and may help protect against chronic diseases, certain cancers and autoimmune disorders.

Additionally, while the measles vaccine is heavily promoted as safe, a growing body of evidence reveals dozens of serious adverse events associated with the measles-mumps-rubella (MMR) vaccine.

According to adverse event data compiled on GreenMedInfo, these include:

Encephalitis (brain inflammation)Seizures and febrile convulsionsAutoimmune disorders such as Guillain-Barré syndromeChronic arthritis and joint painThrombocytopenia (low platelet count leading to bleeding disorders)Anaphylactic shock and severe allergic reactionsIncreased risk of Type 1 diabetes

These well-documented risks raise critical questions about the one-size-fits-all vaccination policy being enforced through mandates.

The notion that every child must be vaccinated without consideration for individual risk factors ignores the reality that vaccines — like any medical intervention — carry risks that must be weighed against their benefits.

Instead of blindly pursuing a strategy of endless boosters and mandates, public health should take an honest, science-based approach that considers both the risks and benefits of natural measles infection.

Learn about the underreported downside of vaccination

If history teaches us anything, it is that the measles vaccine alone is not the solution. To explore the scientific literature on the unintended, adverse effects of vaccinations, visit our Vaccine Research Database.

[…]

Latest Measles Outbreaks a Result of Failed Vaccines — Not Failure to Vaccinate

Trump Praises Amish for Rejecting Vaccines and Avoiding Autism Epidemic: ‘Amazingly Healthy’

Baxter Dmitry

President Donald Trump made waves on Friday during a White House event for state governors, where he praised the Amish and Pennsylvania Dutch communities for their remarkable health and lack of autism cases—suggesting their refusal to vaccinate could be a key factor.

The Amish, a traditional Christian community known for their rejection of modern conveniences, also largely refuse vaccinations.

Studies and anecdotal reports have long noted that Amish children experience significantly lower rates of chronic illnesses, including autism, allergies, and autoimmune diseases, compared to the general population.

“The Pennsylvania Dutch, they don’t do anything, and they’re amazingly healthy,” Trump remarked, highlighting what he sees as a stark contrast between their traditional lifestyle and the skyrocketing rates of autism across the country.

Pennsylvania Dutch children at play

Trump pointed out that autism cases have surged from 1 in 20,000 just 15 years ago to 1 in 34 today—a trend he called both alarming and unacceptable.

While discussing potential causes, he floated the idea that something the U.S. government is “spraying” could be contributing to the crisis.

“Maybe it’s a spray that we spray all over the place that nobody else does, other countries don’t,” Trump speculated.

His comments have fueled speculation that he was referring to controversial government geoengineering programs, often labeled as “chemtrails.”

These clandestine programs involve the large-scale spraying of aluminum and other chemicals into the atmosphere, under the guise of climate control or weather modification.

Trump hinted that an investigation into the true causes of the autism epidemic is already underway, promising a major revelation soon.

“You’re going to find out something really soon,” he declared.

[…]

Via  https://thepeoplesvoice.tv/trump-praises-amish-for-rejecting-vaccines-and-avoiding-autism-epidemic-amazingly-healthy/

The Answer To 1913 Is 2025: 3 Charts That Show Why The Income Tax, The IRS And The Federal Reserve Should All Be Abolished

Michael Snyder

Most Americans don’t know that for much of U.S. history there was no federal income tax and there was no central bank.  But now everyone assumes that we must have a federal income tax and a central bank in order to have a functioning society.  Today, there are just a handful of nations that do not have an income tax, and more than 99 percent of the entire population of the globe lives in a country that has a central bank.  Of course the two work hand in hand.  A central bank creates a spiral of borrowing that is meant to be unbreakable, and an income tax is necessary to service payments on that debt spiral.  It is not a coincidence that a federal income tax and the Federal Reserve were both established in 1913.  Since that time, we have piled up the biggest mountain of debt in the history of the world, and that is precisely the outcome that the system was designed to produce.

So what is the solution to this colossal mess?

The answer to 1913 is 2025.

This year, we are seeing things get proposed in Washington D.C. that once would have been unthinkable.

For example, Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick just told Fox News that President Trump wants to “abolish the Internal Revenue Service”…

More details have emerged from the Trump administration about alleged plans to get rid of the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) and utilize tariffs so the “whole economy explodes.”

“His goal is to abolish the Internal Revenue Service and let all the outsiders pay,” Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick said Wednesday on “Jesse Watters Primetime.”

“As the president said, reciprocal tariffs, either you bring yours down or we’re going to bring ours up. If we go to their level, it will earn us $700 billion a year to be equal to everybody else,” he expanded Thursday on “America’s Newsroom.”

And it appears that the Trump administration is already taking concrete steps toward that goal.

In fact, it is being reported that “approximately 7,000 probationary workers” at the IRS are about to be hitting the bricks…

The Internal Revenue Service (IRS) is planning to slash approximately 7,000 probationary workers in Washington, D.C., and across the U.S. starting Thursday, according to reports.

The layoffs will affect probationary workers who have been employed for one year or less and have not been able to secure full civil service protection, The Associated Press reported, citing a person familiar with the plans.

Wow.

Meanwhile, the Federal Reserve is also being targeted by the new administration.

In fact, Elon Musk has suggested that the Federal Reserve could soon get visited by the Department of Government Efficiency…

Musk wrote on X in response to a user’s post about the billionaire’s support for an audit of the Fed that the central bank isn’t above scrutiny from DOGE.

“All aspects of the government must be fully transparent and accountable to the people. No exceptions, including, if not especially, the Federal Reserve,” Musk wrote.

Musk is a longtime critic of the central bank and has called out its decisions on monetary policy as well as claiming the Fed’s workforce is bloated.

This is wonderful news.

Because what we have been doing for decades is clearly not working.

The Federal Reserve system is designed to create debt, and the income tax is designed to service that debt.

We find ourselves on an endless hamster wheel that becomes more painful with each passing year.

The charts that I am about to share with you tell a very clear story.

The primary reason why we have had an almost unbelievably high standard of living over the past three decades is because we have piled up the biggest mountain of debt in the history of the world.  Once upon a time the United States was the wealthiest country on the entire planet, but all of that prosperity was not good enough for us.  So we started borrowing and borrowing and borrowing and we have now been living beyond our means for so long that we consider it to be completely normal.

When President Woodrow Wilson entered the White House in 1913, the U.S. was less than 3 billion dollars in debt.

Now we are 36 trillion dollars in debt…

This is what a central bank is designed to do.

Most people simply do not understand this.

We have been robbing future generations blind for so long that it doesn’t even seem to bother most people anymore.

It is time for a change.

Sadly, Americans have also accumulated the largest mountain of household debt in the history of the world.  The following chart which comes directly from the Federal Reserve shows the growth of household and non-profit organization debt over the years…

Of that amount, more than 18 trillion dollars of it is household debt…

Americans’ household debt levels, including credit card debt, rose to new all-time highs in the fourth quarter of 2024, according to a report by the Federal Reserve Bank of New York.

The report showed that overall household debt increased by $93 billion to $18.04 trillion at the end of 2024, an all-time high. Credit card balances rose by $45 billion from the prior quarter to reach $1.21 trillion at the end of December, which is also a record high.

We have become accustomed to living in debt.  We go into massive amounts of debt to get an education, we go into massive amounts of debt to buy a home, we go into massive amounts of debt to purchase our vehicles, and we even pile up debt to buy holiday gifts and to purchase groceries.

The American people want to hear that better times are ahead.

But under the current system the only way to give the American people “better times” is to crank up the debt spiral to an even higher level.

That is the approach that our leaders have been taking for a long time, and it is madness.

When you add up all forms of debt in our society, it comes to a grand total of more than 100 trillion dollars…

We are literally committing national suicide.

I wish that I could get more people to understand this.

30 years ago, the total amount of debt in the system was less than 20 trillion dollars.

Now we have surpassed the 100 trillion dollar mark.

We are talking about a financial bubble that is unlike anything that the world has ever seen before.

If we continue down this road, our children and our grandchildren would have no future.

When people hear words like “billion” or “trillion” they tend to tune out.

But that is a mistake.

There is an enormous difference between a billion dollars and a trillion dollars.

Just how big is one trillion dollars?

To answer that question, I would like to use an illustration that I have used in my books.  If right this moment you went out and started spending one dollar every single second, it would take you more than 31,000 years to spend one trillion dollars.

Yet somehow we have piled up more than 100 trillion dollars of debt, and our financial status just keeps getting worse month after month after month.

If we want to get free from all this debt, we have to abandon the system that created all of this debt in the first place.

We need to abolish the Federal Reserve, the IRS and the income tax.

We have been living far, far beyond our means for decades, and it has been the greatest party in the history of the world.

But it is time to turn out the lights because the party is over.

The good news is that change is in the air.

The answer to 1913 is 2025, and those that are attempting to dismantle the current system should be applauded.

[…]

Via https://themostimportantnews.com/archives/the-answer-to-1913-is-2025-3-charts-that-show-why-the-income-tax-the-irs-and-the-federal-reserve-should-all-be-abolished

New SBA Chief Goes Viral After Touring Empty Offices and Bringing Staff Back to Work

AP Photo/Brynn AndersonSarah Arnold

The new head of the Small Business Administration (SBA), Kelly Loeffler, is making headlines after a viral moment during her tour of the agency’s headquarters. While walking through an office filled with empty cubicles, Loeffler expressed her frustration about the lack of in-person staff presence and emphasized the need for employees to return to their workstations. She promptly directed the SBA team to resume operations in the office, signaling a strong commitment to restoring productivity and engagement within the agency.

“It’s my second day here at the SBA,” Loeffler said in the video. “I could not be more excited to be here. So I thought I’d take a walk. And what I found is that exactly what’s been said is true. About 90 percent of our employees are working from home. Well, that ends Monday with President Trump’s order to return to work.”

In addition to the 17 million views Loeffler’s video on X received, Elon Musk also reacted to her post, saying, “No one at work.”

On Wednesday, the Senate confirmed Kelly Loeffler as the new head of the Small Business Administration by a bipartisan vote of 52-46. Forty-six Democratic senators opposed her nomination.

Loeffler will oversee the SBA’s $1 billion budget, focusing on providing loans, grants, and financial guidance to small-business owners nationwide. Additionally, she has pledged to donate more than $200,000 of her annual salary, following her practice of donating her $174,000 Senate salary from 2019 to 2021.

[…]

Via https://townhall.com/tipsheet/saraharnold/2025/02/22/new-small-business-administration-chief-goes-viral-as-she-tours-empty-cubes-n2652650

Scam: Ukrainian Style

Scam: Ukrainian Style

RT (2024)

Film Review

This documentary concerns the shutdown and arrest of employees of the Milton Group, a phone investment scam run out of Ukraine that bilked 20,000 victims out of more than a million dollars a month. The scam targeted victims in Europe, Africa and Latin America, and the masterminds are still at large. Shutting down the Moscow operation was just the beginning.

The Milton Group opened its first call center in Albania in 2017 but relocated to Ukraine after a few months. It was the brainchild of Georgian-born David Tolua, an Israeli citizen who presently resides in Dubai. Yakov Kazelman, who ran the Moscow call center, is also Israeli, residing in Cypress and the UAE. He’s currently in custody awaiting trial.

One former employee, speaking anonymously, reveals his call center hired telephonists fluent in English and Spanish. They found victims via WhatsAp, Wyber and Telegram. Their modus operandi was to contact victims monthly to up their investment. Some got so hooked they took out loans and sold their apartments.

They pressured a Swiss couple (featured in the film), who eventually lost over a million dollars, to invest in worthless cryptocurrency. The filmmakers also interview a French victim tricked into buying fake cryptocurrency.

In 2018 the Milton Group open and office in Georgia and in 2020 in Armenia. They eventually established 17 offices in Ukraine.

Former Georgian minister Davit Kezerashvili, convicted of embezzling government funds, was also a major Milton Group investor. He currently lives in Cyprus.

In 2020 the Swedes and the UK investigated and shut down Milton Group offices in their respective countries. The operators subsequently opened offices in Tazhikistan, Turkey, Philippines, as well s new offices in Moscow. All employees underwent lie detectors tests and were threatened if they complained or tried to leave. A telephonist averages $60,000 a month and a retention manager $30,000-100,000 a month.

They continued to operate in Ukraine, thanks to a bribe Todua paid to Artyom Shilo, the head of Ukraine’s security services. They further assisted the Milton Group, by shutting down call centers run by organized crime competitors.

In addition to scamming investors, the Ukrainian government employed Milton Group employees to conduct subversive activities in Russia, eg making bomb threats against Russian infrastructure and creating a Telegram bot to threat Russian soldiers and their families for their participation in Russia’s SMO (special military operation).

Following investigation, Russia has detained 15 call center managers and seized all the Milton Group’s Russian assets. If they are found guilty, they will be ordered to pay compensation to roughly 20,000 victims. Russian law enforcement has also reached out to victims in Georgia, Germany, Austria, Serbia and Switzerland. They will pay their transportation to Moscow to testify at the trial.

The former Georgian finance minister is still in hiding.

How CIA Gave Birth to Modern Drug Trade in the Americas

By Ilya Tsukanov – Sputnik – 21.02.2025

Anonymous officials informed major US outlets this week about the CIA’s ‘benevolent’ new role: flying MQ-9 Reaper drones over Mexico to spy on drug cartels. What’s wrong with this picture?

The carefully placed reports, released within 24 hours of one another, come in the wake of the State Department’s designation of eight major Latin American drug traffickers as “global terrorist organizations.”

Unfortunately for the CIA, anyone with even a cursory knowledge of its activities knows that the agency has been more of an ally, rather than an enemy, to the drug pushers bringing violence and death to American communities.

In 1985, the Iran-Contra scandal exposed the Reagan administration’s facilitation of secret arms sales to Iran to fund rebels in Nicaragua, with the CIA implicated in Contra cocaine trafficking into the US.

In 1996, investigative reporter Gary Webb independently corroborated and elaborated on allegations that the crack epidemic rocking America’s inner cities was linked to traffickers enjoying protection from the CIA.

Webb’s reporting was probed by the federal government and major US media, but any info on the CIA’s involvement was swept under the rug. Webb was found dead in his home in 2004, shot twice in the head. His death was ruled a suicide.

Iran-Contra was just a small part of the CIA’s global drug smuggling empire:

Lawyer, banker, OSS and CIA officer Paul Helliwell has been called the “pioneer of CIA drug dealing.”

In 1962, Helliwell created the Castle Bank & Trust offshore in the Bahamas to support CIA ops against Castro’s Cuba and other anti-US forces across Latin America. Before that, he ran Overseas Supply, a CIA front company smuggling Burmese opium to finance a dirty war against China.

The Bahamian scandal blew up in 1973 during a tax evasion probe by the IRS, with Richard Nixon attempting to clip the CIA’s wings by creating the Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA). Some believe the move, combined with Nixon’s obsession with the JFK murder, helped precipitate Watergate and the president’s 1974 resignation in disgrace.
Renowned US drug and arms smuggler Barry Seal ran drugs for the Medellin Cartel and, according to US authorities, was recruited as a double agent. But investigative journalist Alexander Cockburn and others have alleged that Seal was a CIA agent as far back as the Bay of Pigs and the Vietnam War implicated for working with the Contras.
In 2017, Juan Pablo Escobar, son of the infamous founder of the Medellin Cartel, confirmed that his dad “worked for the CIA,” and alleged that drugs were being trafficked, by Seal and others, directly to a US military base in Florida.

Independent reporter Manuel Hernandez Borbolla has documented the formation of large Mexican cartels under the protection from the Federal Security Directorate, which the journalist described as “practically employees of the CIA, along with some former Mexican presidents.”

So intricate were the links, Hernandez Borbolla recalled, that infamous CIA agent Felix Ismael Rodriguez was present while members of the Guadalajara Cartel tortured and murdered DEA agent Kiki Camarena in 1985 after he uncovered drug and arms smuggling ops linked to the Contras.

The CIA was allegedly also involved in the 1984 murder of Mexican journalist Manuel Buendia, who was investigating the agency’s drug operations, and corrupt officials’ involvement.
In 2012, Chilean journalist Patricio Mery uncovered a CIA plot to smuggle cocaine from Bolivia to Chile, Europe and the US to raise funds for ops to destabilize Ecuadorian President Correa’s government.

The CIA hasn’t been the only US three-letter agency implicated in drug smuggling and cooperation with cartels, either.

In 2010, the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (commonly referred to as the ATF) was accused of “purposely allow[ing] licensed firearms dealers to sell weapons to illegal straw buyers, hoping to track the guns to Mexican cartel leaders and arrest them,” with no arrests ever made. The case, popularly dubbed the ‘Operation Fast and Furious’ scandal, was dubbed a potential ‘Watergate’ moment for the Obama administration by Forbes.

A few years later, El Universal published court documents revealing that from 2000-2012, the DEA collaborated with the Sinaloa Cartel, led by Joaquin ‘El Chapo’ Guzman, looking the other way as it smuggled drugs into the US in exchange for info on rival cartels.

[…]

Via https://sputnikglobe.com/20250221/how-the-cia-gave-birth-to-the-modern-drug-trade-in-the-americas-1121591463.html

Mapping Every Known US Military Base Overseas

This map does not include several hundred temporary sites for military exercises or contingency operations. Data is sourced from a Congressional report published in 2024. Troop data is from the Defense Manpower Data Center, current to March 2024.

Zera Hedge

This graphic, via Visual Capitalist’s Pallavia Rao, locates the known overseas bases of the American military, categorized by who controls the base.

In red are the ones controlled by the U.S., and blue are ones controlled by the host country.

Ranked: Countries with the Most U.S. Bases and Troops

Based on unclassified data, the U.S. has at least 128 bases across 49 countries.

Of them, Japan (14), has the most by far, followed by the Philippines (9) and South Korea (8). Here’s the full list of all 128 listed bases, the country they’re in, and who controls them.

Base NameCountryISO CodeStatusKyogamisaki CS JapanJPNAlly ControlledMisawa AB JapanJPNU.S. ControlledShariki CS JapanJPNAlly ControlledYokota AB JapanJPNU.S. ControlledCamp Zama JapanJPNU.S. ControlledUSFA Yokosuka JapanJPNU.S. ControlledNAF Atsugi JapanJPNU.S. ControlledMCAS Iwakuni JapanJPNU.S. ControlledKure Pier 6 JapanJPNU.S. ControlledUSFA Sasebo JapanJPNU.S. ControlledUSAG Okinawa JapanJPNU.S. ControlledMCB Camp Butler JapanJPNU.S. ControlledMCAS Futenma JapanJPNU.S. ControlledKadena AB JapanJPNU.S. ControlledMCI Mujuk South KoreaKORAlly ControlledUSAG Daegu South KoreaKORU.S. ControlledUSAG Yongsan-Casey South KoreaKORU.S. ControlledTango South KoreaKORU.S. ControlledOsan AB South KoreaKORU.S. ControlledCamp Humphreys South KoreaKORU.S. ControlledKunsan AB South KoreaKORU.S. ControlledUSFA Chinhae South KoreaKORU.S. ControlledUSAG Kwajalein Atoll Marshall IslandsMHLU.S. ControlledNavy Region
Center Singapore SingaporeSGPU.S. ControlledNSF Diego Garcia British Indian TerritoryIOTU.S. ControlledAntonio Bautista AB PhilippinesPHLAlly ControlledBenito Ebuen AB PhilippinesPHLAlly ControlledLumbia Airport PhilippinesPHLAlly ControlledBasa AB PhilippinesPHLAlly ControlledFort Magsaysay PhilippinesPHLAlly ControlledCamp Melchor Dela PhilippinesPHLAlly ControlledLal-lo Airport PhilippinesPHLAlly ControlledNB Camilo Osias PhilippinesPHLAlly ControlledBalabac Island PhilippinesPHLAlly ControlledNadzab Airport Papua New GuineaPNGAlly ControlledLae Seaport Papua New GuineaPNGAlly ControlledMomote Airport Papua New GuineaPNGAlly ControlledLobrum NB Papua New GuineaPNGAlly ControlledPort Moresby Papua New GuineaPNGAlly ControlledJackson International Airport & Seaport Papua New GuineaPNGAlly ControlledRAAF Base Darwin AustraliaAUSAlly ControlledRAAF Base Tindal AustraliaAUSAlly ControlledNCS Harold E. Holt AustraliaAUSAlly ControlledRobertson Barracks AustraliaAUSU.S. ControlledPituffik Space Base GreenlandGRLU.S. ControlledNAS Keflavik IcelandISLU.S. ControlledJoint Warfare Center NorwayNORU.S. ControlledRAF Menwith Hill UKGBRU.S. ControlledRAF Alconbury /
Molesworth UKGBRU.S. ControlledRAF Lakenhealth UKGBRU.S. ControlledRAF Mildenhall UKGBRU.S. ControlledRAF Croughton UKGBRU.S. ControlledLajes Field PortugalPRTU.S. ControlledMoron AB SpainESPU.S. ControlledNS Rota SpainESPU.S. ControlledUSAG Benelux BelgiumBELU.S. ControlledKleine Brogel AB BelgiumBELU.S. ControlledGeilenkirchen AB BelgiumBELU.S. ControlledSpangdahlem AB GermanyDEUU.S. ControlledRamstein AB GermanyDEUU.S. ControlledUSAG Weisbaden GermanyDEUU.S. ControlledUSAG Stuttgart GermanyDEUU.S. ControlledUSAG Ansbach GermanyDEUU.S. ControlledUSAG Bavaria GermanyDEUU.S. ControlledAviano AB ItalyITAU.S. ControlledUSAG Vicenza ItalyITAU.S. ControlledGhedi AB ItalyITAU.S. ControlledCamp Darby ItalyITAU.S. ControlledNSA Detachment Gaeta ItalyITAU.S. ControlledNSA Naples ItalyITAU.S. ControlledNAS Sigonella ItalyITAU.S. ControlledAmari AB EstoniaESTAlly ControlledLielvarde AB LatviaLVAAlly ControlledSiauliai LithuaniaLTUAlly ControlledCamp Herkus LithuaniaLTUAlly ControlledNSF Redzikowo PolandPOLAlly ControlledPowidz AB PolandPOLAlly ControlledLask AB PolandPOLAlly ControlledZagan PolandPOLAlly ControlledCamp Kosciuszuko PolandPOLAlly ControlledPapa AB HungaryHUNAlly ControlledKecskemet AB HungaryHUNAlly ControlledCamp Turzii RomaniaROUAlly ControlledNSF Deveselu RomaniaROUAlly ControlledMihail Kogalniceanu AB RomaniaROUAlly ControlledNovo Selo Training Area BulgariaBGRAlly ControlledGraf Ignatievo AB BulgariaBGRAlly ControlledLarissa AB GreeceGRCAlly ControlledStefanovikeio AB GreeceGRCAlly ControlledNSA Souda Bay GreeceGRCU.S. ControlledRAF Akrotiri CyprusCYPAlly ControlledCamp Bondsteel KosovoXKXU.S. ControlledIncirlik AB TurkeyTURU.S. ControlledIzmir AS TurkeyTURU.S. ControlledMFO South Camp EgyptEGYAlly ControlledMuwaffaq Salti AB JordanJORAlly ControlledAl-Tanf garrison SyriaSYRAlly ControlledRumalyn SyriaSYRAlly ControlledErbil AB IraqIRQAlly ControlledAl Assad AB IraqIRQAlly ControlledDuqm OmanOMNAlly ControlledJebel Ali UAEAREAlly ControlledAl Dhafra AB UAEAREU.S. ControlledAl Udeid AB QatarQATU.S. ControlledNSA Bahrain BahrainBHRU.S. ControlledSheik Isa AB BahrainBHRAlly ControlledPrince Sultan AB Saudi ArabiaSAUAlly ControlledKing Faisal AB Saudi ArabiaSAUAlly ControlledCamp Buehring KuwaitKWTU.S. ControlledAl Jaber AB KuwaitKWTU.S. ControlledAli Al Salem AB KuwaitKWTU.S. ControlledCamp Arifjan KuwaitKWTU.S. ControlledAl Mubarak AB KuwaitKWTU.S. ControlledCamp Lemonnier DjiboutiDJIU.S. ControlledAscension Island
Auxiliary Airfield St. HelenaHLEU.S. ControlledChabelley Airfield DjiboutiDJIAlly ControlledBaledogle SomaliaSOMAlly ControlledMogadishu SomaliaSOMAlly ControlledKismayo SomaliaSOMAlly ControlledManda Bay KenyaKENAlly ControlledMombasa KenyaKENAlly ControlledN’djamena ChadTCDAlly ControlledAtlantic Undersea
Test & Evaluation
Center The BahamasBHSU.S. ControlledNaval Station
Guantanamo Bay CubaCUBU.S. ControlledSoto Cano Air Base HondurasHNDU.S. ControlledCSL Comalapa El SalvadorSLVAlly ControlledCSL Reina Beatrix
International Airport ArubaABWAlly ControlledCSL Hato
International Airport CuracaoCUWAlly Controlled

A quick glance at the map reveals the two major security priorities for the U.S. military: Europe and East Asia.

Japan also has the most troops stationed in any country, numbering 53,000 at last count.

While Germany, Italy, and the UK don’t have double-digit bases like Japan, collectively Europe has a huge American presence, when adding in all bases and troops together.

And this isn’t even accounting for the additional 80,000 soldiers deployed to the region after the 2022 Russian invasion.

Middle East: A Growing Security Sphere

While not as nearly cluttered as Europe and East Asia, the Middle East is also home to numerous American bases. Key allies Kuwait and Bahrain also host forces.

RankCountries With the
Most U.S. BasesBasesCountries With the
Most U.S. TroopsTroops1 Japan14 Japan52,8522 Philippines9 Germany34,8943 South Korea8 South Korea23,7324 Italy7 Italy12,3195 Papua New Guinea6 UK10,1806 Germany6 Bahrain3,4247 UK5 Spain3,2538 Poland5 Turkey1,6839 Kuwait5 Belgium1,11910 Australia4 Cuba572

Nothing makes security priorities more clear than base in Djibouti, not just for the U.S. but also the rest of the world.

It’s situated on the Bab-el-Mandeb Strait, which connects the Gulf of Aden and the Red Sea, and is a key shipping route. The Red Sea has been in the news lately due to Houthi rebel attacks.

Thus, Djibouti’s strategic location, and careful deal-making, has resulted in the country hosting military bases from seven other nations as well. This includes political rivals to the U.S., like China.

You might have noticed several NATO members hosting troops and bases. Check out: NATO Members Are Ramping up Defense Spending to see how the Russian invasion had an impact.

[…]

Via https://www.zerohedge.com/markets/mapping-every-known-us-military-base-overseas