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Somali, U.S. Forces Conduct an Airstrike against Al-Shabaab in Hirshabelle State
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Caribbean-Latin America
Veterans of White Powder: Why Mexico Gave Retired Drug Lords to the States
Direct Translation via Google Translate. Edited.
by Olga Kuznetsova

[REGNUM] The crime chronicles of Mexico, and along with it the American borderland, sometimes resemble an action movie - and the figures of the Western film industry, not being fools, take advantage of this, dissecting local plots in every possible way.

It turns out so-so. Sure, there are hits like "Queen of the South," "El Chapo," or "Narcos" plus "Narcos: Mexico," but they all focus more on the biography of some legendary person (usually a criminal one) and explain with varying degrees of obsession that drug trafficking does not lead to anything good.

Sometimes the authors have an attempt to tell a story about how a criminal path is not chosen without reason and that there are many more people in the chain of drug trafficking interests than it seems from the outside. But nothing more.

There are exceptions, such as Steven Soderbergh's Traffic, which showcases a whole series of very human stories, as well as connections to big politics, social problems and eternal philosophical questions.

It is "Traffic" that can be considered one of the first attempts to seriously talk about the problem of drug crime, to analyze the fight against it and not slide into the framework of a cheap action movie.

And thanks to this attempt, fifteen years later, the film Sicario was born, directed by Denis Villeneuve and written by Taylor Sheridan - a film that does not impress the viewer with its knowledge of technical details or facts about the cartels, but rather reliably reflects the picture of the balance of power and the eternal violence in this sphere.

TEN YEARS LATER
Now we have to rewatch Sicario in a new reality: US President Donald Trump has opened a “new era” in the fight against cartels. At least in words.

The number of special operations in the border area has increased. The hum of patrol helicopters over the Mexican state of Sinaloa is heard more often, drones buzz like flies over a corpse. Machine gun fire still often enlivens the outskirts of southern cities. And mass graves in the walls of houses or in the desert are replenished with new plastic bags with sinister contents.

Open threats are being made: Trump's team is promising economic sanctions against neighboring countries, demanding that they stop the flow of drugs and stop "poisoning Americans."

The Mexican president has responded by loudly demanding that American weapons be stopped from being sold to the cartels, and by recommending that the US public be curbed from consuming the same weapons that created demand for the cartels in Sicario.

Several major cartels and a couple of gangs have been declared terrorist organizations by the US government (and Canada and Argentina). The National Intelligence Service, the CIA and the FBI are predicting purges of both those who once ruined the lives of members of Trump's team and those who were involved in some unpleasant machinations. To demonstrate, so to speak, the healing of the ranks.

And it seems that the world that Sheridan and Villeneuve portray is no longer relevant – that is, the world where the American government and the cartels work together to prevent a hypothetical “greater evil.” The bright side, represented by Emily Blunt’s heroine, an honest FBI agent, has in reality won.

But is this really true?

NOT JUST A 'CARTEL STORY'
In one of his interviews, Taylor Sheridan admitted that he wanted to create not just a “story about cartels.” The goal was to show the American frontier and all its nightmares, and at the same time to show that “cartel” is just a name behind which stands an ineradicable and beneficial phenomenon.

As the Sinaloa cartel drug lord Ismail Zambada, who is in American custody, said : My arrest will not change anything. The cartel is a many-headed hydra that exists only because it benefits those in power.

They chop off the heads of some, and others take their place. The flow of drugs continues to reach the consumers, and the money for this activity continues to fall into the right pockets.

And so it is now: while verbally threatening Mexico, Trump’s team is simultaneously holding regular meetings dedicated to joint operations between the American and Mexican authorities.

At the latter, Secretary of State Marco Rubio spoke with members of the security cabinet sent by President Claudia Sheinbaum to improve "cross-border coordination."

They plan to share intelligence and conduct joint investigations, allowing the United States to quickly apprehend criminals on its territory and Mexico to do the same on its own.

Mexico, meanwhile, while promising to amend its constitution to prevent the United States from arresting Mexican citizens on their home soil and conducting secret investigations, has allowed a delegation of military advisers into its territory to train individual units of the local army for a month.

Along the way, literally “without declaring war,” on February 27, despite the requests of all lawyers, almost all the prototypes of the main characters of “Narcos: Mexico” were extradited to the United States.

Among them are one of the leaders of the long-defunct Guadalajara cartel, Rafael Caro Quintero ; the Treviño brothers from Los Zetas, leaders famous for their brutality ; the middle ranks of the now-defunct Juarez cartel; members of the Golfo, Northeast, La Familia Michoacana and other cartels captured several years ago. In total, they say, 29 people.

They have been left in detention centers in different parts of the United States and have already given regional authorities reason to discuss the possibility of applying the death penalty to them.

Some call this extradition the loudest in modern history, others shout about a sensitive blow to drug trafficking. And somehow they overlook the fact that the transferred persons are only second-tier leaders or drug world pensioners who have long since retired from real affairs. Their heirs are left free.

GOALS AND MOTIVES
One of the main characters of "Sicario", the mysterious Alejandro with a tragic past played by Benicio del Toro, works for the American government mostly with one goal: to get the opportunity to take revenge on the one who killed his family. And, naturally, to avoid punishment. In exchange, he is ready to provide all his "skills and abilities", which were clearly not acquired during his work in the prosecutor's office.

As it turns out, in Sheridan's original version of the script, the story began with Alejandro giving a heartfelt speech about the nature of violence. The hero then proceeded to explain his motives to Blunt's character, and in the end, having found the hated drug lord, he does not kill his children, but allows his enemy to make a sinister choice (the outcome of which turns out to be unimportant).

Later, director Villeneuve and Benicio del Toro himself made changes to the script, making Alejandro mysterious, silent and brutally dealing with the entire family of his enemy in the finale. In essence, having passed his point of no return and accepted the laws of the harsh world of drug dealers and fighters against them.

It is Alejandro who gently, almost mercifully, breaks Blunt's heroine, forcing her to accept a new paradigm and stop fighting. Or maybe he doesn't break her? He compares her to his little daughter, drowned in acid by a drug lord, and explains to her - albeit at gunpoint - the rules of the game.

In fact, the first person for the film who explains something to her about what is happening. And the special services employee, like a little girl, swallows her tears and refuses to continue the suicidal struggle.

She, an FBI agent from the kidnapping unit, is not needed here, because in this story no one is going to save anyone. She herself was invited to legalize some operations and, in fact, was used for "state" purposes, including sometimes as bait.

Interestingly, the actress was invited to the project after Denis Villeneuve saw her in the role of Queen Victoria, an example of the conservative values ​​of the 19th century and the “moral standard of the era.”

As for the reality and extradition of 29 people, at least one of them already gives an idea of ​​the approximate benefit to the American government.

Rafael Caro Quintero is set to handcuff DEA agent Enrique "Kiki" Camarena, who he tortured and killed in 1985, during a new trial. The move is cinematic, but it also hints at other aspects of the story.

Trump's potential purges of the FBI and CIA need at least a few triggers. The extradition of Agent Camarena's killer has revived the conversation that the cartel was merely the perpetrator in this case, and that the CIA was the main beneficiary of the murder. Camarena learned something - something about the drug world and the US government. Something that doesn't last long.

And Rafael Caro Quintero's testimony could be extremely inconvenient for a number of representatives of American law enforcement agencies. Who, if we are to be honest, in 1985 lived by the same laws as those shown in the film "Sicario". And now, for the sake of the cause, they may well pay for it, as Camarena did.

THE CAUSE OF THE TROUBLES HAS NOT BEEN ELIMINATED
When Villeneuve's film hit the big screen, the then mayor of Ciudad Juarez criticized how creepy it made the Mexican border town look. And he invited everyone to visit to prove that things had changed.

Much has changed since 2015, of course. But before former US President Joe Biden's visit last year, US troops were sent to the border to conduct a clean-up. Well, just to be on the safe side.

In addition, international organizations are loudly trumpeting the growth in the amount of psychoactive drugs consumed due to high demand among the planet's population, which, in the series of wars and cataclysms of recent years, is ready to accept a lot in attempts at escapism.

That is, the demand for drugs - the main cause of troubles in "Sicario" - has not gone away. And that means that those who control the saturation of American citizens with drug poison have not gone away and are unlikely to go away in the near future.

In this regard, anything can be said on either side of the border now - threats, tariffs, announcements about sending troops. The frontier as a grey zone, where official restrictions have always been very conditional, will continue to live by its own laws.

Posted by: badanov || 03/03/2025 00:00 || Comments || Link || [11135 views] Top|| File under: Narcos

#1  Yes, its cruel, but not doing it has created decades of suffering for everyone. Let them OD and the market goes away.
Posted by: Procopius2k || 03/03/2025 6:33 Comments || Top||


Caucasus/Russia/Central Asia
Zelensky the Fool
[John Kass]
Posted by: Frank G || 03/03/2025 01:02 || Comments || Link || [11134 views] Top|| File under: Commies

#1  Or a puppet with instructions not to sign under any circumstances.
Posted by: Super Hose || 03/03/2025 5:21 Comments || Top||

#2  Zelensky - AKA "the Court Jester" - believed the weasel Democrats. All he had to do was read "The Art of the Deal" by Trump. Plenty of time on the plane ride over to do that.

He will come back to Trump and offer to sign the deal that is no longer on the table. Trump will then offer him a much less favorable deal.

Kass is right and it will cost his country lives and property. The Demoncrats are responsible for this along with Zelensky's over-sized ego. Lives will be lost and they will have more blood on their hands.
Posted by: Warthog || 03/03/2025 9:55 Comments || Top||

#3  Zelensky ‘traitor’ to Jews – Lavrov😀😁😂🤣😃
Posted by: Grom the Affective || 03/03/2025 10:23 Comments || Top||

#4  Warthog solidly nails it at #2. Ending wars produces huge international, political and domestic rewards. Dems don't want any credit be given the Orange Man under any circumstances. It's all politics.

A Finnish-Russo pre-WWII treaty will likely be the outcome in the Ukraine.
Posted by: Besoeker || 03/03/2025 10:39 Comments || Top||

#5 
Posted by: Grom the Affective || 03/03/2025 14:11 Comments || Top||

#6 
Some of Zelenskyy's documented past accomplishments as President of Ukraine .

Remember, Democrats give this POS $350,000,000,000.00 of our Tax Dollars knowing this. Then called Trump and other MAGA's Nazi's.

Posted by: NN2N1 || 03/03/2025 18:02 Comments || Top||


USSR will attack the USA on Christmas 1951
Direct Translation via Google Translate. Edited.

Text taken from a Telegram post by darpaandcia

Commentary by Russian military journalist Boris Rozhin is in italics.

[ColonelCassad] How a Ukrainian Refugee Scared the US with Soviet Atomic Bombing

We found an interesting document from the CIA archives, dated November 28, 1951. It is a confidential letter from J. Edgar Hoover, Director of the FBI, to General Walter Bedell Smith, Director of the Central Intelligence Agency.

The letter states that a Hungarian refugee, while in the Munich Funk Kaserne immigrant camp in Germany, received information from a Ukrainian refugee about a possible Soviet atomic attack on the United States planned for Christmas 1951.

According to the Ukrainian's account, Soviet factories were operating in "total war production" mode and planned to manufacture at least 50 atomic bombs during 1951 - "one for each capital city of the 48 states." The supposed attack was to take place on Christmas Day, since, according to the Ukrainian, the Russians traditionally launch military operations on Christian holidays.

He also said that local communists and Soviet "troops" were supposed to seize the production and storage sites of atomic bombs in the United States during the chaos caused by the bombing. The Ukrainian also claimed that the Soviet Union knew that the production of atomic bombs was in the hands of American civilians, and that Soviet agents had infiltrated all the relevant facilities.

The document indicates that the Ukrainian belonged to a partisan formation that requested weapons from the United States and was refused. He probably decided to take revenge on the Americans with this information and at the same time push them to more active actions against the USSR.

It so happened that the USSR was already conducting its third nuclear test at that time, and this seriously unnerved the United States, which is why they took any such information from the USSR extremely seriously. And this case also had a Ukrainian trace.

Actually, we see attempts to unleash a nuclear war by modern Banderites even now.

Posted by: badanov || 03/03/2025 00:00 || Comments || Link || [11138 views] Top|| File under:

#1  It wouldn't have hurt much if they bombed Sacramento.
Posted by: Abu Uluque || 03/03/2025 13:08 Comments || Top||


Europe
Fact check: No, Merz didn't promise to close the border
[DW] AfD leader Alice Weidel accuses Germany's likely future chancellor Friedrich Merz of "election fraud." She says Merz promised to "close the borders" but did the opposite. Is that true?

Migration policy was one of the biggest issues of the German 2025 election. It continues to spark controversy after the ballot. The far-right AfD accused Friedrich Merz, leader of the winning center-right CDU-CSU alliance, of breaking a key election promise even before coalition talks had started.

Claim: The leading candidate of the Alternative for Germany (AfD), Alice Weidel, accused likely next chancellor Friedrich Merz of "election fraud" on X. The post, which had 1.9 million views as of February 28, said: "Merz is already throwing all election promises overboard on day 1, [he] no longer wants to close the borders."

Has Merz broken an election promise already? DW Fact check probed the details.

DW Fact check: False.
During the election campaign, Merz triggered heated debates with his plans to change migration policy and his repeated promises to "secure the German border." However,
Caliphornia hasn't yet slid into the ocean, no matter how hard it's tried...
he did not mention "closing the border."

Weidel's claim that Merz was breaking election pledges was posted alongside a video where he spoke of a plan to tighten border controls. Merz concluded his answer by saying: "I also want to make it very clear once again: none of us are talking about border closures. Nobody is. Although that was claimed at times during the election campaign, none of us want to close the borders."

The video was originally shared by former Bild tabloid head Julian Reichelt. In his post on X, Reichelt suggests Merz was contradicting an earlier statement following a knife attack in Aschaffenburg in January 2025 in which an Afghan deportee killed two people. Following that attack, Merz said: "There will be a de facto ban on entry into Germany for anyone who does not have valid entry documents. This also expressly applies to persons entitled to protection."

In a live statement on 23 January 2025, Merz had also outlined his plans to take a tough stance on immigration. "On my first day in office, I would instruct the Federal Ministry of the Interior to permanently control Germany's national borders with all of our neighbors and reject all attempts at illegal entry without exception."

The so-called "Five Point Plan" of the CDU/CSU parliamentary group ("Five points for secure borders and the end of illegal migration"), the motion for a resolution that was passed in the Bundestag at the end of January with votes from the AfD, also talks about "securing Germany's borders" and "permanent border controls." However,
Caliphornia hasn't yet slid into the ocean, no matter how hard it's tried...
the word "border closure" was not mentioned in the document.

ARE TIGHT BORDER CONTROLS THE SAME AS BORDER CLOSURES?
Nevertheless, some media have interpreted Merz's statement as a promise to "close the border": The Austrian medium Der Standard ran the headline: "CDU leader Merz meets resistance in Germany with plans to close the border." And the German daily TAZ wrote: "Immediate program of the Union foresees border closure."

"I understand a 'border closure' to mean an almost comprehensive travel ban, as was the case during the coronavirus (aka COVID19 or Chinese Plague)

...the twenty first century equivalent of bubonic plague, only instead of killing off a third of the population of Europe it kills 3.4 percent of those who notice they have it. It seems to be fond of the elderly, especially Iranian politicians and holy men...
pandemic," commented European law expert Daniel Thym from the University of Konstanz when asked by DW. "Friedrich Merz never promised that. It was 'only' about the permanent extension of border controls, which have been in place at most German borders for a year now, without these borders being 'closed.' Merz also wants to turn back asylum seekers. This is tantamount to a de facto entry ban for this group."

Germany's Interior Ministry ordered internal border controlsat all German land borders in mid-September 2024. The controls were brought in as a temporary measure against irregular migration and people smuggling and have since been extended until September 15, 2025.

According to the Interior Ministry, this order is based on the provisions of Art. 25 et seq. of the Schengen Borders Code and is only possible as a last resort under strict conditions. Germany justified the border controls to the EU Commission with "serious threats to public safety and order due to persistently high levels of irregular migration and migrant smuggling as well as the strain on the asylum reception system."

This makes Germany one of the countries in the Schengen area that currently carry out border controls, along with the Netherlands, La Belle France, Austria, Italia, Bulgaria, Slovenia, Denmark, Norway and Sweden. In exceptional circumstances, countries may only extend the reintroduction of internal border controls three times in six months, so that a maximum duration of two years is not exceeded. By updating the Schengen Borders Code, it is also possible to extend controls by a further year in serious exceptional situations. Germany would therefore have to lift internal border controls at its land borders by fall 2027 at the latest.

CAN MIGRANTS BE TURNED AWAY AT BORDERS?
Third-country nationals seeking protection, for example, people seeking asylum from outside the EU, will continue to be forwarded to the responsible reception facility in Germany. They are responsible for examining their asylum status and transferring people to other EU member states. Merz's approach of rejecting asylum seekers without any checks contravenes the EU's Dublin III Regulation. Article 3 of this regulation states: "Member States shall examine any application for international protection lodged by a third-country national or a stateless person on the territory of a Member State, including at the border or in transit zones."

European law expert Daniel Thym says it is still too early to assess whether Friedrich Merz can implement all of his election promises. Only once the new government has been formed will it be clear what concrete steps it intends to take. Thym points out that in their election manifesto, the CDU/CSU wants to make internal border controls superfluous through a functioning EU external border control system.

Effective border protection at the EU's external borders with uniform standards for registration and responsibilities, as well as a mandatory solidarity mechanism, are part of the reform of the Common European Asylum System (CEAS), adopted in May 2024. This means that in the future, people will be checked and registered at the EU's outer borders. Anyone with little prospect of protection in the EU will have an asylum procedure at the borders within a maximum of seven days, and will have to leave if their application is rejected. These new regulations are due to come into force in June 2026 at the latest.
Posted by: trailing wife || 03/03/2025 00:00 || Comments || Link || [11134 views] Top|| File under: Migrants/Illegal Immigrants

#1  In reality the entire notion of 'asylum' is nothing but amoral if not immoral suicidal empathy.

A smart German government would propose the EU abolish 'asylum' altogether EU wide.

This would be a liberating moment for Europe.
Posted by: Elmerert Hupens2660 || 03/03/2025 17:24 Comments || Top||


Fact check: Afghan migrants not flown in by new German govt
[DW] Germany has taken in more people from Afghanistan who were persecuted by the Taliban. However, their arrival was greeted with speculation and accusations online. A DW fact check.

Only a few days after the German parliamentary election a charter plane from Islamabad, Pakistain landed in Berlin with 155 Afghans on board. According to the Federal Ministry of the Interior, more than half of these people came via the federal admission program for particularly vulnerable people. Many local media outlets reported about the event.

However,
the difference between stupidity and genius is that genius has its limits...
many social media users saw a reason to claim that the new German government allowed them to enter the country, thereby breaking its promise of strict border control. But this is not true. DW Fact check has the details.

Claim: In a viral post on X, a user claimed, "In Germany, the borders were opened 24 hours after the elections. 48 hours later, the Afghan migrant plane arrived in Berlin. Germany is being invaded in a planned manner." The post already has more than 20 million views.

In another post, a user claimed, "Plane with 155 Afghans landed in Berlin. 12,000 more to come. Germany voted for the so-called 'center-right' CDU after they promised to stop Afghan immigration. They broke their promise just 48 hours after the election!"

DW Fact check: False
First, there is no new government in Germany yet following the elections on February 23. The country is still run by the outgoing government of Chancellor Olaf Scholz. While the conservative bloc CDU/CSU, led by Friedrich Merz, won the election, a new government has yet to be formed. Coalition negotiations with potential partners are about to start soon.

So the arrival of these Afghan migrants colonists was already planned by the outgoing government. According to the German news agency dpa, citing the Interior Ministry, more than half of the Afghans came to Germany from Afghanistan via the German Federal admission program for Afghanistan, which was set up on October 17, 2022. It was set up by the German government after the Taliban
...mindless ferocity in a turban...
took power in Afghanistan in August 2021, to get particularly vulnerable people out of the country.

The remaining passengers came to Germany through other admission programs: the local forces procedure, the human rights
...which are usually open to widely divergent definitions...
list, and a bridging program, which were also established after the fall of the Taliban.

These programs focus in particular on local forces who have supported the German and international troops, democracy activists and people who are threatened by the Taliban because of their sexual or gender identity.

According to the German Interior Ministry, the German government had committed to admitting around 45,000 at-risk Afghans and their families. As of April 2024, more than 33,200 Afghans have already entered Germany under the Federal admission program for Afghanistan. Germany has also facilitated the entry of Afghans who previously worked for German authorities and organizations before the fall of Kabul according to the German Foreign Office.

Two flights from Islamabad were canceled at short notice just before the general elections in Germany, as per media reports. Since there is no functioning German embassy in Kabul, these individuals must travel to Islamabad on their own. After undergoing a long wait, security clearance, and visa issuance in Pakistain, they are then allowed to enter Germany.

The German Foreign Office has raised concerns as Afghan nationals have been instructed to leave Islamabad and the neighboring city of Rawalpindi by the end of March, according to the German news agency dpa. And with Pakistain reviving its effort to deport Afghans, many opponents of the Taliban are in danger of returning to a country ruled by the Islamist regime, DW's Haroon Janjua reports from Islamabad.

IMMIGRATION KEY ISSUE FOR DISINFORMATION IN GERMAN ELECTIONS
Immigration and deportation were among the key issues during Germany's recently concluded parliamentary elections. It has sparked a lot of mis- and disinformation online about the deportation of foreign nationals living in Germany.

Calls for increased deportations to Afghanistan have intensified following deadly attacks in the country involving immigrants colonists, including Afghan nationals.
Posted by: trailing wife || 03/03/2025 00:00 || Comments || Link || [11137 views] Top|| File under: Moslem Colonists

#1 

Tichys Einblick mentions "Air Baerbock" flying in "many thousand" Afghanis to Germany.
Posted by: DooDahMan || 03/03/2025 5:36 Comments || Top||

#2  "Deutsche Welle" ... "is a German public, state-owned[1] international broadcaster funded by the German federal tax budget."

DW is an agency of the German government, not an arbiter of truth.
Posted by: Elmerert Hupens2660 || 03/03/2025 18:14 Comments || Top||

#3  No different than VOA or RFE.
Posted by: DooDahMan || 03/03/2025 18:41 Comments || Top||

#4  DW is an agency of the German government, not an arbiter of truth.

Yes, I know. But it’s an easy site to get English-language, German-centered reports and perspective of events. Once there is a starting point, for me it’s easier to search more broadly for information.

Likewise, the Times of Israel is definitely imperfect, but it’s reasonably centrist, doesn’t make my iPad crash like the Jerusalem Post, and is fairly informative about events in Israel, the region, and beyond.

All our sources are starting points. All are understood to be imperfect.
Posted by: trailing wife || 03/03/2025 21:55 Comments || Top||


Europe’s dangerous delusion of defense without the US
[Asia Times: Uwe Parpart] Europe can dream about strategic autonomy but the reality is it wholly lacks the military means to defy Trump’s Ukraine peace plan

US President Donald Trump unceremoniously showed Ukrainian leader Volodymyr Zelensky the door following an acrimonious exchange at the White House on Friday. Trump’s angry words for Zelensky were televised for all of America to hear, and no doubt shocked many in the viewing audience.

“You’re gambling with the lives of millions of people. You’re gambling with World War III. You’re gambling with World War III,” Trump said. “You’re not winning. You’re not winning this. But you’re either going to make a deal or we’re out.”

Just as shocked as the American TV audience about Trump’s blunt “make a deal or you’re on your own message” were the US’s European allies and rushed to pledge their support for Zelensky and condemn Trump –moves and words they may soon live to regret.

European Union chiefs Ursula von der Leyen and Antonio Costa jointly tweeted: “Be strong, be brave, be fearless. You are never alone, dear President@ZelenskyyUa.”

Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez said: “Ukraine, Spain stands with you”; his Polish counterpart Donald Tusk wrote: “Dear [Zelensky], dear Ukrainian friends, you are not alone.”

Incoming German chancellor Friedrich Merz addressed a tweet directly to “Dear Volodymyr” and vowed to stand with Ukraine “in good and in testing times.”

Emmanuel Macron, Olaf Scholz and Keir Starmer chimed in with similar profundities.

Kaja Kallas, the EU’s chief diplomat and former prime minister of Estonia, outgunned them all: “Ukraine is Europe! We stand by Ukraine. We will step up our support to Ukraine so that they can continue to fight back the aggressor. Today it became clear that the free world needs a new leader. It’s up to us, Europeans, to take this challenge.”

Most of them were scheduled to meet the Ukrainian leader on March 2 in London for a summit on Ukraine organized by Prime Minister Starmer. Zelensky was set to be honorably hosted by King Charles III at his Sandringham country retreat.

As a welcome to London on Saturday, Zelensky was handed a 2.6 billion pound check (a loan), a down payment on the UK’s “standing with you as long as it takes to protect the integrity of your country.”
Hit the link for the actual opinion piece. It's painfully accurate.
Painfully blunt as well. Mr. Parpart, who served in the West German military in the decade before the Berlin Wall fell, explains that at the current procurement rate some German weapons systems will take a century to be fully supplied.
Posted by: 3dc || 03/03/2025 00:00 || Comments || Link || [11146 views] Top|| File under: Tin Hat Dictators, Presidents for Life,


#2  What I heard, Europeans do not have an autonomous defense plan. US were the guarantors of any peace plan they presented. Starmer and Marcon said US + Guarantees about a dozen times.

Their plan is to put NATO troops into harms way with plausible deniability so when a death does occur, they can simultaneously deny it was premediated while calling for Article 5 to pull the US into the quagmire.

There is no European Defense without the US.
Posted by: mossomo || 03/03/2025 12:45 Comments || Top||

#3  /\ My understanding is the UK is down to their last 25 army tanks. That should tell you something.
Posted by: Besoeker || 03/03/2025 14:43 Comments || Top||

#4  Given the suppression of freedoms within the EU, I see no reason to die for their collapse.
Posted by: Procopius2k || 03/03/2025 15:29 Comments || Top||

#5  Given that it looks like Trump will give in to Yeltsin's 1999 demand to "Just give Europe to Russia." Europe would actually be well advised to longer bother with NATO or Ukraine and build lots of nukes.

Ultimately, a future existence as a neo-Soviet Russian satrapy should be an unacceptable perspective for all EU nations and nukes are the most cost-effective way to avoid that fate now.
Posted by: Elmerert Hupens2660 || 03/03/2025 17:42 Comments || Top||

#6  I can't seem to embed this, so here's the link...

https://x.com/awstar11/status/1895961857372143824

Posted by: Thing From Snowy Mountain || 03/03/2025 18:11 Comments || Top||

#7  Which quotes this:

https://energyandcleanair.org/publication/eu-imports-of-russian-fossil-fuels-in-third-year-of-invasion-surpass-financial-aid-sent-to-ukraine/

Posted by: Thing From Snowy Mountain || 03/03/2025 18:12 Comments || Top||


When it comes to Ukraine, Europe is delusional
[AmericanThinker] European leaders in Brussels declare themselves the "leaders of the free world" while arresting citizens for memes. Likewise, they claim Putin woke up one morning, had a cup of coffee, and attacked the beautiful democracy of Ukraine..."unprovoked."

Who do they think they’re trying to fool?

Americans ought to know that the war started in 2014 when Yanukovych
Viktor Yanukovych, 74, the Russian-Ukrainian fourth president of post-Soviet Ukraine (before that thrice prime minister) who was driven out in the 2014 revolution. He has since then lived in exile in Russia…
was forcibly removed from office. Some Ukrainians call it a coup, others a glorious revolution—the only difference being political affiliation.

Supporters of Yanukovych, mostly in Donbas, chose to secede and, like most secessions, it led to a civil war. Much later, the Minsk agreement was brokered to give Donbas some degree of autonomy.

Despite this agreement, Kyiv intermittently shelled the folks in Donbas, most of whom have Russian ethnicity, over a period of six years. In 2022, after years of failed negotiations, Russia decided, rightly or wrongly, to take matters into its own hands, vowing to end the conflict.

Kiev blamed Russia for the shelling. Residents in Donbas blamed Kiev. Who was at fault? Who knows?

Either way, none of that matters now. It’s 2025, a million people have died, maybe more, and there is no end in sight.

Indeed, despite spending hundreds of billions on a foreign conflict that doesn’t directly affect the American people, our establishment media advocates spending more tax dollars to save a "fellow democracy," while omitting the fact that Zelenskyy arrests dissenters and political opponents, while using the war as an excuse not to hold elections. (Many nations, including our own, have managed elections during a war.)

I wonder if perhaps it’s time for those who display their Ukrainian flags to rethink what it means: Specifically, does it mean supporting Brussels, a large, inefficient, bureaucratic machine that blames Russia for all of Europe’s economic woes and whose war mongers thump their chest like foot-dragging, knuckle-dragging Neanderthals? Or does it mean supporting the Ukrainian military, which goes door-to-door, dragging men to war, forcing conscription?

How many of us would volunteer to travel to Ukraine to fight on the front-line?

Regarding peace, Zelensky and Brussels incessantly use two phrases: "lasting peace" and "security guarantees," but their proposals are vague and unrealistic. In the real world, a security guarantee would mean American boots on the ground in Ukraine.

I would argue that Trump made the right decision. The jingoism in Europe may expand the war, but we should not get involved.

Posted by: Grom the Affective || 03/03/2025 00:00 || Comments || Link || [11135 views] Top|| File under:

#1 
Posted by: badanov || 03/03/2025 0:02 Comments || Top||

#2  The one possibility that comes to mind is that they try to distract their subject population from ongoing Muslim conquest by "Russia, Russia, Russia!".
Posted by: Grom the Affective || 03/03/2025 4:43 Comments || Top||


Government Corruption
A Secretive Movement Known As “AltGov” Is Openly Rebelling Against Trump And Musk From Inside Our Federal Agencies
It seems the #AltGov movement has been a thing — an internet search of that reveals lots of stories on the subject.
[TheMostImportantNews] We have a government that is literally fighting against itself. The federal workforce has always been more liberal than the population as a whole, but in recent years things have gotten really bad. Prior to this year, Democrats
...every time you hear the phrase white people, white supremacy, white anything but paint, you're listening to a Democrat. Ask him/her/it to reimagine something for you; they do that a lot, though not well. They can hear a dog whistle a mile or two away. They invented the spoils system and Tammany Hall, and inspired the addition of the word (Thomas) Nasty to the English language. They want to stop continental drift and repeal the law of unintended side effects...
had been in control of the White House for 12 of the past 16 years. Over time, leftists that were hired for key positions just kept hiring more leftists underneath them. In fact, it got to a point where DEI policies at various agencies essentially institutionalized the systematic hiring of leftists. By the end of the Biden administration, leftist domination of most of our federal agencies was virtually complete. But now we have a new administration that most of our leftist federal workers absolutely detest. Many of them have absolutely no intention of cooperating with the new administration, and some of them have started to openly rebel against it.

A secretive movement known as “#AltGov” has become the epicenter of that rebellion. Those that are involved primarily communicate through anonymous social media accounts and an encrypted messaging app…

Calling itself #AltGov, the network has developed a visible, public-facing presence in recent weeks through Bluesky accounts, most of which bear the names or initials of federal agencies, aimed at getting information out to the public – and correcting disinformation – about the chaos being unleashed by the Trump administration.

With 40 accounts to date, their collective megaphone is getting louder, as most of the accounts have tens of thousands of followers, with “Alt CDC (they/them)” being the largest, at nearly 95,000 followers.

The network has also formed a group and a series of sub-groups on Wire, the encrypted messaging app, to share information and develop strategies – as played out on Saturday.

Most people don’t realize this, but the “#AltGov” movement was very active during the first Trump administration.

Of course during the Biden administration it went away, because the leftists inside our federal agencies saw no need to rebel against Joe Biden.

But now it is back with a vengeance…

“#AltGov dates from the first Trump administration, but it’s even more needed now,” said an employee at Fema, the disaster response agency, who requested anonymity to avoid being targeted at work. She recently launched an #AltGov Fema account on Bluesky. With nearly 13,000 followers, the account says it’s dedicated to “helping people before, during, and after (this democratic) disaster”.

One member of the group that has dared to go public with her identity has explained what the purpose of “#AltGov” actually is…

The network is aiming to “expose harmful policies, defend public institutions and equip citizens with tools to push back against authoritarianism,” Lynn Stahl, a contractor for the Department of Veterans Affairs and member of the group, told the Guardian.

In other words, they want to use their positions inside the federal government to oppose the Trump administration any way that they can.

If it sounds like this is gross insubordination to you, that is because it is gross insubordination.

And we are already seeing the results.

Attorney General Pam Bondi instructed the FBI to deliver all documents related to Jeffrey Epstein to her office, and they told her that they had done so.

But now it turns out that they had secretly held back thousands of documents,
Unfortunately, many of the documents that Bondi wants may no longer exist.

FBI whistleblower Garret O’Boyle has revealed that operatives inside the FBI have been working feverishly to destroy sensitive files…

“There are FBI servers,” said ex-agent-turned-whistleblower Garret O’Boyle, “and people inside the FBI have been working night and day to destroy files on these servers.”

“No idea on what it is — I can only speculate — but you mentioned the Epstein list,” he added. “I’d imagine it’s cases like that.”

Now that Kash Patel has finally been confirmed, he is moving quickly to try to get control of the agency, but it appears that many FBI agents have no intention of obeying his lawful orders…

“Last week, right out of the gate, Kash Patel said 500 people were going to Alabama,” O’Boyle said, explaining that they would still be “headquarters personnel, but in Alabama.”

The other 1,000 agents, he said, were sent out to the field nationwide.

“Already, people are saying, we are not going to comply with that,” O’Boyle told Johnson. “We are going to make it seem as if we transferred—we’re going to do what they call ‘paper transfers’—and we’re not going to obey these lawful orders.”

If this sort of insubordination persists, more agencies may have to be almost entirely dismantled just like USAID was.

The cuts are only going to get deeper in the weeks ahead.

For example, the Trump administration has announced that 120 IRS offices will be permanently shut down…

The Trump administration is moving forward with plans to shut down more than 120 IRS offices that provide taxpayer assistance as part of a broader effort to reduce the federal government’s footprint and cut costs.

The decision, outlined in a letter from the U.S. General Services Administration (GSA) obtained by The Washington Post, comes at a crucial time—right in the middle of the federal tax filing season, which ends on April 15.

On top of everything else that is going on, a potential government shutdown is looming in the middle of next month…

Congress is barreling toward a deadline to avert a government shutdown in just over two weeks, with Democrats and Republicans at odds over whether there should be guardrails on President Trump’s ability to withhold funding approved by Congress.

Democrats want to insert language in the funding bill to ensure that the administration implements the spending directed by Congress, a reaction to Mr. Trump and top adviser Elon Musk’s work to downsize large swaths of the executive branch. But Republicans have made it clear that they won’t accept those terms.

Government funding expires on March 14, and keeping the government open past the deadline will likely require bipartisan support in both the House and Senate. Republicans control 53 seats in the Senate, but a funding measure requires 60 votes for passage. In the House, Republicans are operating with a razor-thin majority and a divided conference in which conservatives regularly vote against government spending bills.

In my entire lifetime, we have never seen this much chaos in Washington.
Posted by: trailing wife || 03/03/2025 00:00 || Comments || Link || [11144 views] Top|| File under:

#1  DOGE has demonstrated the ability to slice and dice electronic files at a high level. Participating in an insurrection that leaves an electronic record of its organization and activities does not seem smart all things considered.
Posted by: Super Hose || 03/03/2025 5:30 Comments || Top||

#2  Sedition against a constitutionally elected government.
Posted by: Procopius2k || 03/03/2025 6:31 Comments || Top||

#3  NSA surveillance data is remarkedly absent.
Posted by: Skidmark || 03/03/2025 7:35 Comments || Top||

#4  #AltGov looks to be the same as the Deep State, the Blob, or the Swamp.
Posted by: Anguper Hupomosing9418 || 03/03/2025 9:46 Comments || Top||

#5  In the movie The Untouchables(1987) the detective went directly to the police academy for team members because of the pervasive corruption in the established police. The same applies here: Where do you find enough outsiders to eradicate #AltGov?
Posted by: magpie || 03/03/2025 10:13 Comments || Top||

#6  ^You don't need to. Make an example of a couple - the rest will give up - these are bureaucrats, not revolutionaries.
Posted by: Grom the Affective || 03/03/2025 10:30 Comments || Top||

#7  Ref #3: Intelligence community at work. Going to take some time to dismantle the Obama/Brennan' Klingon shadow government and military industrial complex.

Linked to this not so "secret AltGov" effort was the recently revealed Dem meetings with Zelinski urging him to NOT sign a peace deal.

DOGE or DOJ must investigate any Ukie kickbacks to US Dem pols. If there is anything to the rumors, a bunch of these SOB's need to be jailed.

Posted by: Besoeker || 03/03/2025 10:30 Comments || Top||

#8  Inaction on the part of Bondi and Noem are fueling further rebellion as predicted. If they will not act, replace immediately.
Posted by: Rex Mundi || 03/03/2025 12:01 Comments || Top||

#9  I tweeted to Trump that the Boss Fight was inevitable, and all our problems trace back to one man.

#MakeGallowsGreatAgain
Posted by: mossomo || 03/03/2025 12:28 Comments || Top||

#10  Boss fight? One man?
Posted by: trailing wife || 03/03/2025 13:14 Comments || Top||

#11  ^ #9 He means a certain 21st century ex-president. The smart one.
Posted by: Secret Master || 03/03/2025 15:59 Comments || Top||

#12  Clarice on FB:
4m
BREAKING 🔴
NBC: New York FBI Field Office Chief James Dennehy has been officially forced out.
Posted by: Frank G || 03/03/2025 18:01 Comments || Top||

#13  Some executions for insurrection would dampen their desire to rebel
Posted by: Silentbrick || 03/03/2025 19:55 Comments || Top||

#14  @EricLDaugh
·
42s
🚨 Pam Bondi just announced a “TRUCKLOAD” of documents were received and the FBI is reviewing them ahead of future Epstein releases.
Posted by: Frank G || 03/03/2025 22:11 Comments || Top||


Olde Tyme Religion
Archbishop Vigano's Warning on the Usurper of the Throne of St. Peter
[GatewayPundit] Courageous servant of God, Archbishop Vigano shared this exclusive message concerning recent events surrounding "Jorge Mario Bergoglio".

The contradictory updates being given about Jorge Mario Bergoglio’s medical condition casts a disturbing light on the way Vatican communications are being managed. There are those who believe that "the Pope is already deceased" and that this fact is being kept hidden from the public. It is clear that the Vatican and the Bergoglian deep church are in a panic and will do everything to gather the consensus of the Cardinals together around the name of someone who will continue the Bergoglian revolution. There are those who have every interest in burying their own crimes — along with those of Bergoglio — while in the United States there is a head-on clash of the US Bishops’ Conference against the Trump Administration, after the scandal regarding the funds of the Agency for International Development (USAID) has brought to light the complicity of the Catholic Church in the lucrative business of immigration.

It is necessary to prevent the progressive hierarchy from ensuring that one of their own is Bergoglio’s successor, that is, another usurper on the Throne of Peter who will be the heir and continuator of the previous one. Before hammering the final nail into Bergoglio’s coffin, it is therefore essential and urgent that light be shed on the usurpation he perpetrated and on the occupation of the Catholic Church by a corrupt and treacherous hierarchy, whose sole aim is to destroy Her from within.

The maneuvers of the Saint Gallen Mafia in tandem with the ultra-progressive Left; the unpunished crimes of Theodore McCarrick; McCarrick’s role within the Democrat Administrations; the influence McCarrick has exercised in obtaining episcopal appointments for his "heirs"— who are all homosexual and corrupt — designated to fill key positions in the US and in the Vatican; McCarrick’s work as Bergoglio’s liaison to the Chinese Communist regime in order to obtain the signing of the Secret Agreement with the Holy See; the role of the Jesuits in promoting the globalist agenda; Bergoglio’s scandalous ongoing cover-ups of notorious abusers and perverts; the cover-up of the dossier about the Vatican corruption network, delivered by Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI to Bergoglio in April 2013 and about which there has still never been any follow-up; Bergoglio’s role in the crime perpetrated against humanity with the "Covid pandemic" and the imposition of vaccines; the cynical exploitation of illegal immigrants in order to destroy the social fabric of the West: all this and more confirms that the Bergoglian church is not only an accomplice in the subversive plan of the World Economic Forum but a leading protagonist. The faithful have the right to know the full truth about all of these events.

After years of lies, dissimulations, and silence, it is necessary to acknowledge Jorge Mario Bergoglio’s fraud and put him on trial, restoring that truth and justice demanded by the victims of his reprisals, his intimidating acts, and his connivance in the crimes of his instigators and his protégés. Investigations are needed into his past life, into the crimes he committed in Argentina (which is why he never returned as "pope" to his native country) and into the murky events that allege Jorge Mario Bergoglio was personally responsible for the sexual abuse of young Jesuits when he was Novice Master in Argentina. It must be clarified whether Tomas Ricardo Arizaga (known as Tomasito), who died on 20 July 2014 at the age of 11, and who was then cremated and buried in 2019 in the Teutonic Cemetery in the Vatican after having had his teeth removed, is really Bergoglio’s son, as has been rumored for too long and as multiple elements lead us to believe.

An international criminal alliance united subversive forces to eliminate Benedict XVI, forcing him to resign and replacing him with an emissary of globalism. Cardinal Godfried Danneels himself admitted it, referring to the Mafia of Saint Gallen; McCarrick reiterated it when speaking at Villanova University on October 11, 2013; the president and founder of Voices of Progress — a pressure group that deals with climate change, migration, and other woke issues — planned it, discussing it with John Podesta (Hillary Clinton campaign chairman), in emails released by Wikileaks (here).

The "Catholic Spring" has made use of Jorge Mario Bergoglio, a corrupt and maneuverable character, fraudulently imposed upon the Catholic Church as "pope". We ask the Authorities of the United States of America and Argentina to provide documents and evidence of these facts. This will prove that Jorge Mario Bergoglio has never been pope of the Catholic Church: all his acts of government and teaching are null and void, and all his appointments are null and void, including those of the Cardinals who will elect his successor.

It is now time to face the truth with courage, so that the liberation of the Catholic Church from the subversives who have occupied Her for too long in order to destroy Her may be a radical and authentic liberation, and so that the accomplices of the fraud — who are still in the Vatican and will survive Bergoglio — may be discovered and put on trial, before their criminal action destroys the evidence of the crimes they have committed.
Posted by: The Walking Unvaxed || 03/03/2025 00:00 || Comments || Link || [11130 views] Top|| File under:



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