Source: Caitlin Johnstone, Rogue Journalist
by Caitlin Johnstone
“The two big stories in the news today are the Trump administration saying Ukraine is going to have to give up territory and NATO ambitions in order to secure a peace deal, while Israel appears to retreat from its ceasefire standoff with Hamas. US Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth said on Wednesday that the US ‘does not believe that NATO membership for Ukraine is a realistic outcome for a negotiated settlement,’ and that ‘returning to Ukraine’s pre-2014 borders is an unrealistic objective.’ This comes as Trump announces that he is in talks with Vladimir Putin to bring the war in Ukraine to an end. Both NATO membership and recapturing all territory lost to Russia have been the goal of Ukraine’s President Zelensky and the NATO enthusiasts throughout the western world who adore him.” (02/13/25)
“Not a sentence said by a Democrat these days doesn’t have a subject, a verb and ‘constitutional crisis.’ President Trump wanting to halt spending while he reviews a government in massive debt is an ‘assault on Democracy,’ a ‘circumvention of Congress’ and, in typical understatement, an ‘executive coup.’ Balderdash. While Trump must jump through certain hoops to offer buyouts or pare down departments, it was never the Founders’ intention for career government employees to outrank the president. As Hamilton wrote in Federalist No. 70, ‘energy in the executive is the leading character in the definition of good government.’ It’s the job of the president to drive the government forward, not allow it to become an unelected blob that controls every aspect of our lives.” (02/12/25)
“The Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) ramped up grants for migrants from 2020 to 2024 — which included cash assistance to buy cars, homes and even build credit for startup businesses, according to a shocking watchdog report that found taxpayers were left on the hook for $22.6 billion. HHS’[s] Office of Refugee Resettlement (ORR) — which came under fire last year for having lost track of 32,000 migrant kids in the US — handed out the high sum to a host of nonprofits, effectively acting as a ‘giant magnet’ for those crossing the US border and claiming asylum, auditors from the money monitor OpenTheBooks revealed exclusively to The Post.” (02/13/25)
“[T]he late sociologist Robert Nisbet applied a pithy descriptor to a phenomenon we have seen all too often in public life: the ‘no-fault’ theory of political action, particularly in foreign affairs. ‘Presidents, secretaries, and generals and admirals in America seemingly subscribe to the doctrine that no fault ever attaches to policy and operations,’ he wrote. ‘This No Fault conviction prevents them from taking too seriously such notorious foul-ups as Desert One, Grenada, Lebanon, and now the Persian Gulf.’ Nisbet did not live to see a spectacular example of his theory. George W. Bush, having failed to prevent the 9/11 disaster his own intelligence agencies foresaw, proceeded to initiate a years-long disaster in Iraq, a catastrophe of his own making. Yet what were the consequences? The American people rewarded him with a second term in the face of abundant evidence of his incompetence and bad faith.” (02/13/25)
“Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) is doing some digital archeology into the dark closet of federal spending, and the skeletons they’re turning up aren’t pretty. I’ve been writing for over two years about the Biden administration’s use of taxpayer money to facilitate illegal [sic] immigration. But I won’t complain about headlines like ‘Elon Musk said DOGE uncovered $59 million in payments for luxury hotels’ — even if Musk’s work was more to ‘publicize’ than to ‘uncover.’ Thanks to Biden’s open border and mass parole programs, millions of aliens entered the U.S. border illegally [sic] over the past four years. Over the same timeframe, Congress granted $31 billion to the Department of Health and Human Services to provide housing, medical and legal services to these aliens. ” (02/13/25)
“Two British nationals — a man and a woman — have been arrested in Iran, the Foreign Office has confirmed. News of their arrest first came from state-run media in Iran which said they were in custody in the south-eastern city of Kerman, accused of unspecified security-related offences. It did not name them but published a photograph of them with their faces blurred, meeting the British ambassador, Hugo Shorter, at the prosecutor’s office in Kerman on Wednesday. The Foreign Office currently advises against all travel to Iran, saying that British and British-Iranian dual nationals are at ‘significant risk’ of arrest, questioning or detention. ‘Having a British passport or connections to the UK can be reason enough for the Iranian authorities to detain you,’ the advice says.” (02/13/25)
“On February 4, in a joint press conference with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, U.S. President Donald Trump announced that the United States ‘will take over the Gaza Strip,’ ‘level the site,’ have all Palestinians removed, and enable ‘people from all over the world [to] be there’ to enjoy what he appears to envision as an international resort area. While many observers are dismissing Trump’s statement as a bizarre and spontaneous scheme on which he will likely not follow through, the announcement appeared to be the result of at least some degree of planning …. it is the logical extension of decades of bipartisan U.S. policy in support of Israel’s occupation and colonization of the West Bank, as well as recognition of Israel’s illegal annexation of the Golan Heights, a recognition of Jerusalem as Israel’s exclusive capital, and support for Israel’s decades-long siege of and successive devastating wars on the Gaza Strip.” (02/13/25)
“Faced with the highest rates of violent crime in the world, leaders in Latin America have turned to increasingly harsh tactics in recent years to rein in drug cartels and gangs. For a while, their people went along. Declining homicide rates have meant children can play in public parks again. But on Sunday, when voters in Ecuador forced a runoff between the two top presidential contenders, they effectively hit pause on the region’s embrace of hard-line approaches to law and order. Polls show that most support emergency measures to make streets safer, but many reject what they see as attempts by politicians to manipulate them through fear. As the main opposition candidate, Luisa González, said Sunday night, ‘We do not want a state of war, but a state of peace that is built with social justice.'” (02/12/25)
“Every time a Republican sneezed in the last decade there was a mob of Democrats there to protest it. Whenever a Republican called for an end to the genital mutilation of children or a Hamas terrorist murdered Jews somewhere, a gaggle of progressive goons tried to murder police officers, burn down a courthouse somewhere or call for the completion of Hitler’s work of wiping out the Jews. The rent-a-mob was always at the ready, with tents and signs ready to go and the ability to show up pretty much anywhere in the US at a moment’s notice. Where are they now? Isn’t it odd that the only ‘protests’, insofar as they can be called that, are happening in Washington, DC? New York City streets aren’t being marched down. Seattle isn’t burning. Neither Portland is under siege. Where are they? Well, I have a theory.” (02/13/25)
“Employees at the U.S. Agency for International Development asked a federal judge on Thursday to keep blocking an effort by President Donald Trump’s administration to pull all but a fraction of worldwide staffers off the job. U.S. District Judge Carl Nichols, who was nominated by Trump, handed the administration and billionaire ally Elon Musk a setback last week by temporarily halting plans that would have put thousands of workers on leave and given those abroad only 30 days to return to the United States at government expense. Nichols’ order was set to expire by the end of the day. Two associations representing federal employees want him to continue it, as well as suspending Trump’s freeze on almost all foreign assistance. The president’s pause has shut down clinics, emergency water deliveries and almost all of the thousands of other U.S.-funded aid and development programs around the globe, USAID workers and humanitarian groups say.” (02/13/25)
