Today’s News 9th February 2024

• The Geopolitics Of World War III
  The Geopolitics Of World War III

  Authored by Michael Hochberg & Leonard Hochberg via RealClearWire.com,

  Introduction

  On January 2, 2024, Foreign Minister Israel Katz proclaimed “We’re in the middle of World War III against Iran [led] radical Islam, whose tentacles are already in Europe.”   He claimed that Israel, in engaging in a war against Hamas and other Iranian proxies, was defending “everyone.” Although his rhetoric may seem overblown to many in the United States and Europe, it should not be dismissed out of hand.  Sometimes, regional conflicts, such as the Japanese conquest of Manchuria of 1931-32 or the Spanish Civil War of 1936-39, foreshadow dangers that are more geographically extensive and militarily intense.  Do the barbaric events of October 7, 2023, and the Israeli military campaign in Gaza prefigure a broader, global armed conflict?  Or is this merely a local conflict, one that is likely unresolvable short of one side or the other engaging in genocide or ethnic cleansing? 

  We have written this paper in a specific context. Over thirty months ago we made a geopolitical prediction regarding the emergence of a global conflict with four fronts.  However, social scientists rarely test their theories by predicting future political events.  Who wants to be characterized as a Jonah or a Cassandra?  As one eminent strategist argued, the future of war (in detail) is unknowable.  And, with perhaps one notable exception, social scientists rarely engage, on a routine basis, in disprovable prediction.  Without predictive tools, social scientists and strategists must rely on intuition, a knowledge of history, and good theories—all of which are often in short supply.

  

  A Four-Front Global War?

  On the anniversary of D-day, June 6, 2021, The Hill posted our paper, “Could the United States Fight a Four Front War? Not Today.”  We predicted that several autocratic powers would launch “simultaneous challenges” designed to diminish the power and influence of the United States.  These seemingly distinct conflicts, when viewed from the perspective of Halford Mackinder’s Heartland thesis, should be perceived as separate fronts of a single war by autocratic, territorial powers – either in close cooperation or piggybacking on one or another’s challenge to the established order – on the dominance of the United States and its maritime partners and allies situated along the Eurasian littoral.  We argued that the United States should rebuild its naval capacity, and by implication its military industrial capacity more generally.  Specifically, we wrote: “If we are to avoid a multi-front war, the United States must be ready to fight and win conventional conflicts in several places simultaneously and must invest in strengthening our allies’ ability to defend themselves.”

  Written on the eve of the withdrawal from Afghanistan, August 31, 2021, our paper suggested that Vladimir Putin’s Russia might once again attack Ukraine to complete the conquest it had initiated in 2014 and thereby dominate the northern littoral of the Black Sea from Crimea to Moldova. To wit:

  Russia continues to threaten Ukraine, aiming to consolidate its conquest of Crimea. When Ukraine surrendered its nuclear arms, the U.S. guaranteed Ukrainian territorial integrity in the 1994 Budapest Memorandum. Russia has eloquently demonstrated the low value of such guarantees.

  Regarding Iran, we argued that:

  Rogue autocratic regimes are a growing threat. Iran sponsors Houthi rebels in Yemen, stokes Shi’ite discontent in the Gulf States and Iraq, dominates Lebanon and Syria through Hezbollah, and threatens shipping through the Gulf of Hormuz. Iran, through its many proxies throughout the Middle East, would seek to dominate the region and instigate further attacks by Hamas on Israel. 

  Communist China, a new peer adversary for the United States, would be tempted to pile on, seeking to reunify Taiwan with the Mainland as a preliminary to securing control over the South China and East China Seas:

  Chinese leader Xi Jinping has declared that Taiwan will be incorporated into China, by force if necessary. China is building a capacity to invade or blockade Taiwan, threatening U.S. reliance on Taiwan for advanced electronics, semiconductors, and as a port to contain Chinese ambitions in the Pacific.

  Our intuition suggested that the current administration was squandering a key strategic asset, specifically the deterrence required to cause leaders of autocracies across Eurasia to refrain from testing the resolve of the United States.  More recently, we introduced the concept of ‘distributed deterrence’ as a strategy that the United States could leverage to generate more effective deterrence both quickly and inexpensively.

  We offered these predictions in the hope that Western policy makers would strengthen the defenses of our allies in Ukraine, Israel, and Taiwan, and that as a result, deterrence would win the day.  In effect, we were hoping to be proven wrong, as policy makers considered the dangers of a multi-front war in their planning.  Unfortunately, events have begun to unfold as we predicted, because the United States did not act in a timely way to adequately reinforce, train, and support our allies.

  Taking Stock

  After 30 months, we believe it is now necessary to take stock of our prediction.  To do so is not merely to provide a checklist of what we got right or wrong, but more significantly to offer an assessment of how our understanding of the strategic history of Eurasian autocracies led to these predictions.

  The Ukraine Front

  The 2014 Russian attack on Ukraine resulted in the conquest of Donbas – a territory along the eastern Ukrainian border with Russia – and the Crimea.  These areas were inhabited largely by ethnic Russians and Russian speakers, though some of them certainly had no desire to be ruled from Moscow.  Putin justified this attack as a response to Ukraine’s assault on a population that wished to remain Russian, in a cultural, linguistic, and ethnic sense.  The Russian failure to capture a land bridge to Crimea from its conquests in Donbas strongly suggested that another campaign would have to be launched to consolidate territory, provide another supply route to Crimea, and forestall a Ukrainian bid to enter the EU and NATO (here, here, here, and here). 

  After Russia renewed its war in Ukraine on February 22, 2022, many Western pundits began to speculate on how this second phase would end.  The Russian drive on Kiev, designed to conquer the Ukraine capital, stalled, and then was turned back.  Ukraine forces launched successful counter attacks in the east and south, reconquering some lost territory and fueling a sense that a Ukrainian victory might soon be possible.  Meanwhile, as the United States became more committed to the Ukraine cause, few commentators offered an assessment of what the United States should seek as an outcome in line with its own interests, and what means should be deployed in order to generate such an outcome.  We indicated that there were essentially three geostrategic outcomes (here, here, and here) that should be considered: Sell out Ukraine to turn Russia from an ally of China into a client of the United States, secure a rapid Ukraine victory that would reinforce the international rules based order, or allow a stalemate to emerge that would grind down the Russian military machine.  After explaining the pros and cons for each, we argued that the most desirable outcome, from an American strategic perspective, was a rapid Ukrainian victory that would result in Ukraine retaking both the Russian naval base in Sevastopol and the Crimean bridgehead.  Regardless of the feasibility of reconquering Crimea, the destruction of the Russian Black Sea fleet is highly desirable.

  To achieve this goal, the United States had to quickly supply Ukraine with advanced conventional military equipment, including long range missiles that would enable Ukraine’s forces to attack not only the logistics centers deep in Russian territory but also the Russian Navy.  Instead, the Biden administration has released ever more advanced equipment, haltingly and in dribs and drabs, which did not permit the Ukrainian troops to expel Russian forces from Donbas.  What weapons were provided were in many cases deliberately crippled so that they could not be used against Russian territory.  Extensive public discussions have preceded the delivery of advanced weapons systems, which has made it impossible for the Ukrainians to achieve surprise.   Instead of a rapid Ukrainian advance, the current position is one of stalemate, with trial balloons being released for diplomacy (here, here, and here) to restore (a faux) peace to Ukraine.  Initiating talks with Putin at this moment, when he has mobilized more manpower and is negotiating the purchase of weapons from Iran and China, signals Western weakness while emboldening enemies of the United States and disheartening Western allies across Eurasia.  With a significantly larger economy and population base than Ukraine, and with the ability to operate from a geographic shelter where they cannot be attacked, Russia has marked advantages in a long-war scenario.  If Russian propaganda and Western impatience can undermine Western popular support for Ukraine, even maintaining the current stalemate may become impracticable for the Ukrainians.  A steady and assured flow of Western support, including the provision of advanced systems is a necessity for the continued viability of the Ukrainian war effort. 

  Hamas-Israel Front

  Israel, the United States’ foremost ally in the Middle East, has once again come under attack by Hamas.  In a recent post, we argue that Hamas attacked Israel on the behalf of Iran to derail the Abraham Accords between Israel and the Arabic Muslim countries including, most notably, an upcoming negotiation with Saudi Arabia.  Such was the short-term occasion for the attack; over the medium run, Iran had engaged in a geostrategy of proxy encirclement, at two different scales: the local encirclement of Israel and a wider regional encirclement of Saudi Arabia.

  Across the Middle East, Saudi Arabia faces adversaries: Iran and its clients and proxies across the Fertile Crescent – that is the lands from Iraq, through Syria, and on to the eastern Mediterranean coast in Lebanon – and in Yemen, to the south of Saudi Arabia, where the Houthis have launched rockets attacking Saudi pipelines.  Furthermore, Iran has become deeply involved in the civil war in Sudan and has cooperated extensively with Qatar.  Both are major supporters of Hamas, and Iran backed Qatar during the crisis in Qatari relations with Saudi Arabia in 2017.   In addition to this geographically extensive encirclement of Saudi Arabia, there is ongoing effort to encircle Israel: To the North, Iranian proxies in Lebanon (i.e., Hezbollah) and, across the Golan Heights, the client state of Alawite Syria; to the east, the Palestinians in the territories of Jordan and the Palestinian Authority; in Israel, the Arab Israelis as a potential fifth column; and, to the west, in Gaza, the terror group, Hamas.  An Israeli tie to Saudi Arabia would have provided Israel with legitimacy in the Arab Muslim world and, should the Iranians launch an attack on Saudi Arabia or Israel, shared intelligence, technology, and expertise could have contributed to mutual defense.  For the foreseeable future, while the war in Gaza continues, negotiations between Israel and Saudi Arabia are unlikely to yield any public results.

  Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his war cabinet recognized in the aftermath of the slaughter of October 7, 2023 that Hamas and Gazan civilians were inspired by a culture of hatred to commit acts of barbarism (here, here, and here) – rape, beheadings, mutilation, kidnappings, etc. – previously deployed by the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria. To respond to this attack along the Gaza frontier, and to cope with the threats emerging on the northern border, on the Golan, and in the West Bank, Israel called up 300,000 reservists.  As of October 8, 2023, Israel’s standing army numbered 169,500, with the reserves numbering 465,000.  This call-up has deleterious economic consequences:  According to the Times of India, “JPMorgan Chase & Co. predicts that Israel’s economy may shrink 11% on an annualized basis in the last three months of the year due to the ongoing conflict with Hamas.”  The longer this war goes on, the greater the economic disruption.  The longer the desired political and military outcome, eliminating Hamas in Gaza, remains in doubt, the greater the likelihood that Hezbollah and other Iranian proxies will enter the fray in a significant fashion.  For Israel, deterrence, once lost in Gaza, must be forcefully and unambiguously restored, or its many regional enemies, including the Palestinians on the West Bank and potentially Muslims in Israel itself, may be inspired to launch intifadas, insurrections, and attacks.  For Israel, the attack on 10/7 and its aftermath presented an existential threat, because it altered regional perceptions of the competence of the IDF (contra here).

  The Attack on International Shipping

  In our prediction, we suggested that the Iranian regime would once again disrupt maritime commerce by attacking international shipping that passed through the Strait of Hormuz.  On January 11, 2024, Iran announced the seizure of a Greek-owned oil tanker in the Gulf of Oman, the waterway leading to the Strait of Hormuz.  It is too soon to tell if this event is a one-off or the opening of a campaign. 

  However, we did not perceive that the Iranians would prompt the Houthis to disrupt maritime commerce in the Bab al-Mandab, the strait connecting the Indian Ocean and the Mediterranean Sea via the Red Sea and the Suez Canal.  The Iranians have allegedly supplied the Houthis with advanced weaponry – missiles and unmanned aerial vehicles – for attacking Saudi pipelines and international shipping.  Although the Houthis’ claim to be attacking Israeli shipping in response to the Gaza war, the fact that most of the ships that have been attacked are owned by non-Israeli nationals and are not traveling to or from Israel suggests that these attacks are part of an ongoing Iranian effort to disrupt flows of commerce passing through the Middle East.  Such attacks are particularly harmful to the Egyptian regime, which derives an outsized portion of their revenues from canal fees and associated activity.  Identifying the geographic particular, the disruption at the Bab al-Mandab instead of at the Strait of Hormuz, proved elusive; however, we anticipated the Iranian intention. 

  Why did the Iranians turn to the Houthi proxy?  The Iranians may have become more risk averse, acting indirectly through the Houthis; attacks through proxies are less likely to generate repercussions or counterattacks at home, as they are deniable.  Meanwhile Iranian proxies are also engaged in repeatedly attacking U.S. outposts and military bases in Iraq and Syria, and most egregiously the U.S. embassy in Baghdad.  Iran has also issued a threat to attack shipping passing through the Strait of Gibraltar, presumably by mobilizing another proxy in Morocco.  Such geostrategic darts, for want of a better word, thrown at the United States and maritime commerce have demonstrated Iranian opposition to the Israeli war in Gaza and an intent to compromise the passage of shipping over the high seas.  It is unclear whether Iran’s leaders seek to drive the United States out of the Middle East, or whether they intend to draw the United States into a series of local counterinsurgencies against Iranian proxies, which would give Iran immense negotiating leverage.

  As of the writing of this essay, these attacks at the Bab al-Mandab have led the United States and the United Kingdom to attack the Houthis, but the maritime coalition has not, as yet, used military force against Iranian interests or facilities to reestablish deterrence with regard to the sponsors of these proxy attacks.  Certainly, these attacks serve to increase open-market prices for oil and gas; this helps Russian economic prospects.  Also, China is likely paying fixed prices for sanctioned Iranian oil coming through the Straits of Hormuz; this likely helps explain why the Red Sea is being closed (to all but Chinese and Russian aligned shipping) but Hormuz has thus far remained open.

  What is of utmost importance here is this: the earlier a prediction, the more difficult it is to specify the date and location of any adversarial event, particularly a military attack.  The fact that the Iranians have instigated attacks by Houthis at the Bab al Mandab instead of launching a campaign at Hormuz is less important than having correctly predicted Iran’s intentions amid a multi-front war.  We advanced the claim that the Iranians would once again disrupt international shipping, which they have done through a proxy.  Attacks at any major maritime choke point have consequences for supply chains across the world economy.    

  China and the Taiwan Front

  The jury is still out regarding a final geopolitical prediction:  Will Communist China resort to armed force to integrate Taiwan?  Recently, the Chinese regime has sent war ships into the seas near Taiwan to demonstrate a capacity to blockade that island.  In addition, Chinese fighter jets have tested Taiwanese aerial defenses, prompting Defense Minister Chiu Kuo-cheng to state, in October of 2022, that “[We] will view any crossing of aerial entities (into Taiwan’s territorial airspace) as a first strike.”  Kuo-cheng subsequently threatened to respond with force. 

  CNN recently reported that President Xi Jinping told President Joe Biden, during their summit held near San Francisco on November 15, 2023, that “China’s preference was for peaceful reunification and laid out conditions under which use of force would be utilized.”  CNN failed to report on those conditions or may not have been privy to the specifics; nevertheless, CNN also reported that an unnamed U.S. official indicated that, when Biden suggested that “peace and stability” were U.S. goals for the region, “President Xi responded: Look, peace is all well and good, but at some point we need to move towards resolution more generally[.]” In the run up to the recent election in Taiwan, Beijing urged voters to choose “peace over war.”  The candidate who Beijing perceived as advocating for Taiwanese independence won, and now Xi may believe that China has to make good on the many threats (here, here, here, here, and here) issued regarding the Taiwan issue.

  Such threats should not be ignored; rather, they must be understood as occurring during an ongoing confrontation with the United States, one that could erupt into another front in a global war should the United States continue dealing ineffectively with the seemingly separate conflicts in Ukraine, the Levant, and at the Bab al-Mandab.  As our prediction indicated, the greater the number of fronts in this emerging global conflict, the more difficult it will be for the United States to prioritize where to send depleted treasure – due in part to the rising national debt – and scarce weaponry – due in part to the failure to maintain an adequate industrial base to produce military hardware. 

  Four Fronts, One War

  At this point, the Russo-Ukraine war, Hamas’ attack on Israel and the Israeli response, the Houthis’ war against international shipping, and the 100 or more Iranian proxy attacks on American outposts in the Middle East would all suggest that a multifront war has been launched.   Was this multi-front war coordinated, sequenced, or merely the result of opportunism? 

  Historians may one day be able to make a definitive determination.  For purposes of figuring out what to do next, this is a distinction without a difference: The perception among the enemies of the West is that the present moment is one in which they have an opportunity to exploit Western distraction and weakness.  What is known now is this: Russia, Iran and China have signed a series of bilateral economic agreements rendering their economies, including weapons acquisitions, more interdependent (here, here, here, here and here).  Such economic understandings often undergird emerging alliances. 

  For further evidence that the prediction of four fronts is in fact one war, consider the following mutually reinforcing consequences.  The shipments of Ukrainian exports through the Suez Canal have fallen off since the Houthis compromised transport that passes through the Bab al Mandab.  Ukraine’s financial ability to prosecute its war against Russia is thus being impaired.  Russian and Chinese freighters have reportedly been given a free pass through the Red Sea by the Houthis (here), a preferential policy conferring a time and distance advantage over competitors who, to avoid the war zone, transport their cargoes round the Cape of Good Hope to European markets.  Meanwhile, Russian Defense Ministry has reportedly announced a soon-to-be-signed, anti-American, and pro-multipolar pact with Iran.  Meanwhile, the delivery of U.S. military hardware to Ukraine and Israel reduces available equipment for Taiwan.

  Will Xi Jinping take advantage of America’s lack of preparedness for a multifront war across the Eurasian rimland?  For our prediction of a four-front war to be fully realized, Communist China would have to blockade or attack Taiwan even as these other conflicts take place, or in their immediate aftermath – once it becomes apparent that the United States lacks the will and/or the capability to respond effectively to yet another threat to the existing order.  At some point, these separate fronts may be perceived as a single world-wide war, though not, as the Israeli Foreign Minister claimed, a world war between the West and radical Islam.  Instead, this world-wide four-front war should be perceived as Eurasian land-power autocracies attacking maritime democracies and their allies, led by the United States. 

  Geopolitical Theory of the Heartland

  Beyond an intuition born of having read strategic history, what theory informs our understanding of strategic history and the relevant geography?  We rely on geopolitical theory, most notably Halford Mackinder’s theory of the Heartland, to assess the trajectory of events across Eurasia.  Despite differences across Mackinder’s three geopolitical statements (1904, 1919, and 1943), the essential feature of his geopolitical theory is this: With the completion of the Trans-Siberian Railroad, the economic isolation imposed on interior Eurasian settlements by virtue of the cost of overland transportation had come to an end.  Until that moment, a vast stretch of territory reaching from the Arctic in the north to the Iranian plateau in the south, from the Lena, Indigirka, and Kolyma River basins in the east and beyond Moscow to the west, was characterized by a shared geographic feature: the rivers in this area flowed north to the frozen Arctic Ocean or south to land-locked seas such as the Caspian Sea.  As a result of this landlocked situation, naval power, exercised by Great Britain or other seafaring nations, had little if any military impact on the course of events in the region Mackinder labeled ‘the Heartland.’  But with the completion of the Railway, Tsarist Russia – and later the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics – alone or in an alliance with European or Asian powers, might profoundly influence the course of global events due to access to new sources of minerals, the presence of virgin soil, and demographic expansion.  Ultimately, interior lines of transport and communication for the movement of armies overland across the expanse of the Heartland would enable whichever power occupied the Heartland to project power westward to the European Coastlands, southwestward to Arabia, and south and eastward into the Monsoon Coastland – three of the six natural regions of Eurasia (here and here).

  Even more critical was Mackinder’s recognition that World War I led to a potential reshaping of the Heartland as one of these natural regions.  Mackinder posited that the region he labeled the “Strategic Heartland” included contested seas and river basins, as well as land routes suitable for invasion.  Hence, the Strategic Heartland encompassed the natural Heartland, and in Europe, it extended to the Danube Basin, the Black Sea littoral, the eastern stretches of the Northern European Plain, and the Baltic Sea littoral.  For Mackinder, the maritime outposts of naval power, the Black and Baltic Seas, might be turned into “lakes,” should the power occupying the Heartland capture a sea’s littoral through the successful domination by land power. 

  Learning From Geopolitical Theory

  We learned three lessons from Mackinder’s geopolitical theory.  First, Mackinder’s argument pertaining to the Baltic and Black Seas revealed that threatening or capturing the maritime chokepoints near the Bosporus and Dardanelles or the Kattegat and Skagerrak – the straits north of Denmark connecting the Baltic to the North Sea – was essential to controlling these seas.  By way of a geographic analogy, Mackinder’s theory enables the observer of geopolitics to appreciate how control over the Strait of Hormuz and the Bab al-Mandab compromises freedom of the seas in the Persian Gulf and the Red Sea approach to the Suez Canal and may eventually lead to control over the relevant coastlines.  However, modern missile technology requires only proximity to a strategic strait or narrow body of water for sea denial to be effective against commercial shipping (here).

  Second, Mackinder’s 1920 Report on the situation in South Russia during the Bolshevik Revolution revealed the strategic importance of Ukraine’s territory.  A major invasion into the Russian cultural and demographic core around Moscow was launched north from Ukraine by the White Russian forces.  In addition, one glance at a “strategic map” of Europe, viewed from high above the Urals, reveals not only the importance of the Northern European plain as an invasion route into Russia but also the southern invasion route from the Crimea.  Before the recent outbreak of war, the United States allegedly began modernizing a Ukrainian naval base located east of Odessa  to accommodate larger warships.  Russian geostrategic planners must consider threats from both directions, particularly if the Baltics and Ukraine are aligned with what they consider to be an adversary.  For restoring the Russian empire and reestablishing Russian status as a great power, the conquest and incorporation of Ukraine is perceived as critical.  Russia seeks to dominate Ukraine for its manpower, its on-shore mineral and off-shore hydrocarbon deposits, its industrial base, its agricultural productivity, and its strategic location.  In geo-economic terms, the ongoing division of the world-economy into a sphere of maritime and the land-based Eurasian territorial powers puts Ukraine in the cross hairs.

  Third, America, as the recent holder of the baton of thalassocracy, failed to forestall the formation of a proto alliance of the Heartland Power, Russia, with two powers that straddle the Heartland and the maritime rim, Iran, and China.  In Democratic Ideals and Reality (1919), Mackinder warned of the danger of the Heartland Power gaining control over the Baltic and Black seas and then, at some future date, securing power over Eurasia and Africa:

  What if the Great Continent, the whole World-Island [i.e., Eurasia and Africa] or a large part of it, were at some future time to become a single and united base of sea-power?  Would not the other insular bases be outbuilt as regards ships and outmanned as regards seamen?  Their fleets would no doubt fight with all the heroism begotten of their histories, but the end would be fated.

  Mackinder feared that the Heartland Power, alone or in alliance with powers controlling portions of the maritime rim of Eurasia, might go to sea, and become an amphibious power. 

  Currently, in Ukraine, Russia seeks to reassert control over the northern Black Sea littoral, from Crimea to Moldova, thereby gaining control over the offshore hydrocarbons (here).  China and Iran, with their long coastlines, have decided to become amphibious powers while developing and deploying drones and land-based anti-ship missiles for sea control and denial.  Iran makes modern weapons systems for their Houthi proxies.  China threatens to reintegrate Taiwan, by force, if necessary, perhaps by blockade, even as it asserts exclusive control over the passage of shipping and offshore hydrocarbon deposits in the South China Sea.

  NOW WHAT?

  What of the near future?  Will there be any further challenges to the United States?  Venezuela placed a referendum in front of its citizenry questioning whether contested territory currently held by Guyana should be reincorporated into Venezuelan territory.  The response was in favor of reincorporation, with Venezuela reportedly mobilizing contingents of its military.  Guyana and Brazil have responded.  A nuclear armed North Korea continues to issue threats in response to alleged American and South Korean provocations.  The Russian regime has imperial ambitions beyond Ukraine.  Should Putin or his successor believe that the conquest of the Baltic States is achievable, it will certainly be attempted.  And there is a final point grounded in a comparative geopolitical speculation: In addition to compromising passage through Bab al-Mandab and the Strait of Hormuz, and the threat to shipping via the Strait of Gibraltar, Iran or another power may mobilize a proxy near another maritime choke point – the Strait of Malacca.  Certainly, the autocracies of the world are engaged in gray-zone warfare aimed at undermining Western support for Israel and Ukraine and aimed at mobilizing political extremists of all stripes.  With the very large number of Muslim immigrants in Western Europe, any instability in the Middle East can easily produce crippling riots and insurgent or terrorist activity, especially with financial and logistical support from Iran and other regional powers.  Western leaders are beginning to recognize that weakness in dealing with the threats that are already on the table will prompt new challenges in new locations (here and here).

  Despite these ominous developments, the United States and its allies have generated one significant success and several potential successes in their attempt to thwart the designs of these autocratic Heartland regimes.  In response to the war in Ukraine, Finland has joined NATO and Sweden’s accession has recently been approved by a parliamentary committee in Turkey (though not yet by the Turkish state).  The anticipated consequence is to turn the Baltic Sea, but for the Russian naval base at Kaliningrad and St. Petersburg, into a NATO dominated lake.  In addition, should Ukraine manage to reverse Russian territorial conquests, secure its independence from Russia, and then join NATO and the EU, these events would represent an extension of European power.  Meanwhile, Ukraine has had great success in driving the Russian Black Sea Fleet out of Crimea and into home ports further from Ukrainian missile launching sites; we have argued that before the war is over, the Ukrainians should be furnished with the means to sink the remainder of the fleet and destroy the shipyards.  Ukrainian successes in attacking the Black Sea fleet have led the Russians to consider building a naval base in Ochamchire, Georgia.   In the Middle East and Arabia, the United States almost succeeded in fostering an extension of the Abraham Accords to include Saudi Arabia.  Finally, the Quadrilateral Security Dialogue (“Quad”) is a potential maritime alliance of India, Australia, Japan, and the United States that may, in the coming years, act to secure the free passage of shipping in the South China Sea and defend Taiwan.  In short, across the maritime rim of Eurasia, the United States is slowly mobilizing partners and allies that are threatened by the revisionist and revanchist regimes of the Heartland.

  Conclusion: Strategy and the Geopolitical Advantage

  Our horrifying prediction, which may yet be fully realized, of a four-front war was made by attending to geopolitical theory, strategic history, and an intuition for how events might unfold.  Regardless of whether China undertakes kinetic action against Taiwan, the United States and our allies now need to rush preparations for such a war at the highest possible priority.  As we pointed out in the earlier article, being ready to fight a global, multi-front war is the only way to avert one.

  Geopolitics provides the observer of international relations with several advantages.  First, it is an interdisciplinary and integrative field of study that aims to capture aspects of reality that impinge on the evolution of international crises.  Second, it juxtaposes persistent geographic structures, such as landed and maritime locations and activities, with trends and events, placing the ephemeral in the context of the enduring (here).  Third, geography and geopolitics deploy particularizing and generalizing methods to understand the relationships of places to spaces, locations to regions, and nation-states to the international system.  Fourth, geopolitics uses maps, including those generated by geographic information systems, to develop an appreciation of how states transform terrain into more favorable environments for the projection of power amid adversarial relationships, both potential and realized. 

  Geopolitics is as old an approach to international conflict as Thucydides, Sun Tse, and Kautilya.   It may be that geopolitical analysis, if properly deployed, gives insight reminiscent of Galadriel’s Mirror, “For it shows things that were, and things that are, and things that yet may be.”

  However, despite the advantages offered by geopolitical thought for the development of strategy, Mackinder is explicit (here): “Democracy refuses to think strategically unless and until compelled to do so for purposes of defense.” After at least a generation, now is the moment for Americans to once again use geopolitics to formulate strategy.

  *  *  *

  Acknowledgements:  The authors thank the speakers and participants in the Mackinder Forum seminars and lectures for sharing their insights.  Professors Brian Blouet, Athanasios Platias, Geoffrey Sloan, and Paul Rahe commented on an earlier draft of this paper.  We are grateful for their thoughtful suggestions.  Errors and misinterpretations remain ours.

  Michael Hochberg earned his PhD in Applied Physics from Caltech and is currently a visiting scholar at the Centre for Geopolitics at Cambridge University.  He is the President of Periplous LLC, which provides advisory services on strategy, technology, and organization design.  He co-founded four companies, representing an exit value over a billion dollars in aggregate, spent some time as a tenured professor, and started the world’s first silicon photonics foundry service.  He co-authored a widely used textbook on silicon photonics and has published work in Science, Nature, National Review, The Hill, American Spectator, RealClearDefense, Fast Company, Naval War College Review, etc.

  Leonard Hochberg taught at Stanford University (among other institutions), was appointed a Fellow at the Hoover Institution, and co-founded Strategic Forecasting, Inc. (i.e., STRATFOR).  He has published in Social Science History, The Journal of Interdisciplinary History, National Review, The Hill, American Spectator, RealClearDefense, Naval War College Review, Orbis, etc.   Len Hochberg earned his PhD in political theory and European history at Cornell University.  He is a Senior Fellow at the Foreign Policy Research Institute and serves as the Coordinator of the Mackinder Forum-U.S.

  Views expressed in this article are opinions of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of ZeroHedge.

  Tyler Durden
  Thu, 02/08/2024 – 23:45

• Porn Star Allowed Into Hardline Islamic Iran Because She's 'Pro-Palestine' 
  Porn Star Allowed Into Hardline Islamic Iran Because She’s ‘Pro-Palestine’ 

  The words Islamic Republic of Iran and “porn star” aren’t two concepts one typically hears coupled in the same sentence, but this week controversy and confusion has been unleashed after adult film actress Whitney Wright made a bizarre visit to Iran.

  Wright, whose real name is Brittni Rayne Whittington, also deems herself a pro-Palestinian activist, and presumably that is how she was allowed into Iran. At the start of this week she posted multiple photos of herself wearing – ironically enough – an Islamic hijab during her trip to tour the capital of Tehran.

  

  “I’m extremely disappointed that the attention surrounding my visit [seems] to overshadow Israel’s ongoing genocide in Gaza,” Wright has told Newsweek, addressing the significant backlash online that followed her photos. The porn star says she’s “not backing down”.

  According to EuroNews, Iranian opposition activists were especially outraged:

  US-based activist Masih Alinejad, who faced assassination attempts by Iran, condemned Wright for making the trip and for alleged remarks where the actress said “if you respect the law, you will be safe in Iran.”

  Alinejad took to X to point out that “American porn star Whitney Wright is in Iran, my birth country, where women are killed for simply showing their hair and being true to themselves.”

  Also controversial were her posts seeming to glorify the 1979 Iranian Islamic Revolution which resulted in the long-running US hostage crisis. In one Instagram post…

  She said she “HAD to visit” the embassy where Iranian students held staff members hostage for 444 days after the 1979 Islamic Revolution.

  

  She’s been accused also by pro-Israel pundits of being a willing propagandists on behalf of Tehran, and for issuing anti-American statements and images at a moment US forces have come under attack in the Middle East.

  Engaging in pornography can bring the death penalty in the hardline Islamic Republic. So how did this supposed “influencer” line up the strange junket which involved taking snaps (fully clothed) in and around the capital? Also did she have government-assigned minders to escort here (as is sometimes the case)?…

  American porn star Whitney Wright is in Iran, my birth country, where women are killed for simply showing their hair and being true to themselves.
  Whitney has published several photos on herself completely covered up on Instagram. On her post she called me a warmonger and tells… pic.twitter.com/MwBBsVorBJ

  — Masih Alinejad 🏳️ (@AlinejadMasih) February 4, 2024

  https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js

  Strangely, even though there’s no doubt Iranian foreign ministry authorities deeply vet especially Americans and other Westerners who wish to enter, Iranian officials are claiming “they didn’t know” about her role in pornography:

  In Tehran, foreign ministry spokesman Nasser Kanani denied any knowledge of her trip, but noted that despite the political tensions “it is not forbidden” for Americans to visit Iran.

  A source told the Tasnim news agency that she was not invited by any organization in Iran and the visa system “was not aware of the nature of her immoral and obscene occupation”.

  

  At this point Wright has moved on in her travels and is safely out of Iran.

  The whole spectacle of a porn actress inside Iran certainly does not seem very in keeping with old fashioned hardline Iranian ‘Islamic Revolution’ principles.

  Tyler Durden
  Thu, 02/08/2024 – 23:25

• Why Are Woke Pro Sports Leagues Lobbying Congress For Gun Control?
  Why Are Woke Pro Sports Leagues Lobbying Congress For Gun Control?

  Submitted by Gun Owners of America,

  As the United States prepares for its most-watched sporting event of the year, anti-gun senators are pushing for a reauthorization of the Undetectable Firearms Act of 1988 in Congress.

  Thanks to the support of our grassroots membership, Gun Owners of America and our allies in Congress were successful in removing a permanent reauthorization of the UFA from a must-pass military funding bill.

  But the anti-gun lobby isn’t going to give up without a fight, especially with the law set to expire in just under a month.

  In drumming up support for reauthorizing the UFA, anti-gun politicians have found some new allies: Professional sports leagues.

  The NFL, NHL, NBA, and even NASCAR have written a letter to Congress in support of the reauthorization of the Undetectable Firearms Act.

  While the letter states that the leagues “urge you to reauthorize this critical law so that our organizations can continue to keep our fans safe,” the evidence is that the UFA is an arbitrary and capricious law that only serves as a ticking time bomb for future gun control.

  Under current law, all that a criminal would have to do to violate the Undetectable Firearms Act would be to 3D Print a gun and not epoxy the legally required amount of metal to the frame.

  Believe it or not, criminals and terrorists have been committing crimes in the United States this past decade, but they’re not choosing fully plastic or 3D-printed guns.

  Watch: Ben from GOA Demonstrates how a simple Garrett Security Wand can detect a .22LR bullet through layers of 3D-printed plastic and clothing.

  How do we know criminals aren’t using “undetectable” guns? Well, we searched every criminal indictment, prosecution, and conviction since the 1990’s and no one has ever been charged—let alone convicted—of violating the Undetectable Firearms Act.

  If Professional sports leagues were concerned about these types of firearms being snuck into their events, they could upgrade their security systems instead of relying on an unconstitutional law that criminals easily ignore. 

  Millimeter Wave Scanners and other modern detection devices can detect non-metal—such as plastic guns. And common metal detectors like this garret hand scanner can easily detect metal weighing far less than the archaic 3.7oz of metal requirement from the 1980’s.

  Professional sporting leagues like the NFL should stick to entertainment and stop attempting to infringe on their customer’s rights.

  Gun Owners of America stands with our allies in Congress in opposition to the reauthorization of the archaic Undetectable Firearms Act. Please call your elected representatives and demand they do the same. 

  *   *   *

  We’ll hold the line for you in Washington. We are No Compromise. Join the Fight Now.

  Tyler Durden
  Thu, 02/08/2024 – 23:05

• "My Memory Is Fine" Biden Fumes, Before Confusing Egypt's Sisi With The President Of Mexico
  “My Memory Is Fine” Biden Fumes, Before Confusing Egypt’s Sisi With The President Of Mexico

  In less than 15 minutes, President Biden proved Special Counsel Robert Hur right and confirmed all concerns about his fitness for office.

  As we detailed earlier, Hur wrote in his report that he would not suggest bringing charges against the president for his mishandling of classified documents because, “Biden will likely present himself to the jury, as he did during his interview with our office, as a sympathetic, well-meaning, elderly man with a poor memory.”

  The president, having ‘seen dead people’ numerous times this week, was apparently displeased with the report, and decided the correct course of action was a (rare) press conference to set the world straight on his mental acuity.

  

  It did not go well.

  He welcomed the special counsel’s decision not to bring charges:

  “The bottom line is the matter is now closed,” Biden asserted, with respect to the report.

  But, then proceeded to throw his staff under the bus:

  “I take responsibility for not having seen exactly what my staff was doing,” he said.

  “Things that appeared in my garage, things that came out of my home, things that were moved, were moved not by me, but my staff, but my staff,” he continued.

  Then he took issue with the special counsel report’s questioning his mental acuity around the timing of his son’s death, and angry-old-man mode was unleashed:

  “How in the hell dare he raise that? Frankly, when I was asked the question, I thought to myself, it was none of their damn business,” Biden thundered.

  Biden started to say he wore his son’s rosary every day since the day Beau died, but stopped, when he appeared to forget where the rosary came from.

  “Every Memorial Day we hold a service remembering him, attended by friends and family and the people who loved him,” Biden continued, after a pause. “I don’t need anyone. I don’t need anyone to remind me when he passed away.”

  The mumbling continued as opened up the press conference to questions – not a great idea in hindsight.

  Constantly defending himself against allegations of failing memory, Biden appeared to snap when Fox News White House correspondent Peter Doocy asked Biden, “How bad is your memory?”

  “My memory is so bad I let you speak,” Biden said.

  “My memory is fine. Take a look at what I’ve done since I’ve become president.”

  Doocy pressed, pointing to the Special Counsel’s description of Biden as an “elderly, well-meaning man.”

  “I am well-meaning. And I’m an elderly man. And I know what the hell I’m doing,” Biden reacted.

  “I’ve been president – I put this country back on its feet. I don’t need his recommendation.”

  Biden’s rage reached its zenith when a CNN reporter began to ask a question about the American people’s concerns about his mental state (a perspective that is widely held according to many polls). “The American people have been watching and they have expressed concerns about your age,” the reporter said.

  “That is your judgement! That is your judgement! That is not the judgement of the press!” Biden shouted back at her.

  

  Biden also bizarrely claimed that he had vowed to be a “president” for everybody “whether they were from a red state or a green state.”

  And then, as his piéce de resistance, after initially walking out, the president called Israel’s response in Gaza “over the top” and then mistakenly referred to Egyptian President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi as the President of Mexico.

  “Initially, the president of Mexico — Sisi — did not want to open up the gate to allow humanitarian material to get in. I talked to him. I convinced him to open the gate.”

  He did not correct himself.

  Egyptian drug lord. pic.twitter.com/4qrDcUgNGu

  — Orda (@TheChaosEngine1) February 9, 2024

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  So to summarize:

  In a press conference trying to prove that he is not senile and thus competent enough to stand trial.

  Wild stuff. pic.twitter.com/8ugZNmDfbx

  — Yossi Gestetner (@YossiGestetner) February 9, 2024

  https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js

  Watch the full (15 minutes from start to finish) shitshow here:

  And believe it or not, it got worse as even CNN refused to provide cover for the president:

  CNN’s Elie Honig on Biden’s denial he shared classified documents with his ghostwriter:

  “He’s ON TAPE — after he’s out of the vice presidency — saying to his autobiographer, ‘the classified documents are in the basement.’ He knew it!” pic.twitter.com/pft2PbQ9oC

  — RNC Research (@RNCResearch) February 9, 2024

  https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js

  Of course, the ultimate irony of all of this is that it occurred within minutes of Tucker Carlson releasing an unedited, wide-ranging two-hour long interview with Russian president Vladimir Putin.

  Tyler Durden
  Thu, 02/08/2024 – 22:45

• Water Level Projections Threaten Future Panama Canal Transits
  Water Level Projections Threaten Future Panama Canal Transits

  By Tony Mulvey of FreightWaves

  Dry season in Panama is in full swing, and the impacts to trade through the Panama Canal will remain challenged in the months to come. The situation in the canal, after a wetter-than-expected November, wasn’t as dire as many believed, allowing the number of daily transits to increase in January.

  

  The Panama Canal forecast 24 daily transits in January, up from 20 previously expected for January and 18 previously expected for February. Throughout fiscal year 2023, 12,638 vessels traversed the canal, a daily average of 34 oceangoing vessels moving through the canal. 

  In the first four months of the canal’s fiscal year 2024, there were 3,233 transits across all vessel types, with the vast majority being Panamax vessels. The run rate for fiscal year 2024 of vessels through the canal is 9,700, 23% lower than the 2023 fiscal year throughput.

  While container traffic receives a lot of attention, the tanker and dry bulk market will be heavily impacted as well. Through the first four months of fiscal 2024, chemical tankers have made up 25.6% of Panamax-class vessels that have traversed the canal. Liquefied petroleum gas carriers made up 25.5% of the Neopanamax traffic through the canal.

  The water levels within the Panama Canal are largely to blame, but any hope for a significant rebound in water levels to boost throughput will likely be met with a harsh reality over the next few months.

  

  The water levels are going to remain a challenge that has the potential to continue to derail vessel throughput. Gatun Lake, the manmade lake that vessels must traverse, had water levels at 81.2 feet as of Tuesday. Water levels in this critical portion of the canal have started 2024 at the lowest level on record, dating back to 1965.

  Projections are for even lower levels over the next two months, falling below 80 feet in early April.

  Three of the largest five ports in the U.S. rely on shipments that navigate through the Panama Canal: the Port of New York and New Jersey, the Port of Savannah, Georgia, and Port Houston. Over the past month, these three ports combined to handle 30% of total twenty-foot equivalent unit throughput. For reference, the two largest ports in the country: the Port of Los Angeles and the Port of Long Beach, accounted for 32% of the total U.S. throughput.

  Import demand has picked up steam ahead of the Lunar New Year, which will provide a boost to overall imports that are trending above last year’s levels. This boost is being felt by the East Coast ports, like Savannah, where the Ocean TEU Volume Index is up over 40% in the past month.

  The water crisis is creating increased delays as backlogs around the canal remain.

  

  The limiting effects of the low water levels have created an additional six-day delay on average to the Port of Savannah from all ports around the globe. These delays are adding an extra day and a half to the scheduled transit times, which have also increased — nearly four days longer than they were this time last year.

  These delays are even more impactful the further up the Eastern Seaboard you go. The Port of New York and New Jersey is having similar delays, around the six-day mark, but are over three days longer than they were last year.

  Comparing these East Coast ports to their West Coast counterparts, the port pair delays for the Port of Los Angeles are under three days and nearly a day less than they were this time last year.

  Mother Nature is outside human control, and if the water level projection holds true, the next couple of months could add to the ongoing crisis.

  Tyler Durden
  Thu, 02/08/2024 – 22:25

• US Trade With Mexico Surges To No. 1 Position
  US Trade With Mexico Surges To No. 1 Position

  Mexico was the biggest trade partner of the U.S. in 2023 and the biggest source of the country’s imports ahead of China.

  As Statista’s Katharina Buchhoz details below, trade with Mexico – both imports and exports – totaled close to $800 billion last year as efforts to source closer to home and reduce dependence on China are ongoing in the U.S. and other Western countries.

  The U.S. has also intensified trade with its neighbor to the North.

  Canada is currently the country’s top 2 trade partner and top 3 source of imports, only slightly behind China for the latter metric.

  Trade with two more close allies, Japan and Germany, also grew over the last couple of years.

  

  You will find more infographics at Statista

  China has traditionally bought fewer goods from the U.S. than Mexico and Canada so when its imports to the U.S. dropped last year, so did its overall trade balance with its North American partner.

  China was the biggest trade partner of the U.S. between 2015 and 2018.

  Canada and Mexico then became top partners at the height of the U.S.-China trade war in 2019.

  2020 and the outbreak of the coronavirus caused a trade slump in the U.S. and saw China reemerge as the country’s biggest partner since the pandemic affected it only from a later date.

  When the pandemic subsided in 2022 and 2023 and critique of China soared, first Canada and then Mexico got ahead, according to the U.S. Census Bureau.

  Tyler Durden
  Thu, 02/08/2024 – 22:05

• South Dakota Forced To Apologize To Transgender Activists, Pay $300,000
  South Dakota Forced To Apologize To Transgender Activists, Pay $300,000

  Authored by Tom Ozimek via The Epoch Times,

  South Dakota has issued an apology to a transgender advocacy group and must pay $300,000 under an agreement that settles a lawsuit against Gov. Kristi Noem and the state health secretary over a terminated contract.

  

  The Transformation Project, a nonprofit that provides suicide prevention and other services to transgender people in South Dakota, sued Ms. Noem and Secretary of Health Melissa Magstadt last year after the state canceled a contract to hire and train a community health worker to connect members of the LGBT community to health services.

  The contract included a $136,000 state-administered federal grant, of which the transgender group received roughly $39,000, according to its attorneys.

  Lynne Valenti, South Dakota Deputy Health Secretary, alleged in the contract cancellation letter that the transgender group failed to perform certain contractual obligations.

  Attorneys for the group accused Ms. Valenti of having canceled the agreement for political reasons.

  U.S. District Judge Karen E. Schreier ruled on Feb. 5 to dismiss the lawsuit after the parties jointly asked for a dismissal after entering into a settlement.

  As part of the settlement, South Dakota is required to pay $300,000 and issue a public apology.

  “This settlement marks a significant milestone in our ongoing commitment to civil rights advocacy,” Brendan Johnson, lead attorney representing the Transformation Project, said in a statement.

  Ms. Noem’s office did not respond to a request for comment on the settlement.

  Background

  South Dakota’s contract with the Transformation Project was canceled on Dec. 16, 2023, after a reporter from The Daily Signal contacted her office to inquire about it.

  “In a statement provided to The Daily Signal, Governor Noem stated ‘South Dakota does not support this organization’s efforts, and state government should not be participating in them,’” the transgender advocacy group wrote in its lawsuit, alleging that the contract cancellation was “based purely on national politics.”

  According to the cited report from The Daily Signal, Ms. Noem terminated the contract after a reporter from the news outlet reached out to her office with questions about a “Gender Identity Summit” that South Dakota’s largest employer, Sanford Health, was set to jointly host with the Transformation Project.

  The Daily Signal report cited in the complaint noted that the project “celebrates controversial medical interventions for minors and hosts events in which people ritually ‘burn’ their ‘old name or pronouns.’”

  Ian Fury, a spokesperson for Ms. Noem, told The Epoch Times in December that the contract had been signed without the governor’s knowledge or approval.

  

  South Dakota Gov. Kristi Noem speaks during the National Rifle Association annual convention at the George R. Brown Convention Center in Houston, Texas, on May 27, 2022. (Brandon Bell/Getty Images)

  The Department of Health, which had originally awarded the contract, said in the cancellation letter that the group had violated contract terms.

  The group disputed this claim, leading to the lawsuit, which alleged violations of the Affordable Care Act, which prohibits discrimination in the administration of federal grants.

  The transgender advocacy’s attorneys also accused South Dakota of having violated the Equal Protection Clause of the U.S. Constitution.

  The lawsuit led to a settlement, under which South Dakota Secretary of Health Melissa Magstadt issued an apology letter, though the state did not have to admit to discrimination.

  “On behalf of the State of South Dakota, I apologize that the Transformation Project’s contract was terminated and for treating the Transformation Project differently than other organizations awarded Community Health Worker contracts,” reads the letter, a copy of which was obtained by The Associated Press.

  Transformation Project Executive Director Susan Williams said in a statement that she feels vindicated and the settlement sends a “clear and strong” message that “discrimination against transgender people will not be tolerated in South Dakota.”

  Noem Sigs Law Banning Trans Surgery for Youth

  Ms. Noem, a Republican, has been a vocal opponent of transgender procedures for young people.

  In February 2023, she signed the “Help Not Harm” bill into law, banning certain medical and surgical interventions, such as puberty blockers and genital surgery, for minors.

  “South Dakota’s kids are our future. With this legislation, we are protecting kids from harmful, permanent medical procedures,” Noem said in a statement.

  “I will always stand up for the next generation of South Dakotans.”

  According to the text of the bill, health care professionals are prohibited from prescribing or administering certain medical and surgical interventions for minors to attempt to alter their appearance or perception of their sex.

  These interventions include prescribing drugs to delay puberty and administering hormones in amounts greater than what is typically produced naturally in a healthy individual of the same age and sex, such as testosterone, estrogen, or progesterone.

  The law also blocks doctors from performing sterilization surgeries or surgeries that artificially construct genitalia differing from the minor’s sex, and procedures that remove healthy or non-diseased body parts or tissue.

  The law prohibits health care providers from violating the ban at risk of having their medical license revoked, and possible legal action.

  Tyler Durden
  Thu, 02/08/2024 – 21:45

• Mayo Clinic Vaccine Research Director Calls For Expanding Detection Of 'Silent' COVID Vaccine Risks
  Mayo Clinic Vaccine Research Director Calls For Expanding Detection Of ‘Silent’ COVID Vaccine Risks

  Authored by Marina Zhang via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

  Dr. Gregory Poland, the director of Mayo Clinic’s Vaccine Research Group, has called for more rigorous detection of vaccine adverse events after suffering a COVID-19 vaccine adverse event.

  

  “While vaccines have an overwhelmingly positive safety profile, it’s essential to address concerns about potential adverse events comprehensively and compassionately,” Dr. Poland and his co-author Dr. Steve Black of the Global Vaccine Data Network wrote in their commentary published in the journal Vaccine.

  “Some of these reactions are immediate and easily observable or measurable … Others however are not immediately obvious, or are even clinically ‘silent’ or cryptic, making them challenging to identify and link directly to a vaccine.”

  Dr. Poland, the lead author, suffered from what he deemed a “cryptic” adverse event.

  In 2021, soon after his second Moderna shot, Dr. Poland was driving back from the clinic when he suddenly heard a whistling sound in his ears.

  “It was like someone suddenly blew a dog whistle in my ear,” he told MedPage Today. “It has been pretty much unrelenting.”

  He has since attributed his tinnitus to the COVID-19 vaccine and become vocal in advocating for better vaccine adverse event surveillance programs.

  “It is critical to be vigilant about rare, silent, or subtle reactions. Public health agencies and healthcare providers can play a much more favorable and vital role in establishing vaccine trust by enlarging the current vaccine safety paradigm,” Dr. Poland wrote.

  Spectrum of Vaccine Adverse Events

  Dr. Poland said a spectrum of adverse events exists; some are easily detectable, while others are far more hidden.

  Swelling at the injection site and immediate fever, for example, are immediate, easily observed, and measurable. These are thus far easier to detect and link to the vaccine if the symptoms come on soon after vaccination.

  Dr. Poland reasoned that an adverse event’s detectability differs by whether it can be measured or imaged, if biomarkers are present, and if the condition is responsive to treatment.

  Guillain-Barré syndrome, for example, has a long history of being associated with vaccine adverse events. The condition may be detected using a spinal tap during the acute phase and looking for elevated cerebrospinal fluid (CFS) protein levels.

  Myocarditis can be detected by looking for biomarkers and taking X-rays.

  Hearing loss, while it cannot be imaged or tested for using biomarkers, can be demonstrated by running hearing tests.

  However, Dr. Poland considers tinnitus a cryptic adverse event since it is inherently subjective, lacks biomarkers, can be psychosomatic, and may be caused by an underlying condition other than the vaccine.

  But just as tinnitus is difficult to quantify, it can also be highly disabling, Dr. Poland wrote.

  React19 co-founder Dr. Joel Wallskog, who was not involved in the commentary, said that people have been driven to suicide as a result of their tinnitus. React19 is an advocacy group for those injured by COVID-19 vaccines and sufferers of long COVID.

  Ways to Detect Vaccine Adverse Events

  Vaccine adverse events were first detected in the earlier vaccine clinical trials. However, some adverse events were missed.

  Dr. Poland gave the example of menstrual irregularities, which have been strongly linked to COVID-19 vaccines but were not reported during the vaccine trials.

  “Had investigators actively solicited information on such issues or symptomatology, it would have been detected and quantifiable,” he wrote.

  He also suggested monitoring new symptoms discussed on social media to detect possible trends. This may help detect new symptoms that people have not yet linked to the vaccine.

  After a vaccine rolls out, average citizens can report their adverse events to the Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System (VAERS) managed by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).

  VAERS is a public database that allows anyone to check and report a vaccine adverse event. The system also has interventions put in place to reduce false reporting. For instance, the lengthy reporting process deters false reports. It is also a direct violation of federal law to make a false report, and those caught doing this may be fined or even imprisoned.

  “Most adverse reactions are transient and self-limiting, although some may be serious or life-threatening. In my experience, however, even ‘transient’ conditions such as facial palsy may extend for months, if not years,” dentist and professor Dr. Nicola Cirillo at the University of Melbourne said in a statement on oral-facial adverse events post-COVID vaccine.

  “It is important to inform vaccine recipients about these possible consequences,” he added.

  Hundreds of Adverse Events Linked to COVID-19 Vaccines

  Since July 2022, Freedom of Information Act-released documents from the CDC showed at least 770 safety signals have been detected by CDC researchers in the VAERS database.

  These include myocarditis, tinnitus, death, and increased instances of health checkups.

  Dr. Wallskog said that many VAERS reports have also become hidden.

  In 2022, React19 surveyed 126 people who submitted VAERS reports. It found that only around 60 percent of VAERS reports are made available to the public.

  Twelve percent of the VAERS reports were deleted, and 22 percent do not have permanent IDs and, therefore, could not be accessed by the public. The remaining 5 percent of would-be VAERS reporters could not file a report, or their report numbers were unknown.

  Dr. Peter McCullough, cardiologist and a vocal critic of the COVID-19 vaccines, expressed disappointment that authors Drs. Poland and Black said that vaccines have an “overwhelmingly positive safety profile” in their conclusion, adding that safety data systems have recorded injuries, disabilities, and deaths related to the COVID vaccines.

  Tyler Durden
  Thu, 02/08/2024 – 21:05

• US Warns Against Impending Israeli Assault On Refugee-Packed Rafah
  US Warns Against Impending Israeli Assault On Refugee-Packed Rafah

  US Secretary of State Antony Blinken said he has voiced “concerns” to Prime Minister Netanyahu regarding the Israeli Defense Forces’ (IDF) impending ground operation against the far southern city of Rafah in the Gaza Strip.

  Hundreds of thousands of civilian refugees have until this point sought out the greater ‘safety’ of Rafah. But Al Jazeera observes that “Panic is growing in Rafah over an imminent ground invasion after Israel’s prime minister ordered his military to prepare to enter the city in the southern Gaza Strip that is sheltering 1.2 million people with nowhere else to go as he rejected Hamas’s truce plan and rebuffed US efforts to reach a deal.”

  

  Initially almost the entire population of the northern half of the Strip moved south to the Khan Younis area, but after in past weeks it came under massive assault – as the IDF has sought to root out Hamas’ command structure from there – throngs of Palestinian refugees were forced further south, to the border with Egypt.

  According to Axios, “Blinken also expressed concerns about the failures of communication between the IDF and international organizations and insufficient deconfliction, which led to the targeting of UN personnel who were delivering aid, the sources said.”

  The report further indicates Blinken communicated the following to the Israelis:

  • The U.S. is concerned that an Israeli Defense Forces operation in the city without evacuating the civilian population to safe areas will lead to mass casualties.
  • It also fears that such an operation will push tens of thousands of Palestinians into Egypt. The Egyptian government has already warned the displacement of Palestinians to Egypt would lead to a rupture in its relations with Israel.

  Of course, Israel has accused some of these organizations, especially the largest – the UNRWA – of being compromised by Hamas members and alleged associations with terrorists.

  The White House on Thursday also issued statements saying truce negotiations are still “ongoing” – but the reality is that PM Netanyahu fully rejected the “delusional” Hamas demands, in particular the condition that Israeli troops must first completely withdraw from the Gaza Strip.

  Both sides are still offering the other ‘non-starters’ which means the process in reality hasn’t gone anywhere. And from Hamas’ perspective, Israel is now only widening the war by bringing it to Rafah. According to the latest words of Netanyahu via the NY Times:

  Israel’s prime minister said the military would soon go into to an area of Gaza near the border with Egypt where hundreds of thousands of displaced Palestinians have fled, something the United Nations has said would be catastrophic.

  Gazan health officials say that more than 27,000 people — many of them women and children — have been killed in Israel’s bombardment and ground assault of Gaza since the Hamas-led attack on Oct. 7. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on Wednesday that Israeli troops had been directed to deploy in Rafah, near the southern border, and in camps in central Gaza, calling the areas “Hamas’s last remaining strongholds.”

  Below: Secretary General of the Norwegian Refugee Council…

  An Israeli ground offensive on overcrowded Rafah in #Gaza would be a bloodbath, and a stain on both Israel and those nations providing arms.

  We need an immediate ceasefire to reach the women, children, families who are at breaking point, with lifesaving aid. pic.twitter.com/XHsL2NdgLE

  — Jan Egeland (@NRC_Egeland) February 8, 2024

  https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js

  The United Nations is still pressing for urgent ceasefire. “It is time for an immediate humanitarian cease-fire, and the immediate and unconditional release of all hostages,” UN Secretary General António Guterres said.

  Jens Laerke, a spokesman for the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, warned against a Rafah assault: “We can make clear what the law says. Under international humanitarian law, indiscriminate bombing of densely populated areas may amount to war crimes,” he told reporters in Geneva.

  Tyler Durden
  Thu, 02/08/2024 – 20:45

• Pentagon Secretly Institutionalized DEI In Its K-12 Public Schools
  Pentagon Secretly Institutionalized DEI In Its K-12 Public Schools

  By Adam Andrzejewski of Open The Books Substack

  In a Congressional hearing last spring, Gil Cisneros, then-Under Secretary for Military Readiness, announced that the Pentagon was closing its newly formed Office of Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion within its K-12 school system and reassigning its controversial DEI chief after a ten-month internal investigation.

  

  The Pentagon’s climb-down was a big win for OpenTheBooks.com. We had worked alongside whistleblowers, journalists, other investigative non-profits, and ranking members of Congress to expose alleged conflicts of interest, violations of military ethics policies, and radical ideologies being forced on the kids of servicemen and servicewomen.

  Today, we are announcing Cisneros was actually faking. The radical curriculum was not dismantled. Instead, it was stealthily embedded into the lesson plans and classrooms throughout the entire school system.

  The Pentagon, under Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin, is preventing details of their DEI policies from coming to light by abusing the Freedom of Information Act. They bamboozled the public with window dressing in Congressional hearings while forcing woke extremism on the roughly 70,000 children of our military service members.

  It’s critical that taxpayers understand the scope of the DEI philosophy within the DoD’s schools – deployed servicemembers often have no alternative but to use the Pentagon-run school system, called the Department of Defense Education Activity (DoDEA).

  Troubling Curriculum

  DOD relentlessly promotes DEI-ideologies to school children of serving families through educational contractors with millions of dollars of taxpayer funding.

  Here are some examples of what’s happening in the Pentagon’s schools:

  • Chat rooms to facilitate teacher-student conversations that are closed off to parents about sexuality and gender, and likely without their knowledge or consent.

  • Engaging four-year-olds in LGBTQ+ conversations. Elementary schools are the “perfect time” to “really show students the diversity of the gender expression and gender activity.”

  • Solidarity with the neo-Marxist Black Lives Matter organization to encourage teachers to “challenge our beliefs, examine our own biases, and reflect on how we need to evaluate the structures and systems in our classrooms.”

  • Video content on “dissent” and “equity” to “help educators facilitate classroom conversations and much-needed discussions about implicit bias and systemic racism, human rights, equity, social justice, dissent, protest, and empathy.” 

  • Marxist activism to dismantle systems of “power” and “privilege.” Suggesting a refusal to teach a “white-washed” curriculum and instead teach “social justice rather than heroes, holidays, and celebrations.”

  • A teaching handbook that recommends “critical conversations” with students about race, identity, and privilege and the way “injustice” affects our lives and society. These “explicit conversations” provoke “strong emotions” and crying students are expected.

  Read the details about these vendors, their payments, and the full background dossier on our investigation here.

  

  Transparency Problems

  The Pentagon is assiduously attempting to hide its biased left-wing extremist curriculum from public view.  It is deleting public access to links, driving DEI infrastructure underground, and liberally redacting the most basic Freedom of Information Act requests.

  For example, OpenTheBooks.com filed a FOIA request for the agency payroll just as we have at nearly 13,000 public schools across America. Stunningly, the DoDEA refused to disclose the individual salaries of its staff, unlike public schools nationwide and almost every other federal agency. No names, job titles, or compensation details on the $1.4 billion payroll.

  It’s not just our organization having problems.

  In September 2022, The Claremont Institute published a groundbreaking report on left-wing extremism in DoDEA classrooms, called “Grooming Future Revolutionaries.” The report highlighted content from dozens of video presentations from staffers at a 2021 “Equity and Access Summit” discussing what they were doing to turn schoolchildren into social justice activists.

  Days later, all videos were taken down from the publicly available links and are no longer accessible. While the agency originally refused to release relevant documents via our FOIA request, we appealed, and the subsequent production confirmed that the videos were taken down in response to the report.

  Last spring, at the Congressional hearing, Gil Cisneros announced that the Pentagon was dissolving the DoDEA’s DEI department and reassigning its chief. However, key documents we captured via FOIA suggest that DEI-ethos is still at the core of agency mission.

  Here is what we were able to find out:

  The Pentagon “integrated” DEI specialists into “four key divisions” in the agency last March while also launching a DEI Steering Committee. The committee is comprised of top executives including the agency’s CEO Thomas Brady, Chief Operating Officer, Chief Academic Officer, and twelve others.  

  We sought more information on the steering committee, but our DoD redacted, or, “hid”: 1. member names; 2. agendas, materials, minutes and discussions; and 3. impact the committee is having on the whole education environment at the Pentagon.

  The extent of these redactions is so ridiculous that almost every slide from the 14-page slide-deck presented at a committee meeting had been redacted except for the title page and a page defining DEI. 

  The only non-executive staffer we can confirm attended these meetings is DEI Specialist Michelle Woodfork. See her redacted slide deck and calendar information here. 

  

  Key Quote

  During the agency’s 2021 Equity and Access Summit, Woodfork made her devotion to the Pentagon’s DEI initiatives abundantly clear in her presentation:  

  “When headquarters published their initiative for REDI [an earlier name for DEI at DoDEA] I got heart palpitations because it felt so affirming of the work I’ve been doing for so long.”

  Woodfork’s presentation centered on her then-role as a principal at a Pentagon school, where she led “equity audits” on school materials and practices. 

  The background and ideological orientation of Woodfork only underscores the need for the public and DoDEA parents to know who exactly is on this committee, and how much power they have over system-wide education.

  

  Background

  DoDEA made headlines in recent years for practices like hiding “gender transitions” from parents, forcing children into “difficult conversations” about race, class, gender, and sexuality, and the antics of a self-described “woke” Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion chief who allegedly hawked her own books to her colleagues.  

  DoDEA’s focus on DEI, Thomas Brady said, is compelled by President Biden’s 2021 Executive Order 14035, which among other items charges all agencies with “assessing the current state of diversity, equity, inclusion and accessibility within their workforces.”

  But even before EO 14035, Brady strived to inculcate DEI ideology at the agency, announcing on Juneteenth 2020 that DEI must be “embedded in everything we do.” 

  In December 2024 the National Defense Authorization Act was signed into law by President Joe Biden. The law delineates “rights” for the parents of children attending DoDEA schools, authored by Representative Elise Stefanik (NY-21) which will go into effect in two years.

  The parental rights include, among other items: 

  • The right to review the curriculum of the school 
  • The right to review all instructional materials used by their students 

  While these measures are certainly progress for military families, much can still be obfuscated. Teacher training, such as the Equity and Access Summit, should be included as well. And it is not clear if the full spectrum of tools included, such as the secret LGBT chatrooms, would be disclosed as “instructional materials.”

  Moreover, if extremist materials are disclosed, there does not seem to be a recourse for opting children out of these lessons.  

  

  Conclusion

  Secretary Austin and then-Under Secretary Cisneros devoted themselves to hiding their DEI bait-and-switch.

  With the fanfare of a Congressional platform, Cisnero sought credit for shutting down DEI. But under our scrutiny, we found DoD instead made DEI a stealth weapon against the kids of our fighting men and women in service to an anti-American neo-Marxist ideology.

  We have further found that DoD under Secretary Austin is leveraging public record laws to the hilt to prevent parents and the public from knowing details of its efforts, while spending millions of taxpayer dollars on objectionable content for school children.  

  DoDEA did not dismantle its DEI efforts. It redoubled those efforts and added deceit and dissembling to its mix. 

  Given DoDEA’s recent history and press regarding extremist content in schools, heads must roll, and the agency must provide full transparency of teaching methods and its DEI-related policy operations.

  Parents, taxpayers, and the kids themselves deserve no less.  

  Note: We reached out to DoDEA and all educator employees who were quoted or gave presentations as referenced in this article. If they are no longer employed by DoDEA, we couldn’t reach them. We will update our piece if we receive a response.

  Furthermore, no employee or vendor is accused of any breach or violation of statute, military policy, or agency policy. In fact, they just might be abiding by agency rules or Biden’s executive order, if anything.

  Will Griffin, DoDEA Director of Communications responded to our comment request:

  DoDEA remains committed to maintaining a school system where military-connected students can excel and prepare for success in college and careers and where all employees are treated with dignity and respect. We will continue to comply with all applicable Federal laws, Department of Defense policies, and applicable executive orders.

  Additional Reading

  • “Agitate, Agitate, Agitate”— Military’s New Diversity Chief Hawks Books, Advocates “Revolution” In K-12 Schools | Adam Andrzejewski | OpenTheBooks.Substack.com | October 2022 

  • Military Stonewalls Investigation Into Controversial Diversity Official Leading K-12 Schools | Adam Andrzejewski | OpenTheBooks.Substack.com | March 2023 

  • Letter to Secretary Lloyd Austin | Rep. Elise Stefanik, Rep. C Scott Franklin, et al. | September 2022 

  • Grooming Future Revolutionaries | The Claremont Institute Center for the American Way of Life | September 2022 

  • Kids Must Cry | The American Mind | September 2022 

  Tyler Durden
  Thu, 02/08/2024 – 20:25

• A Matured MAGA Movement Prepares For Trump’s Return To DC
  A Matured MAGA Movement Prepares For Trump’s Return To DC

  Authored by Nathan Worcester and Janice Hisle via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

  What would the start of a second Trump term look like—and what sort of opposition would it face?

  

  In search of answers, The Epoch Times interviewed veterans of the first Trump administration, reviewed writings from that time as well as the Trump campaign’s Agenda 47, and talked to those helping to provide a 2025 roadmap.

  It seems the MAGA movement is now older, wiser, and better situated in Washington.

  Preexisting conservative institutions such as The Heritage Foundation have tilted in former President Donald Trump’s direction. The former president will also have a deeper bench of possible appointees and real experience running the show. A more sympathetic Supreme Court and possible gains in Congress could also help him—and, unlike in 2016, the Republican establishment is consolidating behind his candidacy early in the primary season.

  Yet many federal bureaucracies, legacy media organs, and other institutions can be counted on to put up resistance.

  Additionally, the “sanctuary city” phenomenon—and, on the flip side, Republican states’ underreported solidarity with Texas in its battle with federal authorities over the border—offers a foretaste of how the Trump administration might clash with some cities, counties, and states during a second term.

  And, as in the first term, neoconservatives, neoliberals, and other Washington non-neophytes who boast deep backgrounds in government but don’t share the MAGA vision may seek power for their own reasons.

  During late 2016 and early 2017, the outsider whom Americans elevated to the presidency faced multiple challenges as he met with immediate and unprecedented hostility from the establishment, including scrutiny from the outgoing Obama administration and the FBI’s “Crossfire Hurricane” investigation before he was even elected.

  President Trump is still marching into gale-force winds—and if he reaches the Oval Office, he will have little time for rest and almost no room for error.

  The Americans who vote for him will demand the swift, efficient execution of MAGA agenda items that lay the groundwork for a lasting legacy—what Stephen Bannon described to The Epoch Times as the starting point for “50 years of MAGA policies.”
   

  

  The 2nd Transition

  If President Trump is elected on Nov. 5, he’ll have until Inauguration Day—Jan. 20, 2025—to manage the transition from the Biden administration to a second Trump term.

  The first Trump transition was rocky. President Trump came to Washington as an outsider after winning an election he was widely expected to lose.

  New York City was the real estate mogul’s home turf, not “the swamp” along the Potomac River. He and a small group of loyalists were starting from scratch in what, to many of them, was a strange and hostile town.

  “We didn’t have a deep bench,” recalled Mr. Bannon, a member of the transition team in 2016 who later served as the White House’s chief strategist.

  “He [Trump] wasn’t versed in how Washington does business,” K.T. McFarland, a Trump administration deputy national security adviser who previously worked in multiple Republican presidential administrations, told The Epoch Times.

  

  While earlier presidents were comfortable recruiting from prior administrations in the same party, President Trump was hesitant to take in George W. Bush administration veterans, particularly in national security roles. According to Ms. McFarland, President Trump felt the Bush crew had failed on that score.

  As evidence of how President Trump shook things up, she cited his call with the president of Taiwan during the transition period. Much of the establishment was aghast—but, on Ms. McFarland’s account, the president-elect recognized the country’s value as a trading partner.

  In “The Fifth Risk,” journalist Michael Lewis depicts a chaotic transition period. One chapter opens by describing how Department of Energy staff members awaited a Trump team the day after the election, in line with prior administrations. Thirty parking spaces that were cleared for the victor remained vacant all day—the expected delegation never materialized.

  At least some of Mr. Lewis’s sources are Obama political appointees who, a critic might note, count as less than impartial authorities on their political opponents. For instance, he quotes the department’s deputy secretary, Elizabeth Sherwood-Randall, who is now President Joe Biden’s homeland security adviser.

  Lawyer Paul Dans said that although he wasn’t in the mix during the transition, he was “trying to knock on the door to get on the team.”

  He said he had “a really hard time getting into the federal government” despite his prestigious credentials, which include multiple degrees from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and stints at top law firms such as Edwards Wildman Palmer LLP (later bought out by Locke Lord).

  Mr. Dans ultimately served in multiple roles in the Trump administration, including as chief of staff for the crucial Office of Personnel Management (OPM)—the human resources hub for each presidential administration and the federal government as a whole.

  

  Mr. Dans now leads The Heritage Foundation’s 2025 Presidential Transition Project, or Project 2025, a coalition of more than 90 conservative organizations seeking to line up the right people, policies, and priorities well ahead of any coming transition period. Project 2025 doesn’t officially endorse any presidential candidate.

  Project 2025 partners include credible, experienced MAGA policy shops such as the Center for Renewing America, a think tank led by former Trump Office of Management and Budget Director Russ Vought. Stephen Miller’s America First Legal is another coalition member. The coalition’s playbook, “Mandate for Leadership,” is a hefty 920 pages.

  The tome comes alongside other detailed instruction manuals for Republicans hoping to carry out a better presidential transition—for example, “Year Zero” by Chris Liddell, former White House deputy chief of staff under President Trump.

  Mr. Dans’s own struggles hopping on the first “Trump train” have clearly influenced his thinking.

  “It was really important in my view that the next president—and I believe that will be President Trump—needs to be supported by a team who knows day one what the game plan is—that they’re brought in, and they’re trained, and they’re ready to go to work,” Mr. Dans told The Epoch Times.

  Mr. Bannon spoke about filling out a new Washington “ecosystem” more in keeping President Trump and his priorities than what came before.

  “You have a broad base of super-competent people that are thinking these ideas through in a self-organizing way and will be there if the president is so inclined, but even if they’re not selected, they become part of this very important ecosystem in Washington,” he said.

  

  Transition Teams

  Mr. Dans described ideal candidates for the “army of conservatives” the project aims to train as, among other things, “personable” and “willing to keep driving and problem-solving.”

  The first Trump transition may have been heavier on generals than foot soldiers—and many of the strong personalities clashed over difficult problems.

  More than a few current foes of President Trump were left in the wake of those early days and months.

  “The transition would become a breeding ground for creatures who would inhabit the Washington Swamp,” Anthony Scaramucci wrote in “Trump: The Blue-Collar President.” Mr. Scaramucci, who served little more than a week as White House communications director in 2017, is now an outspoken supporter of President Biden.

  Mr. Bannon recounted that former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie, now another intractable Trump foe, assembled the initial transition team after President Trump’s 2016 election.

  The resulting work product was “a joke” and easily discarded, Mr. Bannon said. Incoming Vice President Mike Pence, now also a Trump critic from time to time, replaced Mr. Christie at the helm of the transition effort.

  “Ivanka, Jared, and I were really pulling together to run the transition,” Mr. Bannon said. “The Obama administration was not particularly helpful in the transition.”

  

  President Trump’s daughter Ivanka Trump and son-in-law Jared Kushner became fixtures of the Trump White House.

  “There’s no question that Jared was very involved,” Sean Spicer told The Epoch Times.

  Mr. Spicer, who after working on the transition team served as the first press secretary, noted Sen. Bill Haggerty’s (R-Tenn.) involvement in making key appointments.

  Mr. Spicer was among the more politically experienced people in the room, having previously served as the Republican National Committee’s communications director. But multiple memoirs covering the transition and early administration took aim at Mr. Spicer, including Trump official Cliff Sims’s “Team of Vipers” and journalist Jonathan Karl’s “Front Row at the Trump Show.”

  Mr. Bannon is also criticized by some memoirists. Mr. Karl noted he was a “surprisingly accessible source.”

  For his part, the former White House chief strategist said the clash of personalities early on was a positive, comparing it to the “team of rivals” in President Abraham Lincoln’s Cabinet.

  An anonymous Trump administration insider told The Epoch Times that the involvement of the Boston Consulting Group in the first transition was particularly jarring. The company is one of the Big Three management consulting firms and, like both McKinsey & Company and Bain & Company, a potent symbol of the establishment.

  

  “It was ridiculous. It was the biggest fraud of the Trump presidency,” the insider said of the consulting group’s involvement, claiming that “the political loyalists had to defer to them.”

  Mr. Spicer told The Epoch Times he hadn’t heard of any firm affiliates’ involvement in the transition. Yet reporting from the time identifies Boston Consulting Group staff on the transition team.

  The group was also a part of the Trump–Biden transition.

  A joint report from the group and the Partnership for Public Service’s Center for Presidential Transition claims the two parties “played crucial roles in assisting all three of the major stakeholder groups throughout the 2020–21 transition.”

  “Throughout 2020, we were able to build trusted relationships and provide critical support to three main audiences—the Biden transition team, Trump administration, and career agency officials,” a more detailed report from the Center for Presidential Transition reads. It describes Boston Consulting Group as the center’s “anchor partner on the transition.”

  The 1st Days in Power

  Kicking off the first term was President Trump’s inauguration speech.

  A comparison between Mr. Kushner’s account of the speech and Mr. Karl’s version reveals just how differently the same few words resonated with different audiences.

  Read more here…

  Tyler Durden
  Thu, 02/08/2024 – 19:45

• Democrats Fail America's Youth As Dozens Of Schools In Illinois & Maryland Have Zero Kids Proficient In Math
  Democrats Fail America’s Youth As Dozens Of Schools In Illinois & Maryland Have Zero Kids Proficient In Math

  “Democrats always congratulate themselves on being the only party truly concerned with education, especially of the underprivileged, and regularly attack conservatives and Republicans for their “callous indifference.” The Democratic Party Platform, presenting itself as a savior of the underclass, calls for billions of dollars in “bold new investments” by federal and state governments to make good public schools available to every child, “no matter what zip code they live in,”” an excerpt from the “Shame of the Schools” book read. 

  Despite Democrats plowing tens of billions into public K-12 education, schools across the nation are failing in their core mission to educate. 

  

  The answer by Democrats for failing schools is to spend, spend, spend. However, the evidence of Democrats spending into oblivion on education, yielding positive results for the future generation, has yet to materialize: 

  “The average test scores for U.S. 13-year-olds have dipped in reading and dropped sharply in math since 2020, according to new data from National Assessment of Educational Progress.

  “The average scores, from tests given last fall, declined 4 points in reading and 9 points in math, compared with tests given in the 2019-2020 school year, and are the lowest in decades. The declines in reading were more pronounced for lower performing students, but dropped across all percentiles,” NPR reported. 

  In Maryland and Illinois, two states controlled by radical Democrats, evidence is mounting that progressives are failing to educate the youth. 

  Independent research firm Wirepoints found that, shockingly, 53 schools in Illinois had zero students proficient in math at grade levels. The state spends $40.6 billion on K-12 education or $21,750 per student – some of the highest in the nation. 

  Not a single student can do math at grade level in 53 Illinois schools. pic.twitter.com/LMYxvD7oGq

  — Marina Medvin 🇺🇸 (@MarinaMedvin) February 6, 2024

  https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js

  And also read. 

  Not a single student can read at grade level in 30 Illinois schools.

  I bet they can name a dozen genders though and explain why white people are evil. pic.twitter.com/0fIfgDyzaJ

  — Libs of TikTok (@libsoftiktok) February 6, 2024

  https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js

  Similarly, investigative journalist Chris Papst of Fox45 News’ Project Baltimore found last year that 23 Baltimore City schools did not have a single student proficient in math at grade level. Again, another school district with a massive education budget but higher spending doesn’t result in better student outcomes. 

  BREAKING: 23 Baltimore City Schools had ZERO students test proficient in math during the most recent Maryland state testing. This includes 10 high schools. “Take your kids out of these schools,” one community activist told @FOXBaltimore @Project_Bmore https://t.co/MSyOLKEhf7

  — Chris Papst (@chrispapst) February 7, 2023

  https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js

  This is very sad for the future of this nation. 

  23 Baltimore schools have zero students proficient in math, per state test results.

  Baltimore County Public Schools spends $14,883 per student each year. It has an annual revenue of $1,891,725,000, yet kids can’t do math at their grade level.

  Reminder Baltimore is Democrat run… pic.twitter.com/6LfJLQqO3J

  — I Meme Therefore I Am 🇺🇸 (@ImMeme0) February 9, 2023

  https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js

  Meanwhile, “Leftwing Democrats work overtime to establish the idea that the failure of our inner-city schools is wholly the responsibility of mean-spirited, tight-fisted, and outright racist Republicans ready to consign minority children to the social ash heap,” an excerpt from the Shame of the Schools book noted. 

  Democrats need a rescue plan to save America’s failing public K-12 education system that they oversee. It probably doesn’t help when leftists inject toxic CRT and DEI into education curriculums. 

  Let’s get back to actual learning and critical thinking, something Elon Musk is pushing with his new private K-12 school in Texas. 

  Tyler Durden
  Thu, 02/08/2024 – 19:25

• US Asset Or US Adversary? Why Qatar Looks Worryingly Like Both
  US Asset Or US Adversary? Why Qatar Looks Worryingly Like Both

  Authored by Ben Weingarten via RealClear Wire,

  After Hamas’ Oct. 7 attack on Israel, one of the terrorist organization’s chief financial sponsors, hosts of its leaders, and backers of its propaganda found itself singled out by America’s leaders – not for condemnation, but praise.

  “The U.S.-Qatar partnership could not be stronger, and Qatar could not have done more than it did in 2023 to play an indispensable role on the world stage,” U.S. ambassador to Qatar Timmy Davis wrote on X last December.

  

  The Biden administration, from the president on down, has lauded the emirate throughout the Israel-Hamas war, especially for its shepherding of negotiations between the two sides for a ceasefire and hostage releases – a role Qatar is singularly capable of filling in part because it maintains Hamas’ “political office” in its capital city, Doha.

  At the annual Qatar-led Doha Forum last December, Republican South Carolina Sen. Lindsey Graham echoed the Democratic administration, while also thanking Qatar for its assistance evacuating Americans during the deadly Afghanistan withdrawal – a success attributed in part to its harboring of another terrorist group, the Taliban.

  Graham too thanked Qatar for accommodating “10,000 American airmen who live better than [at] any air base in the … world” – a reference to Al Udeid, the largest such facility in the region

  House Armed Services Committee member Rep. Jack Bergman, a Michigan Republican, highlighted the irony of this bipartisan praise, noting, “Our brave men and women in uniform who have served out of Al Udeid … have gone on missions to combat terrorist groups funded by Qatar.”

  Even Qatar’s critics acknowledge that its role as both a valued U.S. ally and supporter of some of America’s deadliest foes represents a remarkable diplomatic feat. 

  To understand how this tiny but rich, theocratic and terror-tied nation has become “indispensable” to Washington – elevated by the Biden administration to major non-NATO ally status on par with Australia, Japan, and Israel – RealClearInvestigations analyzed thousands of pages of congressional testimony and correspondence, other research and news articles, and conducted interviews with policymakers and scholars.

  The analysis suggests how Qatar has wedded the leverage of the Pentagon’s operational demands, and policymakers’ desire to negotiate with adversaries, with a sprawling multi-billion-dollar campaign to “buy power and influence wherever possible,” as Richard Goldberg, a senior adviser at the Washington-based Foundation for Defense of Democracies, put it.

  The upshot is that Qatar’s ruling House of Thani has executed what Goldberg told RCI is a “kind of terror-finance double game” transcending Hamas.

  Energy Windfall, Outsized Power

  The Connecticut-sized state with a population the size of Houston punches above its weight with a war chest built on vast liquefied natural gas reserves. After the U.S., Qatar is the second largest exporter of the commodity in the world. Its position could improve not just because of the Biden administration’s recent bow to its domestic anti-fossil-fuel base in curbing U.S. LNG exports, but also as the gulf state capitalizes on the growing energy needs of China and a Europe seeking alternatives to Russian gas.

  The LNG-rich nation has used its energy windfall to project outsized global power and influence. “Billions of Qatari dollars permeate all aspects of our lives without us even knowing it,” says Goldberg.

  Defense cooperation is core to the U.S.-Qatar relationship. U.S. officials cast Al Udeid, U.S. Central Command’s headquarters, as its key asset in the Middle East. Built in 1996 by Qatar at a cost of $1 billion, the U.S. transitioned its major air operations there from Saudi Arabia in 2003, in part due to security threats. 

  The base, in which Qatar has invested billions more to revamp, enables the U.S. “to support a range of critical missions in the region and respond to challenges to our shared security” according to the Pentagon.

  Critics see it differently. “Far from being an American strategic asset in the Arabian Gulf, Al Udeid is, in fact, a Qatari asset in Washington,” national security analyst David Reaboi wrote in his 2021 book, “Qatar’s Shadow War.”

  “As long as the U.S. military advocates on behalf of the base’s continued use,” he argued, “… nearly any amount of trouble and mischief Qatar creates will be accepted, excused or contextualized.”

  The emirate has deepened influence with the U.S. military by lavishing sometimes lucrative contracts on over a dozen former high-ranking defense officials. One implicated official is retired Marine Gen. John Allen. The former commander of U.S. and NATO forces in Afghanistan came under federal scrutiny for alleged illegal foreign lobbying for Qatar when, in 2017, he counseled the country as it faced a blockade from neighbors over its support for Islamists.

  Investigators alleged Gen. Allen traveled to Doha to confer with top Qatari officials on how to influence U.S. policy, and promoted Qatar’s view to U.S. lawmakers – including its opposition to a resolution linking Doha to terror financing. “At the same time he was lobbying U.S. government officials on behalf of Qatar,” the government alleged, “Allen pursued at least one multimillion-dollar business deal with the Qatari government on behalf of a company on whose board of directors he served.”

  Prosecutors dropped their probe last year, but not before Allen stepped down as president of the prestigious Brookings Institution.

  U.S. think tanks, including Brookings, are another strategically significant area Qatar has cultivated for influence.

  The Brookings Connection

  Brookings established its satellite Doha Center in 2007 to “undertake research on the socio-economic and geopolitical issues facing the Muslim world, and encourage more understanding between U.S. and Muslim policy-makers” – in consultation and coordination with Qatar, and with $5 million in Qatari funding.

  In 2014 the New York Times reported that one year prior, the emirate agreed to donate an additional $15 million to the liberal think tank in part for the center. The report suggested the Qatari cash may have come with strings attached – scholars were not to criticize Doha.

  Brookings is adamant Qatari funding has not compromised its work.

  But the affiliation undoubtedly bought Qatar a prestigious partner – and proximity to a roster filled with prominent policymakers and thought leaders. At times they would take positions consonant with Doha or those of its Islamist acquaintances.

  The center was formed under the leadership of, among others, the then-head of Brookings’ Middle East center and later director of its Foreign Policy Program, Martin Indyk.

  The Obama administration would tab the former Clinton administration diplomat as its Special Envoy for Israeli-Palestinian Negotiations in summer 2013 – the year the Doha Center secured the massive Qatari cash infusion – where he would lead talks to which Qatar-sponsored Hamas was central. Indyk would reportedly blame Israel for the collapse of those talks, and return to Brookings in 2014.

  Hady Amr led the Doha Center as its first director, a position he held until 2010. Then, he too joined the Obama administration, including serving under Indyk and later as Deputy U.S. Special Envoy for Israeli-Palestinian Negotiations for Economics. After returning to Brookings, President Biden would tab Amr Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for Israeli and Palestinian Affairs before elevating him to Special Representative for Palestinian Affairs. Amr, who wrote a year after September 11, 2001 that he “was inspired by the Palestinian intifada,” has drawn the ire of pro-Israel critics for such rhetoric, and support for related policies they see as hostile towards the Jewish state and favorable to its foes, including Hamas.

  Shadi Hamid served as the Doha Center’s research director from 2009 to 2014 and continued as a senior fellow at Brookings. Hamid would argue during a Qatar-sponsored 2009 debate that Islamist groups like the Muslim Brotherhood are “committed to a moderate path” and “clearly” pose no threat to the West. When Trump administration officials suggested they would consider designating the Muslim Brotherhood – which spawned Hamas – as a terrorist group, Hamid argued vigorously against it. In a 2017 Brookings explainer, he warned that targeting the “mainstream” organization would “open[] the door for repressive regimes abroad to crack down on Islamist groups,” “feed[] into ISIS propaganda,” and promote “a false narrative” that U.S. Muslim organizations have ties to the group. “Not a single American expert” supports such a designation, he would argue then, and again as designation talk intensified in 2019.

  Proponents of the policy would note that Qatar is a leading patron of the Islamist group. Fox News reported on Jan. 20 that recently revealed documents suggest Qatar’s efforts to defeat a congressional measure aimed at achieving the designation also included using a firm run by former CIA officer Kevin Chalker “to discredit Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Tex … because he had sought to have the Muslim Brotherhood designated as a Foreign Terrorist Organization.” Reports allege that in recent years Qatar has targeted a number of high-level American critics via such surreptitious efforts, as well as through lawfare.

  Hamid did not reply to RCI’s request for comment.

  Brookings would rake in at least $22 million from Qatar from 2013 to 2017, when it “elected not to renew funding,” according to a FAQ that appears to have been published amid bipartisan congressional scrutiny, including regarding whether Brookings violated the Foreign Agent Registrations Act.

  Brookings maintained the center until 2021. Then it ended its affiliation, ceding authority to Qatar. Still, critics, including Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.), say the Doha Center relationship “appears to have significantly compromised the organization’s independence.”

  Another recipient of Qatari largesse to come under scrutiny is the Richardson Center for Global Engagement, a Santa Fe-based group established to carry on the work of the late New Mexico governor and U.S. ambassador to the U.N. Bill Richardson to “promote international peace and dialogue.”

  In 2019, the organization announced that it had received a “substantial commitment” – later reported to be $900,000 – from Doha for its efforts to secure the release of hostages detained abroad. Qatar would contribute $900,000 again in 2020 before tapering off its donations to $250,000 in early 2023. In December, Jewish Insider reported that the Richardson Center had “advised the families of Israeli hostages held by Hamas in Gaza not to criticize the Gulf state,” as it engages with Qatar in what’s been described as an “under-the-radar role” to free hostages held captive by Hamas.

  Facing criticism over the group’s conciliatory posture towards Qatar – compounded by a report that Richardson Center Vice President and Executive Director Mickey Bergman had counseled Jewish community officials that Israel’s caving to Hamas’ demands was the only way to quickly secure the release of hostages – Bergman took to X to respond. “For those of us who’ve been working on getting hostages home for years & the families that experienced this tragedy, there are two cardinal truths: 1) the deals to bring them home never get better with time; 2) the chances of survival never get better with time,” he wrote.

  Bergman added: “The deal last month was better than today’s. Unfortunately, it was not taken & several hostages killed since. ‘If your goal is to bring hostages home, you do what you need to, today. If your goal is different, you criticize those who r trying to bring them home.’”

  The Richardson Center is not alone among Qatari-funded American entities advising the families of hostages held in Gaza. On January 31, Politico reported that former special assistant to President Bill Clinton Jay Footlik’s ThirdCircle Inc. has also been counseling such families. It has been a registered foreign agent since 2019, facilitating trips for U.S. officials to Qatar on behalf of its embassy for $40,000 per month.

  Robert Malley, Accused Iran Appeaser

  Another influential recipient of Qatari funds is the Washington, D.C.-based International Crisis Group. Financial records show the emirate made two grants to the group totaling $5 million from 2018 to 2021. This period largely overlapped with Robert Malley’s tenure as the organization’s president.

  Seen by critics as an Iran appeaser and apologist for its proxy Hamas, Malley rose to national attention in 2008 when the Obama presidential campaign removed the diplomat as an adviser for having met Hamas’ leaders while running International Crisis Group’s Middle East program. Ultimately, President Obama would bring Malley back into the fold as lead negotiator on his Iran nuclear deal team.

  Malley returned to government in January 2021 to help the Biden administration reprise that deal, the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, from which President Trump had withdrawn. Qatar helped mediate indirect talks between the U.S. and Iran. Qatar also helped mediate America’s exchange with Iran last September of five Iranian detainees plus $6 billion in unfrozen Iranian funds – panned by critics as a ransom payment – for five detained Americans. After Iran-backed Hamas carried out the Oct. 7 attack, Qatar reportedly agreed with the U.S. to withhold the funds – which are held in Doha bank accounts – though Iran’s foreign ministry recently released a statement suggesting otherwise.

  Last year, Malley was stripped of his security clearance, suspended, and reportedly put under FBI investigation for allegedly mishandling classified information while serving as President Biden’s special envoy to Iran.

  Evidence would emerge suggesting Malley “and members of his negotiating team may have had compromising ties to the Iranian regime,” per congressional investigators. They noted that Ariane Tabatabai, whom Malley would recruit to that team, was part of the Iran Experts Initiative (IEI). The Iranian government launched this apparent influence operation in 2014 to cultivate a network of U.S. and European scholars to promote the regime’s favored positions on global security matters. Two International Crisis Group employees have also been implicated in this effort.

  In response to questions about Qatar funding, International Crisis Group told RCI, “Donations from the Government of Qatar accounted for less than 5% of our total funding during the relevant period and were constructed to preserve our full independence.”

  Direct Investments in America

  Money lubricates the U.S.-Qatar relationship in other ways. Qatar’s Investment Authority is one of the ten largest sovereign wealth funds in the world. It has pumped over $30 billion into the U.S., sometimes in concert with major U.S. financial firms like Apollo, Blackstone, and KKR.

  Qatar plans to commit $45 billion more to the U.S.

  Recently, Qatar reportedly became the first foreign country to use its sovereign wealth fund to make a direct investment in American’s sports teams when it bought a 5% stake worth hundreds of millions of dollars into an entity holding Washington, D.C.’s professional basketball and hockey teams.

  Qatar also owns stakes in numerous landmarks including iconic New York properties such as the Empire State Building, The Plaza, and St. Regis hotels.

  The U.S.-Qatar Business Council aims to foster bilateral commercial relations. It counts among its members major oil companies like ConocoPhillips, ExxonMobil, and Chevron, some with which it has engaged in joint energy projects; defense contractors including Boeing – from which Qatar Airways purchased $37 billion in 737 Max planes in a massive 2022 deal – General Dynamics, and Lockheed Martin; and financial services companies such as MetLife and Visa.

  Recently, the Washington Examiner reported that Washington, D.C., U.S. Attorney Matthew Graves represented the Qatari government, a Qatari charitable organization alleged to have backed Al-Qaeda, and the Qatar-backed Al Jazeera Media Network when he was a partner at DLA Piper law firm in D.C. Critics charge that Graves, who is now overseeing many Jan. 6 prosecutions, has by contrast gone soft on pro-Palestinian rioters in the nation’s capital. 

  Bankrolling Higher Ed

  Qatar’s influence extends to the higher education institutions that seed America’s most influential sectors as well.

  The emirate has been the largest foreign donor to American universities since 9/11, contributing at least $4.7 billion from 2001 to 2022 according to the National Association of Scholars (NAS).

  A large chunk of the funds has gone to Virginia Commonwealth University, Cornell, Texas A&M, Carnegie Mellon, Georgetown, and Northwestern to establish American campuses in Doha’s “education city.”

  Ben Freeman, director of the Democratizing Foreign Policy program at the Quincy Institute, has said the funds “could translate to an implicit bias amongst university graduates, which is probably why … most of the top recipients of funding from countries in the Middle East are universities that produce some of the top foreign policy minds in the U.S.”

  A 2023 Institute for the Study of Global Antisemitism & Policy study suggests these funds correlate with both “the erosion of free speech norms” and “increased levels of campus antisemitism.”

  Middle East Studies departments, often funded by Qatar and Saudi Arabia, NAS found, “have repurposed critical theory to galvanize activism on Middle East issues,” which some link to the eruption of pro-Palestinian and anti-Semitic sentiment at colleges after Oct. 7.

  Other reporting suggest Qatari funds may not only compromise the work of its recipients, but raise national security concerns.

  Doha’s Direct Lobbying – for Hamas?

  Qatar’s direct lobbying operation is also formidable.

  From 2016 to 2023, Qatar spent $240 million based on Foreign Agent Registration Act filings alone – sixth most of any country. China ranked first, at $378 million.

  These efforts mushroomed during the Trump years as the emirate sought to fight the economic, diplomatic, and travel blockade imposed by Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, United Arab Emirates, and Egypt.

  The stated reason for the row was Qatar’s support for both Sunni and Shia Islamists, which the emirate’s neighbors felt threatened their authoritarian but anti-Islamist regimes – particularly during the Arab spring.

  The parties to the blockade demanded that Qatar curb its ties to Iran and its Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps and that it cease backing and designate as terrorist organizations the Muslim Brotherhood, al-Qaeda, and Hezbollah. The Gulf states also demanded that Qatar shutter the Al-Jazeera media network, whose programming, they said, promotes terror. (Former Vice President Al Gore reportedly netted $100 million when Qatar bought his struggling Current TV in 2013, and turned it into the since-shuttered Al Jazeera America.)

  Members of Congress have characterized Al-Jazeera’s often pro-Islamist programming and platforming of jihadists as “anti-American, anti-Semitic, and anti-Israel” – something critics say is even more prevalent in its Arabic-language content.

  The blockading states treated Qatar’s backing of Al-Jazeera – which reaches more than 400 million people in some 150 countries – as tantamount to its waging of information warfare against them.

  The Justice Department wrote in a September 2020 letter that Al-Jazeera and its affiliates were foreign agents of Qatar.

  These entities have refused to register accordingly, prompting Rep. Bergman to push Speaker Mike Johnson to revoke House Press Gallery credentials from the 136 Al-Jazeera employees who have received them – nearly double that of those provided the New York Times – some percentage of whom he is concerned could be influence agents or spies.

  Qatar’s lobbying efforts aimed to undermine the blockade, including by countering prominent critics and targeting hundreds of influencers in Trump world. In addition to hiring the likes of former U.S. Attorney General John Ashcroft to advocate on its behalf, Qatar enlisted lobbyists to change the hearts and minds of national security-focused American Jews weary of Qatar’s ties to the Muslim Brotherhood and other Islamist organizations, some of whom it flew to Doha and feted.

  One specific aim of the lobbying effort, according to a recent Wall Street Journal report, was to kill legislation aimed at sanctioning state sponsors of Hamas, including Qatar.

  Rep. Bergman told RCI the emirate “single-handedly defeated” a 2017 bipartisan bill specifically fingering Qatar for its Hamas support.

  When colleagues re-introduced the bill in 2019, with “Qatar’s name … removed, and only Iran remain[ing] – Qatar killed it again,” Rep. Bergman emphasized.

  Had America imposed such sanctions, the congressman believes, Hamas might not have been able to execute the Oct.. 7 attack.

  “To go against the Qatar regime for its state sponsorship of Muslim Brotherhood and jihadist terrorism,” said J. Michael Waller, senior analyst for strategy at the Center for Security Policy, “is to commit political suicide in Washington.”

  A Tough Cost-Benefit Equation

  Despite its connection to terrorist groups and state sponsors of terror, the West and its allies believe the benefits of using Qatar as an intermediary to the world’s pariahs outweigh the costs.

  Even as leaders from both sides of the aisle in both chambers of Congress have pushed the Biden administration to exert pressure on Qatar to squeeze Hamas to return all hostages, expel its leaders, and cease support for the terrorist group, the administration has agreed to extend its stay at Al Udeid for the next 10 years.

  This cemented the U.S.-Qatar alliance at the same time critics had been calling for the U.S. to leverage the air base to influence the emirates’ behavior.

  The White House did not respond to RCI’s inquiries.

  Former Trump deputy national security adviser Victoria Coates told RCI that while the emirate’s Islamist ties pose “a significant problem,” some of the capabilities touted by Doha’s boosters, plus its formidable natural gas position – where Coates believes there could be mutual benefits to cooperation – compel America to carefully consider its approach to the relationship. Between “apologists” and “haters,” Coates asks, “are either of those positions actually what’s in the best interest of the American people?”

  Rep. Bergman is adamant that the U.S. should not allow Qatar to buy influence. “Qatar should not be allowed to infiltrate our universities or buy up half of the lobbyists and PR firms in Washington, let alone to purchase 5% of the NBA and NHL teams in Washington, D.C. … Nor should Qatar be able to covertly fund – and thus exert control over – the think tanks that Congress and the Administration rely on so heavily to set policies.”

  Coates’ former NSC colleague Goldberg put it this way: “Qatar can be with Hamas or with the United States. It can’t be both.”

  Tyler Durden
  Thu, 02/08/2024 – 19:05

• Iraq Closer To Expelling US Troops After Drone Strike In Busy Neighborhood
  Iraq Closer To Expelling US Troops After Drone Strike In Busy Neighborhood

  The fallout continues in the wake of the Pentagon’s assassination by drone strike of at least one or more Kataib Hezbollah leaders in a crowded east Baghdad neighborhood Wednesday night.

  Iraq’s government on Thursday condemned the violation of the country’s sovereignty, and warned it brings political leadership a big step closer to kicking American troops out of Iraq altogether.

  Iraq’s military commander-in-chief condemned the “blatant assassination” of an Iranian-backed militia leader “in the heart of a residential neighborhood” in Baghdad, which could have killed many bystanders.The statement underscored that the US has shown “no regard for civilian lives or international laws.”

  

  “By this act, the American forces jeopardize civil peace, violate Iraqi sovereignty, and disregard the safety and lives of our citizens,” the Iraqi military statement said.

  There were large overnight protests outside the ‘Green Zone’ where the US Embassy is located in Baghdad. These protests will likely persist in the coming days and could grow violent, as has happened in recent years.

  The US Central Command (CENTCOM) statement which was issued within hours after the drone strike on the SUV claimed there were no civilian casualties:

  There are no indications of collateral damage or civilian casualties at this time. The United States will continue to take necessary action to protect our people.

  Still, the Pentagon is expected to mount more targeted attacks pm senior Iranian-backed militia commanders in the wake of last month’s drone strike on a US base along the Jordan-Syria border, which killed three US Army soldiers.

  Currently, some 2,500 US troops remain in Iraq, ostensibly still there as part of a ‘counter-ISIS’ mission, though ISIS terrorists have long been driven underground. Likely there are many thousands more US contractors and security operators throughout the country, and especially in the north in Erbil.

  The Iraqi military statement concluded by calling out the ambiguous “mission” and changing rationale for US troops remaining in the country. It said that “even more concerning is that the coalition consistently deviates from the reasons and objectives for its presence on our territory.”

  #BREAKING
  Drone airstrike targeted a vehicle in Mashtal neighborhood, eastern Baghdad. 🇮🇶 pic.twitter.com/Ymwva2Tpnj

  — Tammuz Intel (@Tammuz_Intel) February 7, 2024

  https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js

  One of the real reasons US troops are still in Iraq is to provide support for the occupation of Syria across the border.

  American outposts on the Iraqi side assists with logistics and staging, and also has come under accusations of supporting the ‘oil theft’ happening in the Deir Ezzor region. In some cases tanker trucks have been seen crossing into Iraq from Syria, laden with Syrian oil.

  Meanwhile in Iraq today…

  A US drone roves the skies of Baghdad as a funeral for Kataib Hezbollah’s senior commander Wissam AlSaedi aka Abou Baqer is held. pic.twitter.com/QDtL94jsDF

  — Ali Hashem علي هاشم (@alihashem_tv) February 8, 2024

  https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js

  Tyler Durden
  Thu, 02/08/2024 – 18:45

• Judge Rules Former Trump Advisor Peter Navarro Will Remain In Prison While He Appeals Contempt Conviction
  Judge Rules Former Trump Advisor Peter Navarro Will Remain In Prison While He Appeals Contempt Conviction

  Authored by Ryan Morgan via NTD News,

  A federal judge has rejected a request by former Trump White House adviser Peter Navarro to be allowed to stay out of prison while he appeals a conviction for contempt of Congress.

  

  Mr. Navarro was charged with contempt of Congress after defying a pair of subpoenas from the now-disbanded House committee that investigated the breach of the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, which was controlled at the time by Democrats. He was found guilty on two counts of contempt of Congress and sentenced last month to serve concurrent four-month prison terms.

  The former adviser argued throughout the subpoena process, at trial, and again in his appeal that he had a good faith belief that testifying before Congress would have conflicted with President Donald Trump’s executive privilege. On Thursday, Judge Ahmit Meta of the U.S. District Court for Washington D.C. ruled that there is no “substantial question of law” for which Mr. Navarro warrants remaining out of prison.

  Mr. Navarro’s legal team has argued that the questions he raised about executive privilege meet the major questions doctrine of legal interpretation. This doctrine states that courts should rely on relevant executive branch agencies to resolve significant regulatory policy questions.

  Judge Mehta had rejected Mr. Navarro’s privilege claims earlier in the case, stating that during his trial, Mr. Navarro’s team never presented evidence that President Trump asserted a privilege claim over his testimony. Mr. Navarro had claimed President Trump had asserted his privilege verbally in a February 2022 phone call, but Judge Mehta ruled that he had “not carried his burden of establishing a formal claim of privilege from President Trump.”

  In his Thursday ruling, Judge Mehta acknowledged that the exact requirements to invoke executive privilege properly remains an open question before the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals but said, “After over a year of litigation, Defendant still has not offered what he thinks is required for a proper invocation of executive privilege.”

  Judge Rejects Political Bias Argument

  In addition to rejecting Mr. Navarro’s arguments about executive privilege, Judge Mehta also rejected the argument made by Navarro’s team during sentencing that his prosecution for contempt of Congress was motivated by political bias.

  Mr. Navarro has argued that there was political bias in his case. He noted that three assistant U.S. attorneys who had organized a letter to then-Attorney General Bill Barr challenging allegations of fraud in the 2020 election ended up on the same prosecution team that investigated and charged him.

  According to Mr. Navarro’s legal team, prosecutors injected an improper bias into his trial. They argued that this was done when the prosecutors associated his prosecution with the breach of the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6th, 2021. Additionally, Mr. Navarro’s legal team claimed that the prosecutors continued to cast doubt on his case during the trial by insinuating that it had to do with a refusal to honor the historic U.S. tradition of a peaceful transfer of power.

  Judge Mehta ruled Mr. Navarro’s legal team “offers no actual proof to support” their contention that political bias motivated the prosecution. Further, the federal judge argued that the record reflects the opposite of political bias because the Department of Justice had declined to prosecute two other former Trump advisors—former White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows and former Deputy White House Chief of Staff Dan Scavino—for contempt of Congress.

  “Defendant’s cynical, self-serving claim of political bias poses no question at all, let alone a ’substantial’ one,” Judge Mehta wrote.

  Navarro Could Appeal Conviction Up to SCOTUS

  In an interview with NTD’s “Capitol Report” last month, Mr. Navarro expressed his belief that his questions about executive privilege could eventually become an issue for the U.S. Supreme Court to resolve.

  Mr. Navarro said after he first raised the issue of executive privilege to the Jan. 6 committee, the committee should have reached out to President Trump to clear up any dispute over his privilege claims rather than proceed instead with moving to consider him in contempt and requesting his prosecution by the DOJ.

  “I was more than happy to comply with that subpoena if they simply called the president and asked for a waiver of the privilege,” Mr. Navarro said at the time.

  “And I think it tells the lie, in this whole case, that they never made one phone call, they never lifted a finger to call him to get the information they claimed they needed to have. Had they made that one phone call, we wouldn’t be sitting here.”

  It remains to be seen how Mr. Navarro’s efforts to appeal his criminal conviction will play out. Whether he should remain out of prison during the appeal process is being treated as a separate issue for the court. In his Thursday ruling, Judge Mehta said unless the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals vacates his ruling, Mr. Navarro shall report to prison on time.

  NTD News reached out to Mr. Navarro’s legal team about whether he will seek an appeals court ruling to remain out of prison while he appeals his underlying case. The attorneys did not respond by press time.

  Tyler Durden
  Thu, 02/08/2024 – 18:25

• Tucker Carlson: The Putin Interview
  Tucker Carlson: The Putin Interview

  Last week, Tucker Carlson traveled to Rusia to interview President Vladimir Putin. This sent the left into hysterics – some of whom have called for the journalist to face sanctions, or worse.

  

  Prior to the interview – which can be seen right now in its entirety at tuckercarlson.com, Carlson explained that it’s his job as a journalist “to inform people,” as “most Americans are not informed” as to what’s happening in Ukraine.

  To that end, let’s get into it.

  Tucker starts the interview by asking Putin why he invaded Ukraine, “and the answer we got shocked us.”

  Putin proceeded to delve into the history of Ukraine, going back to the middle-ages. Tucker pushed back, saying “I’m not sure why it’s relevant to what happened two years ago,” to which Putin continued with the history lesson.

  “But why didn’t you make this case for the first 22 years as president, that Ukraine wasn’t a real country?” Tucker asked.

  “The Soviet Union was given a great deal of territory that had never belonged to it, including the Black Sea region. At some point when Russia received them as an outcome of the Russo Turkish wars, they were called New Russia or another Russia. But that does not matter. What matters is that Lenin, the founder of the Soviet state, established Ukraine that way,” Putin replied. “For decades, the Ukrainian Soviet Republic developed as part of the USSR. And for unknown reasons, again, the Bolsheviks were engaged in Ukrainization.”

  The trigger for the Ukraine war: “Initially, it was the coup in Ukraine that provoked the conflict… They launched the war in Donbas in 2014 with the use of aircraft and artillery against civilians. This is when it all started.”

  NATO Expansion

  Getting to the meat of the Ukraine war, Putin told Carlson that “The former Russian leadership assumed that the Soviet Union had ceased to exist and therefore there were no longer any ideological dividing lines. Russia even agreed voluntarily and proactively to the collapse of the Soviet Union, and believed that this would be understood by the so-called civilized West as an invitation for cooperation and association.”

  “We were promised no NATO to the east, not an inch to the east, as we were told. And then what? They said, well, it’s not enshrined on paper, so we’ll expand.”

  “That is what Russia was expecting, both from the United States and this so-called collective West as a whole. There were smart people, including in Germany, Egon Bahr, a major politician of the Social Democratic Party, who insisted in his personal conversations with the Soviet leadership on the brink of the collapse of the Soviet Union, that they knew security systems should be established in Europe. Help should be given to unified Germany, but a new system should be also established to include the United States, Canada, Russia and other Central European countries. But NATO needs not to expand. That’s what he said. If NATO expands, everything would be just the same as during the Cold War, only closer to Russia’s borders. That’s all. He was a wise old man, but no one listened to him. In fact, he got angry once. If, he said, you don’t listen to me, I’m never setting my foot in Moscow once again. Everything happened just as he had said.”

  The state of negotiations:

  Vladimir Putin: I already said that we did not refuse to talk. We’re willing to negotiate. It is the western side, and Ukraine is obviously a satellite state of the US. It is evident. I do not want you to take it as if I am looking for a strong word or an insult. But we both understand what is happening. The financial support. 72 billion U.S. dollars was provided. Germany ranks second, then other European countries come. Dozens of billions of U.S. dollars are going to Ukraine. There’s a huge influx of weapons. In this case, you should tell the current Ukrainian leadership to stop and come to a negotiating table, rescind this absurd decree. We did not refuse.

  Tucker: Sure, but you already said it. I didn’t think you meant it is an insult because you already said correctly, it’s been reported that Ukraine was prevented from negotiating a peace settlement by the former British Prime Minister acting on behalf of the Biden administration. So, of course they’re a satellite. Big countries control small countries. That’s not new. And that’s why I asked about dealing directly with the Biden administration, which is making these decisions, not President Zelensky of Ukraine.

  Vladimir Putin: Well if the Zelensky administration in Ukraine refused to negotiate, I assume they did it under the instruction from Washington. If Washington believes it to be the wrong decision, let it abandon it. Let it find the delicate excuse so that no one is insulted. Let it come up with a way out. It was not us who made this decision. It was them. So let them go back on it. That is it. However, they made the wrong decision. And now we have to look for a way out of this situation to correct their mistakes. They did it, so let them correct it themselves. We support this.

  Tucker: So I just want to make sure I’m not misunderstanding what you’re saying. I don’t think that I am. I think you’re saying you want a negotiated settlement to what’s happening in Ukraine.

  Vladimir Putin: Right. And we made it. We prepared the huge document in Istanbul that was initialed by the head of the Ukrainian delegation. He had fixed his signature to some of the provisions, not to all of it. He put his signature and then he himself said, we were ready to sign it, and the war would have been over long ago. 18 months ago. However, Prime Minister Johnson came, talk to us out of it and we missed that chance. Well, you missed it. You made a mistake. Let them get back to that. That is all. Why do we have to bother ourselves and correct somebody else’s mistakes? I know one can say it is our mistake. It was us who intensified the situation and decided to put an end to the war that started in 2014, in Donbas. As I have already said by means of weapons. Lt me get back to furthering history. I already told you this. We were just discussing it. Let us go back to 1991, when we were promised that NATO would not expand to 2008, when the doors to NATO opened to the Declaration of State Sovereignty of Ukraine, declaring Ukraine a neutral state. Let us go back to the fact that NATO and U.S. military bases started to appear on the territory, Ukraine creating threats to us. Let us go back to coup d’etat in Ukraine in 2014. It is pointless, though, isn’t it? We may go back and forth endlessly, but they stopped negotiations. Is it a mistake? Yes. Correct it. We are ready. What else is needed?

  Watch Putin explain that he had a signed peace deal (before BoJo arrived) here: 

  Vladimir Putin wanted peace and a settlement in Ukraine
  Tucker Carlson interview#TuckerPutin #TuckerCarlson pic.twitter.com/Gt8DY2dSRy

  — Michael Smith 🇺🇸 Ceo of nothing. (@Shotgunhunter1) February 8, 2024

  https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js

  More: 

  • On the negotiation process and its failure: “There have been [talks] they reached a very high stage of coordination of positions in a complex process, but still they were almost finalized. But after we withdrew our troops from Kiev… the other side threw away all these agreements.”

  • On his last conversation with Joe Biden: “Well, yes, he funds, but I talked to him before the special military operation, of course… I believe that you are making a huge mistake of historic proportions by supporting everything that is happening there, in Ukraine, by pushing Russia away.”

  • On the possibility of global conflict: “It goes against common sense to get involved in some kind of a global war and a global war will bring all humanity to the brink of destruction.”

  • On the concept of de-nazification: “De-nazification… means the prohibition of all kinds of neo-Nazi movements… We have to get rid of those people who maintain this concept and support this practice and try to preserve it.”

  • On Russia’s territorial ambitions: “We simply don’t have any interest [in Poland, Latvia, or anywhere else]. It’s just threat mongering.”

  Elon Musk and Neuralink

  Putin then suggested that Elon Musk is unstoppable, saying “He will do as he sees fit. Nevertheless, you’ll need to find some common ground with him. Search for ways to persuade him. I think he’s a smart person. I truly believe he is. So you’ll need to reach an agreement with him because this process needs to be formalized and subjected to certain rules. Humanity has to consider what is going to happen due to the newest development in genetics or in AI? One can make an approximate prediction of what will happen.”

  Even more:

  • On the Nord Stream explosion: “People always say in such cases, look for someone who is interested. But in this case, we should not only look for someone who is interested, but also for someone who has capabilities… Who is interested and who is capable of doing it?”

  Tucker: “Who blew up Nord Stream?” Putin: “You for sure.” Tucker: “I was busy that day. I did not blow up Nord Stream.” Putin: “You personally may have an alibi, but the CIA has no such alibi.“

  • On presenting evidence of NATO’s involvement: “In the war of propaganda, it is very difficult to defeat the United States because the United States controls all the world’s media… We can simply shine the spotlight on our sources of information and we will not achieve results.”

  • On Germany’s silence regarding Nord Stream: “Today’s German leadership is guided by the interests of the collective West rather than its national interests.”

  • On global alliances and security: “Security should be shared rather than meant for the golden billion. That is the only scenario where the world could be stable, sustainable, and predictable.”

  • On the use of the US dollar as a political tool: “To use the dollar as a tool of foreign policy struggle is one of the biggest strategic mistakes made by the US political leadership.”

  • On the impact of sanctions and the shift away from the US dollar: “Even the United States allies are now downsizing their dollar reserves… It wasn’t us who banned the use of the US dollar. It was the decision of the United States to restrict our transactions in U.S. dollars.”

  • On the relationship with China: “China’s foreign policy philosophy is not aggressive. Its idea is to always look for compromise.”

  • On potential for change in US-Russia relations: “It is not about the personality of the leader. It is about the elites’ mindset, leader deal. If the idea of domination at any cost, based also on forceful actions, dominates the American society, nothing will change.”

  • On the nature of power in the US: “It is very difficult for us to sort it all out. Who makes decisions in the elections? Each state regulates itself… There are two parties that are dominant: the Republicans and the Democrats.”

  • On Christianity and violence: “It is very easy when it comes to protecting oneself and one’s family, one’s homeland. We won’t attack anyone… And we were protecting our people, ourselves, our homeland and our future.”

  Tucker also asked about imprisoned WSJ reporter Evan Gershkovich:

  Tucker: I just gotta ask you one last question. And that’s about someone who is very famous in the United States. Probably not here. Evan Gershkovich who’s the Wall Street Journal reporter. He’s 32. And he’s been in prison for almost a year. This is a huge story in the United States. And I just want to ask you directly, without getting into the details of it or your version of what happened, if, as a sign of your decency, you would be willing to release
  him to us and we’ll bring him back to the United States.

  Vladimir Putin: We have done so many gestures of goodwill out of decency that I think we have run out of them. We have never seen anyone reciprocate to us in a similar manner. However, in theory, we can say that we do not rule out that we can do that if our partners take reciprocal steps. When I talk about the partners, I first of all refer to special services. Special services are in contact with one another. They are talking about the matter in question. There is no taboo to settle this issue. We are willing to solve it but there are certain terms being discussed via special services channels. I believe an agreement can be reached.

  Watch the full interview here on X:

  Ep. 73 The Vladimir Putin Interview pic.twitter.com/67YuZRkfLL

  — Tucker Carlson (@TuckerCarlson) February 8, 2024

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  Full transcript available here at TuckerCarlson.com.

  Tyler Durden
  Thu, 02/08/2024 – 18:08

• Diesel Prices Primed To Rise Sharply In 2024
  Diesel Prices Primed To Rise Sharply In 2024

  By John Kemp, senior market analyst

  Global stocks of diesel and other middle distillates are below normal and prices could start to rise quickly if the industrial economies of North America and Western Europe emerge from their lingering recession in 2024.

  

  Inventories of diesel, heating oil and gas oil were below the prior ten-year seasonal average across North America, Europe and Singapore in January, which has begun to exert upward pressure on fuel prices. Investors have already noticed and amassed a position equivalent to 56 million barrels in the two major futures and options contracts tied to middle distillates up from 20 million barrels in the middle of December.

  Diesel and other distillate fuel oils are the workhorse of the industrial economy, widely used in manufacturing, freight transport and construction, and therefore the most sensitive fuels to the condition of the business cycle.

  Recent data has confirmed manufacturers in the United States are poised to return to growth after a prolonged though shallow cyclical downturn in 2022/23.

  European manufacturers have experienced an even longer and much deeper downturn caused by the surge in energy prices following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in 2022. But in Europe too there are signs the worst of the downturn is now over and the sector will return to growth before the end of the year.

  Traders anticipate both the U.S. Federal Reserve and the European Central Bank will cut interest rates this year which would turbocharge the cyclical upswing. As a result, global distillate inventories are likely to remain below average and could easily tighten further, intensifying the upward pressure on prices.

  In the United States, distillate fuel oil stocks amounted to 114 million barrels at the end of November 2023…

  

  … the lowest for the time of year since 1951, according to data from the U.S. Energy Information Administration.

  

  U.S. distillate inventories were 22 million barrels (-16% or -1.42 standard deviations) below the prior ten-year seasonal average (“Petroleum supply monthly“, EIA, January 31, 2024).

  

  

  

  Since then inventories have become more comfortable but they were still 10 million barrels (-7% or -0.54 standard deviations) below the seasonal average near the end of January.

  In Europe, inventories were 20 million barrels (-5% or -0.80 standard deviations) below the prior 10-year average at the end of December, the most recent data available.

  

  

  In Singapore, distillate stocks were an average of 3 million barrels (-33% or -1.95 standard deviations) below the 10-year average in January.

  

  There has been no sustained accumulation of inventories in any of the regions despite depressed industrial activity over the last year.

  Distillate supplies have been disrupted by Ukraine’s drone attacks on petroleum refineries in Russia and by Houthi attacks on shipping in the Red Sea and the Gulf of Aden which have disrupted east-west flows.

  Re-routing east-west tankers from the Red Sea and the Suez Canal to the much longer route around Africa has tied up millions of barrels of diesel and gasoil as extra inventories on the water.

  Benchmark crack spreads for gasoil delivered in Northwest Europe in April 2024 have averaged $214 per tonne over Brent crude so far in February up from a premium of $174 in December.

  

  More generally, gasoil cracks have been rising since the start of 2024, reversing the steady decline in the fourth quarter of 2023.

  

  So far the impact on end-users has been muted because crude prices, which account for most of the total cost, have been fairly flat since the start of the year.

  Gasoil cracks for April 2024 have surged 37% since the start of the year but crude prices have increased by just 2%; the combined impact has been an increase in gasoil prices of 9%.

  

  But if gasoil inventories tighten further as the cyclical upswing proceeds, and Saudi Arabia and its OPEC⁺ allies finally obtain some traction over crude stocks and prices, there is potential for a sharp rise in diesel prices in 2024.

  Tyler Durden
  Thu, 02/08/2024 – 17:40

• Zelensky Fires Top General, Appoints New Commander, In Major Shake-Up
  Zelensky Fires Top General, Appoints New Commander, In Major Shake-Up

  It’s official: as we predicted even starting last month Ukraine’s top general and commander of the armed forces is now out.

  President Zelensky has confirmed that Gen. Valery Zaluzhny has been dismissed, in what appears part of a broader shake-up of top military and government leadership. Zelensky said it is “time for renewal”.

  

  Zelensky said Thursday he met with his army chief and that while it’s time for significant “changes” – Zaluzhny should remain “on his team”. Though the decision had been rumored and reported for over a week, presumably the stall was to negotiate and ensure peaceful transition of the top defense post. There were also widespread reports that Zaluzhny had refused to step down.

  “We discussed what renewal the Armed Forces of Ukraine need. We also discussed who could be in the renewed leadership of the Armed Forces of Ukraine. The time for this renewal is now,” Zelensky announced in an English statement on X and Telegram.

  Zaluzhny had just before the announcement confirmed he had an “important and serious conversation” with Zelensky which focused on changing battlefield tactics and strategy.

  The now former top commander has huge popularity among military ranks and especially far-right, ultranationalist and neo-Nazi elements. Will his firing result in mutiny or rebellion among some units? 

  Very quickly on the heels of news of Zaluzhny’s dismissal, Ukraine announced the appointment of Oleksandr Syrskyi as the new commander-in-chief the armed forces. Until now, Gen. Syrskyi was Ukraine’s ground forces commander.

  ‼️ Volodymyr Zelenskyy officially announced that he appointed Oleksandr Syrskyi as the new commander-in-chief of the Ukrainian Armed Forces. pic.twitter.com/zNidGclLiD

  — NEXTA (@nexta_tv) February 8, 2024

  https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js

  According to Ukraine’s FT correspondent:

  Ukrainian Defense Minister Rustem Umerov thanked Zaluzhny for his “achievements and victories,” saying that the general “had one of the most difficult tasks – to lead the Armed Forces of Ukraine during the Great War with Russia.”

  A new military leadership team is expected to take over as of today. President Biden just yesterday acknowledged Ukraine is in “dire straights” right now, after Zelensky has struggled to attract more weaponry, and amid war weary Western publics, and European nations which have seen their own stockpiles drained.

  Zelensky is likely hoping this major change and shake-up could once again attract and renew Western defense support and aid. To illustrate just how dire the situation is, most might have missed this subtle detail in The New York Times days ago…

  ‘They Come in Waves’: Ukraine Goes on Defense Against a Relentless Foe (archived) – New York Times, Feb 4 2024
  …At the hot spots of the eastern front line, Ukrainian troops are outmanned, outgunned and digging in.

  “They come in waves,” said Lt. Oleksandr Shyrshyn, 29, the deputy battalion commander in the 47th Mechanized Brigade. “And they do not stop.”

  The geopolitical blog Moon of Alabama was the first to highlight it, and accurately observed the following days ago [emphasis ZH]:

  A Lieutenant at age 28 is likely a seasoned one. But in the role of a ‘deputy battalion commander’?

  What happened to the S3, the Major and nominal deputy battalion commander? What happened to the six Captains the battalion is supposed to have? All of them should be better trained and qualified to take on the role of a deputy battalion commander than a mere Lieutenant.

  This small detail, a Lieutenant as deputy battalion commander, tells me more about the battalion’s state that any flowery description of casualties.

  Likely it is too late for any major turn-around for Kiev forces, though the Zelensky administration has lately been teasing the potential for a large new military mobilization of hundreds of thousands, which is sure to be hugely unpopular and controversial among the Ukrainian population.

  Tyler Durden
  Thu, 02/08/2024 – 17:25

• Hawaii Ignores US Supreme Court, Strikes Down Right To Carry Firearms In Public
  Hawaii Ignores US Supreme Court, Strikes Down Right To Carry Firearms In Public

  Hawaii’s Supreme Court on Wednesday ruled that the state doesn’t have to adhere to a constitutional right to carry firearms in public, deviating from a 2022 US Supreme Court decision affirming such a right.

  

  “Article I, section 17 of the Hawaii Constitution mirrors the Second Amendment to the United States Constitution,” the Supreme Court of Hawaii wrote. However, “we read those words differently than the current United States Supreme Court. We hold that in Hawaii there is no state constitutional right to carry a firearm in public.”

  In doing so, the justices reversed a circuit court decision siding with a gun owner who was charged with a felony for violating three Hawaiian gun laws. The lower court had dismissed the charges, citing the 2022 “New York State Rifle & Pistol Association Inc. v. Bruen” in which the US Supreme Court ruled for the first time that an individual’s right to carry a handgun in public for self-defense is covered under the 2nd Amendment.

  In December, Christopher Wilson was charged with a felony for violating three gun laws in Hawaii. Two of these laws restrict the possession of firearms and ammunition to the owner’s residence or business. A third law, HRS Section 134-9, authorizes the chief of police in each county to issue licenses for carrying firearms.

  Mr. Wilson’s legal team moved to have the charges dismissed, arguing that prosecuting him for possessing a firearm for self-defense purposes outside his home violated his right to bear arms as guaranteed by the Second Amendment of the U.S. Constitution and Article 1, Section 17 of the Hawaii Constitution.

  In August 2022, a circuit court judge granted Mr. Wilson’s motion to dismiss the charges. It agreed that regulations restricting firearms to Mr. Wilson’s business or residence violated his right to keep and bear arms. -Epoch Times

  In its ruling, the Hawaiian Supreme Court claimed that the Bruen decision “snubs federalism principles.”

  The Hawaii Supreme Court held that while Wilson has standing to challenge the two laws restricting firearms, they wrote “we reject Wilson’s constitutional challenges.”

  “Hawaii’s historical tradition of firearm regulation rule out an individual right to keep and bear arms under the Hawaii Constitution … The spirit of Aloha clashes with a federally-mandated lifestyle that lets citizens walk around with deadly weapons during day-to-day activities.”

  As the Epoch Times further notes:

  ‘Anti-Gun’ Court

  The Hawaii Supreme Court’s decision was criticized by Kostas Moros, an attorney with Michel and Associates representing the California Rifle & Pistol Association.

  “I hope the poor guy dealing with all this nonsense files a cert petition. What a preposterous ruling by a bench of antigun activists,” he said in a Feb. 8 post on X (formerly Twitter). A cert petition seeks to have a higher court review the decision of a lower court.

  “At the time this man was charged, no one had ever gotten a CCW (concealed carry weapons) permit in Hawaii. It’s completely abdication of the judicial role to ignore this, unless the petitioner never brought it up, which I find unlikely.”

  Mr. Moros also criticized the Hawaii Supreme Court’s statement in its opinion that it makes “no sense for contemporary society to pledge allegiance to the founding era’s culture, realities, laws, and understanding of the Constitution.”

  “Sounds like the Hawaii Supreme Court doesn’t even want to be a part of the United States, in this rejection of not just the Second Amendment but their culture and understanding of the Constitution,” he said.

  In June last year, Gov. Josh Green, a Democrat, signed bill SB1230 into law that prohibits carrying guns at many places, including beaches, nursing homes, hospitals, restaurants serving alcohol, movie theaters, stadiums, courthouses, and public parks.

  At the time, Mr. Green justified the bill by stating it would prevent injuries and deaths. “We’re taking action on gun violence … because most important to us as a family is to keep our keiki safe, and those that we love safe,” he said. In Hawaii, “keiki” refers to children.

  The National Rifle Association’s Institute for Legislative Action criticized the bill, stating it “massively expands ‘gun-free zones’ where law-abiding citizens are left defenseless and also prohibits carrying firearms on private property unless the owner gives affirmative permission.” The bill also requires people carrying firearms to other places to have insurance coverage.

  A lawsuit has been filed against the bill that is scheduled for a hearing in San Francisco in April, according to attorney Alan Beck, who is litigating the case. A fundraiser has been created to cover the expenses of the lawsuit, which has received close to $8,000 in donations out of the targeted $20,000.

  In a Jan. 8 Facebook post, Mr. Beck said that the lawsuit would be heard by judges who will “at least be open to the Second Amendment arguments. That is good news for Hawaii gun owners.”

  Tyler Durden
  Thu, 02/08/2024 – 17:20

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