[ZeroHedge] After World War 2, the U.S. emerged as the only major power with its industrial base intact.
Europe, the USSR, and Japan were all devastated.
The Soviet Union alone had 26 million deaths due to the war. The rest of Europe had approximately another 20 million. Japan lost around 3 million.
All the major powers’ infrastructure had been annihilated. Except for America.
Even before the war, the U.S. was the eminent economic power of the world. But this advantage increased significantly following WW2. After all, it was American ships, tanks, guns, and bombs that turned the tide.
In 1945, America produced 50% of global industrial output. With just 6% of world population.
By 1947 the bulk of military production lines had switched to civilian goods. Lines that were producing tanks switched to cars and appliances. Factories that were churning out bombers switched to commercial airliners.
And in 1944, the Bretton Woods agreement set Uncle Sam up as a monetary superpower as well. The U.S. became the world’s largest lender, which gave it a stake in much of the world’s re-building.
The result at home was a sustained economic (and baby) boom.
America quickly dominated both the industrial and financial world, setting the stage for 65 years of U.S. exceptionalism.
I would argue that China is also becoming a military superpower. We covered this in depth in Containing China is Becoming Untenable.
Russia is also re-emerging as a major power. I wouldn’t necessarily qualify them as a superpower, not economically anyway. But when it comes to military might, they punch above their weight.
The rise of China, and to a lesser extent Russia, has ended America’s title as sole superpower.
A Shift to the Americas, and a Multipolar World
“We’re an empire now, and when we act, we create our own reality. And while you’re studying that reality — judiciously, as you will — we’ll act again, creating other new realities, which you can study too, and that’s how things will sort out. We’re history’s actors . . . and you, all of you, will be left to just study what we do.”
-Karl Rove, 2004
For much of the past 50 years, America has exerted its will on the world. Between our economic and financial might, almost anything was possible. The threat of invasion, nation-building, and sanctions brought nations to their knees.
That era is drawing to a close. And President Trump’s recently released National Security Strategy reinforces this sea change. According to the guiding document:
“After the end of the Cold War, American foreign policy elites convinced themselves that permanent American domination of the entire world was in the best interests of our country. Yet the affairs of other countries are our concern only if their activities directly threaten our interests.
Our elites badly miscalculated America’s willingness to shoulder forever global burdens to which the American people saw no connection to the national interest. They overestimated America’s ability to fund, simultaneously, a massive welfare regulatory-administrative state alongside a massive military, diplomatic, intelligence, and foreign aid complex. They placed hugely misguided and destructive bets on globalism and so-called “free trade” that hollowed out the very middle class and industrial base on which American economic and military preeminence depend.”
This is shocking to see in a key American policy document. Our country no longer aims to dominate the entire world. Which is good, because it’s no longer possible or beneficial.
America’s foreign policy focus will shift to the Western hemisphere (the Americas). This is also outlined in the new strategy document:
“We want to ensure that the Western Hemisphere remains reasonably stable and well-governed enough to prevent and discourage mass migration to the United States; we want a Hemisphere whose governments cooperate with us against narco-terrorists, cartels, and other transnational criminal organizations; we want a Hemisphere that remains free of hostile foreign incursion or ownership of key assets, and that supports critical supply chains; and we want to ensure our continued access to key strategic locations. In other words, we will assert and enforce a “Trump Corollary” to the Monroe Doctrine.”
The Monroe Doctrine was a U.S. foreign policy principle announced in 1824 by President James Monroe. In essence it told European powers to stay out of the Americas, and in return America wouldn’t meddle in European wars and politics.
President Trump is essentially shifting our foreign policy focus to the Americas (hence the recent actions vs Venezuela).
The new national strategy document also states that the U.S. will, “seek good relations and peaceful commercial relations with the nations of the world without imposing on them democratic or other social change that differs widely from their traditions and histories“.
Another notable shift. The world is changing. The era of America as the world’s sole superpower is over. And that’s not a bad thing. Like nearly every empire of the past, we overextended, overspent, and made plenty of other mistakes along the way.
If the last 25 years prove anything, it’s that being the world’s policeman is overrated.
America now has a chance to rebuild its once dominant industrial infrastructure and focus on its citizens’ wellbeing. And that’d be a refreshing change.
#1
Reading Karl Rove's quote in this article makes me wonder what came of all his mighty acts. Seems like it was mainly death and destruction which are always accompanied by fear and hate. He certainly didn't do much to enhance our position on the global stage. The Bush administration that he helped to put in power left us with a mortgage meltdown, staggering economy, porous borders and increasing dependence on imports from China. In fact, he was so bad that the electorate turned to Baraq Obama, not that John McCain would have been any better. Rove comes off sounding like an arrogant asshole who still hasn't learned the lessons of his failures.
Posted by: Abu Uluque ||
12/15/2025 12:39 Comments ||
Top||
[PJMedia] In 2015, there were 62.02 rapes per 100,000 people in England and Wales. By 2022, that rate had risen to 117.3, second in the entire world only to the tiny Caribbean nation of Grenada. Practically every day, there is news in the UK about another Moslem migrant or gang of Moslemmigrants colonists raping more British girls. Finally, however, British authorities have had enough, and they’re getting tough on crime: on Nov. 29, they arrested a man for desecrating a Qur’an, and as of Thursday, he was still in jug.
You didn’t know that desecrating a Qur’an could land you behind bars in the land that gave birth to the concept of the freedom of speech? Get with it, man (or woman)! GB News reported Thursday that the intrepid British police had announced "a man has been arrested after a Koran was ’desecrated’ in a hospital faith room." Yes, O horror of horrors, it was bad enough that Islam’s most revered text was subjected to this treatment, but even worse, the incident took place in the de facto mini-mosques that the British quaintly refer to as "interfaith chapels."
GB News reported that "the alleged incident took place at St James’s University Hospital in Leeds on November 29." The intrepid cops on the scene "confirmed a 36-year-old man had been arrested in relation to ’criminal damage’ at the site." Not only was a copy of the Qur’an damaged, but also "a framed chapter of the text." By all that is holy, is nothing sacred anymore?
Brendan Brown, who is the CEO of Leeds Teaching Hospitals NHS Trust, gushed with indignation and sympathy for the aggrieved, saying that "no colleague, patient or member of our communities should have to experience or hear about these kinds of actions." Yes, such incidents are so terrible that they shouldn’t even be heard about. Even to have to speak about them now is shameful, but Brown summoned enough courage to tell the BBC that the incident was "worrying and completely unacceptable."
Meanwhile,
...back at the chili cook-off, Chuck and Manuel's rivalry was entering a new and more dangerous phase... a West Yorkshire Police spokeswoman, used to giving it to us straight, laid out just the facts: "A man has been arrested following an incident of criminal damage within a multi-faith room in the Bexley Wing at St James’s Hospital, Leeds, on Saturday, November 29." Don’t be afraid, however, that this criminal is still on the loose: "The 36-year-old man is currently in jug."
What a relief! Yet this harrowing incident raises some important questions. If the perpetrator in this incident, who is too evil even to be named among law-abiding, God-fearing folk, had damaged a Bible, would he be in jail today? What do you think?
Notice also how matter-of-fact British authorities are as they give the world in their for-the-camera outrage over this incident. They don’t bother to waste any words explaining that, well, yes, Britannia has the freedom of speech, but this sort of thing is beyond the pale. That ship sailed long ago. Shattered, staggering, dhimmi Britannia seems to have slipped easily not only into the adoption of Islamic blasphemy ...the act of insulting or showing contempt or lack of reverence to a deity, or sacred objects, or toward something considered sacred or inviolable. Some religions consider it to be a crime. In Pakistain you can commit blasphemy by looking cross-eyed at a Koran... laws, but into the acceptance of those restrictions as axiomatic and to be taken for granted as needing to be enforced among the general population.
Britannia’s demise as a free society will be dated from incidents such as this, although future historians will argue about the precise point at which this once-proud society actually went over the edge.
Americans as well as Britons should find the alacrity with which British police have become Sharia enforcers to be disturbing. As divisions widen in American society, many patriots are confident that if a new civil war starts, they could easily defeat leftists who aren’t even sure if maybe they’re really women and who think guns are icky. That may be, but this country, like Britannia, is full of people who enjoy pushing other people around and being emperors of their own tiny fiefdom, and they don’t care what the ideology is of the bigger bosses who allow them the privilege. They will, like so many German officials during World War II, just be following orders.
Meanwhile,
...back at the chili cook-off, Chuck and Manuel's rivalry was entering a new and more dangerous phase... the Qur’an desecrator languishes in jug, his fate as yet undetermined.
#2
The proper question is why Afghan or any other rapists were out on the street at all, instead of locked up and castrated, preferably with a rusty spoon for the first offense.
Below is my column in The Wall Street Journal on the move to sharply curtail the use of jury trials in Great Britain. The ill-conceived move is the work of Secretary of State for Justice and Lord Chancellor David Lammy, who previously denounced the idea as an abandonment of British values and the loss of a critical protection for citizens. It is a tragic variation on Winston Churchill’s legendary observation about the fleeting virtue of the insufferably sanctimonious. Like the socialite who was indignant when Churchill puckishly offered a small amount of money to sleep with him, it turns out that Lammy was “just haggling over price.” When faced with significant savings, Lammy is willing to toss aside the right that once defined them as a people.
Here is the column:
“Criminal trials without juries are a bad idea,” Labor MP David Lammy said in 2020 as he denounced calls to reduce jury trials in criminal cases to save money. Now secretary of state for justice and lord chancellor, Mr. Lammy is seeking a major rollback on the quintessential right secured more than 800 years ago in the Magna Carta.
According to media reports, the government previously sought to remove jury trials for all cases involving a maximum jail term of five years. Now the government is moving to allow jury trials for “indictable-only” offences such as murder and “either-way” offenses with likely sentences of more than three years in prison. Judge-only “swift” courts will hear cases ranging from burglary, theft, fraud, sexual assault to stalking. Judges will also sit without a jury in fraud and financial cases deemed too complex for jurors.
For some of us, the greatest concern lies in how these reforms will interact with the prosecution of speech offenses. In the last two decades, free speech protections in the U.K. have been eviscerated. The criminalization of speech has expanded exponentially as individuals and groups call the police to silence those who criticize them or advocate opposing views.
Even silent prayer or “toxic ideologies” can lead to arrest. Expressing concerns over Western cultural values is now treated as an admission of “right-wing ideology,” warranting investigation. In April, the Times reported that police are making around 12,000 arrests per year over online posts.
Under the new proposal, these cases would generally be heard without juries, which may represent the last hope for free-speech advocates seeking to blunt the government’s onslaught. Research by the Free Speech Union in Britain indicates that defendants in speech cases are twice as likely to be acquitted by a jury than by a judge.
We have already seen justice meted out by British judges in speech cases. A few years ago, a neo-Nazi living with his mother was found to have a room filled with hateful symbols and material.
Judge Peter Lodder dismissed free speech concerns over the defendant’s possessions with a truly Orwellian flourish: “I do not sentence you for your political views, but the extremity of those views informs the assessment of dangerousness.” Calling the defendant “a right-wing extremist,” Mr. Lodder said the contents of his room were evidence of “enthusiasm for this repulsive and toxic ideology.”
Commentary by Russian military journalist Boris Rozhin:
[ColonelCassad] Late autumn and December 2025 were marked by persistent US attempts to fulfill some of the agreements with Russia reached during closed contacts between Putin and Trump and the Anchorage talks. Both sides acknowledged back in the fall that there were outlines of a shared vision for ending the war in Ukraine, which would require Ukraine to fulfill a number of demands voiced by Putin in 2024-2025.
Over the past months, the US has consistently broken a number of "red lines" between Ukraine and Europe.
1. Instead of "no negotiations on Ukraine without Ukraine," there are now direct negotiations between Russia and the US without Ukraine and Europe.
2. Instead of "war to the 1991 borders," there is bargaining over how Ukraine should surrender Donbas to save face for Zelenskyy.
3. Instead of an "official ban on negotiations with Russia," negotiations between Russia and Ukraine, which are already underway in violation of Ukrainian law.
4. Instead of "abandoning any restrictions on the size of the Ukrainian Armed Forces," there is bargaining over the thresholds for establishing restrictions.
5. Instead of "the unconditional transfer of the Zaporizhzhya NPP" to Ukraine, there is bargaining over the format of US and Ukrainian participation in the management of the Zaporizhzhya NPP.
6. Instead of "unconditional and mandatory accession of Ukraine to NATO," there is bargaining over the timing of EU accession and complaints that the US is not accepting Ukraine into NATO.
7. Instead of "an unconditional refusal to hold elections in Ukraine under war conditions," there is now bargaining over the format of these elections. And so on. The US is consistently pressuring Ukraine to change its position on many issues, despite obvious resistance and sabotage of American plans from Kyiv and the EU.
In addition to Ukraine's dependence on economic and military support from the US, the NABU, which is under the control of the FBI, has also been brought into play. This led to a serious weakening of the key British protégé in Ukraine, Yermak (although he has not yet been completely destroyed) and the hanging of Zelensky, Umerov and a number of other individuals on the hook of corruption revelations, who, under the threat of the publication of incriminating evidence, were forced to make a number of concessions, trying to buy time with their help in order to avoid making key concessions.
The war in Ukraine will not end until Ukraine at least surrenders all of Donbas. This will happen either diplomatically or militarily.
Russia is prepared to achieve this goal by either means. The United States understands this, especially since it is aware of the real state of affairs on the front and considers Ukraine's loss of Donbas inevitable. The US logic is that it is easier to record a limited defeat for Ukraine (and Europe) in order to trade this war for new agreements with Russia, given the systemic weakening of Europe's dependence on the United States.
In this scenario, the United States and Russia would be the winners, while Ukraine and Europe would be the obvious losers. This explains the current behavior of Ukraine and Europe, which do not want to see their defeat confirmed.
But this is precisely Trump's goal under the agreements with Russia: to secure the outcome of the war in this configuration. And Russia is now watching to see how he succeeds. Russia is prepared to fulfill its part of the deal, as this will enable it to achieve some of the overall goals of the Central Military District (the complete liberation of Donbas, the resolution to reject Ukraine's NATO membership, etc.) through diplomatic means.
The game between Ukraine and the EU is generally clear to Russia and the United States. Therefore, in response to any "counterplans," Moscow rightly asserts that these options are unacceptable to Russia, and if Ukraine doesn't want peace, the war will continue. The United States is now also openly stating that abandoning the current terms will ultimately lead to even worse consequences for Ukraine. Each subsequent iteration of Russia's terms will be worse for Ukraine. Washington now understands this logic.
DEMOGRAPHICS
According to official data alone, Muslim migrants make up between 5-6% (Netherlands, Belgium, Spain, Sweden) and 8-10% (Austria and France) of the population. This is a huge figure, but the reality is likely significantly worse.
The enormous number of illegal immigrants is not accounted for. Accurate data is either absent or deliberately underreported.
Back in 2001, in London, I deliberately traveled by public transport through different areas of this metropolis, and what I saw horrified me. Signs in Arabic, Urdu, Farsi; a completely oriental atmosphere against the backdrop of Victorian-era buildings (a Kafkaesque spectacle); families with black-bearded men, women in niqabs, and numerous children; groups of men here and there playing shesh-besh; the smell of Arabic coffee and oriental spices; shawarmas, kebab shops, and shashlik houses; abandoned, unkempt churches converted into shelters for the homeless and illegal immigrants; supermarkets with an infinitely "diverse" staff and equally "diverse" customers; flags of Pakistan, Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Eritrea, Somalia, and God knows what other countries; the drawn-out groans of muezzins and oriental music from the shops; mountains of garbage on the streets; women in headscarves on buses.
Fifteen years later, I visited London again, and this scene had become dominant in the city center: on Oxford Street, Piccadilly, in Hyde Park, etc. The situation was only brightened by the abundance of tourists on the streets.
I observed the same metamorphosis in other Western capitals. The outskirts of Paris and Amsterdam turned into a sinister city of shadows by evening, infested with young men prowling like predatory animals in search of easy prey, and their faces were decidedly not European. Even I, then not old yet and a strong man who grew up in a far from prosperous area of Soviet Moscow, felt uncomfortable here as dusk fell.
I have the impression that today in the leading Western European cities there are not 10%, not 15%, and not even 20% Muslim migrants, but much more.
The extremely low birth rate of Europeans is combined with the extremely high birth rate of Muslims and unlimited migration, both legal and illegal. The indigenous population is aging and leaving, while the barbarians are young and passionate.
The worst thing is that the Western people, but the people of Western Europe especially, found themselves between Scylla and Charybdis, between the hammer and the anvil.
SUPRANATIONAL ELITES
The Hammer is the supranational elite. They have created a demiurgic system of power and control their subjects far more sophisticatedly than the Communist Party of the Soviet Union. They rule through the courts, the media, the Academy, the bureaucracy, the education system, the bohemian elite, and influential NGOs. They have created a multi-level system of elimination for those deemed undesirable.
Those who are undesirable are eliminated legally, like Jair Bolsanaro (Brazil), Calin Georgescu (Romania), Sebastian Kurz (Austria), or are subjected to merciless legal persecution, like Donald Trump, Marine Le Pen, Benjamin Netanyahu, Matteo Salvini, etc.
If it is not possible to "neutralize class enemies" through legal traps, and they still win elections, political sabotage and economic pressure are used. Geert Wilders won the Netherlands but was unable to establish an effective government, and the courts blocked all his initiatives. Georgia Meloni faced financial blackmail and turned into ’Macron in a skirt’. All that was left of the lioness was a frightened little grey mouse. British Home Secretary Suella Braverman was sacked by Sunak for her determination and consistency. The Austrian Freedom Party (FPÖ) won the elections but was ousted from power by political manipulation.
Finally, if legal action, political manipulation and intimidation fail to neutralize "dissidents," physical elimination is resorted to. Assassination attempts have been made on Donald Trump, Jair Bolsonaro, Viktor Orban, Robert Fico (Slovakia), Andrej Babiš (Czech Republic), and Colombian presidential candidate Miguel Uribe Turbay (he was assassinated). Under "unclear circumstances", six AfD candidates died ahead of the local vote. All of them were at the peak of their political activity: from 60 to 75 years old.
At the same time, no one has ever attempted to assassinate Obama, the Bidens, Harris, Trudeau, Macron, Scholf, Annalena Baerbock, Mélenchon, Starmer, etc.
RED-GREEN ALLIANCE
The Anvil is an alliance between communists, progressives, anarchists, and Muslims. Masses of youth have become hostage to the ’woke culture.’ They are extremely ignorant and naive, but also extremely intolerant and aggressive. This is how the System raised them. Orwell's Animal Farm has come to fruition again, this time in the West: pigs took away puppies and turned them into vicious guard dogs. They hate Western culture, Western values, Christianity, nation states, traditions, the institution of marriage, their sexual identity and, in a sense, themselves. They're nurtured by Intersectionality, Political identity, Critical Race Theory, and Cancel culture. It's a new quasi-religion.
Muslims rightly see them as "useful idiots" who will help them destroy the West from within and create a Caliphate with Sharia law on its ruins.
GEOPOLITICS
Three times in the last century, the United States saved Western Europe: during the First World War, the Second World War, and the Cold War. This didn't stop Europeans from obsessively seeking suicide in one way or another.
Apparently, this time the US will not stop Europeans from committing suicide. (Although the latter chose the most terrible way of all possible - to surrender to the power of Islam).
Regardless of who will be in power - Republicans or Democrats - America will become increasingly isolated from the world, preoccupied with its own problems, conflicts and contradictions. No one in Washington will want to send fleets to the shores of Western Europe to liberate giant termite mounds teeming with chaos and violence. No one will want to send troops to the sewers of London, Paris, Dublin, Rotterdam, Marseille, Glasgow, Molinebeek, Hamburg, or Malmö. For what?
On the other hand, the "red-green alliance" will not lack allies: from Russia and China to sheikhs and Turkey.
Saving Western Europe through democratic means is practically no longer possible. A revolution or a military coup is needed. I doubt that the English, Germans, French, Swedes, Spaniards and Dutch have enough dedication, sacrifice and passion for revolution. Considering that far-left ideology has permeated the entire army corps like soap permeates a sponge, a military coup is unlikely to be possible even hypothetically. And even if it succeeds, truly Stalinist methods will be needed to eliminate the Islamic invasion, which is hardly possible.
What we are seeing today is agony. The victims will only realize it's over once they're in the boa constrictor's stomach. And they will leave room for the newest victim, Australia.
As for the US and Israel, they should focus on viable, stable Eastern European countries such as the Czech Republic, Hungary, Slovakia, Poland, Romania, Bulgaria, Serbia, and Croatia. These are our natural allies, and they should be strengthened in every way possible.
Perhaps one day the Reconquista will begin from here...
To me the real threat are dhimmi engineers working for Muslim overlords.
Posted by: Grom the Affective ||
12/15/2025 12:07 ||
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#1
Philippines 1898-1946 was an American territory. Just saying. BTW it was scheduled for Independence before hostilities with Japan.
Formosa 1895-1945 and Korea 1905-1945 were Japanese territory. Japanese wanted to get into the 'imperial' game.
[ZeroHedge] I think virtually everyone would agree that there are “bad guys” in this world. Of course, there are varying degrees of “bad,” but we should concern ourselves with the most dangerous—the ones who have both the desire and the ability to take one simple action that would probably end up destroying Western civilization.
Due to the unprecedented amount of fake news, gaslighting, lies, propaganda, mis- and disinformation and psychological warfare operations that are employed today, this can be quite challenging for the average person to ascertain. But due to the existential stakes involved, having this ability is crucial for survival.
Recently, Elon Musk devised a litmus test that one can use to determine who the bad guys are:
“As a general rule, you can tell which side is the good side and which side is the bad side by which side wishes to restrict freedom of speech. The side that is restricting freedom of speech . . . you know, that would have been the Hitler, Stalin, Mussolinis of the world, they had very strong censorship, very strong restrictions on speech. That’s one of the signs that they are the bad guys.”
Recently the European Commission (the elite, unelected body of the EU that actually runs it) levied a €140 million fine on X and Elon Musk personally for allegedly breaking its “laws” requiring social media transparency. As Michael Shellenberger pointed out, “the goal of the European Commission, like that of the governments of Britain, Brazil, and Australia, is to censor the American people.” As I wrote about in March, the EU is maniacally determined to wage a campaign of cultural suicide. But for them it’s not enough for just Europe to be overrun by barbarians. No, they want all of Western civilization to fall.
As an aside, Shellenberger noted that “The EU is now in direct violation of the NATO Treaty, under which the US is militarily obligated to defend Europe. The NATO Treaty requires member states to have free speech and free and fair elections. France and Germany are actively and illegally preventing political candidates from running for office for ideological reasons, namely their opposition to mass migration. And the Romanian high court, with the support of the European Commission, nullified election results under the thin and unproven pretext of Russian interference, after a nationalist and populist presidential candidate won.”
I’ll soon finish reading a great book called While Europe Slept, in which the author writes, “…Americans, for all their idiocies and vulgarities, really do believe in fighting for liberty, even the liberty of strangers in faraway places with names they can’t spell and languages they can’t speak a word of and cultures they find ridiculous. In their view, to defend other people’s freedom is to defend their own….maybe that’s what being an American does come down to—a sentimentalism, about liberty among other things, that many Western Europeans just can’t fathom….Sitting there with [his Dutch friends], I realized that they were genuinely unable to comprehend a land whose people take liberty seriously enough to die for it.”
I recently heard about how “vandals” (a euphemism for immigrants) attacked the Christmas market and living nativity scene in Erbach, Germany, beating and torturing two donkeys and defecating in the church. This was relatively mild; at least no one was injured or killed, as is often the case.
Erbach is very close to where I lived at my first duty station in the early 1990s, and I’m sure I drove through it while exploring the area. At the time, Germany was a clean, orderly and picturesque place; even the forests seemed like they were diligently maintained. Living there was a wonderful experience, and I have many good memories of it. Unfortunately—and I say this as someone who spent 3.5 of the best years of my life enduring many hardships and risking my life to defend it—Germany (along with France, the UK, Ireland, Sweden and probably most of the rest of western Europe) is finished. It’s kaput, it’s over, finito Benito, dead Fred.
Ideally, we would be able to rescue hundreds of millions of innocent Europeans from a tyrannical fate. However, given the current dire situation, I think Europe has passed the event horizon of a very dark black hole. When you have some quiet time, watch this sobering interview with a professor of military history living in the UK. He says there is no political solution to the problem, and cannot foresee an outcome that does not result in massive deaths (he estimates it will be between 23,000 and 500,000 in the UK alone). He predicts violence will begin suddenly and spread quickly to neighboring countries.
It’s now time to dispel illusions and come to grips with reality. The U.S. should cut its losses and allow most of Europe to collapse into a supernova of disarmament, severe censorship, never-ending war, mass taxpayer-funded immigration, medieval religious fanaticism, rampant crime and terrorism, cuckoldry and organized rape of underage girls on an industrial scale, humiliation and intimidation, environmental alarmism, welfare socialism, stifling bureaucracy, corruption, deindustrialization and de-agriculturalization, central bank digital currency, loss of privacy, massive government spending/deficits/debt, currency/financial/ economic/sovereign debt crises and cultural and societal extinction.
[JustTheNews] The report found that the Office of the Director of National Intelligence lacks accurate and complete clearance data from dozens of federal agencies.
A newly released U.S. Government Accountability Office report highlights problems with the reliability of data used to oversee the federal government’s personnel security clearance process, raising concerns about oversight of how quickly and effectively clearances are granted.
The report last week found that the Office of the Director of National Intelligence lacks accurate and complete clearance data from dozens of federal agencies, limiting its ability to monitor performance and identify problems in the vetting of employees who must access classified information for their positions.
According to the GAO, over 60% of the clearance data it reviewed was "not reliable" across eight reporting requirements and seven agencies.
A HIGH-RISK GOVERNMENT FUNCTION
The federal personnel security clearance system was placed on GAO’s High-Risk List in 2018 due to chronic delays and information technology problems. The clearance process is designed to vet individuals who must access classified information, and accurate data are critical to ensuring that agencies meet efficiency and security goals.
ODNI "oversees the efficiency and effectiveness of the process," GAO said.
SIGNIFICANT ERRORS IN CLEARANCE TIMELINESS
One of the most serious issues identified involved “timeliness” data that agencies report to ODNI. Of the data analyzed, 86% contained inaccuracies, with about one-third off by 20% or more due to inconsistent calculation methods that did not follow ODNI guidance. These errors affected measurements for nearly all clearances completed government-wide, potentially skewing public and congressional reporting on clearance backlogs and delays.
Agency officials told GAO they revised their calculation methods for data collected beginning in fiscal 2025, but the report noted that much of the data submitted between 2020 and 2024 likely underestimated the true length of the clearance process.
According to GAO, ODNI "reviews data it collects from agencies, but not in a way that aligns with data reliability principles."
GAO found that ODNI has not "issued adequate guidance to agencies for assessing their data" and "addressing these gaps will ensure ODNI and Congress have more reliable data to enable better oversight."
OVERSIGHT GAPS AND RECOMMENDATIONS
The GAO also found that ODNI’s review of reported data did not align with basic principles of data reliability, and that ODNI has not provided adequate guidance to agencies on assessing the quality of their reports. As a result, Congress and executive leaders lack consistent, trustworthy information on a process that is considered critical to national security.
To address these problems, GAO made several recommendations aimed at strengthening ODNI’s oversight including:
Establishing a formal process for evaluating the reliability of agency data.
Issuing clear guidance on how agencies should assess and report their data.
Defining accountability roles for senior data officials within agencies.
Updating personnel vetting policy frameworks to align with best practices for evidence-based oversight.
ODNI did not explicitly agree or disagree with the recommendations but raised concerns that GAO addressed in the report.
[FoxNews] After more than eight years of Democrat lawfare against President Trump, his aides and his allies, the Justice Department under Attorney General Pam Bondi is bringing much-needed accountability — which is what American voters demanded in our last presidential election. But Democrat activist judges are doing what they do best: weaponization and sabotage.
In South Carolina, Clinton-appointed Judge Cameron Currie — handpicked by a Biden-appointed judge — wrongly disqualified Eastern District of Virginia U.S. Attorney Lindsey Halligan, the bold and fearless prosecutor who had secured an indictment against former FBI Director James Comey for lying and obstruction of a Senate investigation into his politicization, weaponization, and corruption of the intel agencies and law enforcement to go after political enemies and protect political allies. The government is appealing that decision to the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals. Now, another Clinton-appointed judge in the District of Columbia, Colleen Kollarr-Kotelly, has interfered even more egregiously with the government’s case. This ruling threatens the separation of powers essential to the Republic, and either the D.C. Circuit or Supreme Court must intervene immediately.
Comey was indicted on two charges: making false statements to Congress and obstruction of Congress. The indictment stemmed from the events surrounding Operation Crossfire Hurricane, more colloquially known as the Russiagate hoax. Comey used his longtime friend, Columbia Law Professor Daniel Richman, as a conduit to leak material unfavorable to President Trump to media outlets. In addition to being a law professor, Richman was a government contractor. He and Comey communicated frequently via email on government and private accounts. Communications on a government email account enjoy no reasonable expectation of privacy — the standard under the Fourth Amendment as a result of Justice Harlan’s concurrence in Katz v. United States (1967) — because the government can monitor its own email servers.
Six years ago, even Obama-appointed Judge James Boasberg, a judicial disgrace about whom we often have written, signed a warrant authorizing the search and seizure of emails on Richman’s computer and iCloud account and his account at Columbia. Richman was able to review all emails and withhold the information he deemed privileged from all but one account. Now, Richman — who was the recipient of many emails from Comey and the sender of many emails to him — has sought to reclaim those emails pursuant to Federal Rule of Criminal Procedure 41(g). This rule allows an individual to ask a court to reclaim his property obtained pursuant to an unlawful search and/or seizure in violation of the Fourth Amendment.
Shockingly, Kollar-Kotelly granted the motion and has ordered the FBI to destroy the emails by 4 p.m. on Monday. Kollar-Kotelly’s ruling ordered the destruction of emails obtained pursuant to a warrant signed by another (Obama) judge six years ago. She claims that the seized information relates to a new investigation; however, she is basing this assertion on a decision by Eastern District of Virginia U.S. Magistrate Judge William Fitzpatrick. Fitzpatrick issued a suppression-like decision even though suppression was not briefed by the parties — yet another example of blatant and unlawful judicial sabotage by partisans in robes.
Collar-Kotelly has ordered that a copy of the emails be given to Biden-appointed Judge Michael Nachmanoff, who is presiding over the Comey case in Virginia. This salvation of a copy of the emails, however, does not lessen the impact of Kollar-Kotelly’s horrible ruling. The FBI and the prosecution will be unable to review them in their efforts to seek a new indictment if Currie’s dismissal ruling survives on appeal. The statute-of-limitations law allows the government only six months after an indictment’s dismissal, suspended during the appellate process, to seek a new indictment. The inability to view this evidence would substantially increase the time necessary to seek an indictment. Even if a higher court reverses Currie, the government’s inability to review the emails to use as evidence and prepare for trial would massively hamper its case.
Kollar-Kotelly’s decision is more disturbing because it implicates the separation of powers. Usually, Rule 41(g) comes into play where a defendant has had property wrongly seized, and he moves to reclaim it. Here, Comey is not seeking to reclaim anything; Richman, a then-government contractor with whom Comey communicated extensively about government business, is seeking this evidence. Richman has run to a partisan Democrat judge not even involved in the criminal case — and not even in the same district — to procure the destruction of crucial evidence in that case in an obvious effort to assist his friend Comey. Comey cannot challenge the warrant against Richman because he lacks standing to do so. Incredibly, Kollar-Kotelly suggested that Richman could move to quash this evidence in Virginia. She’s going way out of her way to help Comey. Judges presiding over cases often have excluded evidence against defendants as having been obtained in violation of the Fourth Amendment. It is, however, extraordinary for a different judge — especially in a different district — to interfere in and dramatically hamper the prosecution’s case based on a claim by a third party of a wrongful search and seizure, especially when the evidence the government wishes to use consists of communications between that third party and the defendant — a defendant who was a senior government official.
The government obtained the evidence it wishes to use against Comey pursuant to a lawful warrant, even one signed by a highly partisan Obama-appointed judge. Now, a Clinton-appointed judge who is not presiding over the case — and is not even in the same district — is blatantly trying to aid Comey by preventing the government from using that evidence either to re-indict Comey or try him if the original indictment is reinstated. This ruling contravenes the normal way in which Rule 41(g) applies. The Clinton judge’s staggering timeline — destruction by tomorrow afternoon — also illustrates her agenda. She should have stayed a ruling of such magnitude to allow the appellate process to play out. Instead, she has put the government in an incredibly precarious position: having to obtain a stay from either the D.C. Circuit or the Supreme Court in just a few hours. Kollar-Kotelly’s order had no legal basis, and a higher court must put a stop to it.
Kollar-Kotelly’s ruling is part of a larger pattern. Leftist judges like Obama-appointed D.C. Judge Tanya Chutkan — who presided over President Trump’s January 6-related case, Boasberg, who signed off on the national disgrace that was Operation Arctic Frost, and many other Democrat judges did nothing to stop and did much to escalate the lawfare waged against President Trump, his aides, and his allies. Now, the Justice Department is seeking legal accountability for lawfare perpetrators like Comey. Currie and Kollar-Kotelly have endeavored to prevent — or, at the very least, drastically decrease the chances of — such legal accountability. Courts do not order the FBI to destroy evidence in pending investigations, except when the evidence is harmful to a lawfare perpetrator like Comey. The inconsistency between the treatment afforded lawfare perpetrators and lawfare targets threatens the very legitimacy of the federal judiciary. If higher courts do not reign in these rogue judges, Congress must do so through oversight, withholding of funds from judicial appropriations, and impeachment. A system where the judiciary enables lawfare and then shields its perpetrators from legal consequences is unsustainable, and higher courts must put a stop to it.
[John Kass] Chicago has always been a corrupt town, perhaps worse than Mogadishu Minnesota. Same media and Democrats frightened by the slightest suggestion they might be blasted as racists by black demogoguges.
But what happened to a 97-year-old Tuskegee Airman takes the grand prize.
You’ve heard of the airmen. They were a highly decorated group of soldiers in World War II, they were heroes, some were escorts, protecting our American bombers from enemy fighter planes and others carried out bomb raids.
One mistake was death for themselves and their friends.
But thanks to the great CWB Chicago—the website that is all about bringing people the news rather than worrying about politically correct social justice scores—we know about Cook County Judge Patricia Martin.
This is true. Judge Martin’s story does come to us from the one place Chicagoans understand: the Department of Special Places in Hell.
Martin is the former judge convicted of swindling an elderly Tuskegee Airman, Mr. Wilkerson, of his life savings. He found out about it after Judge Martin—who had his power of attorney to look out for him and pay his nursing home bills—stole hundreds of thousands of dollars from him.
She blew it on bitcoin.
Mr. Wilkerson found out about it when the nursing home wasn’t receiving money to pay his bills.
Martin once served as presiding judge of the Child Protection Division and retired in 2020 with a big fat pension that she sweetened, I assume, with extra contributions.
My friend Jeanne Ives reports that Judge Martin’s pension was well over $200,000 a year. Like a thick rib-eye steak on the bone, full of fat and flavor.
Prosecutors initially accused Martin of stealing nearly $250,000 from then-95-year-old Mr. Oscar Wilkerson, a longtime friend whose finances she controlled under power of attorney. Wilkerson’s wife had been a relative of Judge Martin. Using that authority, Martin closed some of Wilkerson’s bank accounts and withdrew more than $115,000, officials said. She used the money to buy crypto.
CWB reports that investigators said she continued making unauthorized transactions for crypto purchases and personal expenses through 2021 and most of 2022.
The thefts were uncovered after a senior living facility terminated Wilkerson’s residency because of unpaid bills. An attorney was brought in to examine his finances and filed a lawsuit against Martin in 2022.
She failed to respond, resulting in a default judgment of about $1.1 million, according to court filings.
Because Martin previously served as a Cook County judge, her case was assigned to McHenry County Judge Tiffany Davis. Martin plead guilty. Wilkerson died in 2023, one day before his 97th birthday. Martin was disbarred the same year.
But here’s the kicker, she didn’t spend any time in jail. Not one measly day. And she keeps that pension.
Wilkerson, who died in February 2023 at the age of at 96, had been the last known surviving member of the Tuskegee Airmen in the Chicago area. In 2007, he was among about 300 surviving members of the trailblazing all-Black aviation unit awarded the Congressional Gold Medal by President George W. Bush.
Martin has since been disbarred. As part of her probation, which runs through Dec. 3, 2029, she must report to the county’s Adult Probation Department, complete drug and alcohol evaluation and treatment, submit to random drug testing and comply with DNA indexing requirements. Also, she’s barred from leaving Illinois without court permission and cannot possess firearms or other weapons.
What gets me is that this was an inside deal played by Judge Martin, an inside player.
How do I know? She served no time in prison. Not one minute behind bars. And the pension remains fat.
She was part of the judicial clique of boss Toni Preckwinkle, who is boss of the Cook County Democrats and the supreme judge picker.
And Boss Toni has kept her mouth shut through all of this.
She’s as silent as a lamb. But she’s no fool. She’s up for election on March 17. And she’s kept her lips zipped on this one.
Will she be held accountable by voters?
I don’t see it happening. The Chicago media won’t hold her to account. She’s emptied the Cook County Jail of violent repeat offenders because she doesn’t want black men in jail. And Chicago media hasn’t held her to account. You might think the media would focus on her, but Preckwinkle does the bidding of the Chicago media’s social justice warriors. She is on the hard left and so are they.
The violent monster Lawrence Reed–who poured gasoline on innocent Bethany Magee and lit her on fire–was a beneficiary of Preckwinkle’s race based de-carceration policy. And still, Preckwinkle is constantly rewarded for her racial justice.
Posted by: Frank G ||
12/15/2025 00:00 ||
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Top|| File under: Tin Hat Dictators, Presidents for Life, & Kleptocrats
[ZeroHedge] Last week, readers were briefed on the emerging theme of data centers in low Earth orbit, a concept now openly discussed by Elon Musk, Jensen Huang, Jeff Bezos, and Sam Altman, as energy availability and infrastructure constraints on land increasingly emerge as major bottlenecks to data center buildouts through the end of this decade and well into the 2030s.
Nvidia-backed startup Starcloud has released a white paper outlining a case for operating a constellation of artificial intelligence data centers in space as a practical solution to Earth's looming power crunch, cooling woes, and permitting land constraints.
Terrestrial data center projects will reach capacity limits as AI workloads scale to multi-gigawatt levels, while electricity demand and grid bottlenecks worsen over the next several years. Orbital data centers aim to bypass these constraints by using near-continuous, high-intensity solar power, passive radiative cooling to deep space, and modular designs that scale quickly, launched into orbit via SpaceX rockets.
"Orbital data centers can leverage lower cooling costs using passive radiative cooling in space to directly achieve low coolant temperatures. Perhaps most importantly, they can be scaled almost indefinitely without the physical or permitting constraints faced on Earth, using modularity to deploy them rapidly," Starcloud wrote in the report.
Starcloud continued, "With new, reusable, cost-effective heavy-lift launch vehicles set to enter service, combined with the proliferation of in-orbit networking, the timing for this opportunity is ideal."
Already, the startup has launched its Starcloud-1 satellite carrying an Nvidia H100 GPU, the most powerful compute chip ever sent into space. Using the H100, Starcloud successfully trained NanoGPT, a lightweight language model, on the complete works of Shakespeare, making it the first AI model trained in space.
#2
Using the H100, Starcloud successfully trained NanoGPT, a lightweight language model, on the complete works of Shakespeare, making it the first AI model trained in space.
Knowing human proclivity, we know how this is going to end up, *ornhub One. There goes the neighborhood.
Place them in the shielded Lagrange points. Lagrange points are widely used in space exploration. The James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) is positioned in a halo orbit around the Sun–Earth L2 point, enabling it to maintain a constant orientation with its sunshield protecting it from the Sun, Earth, and Moon.
The Deep Space Climate Observatory (DSCOVR) operates at the Sun–Earth L1 point, providing continuous solar wind monitoring and Earth climate observations.
Other missions, including the Wilkinson Microwave Anisotropy Probe (WMAP), Planck, Gaia, and Euclid, have also utilized the L2 point for astronomical observations.
The L1 point hosts the Solar and Heliospheric Observatory (SOHO), which provides uninterrupted solar monitoring.
A multi-volume chronology and reference guide set detailing three years of the Mexican Drug War between 2010 and 2012.
Rantburg.com and borderlandbeat.com correspondent and author Chris Covert presents his first non-fiction work detailing
the drug and gang related violence in Mexico.
Chris gives us Mexican press dispatches of drug and gang war violence
over three years, presented in a multi volume set intended to chronicle the death, violence and mayhem which has
dominated Mexico for six years.
Rantburg was assembled from recycled algorithms in the United States of America. No
trees were destroyed in the production of this weblog. We did hurt some, though. Sorry.
...the act of insulting or showing contempt or lack of reverence to a deity, or sacred objects, or toward something considered sacred or inviolable. Some religions consider it to be a crime. In Pakistain you can commit blasphemy by looking cross-eyed at a Koran...
