[ZeroHedge] President Donald Trump teased another explosive revelation from the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), as Democrats and legacy media escalate their ongoing campaign against the cost-cutting initiative and its leader, Tesla CEO Elon Musk.
While speaking with the press aboard Air Force One en route to South Florida for the weekend, Trump said: "They found something today that's horrible,” adding. “You'll find out very soon. What they found is incredible."
[Breitbart] Visibility was as low as a quarter-mile in fog and neither ship involved had a dedicated lookout in the ramming of a U.S. wartime supply aviation fuel tanker off the coast of England, accident investigators say.
The United Kingdom’s Maritime Accident Investigation Board (MAIB) has released an interim report into the March 10th collision between container ship Solong and U.S.-flagged chemical tanker Stenna Immaculate, revealing new details about the incident. Among them are security-camera stills recording the moment of impact, with the two ships catching fire.
The Stenna Immaculate was at anchor at the time of the incident, having arrived the previous day and was awaiting a free berth at a nearby marine terminal to unload its cargo, the equivalent of 220,000 oil barrels of jet fuel. The Solong, meanwhile, was proceeding south on its regular route delivering containerised general freight.
Despite visibility at sea “reported to be patchy” on the morning of the collision, and at times as little as 0.25 nautical miles (.28 miles), neither the anchored or underway vessel had “had a dedicated lookout on the bridge”, MAIB states. Both ships were found to be well above their minimum crewing requirement and the captain of the Solong, a Russian citizen, was logged as on the bridge at the time of the incident.
As MAIB note of the body’s own purpose, the “sole objective” of their investigation is to prevent future accidents, and their reports apportion no blame and are inadmissible in court. Nevertheless, in terms of learning those lessons, the body said as its investigation goes forwards they will be considering the navigation and watchkeeping practices of the vessels, as well as how the crew and fatigue may have contributed to events.
One person was killed in the incident. MAIB says Able seaman Mark Pernia was believed to have been on the bow of the Solong at the time of the smash, the worst-impacted area. His body was never found, efforts to find him immediately after the collision being “hampered by the severity of the fire”.
Maritime incidents of this magnitude are relatively rare and getting rarer, in general, and particularly in the waters of developed nations. This event gained a much greater magnitude of public attention after it was revealed one of the ships involved, the rammed party, was one of only a handful of U.S.-flagged and owned fuel supply ships contracted to be available to deliver supplies in case of emergency or war.
Interest was further focussed after it was revealed the captain of the vessel that smashed into the stationary U.S. tanker is a Russian citizen. He has been arrested and is being investigated on suspicion of gross negligence manslaughter.
Direct Translation via Google Translate. Edited. by Mark Leshkevich
[REGNUM] In the last days of March 1945, when the Reich was already clearly doomed, but had not yet surrendered, General Gustav Fritz Julius von First, who was “languishing” in comfortable American captivity, received the order to “get your things out.”
This former commander of the 5th Panzer Army of the Wehrmacht was captured near the African Bizerte back in May 1943. Furst "unconditionally surrendered" his broken troops and armored vehicles to the American General Omar Bradley (the same one after whom the modern infantry fighting vehicle is named) and was taken to the United States, under guard at a base in Clinton, Mississippi. It was here in the spring of 1945 that people in civilian clothes and uniform arrived, who at the end of the war showed a sudden interest in the competence of captured Germans.
In addition to First, these were: infantry general Theodor von Sponeck, captured at El Alamein, another infantryman, a "trophy" of the British allies, Karl von Liebenstein, and a whole group of valuable Wehrmacht personnel. Who were taken into development with all delicacy by the War Ministry, the State Department, and the intelligence services simultaneously.
"HILLBILLY" WITH THE TOP SECRET STAMP
In early April 1945, prisoners of war moved to a new location “with furniture and accumulated property,” notes American historian Derek Mallett, who in recent decades has been researching previously top secret documents about the US Army’s collaboration with the Nazis.
More precisely, about the cooperation in which the entire Anglo-Saxon bloc of the anti-Hitler coalition participated. On May 22, 1945, the British military leadership presented Prime Minister Winston Churchill with a plan for Operation Unthinkable - a surprise attack on the USSR. A kind of British, or rather, British-American blitzkrieg, since both Atlantic allies participated in the development in the spring and summer of 1945.
Simultaneously with the creation of the "Unthinkable" plan, the Hill project was launched in the United States. Generals von Furst, von Sponeck and other "trophy" military leaders agreed to share their experience with the American, British and Canadian intelligence services.
And the new home they moved to (or rather, one of the new homes) was Camp Ritchie, a base lost on the forested southwestern slope of the Blue Ridge in Pennsylvania.
The project was overseen by the British Director of Military Intelligence, future head of MI6, John Alexander Sinclair, and Major General Clayton Bissell, the Pentagon representative to the US Joint Intelligence Committee.
The wards were jokingly called hillbillies. But it is clear that this was a "hillbilly" classified as "secret". American society and residents of allied countries, for obvious reasons, did not suspect the existence of the Hill project for decades.
According to declassified Mountain documents, Washington and London were interested in Wehrmacht “methods” that could “potentially improve the structure and procedures” of the Western Allied armies. Detailed reports on German and Japanese military strategy, technology and engineering were passed on to the Americans, British and Canadians.
In September 1945, fresh secret bearers from Anglo-American prisoner-of-war camps joined First and his comrades. On September 25, 38 former Wehrmacht officers boarded the US Navy ship West Point, including 27 high-ranking military officers, from colonels to generals. Soon the total number of protégés rose to two hundred.
In particular, Major General Wolfgang Thomale, who had extensive knowledge of tank battles, joined Project Hill in 1946. Incidentally, he gained his basic experience in the Soviet Union, at the Kama training center, where Reichswehr tank officers gained experience from 1929 until the Nazis came to power, bypassing the restrictions of the Versailles Treaty.
During the last two years of the war, Thomale served as Chief of Staff to Colonel General Heinz Guderian after the latter was appointed Inspector General of Panzer Troops in 1943. Thomale, whom Guderian called a "phenomenal tank officer", made significant contributions to the project's research into tank training and tank warfare.
A particularly valuable acquisition was Luftwaffe General Karl Peter Bernhard Kehi, who had served in both the ground forces and the Kriegsmarine, the navy, before joining the Air Force.
Officially, it was about “defending Western Europe from a potential invasion by the Red Army.” But in reality, it was about continuing the world war – only now a war with the Soviet Union.
"BARBAROSSA" 2.0
As modern American scientists note, the Nazis passed on to their recent enemies information that fit on 3,600 pages. Among them: German experience of mobilization and building logistics at the level of the high command, fortification technologies, operational intelligence and much more.
One of the operational studies of the multi-hundred-page Hill project was the study of German tank breakthrough practices. Here, the experience of Guderian's "phenomenal" protégé Wolfgang Thomale and captured translations of documentation from the 1st Panzer Group (later the 1st Panzer Army) of Ewald von Kleist at the planning stage of Operation Barbarossa came in handy.
The focus was on the first eighteen days of the campaign, when the First Panzer Group was responsible for "the subsequent overcoming of the initial Russian defensive line and the strategic breakthrough."
Let us turn to the English plan “Unthinkable”, one of the main points of which was, using the element of surprise, to launch two attacks from the borders of the western occupation zones in the directions of Stettin – Schneidemühl – Bydgoszcz and Leipzig – Cottbus – Poznan – Breslau (Wroclaw).
After the debut of the blitzkrieg, the main tank battles were to unfold east of the Oder-Neisse line, in the operational space of Poland, with access to the front line from Danzig to Wroclaw. Here the knowledge and skills of those who conducted the blitzkrieg campaigns of 1939, 1940 and early 1941 could well come in handy.
The strategic goal was to “impose the will of the United States and the British Empire on Russia.” The Western allies were counting on “quick success” that “might induce the Russians to submit.”
PROVEN PERFORMERS FOR TOTAL WAR
"The only way we can achieve our goal with certainty and lasting results is through victory in total war," the document says.
By total war (at this point one inevitably recalls Joseph Goebbels’ slogan after the defeat at Stalingrad: “Total war is the shortest war”) the British mean the occupation of “such territories of the Russian metropolis where the country’s military potential will be reduced to such an extent that further resistance will become impossible.”
The plan's developers wanted " such a decisive defeat of Russian troops on the battlefield that would make it impossible for the USSR to continue the war."
According to the plan's authors, British and American troops were to receive full support from the Polish Home Army, German labor, and the remnants of the Third Reich's industry.
Already in May 1945, Western strategists understood that "achieving a decisive defeat for Russia in a total war would require, in particular, the mobilization of manpower to counteract their present enormous manpower resources. This is a very long-term project that will require the deployment in Europe of a significant part of the enormous resources of the United States," as well as "the re-equipment and reorganization of the German army and all Western allies."
One of the real goals of Project Hill fits into this task: the use of German command personnel to reorganize the Wehrmacht, including its undisarmed (as of spring 1945) part, for the occupation of Soviet territories.
After Germany's capitulation, a mass of experienced German commanders, non-commissioned officers and soldiers, charged with hatred of "Moscow Bolshevism," could well have been used as cannon fodder in a conventional war - that is, a normal, non-nuclear war between the Atlantic bloc and the Soviet Union.
The key word is non-nuclear.
PLANS CHANGE, METHODS REMAIN THE SAME
Plan Unthinkable was formally shelved when Churchill stepped down as prime minister following the Conservatives' election defeat in the summer of 1945.
But Clement Attlee's Labour government continued to develop plans for war with the Soviet Union, coordinating these plans with US President Harry Truman, future White House chief Dwight Eisenhower (at that time, commander-in-chief of American-British forces in Europe) and Canadian Prime Minister Mackenzie King.
On the Attlee cabinet side, bridges with the Americans were built by Field Marshal Henry Wilson, a participant in Yalta and Potsdam and commander of British troops in Iran, which bordered the USSR.
At a meeting on Eisenhower's yacht off the coast of the United States in September 1946, representatives from Washington and London came to the conclusion that the allies (apparently even reinforced by the "sponsored" Germans) would not be able to contain the counteroffensive of the Soviet army in Europe.
But the US and Britain did not refuse to creatively borrow the experience of other armies.
In 1949, the USSR acquired an atomic bomb. This meant that a war between Western countries and the Soviet Union no longer meant "taking out the enemy in one go" - a nuclear conflict meant the prospect of mutual annihilation. Therefore, NATO war scenarios also implied conducting conventional actions, without a bomb. And here the experience of fighting on the ground was quite appropriate.
Thus, South Korean military strategies developed during the Korean War of 1950–53, including the use of air power, logistics, and propaganda, were later used by the Pentagon to prepare for a possible conflict with the USSR.
And it is unlikely that the former commander-in-chief of the Ukrainian Armed Forces, Valeriy Zaluzhny, a general with experience in large-scale modern conventional warfare in the European theatre of military operations, was simply sent “for safekeeping” to London.
BEAT THE ENEMY WITH HIS OWN WEAPON
The logic of military confrontation implies that we must have the same or comparable weapons as a potential enemy. This also applies to “trophy” brains and borrowed military technologies. And there is no time for playing in white gloves.
For example, the team of SS-Sturmbannführer Werner von Braun was balanced by 400 German physicists working for the USSR, among whom was Manfred von Ardenne, SS-Standartenführer and holder of the Knight's Cross with Oak Leaves. He was also a laureate of two Stalin Prizes in 1947 and 1953.
The same applied to those with experience in conventional military strategy and tactics. Against the information of the "people from the Mountain" (including those who told the Americans about Ewald von Kleist's blitzkrieg tactics), the Soviet Union could use the knowledge received from Field Marshal von Kleist himself.
And also from two other military leaders of the same rank: Friedrich Paulus and the Fuhrer's favorite Ferdinand Schörner.
As for the “ordinary” generals, there were 373 of them in our captivity.
The documents of the American Hill project number thousands of pages, and the information transferred by the "trophy" Germans to the Americans is much more voluminous. But let us recall: in the mid-2010s, the Russian Defense Ministry opened an archive of documents captured from the Nazis during the Great Patriotic War or found in the Soviet occupation zone.
This archive contains no less than 28 thousand storage units. Only the translated documentation transferred to the General Staff of the Red Army fit into 341 weighty folders.
As for using a former enemy against a new enemy, let us recall that the National People's Army of the GDR was considered one of the most combat-ready forces of the Warsaw Pact.
And although the "first German state of workers and peasants" officially disavowed the legacy of Prussian militarism, the Nazionale Volksarmee was in many ways a continuation of the old German army. So, in terms of "its Germans," the Eastern bloc balanced the Western one.
Now, when our relations with the West can only be called a second edition of the Cold War, and when Russia is waging a proxy war with its former “European partners,” the use of foreign, including enemy, experience is acquiring new relevance.
[Breitbart] A lack of training, qualifications and experience among the crew on board a New Zealand navy ship that ran aground, caught fire and sank off the coast of Samoa have been identified by a military Court of Inquiry in a final report released Friday as contributing to the disaster.
The deficiencies were among a dozen failings of the crew, ship and New Zealand’s Navy that contributed to the loss of the HMNZS Manawanui in October 2024, the 120-page report said. An interim report last November had already divulged that the ship´s crew didn´t realize the vessel was on autopilot and believed something else had gone wrong as it plowed toward a reef.
All 75 people on board evacuated to safety as the boat foundered about 1.6 kilometers (a mile) off the coast of Upolu, Samoa’s second largest island. The ship was one of only nine in New Zealand´s navy and was the first the country lost at sea since World War II.
Officials did not immediately know the cause of the sinking and the Court of Inquiry was ordered to find out. Insufficient training, lack of qualified personnel on board and inadequate risk management, were among a raft of problems uncovered in its findings released Friday.
The report also underlined the so-called hollowness of New Zealand’s navy – which prompted the organization to “take risks” to meet demands “with a lean and inexperienced workforce,” its authors wrote.
“It’s an indictment on the fact that our navy was left in quite a perilous state,” Defense Minister Judith Collins told reporters in Auckland Friday. The whole of the country’s military needed a “serious uplift,” she added.
The state of New Zealand´s aging military hardware has prompted several warnings from the defense agency, which in a March 2024 report described the navy as “extremely fragile,” with ships idle due to problems retaining the staff needed to service and maintain them.
The Court of Inquiry could not make findings of guilt, it said, and suggested a separate disciplinary investigation for individual members of the crew who were not named in the report. Their suggested offenses were redacted.
The report included a dramatic transcript of what unfolded on the bridge, with one crew member saying to another that the ship was “not really doing what I want it to do” as they tried to change the vessel’s course.
“It’s a bad day for the navy,” said Rear Admiral Garin Golding, the leader of the navy. “Our reputation has taken a hit.”
The navy would “learn from” the episode and ensure it wasn’t repeated, he added. Friday´s findings, however, also urged recognition for those involved in the decision to abandon ship, who the report found saved lives during the evacuation.
The specialist dive and hydrographic vessel had been in service for New Zealand since 2019 and was surveying the reef that it ran aground on. Its sinking provoked alarm, demands for compensation and fear of environmental catastrophe for Samoan villagers living on the coast where it capsized, who say they fear permanent damage to the fragile reef ecosystem.
A no-fishing zone around the vessel was lifted by Samoa’s government in February.
New Zealand’s military said this month that it had completed months of work to remove diesel fuel and other pollutants from the ship, which remains where it sank. Salvage work to retrieve equipment and weapons continues.
Seawater and marine life in the area are “uncontaminated”, the military said, citing Samoa’s scientific research agency. A decision about whether the ship will eventually be removed has not been made.
#1
Tried to use the manuvering thrusters and engine controls while on autopilot. Strangely, that didn't work.
This ship was 11% of the NZ Navy.
Posted by: ed in texas ||
04/04/2025 19:42 Comments ||
Top||
#2
a New Zealand navy ship that ran aground, caught fire and sank off
Ran aground, caught fire, and sank - that is like the trifecta of pooch pooching, and is generally considered bad seamanship. Given this is NZ, we might be talking seapersonship, which could explain a lot.
[JustTheNews] The Food and Drug Administration is "finished." One of its leading boosters for accelerated approval of mediocre drugs left in a huff. Drug stocks are dropping.
The shared interests of regulators and the industry they often join after or between federal service became unmistakable in the past week amid the Trump administration's extreme makeover of the federal public health workforce and leadership.
It suggests the Big Pharma gravy train is derailing, and its passengers in and out of government are panicking, prophesying and pulling out in a flurry of sky-is-falling predictions, ad hominem attacks and investors fleeing companies whose novel therapeutics seem unlikely to keep zipping through emergency and full approvals.
Days after Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. announced HHS would cut another 10,000 jobs for a total reduction of 20,000 – 24% of its workforce – its National Institutes of Health reportedly put five chiefs on administrative leave late Monday.
Two of them lead the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, which funded Chinese research that may have unleashed SARS-CoV-2, and the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development, which funded gruesome transgender mice research and whose clinical director crusades for puberty blockers for gender-confused kids.
NIH Director Jay Bhattacharya told staff Tuesday, when he was sworn in, that the reductions would require "an entirely new approach" to "communications, legislative affairs, procurement, and human resources" at NIH, which he'll focus on reproducibility, rigor, transparency and academic freedom, according to his email obtained by Nature.
NIH Deputy Director of Public Affairs Amanda Fine told Just the News on Thursday to file a Freedom of Information Act request for the email because "it’s considered an official record."
Some agency leaders were offered far-away transfers to the Indian Health Service, according to Nature, which said mass layoffs primarily targeted administrative staff. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention top officials were given the same IHS offer to relocate far from its Atlanta base, NOTUS reported.
"The FDA as we've known it is finished, with most of the leaders with institutional knowledge and a deep understanding of product development and safety no longer employed," former FDA Commissioner Robert Califf, known for hiding vaccine safety and efficacy data and promoting low-quality studies to justify federal recommendations, wrote on LinkedIn.
Califf worked as a part-time adviser, then full-time head of medical strategy and policy for Google parent Alphabet between serving as FDA commissioner in the Obama and Biden administrations. FDA ethics officers blessed departing COVID vaccine reviewers to influence the agency "behind the scenes" for their new employer, Moderna.
Pfizer board member Scott Gottlieb, the first Trump administration's commissioner, warned this "cumulative barrage" on drug discovery "threatens to swiftly bring back those frustrating delays for American consumers" before the U.S. overtook Europe in drug innovation, "particularly affecting rare diseases and areas of significant unmet medical need."
Earlier wailing portrayed the slashing of indirect-cost payments on top of federal grants – which are far more generous than what private foundations pay and allegedly enrich administrators at the expense of researchers – as a mortal threat to scientific and medical progress.
Modern drug development has a poor track record for the time and money required, with 90% of drug candidates that make it to phase 1 clinical trials failing, not including failures in preclinical stages, and a 10-15 year process that costs $1-2 billion per approved drug, according to a 2022 peer-reviewed study by University of Michigan and Bristol Myers Squibb researchers.
University of California San Francisco epidemiologist Vinay Prasad showed little sympathy for the cuts to "bad science," such as erroneous practices by Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services that he estimates cost taxpayers "hundreds of billions" a year.
"If any company wants to make an oral COVID vaccine" – Vaxart's trial now seems doomed – they should not receive federal money and the FDA should force them to "power their trial for hard endpoints," which would likely scare off investors, he said.
It’s a double opinion, actually: the columnist writes about Batya Ungar-Sargon — the self-described lefty MAGA journalist, whom we last saw explaining it all to Bill Maher — talking about the Trump tariffs.
[PJMedia] It's true that Ungar-Sargon is a lefty and, like my hippie friends, she holds fast to her left-leaning principles, as I do my conservative ones. But she has a charismatic, infectious clarity when she speaks, and though I've only just heard of her, she's already pulled me out into new intellectual territory and opened my eyes to even more swaths of common ground with our pro-Trump allies on the left.
This cheerful, brilliant woman went on "Piers Morgan Uncensored" earlier this week and explained Trump's Liberation Day tariff regime within the framework of class warfare — and it's not the traditional Marxist-narrative class warfare of the haves vs. the have-nots that you're used to. It's the true communist version, where the elites decimate the middle class and force them into serfdom along with the already entrapped poor. It's the opposite of the American dream, where everything is possible no matter who you are or where you come from. And in pointing all this out, Ungar-Sargon brilliantly details the normal-people union between left and right that is MAGA.
I'll post the video at the end of this article because I recommend you watch the whole thing. Meanwhile, here is Ms. Ungar-Sargon's preamble to her fascinating remarks to her fellows on the panel, some pro-Trump and some real haters:
What I find so frustrating about the conversation around tariffs is that we all agree on the problem. We all agree that the de-industrialization of America led to the downward mobility of the American working class, deaths of despair, people working multiple jobs and not being able to afford the American dream. We all agree that it is deeply unfair for the American middle class to be bearing the burden of unfair tariffs from other countries. We all agree that it is great for the President to have leverage in order to demand reasonable things, like that country stop allowing fentanyl to murder 100,000 Americans every year, and that Mexico do its part to police its own border. And yet, when somebody has the courage to show up and say to Wall Street, "Screw you. I am waging war. I'm waging class warfare on behalf of the American working class, and you elites on Wall Street, you do what you need to do, because I'm not going to stop fighting for the American working class." Suddenly, everybody is sitting around going, "Oh no, the stock market!" Yeah, the stock market looks like that because the rich are punishing Trump for siding with the neglected and humiliated American working class over them.
[X]
Here's the truth about tariffs: For 60 years they destroyed the American working class to funnel money upwards into the pockets of the rich. Donald Trump is the first president in generations to tell Wall Street to screw itself—he's for the working men and women of this country. pic.twitter.com/sCZRFeITYh
Direct Translation via Google Translate. Edited. by Ivan Lizan
[REGNUM] US President Donald Trump has imposed import tariffs on products from virtually every country in the world, triggering a global trade war. The rates are tied to the US trade deficit with each individual country and are adjusted for political factors.
Everyone without exception was affected, the only question is the duty rate: the minimum is 10%, the maximum is 49%.
The countries with which the United States has small volumes of mutual trade and does not have a pronounced trade deficit are subject to minimal duties.
For example, 10% tariffs would apply to Russia, Belarus, Iran, and North Korea — the United States has no trade relations with them, but there are a number of diplomatic issues that need to be resolved. Introducing tariffs against these countries would not give the United States any advantages, but would create additional problems.
The totality of duties is intended to prevent circumvention of restrictions through other countries. This explains the exorbitant duties for Cambodia and Vietnam - 49% and 46% respectively. These countries were used by Chinese businesses to circumvent the restrictions.
And the duties on penguins from uninhabited islands, which have caused widespread discussion and ridicule, were introduced to prevent Australian businesses from registering in these territories.
NEW AMERICAN RULES
The introduction of restrictions is justified both at the ideological level and at the economic level.
At the ideological level, the tariffs are positioned as an act of economic liberation for the United States and the restoration of justice. The logic of the Washington administration is simple: the United States created the modern system of world trade, and all other countries should be grateful to them for this.
But instead of gratitude, they “abuse” the export of their goods to America and do not want to buy American goods.
The fact that such changes in world trade are absolutely normal, and that the United States itself became a superpower at the expense of weakening other states, such as the British Empire, is ignored.
At the economic level, there is also a solid rationale: the US's sky-high trade deficit and record levels of external debt no longer allow it to pursue the policies that many still consider the norm.
The United States urgently needs to solve four problems. The first is to correct the trade balance, reducing its deficit, and ideally, to ensure a surplus in foreign trade.
The second is to reduce the cost of servicing the government debt, as well as attracting new borrowing.
The third is to ensure an influx of investment into the country for its subsequent reindustrialization.
The fourth is to inflict economic damage on your economic and geopolitical opponents.
In theory, Trump's trade war allows achieving these goals. Tariffs will cut off some imports from the American market, making them uncompetitive or too expensive. Against the background of the adjustment of the trade balance, the cost of servicing the American debt will decrease.
The reduction in imports, together with budgetary savings measures, will lead to a reduction in the size of the federal budget deficit, and therefore reduce the need for borrowing.
The strong dependence of many countries and corporations on the American market will force them to accept Trump's conditions or resign themselves to the transfer of production to the United States, that is, they will contribute to the reindustrialization of America.
Countries unfriendly to the United States, such as China, will be denied access to the American market, which will contribute to their economic weakening.
But in exchange for this you will have to sacrifice something.
SIDE EFFECTS
First, the US will cease to be the only superpower. In fact, they are no longer one, since they have ceased to influence many countries and processes in the world.
If Trump succeeds in implementing his reforms, the United States will remain only a major regional power with its own sphere of political and economic influence, under which countries dependent on it will fall.
Secondly, the dollar as a global currency will have to be sacrificed – after all, what good is the dollar if the US is reducing trade volumes with 185 countries and also betting on weakening its currency to stimulate import substitution and exports? In such conditions, a weak dollar will be a competitive advantage for American goods.
Third, it will be necessary to sacrifice membership in international institutions and stop observing the rules of decency in relation to small countries. The US blocked the work of the WTO at the end of Trump's first term, and Joe Biden has done nothing to restart participation in this organization.
The States will pump money out of their recent partners, who will now become donors. And here a striking example is the transformation of Ukraine from a partner, which was financed free of charge, into a hopeless debtor. But it will be possible to take Greenland by force.
But what is far more dangerous for Trump at the moment is that public support will have to be sacrificed.
The stock market will deflate: the capitalization of many corporations, around which stock market bubbles have been inflated for years, will be greatly reduced; the stock market will be dominated by bears, not bulls.
The trade war with the rest of the world will cause inflation in the US to rise sharply, as the dependence on imports is stronger than it seems, and supply chains are usually longer and more intertwined than officials assume.
At the same time, the awareness will grow that import duties are not the same as exemption from imports: import substitution does not occur automatically when imported goods become more expensive; it is a delayed consequence of investments by the state and business, stimulated by sound tax policy and government support measures.
It is much more difficult to prescribe these measures and create such a tax policy than to introduce import duties. It is even more difficult to launch such a mechanism, while simultaneously solving a host of infrastructure, technological and personnel problems.
In any case, it will be the American consumer who pays for American import substitution, and the corporations who get rich from it.
And if the rate of American consumer spending exceeds the rate of growth of his income from the creation of new jobs, then Trump will face a drop in approval ratings and a decrease in the level of social support.
In that case, the American oligarchy will betray him at any favorable offer from its opponents. And the Democrats who return to power will partially roll back Trump's reforms.
Therefore, the current administration will try to make the reforms irreversible and is already combining them with a comprehensive attack on the Democrats.
The Trumpists are cutting budget expenditures that fed the Democrats, reforming the electoral system, trying to take control of the courts, protecting their officials from media attacks and engaging in them themselves, conquering the information space.
Overall, Trump's plan can be described as risky but rational.
EUROPE IS IN DESPAIR
Naturally, the leadership of other countries will not sit silently and watch what is happening.
In trade wars, countries with a trade deficit have the advantage - the trade war between the US and China, which has been going on since 2018, is proof of this.
It will be more difficult for the affected countries to reduce their imports of American goods - they are often very specific, like the same civilian aircraft, software and hardware. And not all goods, such as food and energy, can be replaced.
Weak countries and those who were given 10% will not respond - either they have nothing to respond with, or there is no need, since there is an opportunity to replace someone else’s reduced share of the American market.
Large countries and blocs will certainly respond, since they cannot demonstrate weakness.
The trade war with China will reach a qualitatively new level, but the US is no stranger to it. Nor is China, for that matter.
Beijing will try to compensate for the loss of the American market by redirecting exports to other countries, including not the richest, but promising ones - the same African states. But it is worth noting that China is already suffering - there is deflation in the country.
Relations with the EU will continue to rapidly deteriorate. In the EU countries affected by the tariffs, industrial production will decrease, GDP will shrink, unemployment and social discontent will increase.
But it will be aimed more at the US and Trump personally, and it will definitely not bring the right to power. The EU has learned to fight them with both legal and illegal means, while ignoring the moralizing of Trump and J.D. Vance.
However, Europe's margin of safety is very small: relations with Russia have been damaged, its sales markets and energy resources have been lost, as has the previous harmony in relations with China, which has become a strong competitor for European companies.
Therefore, the EU will be the most affected party in this war, which will face capital flight to the US and the transfer of production there.
Left out of this story is a group of rogue states and Russia.
Globally, Trump is doing through tariffs what was done to Russia through sanctions: cutting it off from global trade. But they wanted to punish Russia, forcing it into submission, while for the US these measures are positioned as a benefit — different places in the global trade system are having an effect.
At first glance, Trump's trade war does not affect Russia: big deal, 10% duties with minimal trade volumes and an exorbitant number of sanctions imposed. But there is a nuance.
Firstly, Trump is chaos, and you can expect anything from him. The attention of the domestic bureaucracy is not unlimited, and its forces are limited. In this regard, Biden was much more predictable, since he would continue the inertial policy and would not break world trade through his knee.
Secondly, Trump risks plunging the global economy into recession. And this will result in a reduction in demand for many raw materials and energy products, and at the same time provoke an increase in the number of various restrictions. There is no longer any room to move on the global market: production exceeds demand, and countries are closing their markets one after another.
The only thing that gives hope is the Trumpists' awareness of the fact that America is not all-powerful, which means that other countries have the right to their spheres of influence. But will it be possible to bite out such a sphere from the US?
And the number of people wishing to return to the Russian market will also increase, but will we be happy to see all those who return?
The number of countries claiming sovereignty will also grow: some will find it more profitable to grow up and separate from the US than to be endlessly dependent on the antics of Trump, who is turning from a kind patron into an evil racketeer.
In any case, if after 2014 world trade was disrupted and was not free in relation to sovereign countries, then now it can safely be buried for the rest of the world.
Direct Translation via Google Translate. Edited. by Elena Chinkova
[REGNUM] The German aristocrat and politician Alexander von Bismarck, who does not hide his sympathy for Russia, told the Regnum news agency how he sees the negotiation process on Ukraine and what role the European Union has in it.
And also about why he covered a destroyed Russian tank in Berlin with thousands of roses.
When Russia Turned into a Bear
— Alexander, in April it was 210 years since the birth of your great ancestor, the first Chancellor of the German Empire, Otto von Bismarck. He knew Russia and our people well. And, in particular, he said the following about us: “Russians are slow to harness, but they ride quickly.” What would he do in the current situation, when we have harnessed and are riding quickly?
- He wrote many times that Germany and Russia should be friends. Russians do not think about tomorrow, but much further, about the future.
"The secret pillar of our policy must be maintaining good relations with Russia. An alliance against Russia could be a great folly that would lead Germany to a dangerous point," the chancellor noted.
In an alliance against Russia, Germany will always lose. Russians are very friendly, but if you try to pin them down, they turn into a bear.
— Do any German politicians understand this today?
- In essence, no.
— Just you?
- And Gerhard Schroeder. He knew how to talk to Russians and drink. And that's important in negotiations too. But he was thrown out of everything. It's crazy.
Macron has no Soldiers for Ukraine
— What can we expect from the future Chancellor of Germany Friedrich Merz?
- Nothing. These authorities don't know what they want. They don't understand what's going on, they don't understand the scale of BRICS, and they don't talk to anyone.
— How can one explain the reluctance of key European countries to join the negotiation process? After all, Europe is seriously suffering from what is happening.
- They know they are wrong. But there is no government that can admit it: we have made many mistakes and so on. So far only Hungary and Slovakia are telling the EU that this is not our way. Well, perhaps Italy too now.
— Macron, who is eager to send troops to Ukraine, imagines himself to be Napoleon?
— France doesn't have soldiers for this. It's just "blah-blah-blah." And the current verdict on the presidential campaign favorite Marine Le Pen, which puts an end to her participation in the elections, is absolute madness.
— How do you assess the negotiations between Russia and the USA?
— Two strong personalities have come together. Vladimir Putin and Donald Trump have different ways of thinking, but they make real policy and discuss, to put it simply, like this: we do it this way, you get this and I get that. Trump is, first and foremost, a businessman, and Putin is guided by the historical and national interests of the country.
— Is it possible to achieve results without Europe?
- Of course! Europe will sit in the corner and accept any decision made by Russia and the US. Europe had three years to negotiate, but it did not want to talk to Russia. And now the Americans are doing it.
— And what role do you assign to China here?
— 80% of goods in Europe are from China. I see that Moscow is already full of Chinese cars. As for politics, the Chinese working in Berlin told me: we need good relations with Russia, the Russians are very clear, they say what they think, they do business openly.
I have appealed to our business and political circles: let's talk together! I have spoken to military attachés of China, Russia and Belarus and heard from them: they do not want to talk to us. And I am very sorry that they behave this way.
Two Thousand Roses on a Russian Tank
— In February 2023, Ukrainian activists placed a disabled Russian T-72 tank near the Russian embassy in Berlin, pointing its barrel at the diplomatic mission. And in response, you organized a touching action — you showered the tank with two thousand roses. Did you suffer greatly for your sympathy for Russia?
— In the media, yes. For several weeks in a row, I was accused of Putin's propaganda. But otherwise, no — I am a free businessman. Sometimes my friends tell me about another publication: "Alex, have you read this?!" I answer: "Yes, but I have already forgotten!"
If no one says anything, we will find ourselves in a situation that no one really wants. Many ordinary people are already declaring the need to normalize relations with Russia and are taking to the streets for peaceful demonstrations.
My good friend from the European Parliament, also a representative of an aristocratic family, Michael von der Schulenburg, has long-standing friendly ties with Russia, as does my family. In my opinion, he would be a suitable candidate from Germany to conduct a dialogue with Russia.
— When do you expect the conflict to end?
— When Putin and Trump say: “We need a week or two,” when they have a single and clear understanding of the settlement, then it will be over. And Ukraine and Europe will have nothing to say. I think that negotiations are ongoing every day, and it will happen very soon. I would like it to happen by May 9. And Donald Trump and Xi Jinping would be present at the Victory Parade in Moscow.
Alexander von Bismarck was born in 1951 in Reinbek (FRG). He has a law and economics education. In 1972–2017, he was a member of the Christian Democratic Union. Businessman, public figure, founder of the Russian-German public project "Bismarck Dialogue". He is married to the Russian violist Irina von Bismarck and has a son.
[Facebook] Heritage legal expert Paul J. Larkin testified before the House Judiciary Subcommittee on Courts today and gave one of the best explanations on the abuses of nationwide injunctions you will ever hear.
“The practice of issuing nationwide injunctions outside the confines of a certified nationwide class action is mistaken as a matter of law and unwise as a matter of policy.”
Expanding the lens beyond the human interest of those fired.
[ZeroHedge] The first stage of cuts to Health and Human Services (HHS) have begun with 10,000 employees slated to be fired in the coming weeks. Pink slips have been replaced with emails and deactivated key cards as workers line up at HHS offices across the country to find out if they still have a job. The establishment media is out in force to paint a tragic narrative of "public servants" who only want to do good for less fortunate souls no unable to fulfill their calling. It's all quite dramatic.
The HHS currently employs around 82,000 people within 10 regional offices and the average income for a worker is around $100,000 with benefits. The majority of them are pencil pushers and social workers, not doctors or scientists making grand discoveries in medical technology.
Keep in mind that the HHS was partly involved in the funding of gain of function research by EcoHealth Alliance, which, in conjunction with projects run by Dr. Peter Daszak and Dr. Anthony Fauci at the NIH, reportedly led to the creation of human transmissible coronaviruses at the Wuhan Level 4 Virology Lab in China (ground zero for Covid).
The annual budget of the HHS is $1.8 trillion - It accounts for around 20% of all federal dollars spent every year and tracking where this immense pool of cash goes is far more complex than the shady operations of USAID. The agency is, by any measure, a monstrosity. Cuts are intended to hit the FDA, CDC, and the NIH, all under the umbrella of the HHS.
A large portion of programs instituted by HHS tap into pandemic funds set aside during covid (yes, the covid cash is still floating around after 5 years). This money goes to support numerous programs that the majority of Americans voted against, including DEI programs, illegal immigrant programs and gender affirming care programs (gender based care for minors was indeed pursued by the HHS).
Democrats in at least 23 states are taking action to sue the Trump Administration over the budget cuts and layoffs. In the lawsuit, filed Tuesday, the states are seeking a temporary restraining order and injunctive relief to immediately halt the administration’s funding cuts that they say will lead to key public health services being discontinued and thousands of health-care workers losing their jobs.
The civil suits are unlikely to make much difference in the end, just as they failed to stop the cuts to USAID. The HHS, now under the management of Robert F. Kennedy Jr., is expected to undergo unprecedented changes in the coming months and a level of accountability the institution has probably never dealt with before.
“The COVID-19 pandemic is over, and HHS will no longer waste billions of taxpayer dollars responding to a non-existent pandemic that Americans moved on from years ago. HHS is prioritizing funding projects that will deliver on President Trump’s mandate to address our chronic disease epidemic and Make America Healthy Again,” the agency said in a statement last week.
#2
Anyone in the entire government who is 'stunned' to be discharged at this point is nothing but a fool.
It's been going on for over a month. You should have took the buy-out.
Posted by: ed in texas ||
04/04/2025 19:46 Comments ||
Top||
#3
You should have took the buy-out.
Kind of a pity they don't get a 2nd bite at that apple. I bet a whole lot of them would "self-deport" given a chance to rethink. Or would they? Virtue signaling vs self-interest - stay and cosplay as The Resistance or take the cash? Life is so difficult!
Quoting Kyle S. Reyes 2025-04-03 Source: Law Enforcement Today As the owner of the largest group of law enforcement publications worldwide, and after having spoken with members of our Board of Advisors (the heads of the largest police groups in the country) I’d like to suggest another one to undo what many believe to be a national security threat.
Over the past year, most recently in New Mexico, Democrat-controlled legislatures, the same people who only five years ago sought to dismantle police departments nationwide, have passed legislation allowing noncitizens to become police officers, sheriff's deputies, or, in the case of Washington State, deputy prosecutors.
We believe this is a terrible idea for some 800,000 sworn law enforcement officers in the United States. We are asking President Trump to issue another executive order, this time blocking non-citizens from becoming police officers.
There are several reasons for this. Some who entered the country illegally but claimed Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) status are among those included in the legislation and permitted to be sworn police officers. By merely entering the country illegally, these aliens committed a crime, violating our border laws. Yet in some states, they will be allowed to deprive American citizens of their liberty rights.
Posted by: NN2N1 ||
04/04/2025 00:00 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
[11123 views]
Top|| File under: Tin Hat Dictators, Presidents for Life, & Kleptocrats
#1
How about we put disabled vets in wheelchairs on the helpdesk call center phones instead of offshoring to the unintelligible.
[FoxNews] 'Why are the Democrat attorneys general seeking out left-wing, blue swing districts?' Cruz asked
Senators Cruz and Klobuchar had a heated moment during a Senate Judiciary hearing Wednesday, and the Republican called federal injunctions a phase of lawfare. (C-SPAN)
Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, and Sen. Amy Klobuchar, D-Minn., sparred during a hearing on federal judges' nationwide orders against the Trump administration, and the Democrat dismissed her colleague's claims of "lawfare."
"Understand this is the second phase of lawfare," Cruz said during the Senate Judiciary Committee's hearing, "Rule by District Judges II: Exploring Legislative Solutions to the Bipartisan Problem of Universal Injunctions."
"Now that their efforts to indict President Trump and stop the voters from re-electing him have failed, they're going and seeking out individual radical judges," the Texas Republican claimed.
Klobuchar disputed this, telling Cruz the injunctions from federal judges were a result of President Donald Trump "violating the Constitution."
"Why would Trump-appointed judges …," the Minnesota Democrat began before being interrupted by Cruz.
"Why don't you file them in red districts?" Cruz asked. "Why are the Democrat attorneys general seeking out left-wing, blue swing districts?"
Klobuchar claimed the spike in nationwide injunctions from district judges halting Trump administration actions are not because "these judges are crooked or lunatics or evil." And she warned that making such claims could instigate threats and violence against them.
#2
At some point we will all start realizing that our "two party system" isn't a case of two parties arguing how best to improve the United States.
One party wishes to overthrow the US Constitution.
The other party has about 50% of their party that wishes to defend the Constitution. The other 50% can be bought...as long as they aren't called out on their defections.
The Biden administration would have been thrilled to participate. President Trump is a horse of a different colour.
[AmuseOnX] The United Nations’ International Maritime Organization (IMO) has quietly embarked upon a bold initiative cloaked in the virtuous garb of climate responsibility. Ostensibly designed to mitigate greenhouse gas emissions from international shipping, this global carbon levy is, in reality, a veiled taxation mechanism poised to significantly burden American consumers and businesses. What may initially appear as prudent environmental stewardship reveals itself, under scrutiny, as a dramatic expansion of global taxation, circumventing American democratic processes and redistributing wealth under UN auspices.
So many questions: Is this under a specific program or treaty, or just generally being a member of the UN? As a member of the UN Security Council, can America veto it, whether in general or just for us? Can the IMO enforce collection, or must it rely on national governments to do so?
The mechanics of the tax are deceptively simple. Under the proposed framework, shipping companies would be required to pay a fixed fee per metric ton of carbon dioxide emitted during transoceanic voyages. This fee, expected to begin at a baseline of $100 per ton and scale over time, would be calculated based on the fuel used and the vessel's emissions profile. Crucially, this cost is not absorbed by the shipping conglomerates.
Fees never are.
It is passed down the chain of commerce—first to importers, then to wholesalers, and ultimately to the end consumers. The result is an invisible tax hike on every imported good that enters American ports, from smartphones assembled in Southeast Asia to agricultural produce from Latin America. The levy, in effect, operates as a consumption tax imposed by a foreign body on the American populace.
According to research by UNCTAD and DNV, this levy could escalate freight costs by between 71% and 85%, potentially doubling the price of shipping goods from overseas by mid-century. Such an increase is not mere statistical abstraction—it translates directly to elevated costs for everyday items, affecting everything from imported electronics to agricultural commodities. Shipping industry executives, from tanker operators to dry bulk carriers, have already begun expressing grave concerns, warning that these cost increments will inevitably cascade through supply chains, burdening American consumers and reducing corporate earnings in an already tenuous economic climate.
Beyond economic ramifications, the levy raises significant questions of democratic legitimacy. Traditionally, the power of taxation has been strictly the province of elected legislatures—explicitly, in the American context, the U.S. Congress. Yet the IMO’s method of implementing this tax is deftly designed to bypass such legislative oversight. By framing the carbon levy as amendments to MARPOL Annex VI regulations, the UN effectively sidesteps the requisite Senate ratification processes for international treaties. Consequently, this global levy could be implemented domestically through executive regulatory changes without meaningful Congressional debate or approval. This constitutes nothing less than taxation without representation, a principle that, ironically, once motivated the American colonies’ revolt against Britain.
To understand the long-term danger, one need only glance eastward across the Atlantic. The European Union, originally conceived as a common economic market to facilitate trade and prevent future conflicts, has gradually metastasized into a supranational government. What began as voluntary economic cooperation now resembles an unelected bureaucracy capable of overriding national parliaments. Today, from energy mandates to migration quotas, Brussels dictates terms to sovereign nations in ways unimaginable at the time of the Treaty of Rome. The European Commission—a body of unelected technocrats—wields more influence over member states’ laws than many of their own legislatures. The arc of integration has bent toward centralization, not consensus.
This should serve as a cautionary tale. The IMO’s carbon levy, though seemingly benign in scope, is an embryonic form of the same political dynamic. By establishing the precedent that an international body can impose direct economic obligations on sovereign nations without the consent of their legislatures, the levy lays the groundwork for a future in which financial sovereignty is no longer national, but global. What Brussels is to the Eurozone, the UN aspires to become for the world: an unelected arbiter of fiscal and regulatory policy.
Moreover, the levy stands to generate tens of billions of dollars annually, projected to reach between $40 and $60 billion by 2050. Alarmingly, these substantial revenues would flow directly into UN-controlled climate funds, notably entities like the Green Climate Fund. Such arrangements inherently dilute national sovereignty by placing substantial financial resources under international bureaucratic oversight, insulated from direct democratic accountability.
IMAGINE that all we knew about automobiles was that they had been created 100+ years ago, and they were all electric. And THEN a few years ago, somebody created the internal combustion engine.
Those creators would have offered the ability to expand range to 400 to 600 miles, regardless of weather or climate. The "recharge" time would be 5 minutes or so.
The "new" vehicles would weigh far less than the existing ones, and cause less damage to the existing roads. New vehicles wouldn't require charging stations--builders could sell their goods at a lower price.
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.
