🚨JD VANCE JUST OBLITERATED GLOBALISM — AND EXPOSED HOW SMALL OUR POLITICIANS REALLY ARE
While Britain is led by careerists who can’t think beyond slogans, JD Vance just dismantled the entire intellectual foundation of globalisation — calmly, methodically, and devastatingly.
Direct Translation via Google Translate. Edited by Viktor Lavrinenko
[REGNUM] Eighty-three years ago, troops from the Leningrad and Volkhov Fronts, working together, carved out a land corridor along Lake Ladoga, up to 11 kilometers wide. Soldiers who participated in Operation Iskra heroically saved Leningrad. The most terrifying months of the siege were behind them, and a land route was added to the Road of Life along Lake Ladoga.
The breakthrough of the encirclement encircling the city by Nazi Germany and its ally Finland did not yet mean the siege was completely lifted. August 1943 saw the largest shelling of Leningrad, and until January 1944, Leningrad's defenders held off the enemy advance, protecting the suffering city.
The Nuremberg Tribunal reported 630,000 deaths during the 872 days of the siege. Modern historians cite even more horrific figures: up to 1.5 million men, women, and children died from starvation, disease, bombing, and shelling.
In the public consciousness, one of the most terrible crimes against humanity is associated with German troops.
Specifically, with Army Group North under the command of Wilhelm von Leeb (incidentally, following one of the "small Nuremberg trials," Field Marshal Leeb received only three years' imprisonment and died at his estate at the age of 80). Another marshal, Finnish Commander-in-Chief Carl Gustaf Emil Mannerheim, remained "in the shadows. "
After all, it was his army that closed the ring around Leningrad in September 1941, condemning the city to starvation. Von Leeb enforced the blockade from the west, south, and east; Mannerheim from the northwest and north. Finland deliberately chose to be Hitler's ally.
HOW THE FINNS PREPARED TO VIOLATE THE PEACE TREATY
On June 25, 1941, just three days after Germany's treacherous attack on the USSR, Finland entered the war on the side of the Third Reich. The country saw this as revenge for the Winter War of 1939–40, which had resulted in the loss of some of Finland's territory.
The border, which had previously been 30 km from Leningrad, was moved back 100 kilometers; the Finns ceded border lands in the south and north of Karelia and access to the Barents Sea in the Petsamo (Pechenga) region.
It is generally accepted that when Adolf Hitler launched Operation Barbarossa, Army Commander-in-Chief Mannerheim and political leader President Risto Ryti saw a chance to regain what had been lost.
Therefore, in Finnish historiography, the events of 1941–44 are designated as the “Continuation War” (Jatkosota).
In fact, the Finns began preparing for revenge in advance.
In March 1940, Finland signed the Moscow Treaty with the USSR, which formalized these losses. But already in September of that year—nine months before Germany's attack on the USSR, while the Molotov - Ribbentrop Pact was still in effect —a fundamental decision had already been made in Helsinki to participate on the side of the Reich in the war against our country.
The decision was announced during a visit to Berlin by Finnish General Paavo Talvela, who was authorized to conduct negotiations with the German General Staff.
Thus, Helsinki violated the Moscow Peace Treaty, concluded just six months earlier.
In January 1941, with the permission of the local authorities, a recruitment point for Finnish volunteers in the Waffen SS units was opened in Helsinki, and soon the Finns themselves began preparing for mobilization.
Between May 25 and 28, the Germans and Finns finalized plans for joint operations. In May 1941, with the support of the Abwehr, the Estonian Liberation Committee was established in Helsinki, headed by Hjalmar-Johannes Mäe, an ethnic Estonian who had arrived from Germany. After the Nazi occupation of the Baltics, it was Mäe who headed the collaborationist administration of Estonia.
The committee began recruiting and training Estonian émigrés to fight in the war against the USSR. After the outbreak of hostilities, all of them were transferred to the territory of the Estonian SSR.
COMPLICITY IN AGGRESSION
In June 1941, the order for mobilization was given in Finland. Mannerheim's army's offensive was scheduled to begin two weeks after the German invasion. The Finns made this stipulation deliberately, as they wanted to shift responsibility for a new war onto the USSR.
Helsinki hoped that the Soviet Union would be unable to avoid striking German troops on Finnish territory—and that this could be presented to its own population and the world as a "treacherous invasion." However, from June 22, 1941, the actions of the Finnish side could not be interpreted as anything other than full-fledged complicity in the aggression.
From the very beginning of the war, Luftwaffe bombers striking Soviet territory used Finnish airfields. And the Finnish Navy began laying mines in the Gulf of Finland, helping the Germans make the movement of Soviet warships and civilian vessels extremely difficult.
On June 23, two German seaplanes landed sixteen Finnish volunteer saboteurs dressed in German uniforms near the locks of the White Sea–Baltic Canal. The saboteurs were supposed to blow up the locks, but were prevented from doing so by heavy security.
Finland soon received the "justification" they desired: the Soviet Air Force began striking Luftwaffe air bases on Finnish territory. Following this, Finnish authorities declared "aggression," and on June 29, Finnish troops launched an offensive. The Soviet-Finnish border became a front line. In the south of this front, the main Finnish attack fell on Leningrad.
WHERE THE "CREATORS OF GREATER FINLAND" WERE STOPPED
Finland's strategic goal was not only to "regain what was lost"—that is, the Karelian Isthmus with Vyborg, the Pechenga region, and so on. Plans included the annexation of the Kola Peninsula, Karelia all the way to the White Sea, and Inkeri (Ingria, or the Leningrad region).
The regime's ideologists received orders to prepare a "historical justification" for the creation of Suur Suomi—Greater Finland.
Finnish troops reached the old Soviet-Finnish border near Leningrad by early September 1941 and halted at the Sestra River on the Karelian Isthmus, approximately 30–40 km from the city center. Approaching Sestroretsk, they became bogged down in fierce fighting and were unable to advance a single step.
As General Alexander Cherepanov, commander of the 23rd Army defending there, later wrote, “the enemy saw and felt that all his attempts to break through to Leningrad in our direction would be decisively stopped.”
Faced with the defense of Soviet troops at the Karelian fortified region, the Finns stopped there and began to dig in as well.
MANNERHEIM PLANNED TO STARVE HIS "HOMETOWN"
At the same time, the Finnish troops advancing north of Lake Ladoga captured Petrozavodsk in September 1941, cutting the Kirov (Murmansk) Railway. By December, they had reached the Svir River, creating a continuous front from Lake Ladoga to Lake Onega. Finland thus completely closed the northern half of the blockade.
The Finns were drawing away the 23rd and 7th Soviet armies, which were so necessary for carrying out the tasks of lifting the blockade of Leningrad.
With the combined efforts of the German and Finnish occupiers, all land communications connecting the city with the mainland were cut off. Famine began in the city.
In modern literature, one can find assertions that Mannerheim was against the destruction of Leningrad—he allegedly experienced nostalgic feelings.
The Finnish commander-in-chief called the city "Petersburg" in the pre-revolutionary manner, which is not surprising. A graduate of the St. Petersburg Nikolaevsky Cavalry School, Baron Carl Gustavovich Mannerheim served in the Horse Guards. He participated in the coronation of Nicholas II and by 1917 had risen to the rank of cavalry general.
But in 1941, the aging marshal clearly felt no affection for the former imperial capital or its inhabitants. The death by starvation of elderly people—his peers, women, and children—didn't bother him.
Faced with heavy losses, Marshal Mannerheim reflected:
"An attack on the Petersburg fortifications between the border (referring to the old Soviet-Finnish border that existed before 1939 – Ed.) and Petersburg will probably require many casualties, since they are heavily defended. Wouldn't it be better to take it from the south or force the city's inhabitants to capitulate through starvation?"
"The destruction of Leningrad was a decisive turning point."
Overall, the Finnish leadership showed no compassion for the dying Leningraders. In the summer of 1941, the Finnish envoy to Berlin, Toivo Mikael Kivimäki, after conversations with the Reich leadership, reported back home:
“We can now take whatever we want, including St. Petersburg, which, like Moscow, is better destroyed... Russia must be broken up into small states.”
The Finnish frontline newspaper Pohjan of October 21, 1941, stated in large print:
"Its (Leningrad's – Ed.) destruction will mark a decisive historical turning point in the life of the Finnish people."
In October 1941, in a conversation with Hitler's personal envoy Karl Schnurre, the country's president, Ryti, said that Finland did not object to Leningrad disappearing as a major population center and industrial centre.
The president, however, believed that a small part of the city could be preserved as a sort of German trade mission. Ryti also informed the German ambassador to Finland, Wipert von Blücher, that his country did not wish to share a border with Russia in the future.
In connection with this, Ryti asked Germany to annex all territory south of the Arkhangelsk region.
A little later, Finnish Foreign Minister Rolf Johan Witting, meeting with Hitler, heard from the German Fuhrer that Germany agreed to the expansion of Finnish territory to the east, including the Kola Peninsula, but only on the condition that Germany would receive a share in the extraction of minerals on these lands.
Moreover, under pressure from Germany, the Finnish government rejected the possibility of allowing humanitarian aid from neutral countries to pass through its territory. Meanwhile, the policy of creating a "Greater Finland" was pursued in the Finnish-occupied territories of Karelia.
According to Karelian researchers, the Finns established fourteen concentration camps there, in which at least 8,000 civilians (mostly ethnic Russians) died, and over 7,000 Soviet prisoners of war were killed in the most barbaric ways.
FINNS VS. THE ROAD OF LIFE
Hitler, at a meeting with Finnish leaders in June 1942, told them:
"Through the Germans' efforts, the city and its fortifications will be destroyed. Then Finland will be freed from the Russian nightmare... The fate of St. Petersburg must be decided by early autumn... Perhaps the civilian population of St. Petersburg should also be exterminated, since the Russians are so unreliable and treacherous, and therefore there is no reason to pity them."
Neither Ryti nor Mannerheim objected to this way of putting the question.
In 1942, Mannerheim became concerned about the liquidation of the Road of Life, which ran across Lake Ladoga—the only route at that time connecting the city with the mainland.
For this purpose, at the request of Mannerheim's headquarters, in addition to the small Finnish vessels, German and Italian high-speed boats and landing craft were transferred to the lake.
Their operation on October 22 to capture the key island of Sukho, which protected the supply line, ended in complete defeat. Despite this outcome, Mannerheim nevertheless expressed gratitude to the German and Italian sailors for their actions.
In 1942, Soviet troops achieved a radical turning point at the front, after which the Hitler regime began to crumble.
STRICT CONDITIONS
The Finnish leadership, panicking, began to look for ways out of the closing trap, so that Hitler would not drag them down with him.
In September 1944, after a powerful Soviet offensive (the Vyborg-Petrozavodsk Operation), Finland withdrew from the war, concluding an armistice under harsh conditions dictated by Moscow.
Following the Paris Peace Treaty of 1947, Finland confirmed the return of its 1940 borders to the Soviet Union, paid reparations, and tried its war criminals.
True, the former Finnish leaders who dragged their country into war with the USSR got off very lightly – with short prison sentences.
Finland's role in the siege of Leningrad (and, consequently, in the suffering and horrific death of its inhabitants) was decisive in a geographical and military-strategic sense: without the Finns holding the northern section, the siege ring would not have been closed.
And yet, Finnish historians created a legend about the “noble Mannerheim,” who allegedly stopped the offensive on Leningrad and saved it from destruction.
Finns' complicity in Nazi crimes was largely ignored after the war—after all, it seemed our northern neighbor had denounced its militaristic past by becoming a neutral and friendly state. But now that Finland is a NATO member and at the forefront of those willing to support the neo-Nazi regime in Kyiv, there is no reason to "forget" the Finns' role in one of the greatest atrocities of the 20th century.
#1
The country saw this as revenge for the Winter War of 1939–40, which had resulted in the loss of some of Finland's territory.
A war started by Stalin which was done as he and Hitler divided Poland, along with annexing the Baltic states. Two wolves arguing about how to cut up the sheep.
#2
"The Germans invaded Poland from the West on September 1, 1939 - a well known date - and the Red Army invaded from the east on September 19, 1939, Not a well-known date. Why?"
Given the USSR's 1939-41 attacks on Poland, Finland, Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia, and Bessarabia alone, as John Laughland writes in his 2008 book A History of Political Trials
"The Communists were therefore guilty of exactly the same crimes against peace as the Nazis. They were also guity of numerous atrocities."
#3
/\ Two wolves arguing about how to cut up the sheep.
The slaughter may not have been the question. The actual timing was likely the question. Other "wolves" may have also been observing the process, a process that lasted a number of years.
"Nazi Germany built and operated a system of concentration camps between 1933 and 1945. There were more than a thousand, including subcamps in Germany and German-occupied Europe." Wikipedia
#5
Getting caught between the likes of Hitler and Stalin is most unfortunate. The Finns were probably just trying to survive the war as best they could. They were luckier than Poland because they were further north and not directly in between the wolves.
Posted by: Abu Uluque ||
01/20/2026 11:43 Comments ||
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Direct Translation via Google Translate. Edited by Dmitry Sosnovsky
[REGNUM] Donald Trump first announced his plans to acquire Greenland during his first presidential term, in 2019. He tested the waters by offering to sell the island to Denmark, and was predictably rebuffed. But he’s not the first US President to want it. Negotiations started for Greenland near the time we bought Alaska from Russia, and have been readdressed periodically ever since, making thr current posturing a fascinating exercise.
Much has happened since then in American and international politics with the direct participation of the White House and its current occupant.
And Trump returned to a topic that had long interested him with a completely different background—among other things, already having behind him the swift operation in Venezuela that stunned the world.
The capture of Nicolás Maduro in Caracas became a significant factor in the context of the US President's renewed raising of the "Greenland issue" because it clearly demonstrated that, despite the American leader's radical rhetoric, he is not joking and does not intend to limit himself to words. At least, not always.
So the nervousness of European politicians, which is becoming increasingly difficult to conceal with each passing day, is understandable. And no matter how much the red-eyed Emmanuel Macron brags, demonstrating his desire to "inspire fear," observers generally agree that EU officials look, at the very least, pitiful in the current situation.
And the Europeans' particular helplessness and confusion in the face of such abrupt and blatant impudence from their overseas ally stands in stark contrast to the didactic, mentoring tone they allowed themselves to adopt in their dealings with Russia just recently.
And now, suddenly, all the tearful mantras about international law, a “rules-based world,” and the “inadmissibility of revising post-war borders” have disappeared somewhere.
Ironically, it seems they're not the only ones who've begun to forget themselves. Suddenly facing the threat of a clash with the US, European officials seem to be experiencing fewer of their traditional bouts of frenzied Russophobia.
And while the Baltic leaders are decadently discussing their own binges on social media, Ukraine has firmly retreated to the background on the European agenda, and German Chancellor Friedrich Merz has suddenly realized: "Russia is a European country" with which we need to negotiate.
Europeans' hopes of reaching an agreement with Trump are clearly not being strengthened. Simply because he treats them with demonstrative disregard, to say the least.
When asked about the words of Greenland's Prime Minister Jens-Frederik Nielsen, who said that the island wants to remain Danish (which, by the way, is not at all so indisputable, judging by the published results of opinion polls), the US President, without batting an eye, declared that this is "his problem" and that he doesn't even know who it is.
Danish Foreign Minister Lars Løkke Rasmussen's recent speech following a meeting at the White House was also very telling. No matter how hard he tried to put on a good face, he was doing a dismal job.
The negotiations then failed, despite the extremely polite attempts of the Copenhagen representatives to convey to their “American friends” that the US seizure of Greenland, imagine, “does not correspond to the interests of the kingdom .”
Apparently, these plaintive admonitions did not have the desired effect on the American leader: “We have failed to change the American position… President Trump wants to conquer Greenland,” Nielsen concluded sadly.
In fact, it would be strange if they did. A politician literally obsessed with the desire to go down in history as America's greatest president is capable—and, more importantly, as we've already seen, willing—of going to great lengths to make that happen.
The annexation of such an impressive territory as Greenland will certainly contribute to such an increase.
And against this backdrop, a conflict with the sincerely despised Europeans and even, as a consequence, the collapse of NATO, which Trump, in principle, does not value all that much, appears to be a price that the US president considers entirely reasonable.
After all, Greenland is not only a wealth of resources hidden under melting ice, but also an exceptionally strategic location from a military point of view.
So convenient that Trump, not without reason, considers modest Denmark incapable of taking full advantage of it.
But he, by his own admission, does not consider Russia and China to be such, although neither Moscow nor Beijing have ever spoken about claims to the island, even, as they say, in the realm of delirium.
Meanwhile, Greenland's hypothetical incorporation into the United States could provide Washington with an invaluable springboard for further expansion. Let's not forget that Trump's wish list also includes Canada, which has Alaska to the northwest, the United States itself to the south, and Greenland itself to the northeast.
Kirill Dmitriev, the Russian President's special representative for investment and economic cooperation with foreign countries, also pointed to this possible sequence of "making America great again."
By his humorous (and so far more or less perceived as such) remark, Greenland becomes the 51st American state, and Canada the 52nd.
Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney is already worried, expressing support for Denmark and threatening the Americans with NATO's infamous Article 5. Which, of course, is quite ironic in itself.
But even without annexing Canada, if the United States gains Greenland, it will overtake its northern neighbor in terms of territory and become second only to Russia, gaining a foothold in the Arctic. Such symbolic achievements are certainly worth a lot in the eyes of a politician like Trump.
Territorial acquisitions can naturally have a significant impact on the perception of the head of state by his contemporaries and descendants.
Take, for example, the reverence with which Americans still hold the eleventh president, James Knox Polk, who seized 40% of the territory from Mexico and Oregon from the British. Thomas Jefferson, with his "Louisiana Purchase," goes without saying—his portrait adorns the two-dollar bill.
However, there are exceptions to the rule: the purchaser of Alaska, the 17th President Andrew Johnson, lost a significant amount of popularity by the end of his term and even nearly suffered impeachment, and did not run for another term.
In fairness, it should be noted that the significance of the purchase of Russian America was not fully understood by contemporaries.
And it is unlikely that such an underestimation will threaten Greenland, for a number of reasons mentioned above.
Another thing is that no one can say with 100% certainty right now (probably not even he himself) how serious the US President really is in his territorial claims against Denmark (and Canada).
And seriously, who knows what steps in this direction Trump actually considers acceptable – given his loud assertion that Greenland will become American “one way or another.”
Turkey invaded Greek Cyprus decades ago. They are still there, and nothing has happened either to Turkey or to NATO. Why is this not a precedent?
[Politico] One year after Donald Trump began his second term with an inaugural address assertion that he was "saved by God to make America great again," one way to measure his influence is to cast the mind forward two years from now.
In January 2028, Democrats will be in the thick of their contest not simply to be the presidential nominee but to carry out an assignment from history: Ending the Trump Moment.
It’s been a long moment. Assuming he serves his full term, by January 2029 Trump will have been the dominant figure in American politics in this century for longer (14 years) than the dominant political figure of the 20th century (FDR, for 12 years). Trump is on track to change the character of American government and this country’s relationship with the world more profoundly than any predecessor in decades.
So what will Democrats — desperate to end a chapter they regard as a tragic accident of history — be talking about? What choice will they have: To talk about Trump. Or, alternately, to self-consciously and implausibly try not to talk about Trump.
The reach of Trump’s policies and his disruptive way of implementing them almost inevitably will dominate the campaign and first term of his successor — perhaps more so if that person is a Democrat than a Republican. In this sense, Trump is getting a third term even if he doesn’t actually flaunt the Constitution, as his critics suspect he wants to, and attempt to remain in office.
#1
It took Democrats and the Washington professional class, including the news media, a long time to understand something his acolytes perceived at the beginning: Trump’s success is not an anomaly, and his enduring power flows from the fact that he represents a generation-shaping political movement.
I'm amazed they see any movement toward understanding the Trump 'political movement.'
Posted by: Bobby ||
01/20/2026 9:00 Comments ||
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#2
When you see Trump in action, you get to view "The Show".
What the Dems and bureaucrats don't realize is, they're part of the show.
That's what makes it so effective and entertaining.
Posted by: ed in texas ||
01/20/2026 9:07 Comments ||
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#3
If Trump says he wants another term, I think he gets one based on the outcome of the coming insurrection case. His first term was negated.
Posted by: Super Hose ||
01/20/2026 20:37 Comments ||
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Next step: President Trump dashes off a quick Executive Order reversing President Biden’s Executive Order requiring the Census Bureau to include all residents, including noncitizens, in the population count that’s the basis for reckoning Congressional seats.
[PJMedia] Did you know that Minnesota held onto a congressional seat during the last census by a bare 89 people? And does this indicate to us another reason why Democrats ...every time you hear the phrase white people, white supremacy,white anything but paint, you're listening to a Democrat. Ask him/her/it to reimagine something for you; they do that a lot, though not well. They can hear a dog whistle a mile or two away. They invented the spoils system and Tammany Hall, and inspired the addition of the word (Thomas) Nasty to the English language. They want to stop continental drift and repeal the law of unintended side effects... are outraged at deportations of thousands of illegal aliens from the state?
Back in 2021, Joe "Open Borders" Biden signed an executive order requiring the U.S. Census Bureau to include all residents in its U.S. population calculations — even those who aren’t citizens.
As I have previously noted, Democrats could use illegal alien populations to rig Congress and the electoral college in their favor. How? Back in 2021, Joe "Open Borders" Biden signed an executive order requiring the U.S. Census Bureau to include all residents in its U.S. population calculations — even those who aren’t citizens.
Also in 2021, AP reported that Minnesota held onto one of its eight congressional seats by an extremely small number of people, namely, 89. Lefty AP enthusiastically declared that Minnesota had a better population growth rate than the national average. Interestingly, however, while Minnesota is not officially a sanctuary state, it essentially operates as one, meaning that it has long been delighted to welcome in illegal aliens and fake refugees. That is why the Somali fraud scandal is so egregious there.
All of which is to say that it is entirely possible Minnesota could be losing a congressional seat after the 2026 census. If any illegal aliens or refugees who have overstayed their temporary protected status were among those who helped Minnesota hang onto its congressional seat, that gives the Democrat-run state a problem.
The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) announced this week that arrests in Minnesota have topped 2,000: "In 5 weeks, [ICE] has arrested and removed OVER 2,500 murders, fraudsters, predators, and gang members — the worst of the worst — from Minnesota. There is nothing that will stop ICE from putting American families, American children, and American lives FIRS ...the Internal Revenue Service; that office of the United States government that collects taxes and persecutes the regime's political enemies... T."
Presuming those 2,500+ criminals are deported, or at least removed from Minnesota, that would seem to deprive Minnesota of a congressional seat, presuming they were in fact counting just population rather than strictly citizens in the last U.S. census (which technically speaking was 2020).
Weirdly enough, KARE11 reported in 2020 that Minnesota was set to fall short of its eighth congressional seat by more than 25,500 people. As of 2023, there were at least 130,000 illegal aliens in the state, and the number has almost certainly grown quite a bit since then, given that the Democrats running Minnesota such as Gov. Tim Walz ...Kamala's smarmy-looking VP running mate, governor of Minnesota and self-admitted knucklehead, who decided to retire rather than to deploy with his National Guard unit, then claimed to have been in Iraq and Afghanistan. One man's socialism is another man's neighborliness.... were fully on board with the Biden administration’s disastrous immigration policies.
Illegal aliens made up more than 2% of the Minnesota population as of 2023. If some or all of those illegal aliens helped Minnesota keep its congressional seat back in 2020/1, that means Minnesota actually cannot licitly hang onto the seat.
It will be interesting to see the results of this upcoming census, and how congressional apportionment falls out. It could be that part of Democrats’ panic over illegal alien deportations and their scrambling to gerrymander are partly based in a fear that without illegal aliens, they cannot hold onto all of their seats in Congress.
The documented Illegal numbers very well could affect the number of seats for either party.
So congress will drag it's butt.... because Minnesota isn't the only state with a massive number of Illegals.
"California, Texas, and Florida consistently have the largest populations of unauthorized immigrants, followed by New York, New Jersey, and Illinois, with California and Texas each hosting over 2 million in recent estimates (around 2023), according to Pew Research Center ..."
[ZeroHedge] Minneapolis, the sucking chest wound on America’s body politic, gets a break this week from Gawda’mighty, who is turning the heat down to subzero so that ICE-Watch nose-rings can hole-up in their Soros-paid motels, play League of Legends with their DoorDashed Chick-fil-A nuggets, and rest up for the next inning of their motley revolution. ICE itself might even have to lay off its daily round-up of rapists, cut-throats, and child-molesters, to wait out the cold-snap.
Meanwhile, things elsewhere roughen up a little.
For instance: Davos, Switzerland, where the World Economic Forum (WEF) holds its annual jamboree of vampire squids. Klaus Schwab is out, by the way. He skulked off in a malodorous cloud of embezzlement and sexual irregularities, to be replaced by Larry Fink, CEO of BlackRock, the hedge fund that owns everything in the USA and wants more.
Larry Fink is living proof of the banality of evil, an early pioneer of mortgage-backed securities, which nearly blew up the global banking system in 2008-09, after which he pioneered the wholesale purchasing of foreclosed houses by hedge funds. Neat trick. Cornered the market on all the inventory, so, now, nobody under age-fifty in America can afford to buy a house — but you can rent one from BlackRock!
Larry Fink landed as interim head of the WEF largely because BlackRock has been espousing Klaus Schwab’s ideas about “Stakeholder Capitalism,” which allows global corporations to pretend that they have beneficent “societal purpose” while they go about ass-raping the common folk of Western Civ. Climate change and green new deals top that agenda, along with diversity, equity, and inclusion and additional bullshit about “environment, social, and governance factors” (ESG) in its global strategies portfolio — meaning, mandates for exactly the kind of policies that are destroying Europe’s economies, de-industrialization foremost.
Among the invited speakers at Davos this year: one US President Donald Trump. He is going to kill them with kindness, a tongue-bath of Trumpian compliments — you are the greatest. . . beautiful leaders like the world has never seen before — while he artfully inserts a stiletto in the WEF’s liver. You might not even know that the org is a walking corpse until a few weeks after the Davos meeting shuts down. But Mr. Trump is going to terminate its influence and send a message that the era of globalist shenanigans is over.
The president can point to two demonstration projects.
First, the USA’s acquisition of Greenland one way or another, either ownership or some leasing agreement or revised treaty arrangement. You can be sure that the EU does not like that — big bully America picking on cuddly little Denmark, “the world’s happiest country.” But since they are happily oblivious to Greenland’s strategic importance (vis-a-vis China’s nefarious ambitions there) it is up to America to prepare the game-board. The art of the deal, of course, is making it fait accompli before the targeted property-owner has even entered the discussion. How that works will be a painful discovery for the walking dead Davosanistas.
The second demo will be how the recent arrest of Nicolás Maduro leads to revelations of the globalist conspiracy to interfere in elections here, there, and everywhere. Señor Maduro sold his Smartmatic system to all comers, and you can bet that the plea bargain talks are already underway in Brooklyn (if not already concluded). Yes, it is our old friend, the Kraken, which is a related species of giant squid to the vampire variety convened in Davos.
This election fraud business is really consequential. It redounds to the criminality of the Democratic Party that had the impudence to jam an enfeebled marionette, “Joe Biden,” into the Oval Office, allowing a treasonous cabal of nihilists to nearly wreck the country. The massive evidence of that crime was clumsily suppressed by the cabal and its allies in the news business.
But it is surfacing again, now with Señor Maduro’s imprimatur, and it will turn into a force five storm off the coast of Florida as grand juries in Fort Pierce and Fort Lauderdale were empaneled a week ago to consider the myriad lawless operations mounted against Mr. Trump since 2015, including election fraud. The lawless are going to be rounded up, from Raffensperger in Georgia, to Katie Hobbs in Arizona, to Jocelyn Benson in Michigan, to Jena Griswold in Colorado, to dozens of other officials who were in on the big vote switcheroo of Nov. 3, 2020.
And when the revelations finally come, it will be too much for the foot-dragging villains in the US Senate to continue resisting — they will have to pass the SAVE Act or some legislation like it that requires voter ID, one election day, and paper ballots counted by humans, not machines.
It remains to be seen whether the Democratic Party goes extinct because of its exposed, widespread criminality, or because it simply can’t win an election without massive ballot fraud.
#3
WSJ: " President Trump has expanded the mission of his proposed Gaza Board of Peace into a global body that would take on the role mediating conflicts currently held by the United Nations and carry a $1 billion fee for a permanent seat, according to a charter sent to prospective members."
Direct Translation via Google Translate. Edited by Leonid Tsukanov
[REGNUM] The rapid fighting of recent days has turned the situation in northeastern Syria upside down.
After abandoning their positions in Aleppo, supporters of the predominantly Kurdish Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) attempted to retreat to regroup, but were caught up by government forces.
Through cunning and deception, Damascus managed to force the Kurds into an agreement on a ceasefire and their integration into the country's armed forces.
However, beyond the scope of the brief negotiations, many pressing issues remained that could potentially roil Syria again.
CONTROLLED ESCAPE
After abandoning the Kurdish neighborhoods of Aleppo, they retreated to the southwestern part of Raqqa province. The new "border" between the SDF and government forces stabilized by January 17 and, according to the agreement, was to remain so until the conclusion of negotiations.
However, the very next day, Damascus made a surprise move, taking control of nearly 40 settlements east of the Euphrates River, cutting off part of Deir ez-Zor province.
The SDF's southwestern flank came under attack from several sides at once, and the Kurds were forced to hastily abandon their positions and cross to the other side of the Euphrates.
It is worth noting that former supporters of the "Deir ez-Zor Military Council" (consisting mainly of nomadic Arabs) made an invaluable contribution to the collapse of the Kurdish front.
Previously, this structure was an ally of the SDS, but after the failed coup of 2023, it was destroyed, and its leaders were arrested or exiled to neighboring countries.
Now, sensing the approach of government forces, the Military Council took up arms again and helped Damascus seize four of Syria's largest oil and gas fields: Conoco, Kafra, Al-Omar, and Tanim.
A day later, on January 18, government forces captured the Tishreen Dam and took the city of Al-Hasakah (the de facto capital of the SDF) in a pincer movement, thereby putting the Syrian Kurds, who during the civil war had achieved not only de facto autonomy but also, with the help of the Americans and Arab tribal militias, controlled significant oil and agricultural resources in Syria, on the brink of final defeat.
At the crucial moment, even the United States turned its back on the Kurds. Although Washington condemned Damascus's penchant for using force to resolve issues, it did nothing to stem the mounting offensive. The future of the "Kurdish project" in Syria depended solely on the Kurds themselves.
Against this backdrop, SDF Commander-in-Chief Mazloum Abdi hastily traveled to Damascus to persuade interim President Ahmed al-Sharaa to stop the operation.
And he succeeded: albeit at the cost of an agreement signed that same day on the final integration of the SDF into the ranks of the Syrian Armed Forces.
UNSTEADY VICTORIES
During the brief negotiations, Damascus took almost complete control, as evidenced by the overall tone of the new version of the agreement between the SDF and the Syrian authorities. Some of the "red lines" that SDF leaders had been defending for the past year were erased.
Among other things, the Kurds' demand to retain at least three fully-equipped brigades (with their own commanders) within the new armed forces was not heeded; instead, SDF soldiers and officers will be separately integrated into the Syrian Ministry of Defense, and Kurdish units will be significantly diluted with representatives from other factions.
In addition, as a counter-condition, Damascus established a procedure for checking the biographies of the commanders of the formed brigades - and the dismissal from the armed forces of those officers who maintained close contact with the Kurdistan Workers' Party, Lebanese Hezbollah and other "unacceptable" groups and movements.
This seriously reduces the "personnel reserve" of the Kurdish forces and forces a significant portion of the SDF's high-ranking commanders into political retirement.
The balance of power on the ground has evolved similarly: Kurdish-populated areas have received de facto autonomy from Damascus, albeit significantly curtailed. The governor of Al-Hasakah will be appointed by Damascus, and all SDF-nominated candidates for government positions will need to be approved by the central government.
At the same time, the Asayish police units that worked as part of the SDF also found themselves out of work – supervision of prisons and refugee camps, as well as the overall coordination of law enforcement activities, is being taken over by the Syrian Ministry of Interior.
The SDF leaders cannot yet count on forming their own “pocket army” similar to the Iraqi Peshmerga.
Of course, Damascus, following Washington's insistent recommendation, didn't forget to sweeten the pill a bit and grant the Kurds a number of symbolic victories. For example, the Presidential Office issued orders permitting the teaching of the Kurdish language in schools—for the first time in over 60 years.
Furthermore, it was announced that all Kurds would be granted Syrian citizenship without any additional vetting procedures. This latter move is particularly important given that at least 300,000 people lacked any documents, and that numerous people from other countries where Kurds constitute a minority have migrated to SDF-controlled areas of Syria over the past decade.
Finally, Navruz (a March New Year's holiday with Zoroastrian roots. - Ed.) has received the status of a national holiday.
NEW RISKS
Although the Kurds, at first glance, appeared to have traded territorial control quite favorably and gained more freedoms and opportunities than they had during Rojava's peak period of power, a clear ideological rift emerged in the confederation against the backdrop of the curtailment of its autonomy.
Some leaders did not understand or accept such a clear surrender of positions and promised to continue the struggle in a personal capacity.
The weakening of the enemy was not lost on supporters of a harsh suppression of the “spread of Syria,” of whom there are still many in the government.
Immediately after the agreement between Damascus and the SDF leadership was announced, the Syrian Ministry of Defense announced a ceasefire. However, despite this, fighting continued in the former Kurdish territories.
Having stopped at the captured lines, Damascus threw forward irregular forces, including the so-called “Arab Tribal Army” (ATA), consisting of Bedouin militias and having personal scores to settle with the Kurds.
This predictably provoked additional tensions on the ground.
For example, an attempt by APA fighters to attack an SDF convoy in the city of Al-Hasakah and set fire to Kurdish vehicles resulted in the start of a large-scale “counter-terrorism operation” in the local district and surrounding villages.
According to Syrian media reports, the death toll has exceeded 120 people, some of whom are not members of the APA.
Given that the Bedouins have already promised blood feuds to their offenders, there is a high risk of a repeat of mass ethnic cleansing—similar to what occurred with the participation of Bedouins in the Druze-populated As-Suwayda in 2025—but this time against the Kurds.
Moreover, the question remains open as to how Damascus will thank the Deir ez-Zor Military Council, which so timely raised an uprising in the Kurdish rear and ensured the return of key resource bases to government control.
The Bedouin's list of demands is extensive—from the extradition of those responsible for the massacre of the Council's leadership in 2023 to the unilateral resettlement of Kurds from Arab-majority areas and the transfer of a portion of oil and gas revenues to nomadic leaders. Although Damascus has not yet decided to what extent it will grant the request, it has no reason to quarrel with the new loyalists.
The current state of affairs greatly increases the risk of new pockets of resistance emerging in post-war Syria.
The weakened, but not completely disunited, Kurds, if pressure from new loyalists increases, may well resume resistance; especially since many authoritative commanders remain outside the framework of the "Abdi-al-Sharaa pact."
Israel may well act as the “shadow sponsor” of the remnants of the Kurdish resistance.
Tel Aviv is interested in maintaining “points of tension” within Syria, which would allow it to justify the strengthening of the IDF presence in the Golan Heights and in the Druze Mountains region, and therefore is unlikely to miss such a tempting opportunity.
Moreover, military ideologists close to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu have repeatedly suggested that he pay attention to the potential of Kurdish commanders and “use it in a timely manner” to strengthen Israel’s position in the region.
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.
...Kamala's smarmy-looking VP running mate, governor of Minnesota and self-admitted knucklehead, who decided to retire rather than to deploy with his National Guard unit, then claimed to have been in Iraq and Afghanistan. 
