Det mest skrämmande är väl att det kommer "dubbla budskap" från Washington DC. Är Trump för eller mot Ryssland? Vad anser han om Ukraina, egentligen? Vem representerar CIA-chefen? Och så vidare.
Och varför lämnade Trump sin egen utrikesminister (Rubio) på det mångomtalade "decoy plane"? Rubio är Trumps nykonservativa / interventionistiska förkläde...
Det börjar kanske dra ihop sig till något slags slutkläm på den här historien. October surprise!
Fun fact: one nation in Central America actually is a dictatorship. And it aint El Salvador...
US Secretary of State Marco Rubio is the effective ruler of Venezuela, according to a recent article in the New York Times (a summary from another site below).
This raises all kinds of questions (and, I suppose, eyebrows). For instance, if the "Bolivarian Revolution" has widespread popular support, shouldn´t the people of Venezuela protest or even rebel against Delcy Rodriguez? And why does the "Bolivarian" elite accept the new order anyway?
It seems the revolution has fallen on really hard times since the halcyon days of Hugo Chavez. All it took to make Venezuela a US protectorate was to remove Maduro and his wife! Perhaps Trump assumed that the same strategy would work with Iran, but it seems the Islamic revolution is more viable than the Bolivarian one...
Kanske lite tidigt att ta ut segern i förskott.
Rent politiskt är Marco Rubio antagligen en "nykonservativ" som LARP-ar Trump-nationalist/populist för att hålla Den Store Ledaren (och "basen") på gott humör. Jag tror personligen att Vance egentligen är en ännu värre opportunist, så vad han skulle ta sig till i presidentsitsen går nog inte att förutsäga. Fråga Peter Thiel! Fast hans isolationistiska LARP verkar mer övertygande än många andras.
Ron DeSantis, slutligen, är antagligen också "nykonservativ" men med en märklig förmåga att tilltala de allra knäppaste populisterna (de som vill förbjuda elspisar eftersom det luktar klimatanpassning, et cetera). 2023-2024 tilltalade han även tidigare Trump-väljare som tröttnat på *den* gubbens ständiga idiosynkrasier. Vilket kanske är...ironiskt.
Blodbad 2028?
Here we go again...
The first clip is a long conversation featuring UFO-logist Steven Greer, released on YouTube in late November last year. The second clip is brand new. Greer comments Trump´s order to disclose previously classified UFO files.
I commented Greer many times before. My main problem with this guy is that he´s been saying pretty much the same thing for almost 30 years now. "Disclosure" is always behind the next corner, he´s got friends in high places, yada yada. So far, the only tangible result from his endeavours is a string of books, documentaries, shirts and baseball caps. One of the books supposedly contains Greer´s briefing for Donald Trump!
Greer claims that the aliens are benign. The real national security threat comes from a secret cabal of very human conspirators who has repeatedly shot down UFOs, abducted aliens and retro-engineered their advanced technology. Most of the UFOs we see are human devices controlled by this cabal. It´s a transnational criminal organization and stands above both the American and Russian governments. This neatly explains why the US haven´t used the alien technology to defeat Russia - the tech isn´t controlled by the US military. Presumably, it also explains why neither Russia nor the US have been able to defeat the cabal. Their space ships are simply too strong.
What this scenario *doesn´t* explain is why the aliens can´t attack or otherwise expose the conspirators. It´s also rather remarkable that Greer himself is still alive, able to brief Bill Clinton, Marco Rubio, and so on. He claims to know whistle-blowers who can prove everything he says and has handed over their names and stories to the good guys in the military and administration?! If the cabal is so powerful, why can´t it track down these whistle-blowers and make them disappear?
In other words: none of this makes sense. In the second clip, it´s revealed that Greer has written a speech for Donald Trump in the case of disclosure. Which I suppose could be true - with the addendum that the president will probably never see it! He also claims to have briefed a lot of people surrounding the POTUS, including Rubio, and expresses a hope that an annoucement will actually be made. But then, he said that before, too, and nothing happened.
So I´m not holding my breath.
Please don´t tell me the Dems are seriously contemplating nominating Kamala Harris *again*?!
I have no particular horse in this race (OK, maybe a cute little pony), but if anybody over there wants my advice, I would say that the "best" Dem ticket would be Newsom-Shapiro, while the "best" GOP ticket would be Haley-Rubio. Best from a European perspective, at least. In the long run, we´ll all be dead!
But surely nobody thinks Harris can defeat Vance? Although I suppose there is a slight chance, since Vance - after all - is no Trump. But that can be remedied by the neo-GOP very explicitly making Vance the constitutional place holder for Trump (or Trump jr).
In Sweden, the public service broadcaster is trying to spin Rubio´s speech at Munich as a big win for the European position. Which I suppose it is...kind of. But it seems the US Secretary of State said a few other things in his presentation, too! Too hot?
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| - No, Chuck, I´m still the president! |
Here is the current order of succession to the US presidency. Or rather the five top slots. There are currently 18 persons in the order of succession.
1/ J D Vance (Vice President)
Former opponent of Trump turned sycophantic supporter. Probably weak leader. Controlled by Peter Thiel. Unclear if he can be swayed from a pro-Trump position.
2/ Mike Johnson (Speaker of the House)
Trump supporter, far right Republican, but needs to be pragmatic to make deals in Congress with Democrats and recalcitrant Republicans. Unclear if he can be swayed from a pro-Trump position.
3/ Chuck Grassley (President "pro tempore" of the Senate)
92-year old Senator. Probably a mainstream Republican, but has shown very little opposition to Trump. Would be a purely symbolic figure if appointed president.
4/ Marco Rubio (Secretary of State)
Really a Neo-Con who opportunistically serves under Trump and pretends to be a populist. Would probably break with Trumpism if given a shot at the presidency. But in a Neo-Con direction.
5/ Scott Besent (Secretary of the Treasury)
100% opportunist, openly gay former hedge fund manager who worked for George Soros?! Long-time supporter of Democrats and dissident Republicans who turned pro-Trump in 2016. This guy would absolutely break with Trumpism if given a shot at the presidency. But in what direction? Who knows.
So judging by the above, Trump, Vance, Johnson and Grassley must be removed before we reach the first person we can absolutely count on to break with Trumpism (Rubio). If the Democrats win the midterms, the Speaker of the House will be a Democrat, but even then, both Trump and Vance would have to be removed to make the Speaker president.
It´s hard to imagine an event that could "take out" all these people simultaneously. The bird flu?
So I suppose we all have to wait until the 2028 elections. Or the apocalypse.
Trump is notorious for saying strange shit, so this should probably be taken with a certain grain of salt, but...
Wasn´t the capture of Nicolás Maduro and his wife Cilia Flores a bit *too* easy and convenient? Yesterday, Trump apparently said that Maduro´s vice president, Delcy Rodriguez (photo above), will be allowed to stay in power and "Make Venezuela Great Again". This after a long phone conversation with Marco Rubio?!
Maduro said as late as Friday that he was ready to negotiate with the United States. What if Rodriguez made a secret deal with the Trump administration? She traded Maduro for a chance to stay in power and negotiate some kind of settlement with the US. In other words, the dramatic US "extraction" of Maduro was really a coup within the Venezuelan regime itself.
Note also that while Trump said at his presser in Mar-a-Lago that "we" (the United States) will run Venezuela, the general who spoke after him said that all American troops have already left the country. So how will the United States run Venezuela, I wonder?
Marco Rubio´s latest power move. I mean, Russia and Red China must be literally shaking right now!
A propos the latest "isolationist" moves of the US administration. Maybe it´s time for France to finally step up its game?
Claim: the 28-point American "peace plan" for Ukraine was written by a secretive Russian envoy together with Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner. I assumed Kushner was part of the "pro-Western" and "interventionist" faction of the administration? Note also that both Witkoff and Kushner are Jewish. Why would two Jews side with Russia?
Has the Trump administration fallen victim to Russian "active measures" and been compromised?
According to other claims, the more anti-Russian Marco Rubio then took command of the situation, which explains why the new peace proposal (supposedly at least) is more to the liking of Ukraine, indeed have been negotiated with the Ukrainians themselves.
Trump´s deadline is Thursday, so I suppose we´ll know then. Or maybe we won´t. However, it certainly seems as if the US administration is badly split on the issue. Which frankly doesn´t come as a surprise...
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| A very lonely American eagle |
Persistent rumors the last couple of days that a US attack on Venezuela is imminent. Or at least very close. Meanwhile, the Trump admin is trying *again* to extricate itself from the Ukrainian theatre by secret (!) negotiations with Russia. Which makes sense if we´re dealing with a crypto-isolationist administration only interested in dominating Latin America and the Caribbean (and, I suppose, Canada and Greenland).
How this squares with the constant threats against China is an interesting question. Watch the news for signs of a thaw or modus vivendi with the PRC, demands that Japan and South Korea pay for their defenses, et cetera.
The only anomaly in all this is Israel. Which of course raises eyebrows. Has the US-Israeli alliance gone from being strategic to becoming merely transactional? If so, the Jews seem to be very good at making those transactions. So far, at least.
2026 will probably be the year when the world realizes that Trump is weak outside his own chosen turf, and then we´ll see an insane stampede into an entirely new geopolitical situation. One that´s probably much worse for the Western alliance. Certainly for EU and the European wing of NATO.
Maybe this is the beginning of the end of the "American Century" and the American Empire.
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| Får hyra Sudetlandet? |
Nytt München i vardande? Vi får väl hoppas att det är något slags desinformation från...någon.
Some scary stuff from Scott Carney. His main point is that Ukraine wouldn´t have been invaded if they had kept their nuclear weapons. Without them, "security guarantees" are worthless. Even when given by the United States (note Carney´s pique to Marco Rubio). So the obvious conclusion is for every small nation in a geopolitically volatile region to get their own nuclear weapons.
Carney references a study arguing that even a "limited" nuclear war between India and Pakistan, involving hundreds of warheads, would affect the climate *all over the world*, trigger famine conditions, and so on.
I´m not entirely sure what the 1971 Bangladesh Liberation War has to do with this, however, since the potential nuclear standoff was between the United States and the Soviet Union, not regional powers. (Carney has written an entire book, "The Vortex", about this situation.)
Still, a very...ahem...interesting video.
Liberal gadfly and independent reporter Michael Tracey (once considered something of a MAGA "asset") continues his crusade against the incoming Trump administration, arguing that it isn´t really isolationist.
The pro-Trump cliques in the GOP establishment are just as bellicose and interventionist as the neoconservatives (many of which became Never Trumpers back in 2016). And what about the Donald himself? At what point will MAGA realize that their Messiah, too, is one of the dreaded RINOs of the GOP-e? If you pardon my, ahem, MAGA lingo.
The idea that Trump is somehow fighting the "neocons" is true only in the extremely narrow sense mentioned above: many of the original neocons refused to kiss Trump´s ass and de facto (and sometimes even de jure) regrouped around the Democratic Party instead. But Trump´s actual policies are barely distinguishable from those associated with the neocons.
Here is a key paragraph of Tracey´s essay (linked below):
>>>One of the few permitted critiques of Trump in MAGA/LaLa Land had previously been that Trump was a political novice in the first term, and was beguiled by the wily “neocons” who exploited his youth and inexperience. As facile as that argument was, it at least had the benefit of reflecting some partial reality: Trump indeed had no governing record or long-established political operation. But in 2024, that argument is comically absurd.
>>>Trump singularly dominates the Republican Party more than perhaps any figure in American history, as evidenced by his unprecedented thrice-consecutive presidential nomination. He can pick winners of Republican congressional primaries with a single Truth Social post, and even ousted the chairman of the House Freedom Caucus earlier this year for no apparent reason other than the poor sap’s initial endorsement of Ron DeSantis. He installed his own daughter-in-law to run the Republican National Committee.
>>>By now, he’s had over eight years to assemble a personnel roster that best represents whatever his policy preferences may be — and he has largely assembled a team of “neocons,” if that term had any cognizable meaning, which it doesn’t.
Tracey predicts that the Trump Administration will end up having a worse foreign policy than even the current Biden Administration (which he doesn´t particularly fancy either) by escalating the war in Ukraine, permitting Israel to annex the West Bank and Gaza, and perhaps even launch a bombing campaign against Iran. At least his take on Ukraine is hardly standard orthodoxy.
I suppose we will see soon enough...if we dare looking!
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| Lenin-staty i Tiraspol, Transnistriens s k huvudstad (Credit: David Stanley) |
Funderade för några dagar sedan faktiskt på varför vi inte hört någonting om detta. Men nu verkar det vara dags...
Transnistrien pekas ut som Putins nästa mål
