The Russian economy is doing great by any measure, and if you compare it to what is happening in the West, it is like the ultimate dragon from the best manga farting on a crippled raccoon.

The media doesn’t like to report it.

I mean, it’s obvious these people don’t totally run everything.

Don’t believe unhinged conspiracy theories.

Gaza’s fragile ecosystem could be permanently damaged by a huge influx of salty seawater like that which Israel is considering pumping into the city, experts said. Some of the deepest tunnels dug by Hamas and other militant groups could be near groundwater depths, souring the area’s drinking water.

According to reports in US media on Tuesday, Israel has pushed ahead with plans to flood Gaza City with seawater in an attempt to destroy the network of tunnels dug beneath the city by Palestinian militant groups.

According to the report, the IDF finished assembling five massive seawater pumps north of the Al-Shati refugee camp in the northern Gaza Strip in mid-November. The plan is reportedly to flood the tunnels slowly over several weeks, giving Palestinian fighters and their Israeli captives time to safely evacuate.

The US Justice Department gave Hunter Biden preferential treatment during a probe into his alleged criminal misconduct and then attempted to hide evidence of their actions, three US House committees said on Tuesday.

The House Judiciary, Ways and Means, and Oversight Committees released an interim staff report detailing the Justice Department’s treatment of Biden, who was under investigation by the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) and FBI.

"The Committees’ investigative work to date has revealed that the Justice Department afforded Hunter Biden — the President’s son — preferential treatment throughout its investigation of his numerous alleged crimes, and then sought to cover up its actions after two courageous IRS agents stepped forward to blow the whistle on the Department’s deviations from its investigative standards," the report said.

The Justice Department delayed its investigation into Biden, worked to remove Biden’s name from search warrants and subpoenas, restricted investigators from asking witnesses about US President Joe Biden during interviews and tipped off defense attorneys about their investigation, the report said.

China has commissioned what is believed to be the first fourth-generation nuclear power plant located in the country's eastern province of Shandong, the Chinese National Energy Administration (NEA) announced on Wednesday.

The Chinese energy department said that a high-temperature gas-cooled reactor at the Shidao Bay nuclear power plant, also known as Shidaowan, was put into commercial operation after 168 hours of continuous work.

"China has reached a world-leading level in the research, development and application of fourth-generation nuclear energy technologies," the NEA said in a statement.

The likely nature of a strange repeating signal emanating from the vicinity of the supermassive black hole at the center of our galaxy has apparently been deduced by researchers from the National Autonomous University of Mexico.

Having analyzed data gathered by the Fermi Gamma-Ray Space Telescope between June and December last year, researchers have concluded that a flare of gamma radiation is emitted every 76 minutes or so from that area.

These gamma rays supposedly originate from a blob of gas that is spinning around the black hole in question, Sagittarius A*, at very high speed (approximately one third of the speed of light).

Russian President Vladimir Putin will meet Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman in Saudi Arabia on Wednesday, during a rare trip abroad, to discuss oil production, OPEC+ and the wars in the Gaza Strip and Ukraine.

Putin's meeting with the prince, known as MbS, comes after oil prices fell despite a pledge by OPEC+, which groups the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries and allies led by Russia, to further cut output.

For the first time since the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) launched a ground attack on Gaza, dozens of tanks and infantry are now fighting in the heart of a major city in the southern half of the Strip.

Until now, the IDF was focusing its operations in the north but following last week's temporary truce it has clearly expanded the combat focus also to the main southern city of Khan Younis - where the IDF believes Hamas' top commanders are hiding.

As many as 36 groups advocating free speech, the Free Speech Alliance, have turned to US Congress with a request to stop any further funding of NewsGuard.

NewsGuard is an outfit that describes itself as countering “misinformation on behalf of news consumers, brands and democracies.”

That “mission” also includes (trust) rating system for news sites – right in people’s browsers.

But members of the Free Speech Alliance, and those supporting it are not buying this pitch, summing up and denouncing NewsGuard instead as an ideologically-motivated “internet traffic cop.”

And they are warning that taxpayer money should never have been spent on financing it, and its ilk – and even less so, that the US authorities should continue to spend taxpayer money on what is described as politically motivated censorship of speech.

People’s Servant Party leader Davyd Arakhamia (2nd from left) at the peace talks between delegations from Russia and Ukraine in Turkey, March 29, 2022. (Photo by Lokman Akkaya/Anadolu Agency via Getty Images)

A top Ukrainian official has newly confirmed that the war could have ended – and tens of thousands of lives could have been saved – had Ukraine and its NATO allies accepted a peace deal with Moscow weeks after the February 2022 invasion.

Davyd Arakhamia is the parliamentary leader of Volodymyr Zelensky’s Servant of the People party, and head of the Ukrainian delegation at the spring 2022 peace talks held in Istanbul. In an interview last month, Arakhamia acknowledged that the Russians “were prepared to end the war if we agreed to – as Finland once did – neutrality, and committed that we would not join NATO.” For Moscow, he added, Ukrainian neutrality was “the key point” and “the biggest thing for them.”

Polling continues to show that the majority of Americans favor a lasting ceasefire in Gaza, a position the Biden administration has rejected.

The latest poll from Data for Progress found that 61% of American voters support the idea of the US calling for a “permanent” ceasefire in Gaza and a general de-escalation of violence, including 76% of Democrats, 49% of Republicans, and 57% of independent or third-party voters.

When presented with arguments for and against the idea of a ceasefire, 52% of respondents still supported a permanent truce, while 34% opposed the idea, and 14% said they didn’t know what position to take.

The poll was conducted from November 22 to 25 and surveyed 1,201 likely American voters. An earlier poll conducted by Data for Progress in October found stronger support for the US calling for a ceasefire, with 66% of respondents in favor, but it did not use the term “permanent” when posing the question.

The House on Tuesday passed a resolution that says “anti-Zionism is antisemitism,” the chamber’s latest piece of legislation conflating criticism of Israel with antisemitism.

The resolution, which is presented as a resolution condemning antisemitism, passed in a vote of 314-14-92. Only thirteen Democrats and one Republican voted against the legislation, while 92 Democrats voted “present” in protest of a line buried in the bill that explicitly claims anti-Zionism is antisemitism.

The Republican-drafted resolution declares that the House of Representatives “clearly and firmly states that anti-Zionism is antisemitism.”

Amnesty International conducted an investigation that found Israel targeted two Gaza homes with American-made Joint Direct Attack Munitions (JDAM), killing over 40 people, including 19 children. The group said the US has an “outsized role and responsibility” in using its leverage to curb civilian casualties in the besieged enclave. 

“JDAM were used by the Israeli military in two deadly, unlawful air strikes on homes full of civilians in the occupied Gaza Strip. The organization found that these air strikes were either direct attacks on civilians or civilian objects or indiscriminate attacks and is calling for them to be investigated as war crimes,” Amnesty International’s investigation found. “[Amnesty International] found distinctive fragments of the munition in the rubble of destroyed homes in central Gaza following two strikes that killed a total of 43 civilians – 19 children, 14 women, and 10 men. In both cases, survivors told Amnesty International there had been no warning of an imminent strike.”

Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo called for tighter export controls on advanced technologies going to China and labeled Beijing “the biggest threat we’ve ever had.”

Raimondo made the comments at the annual Reagan National Defense Forum in California. “On matters of national security, we got to be eyes wide open about the threat. This is the biggest threat we’ve ever had,” she said.

Raimondo said there were areas where the US and China could cooperate and that Washington needed to manage its relationship with Beijing but added, “Make no mistake about it, China’s not our friend.”

Since taking her post as commerce secretary, Raimondo has overseen a ramping up of significant economic sanctions on China, including recent measures to limit Beijing’s access to advanced semiconductors. The US justifies the restrictions by claiming it’s trying to prevent China’s military from using the technology, but the chips being banned have many different uses.

Tempers boiled over during a classified Senate briefing on Ukraine on Tuesday afternoon, when Republican senators insisted on talking about security along the U.S.-Mexico border while Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) and military officials tried to keep the discussion focused on the war.  

Schumer accused Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell (Ky.) of attempting to hijack the meeting on Ukraine’s defense needs to have an unrelated conversation on border security.  

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky was scheduled to attend the briefing via a secure video conference call but canceled his appearance shortly before the meeting.

This is like the second holocaust according to the people at Breitbart:

The article defaming Massie is written by Joel Pollak, the Jewish man who runs the site.

He felt the need to directly cover the scandal of an American patriot who is not sufficiently loyal to Israel.

Kyiv Mayor Vitali Klitschko has said Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky is turning Ukraine into an authoritarian state as public criticism of Ukrainian leadership is becoming more common.

“At some point we will no longer be any different from Russia, where everything depends on the whim of one man,” Klitschko, a former heavyweight boxing champion, told Germany’s Der Spiegel.

In a separate interview, Klitschko also sided with Ukrainian Commander-in-Chief Gen. Valery Zaluzhny, who was recently rebuked by Zelensky for saying the war had turned into a stalemate and that there was no chance of a breakthrough.

“[Zaluzhny] told the truth,” Klitschko told the Swiss outlet 20 Minutes. “Some may not want to hear the truth [but] we can’t lie to our people and partners indefinitely.”

US officials are considering forming a Red Sea task force with other nations after a series of attacks by Yemen’s Houthis against commercial shipping that’s come in response to the Israeli onslaught in Gaza.

“We are in talks with other countries about a maritime task force of sorts involving the ships from partner nations alongside the United States in ensuring safe passage of ships in the Red Sea,” National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan said on Monday.

Sullivan’s comments came a day after the Pentagon said a US Navy destroyer, the USS Carney, responded to attacks on three commercial vessels in the Red Sea that were launched from Houthi-controlled areas of Yemen. The Pentagon said the USS Carney shot down three drones heading in its direction, but Sullivan said the US “cannot assess” if the US warship was purposely targeted.

Over the summer of 2023, the library problem became too big to ignore. In July 2023, an irate mother appealed the St. Joseph County public library’s decision not to remove This Book is Gay from the library’s teen section. This Book is Gay introduces children to anal and oral sex, how to operate sex apps which would expose them to child molesters, and coprophagy.[i] Amy Drake was elected to the St. Joseph County Council on an anti-Covid lockdown platform, but soon found herself caught up in the library battle which succeeded the Covid lockdown as the main vehicle the Democrats used to ensure their lock on political power in the county. Both Drake and the irate mothers entered the debate over obscene library books under the assumption that Robert’s rules of order still held sway over public gatherings in South Bend, when in fact the culture wars had become the real paradigm for rules of engagement. Amy Drake realized too late that she had showed up for a gunfight wielding a butter knife:

It was clear when I walked into the library board meeting that the left had mobilized. I had seen a Nextdoor message desperately trying to get people to the meeting earlier in the day. Some wore masks; [some wore] t-shirts that proclaimed “Bans off Our Books,” and “My pronouns are they/them”; someone carried in a mug declaring: “Fighting Hate; Teaching Tolerance; Seeking Justice.” One person walked in and said, “This is so exciting.” Women behind me talked about how important it is to protect the library.[ii]

Last month, a Gazan journalist ventured into the hospital to find an awful visual: decomposing bodies of four babies, eaten by worms, blackened by mold, mauled by stray dogs.

Al-Nasr Children’s Hospital director Bakr Qaoud told The Washington Post that at the height of Israel’s assault on northern Gaza in November, everybody was ordered to evacuate.

The whereabouts of the parents of the infants, born premature, were not known after a month of war.

There were a total of five infants Qaoud was taking care of. All of them were vulnerable.

They needed oxygen, and medication administered at regular intervals. There were no portable respirators or incubators to transport them. Without life support, the nurse feared, they wouldn’t survive an evacuation, the newspaper reported.

However, after the Israeli Defense Force delivered an ultimatum on November 10, he had no choice but to carry the baby he thought will survive with a temporary cut to his oxygen supply. He had to leave the other four babies, reluctantly, with their breathing machines on.

At least 85 civilians were killed when an army drone attack erroneously targeted a religious gathering in northwest Nigeria, officials confirmed Tuesday, as the president ordered an investigation into the latest in a series of such deadly mistakes in Nigeria’s conflict zones.

The strike took place Sunday night in Kaduna state’s Tudun Biri village while residents observed the Muslim holiday marking the birthday of the Prophet Muhammad, government officials said. The military believed it was “targeting terrorists and bandits,” officials said.

At least 66 people also were injured in the attack, the National Emergency Management Agency said in a statement. Eighty-five bodies, including of children, women and the elderly, have been buried so far, as a search continues for any additional victims, the agency said.

A relative of newly-released Israeli captives has publicly accused the Israeli military of killing its own people and says Tel Aviv is blocking the victims’ families from speaking out. 

In testimony delivered to Israel’s finance committee on December 3, Noam Dan, whose cousin’s husband remains in Hamas custody and who suffered the loss of two other family members in the hostilities, told legislators the Israeli military has killed its own.

“We know for sure that three people were killed by our fire, three hostages,” she declared, while demanding to be informed of whether the families of captives “were given up on” by the Netanyahu administration.

Vice Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Adm. Christopher Grady said the Pentagon was prepared to fight a proxy war against Russia in Ukraine, aid the Israeli onslaught in Gaza, and arm Taiwan for a potential war with China. The Admiral argued all the military efforts could be completed simultaneously and the Navy was not stretched thin. 

At an Atlantic Council event, Grady said, “You look at what is required to support Ukraine, look at what might be required to support our partner in Israel, and then, of course, you put Taiwan on top of that—we have the construct that we do with combatant commanders and the rest that should allow us to command and control those three things all at one time.” He continued, “It’s part of our campaigning process, which is central to the national defense strategy. Is it challenging? Sure.”

After Russia invaded Ukraine in February 2022, the Biden administration pledged to give Ukraine the weapons needed to win the war. Over the past 19 months, Washington has sent Kiev tens of billions in arms. 

Joe Biden, in concert with American public opinion, soured on the long U.S. military disasters in Iraq and Afghanistan and finally withdrew U.S. forces from the two-decade disaster in Afghanistan, even though other prior presidents lacked the courage to carry out what was likely to be—and was—a messy exit. Yet one must not lose sight of the fact that the very experienced and effective president is a traditional foreign policy interventionist who believes that the United States should continue to lead the world through military actions and informal and formal security alliances, pledging to protect other countries.

In a recent speech, Biden reiterated his advocacy of an expansive global U.S. security umbrella: “American leadership is what holds the world together. American alliances are what keep us, America, safe. American values are what make us a partner that other nations want to work with. To put all that at risk if we walk away…, it’s just not worth it.” Echoing their leader, other U.S. officials claim that alliances are a bastion of a “rules-based international order.”

As the Israeli army's brutality against civilians in Gaza continues, with attacks on schools, health centres and hospitals, a religious leader from the Iranian Jewish community made a bold comparison between the Israeli government and the extremist group ISIS.

In a recent interview with the Javan Daily, Rabbi Younes Hamami Lalehzar stated, "The phenomenon of Zionism in the Jewish religion is akin to Daesh in Islam." Daesh is the Arabic acronym for ISIS in the Middle East.

He continued, "They, like Daesh, present the most radical and extremist narratives of the religion as the only accurate narrative. The narratives that Zionism introduces about Judaism have no basis in this religion."

This is a decisive moment in Israel’s war with Hamas. It’s also a hugely dangerous one for both sides.

The resumption of a brutal bombing campaign on the south of Gaza was impelled by an overwhelming feeling in the war cabinet, the media, and among the majority of Israelis that the war should go on, that Hamas should be dealt a final blow.

The Israeli public wants vengeance, and they still do not feel that they have had it.

Faced with the blunt choice of a further exchange of hostages and prisoners and returning to the ground offensive, the war cabinet decisively chose war.

The measure in question would expand compensation under the Radiation Exposure Compensation Act (RECA) to cover Idaho, Missouri, Montana, New Mexico, Guam and Colorado and extending it for a further 19 years.

Several communities that were on the front lines of U.S. atomic testing are not covered by the current RECA, which is set to expire in May. 

However, it’s not clear whether the measure will make it into the annual National Defense Authorization Act and ultimately across the finish line.