The Financial Times reports that Kiev is quickly depleting Ukraine’s pool of young men to conscript into its army. To add to its ranks, Kiev has set up checkpoints to catch potential draft evaders. The outlet says Ukraine is struggling to train its soldiers and has begun drafting young men who previously qualified for medical waivers. 

The outlet reports, “To help fill the ranks, Ukrainian officials have set up roadside checkpoints to seek men evading the draft.” It continues, “If they are deemed fit, they are whisked off to draft offices. Online videos of recruitment officers picking men off the streets and forcing them into minivans have gone viral.”

General Valeriy Zaluzhnyi, the commander of Ukrainian forces, explained that Kiev was struggling to train a reserve force. “However, our capacity to train reserves on our own territory is also limited,” he said. “We cannot easily spare soldiers who are deployed to the front, [and] Russia can strike training centers. And there are gaps in our legislation that allow citizens to evade their responsibilities.”

Part of the Great Circle of Life in American schools is that the smart teachers and administrators who like smart students devise tracking systems so the smart kids can have their own classes where they are taught at a quick, less boring rate and get into more advanced materials. Eventually, the dumb teachers and administrators who dislike smart kids cotton on to what the clever ones are doing and shut down tracking in the name of equity. But then the smart grown-ups figure out a new euphemism for tracking that fools the anti-smart forces for awhile. And so the Great Circle grinds on.

Confession: I have a good friend whose daughter was saved by doctors at St. Jude in Memphis. When I read this story of what happened to a white research doctor at St. Jude at the hands of two blacks, I immediately thought of her and all the children individuals affiliated with the hospital have saved.

Worse yet, Alexander Bulakhov died defending his wife and young daughter from two black criminals in what is regarded as America’s largest black city.

According to the Zionist propaganda Hamas is a collection of evil beasts. How do we reconcile this propaganda with the excellent condition of the Israeli women and children hostages released by Hamas?

Despite the Israeli devastation of Gaza and murder of Palestinian women and children, Hamas has obtained a victory of sorts. Netanyahu’s vicious attack on civilians has exposed the underbelly of the Apartheid Zionist State. It is no longer possible for Israel’s apologists to maintain that “Israel can do no wrong.”

For decades Israel has been slowly but surely squeezing Palestinians out of Palestine. The world has tolerated it, in part because the Zionist violence was limited in time and extent and the impossible situation papered over with talk about the “two-state solution.” But this time, the violence is unlimited and has the declared aim of emptying Palestine of Palestinians with Gazans driven into tent cities in Eqypt’s Sinai Desert. It is not another case of emptying one specific village in the West Bank or a limited incursion into Gaza. This time the world is faced with a declared Zionist agenda of genocide.

The regional reverberations of the Israel-Gaza war demonstrate why the White House should scrap, not reinforce, America’s outdated and unnecessarily provocative troop presence in Syria and Iraq.

President Joe Biden should redeploy these forces to a safer position offshore and leave it to self-interested Syrians and Iraqis to prevent ISIS from reemerging. As Biden’s own policy on Afghanistan demonstrated — and as I observed on the ground earlier this fall — withdrawing U.S. soldiers and Marines can bolster American security by turning the fight against Islamic State over to well-motivated local belligerents while freeing up U.S. personnel to serve in more vital areas.

Likewise, pivoting out of Syria and Iraq will not make Americans any less safe, but it will deny local militias, and their presumptive patrons in Iran, the chance to use unneeded outposts for leverage over our national strategy.

As one of America’s closest allies, Israel has remained heavily dependent on the US —politically, economically, and militarily—since its creation in 1948.

US arms supplies, mostly provided gratis, are channeled via US Foreign Military Financing (FMF), Military Assistance Program (MAP) and Excess Defense Articles (EDA).

According to the Congressional Research Service (CRS), the US has provided more foreign assistance to Israel since World War II than to any other country.

The Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI) documented that the United States supplied 79 percent of all weapons transferred to Israel from 2018-2022.

Is the Ukraine really in a ‘stalemate’? Experts warn that it is worse than that.

Ukraine’s summer counteroffensive, heralded by Kyiv and some Western observers as a turning point in the war, has failed to deal anything approaching a decisive blow to Russian forces in Ukraine.

By most measures, Ukraine’s Armed Forces (AFU) have made only modest progress in dislodging Russian troops from their entrenched positions in the country’s south. When compared against assessed Russian advances in the same period, Ukraine’s counteroffensive appears even less impactful.

Further still, as observed by Foreign Affairs, “Russia has actually gained more territory over the course of 2023 than Ukraine has.”

The AFU appears no closer to achieving one of its potential victory conditions — namely, retaking the southern city of Melitopol with the aim of making Russia’s presence in Crimea untenable — in late November 2023 than it was at the beginning of summer.

Over the past three days, cooking gas has entered Gaza, however, the amounts fall well below the needs. Queues at a filling station in Khan Younis have reportedly extended for about 2 kilometres, with people waiting at them overnight. Meanwhile, reports indicate that people are burning doors and window frames to cook.

The Gaza government’s media office said on Sunday that the Israeli army has dropped 40,000 tons of explosives on the Gaza Strip since Oct. 7, with the apparent goal of rendering the enclave uninhabitable, Anadolu Agency reports.

Salama Maarouf, the head of the media office, issued a statement on Telegram on the third day of the temporary humanitarian pause between Israel and Hamas, which came into effect on Friday morning.

“The Israeli occupation forces have dropped 40,000 tons of explosives on the Strip (since Oct. 7), and the atrocities of the occupation (forces) have unfolded away from the scrutiny of cameras,” Marouf said.

He explained that “the bombs recently used by the occupation (forces) have never been used before, and hundreds of martyrs are buried in the places where they died. The devastation by the occupation (forces) reflects its intent to make Gaza uninhabitable.”

Palestinian-American supermodel Gigi Hadid has condemned Israel for being “the only country that keeps children as prisoners of war.” Her post on Instagram came as Palestinian children were being released from Israeli military prisoners as part of the terms of a truce.

Israel and Hamas agreed to a four-day ceasefire starting on Friday 24 November, the deal included the release of 150 Palestinians who had been detained by Israeli occupation forces in the occupied West Bank, all of whom were tried in military court or were being held without charge or trial. Some 50 Israeli prisoners of war would also be released as part of the deal.

The Turkish media has a “big role” in proving the use of white phosphorus by Israel in the Gaza Strip, a French lawyer has said, Anadolu Agency reports.

Gilles Devers, the lawyer who advocates Palestinians’ rights at the International Criminal Court (ICC), attended a meeting in the Parisian suburb of Stains on Saturday about the complaint that was filed on Nov. 9 against Israel’s alleged war crimes.

He criticized the French officials for their indifference towards what happens in the Middle East and the attacks targeting Palestinian civilians.

Devers recalled that the ICC was the only judicial body where Palestine was considered equal to other states.

The lawyer added that Türkiye and Algeria were the two countries who openly supported the ICC.

The world’s largest bank is facing a $600 million defamation lawsuit for allegedly spreading misinformation, blocking transactions and severely damaging the reputation of a multi-million dollar business.

Sinai Holdings, a Florida-based medical services company, claims the bank erroneously placed the company and its owner Jacob Gitman on a list of individuals and entities to be avoided.

For years, Gitman says Chase rejected his company’s transactions and destroyed its reputation by essentially telling customers that Sinai Holdings was being monitored by the Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC), which administers and enforces sanctions against individuals and countries.

“OFAC sanctions are for human traffickers or terrorists or people who are proliferating weapons of mass destruction… Chase knows that there are no OFAC investigations or no sanctions, yet they still continue to put that in written correspondence to customers to explain why a transaction is canceled.”

Insider reported:

The deployment of AI-controlled drones that can make autonomous decisions about whether to kill human targets is moving closer to reality, The New York Times reported.

Lethal autonomous weapons, that can select targets using AI, are being developed by countries including the U.S., China and Israel.

The use of the so-called “killer robots” would mark a disturbing development, say critics, handing life and death battlefield decisions to machines with no human input.

Several governments are lobbying the UN for a binding resolution restricting the use of AI killer drones, but the U.S. is among a group of nations — which also includes Russia, Australia and Israel — who are resisting any such move, favoring a non-binding resolution instead, The Times reported.

I guess it’s no surprise that Derek Chauvin has been stabbed almost to death in prison.

The Minneapolis cop convicted of murdering George Floyd in 2020 has been thoroughly scrubbed of his personhood, let alone his rights. 

Nobody bothered to tell his family or his lawyer that another inmate had attacked him Saturday. 

Despite being the most notorious ex-cop in America, he wasn’t protected from violent prisoners.

The fact he was even in the ill-run federal prison in Tucson, Ariz., 1,638 miles from his family, speaks volumes.

Poland is poised to become Germany’s largest-ever vassal state upon former Prime Minister and European Commission President Donald Tusk’s likely return to the premiership following the liberal-globalist opposition coalition’s victory in last month’s elections. Those who are interested in learning more about how this is expected to unfold should review this analysis here, which focuses on how the interplay between EU, German, and NATO policies will likely lead to this geopolitical outcome.

Since that fateful vote took place, Polish truckers now even farmers have imposed a de facto blockade against Ukraine that the outgoing government hasn’t broken, which can be regarded as that party’s last power play aimed at giving their country a fighting chance at preserving some of its sovereignty. Here’s a collection of news items about this development from the beginning of the month in order to bring readers up to speed since the Western media hasn’t given it the attention that it deserves:

Earlier this month, a group of about 20 distressed White House staffers requested a meeting with President Biden’s top advisers, as Israel’s war in Gaza entered its sixth week.

The diverse group of staffers had three main issues they wanted to discuss with White House Chief of Staff Jeff Zients, senior adviser Anita Dunn and deputy national security adviser Jon Finer: They wanted to know the administration’s strategy for curbing the number of civilian deaths, the message it plans to send on the conflict and its postwar vision for the region.

Zients, Dunn and Finer listened respectfully, but some participants felt they fell back on familiar talking points, said a White House official familiar with the meeting, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss a private exchange. The administration had to be careful not to criticize Israel in public so it could influence its leaders in private, the advisers said. U.S. officials were pushing Israel to minimize civilian casualties. And the president and his top aides were advocating for a two-state solution once the conflict was over.

The Democratic Party is united — for now. Fear and loathing of Donald Trump keeps the various Democratic factions in a precarious peace. But labor v. environment, Jewish vote v. Muslim vote, and center-left v. hardcore progressivism cannot remain at bay forever. The fiercest battle may well be the looming civil war between Vice President Kamala Harris and California Gov. Gavin Newsom for the party leadership once President Biden leaves the stage.

And it won’t be pretty.

When Biden named Harris his running mate, he conferred on her heir-apparent status. The pick made sense. VP nominees are mostly about pulling together party divisions or offsetting the nominee’s weaknesses. As an old, white male Catholic, Biden running with a minority female checked some important identity boxes. And, in 2020 with a campaign hobbled due to covid restrictions, Harris did just fine. The “not Trump” campaign worked.

New US House Speaker Mike Johnson struck a blow for liberty and justice last week when he finally authorized the release of all the tapes from the January 6, 2021 “insurrection.” We were told by no less than President Biden himself that this was the “worst attack on our democracy since the Civil War.”

The FBI was unleashed by the Biden Administration to hunt down hundreds of participants in this “insurrection” and lock them up in the gulag where they awaited trial in torturous conditions – many in solitary confinement.

A Congressional Committee was set up under then-Speaker Nancy Pelosi to “get to the bottom” of the “Trump-led insurrection.” It did not include a single Representative nominated by the opposition Republican Party, but rather two “Republicans” – Liz Cheney and Adam Kinzinger – who could be relied on by Pelosi and the Democrats to toe the line.

In short, the whole thing was an old-fashioned Soviet show trial, where the evidence was kept secret and the pre-determined verdict – guilty – was to be used to tighten the grip of the ruling regime and intimidate any further dissenters into silence. The message was clear: “speak out against the ‘perfection’ of the 2020 election and you may find yourself in the gulag along with the insurrectionists.”

It was terrifying and profoundly anti-American.

For those who missed it or chose to ignore it, there was a large demonstration in Washington on Tuesday the 14th dubbed the “March for Israel” with many posters and signs featuring “Israel We Stand With You.” I have no big problem with Americans “standing with Israel” as long as they go over to Israel to do it and in some cases at least put their own lives at risk in so doing, but that is not the way they operate. What I do have a problem with is the cause they are supporting, namely the ethic cleansing of an entire nation or even, if required to do that, a military style genocide of the inhabitants of an area that was entirely populated by an ethnic group called Palestinians before Israel’s mostly European immigrants entered the scene and used foreign provided force majeur to steal the land and property. While so doing they were also killing thousands of locals and forcing three quarters of a million more to abandon their homes and spend their lives in refugee camps, a process of ethnic cleansing that has continued and been expanded through the creation of illegal settlements since the founding of the Jewish state 75 years ago.

The rally was organized by the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations and the Jewish Federations of North America in solidarity with Israel’s response to the October 7th Hamas attack. Apart from backing the Israeli government in its devastating counterattack on Gaza, the stated goals of the rally were to support Israel in general, to call for the release of the hostages taken by Hamas, and to combat antisemitism. “Rising antisemitism” allegedly followed the October 7th Hamas attack and the Israel reaction that marked the start of the war.

Webmaster addition: It turns out many of those at the March for Israel were paid to be there!

The recent political landscape in Europe reflects a notable shift, with nationalist sentiments gaining traction across several nations. 

AI is coming for all knowledge jobs. It will take the place of thinking and turn humans into “arms and legs” with no brain needed and eliminate a huge number of jobs. 

The 10-year Treasury yield set off roaring alarms about the U.S. budget when it surged to 5% last month. Now those warnings look like a fire drill. Federal Reserve rate hikes seem to be over for now, giving the bond market a reprieve and allowing a powerful S&P 500 rally to resume.

Enjoy it while it lasts. The next debt scare may be the real thing, and it could rock the U.S. economy and stock market.

Here's why: The Fed's historic turnabout, from enabling massive budget deficits to directing the sharpest rate hikes in 40 years, has seemingly broken the budget. Treasury market stress is almost certain to return.

The era of Fed quantitative easing and near-zero interest rates promoted carefree fiscal policies that led the U.S. to rack up $20 trillion in federal debt since the 2008 financial crisis.

Webmaster addition:

Five Palestinians were killed late on 25 November and early the next day during a brutal Israeli raid in the occupied West Bank city of Jenin. 

Israeli troops stormed the city “from multiple directions … while opening gunfire indiscriminately, sparking confrontations with the local residents,” WAFA news agency reported. 

At least six other Palestinians were wounded as a result of the raid in Jenin. Among the five killed were members of the Jenin Brigade, one of the West Bank branches of the Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ) movement’s armed wing, the Quds Brigades. 

United States President Joe Biden has said there is a “real” chance that a four-day pause in Israel’s war on Gaza could be extended.

“I think the chances are real,” he told reporters on Friday, while also refusing to speculate on how long the war that started on October 7 after a surprise Hamas attack inside Israel could last.

An ethnic minority armed group in Myanmar has seized control from the country’s ruling junta of a lucrative border crossing to China, local media and a security source said Sunday.

Clashes have raged across Myanmar‘s northern Shan state, close to the Chinese border, after an armed alliance of three ethnic minority groups launched an offensive against the military in October.

The groups have seized dozens of military positions and a town important for trade with China, choking commerce routes for the cash-strapped junta.

Jordan’s Foreign Minister Ayman Safadi said Sunday he hopes a meeting of Mediterranean officials will help bridge a gap between Arab and European countries in calling for a humanitarian pause in Gaza to become a permanent cease-fire.

The fragile pause in hostilities between Israel and the Hamas militant group continued Sunday with a third straight day of hostages and Palestinian prisoners released. It was originally scheduled for four days and neither side has made fully clear what comes after Monday.

Safadi said the truce was holding up but that more effort was needed to reach at least 200 daily trucks bringing aid into the Gaza Strip, and for the pause in the fighting “to immediately develop into a permanent cease-fire.”

The minister spoke to The Associated Press on the eve of Monday’s Union for the Mediterranean gathering that will bring to Barcelona in northern Spain 42 delegations from Europe, the Middle East and northern Africa, many of them represented by their foreign ministers.

In the wake of Trudeau Liberals’ decisions to cut funding to the Canadian military while allocating substantial aid to Ukraine, including a significant arms donation, Chief of Defence Staff General Wayne Eyre’s startling admissions reveal a military on the brink—shortages in personnel, urgent readiness rebuilding needed, low equipment serviceability rates, critically low ammunition, and deteriorating infrastructure. 

In a profound awakening, people are grappling with the bitter truth that their long-held beliefs, particularly within the Democratic Party, have not translated into tangible improvements in jobs, education, or community investments.

When I wrote my series on why Americans are moving away from organized religion, I didn’t focus specifically on those under 30, even though I knew they were the least religiously affiliated. I wanted to tell the full story that included different age groups because in recent decades, all age groups have seen a decline in religious participation. The sociological term for the unaffiliated is “nones,” a catchall for atheists, agnostics and those who say they have no religion in particular.

I also thought that for the youngest adults, the move away from traditional worship was just an extension of the overall trend: a combination of fewer of them being raised by religious parents, a greater social acceptance of not identifying as a person of faith and a cultural association between conservative political beliefs and Christianity that started years before the first Zoomer was born.

But after more reading, rumination and reporting, I think there’s something slightly new happening for Gen Z and the youngest millennials. So I turned again to Ryan Burge, a political scientist at Eastern Illinois University who is a pastor and the author of “The Nones: Where They Came From, Who They Are and Where They Are Going.” He told me: “The estimates vary on this, but it’s empirically defensible to say that at least 40 percent of Gen Z are nones now.”