Epstein: “I represent the Rothschilds”

Media: “Epstein was a Russian agent”

Faced with all this vileness, put on the armor of God. For we fight not against powers or principalities, but against corruption in high places.
There will be a lot of psyops in the coming days. The wounded beast will dial it up, in desperation.
Be careful.

Too late, EUrocrats. You made your bed, now you lie in it.

One big problem of journalists, both disgraced professionals and eager amateurs, is that we get hung up on what Important People have said, as opposed to things they might have done.

"Something something, someone in power has stated" is a standard news piece. Or outrage over something someone has said, quoting what his or her critics have said.

Ironically, this plays in the court of Team Narrative, which holds that shaping perceptions can shape reality. What better way to do so than to use words, which people then treat like events?

After 25+ years in the media industry, in all sorts of capacities, pardon me if I have no patience for what Someone Has Stated. I will by all means try to extrapolate likely actions from those words, but in the vast majority of cases action is highly unlikely. That's a feature, not a bug, btw.

TL;DR, don't jump on every sensationalist statement you hear in the media, legacy or social. Watch what they do, not what they say. Watch how much better your life will become.

Donald Trump actually called the police on Jeffrey Epstein and urged them to investigate Ghislaine Maxwell.
All this fury over the Epstein Files to "get Trump" and he turns out to be clean, while the files are full of deep state swamp critters. Again.
Just watch, the media will pivot to something else within a day.

The Munich Security Conference is becoming quite notorious for history-changing events. Putin's prophetic speech from 2007 comes immediately to mind, but we should also remember Kamala Harris' disastrous 2022 appearance that made Moscow pull the trigger with the SMO, and JD Vance's 2024 admonishment of EUropeans.

The latter apparently fell on deaf ears, since their big takeaway was that Europe needs to be more independent to champion True Democracy and Liberal Values worldwide. Hence this report detailing how Trumpmerica is Very Bad and Against Democracy.

I would laugh, but it's not funny. It's delusional.

The Yookayians are raising alarms about all sorts of Russian Space Superweapons, from satellite-killers to orbital nukes. It sounds to me like James Bond stuff, conjured as part of a propaganda blitz to deflect from the many failures of the Starmerreich... but no lie, it would be cool of Russia actually had stuff even half as advanced.

But I bet it doesn't. Because nukes in space are very banned and Moscow, unlike the West, takes treaties seriously.

The YooKayians have now tried crashing the Geneva peace talks between Russia, the US and "Ukraine", which is bold even for them. The sheer audacity of believing they are relevant is something to behold. Brings to mind an old Serbian saying about persistence... and another about beating thornbushes with someone else's [redacted].

Anyway, my prediction is that these talks won't amount to much. Russia's objectives are fairly non-negotiable, the regime in Kiev won't accept them so long as they believe they have outside support, and Trump's team is still trying too hard to salvage a win from what should have been a write-off (or is that a write-down? Hey, I'm an analyst, Trump's the real-estate guy).

I would hope the White House paid attention to the Munich conference and saw the reception Rubio's speech got (it's a good speech, btw, don't let the "colonial" spin fool you), as well as the Democrats telling their Eurobuddies to be patient until they seize power again — and realized that they're wasting time on foreign adventures when they should be dealing with Stage 3 malignancy back home. I see no signs of this being the case, however.

Hungary and Slovakia have finally, at long last, halted deliveries of fuel to Ukraine. Because they had no other choice — Kiev's blockade of the Druzhba pipeline means they have around 90 days worth of fuel for their own needs.

Croatia is playing dumb, trying to argue it can't deliver fuel via JANAF because of EU sanctions, but Bratislava and Budapest have said clearly that Zagreb has an obligation to do so under EU rules, and they have an exemption anyway. We'll see what happens there.

The Druzhba shutdown is clearly an attempt by Ukraine to crash the Hungarian economy and propel Orban's opposition to power. I'm actually shocked that Slovakia and Hungary waited this long to respond to Ukraine's repeated provocations and hostile behavior.

Kiev can now use samogon for whatever tanks it still has. Sure it will kill the engines eventually, but they won't survive long enough on the front anyway.

The US is absolutely still planning to strike Iran, but that calculus has been somewhat thrown off by a couple of events. First, the interview Ambassador Mike Huckabee gave to Tucker Carlson, in which he said the quiet part out loud (i.e. that in his reading of the Bible, God Himself gave Israelites the land from the Nile to the Euphrates). Needless to say, the entire Muslim world had thoughts about that — including the countries that had signed the Abraham Accords. Oops.

Of course, the Perpetual War faction blames Tucker, but I keep thinking he had actually arranged this with Trump beforehand. No proof, just a hunch.

The second thing that came up, and bigly, was last night's killing of Cartel Jalisco Nueva Generacion leader "El Mencho" in Mexico, which then triggered a rampage by CJNG members comparable to a low-level civil war and trapped a bunch of American tourists in places like Puerto Vallarta. It won't do to fight Iran when Mexico is right there.

Trump still has to deliver his State of the Union tomorrow, and throw a party for the winning US hockey team. I don't expect any sort of military activity against Iran before Friday. But I do expect something to happen; the troops in the Middle East have reportedly been served steak and lobster and pie. That normally means go time.

Cuba just announced its coast guard had opened fire on a Florida-registered speedboat inside its territorial waters (like, 1 nautical mile off the shore) that fired first. Four people on board the boat were killed and six injured, presumably Americans.
We have a new flashpoint, folks, Ukraine and Iran can take a back seat for a few days. And just as Rubio kicked off the Caribbean tour to advocate regime-change in Havana, too.

Trump's MAGA and MAHA base is firmly against war with Iran. Only the neocons are in favor. I understand why Israel wants the US to fight the war for them. I even understand the Iranians for not wanting to give up their missiles; I wouldn't either. Trump must know that Iran isn't a pushover. Surely he's aware that even his uncanny streak of luck in foreign entanglements is bound to run out someday.

All that aside, getting involved in a war with Iran is just plain stupid when the real battle is at home, against the globalist-liberal cabal working with the EUros to restore the Ancien Regime.

“Epic fury” is what many Americans feel when, instead of what they voted for, they get yet another war in the Middle East.
When you get McCain no matter who you vote for, it’s a matter of time before people decide elections are pointless (and unnecessary).

Notice who endorsed this take. Baris is the best pollster in America by far; he has his finger on the pulse of MAGA.

Even if Trump "wins" this somehow (and no one knows what winning looks like), it's not going to matter one little bit come November. And then we get an (un)civil war in America itself.
At that point, whether this is about a 47-year-old grudge or "smiting Amalek", will anyone still think Iran was worth it?

What if the attack on Iran is part of an imperial policy of isolating China?
That's basically the argument Steven Mosher makes in the New York Post.
He's arguing that "Trump is thinking very bigly" and that all of his moves, from Panama and Venezuela to Greenland and Cuba — and now Iran — are aimed at Beijing.

It is, of course, possible that Trump is not that strategic of a thinker, and that this is in large part about the 47-year-old American vendetta (and Israeli hostility), but there is a pattern and it is alarming enough.

None of this is going to make one bit of difference at home, mind you, so I stand by everything I've said to that effect. But I have a sense this geopolitical angle should not be ignored.

Posted by what appears to be the official account of the Chinese armed forces on X.

Iran’s strategy, insofar as there is one, appears to be taking damage while dishing out pain to both US bases, Israel and - more importantly — the world economy by shutting down oil and gas production in the Gulf.
This puts pressure on the GAE to win quickly, which I am sure it would like — but I can’t see a way it can be done.
We should all prepare for the return of the woke cult, just in case.