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Visualizing Washington’s Key Role In Military Aid To Ukraine

As doubts over future American support for Ukraine and the Trump administration’s commitment to NATO loom large, European leaders have rallied to assure Ukraine of its unwavering support and to become more independent of their transatlantic partner. 

On Thursday, leaders gathered for a special European Council meeting, where the future of Europe’s security and the bloc’s role in Ukraine’s defense against Russian aggression was discussed.

“This is a watershed moment for Europe. And it is also a watershed moment for Ukraine, as part of our European family,” Ursula von der Leyen, president of the European Commission, said in a statement. 

“Europe faces a clear and present danger. And therefore, Europe has to be able to protect itself, to defend itself, as we have to put Ukraine in a position to protect itself, and to push for a lasting and just peace.”

As Statista’s Felix Richter reports, to be able to negotiate a “peace through strength”, as von der Leyen put it, the EU must quickly ramp up its military aid to Ukraine after U.S. President Donald Trump paused U.S. military support earlier this week. 

According to the IfW Kiel’s Ukraine Support Tracker, the EU’s 27 member states have allocated a total of $53.8 billion in military aid to Ukraine between January 24, 2022 and December 31, 2024. 

That’s equivalent to 39 percent of total military aid supplied to Ukraine during that time and roughly $15 billion short of what the U.S. supplied. 

Adding contributions from European non-EU members Norway and the UK, Europe’s military aid to Ukraine was roughly on par with U.S. support so far, meaning it would have to double its investment if the U.S. were to withdraw its support permanently.

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The Deep State’s War on Truth—Waged with Doublespeak, Delusion and Propaganda

The Deep State’s war on truth is being waged with doubletalk, delusion and propaganda.

Through deliberate manipulation of language—what George Orwell called “doublespeak”—Donald Trump has provided cover for the Deep State’s continued grip on power.

While promising to drain the swamp, his administration has instead relied on contradictory policies, misinformation, and propaganda to further entrench the very system he claims to oppose. Although the Trump administration is merely the latest frontman for the Deep State’s efforts to maintain its stranglehold on power, we are approaching a tipping point beyond which there may be no turning back to freedom as we have known it.

This is how “we the people” remain on the losing end of this devil’s bargain that is life in the American police state.

What we desperately need is a reality check, and that starts by disconnecting from the Deep State’s propaganda-riddled, manipulated alternative reality about the state of our nation.

While President Trump, well versed in the “art of the deal,” appears to be saying all the right things about peace, corruption, graft, wasteful spending, free speech, equality, bloated bureaucracy, national security, etc., his administration’s actions tell a far different story about his priorities and his loyalties, which remain self-serving, imperial, flagrantly unconstitutional and intended to keep the Deep State in power.

As always, actions speak louder than words.

When the Constitution and the Bill of Rights are still missing from the White House’s website, that oversight—or deliberate omission—speaks volumes.

Any government that can’t be bothered to include the Constitution among its priorities, or include it anywhere on its administration’s website, is not a government that can be trusted to abide by the Constitution.

Then again, trust has little to do with it.

The Constitution is a contract between the people and the government. What we have been experiencing over the course of both Republican and Democratic presidencies, is a breach of contract. Where the Trump administration differs from those that have come before it is in its willingness to go rogue in defiance of Congress, the courts and the rule of law.

You don’t wage a “common sense” revolution by discarding the Constitution. That way lies dictatorship.

Remember, how you do something is just as important as why you do it.

So, what’s really going on?

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Was October 7 Avoidable?

After the Hamas-led offensive of October 7, 2023, it was portrayed as “Israel’s 9/11,” which came out of the blue. Yet, this assumption is not supported by verified facts, including ignored intelligence, abandoned hostages and neglected Israeli communities around Gaza.

A day after October 7, Eurasia Group’s Ian Bremmer said that the “massive attacks by Hamas leadership into Israel… is no less than Israel’s 9/11.” By contrast, in the same interview for CNBC, I said that October 7 did not come out of the blue. “The Israeli-Hamas War is a logical result of 50 years of failed military policies.” Our views were diametrically opposed.

I had warned of the ticking time bomb in Gaza already in 2018, half a decade before. A day or two before October 7, I wrote an essay on the coming explosion in Gaza. It was not prophetic insight. October 7, 2023, was the 50-year anniversary of the Yom Kippur War and I fully expected a high-profile reaction.

After the brutal Hamas-led assault, Israeli authorities vehemently condemned what they called “our September 11” and a “surprise attack.” But the hard questions were conveniently ignored – and still are.

A week ago, the Israeli Defense Forces’ landmark investigations into the October 7 attack disclosed severe, deep-rooted intelligence miscalculations and fundamental misconceptions on the nature of Hamas and its intentions by both the Israeli government and military. Probing the same attack, Shin Bet, Israel’s internal security service, recently pointed fingers at Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.  Typically, the prime mistakes featured the political conception of Hamas as an Israeli asset, the intelligence misjudgment that it couldn’t launch a large-scale attack, and weak defensive deployment.

The intriguing part of the story is that these facts were pretty well known already in the first days after October 7, 2023 – that is, more than a year ago – as I argue in The Fall of Israel. And there is more to the story.

Why was the abundant intelligence on the impending Hamas attack deliberately ignored? Why were the Israeli hostages effectively abandoned? Why were the strategic border communities neglected? With all its might, backed up with U.S. military aid and financing, how did Israel fail to see the writing on the wall? 

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Panic politics: Law professors’ umpteenth ‘constitutional crisis’ falls flat

It’s only March, and we have yet another declaration of a “constitutional crisis.”

The latest dire declaration comes from roughly 950 law professors, who refer generally to actions and policies implemented by President Trump as “beyond his constitutional or statutory authority.”

So — what happens if the “experts” hold a crisis and no one shows up?

After years of such claims, the perpetual crisis has left a dwindling number of people inclined to panic. Many simply have more pressing matters at the moment and have the same reaction of former Secretary of State Henry Kissinger: “There cannot be a crisis next week. My schedule is already full.”

The latest letter follows a familiar pattern that has played out like a political perpetual motion machine since the first Trump impeachment. It works something like this: A legal academy composed of largely liberal academics announces a “constitutional crisis” caused by conservatives, and then a largely liberal media runs the story with little scrutiny or skepticism. On most echo-chambered media sites, the public rarely hears an opposing view.

The purging of conservative and libertarian faculty from most universities has been a long-standing problem. In self-identified surveys, professors confirm that some departments lack a single Republican. A study by Georgetown University’s Kevin Tobia and MIT’s Eric Martinez found that only 9 percent of law school professors in the top 50 law schools identify as conservative.

Law schools are not unique. A survey conducted by the Harvard Crimson shows that more than three-quarters of Harvard Arts and Sciences and School of Engineering and Applied Sciences faculty respondents identified as “liberal” or “very liberal.” Only 2.5 percent identified as “conservative,” and only 0.4 percent as “very conservative.” A 2017 study found that only 15 percent of faculty members were conservative. Another analysis found that 33 out of 65 departments lacked even a single conservative faculty member.

In other words, it is embarrassingly easy to get 1,000 law professors to sign off on letters claiming endless constitutional crises caused by Trump or conservatives.

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Pausing Aid to Ukraine: The World Should Have Seen It Coming

At the end of June, 2024, the world got its first glimpse at what Donald Trump’s plan to end the war in Ukraine in one day might look like. Retired Lieutenant General Keith Kellogg and former CIA analyst Fred Fleitz submitted a plan to then candidate Trump. In an interview, Kellogg revealed that U.S. leverage would have two fronts. The first is you tell Putin, “He’s got to come to the table and if you don’t come to the table, then we’ll give Ukrainians everything they need to kill you in the field.” And the second is, “We tell the Ukrainians, ‘You’ve got to come to the table, and if you don’t come to the table, support from the United States will dry up.’”

Keith Kellogg now serves as Trump’s special presidential envoy for Ukraine and Russia.

The threat could not have been clearer: continued aid was conditional on Ukraine’s willingness to negotiate an end to the war, and if they were not, then U.S. aid would stop. Knowing that clear conditional, Ukraine’s President, Volodymyr Zelensky, sealed his fate with two sentences.

In the televised February 28 meeting at the White House, U.S. Vice-President J.D. Vance repeated the Trump policy that “the path to peace” is not the path of war, but the path of “engaging in diplomacy.” Zelensky publicly attempted to refute him with the historically revisionist objection that negotiations with Russia’s president, Vladimir Putin, is impossible because Putin cannot be trusted not to break the agreements he signs in negotiations.  “What kind of diplomacy, JD, you are speaking about?” Zelensky objected. “What do you mean?”

Zelensky rejected negotiations as the path to peace. But willingness to travel that path was the condition for continued aid. “If you don’t come to the table,” the plan said, “support from the United States will dry up.’”

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London council chiefs spend £140million to send homeless people out of the capital by snapping up hundreds of properties in deprived areas elsewhere in England

Councils in London have spent more than £140million snapping up homes outside the city to relocate homeless people.  

Local authorities in the capital have acquired more than 850 properties across England since 2017, with many in the most deprived areas of the east and southeast of the country, The Guardian reported. 

Bizarrely, some London councils have already bought properties in the Midlands and are planning to send some people as far as Liverpool and the northeast. 

Officials identified 704 people living on the streets of the capital between October and December last year – a 26 per cent rise on the previous year.

Meanwhile, a total of 4,612 individuals were found to be sleeping rough, a five per cent increase on the year before.

People are deemed to be living on the streets if they have had been seen rough sleeping on several occasions over a period of three weeks or more. 

In order to deal with the scope of the problem, and faced with an extreme shortage of social housing and skyrocketing private rents, more than a dozen local authorities – and the housing companies they partially own – have invested heavily in property outside of London’s boundaries. 

The non-London residences are used to house homeless individuals or families either as temporary emergency accommodation or permanently as a privately rented home. 

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Democracy Dies In Romania… After ‘Winning’ In December, Georgescu Now Banned From May Presidential Election

Is Romania the canary in the ‘death of democracy’ coalmine?

After today’s news, that canary – along with ‘democracy’ – is well and truly dead.

In a stunning turn of events – that we have a feeling could backfire disastrously on the elite establishment – Romania has barred far-right frontrunner Calin Georgescu from running in May’s presidential election, in a move that could worsen the country’s political turmoil.

The Bucharest-based electoral bureau invalidated Georgescu’s candidacy, a spokesman from the bureau said on Sunday. 

It received more than 1,000 challenges to Georgescu’s candidacy mostly related to his so-called anti-democratic and extremist stances. 

The decision can still be appealed at the Constitutional Court.

The decision to eliminate Georgescu from the May 4 presidential race will likely deepen Romania’s anti-establishment mood and benefit the far-right. 

Polls showed that had Georgescu run, he would’ve garnered between 40% and 45% of the vote in the first round, giving him a real chance of becoming Romania’s president.

Georgescu submitted his candidacy for May’s election – as an independent – reminding voters of the utter farce he has been through over the last coupel of months:

“Everyone is watching Romania and how the corrupt system acted,” said Georgescu on Friday, adding that he thought it’s impossible for his name not to be on the ballot’s list of candidates.

“They can’t afford to repeat the mistake.”

Well, they did!

As a reminder, after emerging victorious from the first round of voting in November’s presidential election, Romania’s top court in December to annul the outcome of last year’s presidential vote, which cited suspicions of Russian meddling (via TikTok!?) in his campaign.

Following their decision, the Black Sea bordering nation tumbled into its biggest political crisis since the collapse of communism. 

The decision has also buoyed the success of Romania’s extremist parties, in a country already disillusioned with the political mainstream, prompting massive protests nationwide…

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US B-52 Bomber Flies With Israeli Jets Over Eastern Mediterranean

A US B-52 Stratrofortress bomber flew over the eastern Mediterranean Sea on March 4, marking the third US flyover of the Middle East in the past month, shows of force that are meant as threats toward Iran and its allies in the region.

“Israeli F-35i and F-15i aircraft flew alongside an American US B-52 strategic bomber,” the Israeli military said in a statement on Thursday. “During the flight, the forces practiced operational coordination between the two militaries to enhance their ability to address various regional threats.”

US Central Command (CENTCOM) confirmed that it conducted a “Bomber Task Force Mission in the Middle East.” It said the B-52, which is capable of carrying nuclear weapons, took off from a base in the UK and flew across Europe on its way to the Middle East.

According to Air & Space Forces Magazine, the US bomber “orbited off the coast of Israel,” meaning it likely flew near the besieged Gaza Strip.

The flight came just two weeks after the US sent two B-52 bombers over the Middle East on February 20. CENTCOM said the two bombers “flew across Europe and six partner countries in CENTCOM’s area of responsibility during their mission, which included aerial refueling and training missions at ranges.”

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Israel Cuts Electricity to Gaza, Ramping Up Collective Punishment

Israel on Sunday said it was cutting off electricity to the Gaza Strip as it ramps up the collective punishment of the civilian population to pressure Hamas to release Israeli hostages, violating the ceasefire deal reached in January.

Israeli Energy Minister Eli Cohen made the announcement, saying he instructed the Israel Electric Corporation to immediately stop selling electricity to power stations in Gaza.

“We will employ all the tools available to us so that all the hostages will return, and we will ensure that Hamas won’t be in Gaza on the ‘day after,’” Cohen said. The move is expected to impact Gaza’s water supply since electricity powers desalination plants that produce drinking water.

Since March 2, Israel has blocked the entry of aid, medicine, fuel, and all other goods into Gaza. The UN’s World Food Program has warned that it’s running out of food supplies in Gaza, and Palestinians report a sharp rise in prices since Israel imposed the total siege.

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Oversight Project investigation: Biden autopen signature used on ‘every document we could find’

The Oversight Project, an investigative arm of the conservative Heritage Foundation, alleged an excessive use of autopen signature by former President Biden when he was in the White House.

“We gathered every document we could find with Biden’s signature over the course of his presidency. All used the same autopen signature except for the announcement that the former President was dropping out of the race last year,” the organization wrote on X alongside examples of Biden’s autopen signature. 

The Oversight Project is questioning “who controlled the autopen” because “they controlled the presidency.”

Following the Oversight Project findings, Missouri Attorney General Andrew Bailey called for the Department of Justice to investigate whether Biden’s “cognitive decline allowed unelected staff to push through radical policy without his knowing approval.”

Bailey argued that if the widespread autopen use turns out to be true, “these executive orders, pardons, and all other actions are unconstitutional and legally void.”

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