Tag: perpetual war

Columbia University Folds After Trump Imposes Federal Funding Freeze — Suspends and Expels Students Involved in Anti-Israel Protests

It seems like Columbia University is finally getting the message.

The New York University, long considered one of the world’s leading academic institutions, has announced it will suspend, expel, and even revoke the degrees of students involved in last year’s anti-Israel protests.

The sanctions were confirmed by the Columbia University Judicial Board on Thursday, which said their extent would depend on the severity of their behaviors.

“The outcomes issued by the UJB are based on its evaluation of the severity of behaviors at these events and prior disciplinary actions,” the university said in a statement sent to the entire school community.

“These outcomes are the result of following the thorough and rigorous processes laid out in the Rules of University Conduct in our statutes, which include investigations, hearings and deliberations.”

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Zelensky Lashes Out as Putin Accepts US-Ukraine Ceasefire Plan

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky wasted no time in reacting to Russian President Vladimir Putin’s acceptance of a proposed 30-day ceasefire, calling it a “manipulative” move aimed at stalling rather than ending the war.

Russian President Vladimir Putin announced Thursday that he is open to a U.S.-backed proposal for a 30-day ceasefire in Ukraine. However, his agreement came with a key stipulation—direct discussions with President Donald Trump.

It can be recalled that Russian President Vladimir Putin signaled to Washington in 2023 in public and privately through intermediaries that he was ready to open to a ceasefire in Ukraine. Putin’s proposal was to freeze the war along current lines, which includes territory gained by Russia.

Sources told Reuters that this approach from Putin offered what some Kremlin figures saw as the best hope for some form of peace. But Biden and his Regime rejected the proposal without countering, as one Russian source lamented.

Another Russian source explained that the Regime insisted on involving Ukraine in any discussion regarding a possible ceasefire. This immovable position caused the talks to collapse completely.

In 2024, Putin offered a peace proposal to Ukraine to permanently end the war in Ukraine and begin negotiations.

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Record dropouts in Bundeswehr as delusional EU/NATO still mulls going to Ukraine

It’s no secret that Western militaries have suffered from poor recruitment for years. Virtually all EU/NATO members have this problem and there are no signs it will go away any time soon. Worse yet, they are now faced with record dropout rates, which is threatening the integrity of their armed forces. Despite all this and for some inexplicable reason, the EU/NATO still wants to pick a fight with Russia, a “noble democratic endeavor” that would require many times more troops. However, as previously mentioned, their ability to even retain (let alone attract) soldiers remains highly questionable. Namely, the latest reports confirm that 25% of new recruits in the German Bundeswehr drop out after only six months of service.

According to Financial Times, personnel shortages are “pushing troops to a breaking point”. The report cites Eva Högl, the Commissioner for the Armed Forces (Bundeswehr) in the German Parliament (Bundestag), who pointed out that “despite some success in recruitment, poor   meant that the armed forces had come no closer to meeting their target of having 203,000 soldiers by 2031”. As a result, this number dropped to just over 181,000. FT laments that “this comes at a time when Germany is pledging to do more to bolster Europe’s own defenses in the face of a potential US retreat from the continent”. It should be noted that Washington DC has anywhere between 50,000 and 84,000 troops deployed in Europe.

It’s virtually impossible to imagine Bundeswehr being able to deploy even 10% of that outside of Germany. Worse yet, while US soldiers are often very young (teenagers or in their early 20s), the Bundeswehr is “shrinking and getting older”, as Högl pointed out. In her annual report on the state of the German military, she lamented that “the average age had risen to 34 years — up from 33.1 years in 2021”.

“This development must be stopped and reversed as a matter of urgency”, she stated, adding: “I said the troops are challenged, but they are also very overburdened. I’ll go as far as to say they’re at breaking point. When we look at where our Bundeswehr is needed — for national defense, [NATO] alliance defense, international crisis management — it is a lot. And it really is at the limit.”

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Kremlin Says There Are Grounds For ‘Cautious Optimism’ For Peace In Ukraine After Witkoff Visit

Kremlin: Late last night, President Putin met with U.S. special envoy Steve Witkoff, delivering key messages and signals for Donald Trump.

No date has been set for a direct call between Putin and Trump. It will be scheduled after Witkoff reports to Trump.

“There are grounds for cautious optimism on Ukraine,” reported Clash Report.

Ukraine has seen multiple ceasefires since 2014, and every time it turned out that the Kiev government has lied, said Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov, reported Russian state news agency TASS.

“This whole story shows that temporary ceasefires were declared multiple times since 2014. I’m talking about the Minsk Accords, the deal that was discarded after the 2014 coup and the Istanbul agreements. All of those included a ceasefire. And every time, it turned out that they had lied to us. The Ukrainians lied with the support of their European partners,” he said.

“He left on a plane,” a Kremlin told TASS, referring to Trump envoy Steven Witkoff.

Trump’s envoy Steve Witkoff leaves Moscow by private jet after high-stakes talks with Putin. Flightradar24 data shows Izvestia footage reportedly captured the American envoy’s motorcade at Moscow’s Vnukovo Airport before departure. (@vick55top)

Witkoff left Moscow last night and travelled to Baku, Azerbaijan, which just finalized a peace deal with Armenia, ending 40 years of war.

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Ukraine Agrees to a Ceasefire. Could it Really Happen?

Only days ago, the chances that Ukraine would agree to negotiate with Putin or agree to a ceasefire seemed very remote. A few days without U.S. military and intelligence aid changed that. On March 11, the Ukrainian delegation in Saudi Arabia, led by Zelensky’s powerful chief of staff Andriy Yermak, “expressed readiness to accept the U.S. proposal to enact an immediate, interim 30-day ceasefire.”

The Trump administration now awaits the Russian response, since the agreement “is subject to acceptance and concurrent implementation by the Russian Federation.” If Russia rejects the ceasefire, Secretary of State Marco Rubio says, “then we’ll unfortunately know what the impediment is to peace here.”

Putin has repeatedly said that he is willing to negotiate but that he is not willing to agree to a “short truce” that would just provide Ukraine with “some kind of respite for regrouping forces and rearmament with the aim of subsequently continuing the conflict.”

Russia is unwilling to agree to a 30-day ceasefire with no conditions. Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov says that Russia is waiting for a briefing from the Trump administration and that it would be “difficult for Putin to agree to this in its current form.” A senior Russian official adds that “Russia would need to hash out the terms of any ceasefire and get some sort of guarantees.”

Without those guarantees, Ukraine’s readiness to accept a 30-day ceasefire is just a readiness to pause Russia’s winning the war while the U.S. resupplies it with now unpaused military aid. The Ukrainian armed forces are exhausted and depleted. They are rapidly being pushed out of Kursk, the one sliver of Russian territory they hold as a bargaining chip. On March 10, in one day, the Ukrainian armed forces lost a third of the territory they held in Kursk with reportedly very heavy losses. As Ukrainian forces seem to be attempting to withdraw, Valery Gerasimov, the Russian Chief of Staff, says that they have been encircled and isolated. The Ukrainians are being pushed back across the line in eastern Ukraine. And there are suspicions that Russia is gathering forces for a significant spring offensive.

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We’re #1 in Selling Weapons!

We’re #1 (once again) in selling weapons! Amazingly, the USA now accounts for 43% of the world’s trade in deadly weaponry. No country beats more plowshares into swords and pruning hooks into spears than America, which is also, obviously, the most Christian nation in the world.

Let’s take a look at a useful chart from Stephen Semler (be sure to check out his blog on Substack)…

Finding #1: The US is the world’s largest arms dealer

The US accounts for 43% of global arms exports, more than the next seven largest arms-exporting countries combined. All the countries outside the top eight account for less than 17% of the worldwide total.

For another perspective on America’s record-breaking year of selling deadly weaponry, check out this column by Lenny Broytman.

Way back in 2012, I wrote a column for TomDispatch: “Weapons ‘r’ us,” in which I examined America’s dominance of the weapons trade. Here’s what I wrote back then:

Yes, we’re the world’s foremost “merchants of death,” the title of a best-selling exposé of the international arms trade published to acclaim in the U.S. in 1934. Back then, most Americans saw themselves as war-avoiders rather than as war-profiteers. The evil war-profiteers were mainly European arms makers like Germany’s Krupp, France’s Schneider, or Britain’s Vickers.

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No Other Land Won an Oscar. Miami Beach’s Mayor Is Trying To Evict a Movie Theater for Screening It

The mayor of Miami Beach, Florida, is trying to terminate the lease of a movie theater for screening No Other Land, an Oscar-winning documentary about the Israel-Palestine conflict.

The Miami Herald reported that Miami Beach Mayor Steven Meiner introduced a resolution to terminate the lease of O Cinema, an independent film theater that rents space from the city, and discontinue more than $60,000 in promised grant funding. The legislation comes after Meiner tried to pressure the theater to cancel the screening.

Florida civil rights groups and First Amendment experts say such government retaliation against the theater for the content of the films it chooses to screen would be unconstitutional under the First Amendment.

“Simply put, the First Amendment does not allow the government to discriminate based on viewpoint or to retaliate against anyone for their speech,” says Daniel Tilley, legal director at the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) of Florida. “Pulling funding from an independent, community-based cinema under these circumstances is patently unconstitutional. The government does not get to pick and choose which viewpoints the public is allowed to hear, however controversial some might find them.”

The Miami Beach mayor’s office did not immediately respond to a request for comment. 

However, in a newsletter to Miami Beach residents earlier this week, Meiner wrote: “I am a staunch believer in free speech. But normalizing hate and then disseminating antisemitism in a facility owned by the taxpayers of Miami Beach, after O Cinema conceded the ‘concerns of antisemitic rhetoric,’ is unjust to the values of our city and residents and should not be tolerated.”

On March 5, Meiner sent O Cinema a letter on official city letterhead expressing outrage at the cinema’s decision to screen the film, which documents the destruction of Palestinian homes in the West Bank.

“Here in Miami Beach, our City has adopted a strong policy of support for the State of Israel in its struggle to defend itself and its residents against attacks by the terrorist organizations Hamas and Hezbollah,” the letter read. “Airing performances of the one-sided, inaccurate film ‘No Other Land’ at a movie theater facility owned by the City and operated by O Cinema is disappointing.”

This is flagrant government jawboning—an attempt to use the mayor’s bully pulpit and the implicit threat of government action to cow the theater into self-censorship.

O Cinema initially complied.

“Due to the concerns of antisemitic rhetoric, we have decided to withdraw the film from our programming,” Vivian Marthell, CEO of O Cinema, wrote to Meiner the following day. “This film has exposed a rift which makes us unable to do the thing we’ve always sought out to do which is to foster thoughtful conversations about cinematic works.”

However, the theater then reversed course and told the Miami Herald it would continue the screenings after all.

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Russia lays out demands for talks with US on Ukraine, sources say

Russia has presented the U.S. with a list of demands for a deal to end its war against Ukraine and reset relations with Washington, according to two people familiar with the matter.

It is not clear what exactly Moscow included on its list or whether it is willing to engage in peace talks with Kyiv prior to their acceptance. Russian and American officials discussed the terms during in-person and virtual conversations over the last three weeks, the people said.

They described the Kremlin’s terms as broad and similar to demands it previously has presented to Ukraine, the U.S. and NATO.

Those earlier terms included no NATO membership for Kyiv, an agreement not to deploy foreign troops in Ukraine and international recognition of President Vladimir Putin’s claim that Crimea and four provinces belong to Russia.

Russia, in recent years, also has demanded the U.S. and NATO address what it has called the “root causes” of the war, including NATO’s eastward expansion.

U.S. President Donald Trump is awaiting word from Putin on whether he will agree to a 30-day truce that Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said on Tuesday he would accept as a first step toward peace talks.

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Radical ‘Free Palestine’ Extremist Targets Supreme Court Justice Amy Coney Barrett’s Sister with Bomb Threat

A deranged “Free Palestine” extremist attempted to terrorize the family of DEI U.S. Supreme Court Justice Amy Coney Barrett by threatening her sister with a mailbox bomb.

According to WYFF, citing the Charleston Police Department, authorities responded around 9:30 a.m. Monday after receiving an alarming bomb threat directed at Amanda Coney Williams.

The threat, sent via email to an employee of the Charleston County Sheriff’s Office late Sunday night, detailed an alleged homemade explosive device that was supposedly placed in Williams’ mailbox.

The email read:

“Using a 1×8-inch threaded galvanized pipe, end caps, a kitchen timer, some wires, metal clips and homemade black powder, I’ve constructed a pipe bomb which I recently placed in Amy Coney Barrett’s sister’s mailbox at her home in Charleston, SC.

The device’s detonation will be triggered as soon as the mailbox is next opened. Free Palestine!”

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Yes, The Trump Administration Has The Power To Deport Mahmoud Khalil

Federal authorities arrested Mahmoud Khalil, one of the leaders of the pro-Hamas coalition at Columbia University, last weekend on the charge that he “led activities aligned to Hamas, a designated terrorist organization,” and posed a threat to national security and foreign policy.

Since that time, politicians and pundits, particularly on the left, have tried to lionize this anti-West terror-supporting radical as some kind of liberal icon and have questioned whether the government has the right to deport someone of his ilk. For the record, of course it does.

The Immigration and Nationality Act (INA) codified at 8 U.S. Code § 1182 applies to all aliens, meaning “any person not a citizen or national of the United States.” This term includes both visa holders and green card holders like Khalil. 

The INA contains a number of activities for which a person can be deemed ineligible based on security and related grounds. The relevant subsection contains nine grounds related to terrorism, the majority of which are not controversial at all: members of terrorist organizations, people engaging in terrorism, etc. 

The current debate concerns § 212(a)(3)(b)(i)(vii), which allows for the deportation of any alien who “endorses or espouses terrorist activity or persuades others to endorse or espouse terrorist activity or support a terrorist organization.” Some have claimed that deporting someone for these reasons violates the First Amendment. That is incorrect.

The premise of the question rests on the assumption that an alien (even a legal alien) has First Amendment rights that are exactly the same in every situation as the rights of a U.S. national or citizen. That is not the case. As the Supreme Court has made clear, sometimes the government may impose distinctions and conditions.

See, for example, Citizens United v. FEC (2010):

The Government routinely places special restrictions on the speech rights of students, prisoners, members of the Armed Forces, foreigners, and its own employees. When such restrictions are justified by a legitimate governmental interest, they do not necessarily raise constitutional problems. … [T]he constitutional rights of certain categories of speakers, in certain contexts, ‘are not automatically coextensive with the rights’ that are normally accorded to members of our society. (Emphasis added.)

The question then becomes, how might speech rights be applied differently to foreigners? For example, could such a condition involve not advocating for certain groups that the government, for good reason, considers dangerous and a threat to national security? 

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