The Senate on Thursday voted down a resolution that would have directed President Biden to withdraw all US troops from Syria, where US forces have come under frequent attack in response to President Biden’s support for Israel’s Gaza onslaught.

The bill failed in a vote of 13-84 and received support from seven Democrats, five Republicans, and one Independent, Sen. Bernie Sanders (VT). The resolution was introduced by Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY), who argued the US occupation of eastern Syria risks a major regional war.

“Keeping 900 US troops in Syria does nothing to advance American security. Rather, our intervention puts those servicemembers at grave risk by providing an enticing target for Iranian-backed militias,” Paul said.

In 1996, a nest of American-born imperialists revolving around Paul Wolfowitz, Dick Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld, and Richard Perle created a new think tank called “The Project for a New American Century.”

While the principled aim of the think tank ultimately hinged on a new “Pearl Harbor moment” that would justify a new era of regime-change wars in the Middle East, a secondary but equally important part of the formula involved the dominance of “Greater Israel” Likud fanatics then taking power over the murdered body of Yitzhak Rabin.

It was toward the start of the new regime of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu that Richard Perle wrote the report“Clean Break: A Strategy for Securing the Realm,” which outlined a series of goals that would govern the strategic vision of Washington and Tel Aviv for the next two decades. It called for:

• Canceling the foundations for the Oslo Accords that threatened to bring about a climate of peace through economic cooperation in the Middle East under a two-state solution
• Launching a new doctrine of “right of hot pursuit” justifying armed incursions into Palestinian territories
• Inducing the United States to overthrow Saddam Hussein’s regime in Iraq
• Armed incursions into Lebanon and possible strikes against Syria and Iran

White House is concerned an Israeli response could spark a major regional war.

A coalition of Palestinian factions has called for an international strike in support of Palestinians in the besieged Gaza Strip, who have been under a war of genocide by the Israeli regime for more than two months.

In a statement on Saturday, the National and Islamic Forces, which is an umbrella coalition for major factions in Palestine, called for an inclusive global strike on Monday in protest at the Israeli crimes against Palestinian people, especially in Gaza.

Starting on October 7, the occupying regime launched a devastating war on Gaza following a surprise operation by the territory's resistance groups, dubbed Operation al-Aqsa Storm. According to Gaza's Health Ministry, the war has so far killed 17,700 people and injured 48,780 others.

The United Nations children's agency has strongly slammed Israel's complete blockade of the Gaza Strip, which is under the regime’s genocidal war, calling it a death sentence for children in the territory.

Adele Khodr, UNICEF's Regional Director for the Middle East and North Africa, made the comment on Saturday, while explaining about the dire humanitarian situation across Gaza.

"Our team on the ground describes meeting children with missing limbs and third-degree burns, and children left shell-shocked by the continuing violence that surrounds them," Khodr said.

Iger remains a critical donor for Biden’s reelection...

Ever since Russia started its full-scale strategic counteroffensive against NATO aggression in Europe, the political West has been insisting on the idea that the Eurasian giant is supposedly “isolated” and the “international pariah”. However, time and again, Moscow keeps debunking this laughable notion. Recent events have not only confirmed this, but are showing that the opposite is happening.

The Qatar trip of German President Frank-Walter Steinmeier has been mired in controversy as he was left waiting at least 30 minutes for someone to greet him during his visit on November 29. This could be partially explained by the fact that Berlin’s position is decidedly pro-Israeli, while Doha is firmly on the Palestinian side, formally at least.

However, this doesn’t explain why Russian President Vladimir Putin got virtually a hero’s welcome in the United Arab Emirates (UAE) during a visit to the Middle Eastern country exactly a week after Steinmeier’s trip to Qatar. These sharply differing, albeit seemingly unrelated events demonstrate an enormous paradigm shift in the geopolitics of the Middle East, arguably the most strategically important region on the planet. After the start of the special military operation (SMO), the political West has been trying to isolate Russia and limit its (geo)political maneuverability. However, ever since, this has only backfired, becoming a sort of litmus test for sovereignty and actual independence from the political West’s diktat.

Ukraine’s president and his ministers have spent nearly two years parroting the line that Kiev is fighting for the West’s freedom, and that if Russia is allowed to win, it will attack other European countries. But some Poles no longer buy these claims.

Kiev’s “cunning propaganda” suggesting that a Russian victory in Ukraine will inevitably be followed up with attacks on NATO countries are little more than a form of “demagoguery” and “blackmail” completely detached from reality. That’s according to an editorial published in Polish politics journal Mysl Polska.

“An Estonian military officer has formulated the following thesis: that ‘there are only two options: either Ukraine will win, or there will be World War III’. This ridiculous proposition is probably shared by a large part of Ukraine’s supporters in our country,” the alternative conservative media outlet wrote, pointing to efforts by some actors to convince the public “that a Ukrainian defeat will mean we will definitely be attacked by Russia.”

But the latter claim is little more than a “cunning propaganda move by Kiev aimed at maintaining Western policy of unconditional military and financial support,” with these kind of “demagogic statements…often used by Ukrainian politicians as blackmail (for example, during the Polish truckers’ protests). This trick is also used by the failing administration of Joe Biden, which frightens the countries of NATO’s eastern flank with the prospect of an attack by Russia,” the journal emphasized.

Webmaster addition:

Hungarian road carriers will begin protests on the border with Ukraine on Monday, as Ukrainian truckers ruin Hungarian logistics companies, Hungarian Road Transport Association (MKFE) Secretary General Tivadar Arvay said on Saturday.

"Due to the appearance of Ukrainian carriers on the EU market, several hundred Hungarian enterprises were on the verge of bankruptcy... Poles and Slovaks are talking about this, but the same thing is behind the Hungarian protests that will start on Monday," Arvay was quoted as saying by Hungarian news agency MTI.

He added that the mileage of Ukrainian trucks in Hungary increased by 30%, while the distance traveled by the Hungarian trucks decreased by 4%. Arvay noted that Ukrainian carriers come from a completely different economic and legal environment, therefore their costs differ, and they are not subject to EU rules.

"We asked the European Union - last week there was a meeting of the transport commission... to reconsider its agreement with Ukraine and take into account the interests of EU member states, including transport companies in Hungary," Arvay said.

The steps taken by Hunter to evade taxes are impressive, but not nearly as impressive as the efforts of the Justice Department to evade any direct implications for his father, President Biden.

I promise there is nothing you can say to me that will cause me to cease opposing the murder of thousands of children in Gaza. There is no name you can call me, no accusation you can scream at me, no talking point you can regurgitate at me that will ever make me shut up and accept this.

The unexamined premise behind the frenetic push to reignite outrage over October 7 using rape allegations is that if Hamas fighters did sexually assault any Israeli women during the attack, then everyone has to shut up and let Israel keep murdering children by the thousands. This is self-evidently stupid.

Western and Israeli propagandists are going to keep trying to find new reasons for you to reignite your outrage over October 7, because October 7 is their side’s only justification for a months-long mass atrocity that is far, far worse than anything that happened on October 7.

The late Professor Yeshayahu Leibowitz applied the term “Judeo-Nazis” back in the late 1980s when he referred to former Supreme Court Judge Meir Landau, who effectively legalized torture, by that description. He made his arguments strongly: “The State of Israel represents the darkness of a state body, where a creature of a human form who was the president of the Supreme Court decides that the use of torture is permitted in the interest of the state.” 

I took it as a kind of moral exaggeration. It was bad — Palestinians were being tortured systematically, but somehow I thought, we’re not quite as genocidal as Nazis. 

But today, I feel differently. Yesterday, Jerusalem’s Deputy Mayor Arieh King tweeted a photo of over a hundred naked Palestinians who were kidnapped by the Israeli military in Gaza, handcuffed, and sitting in the sand, guarded by Israeli soldiers. King wrote that “The IDF is exterminating the Nazi Muslims in Gaza” and that “we must up the tempo”. “If it were up to me,” he added, “I would bring 4 D9’s [bulldozers], place them behind the sandy hills and give an order to bury all those hundreds of Nazis alive. They are not human beings and not even human animals, they are subhuman and that is how they should be treated,” King said. He ended by repeating Netanyahu’s biblical Amalek genocidal reference: “Eradicate the memory of the Amalek, we will not forget.” 

While the US is running out of money to support Kiev in its war with Moscow, in despair, President Joe Biden has turned to a seeming alarmist talk to “scare” Congress into paying more aid to Ukraine as soon as possible. But, in fact, no matter what the future holds for Ukraine, one thing is certain: For the sake of their selfish, geopolitical interests, the US and NATO will continue regarding Russia as their biggest enemy.

On Wednesday, a bill authorizing tens of billions of dollars in emergency spending, including aid to Ukraine, faltered in the Senate. Earlier, Biden called on Congress to pass supplemental funding for Kiev before the holiday recess. He claimed that if Moscow wins the war with Kiev, keeps going, and then attacks a NATO ally, “then we’ll have something that we don’t seek and that we don’t have today – American troops fighting Russian troops.”

As some media in the US points out, this is Biden’s sternest warning regarding the Russia-Ukraine conflict. Biden acts like a cat on a hot tin roof on this issue because his fate in next year’s presidential election is tightly linked to the fate of Ukraine.

As the end of the year approaches, it was reported that Starbucks has lost almost $11 billion in market value, due to intense boycotts and employee strikes in support of Palestine, in addition to a lukewarm holiday promotion.

To counter the losses Starbucks surely predicted, and as the holidays approached, the corporation announced its Red Cup Day; a marketing strategy that gives consumers the chance to receive a free reusable holiday cup with every purchase. However, since the announcement of the promotion in mid-November, Starbucks saw a decline of 8.96 percent in its shares, which equals $10.98 billion in losses, the lowest it has ever experienced since 1992. 

This is because of the recent global call to boycott brands and franchises that directly or indirectly benefit "Israel" economically. The Starbucks employee union was transparent in its support for Palestine, as "Israel" launched a genocide in Gaza in October, and took the opportunity to demand better work conditions, including scheduling and the freedom to negotiate contracts. Since then, employee strikes have been consistent. 

Al-Qassam Brigades, the military wing of the Hamas Resistance movement, announced this evening, that it had completely or partially destroyed 79 Israeli military vehicles in the Gaza City areas during the last 72 hours.

Al-Qassam said in a statement that its fighters booby-trapped a tunnel entrance in the Sheikh Radwan area, and as soon as an Israeli force advanced on it, it was blown up. As a result, members of the Israeli force were killed and wounded.

Al-Qassam also reported that its fighters were able to snipe two Israeli soldiers in the Shujaiya neighborhood, east of Gaza City.

Israeli media claimed today that the number of military deaths has risen to 92 since the start of the ground invasion of Gaza.

Money supply growth fell again in October, remaining deep in negative territory after turning negative in November 2022 for the first time in twenty-eight years. October’s drop continues a steep downward trend from the unprecedented highs experienced during much of the past two years.

The Ukrainian president and First Lady Olena Zelenska sparked controversy after posing for a series of glamor shots with the US edition of “fashion bible” magazine Vogue. The shoot got hundreds of thousands of likes on Instagram, but also sparked questions about whether the president has anything better to do with his time.

President Volodymyr Zelensky’s photo shoot with his wife for Vogue photographer Annie Leibovitz has gotten social media’s creative juices flowing, with detractors posting dozens of meme-worthy photoshopped images maligning the president and accusing him of corruption and NATO puppet status.

Users took a particular liking to a shot of Zelensky closely embracing his wife, cropping her out and replacing her with a Ukrainian soldier, showing the First Couple at a table before piles of cash, or, in one instance, showing US President Joe Biden joining in on the love fest by affectionately sniffing Zelensky’s neck.

The plea was made as polling shows Americans increasingly believe the country has sent too much money to Ukraine.

Olena Zelenskaya, the wife of Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, appeared on British media Saturday to admonish Americans against growing “tired” of sending military aid.

“We really need the help,” the Ukrainian First Lady said in an interview with the BBC taped on Thursday. “In simple words, we cannot get tired of this situation, because if we do, we die.”

The interview was aired the day after the US Congress shot down $60 billion worth of military aid to the country. The United States has so far sent $113 billion in funding to Ukraine since February 2022.

In a sign that a default cycle may have initiated, a Texas-based apartment syndicator is facing the loss of two multi-family properties in Austin after defaulting on a substantial $125 million loan. This comes on the heels of the same firm defaulting on $288 million in loans tied to properties in Houston. The Real Deal attributes the surge in apartment foreclosures across Texas and the Sun Belt to a combination of factors, notably the Federal Reserve’s decision to raise rates, resulting in skyrocketing debt payments for property owners who relied on floating-rate debt amid slowing rent growth.

As the icebox of the Northern Hemisphere, Russia’s Siberia is notorious for its frigid weather. But the cold so far this December — the most severe in decades in some areas — is extreme even by its own bone-chilling standards.

Temperatures around minus-58 degrees (minus-50 Celsius) and even lower have spread over northeastern Siberia in recent days and will persist for several more. The mercury has dipped as low as minus-73.7 degrees (minus-58.7 Celsius) thus far.

Farmers in the Brittany region of France on Wednesday staged a protest using tractors in the city of Rennes in response to the government’s agricultural policies.

The protesting farmers argue that they are burdened with excessive regulations in the context of their agricultural activities.

According to local reports, upon reaching the headquarters of the Brittany Regional Council, the farmers spread straw in the parking lot and scattered official documents.

Dmitry Medvedev, the deputy head of the Russian Security Council and the country’s ex-president, has accused German Chancellor Olaf Scholz of “lying” after the latter shared his take on the roots of the energy crisis in Europe.

Speaking at a meeting of the ruling Social Democratic Party (SPD) in Berlin on Saturday, Scholz accused Russia and, personally, President Vladimir Putin of halting the gas supply to the EU.

“It was the Russian president who stopped gas supplies through undamaged gas pipelines. Thus, 50% of Germany’s gas supply was called into question. 50 billion cubic meters of gas that went through them became inaccessible,” Scholz claimed during the event, hailing the government’s efforts to buy gas elsewhere.

The remarks drew the ire of Medvedev, who took to the social media platform X, formerly Twitter, to flatly accuse the German chancellor of “lying” and trying to shift the blame for their own actions on Moscow.

More than 5,000 Israeli soldiers have been wounded in fighting in Gaza since 7 October, while Israeli officials are warning of a looming mental health crisis, an Israeli newspaper reported on Saturday.

Specialists from Israel's Ministry of Defence said its rehabilitation department had received 60 wounded soldiers every day since the start of the war in Gaza. 

Limor Luria, deputy director general and head of the ministry's Rehabilitation Department, told Yedioth Ahronoth newspaper that at least 2,000 Israeli soldiers had been declared disabled, with health officials "in a hurry to release the wounded so it can admit new patients".

Violent crime is quickly spreading to suburbia. A new report shows gangs from South America have targeted mansions in wealthy neighborhoods across the Detroit metro area. This comes as the Biden administration's disastrous open border policies have flooded the country with millions of illegal migrants, as well as progressive cities fail to enforce 'common sense' law and order.

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