The handwriting was on the wall. An Op-Ed in the New York Times entitled “I’m a Ukrainian, and I Refuse to Compete for Your Attention” summed things up nicely: a media junket the author’s friend had been organizing to Ukraine was canceled. The TV crew instead left for the Middle East.

Inflation has clearly made an impact on both the psyches…

The Deylaman warship is a Moudge-class destroyer, reportedly built entirely with Iranian components. Able to move at a speed of 26 knots, the warship is reportedly capable of wiping out targets located at a distance of up to 2 km.

Iran's Military Achievements Media (unofficial) published footage of the Deylaman warship setting sails in the Caspian Sea.

The Deylaman warship has new Qadir cruise missiles at its disposal with a firing range of 300 km.

Furthermore, the naval electronic engineering enables the crew to detect and track air, surface, and underwater targets at a distance of up to 200 km. In addition, the destroyer has a helipad to afford a helicopter on board.

Israeli authorities have released three Palestinian women and 30 children within the framework of a hostage release agreement with Hamas, the Al Jazeera TV channel reported.

According to it, "the occupation [Israeli] authorities released 30 children and three Palestinian women from among those held in Israeli prisons" within the framework of the fourth stage of the prisoner exchange deal.

The channel also said that a busload of Palestinian prisoners, accompanied by Red Cross medical teams, left Ofer prison and arrived in Ramallah in the West Bank. Al Jazeera pointed out that "at least one of those released was in need of medical attention."

Ukraine’s failure to breach Russian lines for the last year demonstrates that NATO should “never underestimate Russia,” the bloc’s secretary-general Jens Stoltenberg told reporters on Monday. 

Speaking to the press ahead of a meeting of NATO foreign ministers, he was asked whether the US-led bloc would be able and willing to arm Ukraine for another counteroffensive against Russian forces in the spring.

Stoltenberg claimed that NATO members are “unwavering” in their commitment to Kiev, pointing to the “unprecedented” quantities of arms and equipment sent by these states to Ukraine, and to upcoming weapons deliveries – including air defense systems and fighter jets, as well as recent pledges by Germany and the Netherlands to commit a combined €10 billion (nearly $11 billion) in military aid to Kiev next year.

Pentagon contractor Elon Musk and war criminal Benjamin Netanyahu had a conversation that they broadcast on Twitter during Musk’s apology pilgrimage to Israel in a desperate bid to salvage his public image amid costly accusations of antisemitism.

The “conversation” was really more of a monologue, with the Israeli leader droning on in his conspicuously American accent while Musk meekly agreed with him on every point. During his lecture, Bibi said something worth highlighting while complaining about the worldwide pro-Palestine protests that have been underway since the beginning of Israel’s ongoing Gaza massacre.

“We have mass demonstrations,” Netanyahu said at around the 15:55 mark. “Where were these demonstrations when over a million Arabs and Muslims were killed in Syria, in Yemen, many of them starving to death, those who didn’t die in explosions. Where were the demonstrations in London? In Paris? In San Francisco? In Washington? Where are they?”

 Disney acknowledged risks due to a “misalignment” between the company’s products and the public that are hurting its bottom line in recent filings with the government.

 A Vermont Christian school that pulled out of a basketball game over a trans-identifying male player is suing the state for barring it from state tournaments as well as a state tuition program.

 A New York City Council member shared a leaked video on social media Sunday night that showed multiple students beating a police officer at Hillcrest High School.

 Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) shared on Monday that he has been in contact with Rep. George Santos (R-NY) ahead of a possible expulsion vote following a scathing House Ethics Committee report.

 The mother of former Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin said federal authorities updated her about her son’s condition on Monday, three days after another inmate stabbed him in prison.

 A Democratic congressman hailing from Silicon Valley wants more clarity on what happened behind the scenes with ChatGPT creator OpenAI firing and rehiring its co-founder and CEO Sam Altman in a matter of days.

The former general registrar of Prince William County, Va., allegedly “altered election results” during the 2020 election, according to court documents recently obtained by Just the News. However, the current general registrar says that his predecessor’s alleged conduct didn’t impact any election outcomes. 

In a county where President Joe Biden received 54% of the vote in the 2020 presidential election to former President Donald Trump's 44%, an election official at the time allegedly "altered election results" in the state's reporting system, leading to three grand jury indictments last year.

In September 2022, former Prince William County general registrar Michele White was indicted by a grand jury on two felony counts alleging corrupt conduct as an election official and making a false statement, and one misdemeanor indictment of willful neglect of duty by an election officer. White’s jury trial is set to begin on Jan. 16, 2024, and go until Jan. 26. 

White had abruptly resigned in 2021 without explanation. 

Last week marked the 100 year anniversary of the end of the Weimar inflation in Germany. In last week’s newsletter I wrote about my base case for the next couple years, which is that we’re repeating the 1970’s stagflation under Jimmy Carter.

 Amazon is looking for office space in Miami as company founder Jeff Bezos plans to move to Florida after spending 29 years in Seattle. 

 The White House signaled its opposition on Monday to a House Republican bill designed to stymie migrant housing on federal lands as pressure builds for Washington to tackle the border crisis.

 Fox News White House correspondent Peter Doocy cornered Press Secretary Karine Jean Pierre during Monday’s briefing, asking whether she truly believed that the American people could feel the economy improving.

 Sports Illustrated appeared to have been publishing AI-generated content attributed to fake authors — complete with bogus biographies and headshots, according to a report by Futurism.

 Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) said Democrats appear to be espousing “cynical, short-sided politics” in a feud over addressing the southern border crisis.

A total of 2,516 NYPD officers have left so far this year, the fourth highest in the past 10 years, according to NYPD pension data obtained by the New York Post.

Water has been delivered to the Gaza Strip for the first time since the beginning of the escalation, the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA) announced.

"Yesterday, our aid convoys reached areas in the north of Gaza Strip," the agency said on its X page. "UN agencies and the [Palestine Red Crescent Society] delivered ready-to-eat food, tents, water and urgent medical supplies. This was the first delivery of clean water that reached people sheltering in the north since the war began."

The situation in the Middle East has escalated abruptly after an armed infiltration of HAMAS militants from the Gaza Strip into Israel. The HAMAS movement considers this attack a response to the actions of Israeli authorities towards the Al Aqsa Mosque at the Temple Mount in Jerusalem. Israel announced a complete blockade of the Gaza Strip and started carrying out strikes on the enclave and certain areas in Lebanon and Syria. Clashes are also taking place in the West Bank.

Grain thunders into rail cars and trucks zip around a storage facility in central Ukraine, a place that growing numbers of companies turned to as they struggled to export their food to people facing hunger around the world.

Now, more of the grain is getting unloaded from overcrammed silos and heading to ports on the Black Sea, set to traverse a fledgling shipping corridor launched after Russia pulled out of a U.N.-brokered agreement this summer that allowed food to flow safely from Ukraine during the war.

“It was tight, but we kept working … we sought how to accept every ton of products needed for our partners,” facility general director Roman Andreikiv said about the end of the grain deal in July. Ukraine’s new corridor, protected by the military, has now allowed him to “free up warehouse space and increase activity.”

Rains and winds have intensified throughout the Gaza Strip since 17 November. Palestinians are facing the onset of winter without proper clothing, shelter and blankets.

The sense of fear is palpable.

Despite the truce, Palestinians in Gaza cannot return to homes that no longer exist or retrieve belongings that have been incinerated.

The displaced continue to overcrowd shelters. Not just in schools, but in any enclosed space in southern Gaza: shops, office buildings and warehouses.

As winter approaches, displaced Palestinians in Gaza are desperate for shelter from the cold.

The temporary truce between Israel and Hamas has slowed the Israeli army’s assault on Gaza and begun to free civilians held captive by both sides. The Biden administration has made clear that it will support Israel’s continued military operations when the pause officially expires – at this point, as early as Tuesday. Israel’s stated goal of “attempting to eliminate Hamas,” President Biden said on Friday, “is the legitimate objective... and I don’t know how long it will take.”

In endorsing the next phase of Israel’s military operations, the White House recognizes that the brief lull poses a new challenge. According to Politico, “there was some concern in the administration about an unintended consequence of the pause: that it would allow journalists broader access to Gaza and the opportunity to further illuminate the devastation there and turn public opinion on Israel.”

The Biden team’s concern is understandable: the devastation that they have supported in Gaza is without precedent in recent memory.

Farmers returning to their lands in Lebanon's south this weekend, amid an unofficial truce between Hezbollah and Israel, have found their crops ravaged by white phosphorus and their work hindered by unexploded munitions.

Hezbollah and Israel did not sign a ceasefire agreement but have mostly stuck to the four-day ceasefire agreement between Israel and Hamas – producing a pause in the cross-border fighting that has taken place since 8 October.

Israel has heavily shelled territory across the Lebanese-Israeli border, including with white phosphorus, a chemical munition which produces fires and smoke that is toxic to plants and animals.

Endless war is, as often as not, the final nail in an empire’s coffin. Early in 1943, after defeat at Stalingrad, which came as a profound shock to a German public sold on the idea it possessed the finest fighting force in history (such rhetoric should sound familiar to Americans today), Joseph Goebbels, the infamous Nazi propaganda minister, gave a fanatical speech calling for “total war” from the German people. Despite disaster at Stalingrad, despite visible and widening cracks in the alleged superiority of the Thousand Year Reich, the German people largely cheered or echoed the cry for more and more war. Two years later, they witnessed total defeat as Germany surrendered unconditionally in May 1945.

Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) vowed in a letter to his colleagues to bring a bill to the Senate floor as soon as December 4 to fund military aid for Ukraine, Israel, and Taiwan. President Biden has requested the funding as part of a massive $105 billion spending package.

“One of the most important tasks we must finish is taking up and passing a funding bill to ensure we as well as our friends and partners in Ukraine, Israel, and the Indo-Pacific region have the necessary military capabilities to confront and deter our adversaries and competitors,” Schumer said. “That’s why I intend to bring the President’s national security supplemental package to the floor as soon as the week of December 4.”

New disclosures add to the growing body of evidence indicating many Israelis who died on October 7 were killed by the Israeli military. Meanwhile, the Israeli government has muzzled captives freed from Gaza to prevent further damage to the official narrative.

Firsthand testimony by admittedly inexperienced Israeli tank operators reveals orders to open fire upon Israeli communities when Palestinian militants breached the fences encircling Gaza on October 7.

A glowing profile of an all-female tank company by Israel’s N12 News network contains admissions by the 20-year-old captain — identified only as ‘Karni’ — that she was ordered by a “panicked” soldier to open fire on homes in the Holit kibbutz whether they contained civilians or not.