STRAIGHT LINE LOGIC

This is the most sensible thing I’ve seen about the ICE shooting in Minneapolis. From Luke Gittos at spiked-online.com:

American Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents shot and killed a woman in Minneapolis, Minnesota on Wednesday morning. The reaction online has been alarming, from both sides of the aisle.

Footage shows two officers approaching a car, parked horizontally across a suburban street, and telling the driver to exit. One officer stands at the side of the car, trying to open the driver-side door. When the car begins to move suddenly in his direction, the second officer, standing in front of the car, fires multiple shots, one of which penetrated the front windscreen. The car veers off down the street before crashing into a parked car and a power pole. The driver, who has since been identified as 37-year-old mother-of-three Renee Nicole Macklin Good, was found with a single gunshot wound to the head, and pronounced dead on arrival at hospital.

The context of the killing is significant. Local residents had been protesting against federal immigration enforcement for days, following what the Department of Homeland Security described as its largest ‘immigration-enforcement operation ever’ in the city. It followed allegations of industrial-scale fraud at daycare centres run by local Somali residents. The street where the shooting occurred is little more than a kilometre from where George Floyd was murdered by police six years ago – an act that sparked the Black Lives Matter protests of 2020.

Much as Floyd’s death did, the shooting on Wednesday has split America along partisan lines. Homeland Security chief Kristi Noem said that the driver killed on Wednesday had engaged in ‘domestic terrorism’, and claimed the officer had acted in self-defence in firing at her. The Democratic mayor of Minneapolis, Jacob Frey, dismissed this as ‘bullshit’. Protests have erupted on the streets of Minneapolis, demanding that ICE agents leave the state.

The commentariat is also split. Right-wing commentator Matt Walsh of the Daily Wire posted that ‘an easy way not to get shot by a federal agent is to refrain from hitting them with your car’. Trump’s deputy chief of staff, Stephen Miller, claimed that the ‘Democrat Party is committed to inciting violent insurrection’. Meanwhile, those on the left are calling for the officer to be arrested for murder, while the ICE agency has been called Trump’s ‘Gestapo’.

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The president of Austria wants Austrian women to wear the hijab to make Islamic women more comfortable. From T.L. Davis at tldavis.substack.com:

The fracture lines have been exposed both internally and externally. Internally, there is the struggle between federal agents and numerous American states, including California, Illinois, Minnesota, New York, etc. Except, that it is not the will of the people to go into conflict with federal agents; it’s the will of the corrupt leaders, many elected through fraud, to go into conflict with federal agents.

The truth is a lot of the protesters and agitators are paid by big NGOs and woke billionaires. We exposed this in Deconstruction. These are communists and they can be found funding and busing protesters to disrupt the will of the people that was expressed in November of 2024.

What’s happening on the streets of every criminal-alien-infused city was always going to happen. It was part of the Democrat/communist plan. Democrats rely on the criminal aliens they have imported and supplied with ballots (another crime), have opened taxpayer-funds to fraud in every way possible to keep the money flowing to these criminal aliens so they will do the bidding of the Democrats who brought them here and depend on their illegal and legalized votes to stay in power.

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“We are promising forces we do not have, to enforce a ceasefire that does not exist, under a plan that has yet to be drawn up, endorsed by a superpower (read the U.S.) that is no longer our ally, to deter an adversary that has far greater willpower than we do.” From Ian Proud at strategic-culture.su:

Sanctions may have been a policy or war, but they won’t be a policy of peace, and you will need to accept that we will drop them too.

The war in Ukraine happened because western nations insisted that Ukraine be allowed to join NATO but were never willing to fight to guarantee that right.

That reality has never changed. This week’s latest Summit of the Coalition of the Willing has confirmed that it will not change any time soon.

The only countries that appear remotely willing to deploy troops to Ukraine in a vague and most certainly limited way are the British and French.

Both would need parliamentary approval which can’t be guaranteed. Reform Leader Nigel Farage has already come out to say that he wouldn’t back a vote to deploy British troops to Ukraine because we simply don’t have enough men or equipment. And even though Keir Starmer has the parliamentary numbers to pass any future vote on deploying British troops, it would almost certainly damage his already catastrophic polling numbers.

Macron is clinging on to his political life and would probably face a tougher tussle to get his parliament to approve the French sending their troops to Ukraine, potentially leaving the UK on its own.

In any case, it is completely obvious that Russia won’t agree to any deployment in Ukraine by NATO troops. This shows once again that western leaders have learned absolutely nothing over the past decade. It will never be possible to insist that Russia sues for peace under terms which is has long made clear are unacceptable at a time when it was winning on the battlefield, and European nations refuse to fight with their own troops.

Hawkish British journalist Edward Lucas, with whom I disagree on most things, summed it up well in an opinion in the Times Newspaper when he said

We are promising forces we do not have, to enforce a ceasefire that does not exist, under a plan that has yet to be drawn up, endorsed by a superpower (read the U.S.) that is no longer our ally, to deter an adversary that has far greater willpower than we do.’

President Putin has shown an absolute determination not to back down until his core aims, namely to prevent NATO expansion, are achieved. And as I have said many times, the west can’t win a war by committee.

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Trump’s excessive deference to the Jewish lobby and Israel springs not just from political expedience, but from a long and close relationship between three generations of Trumps and the Jewish community. From Jose Alberto Nino at unz.com:

A persistent excuse among Donald Trump supporters for his unwavering loyalty to Israeli priorities is the claim that he’s been unduly influenced by misguided counselors during his political tenure.

But this comforting illusion overlooks a well-documented trail of deep involvement and backing from the Jewish community stretching back over 40 years, originating in ties that predated his political ambitions. This record—from his father’s charitable endeavors to Donald’s own consistent participation in Jewish groups—paints a far less palatable reality for those Trump loyalists who persist in the fantasy that he’s a true “America First” patriot undermined only by disloyal elements within his inner circle.

Before Donald, There Was Fred

The foundation of this relationship begins with the biggest influence in Donald Trump’s life, his father Frederick Christ Trump. As a Brooklyn real estate developer, Fred welcomed plenty of Jewish tenants to his properties. Through these relationships, Fred became a generous donor to Jewish and Israeli causes. He made generous donations to the Long Island Jewish Medical Center, supported Israel bonds, and served as treasurer of an Israeli benefit concert. His involvement was so extensive that some believed he belonged to the Jewish faith.

The elder Trump’s most enduring contribution came in 1956, when he donated land to the Talmud Torah of the Beach Haven Jewish Center in Flatbush, New York. The Center still operates today, offering programs for youth and elderly while maintaining an active synagogue. A plaque in the Beach Haven building reads “Fred C. Trump, Humanitarian: A Sagacious Man Person Deserving of Every Plaudit and Tribute given by Our Community.”

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Business needs a stable and coherent legal framework in a country before they’ll risk billions investing in it. Which gets in the way of Trump’s grandiose plans for Venezuela. From Tracy at renegaderesources.pro:

So here is what we know so far:

The Reserves That Were Never Audited

In early 2011, Hugo Chávez announced Venezuela had surpassed Saudi Arabia to claim the world’s largest proven oil reserves at 300+ billion barrels. That figure became gospel in energy markets and remains the number OPEC publishes today. There’s one problem: it was never independently verified.

OPEC doesn’t audit member reported reserves. It publishes whatever governments claim. And Venezuela’s tripling of its reserves happened under the notoriously corrupt Chávez regime when oil was trading near $100 per barrel, meaning much of what got reclassified as “proven” was marginal Orinoco heavy crude that’s uneconomic to produce at current prices.

Francisco Monaldi, director of the Latin American Energy Program at Rice University’s Baker Institute, puts Venezuela’s actual recoverable reserves at 100 to 110 billion barrels. Rystad Energy estimates 81 billion. That’s still substantial, but it’s not the largest in the world. And more importantly, proving reserves in the ground means nothing if you can’t economically extract them.

Trump Meets Reality on January 9th

Less than a week after U.S. forces captured Nicolás Maduro, President Trump convened oil executives at the White House on January 9, 2026, hoping to secure $100 billion in commitments to rebuild Venezuela’s oil infrastructure. Seventeen companies sent representatives: ExxonMobil, ConocoPhillips, Chevron, Shell, Halliburton, Marathon, Valero, Repsol, Eni, and various traders and independents.

What Trump got instead was a reality check.

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Soon, the last of the formal nuclear weapons agreements between Russia and the U.S. will expire. Which means both sides will be able to resume the expensive and pointless arms race. From Michael Klare at tomsdispatch.com:

Will the U.S. and Russia Abandon All Nuclear Restraints?

For most of us, Friday, February 6, 2026, is likely to feel no different than Thursday, February 5th. It will be a work or school day for many of us. It might involve shopping for the weekend or an evening get-together with friends, or any of the other mundane tasks of life. But from a world-historical perspective, that day will represent a dramatic turning point, with far-reaching and potentially catastrophic consequences. For the first time in 54 years, the world’s two major nuclear-weapons powers, Russia and the United States, will not be bound by any arms-control treaties and so will be legally free to cram their nuclear arsenals with as many new warheads as they wish — a step both sides appear poised to take.

It’s hard to imagine today, but 50 years ago, at the height of the Cold War, the U.S. and Russia (then the Soviet Union) jointly possessed 47,000 nuclear warheads — enough to exterminate all life on Earth many times over. But as public fears of nuclear annihilation increased, especially after the near-death experience of the 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis, the leaders of those two countries negotiated a series of binding agreements intended to downsize their arsenals and reduce the risk of Armageddon.

The initial round of those negotiations, the Strategic Arms Limitation Talks I, began in November 1969 and culminated in the first-ever nuclear arms-limitation agreement, SALT-I, in May 1972. That would then be followed in June 1979 by SALT-II (signed by both parties, though never ratified by the U.S. Senate) and two Strategic Arms Reduction Treaties (START I and START II), in 1991 and 1993, respectively. Each of those treaties reduced the number of deployed nuclear warheads on U.S. and Soviet/Russian intercontinental ballistic missiles, submarine-launched ballistic missiles, and long-range bombers.

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Civilization didn’t end with the last Great Depression; it won’t end with the next one. From Paul Rosenberg at freemansperspective.com:

There are a large number of people have been waiting for a full-spectrum, apocalyptic crash of the Western system. I maintain that it won’t happen. And I hope to convince you that I’m right.

Not that an apocalypse doesn’t have great dramatic appeal, of course…

During the apocalypse, all things degenerate fall, all secrets are exposed, the truth is no longer hidden, and we’re proven right in the end. Like I say, it’s a fine dramatic movie plot, but it won’t happen that way in the modern world.

None of this is to say that the present status quo will remain, because it won’t. Like mighty Pharaoh and Eternal Rome, it will pass into history, mourned for a season at best.

Reasons And Proofs

The reasons we won’t have a full-spectrum crash (beyond active war zones) are simply that…

• There are far too many productive people.
• There is far too much literature on how to do everything from digging holes to manufacturing trucks to tailoring space suits.
• We have multiple and redundant communication systems: Mail, email, messengers (car and bike) text messages, several phone networks, ham radio, CB radio, pager networks and more.
• There are far too many fully developed systems and processes, ready to be operated by anyone with will.

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Africa’s richest businessman is building a 1,300 mile oil pipeline across Africa. From Vijay Jayaraj at amgreatness.com:

Political powers in the United Nations and European Union have spent decades lecturing Africa on climate “virtue.” Net-zero pledges, renewable targets, ESG frameworks, and more make up the ever-growing list of prescriptions for “healing the planet.”

Having already industrialized through the use of fossil fuels and enjoying full bellies, stable power grids, and unprecedented luxury, the so-called elite of the developed world present a “low-carbon” economy as morally superior. African nations are pressured to use “sustainable” energy sources—mostly wind and solar technologies—to effectively prevent the development of the Dark Continent’s rich deposits of coal, oil, and natural gas and engender dependence on foreign governments.

Now, when an African entrepreneur moves decisively to break the chains of this dependency, the climate crusaders are revealed not as guardians of the planet, but as guardians of geopolitical control.

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How do these protests just pop up, seemingly from nowhere? From Tyler Durden at zerohedge.com:

The left’s ability to rapidly stage highly organized ‘pop-up’ protests in response to just about any political incident is uncanny (remember Robert Creamer? “Wherever Trump and Pence are going to be, we have events, we have a whole team across the country that does that.“). Often, organic protests that average Americans have every right to engage in (even if we disagree) are co-opted and amplified by ‘organizers,’ and blessed by the media, which runs damage control when needed (‘mostly peaceful!’). Other times they orchestrate entirely scripted ‘astroturf’ campaigns to manufacture outrage.

The common denominator always seems to be dark-money NGOs, often funded by foreigners who would relish America’s demise so they can rebuild it in their image. Chaos, collapse, control. 

We’re witnessing this in real time, as the left’s protest-industrial-complex predictably fired up the in multiple blue cities hours after an ICE agent shot a “ICE Watch” activist in Minneapolis. And now we’re seeing mobs hunting down federal agents. 

As regular readers know, we’ve spent much of the past year tracking dark money NGO networks fueling the Democratic Party’s pressure campaigns – what we characterize as color revolution-style operations targeting President Trump and the America First agenda. Those constant protests, and even riots, link back to left-wing billionaires and NGO networks in the US, Europe, the Americas, and even China, all seemingly working in unison and hellbent on fomenting chaos on city streets to kill Trump’s agenda.

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It’s difficult to find out the truth about something if you’re not willing to investigate it. From Dr. Julie Sladden at maryannedemasi.com:

After US regulators linked child deaths to Covid-19 mRNA vaccines, an Australian senator has demanded to know why reported child deaths in Australia were not escalated for expert causality assessment.

GUEST POST

Dr Julie Sladden is a retired medical doctor in Australia committed to truth and transparency in healthcare.

When the US drug regulator announced it was investigating deaths linked to the Covid-19 vaccine, an Australian senator turned to our own regulator, the Therapeutic Goods Administration (TGA), to ask why the same scrutiny had never occurred here.

The answer, it turns out, is deeply unsettling.

Australia’s surveillance system had logged reports of deaths after Covid-19 vaccination — including deaths in children — yet almost none of those cases were referred for expert causality assessment.

Nearly three years would pass before Australia withdrew its recommendation to vaccinate healthy children.

Australia’s vaccine safety data

In September 2025, the National Centre for Immunisation Research and Surveillance (NCIRS) uploaded a report summarising Australia’s spontaneous surveillance data for adverse events following immunisation (AEFI) for Covid-19 vaccines administered in 2022.

Although dated March 2025, the report covers the second year of the Covid-19 vaccine rollout — including the first year the vaccines were offered to children aged 11 years and under.

The figures are stark.

In 2022, Australia recorded 18,398 adverse event reports following Covid-19 vaccination. Of these, 160 involved a fatal outcome. Six of the reported deaths occurred in children aged 0 to 17.

The report takes pains to clarify that “reporting a death to the TGA does not mean that the vaccine caused the death, or that the individual completing the report considers that the death was caused by a vaccine” and concludes that “safety monitoring continued to demonstrate a reassuring safety profile.”

However, the timing of these deaths complicates that claim.

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