It is not a glitch (that nothing gets resolved). It’s a feature. For it opens rather, a path for ‘Business’ to be done – for ‘stakeholder’ deals to be cut, and for billions to be shared out in payoffs. This is Trump’s geo-political transactional model: Business displaces traditional negotiation (at least while the money flows); Money is the politics.

Trump Kabuki Theatre in Ukraine: Nothing of Substance Gets Resolved

BY ALASTAIR CROOKE

Have someone repeat the word "white" very quickly and for a long time, then ask them what a cow drinks. Answer: "Milk." Ha! Ha!

Have journalists and elected officials repeat "rise of anti-Semitism" all day long, then ask them if criticism of religions is acceptable. Answer: No.

Have Muslims denounce the Muslim religion all day long, then ask Muslims if criticism of religions is acceptable. Guess the answer.

Go ask the inhabitants of a village where a child was murdered if the death penalty should be reinstated, etc.

The media prepares the ground, polls select the topics, and tell you what to think.

Theophrastus R., author of the poll "Are Billionaires' Polls Manipulative?"

https://www.legrandsoir.info/+blanc-blanc-blanc-et-la-vache+.html

Here’s how Kentucky Republican Congressman Thomas Massie responded on Sunday, during ABC’s “This Week,” to a question about the Trump regime’s handling of the Epstein files:

“This is about the Epstein class …. They’re billionaires who were friends with these people, and that’s what I’m up against in Washington, D.C. Donald Trump told us that even though he had dinner with these kinds of people, in New York City and West Palm Beach, that he would be transparent. But he’s not. He's still in with the Epstein class. This is the Epstein administration. And they’re attacking me for trying to get these files released.”

The Squalor of the Epstein Class

Happy Presidents Day

ROBERT REICH

Don’t believe what you see and hear. It’s not true! This week on The West Report, Angus Taylor takes the Liberal leadership just in time to knock police violence and the Herzog visit off the front pages.

We break down NSW Police bashing peace protestors, media spin, the fake anti-Semitic “butt dial” case, revolving doors between Defence and arms dealers, gas giants paying less tax than beer drinkers, and the sterling efforts by corruption watchdog the NACC not to investigate corruption. #auspol #aukus #boardofpeace #herzog #senate #libspill

https://michaelwest.com.au/angus-ascends-police-beat-down-3-billion-goes-missing-scam-of-the-week/

Someone wondered aloud on a social media platform the other day, “Where is Pete Hegseth these days?”

What a good question. Let’s consider it. Figuring out where Pete Hegseth is keeping himself will tell us something important about the Trump regime and how it operates — or, better put, who actually operates it in the Trump White House’s name.

PATRICK LAWRENCE: Serial Buffoon at the Pentagon

Trump elevated outsiders without necessary experience to his cabinet to avoid the deep state subversion that was rampant during his first term. The “blob” responded by making some of them irrelevant. 

As the SA Premier basks in the campaign glory of a $3.9 billion downpayment on shipyard for nuclear subs, the Federal Government is kicking the nuclear waste can down the road.  Rex Patrick reports.

With much fanfare, last week, Peter Malinauskas and Anthony Albanese announced a down payment on the $30B shipyard being built for the AUKUS nuclear submarines, which will begin construction in Port Adelaide in 2040.

Meanwhile, two senior government officials have told the Administrative Review Tribunal that the public they serve need to be kept in the dark on plans to deal with civil and AUKUS nuclear waste.

They argued ‘narrative control’ was essential.

To a current US cabinet secretary from a former one.

The New York Times reports that Department of Homeland Security has sent Google (owner of YouTube), Meta (Facebook and Instagram), and other media corporations subpoenas for the names on accounts that criticise ICE enforcement. The Department wants to identify Americans who oppose what it’s doing.

Robert Reich

I’ll save them time.

Hello? Kristi Noem?

Ukrainian leader Vladimir Zelensky has launched another public attack against Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban, just hours after disparaging him during an address at the Munich Security Conference.

The Munich gathering honored Zelensky with its annual award for ‘outstanding’ contributions to peace on Saturday. Accepting the Ewald von Kleist Prize, the Ukrainian leader thanked his European sponsors for bankrolling Kiev’s war effort, especially the “biggest donators,” Germany and the UK.

“We are very thankful that we have such partners and friends,” he said, before going after the Hungarian prime minister.

“And I even want to thank Viktor – you all know who I mean – because in his own way, he pushes all of us to be better,” Zelensky said. “Better, so that we are never like him, someone who seems to have forgotten the word ‘shame.’”

They like the bedtime story: Europe was peacefully humming along in its post-history spa — open borders, cheap energy, NATO as a charity, Russia as a gas station with a flag… and then, one day, the barbarian kicked the door in for no reason at all.

That story is not just dishonest. It’s operational. It’s the propaganda you tell yourself so you can keep the addiction going without ever admitting how self-destructive it is.

By Gerry Nolan

Because the truth is uglier and far more incriminating:

UNITED STATES Secretary of State Marco Rubio gave the green light to European leaders for a new era of colonialism. 

Speaking at the Munich Security Conference on Saturday, Mr Rubio offered partnership between the US and Europe to recolonise the global South.

Rubio gives green light to new era of US-European colonialism

BY Roger McKenzie

He said: “For five centuries, before the end of the second world war, the West had been expanding — its missionaries, its pilgrims, its soldiers, its explorers pouring out from its shores to cross oceans, settle new continents, build vast empires extending out across the globe.”

The “woke, decadent” EU is not facing a decline regardless of what critics say, and some people, including nearly half of Canadians, “still want” to join it, the bloc’s foreign policy chief Kaja Kallas has claimed.

Kallas made the remarks at the Munich Security Conference on Sunday, as she urged the bloc to “reclaim agency”and seek a “stronger role in the world.”She dismissed concerns that the EU may be facing an “erasure” altogether, hitting out at unnamed critics.

“Contrary to what some may say, woke, decadent Europe is not facing civilizational erasure. In fact, people still want to join our club. And not just fellow Europeans. When I was in Canada last year, I was told that over 40 percent of Canadians have an interest in joining the EU!” Kallas insisted.

In his new book Geoffrey Robertson argues the UN Security Council can no longer defend democracy and proposes a new alliance of democratic states. The diagnosis is compelling – the path forward far less clear.

The indictment in Geoffrey Robertson’s latest book, _World of War Crimes_, is long, thoroughly evidenced and impregnable to rational challenge.

Andrew Fraser

Australia’s political and media establishments are struggling to adapt to a world where narratives can no longer be tightly managed. And attempts to restore authority through censorship, moral panic and regulation are deepening public alienation rather than restoring trust.

Scott Burchill

Australia’s political and media elites are slowly realising that outside their hermetically-sealed echo-bubble, the world has changed.

From curbing protests to controlling what can be said, state and Federal Labor governments are becoming authoritarian. Next in line is the thought police entering campus, Nick Riemer reports.

In December, the NSW Labor government gave itself the power to ban street marches for an indefinite period. We saw what that meant on February 9 as violent police charged, maced, beat and arrested protesters against Herzog’s visit.

In January, the federal ALP introduced new hate speech laws, which confer unprecedented discretion on the government to criminalise speech and groups to which it objects. Now, in a further stride down its authoritarian road, the federal government is reported to be proceeding with plans for political training for Australian university staff.