Pete Hegseth, blackout drunk

 

Ambrose Evans-Pritchard: To watch our ally of 80 years, the USA, turn on us with ferocity and blithely team up with our declared enemy really is the end of days

 

Trump’s embrace of Putin is a Molotov-Ribbentrop crisis for Europe:

The new regime in Washington is testing pro-American sympathies to breaking point

 

Ambrose Evans-Pritchard20 February 2025 6:50pm GMT

We are at that moment in Animal Farm when the gentle carthorse Clover looks through the window to see the pigs playing cards and drinking a toast with men.

The pigs are all perfectly at ease and sitting back in chairs around a table, no doubt a rougher surface than the luxurious polished table used to host America’s Marco Rubio and Russia’s Sergei Lavrov in Saudi Arabia this week. The Russian press reports that the meeting was a love-fest of jokes and bonhomie, with a “very tasty lunch”.

George Orwell’s scene was an allegory of the Molotov-Ribbentrop pact, when Europe’s great power alignment suddenly and violently shifted. The liberal democracies woke up on Aug 23 1939 to discover that the Soviet Union had reached a non-aggression deal with Nazi Germany. Days later, Hitler and Stalin carved up Eastern Europe between them. The Nazis could then turn their concentrated fury on France and Britain without having to worry about a second front.

Britain had started to re-arm as early as 1935. Neville Chamberlain hurled money at the Royal Air Force in the late 1930s, with Spitfire squadrons arriving just in time. Defence spending had risen to 9pc of GDP by 1939.

This time, Europe’s democracies have indulged the same pacifist illusions as they did in the run up to 1939 but have milked the peace dividend even longer. Military spending by EU states was 1.9pc of GDP in 2024, a full 17 years after Vladimir Putin declared political war on liberal civilisation and all its works at the Munich Security Conference in 2007 – “a good speech” said one Angela Merkel, audibly, in the front row.

He then set about restoring the tsarist empire to the borders of Catherine the Great with an unswerving consistency. Austria is not even part of Nato and behaves accordingly.

Some are rising to the challenge. Denmark has given its stock of munitions to Ukraine and even the trade unions back a war tax to raise defence spending to 4pc of GDP. “We are in a very, very critical period in world history,” said Lars Løkke Rasmussen, the Danish foreign minister.

Poland’s military budget is already up to 4.7pc. “We’re that afraid,” said his Polish counterpart Radosław Sikorski at last week’s Munich forum.

Lithuania aims for 5pc to 6pc of GDP by next year, alarmed by intelligence warnings that Putin may seize the Suwalki Gap, which runs through its territory from Belarus to the Russian enclave of Kaliningrad.

They all know that Putin has a narrow window of time to attack if the Ukraine war is quickly settled on Russian terms. His advantage is temporary: a greatly enlarged army heading for 1.5m by 2026 and an industrial war economy firing on all cylinders but untenable for much longer.

Fears are growing that Donald Trump will order the US military to pull its Nato tripwire forces out of the Baltics in order to seal the “deal of the century” with the Kremlin. Will he swallow the bait as the smooth McKinsey-trained head of Russia’s investment fund, Kirill Dmitriev, dangles the offer of hydrocarbon riches – real or imagined – in Russian Arctic waters?

The issue runs deeper in any case. Maga America has a greater natural affinity for Putin’s Right-wing cultural Weltanschauung than it does for the liberal democracies. After the battering of the last two weeks, some of us are forced to conclude that Britain and Europe are now the real enemies for this new Washington and, furthermore, that the US is anything but isolationist under Donald Trump.

He will not let us carry on being different. He will force-feed us his Maga ideology. His oil-fracking energy secretary was in London this week describing our renewables as “sinister”. Will we face sanctions for trying to do something about CO2 emissions? Perhaps, yes. Particularly for that.

I do not wish to dissect every post by Trump on Truth Social, or dwell on the speech by JD Vance. I think Britain should repeal all its hate legislation and stop misusing police resources on thought crimes. It should stop dividing us into categories and return to colour-blind liberalism. But one can agree with elements of Vance’s anti-woke critique while entirely rejecting the larger message behind it.

We are told repeatedly by Trump’s circle that he does not really mean what he says, or that we should not overreact to what he is very clearly doing. Let us hope they are right, but it is becoming harder by the day to have confidence in such assurances, or to believe that either Republicans or plutocrats will lift a finger to stop him – and I say this as a defender of Pax Americana for half a century.

Sir Keir Starmer is right to stay calm and try to defuse this terrifying inter-allied crisis on his visit to the White House. But we of The Telegraph parish, readers and writers alike, will all have to look into our souls if, as now seems painfully plausible, Britain is singled out for tariff warfare along with Europe on the pretext of our VAT taxes.

Worse yet if Trump does this while reaching a cosy commodity deal with Putin along with a grand bargain with Xi Jinping to protect Elon Musk’s interests in China. That would test one’s pro-American sympathies to breaking point.

Europe shares much of the blame for the disintegration of the Western alliance system. It failed to re-arm after Russia invaded Ukraine in 2014. Germany rewarded Putin months later by launching the Nord Stream 2 project, which had no purpose other than depriving Kyiv of strategic leverage by re-routing Siberian gas through Baltic pipelines. In return, Germany enjoyed a sweetheart gas deal at sub-market prices.

Britain could have rebuilt its military hardware at ultra-low borrowing costs during the secular stagnation of the 2010s, when it had ample spare capacity. It could have rebuilt its decaying infrastructure and revived its economy at the same time. The multiplier effect would have let us do these things without pushing the debt ratio any faster. Britain pursued austerity instead. Now it faces a greater task, in a hostile bond market.

Europe was even more destructive. Germany cut public investment and military spending to the bone for 15 years. It relied on mercantilist export surpluses of 8pc of GDP to drive growth, a policy that has left Germany in the cross-hairs of Trump’s trade warriors.

The eurozone debt crisis – self-inflicted because the European Central Bank did not then have political approval to back-stop debts – turned into a wider depression because Brussels over-egged austerity and used bailouts to impose drastic spending cuts. There was no exemption for military spending.

Defence as a share of GDP in 2015 was Hungary 0.5pc, Belgium 0.8pc, Germany 1.0pc, Spain 1.0pc, Italy 1.2pc, France 1.8pc –and that was after Russia’s annexation of Crimea. Military budgets crept up slowly thereafter but not enough to prevent further disarmament.

Europe thought it could keep free-riding on Uncle Sucker forever, despite warnings that this would end badly. There was much talk along the way of a European army and endless euro-speak meetings about procedures, modalities and the architecture of EU defence, but never anything real. That is why Europe today finds itself utterly naked.

But nobody expected it to end this badly and this suddenly. To watch an ally of 80 years turn on us with ferocity and blithely team up with our declared enemy really is the end of days.

Mad King Ludwig to say Russia not the aggressor, Putin not a war criminal, and leave the 40-nation coalition forming the Special Tribunal for the Crime of Aggression against Ukraine

My country is dead to me.

Trump to abandon Russia war crimes prosecution:

Washington signals end to pursuit of Putin as third anniversary of Ukraine invasion looms

 

Joe Barnes

 21 February 2025 6:02pm GMT

The US has signalled that it could leave an international effort to prosecute Russia for invading Ukraine, The Telegraph can reveal.

US envoys refused to label Russia as an “aggressor” at a meeting of a “core group” of countries preparing a Nuremberg-style tribunal to try Vladimir Putin for his war crimes, according to Western officials.

Washington is similarly refusing to co-sponsor a United Nations statement that supports Ukraine’s territorial integrity and demands Moscow to withdraw its forces from the war-torn nation.

Mr Trump’s administration has also refused to sign off a planned G7 statement calling Russia the “aggressor” in the war with Ukraine to mark the third anniversary of the conflict on Monday.

The US president has blamed Ukraine for starting the war, branded Volodymyr Zelensky a “dictator” and pushed for Russia to be invited back to the alliance of industrialised nations.

European officials fear Mr Trump’s flattery of Putin could lead to the Russian despot being let off the hook for his invasion as part of any peace settlement.

This stance has put preparations for the final meeting of the “core group” next month in doubt. The group is leading a 40-nation coalition to form a Special Tribunal for the Crime of Aggression against Ukraine, modelled on the response to Nazi war crimes after the Second World War.

It would involve the US and other countries joining Ukraine to grant jurisdiction to a dedicated criminal tribunal to investigate both the perpetrators of the crime of aggression and those complicit in that crime.

The crime of aggression cannot be prosecuted by the International Criminal Court in The Hague.

“Unless they acknowledge it’s an aggression, they can’t participate,” an official said of US opposition to the labelling of Russia as an aggressor.

Losing Washington’s backing for the tribunal will be a major blow to the project’s international reputation and standing. 

“This is quite a drastic shift,” a European diplomat told The Telegraph. “Rewriting history and pretending that Russia wasn’t the one who started this war is something that we simply cannot and will not agree to.”

The US has not yet officially withdrawn from the scheme and is expected to attend its next meeting next month in Strasbourg, France.

A diplomatic note seen by The Telegraph revealed that European officials were “shocked” at US claims at a series of international meetings that Russia should be invited back into the “civilised world”.

European capitals are now holding talks over a possible collapse of the special tribunal if the US does walk away as feared.

The latest US position marks a significant shift in policy between Joe Biden and Mr Trump. 

The former president had branded Putin a “war criminal” and signed off a series of international statements that described Russia as the aggressor state.

Washington is now pushing for the almost three-year war to be called the “Ukraine conflict” in discussions with international allies.

A State Department readout of the meeting between Marco Rubio, the US state secretary, and Sergei Lavrov, Russia’s foreign minister, twice described the war as “the conflict in Ukraine”.

Putin says medium range ballistic missile was used against Ukraine, not ICBM, but still nuclear capable

 Quoted here:

“In response to the use of American and British long-range weapons, on Nov 21 of this year, the Russian armed forces launched a combined strike on one of the facilities of the military-industrial complex of Ukraine.

“In combat conditions, one of the newest Russian medium-range missile systems was tested, among other things. In this case, with a ballistic missile in a nuclear-free hypersonic equipment.”

Neocon Trump is alive and well JD, lol

WaPo, May 28, 2024, here:

 . . . at one event, he suggested that he would have bombed Moscow and Beijing if Russia invaded Ukraine or China invaded Taiwan, surprising some of the donors.

American utilities have used the pandemic and the Russia-Ukraine war to price gouge the consumer for natural gas

American utilities have used the pandemic and the Russia-Ukraine war to price gouge the consumer. 

Natural gas prices have nosedived 73% since 3Q2022 but utility prices stopped declining a year ago and are down just 14% from peak.

Utility gas actually increased in 4Q2023 and again in 1Q2024.

Look at all that air under the red line.  First time that's happened in decades.

People should be MAKING A STINK!

 

Ukraine destroys another Russian warship, CNBC runs Ukraine is losing story instead

 With hopes of victory fading, Ukraine’s fight against Russia could get harder

UKRAINE DESTROYS RUSSIAN WARSHIP
 

Chris Christie credits Fed interest rate policy for denting government-spending-induced inflation but misses the role of collapsing energy prices

 Chris Christie is a smart guy with many of the right ideas about government spending, taxes, inflation, energy, and the environment.

But it's a real stretch to think that the timid interest rate increases of the Fed are responsible for this year's so-far moderating inflation indicators when it's falling energy prices since the winter which deserve the real credit. Christie himself admits that outrageous government spending hasn't been curbed at all.

His is a simple binary view which, while conventional and correct as far as it goes, doesn't get to the heart of the current matter. 

Low energy prices have always been and remain key to a successful economy, and it was the spike in natural gas cost inputs because of the Russia-Ukraine war which accelerated inflation globally, not just in the US.

Fed chair Jerome Powell was correct in June of 2021 to believe that inflation would be transitory for "weak supply" reasons, but the Fed rate increases didn't actually commence until the start of the war in Ukraine, which compounded those reasons with the cutoff of European natural gas supplies.

But since the winter the natural gas price is down 73% from peak, coal is down 70%, and gasoline is down too, but a comparatively modest 24%. 

Americans consumed in 2022 the energy equivalent of 26.9 billion kWh/day of natural gas, 13 billion kWh/day of gasoline, and 7.9 billion kWh/day of coal.

Natural gas is twice as important as gasoline in the overall American energy picture, primarily for heating, and as a substitute for coal in electricity generation.

Natural gas produced 4.6 billion kWh/day of electricity in 2022, the top source of electricity, vs. coal at 2.3 billion kWh/day and nuclear at 2.1 billion kWh/day.

Chris Christie is right though. We must "uncap" US oil and gas production and be energy independent.

Europe's natural gas storage, by the way, is presently 93% full as the war in Ukraine drags on. They are ready.

The US used 88.5 billion cubic feet of natural gas per day in 2022. We presently have about 35 days in storage.

Crude oil consumption in 2022 was about 20.3 million barrels per day. The Strategic Petroleum Reserve is down to about 17 days of supply, from about 35 in 2011.

 

Watch CNBC’s full interview with GOP Presidential Candidate Chris Christie

Christie lets Fed off the hook for inflation, blames Trump and Biden for overspending

 

 

My local utility has repriced my fixed monthly payment for natural gas and electricity for the next year

 The new price is down 30% from last year's horrendous price.

The monthly payment will now resemble the high end of normal I experienced in the years prior to the Russia-Ukraine War.

Like a boot off my neck.

Ron DeSantis missteps, tries to weasel out of his characterization of the Russian invasion of Ukraine as a "territorial dispute"

One message for Tucker Carlson viewers, another for "neocons".

But trying to thread that needle is a fool's errand.

Ron DeSantis obviously isn't ready for this yet. No one thinks any part of Ukraine is Russian territory, especially since Russia agreed to the new borders in the 1994 Budapest Memorandum.

DeSantis could elevate himself by pointing out that Ukraine also pledged itself to neutrality in that agreement, and that Ukraine should return to that position instead of seeking EU and NATO membership.

Unfortunately, it appears that DeSantis, and the rest of the field, needs to let Trump become the candidate and lose again in order to cleanse the GOP of Trump once and for all. 

DeSantis would be better positioned for 2028 anyway, when the Russia-Ukraine conflict enters its sixth year, at which time he can better Monday morning quarterback the whole thing. He will turn 50 in 2028. He has time. He needs time.

'Well, I think it's been mischaracterized. Obviously, Russia invaded — that was wrong. They invaded Crimea and took that in 2014 — That was wrong,' DeSantis told Piers Morgan in an interview more than a week after his initial comments. ...

'What I'm referring to is where the fighting is going on now which is that eastern border region Donbas, and then Crimea, and you have a situation where Russia has had that. I don't think legitimately but they had,' he said.

More.

Sweden is still the Nordic COVID-19 death leader and has been since the early days of the pandemic

Recent upticks in deaths in both Sweden but especially Finland must have something to do with an influx of refugees from the Russia-Ukraine War.

 

CNN thinks November core inflation at 4.7% yoy is good news

There's never any discussion about how core inflation vaulted to the current levels well before the war in Ukraine even began.

The reason for the inflation surge is Biden's war for green energy, the one input which makes everything cost more because green energy costs much more than conventional energy from coal, oil, and natural gas.

Add trillion$ in COVID stimulus chasing too few goods and it's a recipe for the disaster which is ongoing, not moderating.

Some people get it. Most don't.

 

 

 

The Fed's Favorite Gauge Shows Price Increases Are Moderating

Everyone keeps lying about Putin saying he'll use nukes, the latest being Peggy Noonan of all people

From her irresponsible column, here:

Mr. Putin talks about nuclear weapons a lot. He did it again Wednesday: In a meeting with politicians in St. Petersburg, he said if anyone intervenes in Ukraine and “creates unacceptable threats for us that are strategic in nature,” the Russian response will be “lightning fast.” He said: “We have all the tools for this that no one else can boast of having. We won’t boast about it, we’ll use them, if needed.”

He’s talked like this since the invasion. It’s a tactic: He’s trying to scare everybody. That doesn’t mean the threat is empty. 

There are signs the Russians are deliberately creating a historical paper trail, as if to say they warned us. On Monday Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said the risk of nuclear conflict is “serious” and “should not be underestimated.”

No he doesn't. No he hasn't. And neither has Lavrov. Listen for yourself. It's Peggy who is supplying "the risk of nuclear conflict", not Lavrov. Lavrov is clearly referring to the dangerous increased rhetoric about the possibility of nuclear conflict, which is precisely the hysteria Peggy Noonan is engaging in. The Russians have been very circumspect. They don't actually use the terminology. They're not bluffing. They're beating around the bush to create uncertainty, to keep their enemies off balance.

Putin has never used the phrase "nuclear weapon" in any of these examples which have been reported in the press since the beginning of the war in Ukraine. Putin's hypersonic capability is clearly in focus in his statements. He has them and the West does not. He's threatening to use them with conventional warheads against Western targets, which is bad enough. But nuclear warheads? That's what he wants us to think, to create fear. But he's never actually said it.

The nuclear talk is all Western hype, exaggeration, and lying. And Drudge is a major aggregator of such headlines. It's irresponsible and it must stop, because to continue it is to make the unthinkable, thinkable, and then actual.

Try exercising your free speech absolutism then, as your tongue vaporizes inside your mouth. 

Meanwhile Peggy Noonan appears not to have considered that Putin has daughters, to whom he might really want to leave something other than smoking embers.

Hysteria has a way of blinding one to important facts.

NOONAN: Putin Really May Break the Nuclear Taboo in Ukraine!

Moscow warns 'do not underestimate threat of nuclear war'... ^  

Putin test-fires 'Satan' nuclear missile... ^  

Cronies 'flee to bunkers' in sign might turn nuclear... ^ 

UN Warns: Nuclear War 'Within Realm of Possibility'... ^  

Putin actions trigger long-buried fears of nuclear war for generations of Americans... ^ 

Accused of Nuclear 'Terrorism'... ^ 

Putin nuclear threat part of new escalation policy... ^ 

Even Putin's generals look stunned after being ordered to put nuclear forces on 'alert'... Decree that shocked the world... ^ 

PUTIN WARNS HE'LL NUKE WEST ^ 
Nuke-capable missiles loaded onto subs... ^ 
NUKE BOMBER BUZZES UKRAINE... ^ 
POPE NUKE WARNING ^ 
ZELENSKY NUKE WARNING TO WORLD... ^  

CIA Director: Nuke threat not taken 'lightly'... ^
Nuke Fears Stoked With Atomic Weapons Warnings... ^ 

Girds for Nuke Incident... ^

Senators mull unthinkable: Vlad detonating nuke... ^ 

FEAR: More Putin Nuke Threats... ^

Likely More Nuke Threats... ^ 
PUTIN NUKE FEARS GROW ^ 
NUKE CONCERNS RISING ^ 
Nuke threat part of new escalation policy... ^ 
NUKE CRAZY! ^ 
ORDERS NUKE FORCES ON HIGH ALERT ^ 
ORDERS NUKE FORCES ON HIGH ALERT ^ 

PUTIN NUKE WARNING? ^