Monthly Archives: April 2025

Democracy as Mob Rule

El Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele: Communist Palestinian Converted to an Evangelical Zionist Christian

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by Brian Shilhavy
Editor, Health Impact News

Thanks to a tip from a Health Impact News reader, I was able to do some research today on the President of El Salvador, Nayib Bukele, who is a Palestinian and former member of the Communist Party in El Salvador, but is now an Evangelical Zionist Christian with strong ties to Israel.

No wonder why Trump’s Zionist Administration likes this guy so much!

Trump’s Secretary of State, Marco Rubio, made a deal with Bukele to confine criminals from the U.S., including U.S. Citizens, back on February 4, 2025, just days after Trump’s inauguration.

El Salvador’s offer to take in US deportees and violent criminals is unlike any other migrant deal

SAN SALVADOR, El Salvador (AP) — El Salvador has offered to take in people deported from the U.S. for entering the country illegally and to house some of the country’s violent criminals — even if they’re American citizens.

U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio, after a meeting Monday with El Salvador President Nayib Bukele, proclaimed it the most “unprecedented, extraordinary” offer the country has yet received during the ongoing wave of global migration.

Details on the deal are scant, and immigration and constitutional experts question its legality. (Source.)

What is largely not being reported in the media about Bukele is his Palestinian family heritage. His paternal grandfather was born in Jerusalem and his grandmother was from Bethlehem, and were Palestinian Christians who migrated to El Salvador

The young Salvadoran leader is descended from Palestinian Christians on his father’s side. According to the Times of Israel, his paternal grandfather was born in Jerusalem and his grandmother was from Bethlehem; the two migrated to El Salvador amid a wave of Palestinian immigration to Latin America.

His father, born in El Salvador, converted to Islam in adulthood and became a well-known imam, one whom Nayib has claimed had warm relationships with Jews and Israel. (Source.)

He entered politics in 2011, joining the Farabundo Martí National Liberation Front (FMLN), a left-wing Salvadoran political party. He was elected as mayor of Nuevo Cuscatlán in March 2012, and went on to be elected as mayor of San Salvador in the 2015 elections under the Communist FMLN party. While serving as mayor of San Salvador, he fell out of favor with the FMLN. (Source.)

He was only 37 years old when he became President of El Salvador, which was the youngest head of state in the world at that time, and he developed a Zionist Pro-Israel policy after he became President.

Here is a profile written about him in 2023 from the Jewish publication, Mishpacha.

THE NAYIB BUKELE PHENOMENON

Pro-Israel and Muslim, Nayib Bukele is a new breed of Latin American strongman

Nayib Bukele, the brash young president of El Salvador, offers a study in intriguing contrasts.

He is descended from Palestinian Arabs, yet embraces a staunchly pro-Israel foreign policy. He entered politics under the banner of the Farabundo Martí National Liberation Front (FMLN), a Communist group that waged a guerilla war during the 1970s and ’80s; but now governs with a right-wing populist style that has drawn support from former US president Donald Trump.

Now 41, he was the world’s youngest head of state when he became president at 37, and, according to local opinion polls, is still the most popular. It almost seems a wonder that the tiny Republic of El Salvador — a country of 6.5 million, about the same size as New Jersey, on the isthmus of Central America, bordered by Guatemala and Honduras — can contain his gargantuan contradictions.

Nayib Bukele currently draws an approval rating of over 80 percent, and according to some pollsters, possibly as high as 90 percent. Feeding that popularity, however, is a harsh crackdown on the maras, the fearsome criminal gangs that have terrorized the country over the last two decades.

While the influence of the gangs has been pernicious, contributing to a per capita murder rate that for a time was the world’s highest, Bukele has drawn criticism for the ruthlessness of his policies.

The development of Bukele’s ideology has not followed a traditional trajectory. He began his career in the FMLN, an ultra-leftist party, but has gradually shifted toward the center-right.

Unlike other regional leaders who have been aligned with leftist movements, Bukele has been a staunch supporter of Israel.

In fact, a photo of his visit to the Western Wall while he served as mayor of the capital of San Salvador has traveled the world.

And although his ethnic background would suggest his sympathies lie with the Palestinians in their conflict with the Jewish state, that is not in fact the case.

Senator Marco Rubio paid an official visit to El Salvador, and took to Twitter to express his frustration with Washington’s condemnation of Bukele’s policies: “Biden appeases our enemies & ostracizes our friends. Seeking deals with Iran & lifting sanctions on Cuba & Venezuela while criticizing & sanctioning willing partners like El Salvador under Nayib Bukele.”

Bukele has wasted no time reciprocating Republican accolades. Throughout his tenure, he has vocally criticized President Biden and shunned bilateral meetings, boldly asserting at one point, “The Biden administration is losing all the credibility it has left.”

Moreover, Bukele has made no secret of his affinity for former president Donald Trump.

When Secretary of State Antony Blinken emphasized the US government’s support for El Salvador’s efforts to combat gang proliferation but urged the country to safeguard civil liberties, including freedom of the press, Bukele promptly fired back on Twitter: “Really? Yes, we received support from the U.S. government to fight crime, but that was UNDER THE TRUMP ADMINISTRATION. Now you’re merely backing the gangs and their so-called ‘civil liberties.’ ” (Source.)

Perhaps the best article articulating Bukele’s Evangelical Zionist views and his support of Israel was written in October of 2024, by The North American Congress on Latin America (NACLA), titled “Christian Zionism in Bukele’s El Salvador“.

Christian Zionism in Bukele’s El Salvador

President Nayib Bukele’s framing of security as a spiritual battle between good and evil helps to explain his popularity and his support for Israel.

Excerpts:

On October 8 of last year, Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele published a post on X outlining his position on Palestine.

“As a Salvadoran of Palestinian ancestry, I’m sure the best thing that could happen to the Palestinian people is for Hamas to completely disappear. Those savage beasts do not represent the Palestinians,” he wrote.

Drawing parallels between Hamas and gangs in El Salvador, Bukele continued:

“It would be like if Salvadorans would have sided with MS13 terrorists, just because we share ancestors or nationality. The best thing that happened to us as a nation was to get rid of those rapists and murderers and let the good people thrive.”

Bukele closed his post with a word of advice, drawing from his nearly 30-month long—and counting—assault against gangs. “Palestinians should do the same: get rid of those animals and let the good people thrive.”

The parallel drawn by Bukele between Hamas and MS13 derives from an evangelical Christian understanding of “terrorist” security threats as a spiritual contest between good and evil.

Bukele uses biblical allegories, religious narratives, declarations of devotion, and visual propaganda leveraging sacred symbols to justify the country’s security policies, in addition to asserting the Salvadoran government’s unwavering support for Israel during its genocide of Palestinians.

Christian Zionism and “Spirit-Filled Geopolitics”

In 2018, prior to becoming president, Bukele arrived in Jerusalem at the invitation of deputy foreign minister Tzipi Hotovely and Jack Rosen, the president of the American Jewish Congress, to attend an urban policy conference.

At such conferences, policymakers, consultants, and tech industry representatives broker deals for security initiatives.

Indeed, shortly after his election, Bukele announced a $3 million donation from the nonprofit Jerusalem Foundation for police and military medical supplies. Since assuming the presidency, Bukele has also extensively used Israeli spyware to track the activities of independent journalists, human rights defenders, and members of opposition parties.

Israeli exports to El Salvador have grown at an annual rate of 21.1 percent from 2017 to 2022, with the top products being firearms and military weapons.

These connections highlight the material influence of the Israeli military-industrial complex and continuing Salvadoran security dependence on Israel, which began with the bloody military regimes of the 1970s.

Israel provided 83 percent of Salvadoran military imports between 1975 and 1979, and these agreements continued throughout the Salvadoran civil war (1980-1992) with deals for napalm, arms, and military technology and training.

Bukele’s attendance at the conference also provided an opportunity to generate images that demonstrate his commitment to Judeo-Christian values.

Approval by and affirmation from key Jewish and evangelical Christian leaders provides powerful legitimation in Salvadoran politics, reinforcing Bukele’s cult of personality among Salvadoran evangelicals who believe him to be chosen by God to “clean” their country of the scourge of gangs.

His campaign and presidential press releases demonstrate how Christian Zionism generates not just support for Israel but symbolic and ideological power for his right-wing populist leadership.

Regardless of Bukele’s faith, evangelical Christianity is essential for understanding both El Salvador’s support for Israel and Salvadoran security policies at home.

Christian Zionist ideology and identity help explain Bukele’s rise to power.

During his campaign, Bukele carefully courted the support of the Salvadoran leadership of evangelical Churches, who publicly prayed for his victory.

A smear campaign that cast doubt on his Christian bonafides forced then-candidate Bukele—who was raised in a Muslim household—to explicitly defend his religious identity, declaring himself to be a disciple of Jesus Christ and sharing photos of himself at multiple religious sites as a sign of his tolerance and devotion. (Full article.)

La Resistance - One by One

“Will Not Surrender” – Harvard Takes Trump to Court

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He said the “majority” of those demands represent “direct governmental regulation of the intellectual conditions at Harvard.”

Authored by Aldgra Fredly via The Epoch Times,

Harvard University’s professors sued the Trump administration on April 11 after it threatened to withhold nearly $9 billion in grants and contracts if the university fails to adopt the administration’s required structural changes.

The Harvard faculty chapter of the American Association of University Professors (AAUP) filed a lawsuit alleging that the administration’s action represents an “unlawful and unprecedented misuse of federal funding and civil rights enforcement authority to undermine academic freedom and free speech” on a university’s campus.

According to the court filing, the university received a letter from the administration on April 3 outlining the “non-exhaustive preconditions” it must meet in order to keep its government funding, following an investigation into the university’s failures to address anti-Semitism on campus.

Among the requirements are a review of programs that fuel anti-Semitic harassment on campus, to “improve viewpoint diversity, and end ideological capture” within the university. Harvard was also required to enact a mask ban and eliminate all diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) programs, according to the lawsuit.

It stated that the administration threatened to terminate at least $255.6 million in contracts and place more than $8.7 billion in multiyear grant commitments to Harvard University and its affiliates under review unless the university agrees to implement the proposed changes.

“Harvard, like all American universities, depends on federal funding to conduct its academic research. Threats like these are an existential ‘gun to the head’ for a university,” the lawsuit states.

The plaintiffs accused the administration of misusing Title VI of the Civil Rights Act, an anti-discrimination law that applies to federally funded institutions, to “coerce universities into undermining free speech.”

“These sweeping yet indeterminate demands are not remedies targeting the causes of any determination of noncompliance with federal law. Instead, they overtly seek to impose on Harvard University political views and policy preferences advanced by the Trump administration and commit the University to punishing disfavored speech,” they state.

The professors asked the court to preliminarily and permanently enjoin any further investigation or review of the university’s federal funding. They also requested that it block the administration from using its authority to penalize Harvard over the viewpoints of its members.

“No government — regardless of which party is in power — should dictate what private universities can teach, whom they can admit and hire, and which areas of study and inquiry they can pursue,” said Harvard President Alan Garber in a message.

The Epoch Times reached out to the White House for comment but did not receive a response by publication time.

Harvard University is one of 60 institutions of higher education currently under investigation for allegations of anti-Semitic discrimination and harassment on campus.

Protests erupted across universities in the United States after Israel launched a military operation in the Gaza Strip with the stated goal of eradicating the Hamas terrorist group. The operation was retaliation for Hamas launching a land, sea, and air attack on southern Israel on Oct. 7. 2023, killing around 1,200 people and taking hostage 251 more. Last spring, pro-Palestinian protesters camped out on campus and, at one point, took over a building.

Education Secretary Linda McMahon has previously urged university leaders to prevent discrimination against Jewish students on campus or risk losing federal funding.

“The Department is deeply disappointed that Jewish students studying on elite U.S. campuses continue to fear for their safety amid the relentless antisemitic eruptions that have severely disrupted campus life for more than a year,” McMahon said in a statement on March 10.

“U.S. colleges and universities benefit from enormous public investments funded by U.S. taxpayers. That support is a privilege and it is contingent on scrupulous adherence to federal anti-discrimination laws.”

Harvard University’s professors also filed a motion on April 11 seeking a temporary restraining order to prevent the government from cutting funding while the litigation continues, saying that it would cause “severe irreparable harm” to the university and disrupt its research operations.

“No law in this country permits Trump to suspend billions from universities simply because he doesn’t like the constitutionally protected speech of their students & faculty,” Nikolas Bowie of Harvard’s AAUP said in a statement.

Economics/Statistics

No, A 50% Tariff Doesn’t Mean A 50% Price-Hike

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Authored by Randy White via AmericanThinker.com,

The tariff doomsday machine is roaring again. This time, it’s over talk of a 50% tariff on certain imports.

Predictably, the panic-peddlers are out in force, warning that such a tariff means retail prices will skyrocket 50%.

It’s an easy line to chant, but it’s wrong — flat wrong — and anyone with a basic grasp of economics should know better.

Let’s make one thing clear: a tariff applies to the transaction value, not the final retail price. The transaction value is what the importer pays the exporter, plus freight and insurance. That cost is just the first step in a long supply chain. By the time a product reaches the consumer, it’s been marked up to cover domestic shipping, warehousing, employee wages, utilities, sales tax, and profit margins for every hand it passes through. The tariff is just one input among many.

Take a simple example.

A retailer imports a widget with a $100 transaction value. Add a 50% tariff, and the cost to the importer becomes $150. That importer then sells it wholesale — perhaps at $200 — to a retailer, who marks it up again to $300 for sale. That $50 tariff is now 16.7% of the retail price. Even if every penny of the tariff is passed along, you’re not looking at a 50% increase in retail price — you’re looking at something closer to 17%.

But here’s the kicker: tariffs are not always fully passed on to the consumer. Importers and retailers know they can’t raise prices beyond what the market will bear. Sometimes they absorb part of the cost, cut expenses, renegotiate contracts, or shift to different suppliers. The market reacts; it doesn’t just lie down and take it.

Still not convinced? Look at the real-world data.

The National Bureau of Economic Research analyzed the 2018–2019 U.S. tariffs on Chinese goods. They found that for every 10% tariff, retail prices rose 1–2%. So even a 50% tariff, if applied, might cause retail prices to edge up 5–10% — not 50%. That’s a far cry from the alarmist headlines.

So why do politicians and media outlets keep pushing the scare narrative? Easy: Fear sells.

“Fifty percent” is a lot more dramatic than “maybe 5 to 10%.” It’s easier to provoke outrage than to explain how pricing actually works. They’re banking on the average person not understanding the difference between wholesale cost and retail price — or not caring enough to dig into the numbers.

Yes, tariffs matter. They influence trade behavior. They can increase some costs. They can disrupt certain supply chains. But they’re not some magic multiplier that doubles the price of your groceries or gadgets overnight.

Anyone pushing that line is either economically illiterate or deliberately misleading you.

The next time you hear that a 50% tariff will mean a 50% price hike, don’t nod along. Push back. Ask for the math. Demand the details.

Because when it comes to tariffs and retail pricing, the facts just don’t support the hysteria.

geopolitical issues

The Three Steps — Which Way is Forward, Which Way is Backward in Russia’s War Fighting, Peac e Negotiating Strategy

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This image has an empty alt attribute; its file name is twee-3-1024x831.png

byJohn Helmer, Moscow
@bears_with

Kirill Dmitriev (lead image) is the Stanford and Harvard educated official appointed by President Vladimir Putin to persuade American businessmen to invest in the profits to be made from dismantling US economic sanctions against Russia.

Today at the Kremlin (April 11), he tried again in fresh talks with Putin and Stephen Witkoff, President Donald Trump’s negotiator.

Dmitriev was just fourteen years of age when he first arrived for schooling in California where neither he, nor anyone else, had ever heard of Vladimir Lenin’s 1904 booklet on the difference between revolutionaries and opportunists in politics; Lenin’s title had been “One Step Forward, Two Steps Back.” All Russian adults schooled before Dmitriev know that phrase.

But on April 4 in Washington, when Dmitriev invited Russian reporters to ask whether he had made any steps forward in his talks with the Americans, he replied: “Yes, definitely. I would say that today and yesterday we made three steps forward on a large number of issues.” Either Dmitriev was making a mockery of Lenin’s three steps, or he was revealing his total ignorance of them.

At home in Moscow no one has dared to fault Putin’s emissary for transforming the direction of Lenin’s three steps. Nor has anyone asked Dmitriev to say concretely what his three steps are, or in what direction. The closest he came to that in his remarks in a Washington park were that he has been discussing “possible cooperation in the Arctic, in rare earth metals, in various other sectors where we can build constructive and positive relations…[and] active work on restoring air travel.” One of the “other sectors” Dmitriev mentioned is an Elon Musk project to fly to Mars.

That Dmitriev is proposing to open sectors of the Russian economy which are legally closed under national security control – at the same time as the US is escalating its military power projection from Greenland to Alaska – has been noted by the Russian Foreign Ministry, which has been trying to curb Dmitriev’s powers, as well as his tongue. Dmitriev has retreated, ingenuously telling the BBC: “first of all, I am focused on economics and investment, so I don’t comment on political issues.” Then he did just that. “There are already very good results. So the stop of the hitting the energy infrastructure is a major, major result. And frankly that is a good result for Ukraine.. for Russia, for the world.”

Dmitriev was referring to President Putin’s undertaking to President Trump during their telephone call of February 12 to halt Russian strikes on Ukrainian energy targets. This partial ceasefire by the Russian side has been ignored by the Ukrainians and their US and NATO advisors. Although the Kremlin notice warned that “in the event of a violation of the moratorium by either party, the other party has the right to consider itself free from obligations to comply with it”, there has been no Russian retaliation yet.

When Lenin had begun his three steps a century ago, he warned: “When a prolonged, stubborn and heated struggle is in progress, there usually begin to emerge after a time the central and fundamental points at issue, upon the decision of which the ultimate outcome of the campaign depends, and in comparison with which all the minor and petty episodes of the struggle recede more and more into the background.”

In the record which the Russian and American negotiators have been making since the presidents’ telephone call, the outcome to date is nothing but “minor and petty episodes”. Dmitriev is the only Russian official to say otherwise.

At the first round of talks in Saudi Arabia on February 18, Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov disclaimed there had been agreement on anything but a programme of talks to follow at the sub-ministerial level on ceasefire measures in the Black Sea, and on the restoration of regular operations between the State Department and the Foreign Ministry. “We didn’t just listen”, Lavrov said in briefing the Russian press after the meeting, “but we also heard each other…This does not necessarily mean a convergence of positions.”

The subsequent talks which have followed have demonstrated almost no “convergence of positions.”

The negotiations between Andrew Peek and Michael Anton on the US side, Senator Grigory Karasin and Colonel-General Sergei Beseda on the Russian side, held in Riyadh on March 24 discussed Ukrainian proposals for a ceasefire on the Black Sea, including Odessa port, and the resumption of Ukrainian grain exports. The two sides failed to accept a joint communiqué of what they had agreed.

Instead, the Kremlin issued a detailed outline of agreement for the Black Sea with preconditions. These were “the removal of sanctions imposed on Rosselkhozbank (Russian Agricultural Bank) and other financial institutions involved in ensuring international food trade (including fish and fish products) and fertilisers, their reconnection to SWIFT, and opening of relevant correspondent accounts; the removal of restrictions imposed on trade finance operations; the removal of sanctions imposed on companies producing and exporting food (including fish and fish products) and fertilisers, as well as restrictions banning insurance companies from working with food cargoes (including fish and fish products) and fertilisers; the removal of restrictions on servicing ships in ports and sanctions against ships flying the flag of Russia, if they are involved in food trade (including fish and fish products) and fertilisers; the removal of restrictions on supplies to the Russian Federation of agricultural machinery and other goods used in the production of food (including fish and fish products) and fertilisers.”

In the US communiqué, the Russian sanctions terms were ignored.

Source: https://www.whitehouse.gov

Instead, the US said that in principle it would “help restore Russia’s access to the world market for agricultural and fertilizer exports, lower maritime insurance costs, and enhance access to ports and payment systems for such transactions. “ It said no more about the Ukrainian attacks on energy targets except that “the United States and Russia agreed to develop measures for implementing President Trump’s and President Putin’s agreement to ban strikes against energy facilities of Russia and Ukraine.” That was on March 25. In the interval of three weeks since then, the frequency of the Ukrainian drone attacks on Russian energy targets has increased.

The US and Russia then sent officials to Istanbul on April 10 for negotiations to implement the earlier Rubio-Lavrov agreement in Riyadh “to address irritants to our bilateral relationship with the objective of taking steps necessary to normalize the operation of our respective diplomatic missions.” Alexander Darchiev for the Russian Foreign Ministry (he is the new Russian Ambassador to Washington) and Sonata Coulter, a deputy assistant secretary of State, failed to agree on any of the issues on the agenda except for one: “the U.S. and Russian delegations exchanged notes to finalize an understanding to ensure the stability of diplomatic banking for Russian and U.S. bilateral missions.”

The return of Russian offices, residences and other property in the US, confiscated on White House order for several years, was the Russian priority. According to Darchiev, “the return of illegally seized diplomatic property to the Russian side… is of critical importance for the restoration of normalcy in the entire bilateral relationship.” Coulter refused, claiming the US priority is “the Russian Federation’s policy prohibiting the employment of local staff, which is the key impediment to maintaining for stable and sustainable staffing levels at the U.S. Embassy in Moscow.”

This serial failure, dictated by the Trump subordinates, has now led to an afternoon meeting in St Petersburg between Putin, his foreign policy advisor Yury Ushakov, Dmitriev and Witkoff. Lavrov was not present. The meeting appears to have been arranged hastily on the US initiative. “The situation on the negotiation track of the United States and Ukraine is developing rapidly,” Putin’s spokesman Dmitry Peskov announced. “There are a lot of developments in one day.”

Source: http://en.kremlin.ru/events/president/news/76675

For the time being neither the Kremlin nor the White House has claimed any result. RIA Novosti, headlining that the meeting with Witkoff lasted for four hours, reported no detail at all.

Several hours after Witkoff had left meeting with Putin, Trump implied that he is blaming the Russians for the failure of the talks so far, and is planning a new ultimatum. “Russia has to get moving”, Trump tweeted.

Source: https://truthsocial.com/@realDonaldTrump/posts/114319592702753512

A well-informed source in Moscow says that Trump and his subordinates have been surprised by the Russian terms for ending the war. “The Russians have told Americans they will have Odessa and a land corridor to Moldova. They have offered ports on Dnieper River for access to the sea for the Ukrainians. There has been no demand about Nord Stream. Money is being discussed on the sidelines but not in the main talks. In the main room [in Riyadh on February 18] Lavrov and Ushakov brought no papers and asked Americans [Rubio and Waltz] to dust off the December 2021 treaty draft. The Russian positions shocked the Americans. They were told the Ukraine will be demilitarized and its forces will be turned into paramilitary and police. The Americans were also surprised how little Russians cared about Zelensky or his British and Europeans backers. The Americans were told there will be no Ukrainian paramilitary force east of the Dnieper – only police. A new Russian demand was tabled for autonomy of eight Ukrainian oblasts, with Kiev army forces removed. In general, the Russians propose turning the Ukraine into a genuinely federal structure with provisions that Banderites can never take power in Kiev and that the central forces will be limited in their capabilities, supplementing the police if and when Banderites take to the streets. The main purpose of any such force will be de-nazification and keeping it that way. There are demands also about the Orthodox Church in Ukraine.

geopolitical issues

How Strong is Russia Actually?

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True to his stated objective analysis, Igor Strelkov refutes the conventional beliefs, especially among the American alternative social media pundits, about the “strong Russia”. He does it with facts and more facts in the face of just hubris. Especially Gilbert Doctorow is making the rounds these days on behalf of his Masters trying to convince the uninformed about the need to appease Russia or else. Scott Ritter, Col. MacGregor, J. Johnson, are and have been telling us for 3 years now, oh, Russia can take out Ukraine in two weeks any time.

IGOR STRELKOV’S RESPONSE TO CRITICISM OF “ALEXANDER ALEXANDROVICH”

Dear “Alexander Alexandrovich”!

Excerpts

[…]

2). “It was decided to drag out the negotiations until autumn.” Who decided? Were you personally present when the decision was made? I suspect that you were not and this is just your personal (albeit quite true) conclusion. But it may not be possible to “drag out” because (according to information from other letters) Mr. Secretary of State Rubio already (April 4) warned that “the countdown is in weeks and time has started” (for Moscow to accept the “peace settlement” plan based, of course, on the “Kellogg plan”). Alas, Moscow is not a subject of the world political agenda. It is, albeit relatively “independent” and poorly managed, but an object. The “agenda” of the so-called “negotiations” is determined by Washington (and Moscow itself agreed with this and even with “puppy delight”). Therefore, how long Moscow will actually be able to “drag out” without another wave of “crippling” sanctions – we will soon find out (my forecast is May or June).

3). “Significant reserves” (we have) is an absolutely unfounded (on your part) assertion. I do not have such data, and you did not consider it possible (perhaps rightly) to share the sources of such information. The same applies to the “large-scale offensive on all fronts”. No, I believe in intentions of this kind (although “not on all fronts”, since the state of affairs with personnel in some areas is known to me and it is not encouraging). But I remember very well such “rosy plans” of 2024, which stumbled in mid-May in Vovchansk and near Liptsy in the Kharkov region, and to this day remain in a “neither here nor there” position (with a general advance of 8-10 km in depth and 30 km in width along the front). 4 corps were simply “burned”.

Naturally, if I knew about the preparation of this offensive, then (naturally) the enemy’s intelligence knew about it very well. Has anything changed since then, what do you think? Has the enemy weakened or gone blind? – I don’t think so. My forecast is that our offensive will “get bogged down” just like the previous one, because we have nowhere to “take” and throw into battle 3-4 full-fledged armies necessary for a strategic deep operation, and another 3-4 corps (if they exist at all) will not be able to go beyond the operational level. And our successes (if they exist at all) will be limited to pieces of Donbass, Zaporizhia and (maybe) Kharkov regions. At the level of another “Avdiivka-Ugledar-Kurakhove”. Which will not and cannot give any advantage in a “war of attrition”.

4). “Improvement of the work of the diplomatic corps” – I do not notice it “not even once”. All our “allies” are North Korea, Sri Lanka and some cannibals from equatorial Africa. Well, Venezuela too. Where are the “diplomatic victories”? Finland and Sweden are in NATO, there are American ground forces in Estonia. Dmitriev (Surkov’s fosterling) – is he negotiating with the USA? – Is this “improving quality”? Is the agent negotiating with his masters about the fate of Russia? – Is this a “success”? – This is nonsense…

5). “Improving the work of other government bodies.” – Are you serious? Khinshtein (a homosexual) at the head of the Kursk region – is this an “improvement”? Hmm. Are you, by any chance, “playing a joke” on me?

6). “They want to remove liberals from the Ministry of Finance, the Ministry of Economic Development and the Central Bank” – Who wants to remove them? – You? Or me? – Maybe, but certainly not those who can do it.

7). “The system began to break and now it is partially corrected.” The first part is 100% true, and the second does not stand up to any criticism. The system has ceased to meet the requirements (minimum), because it turned out to be completely incapable of reacting to the crisis (dreaming of “sitting it out”, without changing itself in any way). And this is already irreversible – time is lost irretrievably.

8). “A fair reputation as a “doomsayer” – well, so be it. But at least I have a reputation. Most (if not all) modern Russian “politicians” have no reputation at all – they only have “what would you like, Your Excellency?!” And yes – I, in general, don’t care whether I will be “less interesting to readers” (not to mention that soon readers will have “no time for reading” – they will think about a piece of bread and safety 90% of the time). I do my Duty – as I understand it and as I can. I have never chased popularity and intend to do so specifically in the future.

I hope you understood from my letter that I have much more information than the correspondents you mentioned send me, and I can still critically evaluate the information I receive. And also that I am not a “consumer of ready-made conclusions” (like those you sent me – without any specific justification). Do you want to really have a “positive-corrective effect” on me? – Operate with facts! And I will evaluate them as carefully as the arguments of your opponents.

I also ask you to convey my regards to “Ivan Ivanovich”! (I would not object if you decided to acquaint him with this opus). However, I also do not object to a wider publication.

Sincerely, I.V. Girkin

08.04.2025

/all names and surnames in the text, taken in quotation marks ” “, are fictitious/

Source

geopolitical issues

Trump is Toast

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Illegal immigrants? Backtracking. Tariffs? Backtracking. Ukraine peace in 24 hours? Backtracking. 90 days? Backtracking? Stop supporting Ukraine? Backtracking. War against Iran? Backtracking. Deportation of Palestinians? Not yet.

From NBC News:

Trump floats plan for undocumented farm and hotel workers to work legally in the U.S.

The president’s comments suggested a vague plan that would allow the government to bring back “great” people who are “working hard” and who “go out … in a nice way.”

President Donald Trump suggested at a Cabinet meeting Thursday that undocumented people working on farms and in hotels would be allowed to leave the country and return as legal workers if their employers vouched for them.

Trump said at the meeting with reporters present that “we have to take care of our farmers, the hotels and, you know, the various places where they tend to, where they tend to need people.”

“So a farmer will come in with a letter concerning certain people, saying they’re great, they’re working hard. We’re going to slow it down a little bit for them, and then we’re going to ultimately bring them back. They’ll go out. They’re going to come back as legal workers.”

It was unclear what he meant by “slow it down a little bit for them.” The administration has been pouring resources into arresting, detaining and deporting undocumented immigrants to fulfill Trump’s campaign pledge to conduct a history-making mass deportation of immigrants from the United States.

Trump said the administration is going to work with people if they “go out … in a nice way.” (Full article.)

BlackRock CEO Larry Fink:

“The sweeping US tariff announcements went beyond anything I could have imagined in my 49 years in finance”

Trump is quickly losing the support of Wall Street Investors.

From Bloomberg:

BlackRock Inc. Chief Executive Officer Larry Fink said he was caught by surprise at the breadth of President Donald Trump’s tariffs last week on many countries, including key US trading partners.

“The sweeping US tariff announcements went beyond anything I could have imagined in my 49 years in finance,” Fink said on a call on Friday with analysts after the company reported first-quarter financial results.

The president imposed the steepest tariffs in a century on April 2, sparking markets to sell off around the globe. On April 3 and 4, the S&P 500 Index had its steepest two-day plunge since the March 2020 onset of the pandemic.

“This isn’t Wall Street versus Main Street,” Fink told analysts Friday.

“The market downturn impacts millions of ordinary people’s retirement savings.”

The US is either very close to a recession or already in one, Fink said in a CNBC interview after the analyst call. He said he was shocked at the 10-Year Treasury’s reaction in the wake of Trump’s tariffs. (Full article.)

Asia’s central banks hold and can dump $3 trillion worth of US Treasuries, leverage that could ultimately put the Tariff Man in line

From Asia Times:

The real bond vigilantes hounding Trump are Asian

The dollar extended its biggest plunge in three years on Friday after China raised tariffs on the US to 125% from 84%, a tit-for-tat step that has gold surging, markets everywhere gyrating and investors more uncertain than ever about the global economic and financial outlook.

It’s now US President Donald Trump’s move. Does the Trump 2.0 White House double down and increase its own tariff rate, now at 145%, on Asia’s biggest economy? Trump, after all, has threatened before a 200% levy on certain Chinese products.

Perhaps most interesting about this week is what global investors learned about the Trump 2.0’s pain threshold. Punters learned – to their horror – that Trump is willing to stomach epic stock market losses but not telltale signs of distress in the bond market.

Posterity will show that it wasn’t the US Congress, the judiciary or voters that forced the US president into a more relational tariff policy. It was bond traders.

In Asian trading hours on April 9, the so-called “bond vigilantes” pushed the yield on 30-year US Treasury bonds above 5%, Bloomberg reported. That — and memories of events from the mid-1990s, mid-2000s and the Silicon Valley Bank bust in 2023 — saw Trump beat a hasty and rare retreat on most tariffs.

Yet it’s concerns about the next round of vigilantes to take on the Trump White House that made him blink: Asian central banks.

Central banks in the region hold roughly US$3 trillion of US Treasuries, with Japan and China, the top holders, sitting on a combined $1.9 trillion. If they were to start selling on a significant scale, who could pick up the slack?

Other than the largest global banks buying steadily, arguably no one.

That’s why chatter in bond trading pits this week that Japan, China and other Asian monetary authorities might be selling so alarmed top US Treasury Department officials.

For years, traders feared China might dump its trove of US T-bills in retaliation against US sanctions and restrictions. That day may have arrived.

China, after all, has an incentive to show that “it won’t hesitate to cause turmoil in the global financial market in order to improve its negotiating power against the US,” says strategist Ataru Okumura at SMBC Nikko Securities. (Full article.)

It's All About Jews

Kissinger and Israel’s Attack on Iran

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Is this the best time or the worst time for Israel to gamble on the outcome of a war with Iran?

https://t.me/AlgoraPublishing/1064

Capitalism in Decay

Some Fall-Out From The Tariff Wars

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via MoA

President Trump likely thought that he could press China into making a deal with him. The tariffs he imposed were supposed to create leverage for that.

Instead he found that China is willing and able to fight back:

China said it will raise its tariff on US goods to 84%, retaliating to the hefty new tariffs on its imports that kicked in on Wednesday.

The move came after the Trump administration followed through on a threat to add a 50% tariff on Chinese goods, in addition to 34% reciprocal tariffs, raising the overall tariff rate on Chinese goods to 104%. The steep new duties on China and 184 other US trading partners took effect at 12:01 a.m. ET on Wednesday.
Beijing’s move marks further deterioration in US-China trade relations after China vowed on Tuesday to “fight to the end” in the renewed trade war.

When the U.S. launched its proxy war in Ukraine against Russia it thought that it could defeat Russia by economic means. A wall of sanctions and other restrictions were to destroy the Russian economy. But Russia was prepared and much stronger than the U.S. had anticipated. Its economy did better than those of the countries which opposed it.

A similar miscalculation seems to have happened with regards to China.

Trump is not knowledgeable about China’s mighty economy. Vice-President Vance recently called China’s highly qualified work force ‘peasants‘. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent is likewise ignorant:

I advised Scott Bessent, now Trump’s Secretary of the Treasury who is leading the tariff war, in 2013 when he was still with Soros. An investment bank engaged me to advise Bessent on China’s economy and consumer trends and go over my book The End of Cheap China.

I took an instant disliking – Bessent was one of the most arrogant and ignorant on China people I had ever met. He was uber bearish on China and was largely ideologically driven in his analysis. Communist countries couldn’t succeed was basically the jist of his views.
Data and rational analysis did not reign supreme.
…
He thinks America has the upper hand with China right now. I worry for America. We have one of the most ignorant on China yet arrogant people I’ve ever met running a trade war against China.

Along with trouble in the stock and treasury markets we now can see trade between the U.S. and not only China but large parts of South Asia comes to a screeching halt:

Amid escalating trade tensions between China and the United States, some Chinese exporters are taking the drastic step of ditching shipments mid-voyage and surrendering containers to shipping companies to avoid crushing tariff costs.

Industry insiders have dubbed the move “preparing for the Long March”, a grim metaphor for what many see as a prolonged and punishing downturn in cross-Pacific trade.
A staff member at a China-listed export company, who requested anonymity, said its US-bound container volume had plummeted from 40 to 50 containers a day to just three to six as a result of the new tariffs on Chinese imports imposed by the second Trump administration.
…
“We’ve halted all shipping plans from the Philippines, Vietnam, Indonesia and Malaysia,” the employee said. “Every factory order is halted. Anything that hasn’t been loaded will be scrapped, and the cargo already at sea is being re-costed.”

Those are goods that U.S. importers expected to see but which will not be delivered. Not even to higher prices. It may take a few weeks until the effects will be seen in U.S. stores but empty shelves, especially for low value everyday stuff, are now sure to appear.

There are no other producers to take up the space.

This will hit the U.S. much more than China:

The Chinese trade surplus with the US is about 3% of its GDP. China would not lose off of that; it would wind up redirecting a lot of those goods to other countries that would only welcome the extra stuff up to a point, or even sell more domestically. But China could weather the hit. Economic suffering that clearly results from US malevolence would also be unifying, while a sluggish economy due to the deflating of a monster property bubble is much less so.

Trump is proposing to make this dire situation worse by sanctioning pharmaceuticals.
…
The only way inflicting this level of punishment on Americans (a huge spike in untreated illnesses, on top of the economic distress from sudden rises in costs and resulting spending cutbacks that will result in business failures, high inflation (conceivably hyperinflation if the destruction of productive capacity is large enough, and readers know I hate the casual use of the “h” word), and a big uptick in unemployment, is if the plan is to produce so much upheaval as to justify the imposition of martial law. But who wants to be the emperor of a hellhole?

On Monday I had quoted Adam Tooze who provided a scenario of rising Treasury interest:

Rather than investors piling into Treasuries driving the price up, instead, we could see investors selling Treasuries en masse.
…
At this point we would expect to see the Fed step in, not just to lower interest rates, as is now commonly expected, but do more drastic interventions.
…
But [..] what if investors, both American and foreign decide, that they no longer wish to hitch their wagon to the empire of the mad king? What if they decide that the US is indeed exceptional, but that it is exceptional in rather nasty ways? […] Well in that case, holding billions in dollars newly created by the Fed does not give you the security you want.

So you sell the dollars. You just want out of the mad house.
This, Ladies and Gentleman, would be the truly big disaster.

The unthinkable move in Treasury happened last night:

Treasury yields spiked on Wednesday as investors bailed out of what has been perceived as the world’s safest instrument on expectations of crumbling foreign demand as tariffs take effect.

The yield on the 10-year Treasury spiked to as high as 4.516%. Yields move in the opposite direction to prices.
Yields settled down after China called for dialogue with the U.S. on trade, and then moved right back near the highs of the day after China said it was increasing its tariffs on the U.S. to 84%.
The yield on the 30-year Treasury was 4.91%, having earlier peaked above 5%.
“Something has broken tonight in the bond market. We are seeing a disorderly liquidation,” said Jim Bianco, president and macro strategist at Bianco Research.
…
[T]ariffs are devastating to bonds — not only do they have an inflationary impact, but they result in fewer dollars being sent to foreign countries that have traditionally recycled them into financial assets and U.S. Treasury securities in particular.

—

Peter Schiff @PeterSchiff – 10:51 UTC · Apr 9, 2025
U.S. stocks, bonds, and the dollar are all down. This is a broad-based liquidation of U.S. assets. Trump claims his tariffs will cause foreigners to invest in the U.S. to avoid the tariffs. Instead, tariffs have already resulted in foreigners pulling their money out of the U.S.

Rising interests is the last thing the Trump administration wanted to see. It wants to borrow more to be able to cut taxes. But with interest rates on the rise it will become more difficult to cover the U.S. deficit.

The real damage though will probably happen in smaller Asian countries who have borrowed in U.S. dollar and, due to tariff and trade troubles and rising interest rates, will have difficulties to pay back their loans. If they default the western banks who have lend them the money will go down with them. The trade trouble could thus develop into a serious banking crisis.

These are interesting times to live in …

Capitalism in Decay

Tariffs, no Tariffs? Too Little, Too Late

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by Claudiu Secara

I see no solution for the US in its foregone predicament – Trump or no Trump.

If the US continues on the path of trade imbalance as of now, it can continue enjoying its lifestyle for another generation as it goes on selling its assets one by one, land, real estate, art collections, gold, etc. It would face the same historical transition as happened in nineteenth-century Europe when the emerging bourgeoisie capitalized on its hard work and savings and replaced the la dolce vita landed aristocracy.

This is well illustrated by at least two classic pieces of literature, The Cherry Orchard by Chekhov and The Leopard, by Lampedusa. Nothing new to see here.

The other option that the US has is to raise tariffs and other trade barriers against the countries that are overtaking its domestic production, and retreat as a standalone economy. A form of twenty-first century autarchic economy. The result? Stagnation, third-worldization, backwardization, etc. Not good.

So, the historical trend is clear. There is not much for the US to do. World War III? Not a chance to win. Trigger a world pandemic? Use bioweapons? Not much hope to get out unharmed. In fact, the brief experiment with Covid showed that the US had a much higher level of destruction and death than its adversaries. New forms of exotic weapons like geo-weapons, climate weapons, direct energy weapons? The US is no longer facing an army of bows and arrows, but even better and more sophisticated technological powerhouses in China and Russia.

It would be wise then to call for a truce, ask for help in order to wind down its excesses of the last 30 or 40 years. Not yet unmanageable. Engage in a constructive dialogue, give up its claims to hegemony and look ahead for another day, when it can re-tool itself and recast itself into a different national identity. But that ain’t going to happen because the national hubris and arrogance is so deeply engrained in the populace that such a sudden loss of status is unpalatable.

If the competition is shaping up to be between team China and team US, there is every reason to believe based on known qualifications that team China is already projected to be the winner. Hard work, excellent education, focus, discipline, unity of the goal, good morals and far less corruption as the institutionalized policy of the US system, all of these and more are all meant to predetermine the outcome.

But, we’ll have to wait and see.

La Resistance - One by One

They Own You!

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George Carlin the great American Prophet said it best:

“It’s never going to get any better, don’t look for it, be happy with what you’ve got.

Because the owners, the owners of this country don’t want that. I’m talking about the real owners now, the BIG owners! The Wealthy… the REAL owners! The big wealthy business interests that control things and make all the important decisions.

Forget the politicians. They are irrelevant. The politicians are put there to give you the idea that you have freedom of choice. You don’t. You have no choice! You have OWNERS! They OWN YOU. They own everything. They own all the important land. They own and control the corporations. They’ve long since bought, and paid for the Senate, the Congress, the state houses, the city halls, they got the judges in their back pockets and they own all the big media companies, so they control just about all of the news and information you get to hear. They got you by the balls.

They spend billions of dollars every year lobbying, lobbying, to get what they want. Well, we know what they want. They want more for themselves and less for everybody else….”

To know who the owners are just find out who you cannot criticize.

See more: Today, coincident with D Trump’s Great Tariff Debacle, China announced its Digital Payments Processing system was open for use among about 10 nations , reducing payment costs near-zero and transaction time in seconds! And open to all to join Completely bypassing the SWIFT choke-point game of the elites. https://t.me/AlgoraTelegram/637

Criminals have a different mentality than non-criminals. https://t.me/AlgoraTelegram/636