Donald Trump, Avatar of his Class, Capitalism & the Decline and Fall of Bourgeois Democracy

[blindpig]

Explosive New Epstein Files Reveal Trump Raped 13-Year-Old Girl
February 1, 2026


US sex trafficker Jeffrey Epstein (left) and US President Donald Trump, then a real estate developer, pose at Trump's Mar-a-Lago estate, Palm Beach, Florida, on February 22, 1997. Photo: Davidoff Studios/Getty Images.

The US Department of Justice has released millions of new documents linked to the case of convicted child sex offender Jeffrey Epstein, before removing some pages that contained complaints mentioning US President Donald Trump.

Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche said on Friday, January 30, that approximately 3.5 million files were published to comply with the Epstein Transparency Act, following criticism that the administration had missed a December 19 deadline set by Congress.

The documents include FBI communications and complaints submitted as tips, some of which list comments mentioning Trump and others who had social or professional ties to Epstein.

Trump has repeatedly denied any wrongdoing in relation to his past association with Epstein.

Pages removed from DOJ website
After their publication, pages containing complaints that mentioned Trump were removed from the DOJ website and now return a “page not found” message. Copies of the documents, however, have circulated widely on social media. CNN anchor Jake Tapper was among those who publicly noted that the pages had been taken down.

One complaint, filed by a friend of a victim, says Trump forced a girl aged 13-14 to perform “oral sex” approximately 35 years ago in New Jersey. The document states that an investigator was sent to Washington to conduct an interview.

Another complaint says Trump regularly paid an individual to perform sexual acts and adds that he was present when her newborn child was murdered by a relative. The paperwork notes that there was “no contact made” with the complainant.

A separate complaint, which provided no contact information, said “calendar girls” parties at Trump’s Mar-a-Lago involved children and sexual abuse. The document also names several public figures as present at such events.

In another account, a complainant said that they witnessed a “sex trafficking ring” at Trump National Golf Club in Rancho Palos Verdes, California, in the mid-1990s. The person noted “threats” from Trump’s head of security if she spoke publicly about what she had seen.

Bill Gates mentioned in the files
The latest release also includes a draft email Epstein wrote to himself in 2013, referring to Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates. In the message, Epstein said Gates asked him to delete emails and referenced “personal matters.”

The DOJ has not provided a detailed explanation for why certain pages were removed after publication. The department said the document release was ongoing.

https://orinocotribune.com/explosive-ne ... -old-girl/

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Only 5% of Greenlanders Prefer the US Over the EU

The poll, conducted amid tensions over Trump’s attempts to annex Greenland, showed that a majority of the population supports greater cooperation with the EU.


Greenlandic authorities, political parties, and citizens have stated that they have “red lines” regarding sovereignty. Photo: EFE.

January 30, 2026 Hour: 10:47 pm

A poll published in the Danish newspaper The Copenhagen Post revealed that 65% of Greenlanders prefer strengthening cooperation with the European Union (EU) over the United States, amid tensions between the Arctic island and the US over Washington’s attempts to annex this autonomous territory of the Kingdom of Denmark.

Only 5% of Greenlanders favored greater cooperation with the United States if they had to choose between the EU and the US, while 29% remained undecided, according to the study.

The survey was conducted between January 22 and 29 in various locations across Greenland. During that period, tensions peaked between Greenland, Denmark, other EU nations, and the White House after Trump stated that, for national security reasons, he was considering using force to seize control of the Arctic island.

Later, during the Davos Economic Forum, the US president reached a preliminary agreement with NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte to strengthen security in Greenland and renounced the use of force to seize the territory, part of the Kingdom of Denmark, a NATO member, and announced a framework agreement on the island’s future.

https://www.telesurenglish.net/only-5-o ... er-the-eu/
However, Greenland’s Minister of Enterprise, Trade, Mineral Resources, Justice, and Gender Equality, Naaja Nathanielsen, denied the existence of a “framework agreement” this Friday.

“There is no framework agreement. First and foremost, we need to begin a dialogue between the Kingdom of Denmark, on the one hand, and the US government, on the other.” “At the moment, we haven’t heard anything concrete about the topics the Americans would like to discuss,” Nathanielsen told the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, adding that while open to dialogue, Greenland has its own “red lines” regarding sovereignty.

Greenland, historically a Danish colony until 1953, made significant progress toward self-government by gaining autonomy in 2009. Since then, the Arctic territory has exercised the right to make independent decisions on domestic policy, while Denmark retains jurisdiction over defense and foreign affairs.


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From MoA's comments:

“Behold. The festering carcass of American rot shoved into an ill-fitting suit: the sleaze of a conman, the cowardice of a draft dodger, the gluttony of a parasite, the racism of a Klansman, the sexism of a back-alley creep, the ignorance of a bar-stool drunk, and the greed of a hedge-fund ghoul – all spray-painted orange and paraded like a prize hog at a county fair. Not a president. Not even a man. Just the diseased distillation of everything this country swears it isn’t but has always been – arrogance dressed up as exceptionalism, stupidity passed off as common sense, cruelty sold as toughness, greed exalted as ambition, and corruption worshipped like gospel. It is America’s shadow made flesh, a rotting pumpkin idol proving that when a nation kneels before money, power, and spite, it doesn’t just lose its soul – it sh*ts out this bloated obscenity and calls it a leader.” Oliver Kornetzke via Substack.

Posted by: Saint Jimmy | Jan 31 2026 16:09 utc | 8

https://www.moonofalabama.org/2026/01/z ... ttack.html

(Or ya could just say he's the avatar of his class...)

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UAE gave Trump crypto firm $500 million as 'bribe' for access to AI chips: Report

Washington had previously limited the UAE's purchases of the chips, fearing the technology would be passed on to China

News Desk

FEB 1, 2026


(Photo credit: UAE Embassy)

The UAE signed a deal to invest $500 million in Donald Trump’s cryptocurrency startup, just weeks before the US President lifted a ban on selling advanced AI chips to the energy-rich Gulf nation, raising concerns about corruption and conflicts of interest, The Wall Street Journal (WSJ) reported on 1 February.

The deal was signed four days before Trump returned to office in January, giving the UAE a 49 percent stake in his World Liberty Financial, according to company documents and people familiar with the matter.

Half of the $500 million was paid up front, with Trump family entities receiving $187 million and entities linked to World Liberty co-founder Steve Witkoff receiving $31 million.

Witkoff, a New York real estate mogul, is a close friend of Trump. The president named him as special envoy, tasking him with overseeing negotiations with Russia regarding the Ukraine war and with Israel regarding Gaza.

The deal with World Liberty Financial was signed by Eric Trump, the president’s son.

Just months later, the US “committed to give the UAE access to around 500,000 of the most advanced AI chips a year – enough to build one of the world’s biggest AI data center clusters,” the WSJ wrote.

The WSJ adds that the investment in Trump’s cryptocurrency company was backed by Sheikh Tahnoon bin Zayed Al Nahyan, a UAE royal who had been lobbying the US for access to the advanced AI chips, according to people familiar with the matter.

After Trump returned to office, Tahnoon met multiple times with him, Witkoff, and other US officials, including during a visit to the White House in March.

During Joe Biden’s term in office, US officials had tightly restricted the UAE's purchases of chips due to the Gulf emirate's close relationship with China. US officials feared that selling the chips to the UAE would allow China to gain access to their technology.

Trump's decision allowed one of Tahnoon’s own companies, the AI firm G42, to receive 100,000 chips each year, despite its close ties to the sanctioned tech giant Huawei and other Chinese firms.

Known as the “spy sheikh,” Tahnoon serves as the Emirates’s national security adviser and oversees its $1.3 trillion sovereign wealth fund.

According to the WSJ, “The deal marked something unprecedented in American politics: a foreign government official taking a major ownership stake in an incoming US president’s company.”

According to Kathleen Clark, a law professor and former ethics lawyer for the city of Washington, DC, the investment “looks like a bribe.”

The transaction, she said, “should be a five-alarm fire about the federal government being for sale.”

Trump’s conflicts of interest have far exceeded those of his predecessors. "It’s like complaining about kayaks when B52s are flying overhead,” said Ty Cobb, who served as a top White House lawyer in Trump’s first administration.

“My advice as an ethics lawyer would have been clear: You don’t do business deals with the families of the leaders of foreign countries. It taints American foreign policy," Cobb added.

In April, a Tahnoon-led investment firm, MGX, announced it would use World Liberty’s stablecoin to complete a $2 billion investment into the cryptocurrency exchange Binance.

The investment gave World Liberty a $2 billion cash reserve, which it used to maintain the coin’s 1-to-1 peg to the dollar. The company invests the money in US Treasury bonds and receives the interest, generating about $80 million yearly.

In October, Trump pardoned Binance founder Changpeng Zhao. Binance had been banned from the US after Zhao pleaded guilty to violating anti-money-laundering rules.

The pardon angered Democratic lawmakers, who accused Trump of selling pardons to the highest bidder.

Zhao, who lives in Abu Dhabi and obtained Emirati citizenship several years ago, is close to Tahnoon and the UAE royal family.

https://thecradle.co/articles/uae-gave- ... l%20family.

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The end of Trump? Is the USA over? Epstein info about Trump!

Trump LOSES IT as HUGE PROTESTS Demand IMPEACHMENT!!
Dr Ignacy Nowopolski
Feb 01, 2026
Below I have attached a number of links to the title topic, as I was not sure of the veracity of the information I received.

Everything indicates that something incredible has happened and Americans have woken up, demanding the removal of Trump and the introduction of democracy?!

From a European point of view, the collapse of the insane Trump regime would mean postponing the US-Israeli aggression against Iran and terminating the specter of nuclear annihilation.

From the American point of view, this would result in the “opening of Pandora’s box”, with unpredictable consequences.

I do not believe that the Americans would succeed in introducing real democracy in this oligarchic country of the Third World and removing global financiers from power.

But of course, I sincerely wish them that.

Be that as it may, we are currently dealing with another acceleration of the disintegration of the Western Empire of Lies, mainly the US & EU.

However, the situation is so dynamic and unpredictable that any forecasts would be like writing with a finger on water.

One thing should be emphasized is that in the rapidly approaching prospect of the disintegration of the EU and NATO, the coalition of Central European countries such as Hungary, Romania, Poland, Slovakia, etc., is a matter of the utmost importance that does not permits any delays!





https://drignacynowopolski.substack.com ... e-usa-over

Google Translator

(Is Poland in one of them 'parallel universes' or something?)

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‘Corruption on a Breathtaking Level’: Report Details Massive Foreign Investment in Trump Crypto Firm
Posted on February 2, 2026 by Conor Gallagher

Conor here: The first comment under the WSJ piece sums it up well:

The swamp has been drained and backfilled with radioactive waste. Unreal, but not surprising.

Once again, Trump is more brazen in his corruption and operates on a larger scale than his predecessors. It might be easier for Democrats to take him to task for such insane levels of corruption if they didn’t engage in the same behavior.

The New Yorker
@NewYorker
In August, David D. Kirkpatrick reported that the President and his family had made $3.4 billion by leveraging his position. At the end of Trump’s first year back in office, the number has ballooned to an estimated $4 billion. https://newyorker.com/news/a-reporter-a ... ntent=null

The WSJ piece makes it appear that the decision to send highly sensitive artificial intelligence chip technology to the UAE was a quid pro quo for the hundreds of millions invested in the Trump family crypto scam.

One big question remains: is the corruption the driver or a sideline grift to a larger scheme?

Why, for example, did the administration also give the green light for exports to Saudi Arabia? Trump has an extensive financial history with the kingdom and perhaps there is another corruption story to come on that front, but it should be noted that the u-turn in advanced chip export policy from Biden to Trump is being celebrated in corners of think tanklandia.

For example, according to Navin Girishankar, president of the Economic Security and Technology Department at the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS), it has to do with a vision for dollar/stablecoin supremacy. He writes:

Access to American compute power will enable both Gulf countries to export AI-enabled goods and services in sectors such as autonomous logistics, precision agriculture, medical diagnostics, and finance.

The Trump administration aims to ensure that “American AI technology continues to be the gold standard worldwide,” according to Vice President JD Vance. But these agreements miss an essential ingredient of American power: a guarantee that AI-enabled exports generated using American chips will be invoiced and settled in dollars.

…the United States should condition access to leading-edge chips on binding commitments to settle AI-enabled exports in dollars…the United States should use dollar-backed stablecoins as the settlement mechanism.

Of course when it comes to corruption and what passes as US global strategy one hand usually washes the other.

By Brad Reed, a staff writer for Common Dreams. Cross posted from Common Dreams.

A bombshell Saturday report from the Wall Street Journal revealed that a member of the Abu Dhabi royal family secretly backed a massive $500 million investment into the Trump family’s cryptocurrency venture months before the Trump administration gave the United Arab Emirates access to highly sensitive artificial intelligence chip technology.

According to the Journal’s sources, lieutenants of Abu Dhabi royal Sheikh Tahnoon bin Zayed Al Nahyan signed a deal in early 2025 to buy a 49% stake in World Liberty Financial, the startup founded by members of the Trump family and the family of Trump Middle East envoy Steve Witkoff.

Documents reviewed by the Journal showed that the buyers in the deal agreed to “pay half up front, steering $187 million to Trump family entities,” while “at least $31 million was also slated to flow to entities affiliated with” the Witkoff family.

Weeks after green lighting the investment into the Trump crypto venture, Tahnoon met directly with President Donald Trump and Witkoff in the White House, where he reportedly expressed interest in working with the US on AI-related technology.

Two months after this, the Journal noted, “the administration committed to give the tiny Gulf monarchy access to around 500,000 of the most advanced AI chips a year—enough to build one of the world’s biggest AI data center clusters.”

Tahnoon in the past had tried to get US officials to give the UAE access to the chips, but was rebuffed on concerns that the cutting-edge technology could be passed along to top US geopolitical rival China, wrote the Journal.

Many observers expressed shock at the Journal’s report, with some critics saying that it showed Trump and his associates were engaging in a criminal bribery scheme.

“This was a bribe,” wrote Melanie D’Arrigo, executive director of the Campaign for New York Health, in a social media post. “UAE royals gave the Trump family $500 million, and Trump, in his presidential capacity, gave them access to tightly guarded American AI chips. The most powerful person on the planet, also happens to be the most shamelessly corrupt.”

Jesse Eisinger, reporter and editor at ProPublica, argued that the Abu Dhabi investment into the Trump cypto firm “should rank among the greatest US scandals ever.”

Democratic strategist David Axelrod also said that the scope of the Trump crypto investment scandal was historic in nature.

“In any other time or presidency, this story… would be an earthquake of a scandal,” he wrote. “The size, scope and implications of it are unprecedented and mind-boggling.”

Tommy Vietor, co-host of “Pod Save America,” struggled to wrap his head around the scale of corruption on display.

“How do you add up the cost of corruption this massive?” he wondered. “It’s not just that Trump is selling advanced AI tech to the highest bidder, national security be damned. Its that he’s tapped that doofus Steve Witkoff as an international emissary so his son Zach Witkoff can mop up bribes.”

Former Rep. Tom Malinkowski (D-NJ) warned the Trump and his associates that they could wind up paying a severe price for their deal with the UAE.

“If a future administration finds that such payments to the Trump family were acts of corruption,” he wrote, “these people could be sanctioned under the Global Magnitsky Act, and the assets in the US could potentially be frozen.”

https://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2026/02 ... -firm.html

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Gaza reconstruction; Ukraine reconstruction – ‘It’s all business’

Alastair Crooke

February 2, 2026

Everything is ‘business’ in Trump’s geo-politics.

Over the past two weeks, two important messages were conveyed to Iran, both of which were rejected.

One came from the U.S. and the other from Israel. The former was: “We [the U.S.] will carry out a limited attack and you should accept it; or at least, give only a symbolic response”. Tehran rejected this request, saying that it would consider any attack to mark the beginning of a full-scale war.

Israel’s message, delivered through one of the various mediators, was: “We will not participate in the American attack”. It asked Iran therefore, to not target Israel. This request also met with a negative response, together with the explicit clarification that were the U.S. to commence military action, Israel would be immediately attacked. In parallel, Iran informed all states in the region that any attack launched from their territory or airspace, would result in an Iranian attack on whomsoever facilitated such U.S. military action.

As background, the Iranian perception of threat of U.S. military action has moved beyond the level of a manageable threat, to that of an existential threat. Consequently, writes Iranian analyst Mostafa Najafi, Iran’s leadership has “concluded that a U.S. attack — even if limited in scope — [would] not lead to the end of a conflict … [Rather, it would] result in the continued shadow of war and increased security, economic, and political costs for the country. On this basis, a comprehensive response to any attack, even whilst accepting its consequences, is viewed as a strategy for restoring deterrence and preventing the continuation of sustained military pressure”.

It seems, given the report by Israeli Channel 14’s Hallel Rosen on the talks between the U.S. Commander of CENTCOM General Cooper and his Israeli counterparts on 25 January, that Cooper and his team told their Israeli colleagues that the U.S. Administration were seeking only a ‘clean, quick, and cost-free operation in Iran’ – one that would not require a significant drain on resources, nor result in the U.S. becoming entangled, nor slipping into widespread complications inside Iran.

Iran, of course, is not Venezuela. It seems that Trump’s quest for an ‘In-Boom-Out’ standout operation for Iran is proving elusive. It carries too high a risk of a bad look – not playing as a ‘winner’ – especially at a time when Trumps’ approval rating is suffering.

U.S. Envoys Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner had arrived in Israel (from Davos, where they had focussed on both Ukraine and Gaza), to meet with Netanyahu on the Saturday that the CENTCOM team were in town.

No doubt Witkoff conveyed to Netanyahu – viewed from the political plane – Trump’s hesitations about the prospective attack on Iran which General Cooper was outlining in Tel Aviv).

The principal message that Witkoff would have brought was Trump’s invitation issued the same weekend both to Netanyahu and Putin to join Trump’s Board of Peace(including its Gaza component).

Putin said he was ready to respond to Trump’s Board of Peace invitation, subject to the documents being reviewed by his Foreign Ministry, and suggested too that Moscow could be prepared to pay the $1bn fee required for permanent membership from Russia’s frozen assets in the U.S., adding that additional frozen funds could also be drawn on for re-building “territories that suffered during hostilities between Russia and Ukraine [–] Once we sign peace deal”.

Putin said that he planned to raise those latter ideas in a meeting on the following day, with Witkoff and Kushner, as well as with Palestinian President Abbas, who was scheduled to visit Moscow the same day.

World attention is being focused towards the apple of Trump’s eye – the plan for the reconstruction of Gaza. This flagship project promoted by Trump, writes Anna Barsky in Ma’ariv (in Hebrew), “aims to transform the Strip into a restored and prosperous civil entity, on the model of the Gulf states. Leading this vision are two of his closest advisers: Jared Kushner and Steve Witkoff, who are pressing Trump to apply pressure on Israel to agree to begin reconstruction in areas of Gaza that are currently under IDF control, within the demilitarized zone”.

“Whilst close advisors to President Trump are pushing for a rapid reconstruction of the Strip, Israel insists that without a full, real and irreversible disarmament of Hamas, there can be no reconstruction – not even in territory under IDF control … [The Witkoff plan] thus represents an outcome that is completely contrary to Netanyahu’s worldview, Israeli sources say … According to them, the Prime Minister has not only a desire to prevent such a scenario, but also has practical tools to do so”.

“Why is the Trump administration investing so much energy in rebuilding Gaza?”, Nahum Barnea, the doyen of Israeli political correspondents, asked of a man who was at the heart of the talks between the two governments in Trump’s first year:

“Money”, the man replied. “It’s all business. Rebuilding Gaza will cost hundreds of billions of dollars. The money is supposed to come from Gulf states. Businessmen close to Trump are striving to get their share, in brokerage fees, in construction and evacuation companies, and security and manpower”.

“Wait, [Barnea] said. I thought Turkey and Egypt were eyeing the reconstruction money, not Trump’s people. [The man] smiled. Both. I’ll surprise you, he said. Israeli businessmen are also showing interest. They believe that some of this good stuff will fall into their hands”.

Barnea was amazed: “The deniers who destroyed the houses in Gaza will clear its ruins, build its cities. Happy Ending!”

So here it is possible to see how things are shaping up. The question that preoccupies the political echelon in Israel is what happens should Trump determine that the Gaza reconstruction project will be promoted without Israeli consent:

Be aware, “Kushner and Witkoff do not see themselves as ‘decorations’. They have a coherent vision for Gaza, and it is very much in contrast to the Israeli vision”, Barsky quotes her high-level source saying.

Barnea wryly observes: “Netanyahu will make sure to bluff out phase two of the plan”. Yet, Barnea’s friend smiled: “There may not be reconstruction; [but] there will be money”, he said.

President Putin, no doubt, sees all this. And guess what? As Witkoff and Kushner arrived in Moscow, keen to discuss Putin’s Board of Peace membership acceptance, the former were accompanied by Josh Gruenbaum, another Jewish American investor — a new, active member of Trump’s negotiating team — who had come to negotiate with Netanyahu for post-military control of Gaza under Trump’s Board of Peace.(Gruenbaum has just been made a senior adviser to the Board of Peace).

Witkoff, Kushner and Gruenbaum plainly care deeply about the real estate project in Gaza. Putin must see that.

Putin likely has the U.S. Administration’s pulse. It was him, after all, who suggested that some of Russia’s frozen funds could be used to rebuild ‘territories that suffered during hostilities between Russia and Ukraine’. Trump at Davos hinted at a $800bn reconstruction fund for Ukraine – not as an outright grant (much to Zelensky’s chagrin), but to be conditioned on Ukrainian withdrawal from the Donbas – which Zelensky refuses.

Zelensky however, badly needs money now (as grift to pass around his following). And Witkoff and Kushner need Putin’s backing to unlock the Gulf money for Trump’s ‘signature project’ – the rebuilding of Gaza. They also need Putin’s support to push Netanyahu into finally initiating Gaza Phase 2.

Putin met President Abbas just ahead of his meeting with Witkoff, Kushner and Gruenbaum. Putin has leverage here; he did, in his initial Board of Peace response, notably underline the importance of UNSC decisions on Palestine. If Witkoff wants Putin’s political heft to bring about the reconstruction of Gaza – against Netanyahu’s interest – the Palestinian dimension will have to come into play, one way or the other.

Ushakov, Putin’s aide, noted too that the ‘situation of Greenland was discussed’. More leverage? Joint U.S.-Russian exploitation of the Arctic dangled before the business trio?

Everything is ‘business’ in Trump’s geo-politics.

https://strategic-culture.su/news/2026/ ... -business/

[blindpig]

BREAKING NEWS FROM MIAMI, DMITRIEV OFFERS WITKOFF BIGGER BRIBES — BREAKING NEWS FROM TEHERAN, TRUMP IS RETREATING



By John Helmer, Moscow @bears_with

Nuri al-Said, the long-serving but ill-fated Iraqi prime minister of the 1940s and 1950s, once said that you can rent an Arab but you can’t buy him.

On July 15, 1958, he ended up shot by an Iraqi Army coup, buried, dug up, and his corpse mutilated as it was dragged through the streets of Baghdad. His end confirmed his truth.

President Vladimir Putin knows better than most that the Nuri Pasha maxim applies to American government officials up to and including the presidents — except that they don’t honour their promises, demand more bribes, and survive intact to die in bed (most of them).

Still, Putin has delegated Kirill Dmitriev (lead image left), a US-educated and trained investment banker, to deliver the bribes (left, right) to President Donald Trump (extreme right) and his go-betweens, and return with what Dmitriev claims to be their promises for terms of settlement of the Ukraine war, the lifting of sanctions, and the release of about $300 billion in Central Bank of Russia (CBR) funds frozen and part-confiscated over the past four years.

Putin has done this so that he can ask the General Staff, the intelligence services, and the Security Council what they make of the deal by a show of thumbs up, thumbs down, after Dmitriev presents the costs and benefits of his proposal and the Trump administration’s response. Dmitriev was sent back to Miami last weekend.

When he returned to report to the Kremlin, spokesman Dmitry Peskov said “there will be no details. You’ve heard the conceptual assessments from both sides, from Dmitriev and from Witkoff. In general, these were quite positive and constructive talks.” Witkoff had tweeted the adjectives, “productive and constructive”.

Witkoff also revealed that several Americans were with him at the meeting with Dmitriev: US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, Jared Kushner and Joshua Gruenbaum. This is the first time Putin has authorized a single representative to meet a full US delegation. On January 22, in addition to Witkoff and Dmitriev, Kushner and Gruenbaum were matched at the Kremlin by Putin himself and Yury Ushakov, the Kremlin national security advisor.

Bessent’s attendance in Miami signals the talks with Dmitriev covered terms for ending the US sanctions on Russian trade and assets, including the secondary sanctions on Indian and Chinese purchases of Russian oil. Bessent’s press office at the US Treasury has remained silent; so too his Twitter stream.

At the same time, Bessent has continued to sharpen sanctions against Iran, tweeting “the regime has chosen to squander what remains of the nation’s oil revenues on nuclear weapons development, missiles, and terrorist proxies around the world. President Trump stands with the people of Iran and has ordered Treasury to sanction members of the regime. Treasury will continue to target Iranian networks and corrupt elites that enrich themselves at the expense of the Iranian people. This includes the regime’s attempts to exploit digital assets to evade sanctions and finance cybercriminal operations. Like rats on a sinking ship, the regime is frantically wiring funds stolen from Iranian families to banks and financial institutions around the world. Rest assured. Treasury will act.”

Bessent’s public attack at supper time on January 30 on “networks and corrupt elites” was not what he said privately to Dmitriev, representing Russian business networks and elites, when they met at breakfast the next day. The selective sanctions relief which Dmitriev has been asking for, and the bribes he has been offering, have been understood in Moscow for a year now. But criticism of this line and of Dmitriev’s role which has been gathering force in the Russian Security Council and State Duma has so far been kept behind closed doors and off the record.

A Moscow source in a position to know says Dmitriev is now proposing to reclaim the $300 billion of CBR reserves and place them in an international fund to be jointly managed by Dmitriev, Trump’s sons and son-in-law, and Witkoff’s sons. After some small allocations have been made to Trump’s Gaza redevelopment and to the post-armistice Ukrainian regime, most of the money would then be invested in joint US and Russian projects whose disbursement would legalize the American bribe-taking, and add Russian takers as well.

“Look,” the source says: “Trump must get the money out of the European repositories. From our point of view, the increase in value of the CBR’s gold reserves has almost overtaken the value of the frozen cash reserves. This scheme takes the money out of the hands of [Central Bank Governor Elvira] Nabiullina: no one wants her to get her hands back on the money. So what’s wrong with investing the money better than she has done? Everybody gets rich.”

In a podcast requested by the Tehran Times and recorded on February 2, the formula of Money plus Votes plus Bullets equal Power (M +V+ B = P) has been applied to the parallel negotiations Trump and Witkoff are running with Iran and Russia. For elaboration of the formula, click to read this.

Trump is retreating on both foreign fronts, and also on his home front.

The evidence cited in the podcast includes these two statements by Trump over the weekend in which he intimated that he has abandoned two of his earlier demands – that Iran halt its missile development programme and reduce its nuclear enrichment to zero.

Saturday, January 30:
“Q: Sir, could you give us an update on where, where your thinking is right now with Iran, if you are, uh, have made a final decision on what you want to do there?

Donald Trump: I mean, I certainly can’t tell you that, but we do have very big, powerful ships in, heading in that direction as you know. I can’t tell you. Okay. But I hope, I hope they negotiate something that’s acceptable.

Q: Saudi Arabia, uh, commencements are quickly submitted in the US backs office strike [as published]. That will be important to Iran. What’s your reaction to that, sir?

Donald Trump: Some people think that and some people don’t. Well, we could make a negotiated deal that would be satisfactory with no nuclear weapons that said they should do that, but I don’t know that they will. But they are talking to us. Seriously talking to us.”

Sunday, February 1:
Question: Sir, uh, on Iran, uh, the Supreme Leader today said that, uh, US attacks could spark a regional war. Do you have any thoughts on that?

Donald Trump: Why wouldn’t he say that? Of course, he’s gonna say that. But, uh, we have the biggest, most powerful ships in the world over there. Very close, couple of days. And, uh, hopefully we’ll make a deal. If we don’t make a deal then, uh, we’ll find out whether or not he was right…”

The money market evidence that Trump will not attack Iran for fear of triggering the closure of the Strait of Hormuz and a cutoff of Persian Gulf shipments of crude oil is that the forward price of oil began to decline sharply from peak on January 29. Since then West Texas Intermediate (WTI) has fallen by 6.5%; Brent by 8.1%. Trump’s retreat is as plain as the direction of these price indexes downward.


Source: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/ ... id=0#gid=0 Trump continues to tweet “the highest Poll Numbers I have ever received. Obviously, people like a strong and powerful Country, with the best economy, EVER!” -- https://truthsocial.com/@realDonaldTrum ... 7990106189 In the compilation of all polls on Trump’s voter rating, fear of inflation and disapproval of Trump’s performance on that economic indicator continues to grow worse.


Source: https://www.realclearpolling.com/polls/ ... /inflation

One result has been Trump’s backtracking on his deployment of National Guardsmen and the Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) paramilitaries in Minneapolis and other “poorly run Democrat Cities…Unless, and until, they ask us for help. We will, however, guard, and very powerfully so, any and all Federal Buildings that are being attacked by these highly paid Lunatics, Agitators, and Insurrectionists.”

The podcast also questions why the Iran side should continue negotiating with Trump’s emissary Witkoff after the record he made as a deception operation ahead of the 12-day war last June; and whether Iranian negotiators are seeking the same role in their negotiations as the Russians have required in their Abu Dhabi talks — that is, for the chief US military officer responsible for attack plans and operations against Iran. This is Admiral Brad Cooper.

The Russian alternative framework for peace negotiations with Iran to address the root causes of the conflict as a region-wide problem, and to assure mutual and reciprocal security for the regional states, was issued on August 21, 2021. Read it here.


Listen to or view the Tehran Times podcast, hosted by Sahar Dadjoo, when the link is released today. A text will follow in the Tehran Times website. https://www.tehrantimes.com/

https://johnhelmer.net/breaking-news-fr ... etreating/

******

On Trump’s Immigration Crackdown and His Foreign Policy
Posted by Murat Akad | Feb 2, 2026



The following interview of Joseph Jamison will appear in the February issue of Ortaklasa (Collectively) a new publication of the TKP (CP of Turkey). Murat Akad, an editor of Ortaklasa, is the interviewer.


Since Trump became president, the United States has been generating more headlines than ever before. A highly turbulent period has opened up, both internationally and within U.S. politics. Let us begin with the killing of Renee Nicole Good in Minneapolis by an ICE agent. Although ICE was founded earlier, the world really became aware of it during Trump’s presidency. Trump concentrated ICE agents in certain cities he specifically targeted. On social media we see countless videos showing masked ICE personnel operating almost like a paramilitary force. Many people even compare them to the Nazis. What exactly is ICE? Why has it come so much to the fore? What is its political function? We also see Border Patrol playing a similar role. Although it is officially tasked with guarding the country’s borders, it is now conducting manhunts for migrants in cities far from the border.

JJ- To answer this question we have to take a step back and understand Trump’s immigration policy and its roots. Trump’s essential ideology is right-wing populism. Unlike previous ideologies dominant in the Republican Party, right-wing populism claims to speak for “the people” for “the little guy” against “the elites” but essentially blames scapegoats for the people’s woes: undocumented immigrants, African-Americans, Muslims, Mexicans, Central Americans, Somalis (concentrated in Minneapolis).

Right-wing populism has national variations but Trump is, in many respects, akin to Marine LePen in France, Nigel Farage in the UK, Giorgia Meloni in Italy, Viktor Orban in Hungary, Alice Weidel leader of the AfD (Alternativ fur Deutschland) party in Germany, and so forth. By contrast left-wing populism also celebrates “the people” but puts blame for their plight on the real culprits, however imprecisely defined in the US: Big Business, Wall Street, the monopolies, the railroads, the robber barons, the Eastern Establishment, the 1 percent, “the billionaire class,” the elites.

Trump’s preferred scapegoat is immigrants. In 2024 at the Republican convention that nominated him, he promised, having built a US-Mexico “border wall” in his first term (2017-2021), to undertake “mass deportations” of illegal aliens in his second term.

ICE (Immigration and Customs Enforcement, formerly called Immigration and Naturalization Service, INS) together with the Border Patrol, and the National Guard (state militias that have been put under federal control) are the three agencies of the federal government’s Department of Homeland Security that are carrying out mass deportations. Trump promised to first target the “worst of the worst” — illegal aliens who were violent criminals (murderers, rapists etc.). But in fact, a very different policy has emerged. According to Minneapolis residents, the basic tactic seems to be ICE convoys driving around looking for any nonwhite person out by themselves, jumping out, dragging them into a van, then driving off.

After Renee Nicole Good’s killing, a very serious wave of public anger erupted. At the same time, the mayor of Minneapolis and the governor of Minnesota took a strong stand against ICE. We see other politicians, including some Republicans, doing the same. What kind of political fracture does this reflect in U.S. politics? How should the social reactions that have emerged be evaluated? They recall the protests that followed the killing of George Floyd by the police, also in Minneapolis. What lies behind this? Is the issue merely the killing of an unarmed person, or do these reactions also have a political basis?

JJ – Sheer brutality and cruelty have marked Trump’s anti-immigrant crackdown. Mass deportation of Mexican and Central American immigrants often means sending them to harsh prisons in distant countries, or else to remote and isolated areas of the US (for example, to “Alligator Alcatraz,” a hastily built prison camp in the hot, humid Everglade swamps of Florida). Trump has deployed thousands of masked, heavily armed ICE agents, and other federal troops (the Border Patrol, and the National Guard) in major cities, typically, those cities run by Democratic Party mayors such as Los Angeles and Minneapolis. ICE agents seize targeted individuals on the street and jail them, often resulting in separation of parents and children. The sight of these deployments and abductions has terrorized tens of millions of immigrants (documented and undocumented) and it has met with strong disapproval of a majority of Americans, not only the left.

There is, admittedly, majority approval of Trump’s “securing” the southern border, which was seen as “open” and “unsecured” under his predecessor president Joe Biden, a Democrat. In the Biden era 2021-2025, images of large masses of immigrants marching to the US-Mexico border were often seen on television.

There is a profoundly racist dimension to Trump’s immigration policy. Immigrants from Latin America, Central America and Africa (Somalia, in particular. Somalis are concentrated in the Minneapolis area) are especially targeted. Trump has publicly called Somalis “garbage.” It has been reliably reported that ICE is recruiting new agents from white supremacist terror gangs, such as the Proud Boys.

Along with mass deportation, Trump has created a new, racist asylum policy. Its chief beneficiaries have been white South Africans who, Trump alleges, have been persecuted by the African National Congress government in South Africa.

Trump frequently denounces “birthright citizenship,” the provision of the US Constitution that defines a US citizen as someone “born or naturalized” in the US. He alleges that illegal aliens abuse it by coming to the US to give birth to a child, thereby securing citizenship for the child.

As you suggest, the case of Renee Nicole Good could well turn out to be similar to the George Floyd case, that is, a spark leading to much larger nationwide protests. At the time of this writing (January 16, 2026) protests against ICE are continuing in Minneapolis and around the US. Trump is escalating the tension by pouring more federal troops into Minneapolis. The stubbornness with which Trump has escalated repression is due to the centrality of the immigration crackdown to his whole domestic program. Protests against ICE are continuous and there is plenty of teargas and the use of flashbombs (A flashbomb, sometimes called a flashbang or stun grenade. It is a non-lethal explosive device used primarily by military and police tactical units to temporarily disorient people) and rubber bullets. If the ICE protesters compel Trump to retreat, then it will be a defeat of major proportions for him, and it will not bode well for the midterm elections in November 2026.

Tens of millions of people saw Renee Nicole Good murdered by real bullets on television (as they saw George Floyd murdered on television) and they reject the explanation of the incident put forward by the Trump Administration. They are furious at its clumsy efforts to avoid accountability and to prevent an independent investigation of the ICE agent who killed her. Trump’s vice president, J. D. Vance, has already declared the ICE agent to be “absolutely immune” from prosecution. Trump’s top Homeland Security official Kristi Noem, has called Renee Nicole Good a “domestic terrorist.” She was in fact a US citizen, a mother of three, a poet, and a singer in her church choir.

The mass character of the George Floyd protests was striking. But the protests against the genocide in Palestine have been even larger. The activism on university campuses has been unprecedented. At the same time, there have been notable strikes in recent years. Young people in particular seem to be developing a higher level of political consciousness. Can we speak of a general politicization of society?

JJ- It is more a shift to the left and politicization among the young, not yet a general politicization of society as a whole. Among the young, as you correctly note, there is a definite shift to the left. Youth are more pro-trade union; they are more willing to begin the difficult task of organizing a union in their workplace. If they already have a union, they are more willing to go on strike. Having watched the televised savagery of the US-backed Israeli onslaught against Gaza for two years, they are more pro-Palestinian and less influenced by Zionist propaganda than their elders. They are less influenced by decades of anti-communist propaganda to which older Americans have been subjected. Six years ago, young people led the George Floyd protests too. Young people were the main force that elected Zohran Mamdani to be Mayor of New York City in November 2025. He is a 34-year-old immigrant (born in Uganda of Indian heritage), a Muslim, and a self-described “democratic socialist.” His opponents on the right, including Trump, red-baited him consistently during the campaign. Red-baiting had little effect on the young.

How do you assess the Strategy Document that came into force in late 2025 and the debates about a return to the Monroe Doctrine? Would this not require the support of the capitalist class? To what extent has Trump been able to rally the U.S. capitalist class around his policies? Are there divisions among capitalists?

JJ- The National Security Strategy (NSS) is a document setting U.S. foreign policy goals that the president periodically sends to Congress. Commenting on the NSS released on December 5, 2025 Rebecca Lissner, associated with the establishment-oriented Council on Foreign Relations, indicated that, “The Western Hemisphere is elevated as America’s highest priority, with an emphasis on arresting migration, combating so-called “narco-terrorists,” and assuring U.S. dominance through a “Trump Corollary” to the Monroe Doctrine. The NSS asks, “What are America’s core foreign policy interests? What do we want in and from the world?” The NSS response is: “We want to ensure that the Western hemisphere remains reasonably stable and well-governed enough to prevent and discourage mass migration to the United States … a hemisphere whose governments cooperate with us against narco-terrorists, cartels, and other transnational criminal organizations … a hemisphere that remains free of hostile foreign incursion or ownership of key assets … In other words, we will assert and enforce a ‘Trump Corollary’ to the Monroe Doctrine.”

Historically, the “doctrine” put forth by President James Monroe in 1823 asserted that the United States rejected the intrusion of European powers in Western Hemisphere affairs. Actually, Monroe was opposing the re-intrusion of European colonial powers. When Napoleon conquered Spain and Portugal, many Latin American states were able to win their independence, led by liberators such as Simon Bolivar and Jose de San Martin. At the end of the Napoleonic Wars (1815) Spain and Portugal were trying to regain their lost colonies. The Theodore Roosevelt Corollary of the Monroe Doctrine appearing in 1904 proclaimed that the United States would exercise “police power” over targeted countries and that a “big stick” would be used to fix their finances, governments, and external relations.

Since Monroe, US capitalism has always sought to dominate Latin America and the Caribbean economically and politically, usually by neocolonial means but sometimes by overt colonial means (Puerto Rico). In the current moment, the expansion of China’s influence in Latin America is perceived by US rulers as a new threat to US dominance. Under Trump, those states that assert their independence of the US, such as Venezuela or socialist Cuba or Nicaragua become targets for US economic sanctions and sometimes military action as we saw in Venezuela on January 3, 2026.

In recent years, people have begun to speak of the possibility of a civil war in the United States in a way we had never heard before. Such scenarios are even being portrayed in Hollywood series and films. How likely do you think this is? Who would be the sides in such a civil war?
JJ- A civil war is unlikely in present circumstances. Nevertheless, the US is a highly armed society and there is plenty of gun violence. The number of guns exceeds the number of people in the US, currently 348 million people. Gun ownership is concentrated in rural areas and in the South and West. But gun violence is a major social problem in all parts of the country; the “gun lobby” composed of arms-manufacturing firms and sections of the political right is powerful and entrenched in the Republican Party. Because of the ready access to guns — even to military-grade assault weapons (machine guns) — there are frequent incidents of mass killings by the mentally ill, criminals, and sometimes, assassins, as well as accidental killings (of and by children). There have been horrific incidents of mass shootings in schools. Progressives advocate restrictions on gun ownership to keep them out of the hands of those who might engage in mass shootings.

The increased — and increasingly violent — repression that the Trump Administration is using in its immigration crackdown runs the risk of larger-scale counter-violence. So far in Minneapolis and elsewhere, anti-ICE protests have been peaceful; the forces leading the anti-ICE protests – often the clergy and other community leaders — understand that Trump wants to escalate tension, hence they are consciously pursuing non-violent tactics. Scenes of chaos and violence in the streets (teargas, rubber bullets, flashbombs) help to justify even more extreme ICE repression and to intimidate the immigrant community.

Moreover, since the January 3 US attack on Venezuela and the kidnapping of President Maduro and Cilia Flores his wife, there is plenty of hubris in the Trump government, so there is a greater possibility of miscalculation.

https://mltoday.com/on-trumps-immigrati ... gn-policy/

*****

Trump lowers India tariffs as Modi pledges to end Russian oil purchases

The US president is seeking buyers for US-controlled Venezuelan crude following the kidnapping of President Nicolas Maduro last month

News Desk

FEB 2, 2026


(Photo credit: Alex Brandon/ap/dpa)

US President Donald Trump announced on 2 February that he would reduce the additional 25 percent tariff on Indian goods to 18 percent after Prime Minister Narendra Modi agreed to stop buying Russian oil.


Trump announced the decision after speaking with Modi by phone.

Washington and New Delhi also agreed to eliminate "Tariffs and Non-Tariff Barriers against the US to ZERO," Trump wrote on social media.

India will also purchase "over $500 BILLION DOLLARS of US Energy, Technology, Agricultural, Coal, and many other products," Trump added.

"Our amazing relationship with India will be even stronger going forward," the US president stressed.

Rather than turning to Iran to replace Russian supplies, India will begin making purchases of Venezuelan oil, according to Trump.

"India is coming in, and they're going to be buying Venezuelan oil as opposed to buying it from Iran. So, we've already made that deal, the concept of the deal," Trump told reporters on board Air Force One on Saturday.

The South American nation's oil is under White House control following the US military's abduction of President Nicolas Maduro and his wife Cilia Flores in early January.

India stopped buying oil from Caracas last year after Trump imposed a 25 percent tariff on countries buying Venezuelan oil.

New Delhi previously purchased large amounts of Iranian oil but halted the purchases in 2019 due to US sanctions over Tehran's nuclear program.

Indian refiners first responded by purchasing US oil, but then struck a deal to buy Russian crude at steep discounts after the US imposed sanctions on Moscow following its invasion of Ukraine in 2022.

In August, Trump imposed the additional 25 percent tariff on Indian goods (reduced to 18 percent on Monday) to punish New Delhi for the purchases.

In addition to saying that India would buy more Venezuelan crude, Trump suggested on Saturday that China could make a deal with the US to resume purchases from the South American nation.

"China is welcome to come in and would make a great deal on oil," Trump said, without providing any details.

Venezuelan shipments to China averaged 400,000 barrels per day last year. However, they fell to zero last month amid a US naval blockade of the dark fleet of vessels transporting sanctioned oil from Caracas.

https://thecradle.co/articles/trump-low ... -purchases

I'll await the analysis of John Helmer and his Indian buddies before I give any credence to Donnie's wishful thinking and bombast. Mebbe it's true but it seems too good to be true for Trump. Would Modi(like Erdogan) 'change shoes' after his recent love fest with Putin?

[blindpig]

Donald Trump and first lady Melania (The Wretchedania) Trump arrive for the premiere of her movie “Melania” at The John F. Kennedy Memorial Center For The Performing Arts, Thursday, Jan. 29, 2026, in Washington. (Photo: Jose Luis Magana/AP)

‘Melania’: The movie. The bribe. The shame.
Originally published: People's World on February 2, 2026 by Robert Reich (more by People's World) | (Posted Feb 04, 2026)

I haven’t seen it. I hope you don’t, either.

This, from one of the kinder reviews:

Across some 104 minutes, the first lady delivers these blatantly scripted and meaningless narrations with all the conviction of someone who just woke up from a two-hour nap and can’t remember what day it is.

Manohla Dargis of The New York Times sees a “glossy, curiously impersonal” portrait of a woman who “rarely drops her Sphinxlike deadpan.” Nick Hilton of The Independent calls the first lady a “scowling void of pure nothingness in this ghastly bit of propaganda.” Guardian critic Xan Brooks says it “doesn’t have a single redeeming quality” and compares it to a “medieval tribute to placate the greedy king on his throne.”

Not since The Washington Post music critic Paul Hume observed that Margaret Truman’s singing voice in Constitution Hall in 1950 was “flat a good deal of the time” has a performance by a member of a sitting president’s family generated such averse reviews.

Yet because the The Washington Post is now owned by the man who spent $75 million on the movie ($40 million to make it, $35 million to promote it), I somehow doubt The Post will crap on it. (At least Monica Hesse, in her review for The Post, had the honesty to confess that “if you suspect I have come here today to trash a movie about the wife of a notoriously thin-skinned, anti-journalist president, which was bankrolled by the company owned by the man who also pays my salary—NOT TODAY, SATAN. Do you think I’m a moron?”)

My purpose today is less to highlight this inane excuse for a film than to talk about its real excuse—allowing Jeff Bezos to give a big fat bribe to the president of the United States.

Why would Bezos bribe him? Please.

Bezos, one of the richest men in the world, owns Amazon and many other businesses that depend on the whims of the sociopath in the Oval Office. (Trump sold the idea of the documentary to Bezos when he dined at Mar-a-Lago in December 2024, just after the election, according to the The Wall Street Journal.)

Bezos’s Amazon Web Services has a $1 billion agreement with the General Services Administration for cloud services, which presumably Bezos would like renewed. His rocket company, Blue Origin, has over $2.3 billion in contracts from the U.S. Space Force.

Several of Bezos’s companies are subject to potential tariffs on goods from China. Amazon is under the cloud of a major antitrust lawsuit brought by the Federal Trade Commission (when the FTC was still independent—before it came under the putative control of the Oval Office). The trial is expected in 2027.

And so on.

When the history of this sordid period of America is written—assuming it’s not written by historians trying to curry favor with a future fascist regime—I hope the leaders of American business are condemned to the hellfire they deserve for helping destroy American democracy.

The outer ring of hell will be reserved for CEOs who stayed silent so as not to rile the narcissist-in-chief.

Jamie Dimon of JPMorgan Chase will reside here because, notwithstanding his assumed role as spokesman for American business, Dimon has uttered no criticism of Trump other than to suggest, in the vaguest possible terms, that Trump’s attack on the Federal Reserve’s independence “is probably not a great idea.”

The middle ring will be reserved for business leaders who surrendered to Trump’s extortionist demands for personal payoffs.

The Ellisons, père Larry (the world’s third-richest person) et fils David, will be there, along with Shari Redstone and the board of Paramount, for paying Trump $16 million to settle his utterly baseless lawsuit against CBS.

Also in this middle ring will be Bob Iger, CEO of Disney (which owns ABC) and Debra OConnell, the president of ABC News Group and Disney Entertainment Networks, for giving Trump $15 million to settle his equally spurious lawsuit against ABC News.

In the inner ring, where hell fires burn especially hot, will be business leaders who went beyond acquiescing to Trump’s extortion and decided to pay him big fat bribes.

Elon Musk, the world’s richest man, will have pride of place here, after spending a quarter of a billion dollars getting Trump elected.

Tim Cook, CEO of Apple, will get a spot here for lavishing on Trump a custom-designed glass plaque mounted on a 24-karat gold base.

We’ll also find here the CEOs who coughed up $300,000 each for Trump’s ballroom—including crypto magnates Cameron and Tyler Winklevoss, oil tycoon Harold Hamm, Blackstone’s Stephen Schwarzman, and every Big Tech mogul.

But Jeff Bezos, with his $75 million bribe of Trump, will deserve a special place in the innermost ring of hell.

The $40 million he paid Melania Trump’s production company is at least $35 million more than the cost of typical high-end documentaries. (By way of comparison, Magnolia Pictures and CNN Films produced “RBG,” a documentary about the late Supreme Court justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, for around $1 million.)

Melania Trump pocketed more than 70 percent of that $40 million—or more than $28 million—the Journal reported.

The additional $35 million Bezos shelled out for marketing Melania is 10 times what other high-profile documentaries spend on marketing. The promotional budget for “RBG” was about $3 million. (To be sure, Melania Trump is no Ruth Bader Ginsburg, so I suppose you might argue that Melania needed a larger promo budget. But this much larger?)

All this, at a time when Bezos is slashing the newsroom at the Post— it’s heart and soul—in order to “economize.” Forget the inner ring. Bezos deserves to be at the center of the inferno.

The promo money apparently worked, at least in the U.S., where opening-weekend ticket sales for Melania totaled $7 million.

But let’s be realistic. A $35 million promotional budget will get people into theaters to see paint drying.

If all goes well—given that opening weekend is usually about 25 percent of total box office and that movie houses pocket half—Amazon could end up with about $14 million on its $75 million investment. A pittance.

Yet this was never a financial investment. It was an investment in kissing Trump’s derriere. As Ted Hope, who was instrumental in starting Amazon’s film division, wondered aloud to The New York Times:

How can it not be equated with currying favor or an outright bribe? How can that not be the case?

Of course it’s an outright bribe.

If America still had a Department of Justice, Bezos would be indicted for bribery of a public official pursuant to 18 U.S. Code § 201, which criminalizes offering or giving anything of value to a public official with the intent to influence their official actions. Penalty: imprisonment for up to 15 years.

(Also note: The U.S. Constitution lists taking a bribe as an impeachable offense for a president.)

There’s a statute of limitations for criminal prosecution of such bribes: Prosecution must begin within five years of the deed.

So, if America gets a true Justice Department starting in January of 2029, Bezos’s inferno may become a reality.

https://mronline.org/2026/02/04/melania ... the-shame/

*****

Epstein Files Shows How the Elites Move

Margaret Kimberley, BAR Executive Editor and Senior Columnist 04 Feb 2026


Jeffrey Epstein, Jes Staley and Jamie Dimon © FT montage/Bloomberg

The late Jeffrey Epstein was the subject of news for many years before his 2019 death and is still a newsmaker today owing to his years long relation with Donald Trump who is now in his second term in the presidency. The multi-millionaire financier had a tangled web of financial and political relationships with powerful people all over the world. Perhaps he was best known for the sex trafficking he used to compromise powerful people, but it seems that this activity, which is commonly known, was as it were, his side hustle.

Epstein moved in the highest circles of the world’s political and financial elite. He did far more than act as pimp for the powerful as he worked on behalf of Israel, UK politicians, and international corporate interests. His partner in crime, Ghislaine Maxwell, now languishes in a federal prison, but she began her life as a member of the upper echelon of the British elite. Her father was Robert Maxwell, a Jewish, Czech-born newspaper magnate who was an ardent and active zionist. After Maxwell died from a fall from his yacht in 1991, he was buried in Israel with the then-prime minister, Yitzhak Shamir, in attendance.

The Department of Justice's release of more than 3 million pages of files, including photos and emails, is a treasure trove of information for Epstein watchers. The contents of these files confirm much of what was already known about him but add previously unknown details about his wealth and his political activities. Placing so much emphasis on sex scandals has covered up activities that are equally devastating in what they disclose about how the ruling classes rule.

Epstein evaded justice for years but finally died in a New York City jail in 2019. The cause of death was ruled a suicide but there were always doubts about that finding. Such questions are logical where people like him are concerned. Epstein was worth an estimated $578 million and was a friend of Donald Trump, Bill Clinton, and a former prince of Britain’s royal family who is no longer a prince, now just plain Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor, owing to the need to keep a family distance from scandal.

Epstein was Jewish, but as documents now tell us, he was also a believer in Jewish supremacy who worked with officials in allegedly democratic nations on behalf of the international ruling class and zionists. Epstein’s ties to Israel are well known to anyone who has been following this story, but his attitudes about people who aren’t Jews, “goyim,” as he often wrote in his emails, is a new revelation. “This is the way the jew make money... and made a fortune in the past ten years, selling short the shipping futures, let the goyim deal in the real world,” is just one of the missives found among Epstein’s emails. When a Hollywood publicist asked if an event would be “100% Jew night,” he replied, “No, goyim in abundance-JPMorgan execs, brilliant WASPs.”

Any discussion of the topic of Jewish financial and political power is usually off limits, a sure means of being labeled anti-semitic. But the damning tranche of files and Epstein’s own words give a space for reporting what is documented.

What has been missing is a deeper dive into the web of relationships with prominent people such as corporate leaders, the Israeli government, and international financiers like Epstein himself. The emphasis on sex trafficking and sexual assaults of minors has quite rightly garnered great attention, but there are many more things we should know about Epstein and what his relationships tell us about how the world actually works.

In the UK, Peter Mandelson was forced to step down from the House of Lords and from the Labour Party because of revelations that he leaked official government information to Epstein about a plan to bailout that government during the 2008 market crash. Mandelson and his husband also received money directly from Epstein.

Mandelson is not just any prominent person. He was formerly the UK ambassador to the United States, a former member of parliament, and a leader among New Labour – that is to say, that wing of the party which purged the left and undermined Jeremy Corbyn’s leadership. Mandelson has been a mover and shaker for many years, and his relations with Epstein are just one indicator of how the world works, even in countries that claim to be democracies operating on behalf of their people. It was clear that Corbyn would never be allowed to become prime minister. Powerful people, even those ostensibly in the same party, engaged in behind-the-scenes machinations and collusion with the media to ensure that even a little bit of liberal reform would be off the table.

In 2010, Mandelson emailed Epstein that he had convinced the then-prime minister Gordon Brown to resign after failing to form a coalition government. “Finally got him to go today.” Brown resigned the very next day, and the conservative Tories were back in power. The supposedly left wing Labor party was actually and still is controlled by unprincipled people for whom the labels of left and right are meaningless.

Epstein also played a role in the 1993 Oslo process, which so devastated Palestine. A Norwegian married diplomatic couple, Mona Juul and Terje Roed Larsen, played a lead role in the Oslo Accords and were also on Epstein’s payroll. Larsen received a personal $130,000 loan from Epstein and had to step down from his post as president of the International Peace Institute after it was disclosed that the organization received $650,000 in donations from Epstein. Juul and Larsen’s children were reportedly left $10 million in Epstein’s will. As former UN official Craig Mokhiber says, “I can’t prove that Israel has corrupted UN political officials working on Palestine, but I know that Larsen and his successors as UN envoys (UNSCO) all consistently prioritized Israel regime sensibilities over international law and the human rights of the Palestinian people.” There was definitely great embarrassment in Oslo, Norway, where documents chronicling the process disappeared from official archives. Roed Larsen admitted to keeping a private stash but refused to return them to the state.

An Epstein associate advocated that he involve himself in the looting of Libya after the 2011 NATO regime change plot. The $80 billion in frozen assets were the target. “I have been speaking to the law firm Paul, Hastings, Janofsky & Walker . . . to go after the money on a contingency basis . . . But it would be to our advantage to pay them on an hourly basis and initially go after the low-hanging fruit, which would enable us to keep more of the money. I also have friends, formally with MI6 and Mossad, willing to help identify stolen assets and get them recovered.” Epstein did not demur his response, only stating that “Libyans now are legit… there will be many claims on that money.”

The list of misdeeds and insider wrongdoing is a long one, and there are still millions more files that have yet to be released, and the latest tranche was heavily redacted. The full extent of criminality is still unknown.

Epstein provides a useful window into the high echelons of wealth and power. It is useful that the public gets a glimpse of how little influence they actually have. While we are exhorted to vote at every opportunity, the Epsteins of the world are determining what does and does not happen. They work with intelligence assets, law firms, political parties, and the media to do their dirty work, and the people of the world be damned. If not for his sexual abuse and Donald Trump’s regretted pledge to release the files, we would not have such clear evidence of the corruption that runs the world.

https://blackagendareport.com/epstein-f ... lites-move

*****

Damage Control: Epstein a Russian Spy According to New Corporate Press Spin Cycle
Simplicius
Feb 04, 2026

The new Epstein trove dump has revealed quite some interesting things about the secret behind-the-scenes maneuverings of Western elites vis-a-vis the Ukrainian conflict. It confirms most of the suspected “tropes” about a kind of cabal of insider elites working to undermine Russia while strip-mining Ukraine for their own profiteering motives.

The most notable reaction to this has been the absolutely histrionic MSM full-court press to do damage control by tying Epstein to Putin, despite clear signs Epstein was desperately trying to get in cahoots with Zelensky and Ukraine:





Owing to this mass campaign to obfuscate the true nature of Epstein’s anti-Russian dealings, I felt obliged to put together this small report highlighting the real nexus of elite power plays happening under Epstein’s auspices.

The saga starts with Epstein speaking with Croatian venture capitalist Boris Nikolic, who was a top technology advisor to Bill Gates. They appeared close, with Epstein having named Nikolic to be a backup executor of his will, according to reports.

In the below exchange, Nikolic prompts Epstein to meet with Russian dissident and self-styled “opposition figure” Ilya Ponomarev, for the purpose of aiding his lifelong campaign against Putin:



It is more than clear by the exchange above that Epstein was to help Ponomarev take down Putin, and that mentioning Ponomarev as the main organizer of the uprising against Putin was deemed a chief incentive to hook Epstein to the cause. But more on this connection later.

Next is an interesting exchange with Larry Summers—ex-chief economist for the World Bank, ex-President of Harvard, ex-US Treasury Secretary—wherein Epstein states that Putin deemed Zelensky to have been “run by the Israelis”:



Keep in mind the message above is from May 6, 2019, a mere two weeks before Zelensky became president of Ukraine after defeating Poroshenko. In fact, just three months earlier Epstein had apparently booked a stay at the Hyatt Regency in Kiev, according to an email alert from the files:



This was during the “hot-phase” of the elections themselves, which took place a month later in March, suggesting that Epstein had gone to ground zero in the midst of it to assist Zelensky at the most crucial time.

Another conversation mentions Zelensky:



What’s more interesting is that Epstein had begun circling the topic of Ukraine right around the time of the original Maidan in 2014. It’s now well-established that Epstein was close with the Rothschilds—recall that Dershowitz casually revealed that he was first introduced to Epstein by Lynn Forester de Rothschild in the ‘90s: (Video at link.)

Interestingly, Lynn Forester de Rothschild herself was introduced to her husband Sir Evelyn de Rothschild by Henry Kissinger at the 1998 Bilderberg Group conference, as per her own Wiki—just another glimpse into how deeply connected this elite beau monde really is.

Epstein was also close with the Rockefellers, having been appointed to the board of directors of the Rockefeller Foundation by David Rockefeller himself, which Epstein recounts on video. Recall that David and Jacob were close colleagues, as well, with many theorists hypothesizing that the Rockefellers were simply the American-arm of the Rothschilds, or in short, their US enforcers:



In fact, Epstein’s famous Upper Eastside mansion in Manhattan was allegedly purchased for him by the Rockefellers, according to Whitney Webb’s research. Ghislaine Maxwell herself purchased her NYC estate from none other than…Lynn Forester de Rothschild:



A document from the file dump shows that Epstein had a close business relationship with the Rothschilds, receiving $25,000,000 for services rendered to them, apparently for risk analysis and ‘algorithm-related services’ in resolving matters between the Rothschilds and US authorities:



Truth be told, it’s far more likely that Epstein was not a Mossad asset but rather a direct Rothschild asset being used to gain leverage over everyone including the Mossad; why else would he need to compromise Israeli politicians like Ehud Barak along with the “goyim”, as he popularly termed them?

And of course, there’s now the notorious exchange with Peter Thiel, wherein Epstein openly admits who it is he represents:

(Paywall with free option.)

https://simplicius76.substack.com/p/dam ... -a-russian

(So then Simp, is it these Jews or those Jews... JFC. I just find it hard to believe that US security services would allow the movers and shakers of the ruling class to fall under the control of any outside agency. We know they fuck up, but that blatantly? And for the entire intelligence apparatus of a hegemonic power to be suborned would probably be a world record.

My best guess is that dig through all the proxies and we'll find US spooks at the bottom. Just as the Ukes or Poles must take the rap for Nordstream so here too scapegoats will be found, a few dogs will be sacrificed, and then back to business as usual.

******

Looks as though I will have to reluctantly start an 'Epstein' thread. Sumbitch is as much a headline hog dead as Trump is alive.

[blindpig]

Is Trump Deluded About India No Longer Buying Russian Oil?
February 4, 2026

Donald Trump announced a trade deal with India in which Delhi is supposed to stop buying Russian oil. But India has said nothing about it, writes Betwa Sharma.


India’s Prime Minister Narendra Modi and U.S. President Donald Trump and others in the White House on Feb. 13, 2025. (White House/Flickr)

By Betwa Sharma
in New Delhi, India
Special to Consortium News

Donald Trump claims India and the United States have reached a trade deal in which Prime Minister Narendra Modi agreed to stop buying oil from Russia in exchange for the U.S lowering tariffs on Indian goods from 50 to 18 percent.

In a Truth Social post on Monday, Trump said:

“It was an Honor to speak with Prime Minister Modi, of India, this morning. He is one of my greatest friends … He agreed to stop buying Russian Oil, and to buy much more from the United States and, potentially, Venezuela. This will help END THE WAR in Ukraine, which is taking place right now, with thousands of people dying each and every week!?”

Modi, however, tweeted:

“Wonderful to speak with my dear friend President Trump today. Delighted that Made in India products will now have a reduced tariff of 18%. Big thanks to President Trump on behalf of the 1.4 billion people of India for this wonderful announcement.”

He said absolutely nothing about Russian oil. That was Monday. This is Wednesday and there is still no word from India about any change in purchasing Russian oil. The Indian press has ignored Trump’s words about it.

In Russia, Vladimir Putin’s spokesman, Dmitry Peskov, said Moscow has received no word from India and sees no change in its energy ties. He told reporters:

“So far, we haven’t heard any statements from New Delhi on this matter. We respect bilateral U.S.-Indian relations, but we attach no less importance to the development of an advanced strategic partnership between Russia and India … and we intend to further develop our bilateral relations with Delhi.”

Twenty-five percent of the 50 percent tariffs on India had come because of Indian purchases of Russian oil, which amounted to an average of 1.5 million barrels per day in 2025, or about 33 percent of India’s total oil imports for the year.

As the mystery of the Russian oil claim looms large, the Congress, India’s main opposition party, has slammed the government, warning that India’s strategic autonomy, an enduring challenge, is taking a hit.

Trump made a similar claim last October, saying Modi had assured him that India would stop buying Russian oil, a statement the Indian government rejected.

This time, India has chosen to remain silent on Trump’s claim — so far.

The way Trump treats India and Modi – blunt, unpredictable, and at times bewildering – has left Modi uncharacteristically quiet. Recent events show New Delhi is relinquishing some of the strategic autonomy it always says it maintains.

The Modi government did scale back oil imports from Russia; is withdrawing from Chabahar, the Iranian port that India developed to access Afghanistan and Central Asia while bypassing Pakistan; and is adopting a cautious stance as this year’s leader of BRICS, the bloc of emerging economies that includes Russia and China, which Trump has repeatedly criticised as inimical to U.S. economic interests.


Russian President Putin with Indian Prime Minister Modi, visit a shipbuilding plant in Vladivostok, September 2019. (MEAphotogallery, Flickr, CC BY-NC-ND 2.0)

Amid mounting U.S. criticism and tariff pressures, India seemed to win back some of its strategic autonomy last week by finalising the “mother of all deals” with the European Union, a sweeping free-trade agreement two decades in the making.

U.S. Trade Representative Jamieson Greer reacted by saying, “India comes out on top.” Soon after, Washington signalled it was irked by the deal, with U.S. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent criticising the E.U. for prioritising trade over geopolitics.

He said, “So every time you hear a European talk about the importance of the Ukrainian people, remember that they put trade ahead of the Ukrainian people.”

While Trump’s approach is often unpredictable and undiplomatic, the U.S. has no choice but to regard India as a QUAD partner, a major defence buyer, and a regional counterweight to China, even without a formal alliance.

Courting Trump

Modi went out of his way to court Trump, including travelling to Texas before the 2020 U.S. election to endorse him, an extraordinary step for the prime minister of a foreign country.

In 2019, Indian?Americans packed Houston’s stadium, cheering Trump as he played to the crowd and the frenzied Indian media alongside Modi.

Five years later, the scene is starkly different: this time, Indian-Americans have also been caught in the crossfire of the anti-immigration wave with racist overtones. MAGA forces are calling for H?1B visas to be cancelled—the program that brings so many Indians to work in the U.S—and Indian workers have been deported with handcuffs and shackles on their legs, while India can do little but watch.

U.S. pressure isn’t just shaping India’s energy and regional choices; it also risks straining historic ties with Russia and Iran.

With Russia, the connection goes back to the Cold War and the era of “Hindi-Rusi bhai-bhai” (Indians and Russians are brothers), while ties with Iran stretch back centuries.

Persian (Farsi) was once the language of India’s courts, literature, and administration. Foods and traditions connect the two countries, and many Indian Shia Muslims still look to Iran as a religious centre.

This is not solely Modi’s failure.

India, unlike China, Russia, or the United States, is not a global power and must constantly navigate a complex web of competing interests. While it often advances its agenda through careful balancing, moments like this expose the limits of that approach.

Going South


Trump meets with Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif and Field Marshal Asim Munir of Pakistan, September 25, 2025. (Daniel Torok, White House Photo)

Things really went south for India after Trump claimed credit for ending a deadly four-day India–Pakistan skirmish in April 2025, which was triggered by a terrorist attack in which Hindus were targeted and for which India blamed Pakistan.

The fallout deepened when Trump went on to host Pakistan’s army chief, Field Marshal Asim Munir, while India struggled to win much international sympathy despite the attack taking place on its soil.

Since then, Trump has repeatedly said he stopped the conflict and a potential nuclear escalation by threatening trade consequences, alongside a steady stream of jibes and attacks, some aimed personally at Modi. That undercut the strongman image Modi has cultivated with his domestic base.

Trump said, “India ordered 68 Apaches,” and claimed at the time that Modi asked supplicantly, “Sir, may I see you, please?” He said Modi assured him India would stop buying Russian oil, a statement India’s government rejected.

Losing Strategic Autonomy

India has long relied on Russia for discounted crude oil, especially since global prices spiked after the Ukraine war. For Russia, the West’s economic war against Moscow meant turning towards the East and the Global South, and India has been a big part of that.

After U.S. sanctions on major Russian oil exporters Rosneft and Lukoil took effect in late November 2025, Indian refiners sharply cut back shipments, with imports dropping to their lowest levels in two years in December 2025, down about 29 percent month-on-month to around 1.2 million barrels per day from roughly 1.8 million barrels in November.

For 2025, OPEC’s share of India’s crude imports edged up to 50 percent, from 49 percent a year earlier, while Russia’s share shrank to 33.3 percent from 36 percent in 2024.

While India has said it is diversifying its sources of supply, Russia has downplayed the reduction, calling it temporary and stressing the long-term importance of India’s and Russia’s energy relationship.

Iran Test


Iran’s Chabahar port on the Gulf of Oman. (Creative Commons ASA 4.0)

India’s relationship with Iran is also being tested like never before after Trump’s warning that any country doing business with Iran could face a 25 percent tariff on all trade with the U.S.

In September 2025, the U.S. withdrew the sanctions waiver it had granted India, which had allowed the country to use the deep-water port off Oman without facing penalties for dealing with Iran.

After that, India reportedly told the U.S. government it planned to “wind down all activities” at Chabahar port, following which the U.S. Department of the Treasury granted a temporary sanctions exemption until April 2026.

A government source was quoted as saying, “India has no choice but to exit the Chahabhar port….We have to exit unless sanctions are eased by the U.S. again.”

By effectively blocking India’s use of the Chabahar port off the coast of Oman, the U.S. is disrupting New Delhi’s crucial link to Afghanistan and Central Asia, a strategic route that serves as an important alternative to Pakistan’s Gwadar port in Karachi, which is operated by a Chinese state-owned company.

This is no doubt hard for India to accept.

Even as the Indian state-owned entity operating Chabahar has reportedly taken down its website, anonymous government sources insist that India is still exploring a “middle-ground approach” between Iran and the U.S. and winding down operations is not really an option for New Delhi.

Iran has not issued an official condemnation of India’s withdrawal from the Chabahar port.

Then There Is BRICS


From left, Brazil’s President of Brazil Lula da Silva, China’s President Xi Jinping, South Africa’s President Cyril Ramaphosa, India’s Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Russia’s Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov at the 2023 BRICS summit in Johannesburg. (Prime Minister’s Office – Press Information Bureau, GODL-India, Wikimedia Commons)

The U.S. is also watching India’s leadership of the BRICS in 2026, a forum that is becoming an alternative to U.S.-led economic institutions.

India has already framed its leadership around multilateralism.

BRICS, originally composed of five countries, Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa, added five new full members in 2025: Egypt, Ethiopia, Iran, the United Arab Emirates, and Indonesia.

In addition, BRICS has created a separate “partner country” category for Belarus, Bolivia, Cuba, Kazakhstan, Malaysia, Thailand, Uganda, Uzbekistan and Nigeria.

India has backed Saudi Arabia’s entry into BRICS, but Riyadh has been cautious, given its close strategic ties with the United States and its reluctance to formally join a group that includes Russia and China in a way that could upset Washington.

Trump has mocked BRICS, calling it “a little group… fading out fast,” saying its attempts to challenge the U.S. dollar’s global role have largely failed under his pressure. He has threatened 10 percent tariffs on members for aligning with what he describes as “anti-American policies.”

Trump has said countries must commit to not replacing the dollar or “face 100 percent tariffs” and “can go find another sucker nation.”

To manage sensitive U.S. relations while leading BRICS, India has since 2025 sent its foreign minister, Subrahmanyam Jaishankar, as its representative to key meetings, such as a BRICS virtual summit and a BRICS foreign ministers’ gathering in New York during the U.N. General Assembly. This signals engagement while maintaining a measured profile.

It would be deeply problematic for India if the U.S. manages to impose its international posture on a multilateral forum where India has maintained autonomy.

A Hard Place & a Thawing With China

While Trump’s approach is often unpredictable and undiplomatic, the U.S. sees little choice but to value India as a QUAD partner, a major defence buyer and a regional counterweight to China even without a formal alliance.

But with ties between India and the U.S. cooling under Trump, the Modi government has been quietly recalibrating toward China.

Last September, Modi attended the Shanghai Cooperation Summit in Tianjin — his first visit to China in seven years, since the April 2020 border standoff. And just this month, Reuters reported that India is planning to reopen the doors to Chinese companies bidding on government contracts, reversing restrictions put in place after those clashes.

The clash in Galwan Valley in India’s Ladakh region claimed the lives of 20 Indian soldiers. China has not confirmed the number of dead soldiers on its side. Estimates vary from four to 42.

The move to offer concessions has drawn sharp criticism, as the 2020 border confrontation remains unsettled and Chinese troops repeatedly cross the disputed Himalayan boundary.

Just this week, Rahul Gandhi, leader of the Opposition, caused a ruckus in Parliament when he cited an unpublished memoir by a former army general claiming Chinese tanks were approaching the border in 2020 and criticising the government’s handling of the situation.

https://consortiumnews.com/2026/02/04/i ... ssian-oil/

*****

Trump, ICE, and the Epstein Files

Belgian political leader Peter Mertens writes on how in the US, security forces move into working-class neighborhoods – not into the villas and golf clubs of Epstein or Trump. Words like “monsters” and “death penalty” are reserved for people at the bottom, but as soon as the spotlight is turned upward, the hysteria dissipates.

February 05, 2026 by Peter Mertens


Desk drawer with printed pictures including Donald Trump with Jeffrey Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell and Trump standing with women in swimwear. Photo: DOJ

On May 1, 1989, Donald Trump bought full-page advertisements in four major New York newspapers. The message read: “BRING BACK THE DEATH PENALTY.” Amid the public hysteria surrounding the Central Park Five, Trump called for the scaffold for the teenagers who were under suspicion. The youths were accused of a brutal assault, but were later proven innocent. Trump has never apologized for that witch hunt or for the false accusations.

The death penalty for those at the bottom of society. Different rules apply to those at the top. In the more than three million documents recently released in the Epstein case, Donald Trump’s name appears more often than Harry Potter’s name in all seven Harry Potter books combined. We are talking about tens of thousands of references. Jeffrey Epstein himself wrote in an email that he had met “very bad people,” but “no one as bad as Trump.” Let that sink in for a moment.

There has been no raid by ICE forces on the villas in the Virgin Islands or on Trump’s golf course in Rancho Palos Verdes, despite testimonies of human trafficking and abuse at those locations. No security forces are sent to Mar-a-Lago. Security forces are sent to working-class neighborhoods.

On the day Renée Good was murdered in Minneapolis, ICE published a press release stating: “ICE Arrests Worst of Worst Criminal Illegal Aliens Including Pedophiles, Violent Assailants, and Human Traffickers.” That is the language: our forces are not deporting people; they are removing pedophiles and monsters.

For the sake of clarity: ICE’s own internal figures undermine this official rhetoric. Fewer than 10% of deported migrants have a serious criminal prosecution on their record. For the vast majority, no offense whatsoever has been established (not even a traffic violation). The political debate is not conducted with facts, but with carefully constructed myths about “criminal aliens”; myths that are necessary to justify a domestic war front.

Far-right hate sites, whipped up and amplified through the networks of Musk and others, speak of “illegal pedophile criminals”. That outrage disappears the moment abuse of power at the top comes into view. When the Epstein files come up (a tangled web of wealth, status, and political connections) supporters of “America First” suddenly fall silent. Justice then suddenly becomes “complex”. And now that millions of pages from the file have been released, attempts are being made to create the impression that there is “nothing new” to report.

As soon as the spotlight is turned upward, the hysteria dissipates. It reveals the true nature of all those right-wing knights: they want harsh repression for those at the bottom of the ladder, while those at the top are allowed to move in a world that is virtually free of punishment.

In the thousands of Epstein documents, one can read how the upper class interacts strikingly casually with a convicted sex offender: emails about “wild parties”, jovial “jokes” about underage girls, intensive contacts that continued even after convictions, and a network in which influence and money serve as grease.

Trump’s inner circle also appears in this correspondence. In November 2012, Elon Musk emailed Epstein asking when the “wildest party” would take place. Howard Lutnick, the current Secretary of Commerce, claimed in 2005 to have severed all ties, yet still visited Epstein’s island in 2012. Steve Bannon, guru and ideologue of international far-right extremism, exchanged hundreds of messages. They discussed politics and real estate. Epstein made houses and airplanes available. They joked that Epstein was “the most expensive travel agent ever,” adding: “massages not included”.

Has the term “crime cartel” ever appeared in bold on a front page to describe these networks? No. That label is reserved for gangs at the bottom of society. The upper classes “network”, “party”, and “get massages”. And they get away with it. In 2007, an indictment was ready that described in detail how Epstein abused dozens of minors. The material was there to lock him up for years. In the end, a “deal” was struck. The most serious charges were dropped, and Epstein served only thirteen months in prison. After his release, the abuse continued.

That is why the Trumpian fixation on repression feels so cynical. In those circles, it is not about “protecting children” or “fighting crime”; it is about installing a permanent state of racism. That racism has an economic function: it makes more brutal exploitation possible. At the same time, power organizes itself in the shadows. In the salons where legal cases are quietly diluted and where billionaires protect one another, a culture of impunity reigns.

https://peoplesdispatch.org/2026/02/05/ ... ein-files/

[blindpig]

Dreaming of Ending Trump’s $1.5 Trn ‘Dream Military’
February 6, 2026

Not only is Donald Trump’s colossal military spending bad for the country, but it’s bad for the military and may well wreck what’s left of U.S. democracy, writes William J. Astore.


Secretary of War Pete Hegseth finishes the installation of a Department of War plaque at the River Entrance in front of the Pentagon, Washington, D.C., Nov. 13, 2025. (DoW /Madelyn Keech/Public Domain)

By William J. Astore
TomDispatch.com

What constitutes national security and how is it best achieved? Does massive military spending really make a country more secure, and what perils to democracy and liberty are posed by vast military establishments?

Questions like those are rarely addressed in honest ways in America. Instead, the Trump administration favors preparations for war and more war, fueled by potentially enormous increases in military spending that are dishonestly framed as “recapitalizations” of America’s security and safety.

Such framing makes Pete Hegseth, America’s self-styled “secretary of war,” seem almost refreshingly honest in his embrace of a warrior ethos. Republican Senator Lindsey Graham is another “warrior” who cheers for conflict, whether with Venezuela, Iran, or even — yes! — Russia. Such macho men revel in what they believe is this country’s divine mission to dominate the world.

Tragically, at the moment, unapologetic warmongers like Hegseth and Graham are winning the political and cultural battle.

Of course, U.S. warmongering is anything but new. Neither is a belief in global dominance through high military spending.

In 1983, as a college student, I worked on a project that critiqued President Ronald Reagan’s “defense” buildup and his embrace of pie-in-the-sky concepts like the Strategic Defense Initiative (S.D.I)., better known as “Star Wars.”

Never did I imagine that, more than 40 years later, another Republican president would again come to embrace S.D.I. (rebranded “Golden Dome”) and ever-more massive military spending, especially since the Soviet Union, America’s superpower rival in Reagan’s time, ceased to exist 35 years ago.

Amazingly, Trump even wants to bring back naval battleships, as Reagan briefly did (though he didn’t have the temerity to call for a new class of ships to be named after himself). It’ll be a “golden fleet,” says Trump.


President Trump announces the Golden Dome missile defense system, May 2025. (White House Gallery)

Trump’s recent advocacy of a “dream military” with a proposed budget of $1.5 trillion in 2027 (half a trillion dollars larger than the present Pentagon budget), is a proposal disturbingly backed by the editorial board of The Washington Post.

But at the Pentagon, nothing succeeds like failure, namely eight failed audits in a row (part of a 30-year pattern of financial finagling) that accompanied disastrous wars in Vietnam, Afghanistan, Iraq, and elsewhere.

Reagan was nicknamed the “Teflon president” because scandals didn’t seem to stick to him (at least until the Iran-Contra affair proved tough to shed). Yet history’s best candidate for Teflon “no-stick” status was never Reagan or any other president. It was and remains the U.S. warfare state itself, headquartered on the Potomac River in Washington. Even as the Pentagon has moved from failure to failure in war-fighting, its war budgets have continued to soar and soar some more.

The Democrats, supposedly the “resistance” to Trump, boast openly of their support for what passes for military lethality (or at least overpriced weaponry), while Democratic members of Congress line up for their share of war-driven pork. To cite a cri de coeur from the 1950s, have they no sense of decency?

The Shameless Embrace of Forever War & Its Spoils


In his farewell address, President Dwight D. Eisenhower famously warned U.S. citizens about the “military–industrial complex.” (Elton Lord & Minesweeper; Dwight D. Eisenhower Library, Public domain, Wikimedia Commons)

America should still embrace the words of Dwight D. Eisenhower, the first significant figure to warn the country about the then-developing military-industrial complex (MIC) in his 1961 farewell address to the nation. Yet, even then, his words were largely ignored. Recently, I reread Ike’s warning, perhaps for the 100th time and was struck yet again by the way he highlighted the spiritual dimension of the challenge that all too sadly still remains.

Ike ’said:

“This conjunction of an immense military establishment and a large arms industry is new in the American experience. The total influence — economic, political, even spiritual — is felt in every city, every state house, every office of the Federal government. We recognize the imperative need for this development. Yet we must not fail to comprehend its grave implications. Our toil, resources, and livelihood are all involved; so is the very structure of our society.

In the councils of government, we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the military-industrial complex. The potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power exists and will persist.

We must never let the weight of this combination endanger our liberties or democratic processes. We should take nothing for granted. Only an alert and knowledgeable citizenry can compel the proper meshing of the huge industrial and military machinery of defense with our peaceful methods and goals, so that security and liberty may prosper together.”

Those were the prescient words of the most senior military man of his era, a citizen-soldier and president, and more than six decades later, they need to be acted on if there is to be any hope left of preserving “our liberties and democratic processes.”

Wise words seldom heeded. Since 1961, the MIC’s “disastrous rise of misplaced power” has infected U.S economy and culture. Indeed, though the MIC failed spectacularly to win the hearts and minds of the Vietnamese, the Afghans, the Iraqis, plus other embattled peoples across the globe in misbegotten and mendacious wars, it did succeed, over the years, in winning the hearts and minds of those who make the decisions in the U.S. government.

In an astonishing paradox, a spendthrift military establishment that almost never wins anything, while consistently evading accountability for its losses, has by now captured almost untrammeled authority within the land.

It defies logic, but logic never was this country’s strong suit. We reached a point of almost ultimate illogic when America’s bully-boy commander-in-chief insisted that an already bloated Pentagon budget needs an extra $500 billion, bringing it to about $1.5 trillion annually.

No matter what it does, the Pentagon, America’s prodigal son, never gets punished. It simply gets more.

More, More, More!

Not only is such colossal military spending bad for the country, but it’s also bad for the military itself. After all, it didn’t ask for Trump’s proposed $500 billion raise. America’s prodigal son was relatively content with a trillion dollars in yearly spending. In fact, the president’s suggested increase in the Pentagon budget isn’t just reckless; it may well wreck not just what’s left of democracy, but the military, too.

Like any massive institution, the Pentagon always wants more: more troops, more weapons, more power, invariably justified by inflating (or simply creating) threats to this country. Yet, clarity of thought, not to speak of creativity, rarely derives from excess. Lean times make for better thinking, fat times make for little thought at all.

Not long ago, Trump occasionally talked sense by railing on the campaign trail against the military-industrial complex and its endless wars. Certainly, more than a few Americans voted for him in 2024 because they believed he truly did want to focus on domestic health and strength rather than pursue yet more conflicts globally (and the weapons systems that went with them).


Operation Midnight Hammer against Iran, June 2025, was the first combat use of the 30,000-pound GBU-57 MOP (Massive Ordnance Penetrator pictured, May 2023). (US Air Force photo, Wikipedia)

Tragically, Trump has morphed into a warlord, greedily siphoning oil from Venezuela, posturing for the annexation of Greenland and its resources, while not hesitating to bomb Iran, Nigeria, or most any other country.

Although Trump’s supporters may indeed have been conned into imagining him as a prince of peace, the country’s militarism and imperialism clearly transcend him.

Generally speaking, warfare and military boosterism have been distinctly bipartisan pursuits in America, making reform of any sort that much more difficult. Replacing Trump in 2028 won’t magically erase deep-rooted militarism, megalomaniacal imperial designs, or even the possibility of a $1.5 trillion military budget.

Clearly, more, more, more is the bipartisan war song sung inside the Pentagon, Congress, and the White House.

Taking on the MICIMATTSHG, or the Blob

Ex-CIA analyst Ray McGovern coined a useful acronym from the classic military-industrial complex, or MIC. He came up with MICIMATT (the Military-Industrial-Congressional-Intelligence-Media-Academia-Think-Tank complex) to highlight its blob-like growth. Congress and the rest are all deeply implicated in the blob.

I would add an “S” for the sporting world, an “H” for Hollywood, and a “G” for the gaming sector, which influence the public while being influenced by and subservient to the MIC. That gives us MICIMATTSHG.

Ike warned about the “disastrous rise of misplaced power” if it wasn’t challenged back in 1961. He also warned that the MIC could change the very structure of society, making America far less democratic. Subtly, he warned it might weaken America spiritually.

What did he mean by that? In another speech Ike made in 1953, he warned that Americans could end up hanging themselves from a cross of iron, becoming captives of war by pursuing military dominance globally, while losing democratic beliefs and liberties at home.

That is exactly what happened. The people were seduced, silenced, or sidelined via slogans like “support our troops” or with over-the-top patriotic displays like military parades, no matter that they represented something distinctly less than triumphant.

Americans in various polls today indicate that they don’t want a war against either Venezuela or Iran, but their opinions simply aren’t heeded. It’s time to perform an “about-face” and a march in double-time away from permanent war.

That means major reductions in Pentagon spending. The best and only way to tackle the inexorable growth of the blob is to stop feeding it money — and stop worshipping it. Instead of a $500 billion increase, Congress should insist on a $500 billion decrease in Pentagon spending. The task should be to force the military-industrial complex to think, improvise, become leaner and focus on how most effectively to defend America rather than fostering imperial dreams of wannabe warlords.

Trump’s current approach of further engorging the imperial blob is the stuff of national nightmares, not faintly a recipe for American greatness. It is, in fact, a sure guarantee of further decline and eventual collapse, not only economically and politically but spiritually as Ike warned in 1961. More wars and weapons will not make America great (again).

As the U.S. celebrates its 250th birthday on July 4, 2026, wouldn’t it be wonderful if it could save this deeply disturbed country by putting war and empire firmly in the rearview mirror? A tall task for sure, but so, too, was declaring independence from the British Empire in 1776.

https://consortiumnews.com/2026/02/06/d ... -military/

******

Oh! Absolutely.

Because "rebuilding" military is so easy, you know.

The United States is the most powerful Country in the World. I completely rebuilt its Military in my First Term, including new and many refurbished nuclear weapons. I also added Space Force and now, continue to rebuild our Military at levels never seen before. We are even adding Battleships, which are 100 times more powerful than the ones that roamed the Seas during World War II — The Iowa, Missouri, Alabama, and others. I have stopped Nuclear Wars from breaking out across the World between Pakistan and India, Iran and Israel, and Russia and Ukraine. Rather than extend “NEW START” (A badly negotiated deal by the United States that, aside from everything else, is being grossly violated), we should have our Nuclear Experts work on a new, improved, and modernized Treaty that can last long into the future. Thank you for your attention to this matter! PRESIDENT


But, of course, reality is a bitch and it bites very hard. There are all indications of a massive hysteria and coping gripping both political- military and media classes in the West in general, and the US in particular. It manifests itself in different ways. Since there was an air combat slant in my today's video, here is one such demonstration:

(More at link. off topic)

http://smoothiex12.blogspot.com/2026/02 ... utely.html

*****

Classic racist jokes
February 6, 9:14 PM



Trump posted a video of Obama and his wife as monkeys.
It's a classic racist joke about black people. Now, it's also available on official US government websites.

According to Trump's logic, the United States was once ruled by monkeys.

https://colonelcassad.livejournal.com/10350021.html[/img]

Google Translator

No, no, we are ruled by vampires.

Trump lives in a fantasy world where he can order reality and if it doesn't conform to his wishes he pretends the contradictions don't exist. A result of obscene wealth, perhaps not universal but prevalent enough. Toadies and lawyers must constantly scramble to prop up facades.