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Leaked files show top UK military figures conspired to carry out the Kerch bridge bombing, covertly train “Gladio”-style stay-behind forces in Ukraine, and groom the British public for a drop in living standards caused by the proxy war against Russia. Emails and internal documents reviewed by The Grayzone reveal details of a cabal of British military and intelligence veterans which plotted to escalate and prolong the Ukraine proxy war “at all costs.” Convened under the direction of the British Ministry […]

The post Leaks expose secret British military cell plotting to ‘keep Ukraine fighting’ first appeared on The Grayzone.

The post Leaks expose secret British military cell plotting to ‘keep Ukraine fighting’ appeared first on The Grayzone.

I’ve always been frustrated by the inability of anyone to address the rank corruption of Trump’s administration. Some of his early cabinet officials were chased out of office for their greed and grift but nobody ever seemed to care much that Trump and his family were making vast sums of money from his presidency. (The utter gall of going after the Biden family for that was overwhelming.) There were some belated senate investigtions which never held a public hearing as far as I can tell. But they’re over. And it’s going to be so much worse. Greg Sargent writes: It’s often said that Trump campaigned expressly on a platform of authoritarian rule, but this also applies to corruption: He didn’t disguise his promises to govern in the direct interests of some of the wealthiest executives and investors in the country—and he won anyway. Trump and his allies will likely interpret this as a green light to engage in an extraordinary spree of unrestrained malfeasance. There are several reasons to fear this could amount to a level of oligarchic corruption that outdoes anything Trump did in his first term.

I will confess that I’ve spent the last week watching a lot of Animal Planet rather than news.I needed a soother every single day. But here’s some news that will renew your faith in humanity: 54 horses saved. That’s heroic.

The game clock stopped on Nov. 5. Now we’re in overtime. Don’t know about your states, but we’ve got a recount scheduled to start on Tuesday. As counties tabulated remaining absentee and provisional ballots, Democrat Allison Riggs took the lead late Friday by 106 votes in the NC Supreme Court race. At the end of election day, she was down by over 7,000. As of this writing, there are still several counties yet to upload their final tallies that don’t plan to complete their work until Monday. So more to come. Upside? Blue counties left to report voted 455k of their citizens. Red counties voted only 172k. The vast majority are already counted. What’s left are the handful that need approving by the county boards. Remember the fierce 2023 battle in Wisconsin for the state supreme court seat won by Janet Protasiewicz? These local and state races matter. But like Rodney Dangerfield, they largely get no repsect. It’s why we station poll greeters outside polling stations urging voters to vote their ballots all the way to the bottom. Many don’t. Downlballot races suffer. We are still reeling from N.C.

Who’s next for DNC chair? Now that Democrats face four year of an administration bent on destroying the greatness their Lord Trump claims he wants to restore, they can don sackcloth and ashes or elect a someone to lead the DNC who knows how to lead, how to raise money, and how to organize at the grassroots. Politico this week reported the fight for the future has begun: When rumors began swirling that Wisconsin Democratic Party leader Ben Wikler might run for chair of the national party, Jeff Weaver, a prominent progressive strategist, texted him with a warning. “I am letting you know that in advance I will be publicly and actively opposing any effort to elevate you to DNC chair,” he wrote. Only one week after losing the White House, the battle for the next chair of the Democratic National Committee is underway — with members of the party’s political class boosting their favorite potential candidates for the job on social media and knifing their opponents behind the scenes. Isn’t that nice? It’s a fight with significant consequences for Democrats.

Kennedy wants to make America healthy again. Uh huh… Michelle Obama is depicted as overweight and binging on hamburgers in a cartoon on Andrew Breitbart’s Big Government website. The cartoon, which also appeared on Breitbart’s Big Journalism site over the weekend, references Obama’s campaign to encourage healthy eating and fight obesity. In it, she is drawn with a double chin and plump cheeks. She is drawn saying, “I’ve stepped up my efforts to control America’s eating habits by telling restaurants to lower portion sizes and fat content.” While she says this, she is eating one of a plateful of hamburgers. President Obama is shown next to her, with huge ears but no excess fat, eating one of a tiny number of vegetables. “Michelle, I want to get re-elected,” he says. “What you’re doing is only going to annoy a lot of people.” Mrs Obama began her Let’s Move! initiative – which is dedicated to improving the disastrous U.S. childhood obesity rates within a generation – last year.

There’s money in it Rolling Stone reports: Donald Trump’s incoming administration brass wants it made clear: The president-elect is not planning to build a brand new network of “camps” to house the myriad undocumented immigrants who Trump has vowed to round up in what he claims will be “the largest deportation” operation in the “history of our country.” To be sure, Trump’s migrant expulsion program, if he were to follow through with his plans to deport millions, would require massive new camps — something that Trump’s top policy-hand has explicitly told reporters.

Karoline Leavitt has been named Trump’s press secretary. She is 26 years old. Trump clearly thinks she’s right out of central casting. She’s also MAGA to the max: In MAGA world, Karoline Leavitt is a rising star. A former Trump White House staffer, she won national notice last year when, at just 25 years of age, she captured the GOP nomination for a New Hampshire congressional seat. In April, she was hired as a spokesperson by Trump’s super-PAC. But earlier this year, her focus seemed to be elsewhere. She published a series of op-eds heaping praise on Guo Wengui, an exiled Chinese mogul and ally of Steve Bannon who has styled himself a leading critic of the Chinese Communist Party. Guo, who also goes by Miles Guo, has since been arrested and indicted in a massive fraud case. […] The op-eds were highly specific.

Before the election, Rolling Stone asked a number of experts on authoritarianism about what to do if Trump won. They all had good advice but, for me, this is at the top of the list: Seeing the Threat Clearly Experts in authoritarianism insist that Trump’s dictatorial threats need to be taken with gravity because he’s already done “things that autocrats do,” says Ruth Ben-Ghiat, a history professor at New York University who is an expert in Italian fascism and the author of Strongmen: Mussolini to the Present.  “He has been able to domesticate a very old, storied party, and truly make it his personal tool,” she tells Rolling Stone. “He instigated a violent coup attempt,” and — instead of “having to go into exile or going to prison, like in Peru” — he “managed to paint it as a positive thing” or to make “a lot of Americans shrug their shoulders at it.” These are “preconditions for autocracy,” she insists.

Apparently, they don’t know: This grotesque action is happening all over the country and as far as I can tell nobody knows who’s doing it. I guess the point is to harrass and frighten kids. It’s working: Several Santa Monica High School students also received the derogatory message; they immediately reported the situation to school administrators and their parents.  “I sent it to my family group chat and was like ‘Oh my god, someone sent me this message,’ and [my mom] was like ‘This is not okay’,” said Aubrielle Gomez. “I was shocked and I kind of started laughing because I thought it wasn’t real.” Ericka Lesley, whose children attend Santa Monica High School and were sent the text, says that the hateful messaging underscores a much larger issue not only plaguing California but all of America. “My son wants to leave the country; he doesn’t feel safe here,” Lesley told KTLA. “There are other people who say ‘Oh, we’re in California, we’re okay,’ — we’ve become too comfortable.