Let’s start the day with a few quick news notes and prognostications, then turn to a some recommended articles from the last day or two.
I listened to Prof Mearsheimer yesterday talking with Judge Nap. As usual, the Judge wanted the Prof to comment on whether Trump’s foreign policy rhetoric reflected insanity or simply misinformation deliberately foisted on Trump by nefarious Deep State analysts. In the past—in fact, just a week ago—Mearsheimer has expressed some degree of alarm over Trump’s rhetoric, but not yesterday. He repeatedly expressed lack of concern. He pointed to the gap between Trump’s words and some of his actual deeds and opined that foreign leaders were learning to distinguish between Trump’s rhetoric and his real intentions.
This is definitely not to say that Trump isn’t shaking things up, just that one needs to be careful in assessing what Trump’s actual game is. For an example of shaking things up, we noted yesterday Israeli reports that Trump has informed the Israeli government that he’ll be pulling the US military out of Syria. If that isn’t a cudgel being wielded by Trump to force Israel into coming to terms with the geopolitics of the region I don’t know what it is. Zerohedge expanded on initial reports late in the day:
Trump Plans To Finally Withdraw US Troops From Syria, Israelis Say
Israel and Turkish media reports say that President Donald Trump is planning to finally pull American occupying forces out of Syria. The statements began with a report this week by Israel's official public broadcasting Kan. However, the Trump White House itself has yet to confirm this, but is likely in talks with regional states, particularly Turkey and close Washington ally Israel, about such a potential move.
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The Israeli reported added that "the withdrawal of American forces from Syria will raise significant concerns in Tel Aviv." Israeli leaders see the US presence in northeast Syria as a stabilizing factor. Special forces, among some 2000 total troops have been advising and supporting the Syrian Kurds (SDF/YPG) for several years.
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Time will tell whether he finally pulls American forces, also given the supposed 'Iran threat' is no longer a reality in HTS-ruled Syria. Even Russia is fast pulling its forces from military bases on the coast, with much gear being reportedly relocated to eastern Libya.
So, pressure on Israel, but is there more going on here? What’s the deal with Turkey? Is Turkey going to be providing “stability” in the region? If so, Turkish style stability will definitely be different from US stability—from the Israeli standpoint, which will not welcome a face to face border with the powerful Turkish military expanding its influence in both Syria and, likely, Lebanon. Is there also a deal with Russia in the works? Russian officials visited Damascus yesterday, to talk with Turkey’s puppet jihadis there. The Israeli and US backed Kurds will be betrayed yet again. And how will this affect the US position in Iraq, from which country were supposed to be preparing to withdraw. Big changes.
And is Elon Musk’s regime change (regime mod?) mongering beginning to bear fruit in Germany? The German political establishment’s cordon sanitaire against the “barbarians”, whose cause Musk has been championing, has broken. And it broke over a big, big issue. Of course, when we say “Musk” we mean “Trump”.
If you haven’t been paying attention to German politics because nothing ever happens, you are now authorized to pay attention. The German center-right CDU has normally refused even parliamentary support from AfD. That was the cordon sanitaire. And migration just broke it.
The Beeb makes it official.
In more big news—not unexpected, really—Trump blasted the Fed. PP prognosticates. PP believes Trump has the whip hand here.
If the economic establishment does move to Trussify the Trump administration it could well cause chaos. But that establishment will not survive the tussle. Economic policy at every level will end up centralised around the executive. Guaranteed.
Having zero expertise in the field, I don’t dare predict how this will work out for the economics of the country. Worse? Hard to believe. As usual there are behind the scenes things going on:
Philip Pilkington @philippilk
China is butting into the tech and EV sector at the same time as US companies are already flagging. The idea that the US economy should focus all energy on leading high tech sectors - always a terrible idea - is dead. Bring back basic manufacturing and close the trade deficit! 
I’ll leave it to those who are more knowledgeable to debate what role the Fed played in the financialization of the US economy—one presumes it was enormous until the presumption is somehow falsified. After all, what were those monstrous bailouts all about?
And what about gold? This amused me:
Reminder that this “genius” is advising the current clown government in Britain. Honk honk!
Meanwhile …
Neil Henderson @hendopolis
FT UK: London vaults hit by gold shortage #TomorrowsPapersToday
The BoE declines to comment:
Rush to stockpile gold in New York leads to London shortage. Total gold flows into the US could be far higher than the Comex numbers reflect, according to market participants, because there are likely to have been additional shipments to private vaults in New York owned by HSBC and JPMorgan. (FT)
But, predictably, PP does comment:
Philip Pilkington @philippilk
6h
Dedollarisation positions building in New York. The same people are writing Atlantic Council articles on why dedollarisation will never happen.
Never say never until never ever happens?
On to those articles.
I’m sure readers have seen the buzz around the Covid Origins Lab Leak narrative in recent weeks. My take is that this is a Deep State misdirection play, to try to officially blame China for what looks like was a Deep State bio-weapon attack on China and Iran. The Chinese didn’t have the expertise for this kind of op, but our mad scientists—like Ralph Baric—sure did. For your reading pleasure, I highly recommend Ron Unz:
I was particularly intrigued by how Unz uses the timeline to tie the arrest of Charles Lieber (and event I well remember) into his theory of the bio weapon attack—was Lieber caught warning the Chinese?
Also this blast from the past:
If you think a bio warfare attack on China doesn’t remain a really big deal, the buzz about the “Lab Leak” currently going on strongly suggests you rethink that position. And how about Trump yanking the protective details from two major suspects in this—Pompeo and Bolton? What does Trump know? And while your at it, please rethink the idea that Trump is being led by the nose by the Deep State disinformation.
Re yanking of USAID funding, highly recommended—because this is a direct attack on the Deep State and its regime change ops:
I’ve repeatedly referred to the original Great Northern War as essential for understanding the war on Russia—see, for one example, The Trouble With Scandinavia. Glenn Diesen has a twitter article on the possibility of a second go round, which will predictably end as badly or worse for the crazy Scandis:
The Militarisation of Scandinavia & the Great Northern War 2.0
Conclusion:
The world is yet again undergoing dramatic change as it changes from a unipolar world order to a multipolar world order. The US will increasingly shift its focus, resources and priorities to Asia, which will change the trans-Atlantic relationship. The US will be able to offer less to the Europeans, but it will demand more loyalty in terms of economics and security. The Europeans will have to sever their economic ties to American rivals, which is already resulting in diminished prosperity and more dependence on the US. The US will also expect the Europeans to militarise the economic competition with China, and NATO has already become the most obvious vehicle for this purpose. Instead of adjusting to multipolarity by diversifying their ties and pursuing opportunities from the rise of Asia, the Europeans are doing the opposite by subordinating themselves further to the US in the hope that it will increase the value of NATO.
Scandinavia was a region of peace as it attempted to mitigate the security competition after the Second World War. As Scandinavia surrenders its sovereignty to the US for protection against an imaginary threat, the region will be converted into a frontline that will set the stage for a Great Northern War 2.0. The only certainty is that when Russia reacts to these provocations, we will all chant “unprovoked” in unison and make some obscure reference to democracy.
Here’s the counter argument. Is Trump’s tough love approach—with Musk’s regime change offensive targeting the Euro establishment, and Trump targeting Greenland—showing the Euros the way to multipolarity?
Finally, in the past I linked to Prof Turley’s account of the serious problems with the NY case against Trump. Yesterday he linked his full article from six months ago on the topic, which remains highly recommended for those with an interest in the lawfare against Trump:
Buzz Kill: The Trump Conviction Presents a Target-Rich Environment for Appeal
Question: How did gene therapy maker Moderna know there would be a specific lab accident leading to a pandemic so they could start ramping up manufacture of their med from 100k doses in 2019 to a billion doses in 2020? Sounds like it wasn't an accident. CEO says he was told in 2019 "there's gonna be a pandemic next year."
https://x.com/i/status/1884982155232907604
re: covid
Jeffrey Sachs on Judge Napalitano reported / paraphrasing"
Sachs had studied the Covid issue for 4 years; Sachs had advised other governments on it - so direct involvement/investigation
Sachs opines The current most realistic theory is US made the virus and gave it to China to test it (due to specific bat population in Wuhan lab)
US/North Carolina University probably the place of or central to invention of the virus; they have been sued for the release of emails/documents and are fighting it.
Theory: US Created it China Tested it Fauci was in part funding it ( perhaps in part legally perhaps in part illegally meaning avoiding Obama restrictions)