Trump is at the center of the world stage, and presumably making the most of it—personally and in terms of his agenda. Apologies for the summary format.
First, it’s hard to overemphasize the importance of Trump’s confirmation victories. The confirmations of Hegseth, Gabbard, RFK Jr., Ratcliffe—who thinks that could have happened in 2016?
I listened to an interesting discussion between Judge Nap and Gilbert Doctorow. Toward the end, the Judge raised the question I asked in a comment yesterday: How do the Trump/Hegseth statements yesterday fit in with the Middle East? Because all such events have to be connected in a global war. I suggested that Trump’s outrageous statements about Gaza and Palestinians were designed to force Putin to adjust his timeline to fit a bit better with Trump’s preferred timeline. The Judge framed it a bit differently, asking: How could Israel possibly launch new military actions in the Middle East in the near term—given that Trump now owns Netanyahu and Trump wants a smooth transition out of war with Russia? Russia has a vested interest in the Middle East and might have canceled all contacts if Trump really did relaunch genocide in Gaza.
Of course, to get that change, Trump had to concede to the Russian positions all up and down the line on Ukraine—that’s what Hegseth’s convoluted statements were all about. The only solid statements were concessions, the rest were essentially throwaway lines for PR purposes that can be negotiated away later. The bottom line is that Trump 2.0 is doing what Trump 1.0 was prevented from doing by the Deep State—and more—so that he can reset our relations with Russia. Trump is throwing over NATO and Ukraine, and he’s muscling Netanyahu as well—Trump was not about to let a regional Middle East war spoil his signature initiative in foreign policy, before the entire world:
Mouin Rabbani @MouinRabbani
THREAD: It seems the Israeli-Palestinian exchange of captives that had been scheduled for this weekend but was suspended by Hamas this past Monday is now back on track. What happened? The short answer: Israel’s prime minister, Binyamin Netanyahu, caved.
Douglas Macgregor @DougAMacgregor
Turkish foreign minister and head of intelligence visited Tehran yesterday. The two men are now in Saudi Arabia.
No doubt, the meetings are focused Gaza and coordinating a regional response to the “Riviera Plan” for Gaza and the probable resumption of Israel’s campaign to eliminate the Palestinians that still remain in Gaza.
Who thinks this all is somehow unconnected to this—Russia affirms the same thing Turkey’s Erdogan has been affirming, contra Israeli occupation of Syrian territory:
Megatron @Megatron_ron
NEW:
 Yesterday Putin and the new Syrian President, a former ISIS commander, had a phone call - Kremlin announced
"President Putin held a phone call with Syrian President Ahmad al-Sharaa.
He reaffirmed Russia's principled support for Syria's unity, sovereignty, and territorial integrity.
Trump being Trump:
U.S president Donald Trump delivers a Message to the People of Jordan convincing them that their King is doing the right thing:
“You are very, very fantastic people with tremendous brillianceand energy… you have a King who is a tremendous man”
Trump plays the Zhou card:
-- GEROMAN -- time will tell -  -- @GeromanAT
  TRUMP BLAMES BIDEN FOR PROMISING NATO MEMBERSHIP!!
"I believe that's the reason the war started because Biden went out and said that they could join NATO, and he shouldn't have said that."
(Ukraine was first "promised" NATO membership at the Bucharest Summit in April 2008.)
Dubya did that, against the advice of most European leaders.
Zelensky is told to walk the plank:
Big Serge @witte_sergei
In other words, it's not the openness to negotiate that matters, but whether the US is willing to change the frame of discussion to force Ukraine away from its key war aims. It's also still not clear how the Ukrainians themselves fit into all this.
Megatron @Megatron_ron
NEW:
Trump confirmed that Zelensky will not participate in the negotiations and will have to accept the agreement:
"Zelensky will have to do what he has to do. And his poll numbers are not particularly great, to put it mildly..."
-- GEROMAN -- time will tell -  -- @GeromanAT
Trump said he would like to bring Russia back into the G7, it was a mistake to exclude it.
JUST IN: NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte suddenly changed the tone and called Putin a strong negotiator He said that the Russian president's participation in the negotiations is necessary to achieve peace. It looks like someone got a call from Washington...
More Trump being Trump—projecting himself as a force:
Megatron @Megatron_ron
BREAKING:
Trump says BRICS could be hit with 100% tariffs at least "if they play with the dollar."
Trump is now targeting Taiwan as well
He says Taiwan "took our chip business away, and we want that business back."
BREAKING:
Trump says BRICS is dead
"BRICS is dead the minute I mentioned that if they mess with the dollar they will get 100% tariffs.
BRICS is dead"
Donald Trump says he wants to, along with China and Russia, halve their military budgets
President Donald Trump announces he will meet with both China and Russia and urge everybody to lower defense spending all around.
"I'm gonna say - we can spend this on other things. We don't have to spend this on military."
Back to the real world—the Russians are surely paying attention:
The National Endowment for Democracy is a CIA front that is one of the most destructive, deceitful and manipulative entities on the planet. This funding freeze should be permanent: x.com/KyleAnzalone_/…
Douglas Macgregor @DougAMacgregor
USAID and The National Endowment for Democracy were places for Congress to squirrel away vast sums of money that was delivered to their sponsors, donors and backers.
The government is running a legalized corruption scheme.
The body of law that Congress has created over several decades conceals all they ways they liberate money from our pockets.
Arnaud Bertrand @RnaudBertrand
This is the big one. The NED is THE instrument of foreign interference of the U.S. government.
I genuinely cannot believe they're retiring it and if it is indeed the case, a strong signal that we may indeed be looking at a U.S. that gives up its pretention of reshaping others in its image, or otherwise subvert other countries' internal affairs.
Unless of course this is just a change of brand and NED activities just move elsewhere. Which could also very much be the case because that's how the NED itself was created, as an offshoot of the CIA after multiple scandals around its subversion activities. It was cynically called the "National Endowment for Democracy" to make it sound like a democracy-promotion agency when almost all they did was actually undermine the sovereignty - and therefore the democratic system - of the countries in which they operate.
Time will tell which it is (but given the history I wouldn't hold my breath).
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I just witnessed a surprise plane watching: a USAF Gulfstream C-37B, call sign SAM080, was in Moscow; landed in Warsaw about 10 minutes ago. This is a "blue & white", like AF1, that comes out of Camp Springs where most of those White House VIP planes are located. Usually flies in the continental US, per its flight history. It went from Rotterdam to Moscow to Warsaw. No idea who was on it, but it was a bit of a shock to see it & thought I'd share that info.
Starving NED makes my day; I bet Nuland's head is spinning around like Regan from the Exorcist. Things appear to be happening with lightning speed!
https://www.zerohedge.com/geopolitical/us-aircraft-carrier-damaged-after-colliding-huge-merchant-ship-egypt
I just witnessed a surprise plane watching: a USAF Gulfstream C-37B, call sign SAM080, was in Moscow; landed in Warsaw about 10 minutes ago. This is a "blue & white", like AF1, that comes out of Camp Springs where most of those White House VIP planes are located. Usually flies in the continental US, per its flight history. It went from Rotterdam to Moscow to Warsaw. No idea who was on it, but it was a bit of a shock to see it & thought I'd share that info.
Starving NED makes my day; I bet Nuland's head is spinning around like Regan from the Exorcist. Things appear to be happening with lightning speed!