by James Bovard via JimBovard.com,
Excerpts

The history of the EEOC exemplifies how politics perverts moral ideals. The 1964 Civil Rights Act, which created the EEOC, explicitly banned racial quotas and specifically required that an employer have shown an intent to discriminate in order to be found guilty. However, by the late 1960s, the EEOC had intentionally subverted the law by establishing a definition of discrimination that was the opposite of what Congress specified. EEOC Chairman Clifford Alexander announced in 1968, “We…here at EEOC believe in numbers…Our most valid standard is in numbers…The only accomplishment is when we look at all those numbers and see a vast improvement in the picture.” Hugh Davis Graham, in his history The Civil Rights Era, noted of the EEOC’s early top staff, “As the infant EEOC’s brains trust, they began the process of maximizing agency power by subverting the congressional restrictions” on the agency.”

Equal opportunity policy quickly degenerated into pursuing almost everything except equality. Thanks to the EEOC, seeking the best person for the job went from being part of the American heritage to being a federal crime. The EEOC claimed a right to decree which people and which groups received which opportunities—and to punish those who government officials decreed did not give the right opportunities to the right people or right groups.

The EEOC used a federal iron fist to impose a “know-nothing egalitarianism” on America. In 1970, the EEOC issued regulations to severely restrict the use of testing for hiring and promotion because minorities tended to score lower than white applicants. Herman Belz, author of Equality Transformed, noted, “Achievement of identical rejection rates for minority and nonminority job applicants was expressly stated as a policy objective…Yet the guidelines did not stipulate a concern with qualified minority applicants.” In its lawsuits and decrees and “guidance,” the EEOC almost always intervened against competence—in support of the notion that workers do not need to be as intelligent, as literate, or as competent as an employer demanded.

The EEOC routinely and effectively punished employers if minority job applicants gave the wrong answers to test questions. The EEOC assumed that a fair test would automatically provide equal scores among all racial groups of test-takers, although it had no evidence for that assumption—only a surfeit of moral self-righteousness. The result was race norming—the covert manipulation of people’s test scores to produce an equal number of winners in each race. With race norming, each citizen has an equal opportunity to have his job test scores secretly raised or lowered in response to government manipulation or intimidation.

To secure racial justice, the EEOC entitled itself to decree the exact percentage of ethnic identity in a company’s job force. The EEOC sued Daniel Lamp Co. in 1991 for allegedly discriminating against blacks. The company was in a Hispanic neighborhood in Chicago and all its twenty-six employees were either black or Hispanic. But the EEOC announced that Daniel Lamp violated federal law because it did not have 8.45 black employees on its payroll. That was so boneheaded that even 60 Minutes whacked the agency.

Arbitrary power is the key to the EEOC dominating America. In 1994, EEOC Chair Gilbert Casellas said, “I hope people worry when they get a call from the EEOC” the same way they feared a call from the IRS. (Casellas publicly condemned my articles on the EEOC in 1995.) People naturally worried because the EEOC constantly created new offenses that could not be found in federal statute books.

EEOC officials have proclaimed private companies guilty of violating or impeding “equal opportunity” because of their failure to disregard employee theft, failure to disregard an employee’s assaults on co-workers, failure by an upscale women’s clothing chain to hire men for sales jobs that “included helping women try on clothes,” failure by a women’s-only health club to hire male attendants who would work in locker rooms and shower area, and failure to hire (in higher percentages) members of favored groups that were not qualified at the time but were, in the EEOC’s judgment, “trainable.” The EEOC even claimed a right to prohibit Hooters restaurants from relying on female servers, asserting that the restaurant chain was violating the right of potential male waiters everywhere.

During the Biden era, the EEOC left no progressive dictate behind. The EEOC devoted itself to creating new “protections” for LGBTQ+ employees and made a huge civil rights issue about transgender access to bathrooms. EEOC defined “misgendering” a transgender person as illegal sexual harassment. The only thing a disgruntled employee needed to do to turn their worksite into a crime scene was to change their gender.

The premise of modern civil rights law is that federal coercion produces a fairer result than the voluntary agreements of private citizens. But government officials cannot be given the power to equalize without also having the power to discriminate against politically disfavored groups. John Phillip Reid, author of The Concept of Liberty in the Age of the American Revolution, observed, “Fear of power made security [from government oppression] a more appealing abstraction than equality. Eighteenth century constitutional theory could not contemplate the use of government to work for equality in the form of social or economic justice, because it could not trust government.”

Unfortunately, modern Americans are far more politically gullible than their ancestors. The history of the EEOC vindicates all the distrust that the Founding Fathers had towards arbitrary power. The EEOC’s sordid record should also stifle any idealist scheme to unleash officialdom to forcibly redeem humanity.

Axios
5 hours ago –

Exclusive: U.S. holding secret talks with Hamas
Barak Ravid

The Trump administration has been holding direct talks with Hamas over the release of U.S. hostages held in Gaza and the possibility of a broader deal to end the war, two sources with direct knowledge of the discussions tell Axios.

Why it matters: The talks — held by U.S. presidential envoy for hostage affairs Adam Boehler — are unprecedented. The U.S. had never before engaged directly with Hamas, which it designated a terrorist organization in 1997.

Behind the scenes: The meetings between Boehler and Hamas officials took place in Doha in recent weeks.

While the Trump administration consulted with Israel about the possibility of engaging with Hamas, Israel learned about aspects of the talks through other channels, one source said.
The sources spoke with Axios on the condition of anonymity because they weren’t authorized to discuss the sensitive meetings.

Zoom in: The talks have focused in part on the release of U.S. hostages, which is within Boehler’s remit as hostage envoy.

But they have also included discussions of a broader deal to release all remaining hostages and reach a long-term truce, the sources say. No deal has yet been reached.
White House envoy Steve Witkoff also planned to travel to Doha this week to meet the prime minister of Qatar about the ceasefire negotiations but canceled the trip on Tuesday night after he saw there was no progress from Hamas’ side, a U.S. official said.

Between the lines: Trump’s approach to the conflict has differed sharply from President Biden’s, including repeatedly threatening “hell to pay” for Hamas and proposing a U.S. “takeover” of Gaza.

Directly negotiating with Hamas — particularly without buy-in from Israel — is another step previous administrations have not taken.

State of play: 59 hostages are still held by Hamas in Gaza. The Israel Defense Forces have confirmed 35 of them are dead. Israeli intelligence believes 22 hostages are still alive, and the status of two others is unknown.

Among the remaining hostages are five Americans including one, 21-year-old Edan Alexander, who is believed to be alive.

The 42-day ceasefire that was part of the first phase of the Gaza deal expired on Saturday after the parties couldn’t reach an agreement on extending it.
The fighting hasn’t resumed, but Israel halted all humanitarian aid delivery to Gaza where an estimated 1.9 million Palestinians — 90% of the population — have been displaced by the war, and famine looms.

Update: White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt confirmed Wednesday afternoon that the U.S. was holding direct talks with Hamas, and said Israel had been consulted.

She said Trump believes “it is the right thing for the American people” and added “there are American lives on the line”
The Israeli Prime Minister’s office said in a statement: “During talks with the U.S., Israel expressed its opinion about the issue of direct talks with Hamas”

The White House and the Israeli Prime Minister’s Office did not offer comment prior to publication.

https://www.axios.com/2025/03/05/us-hamas-talks-gaza-war-israel

by Sergey Markov

The preliminary “summit of the party of war in Europe” ended in London. Result: everyone (except Hungary and Slovakia) agrees,
– the war in Ukraine must continue.
– Europe must sharply increase arms supplies to the Ukrainian army.
– Europe must sharply increase investments in the military-industrial complex.
– troops of NATO countries in Europe must be deployed in Ukraine.
– troops of European countries in Ukraine should be not before but after the conclusion of a peace agreement.
– we need to present Trump with Europe’s vision of a possible peace in Ukraine. We cannot give the peace agenda to Trump and Putin.
– Russia is an enemy and we must inflict as much damage on it as possible.
– Russia has no right to vote, Russia should not be listened to at all. Russia has no right to its own interests in Ukraine.
– Russia has no right to “dictate its terms”, its inclusion in the discussion of peace is possible only at the last stage.

That is, the Party of War in Europe proposes to work out the terms and offer them to Russia as an ultimatum.
– the general EU summit will be on March 6.

by Claudiu Secara

There is a certain stupefaction in the world today. Did Trump just ambush Zelensky in a premeditated act of political theater, or what?

Here is my take on this big White House drama.

President Trump is desperate. I can imagine that Elon Musk had a conversation like this with Donald Trump. “Mr. President, we are f’d up. We are heading for imminent bankruptcy, the country’s finances are maxed out, we’re adding 2 trillion dollars in debt every year, of which 1 trillion goes just to pay the interest. Our real economy is not 27.5 trillion dollars but by my best estimate is somewhere between 15 and 18 trillion dollars. What we’re facing is bankrupcy within the next 4 years and you’ll be remembered as the president who brought the US to a historic collapse.”

Really?! said Trump, and what can we do, is there anything that we can do to avoid that?

“Yes, Mr. President, there is. We need to stop the war in Ukraine immediately, now, at any cost. Then we can cut half a trillion expenditures from our military immediately. Another half a trillion dollars we can cut from various other spending, such us USAID, the National Endowment for Democracy, foreign aid, subsidies for illegal immigration , etc . . .”

Would that be enough, Donald Trump asked. “Not quite, because that would be only half out of our annual deficit.” Tell me more, Elon, you’re smart as a real rocket scientist.

“We can impose tariffs, 25 percent or more, on all the countries that we do business with. Then we can take over all the minerals from Greenland, or even from Ukraine. Stop paying for shipping through the Panama Canal, claim that it’s ours since we built it, etc.”

“But first, we need to stop the war with Russia. Full stop. Now.”

That seems to have been Trump’s state of mind when he made his big offensive as a ‘man of peace’. Nevermind that, as Zelensky reminded him, it was under Trump’s first presidency that the war in Ukraine escalated just like the war in Syria.

Is that what motivates Trump’s desperate histrionics when faced with the incredulity of his former European allies? What? Stop the war against Russia’s aggression, and capitulate tomorrow? We, the whole of the West, 450 million strong plus 330 million in the US, to be defeated by a rusty Russian army running on a rusty economy?

But Trump cannot afford to tell the rest of the world that the US is a dead man walking. He needs to act like the tough boss, the most powerful president of this “beautiful and wonderful country”. He acts like the man whose next payment is due tomorrow and if he can’t make it, he has no other choice but to hang himself.

The spectacle that we have seen on this day, February 28, 2025, in the Oval Office of the White House, is the culmination of some 40 years of reckless, American-style casino economy. This is the day when the emperor showed up with no clothes.

America has no options left. The president of a rump Ukraine walks out of the US president’s office as the antihero hero. Meanwhile, in an act of total juvenile hubris, the US Secretary of State refuses to meet with the EU’s second in command, Foreign Minister Kaja Kallas, who was in Washington for that purpose. Trump has the Polish president standing and waiting in the antechamber for one and a half hours only to see each other for 9 minutes. He keeps poor Macron sitting at the corner of his presidential desk and intimidates the King of Jordan to the point of a nervous breakdown.

What Trump and his sidekick Vance remind me of is another pair from the post WWII boomer generation, Clinton and Gore, whom senior Bush couldn’t stop himself from calling the two Bozos (almost sounds like Bezos). The same antics by two brassy spoiled brats who finally had their toy taken away by the adults in the room, after annoying everyone with their obnoxious hair pulling.

Trump came across as the bully, the erratic would-be mafia boss, before the proverbial “the king goes mad”?! After making promises left and right, saying things that did not add up, while we mere mortals presume that he knows something that we do not know, the time has come to get the first results. Was he playing multidimensional chess, a super-clever “master of deception”, as Doctorow calls him, or just an ordinary jackass liar? The kind that disappears with your money that he swindled from you?!

After today’s attempted entrapment of Zelensky, Trump ended up like the guy who fell into his own trap. A lot of people tonight are singing hosanna to the still composed and clever Zelensky. No sign of what Lavrov snidely promised just the day before: how the “Europeans” one after another will wag their tails at the feet of Trump. So much for the Russian Intelligence Services’ insight. Ha, ha. If that’s the basis of their strategic planning in the multipolar world, no wonder their “best [or second best] army in the world”, couldn’t run over the dilettante Ukrainian army.

One thing seems highly likely, this presidency is not going to end well.

Note: Having said all of that, a note of caution. It is not entirely out of the realm of possibility that in their mutual desperation, the US and Russia might resort to the same formula for the third time. And that is, turning their rivalry into a military coalition in order to destroy Europe for the third time. And divide it again. They seem to have a sinister hatred of their natural superiors.

by Claudiu Secara

Regarding Israel and the Palestinians. Strange as it may seem, no discussion ever takes place about the elephant in the room – the most consequential factor in the Middle East – that is, the British supremo. They created Israel to begin with. And they were the promoters of Anglozionism for the last century. What is their skin in the game today?

Known as the Jewish Question, the Europeans, each country in its own way, had the same unresolved conundrum: How to deal with such a restless, disloyal, mutinous, unassimilable group undermining the social order? Expelled from some 109 countries over a period of 700 years (https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Expulsions_and_exoduses_of_Jews) including 3 times from England alone, the persistent question of the nineteenth century was how to deal with the Jews.

The solution endorsed by the British Royal House was, in the end, to create a new country. As we know, lots of options were vehicled. A Jewish homeland in Argentina, in Africa; even Stalin offered a Jewish home in Siberia. But the consensus settled on the lands of Palestine, which Jewish leaders have insisted God intended to be theirs. For the Europeans, this was meant as a way to get rid of the Jews in Europe and at the same time a way to build an advance Western outpost in the very middle of the Semitic Arabs, rich in oil and difficult to pacify.

But the project went astray. As any colonial power has experienced, no agreement signed with a presumptive proconsul running the business of a vassal country can withstand the emotional nationalistic card. Sooner or later the vassals demand respect and independence. Furthermore, the vassal, in its toupee, actually maneuvers to get other vassals to rise up against the metropolis. They become the main enemy of the former masters. That happened with the former American colonies, India, all of the Ottoman Empire’s vassals in the Balkans, etc. etc.

What we are seeing today in Israel is the former vassal organizing the axis of resistence against the British House. First, they enrolled Orban of Hungary, a former close ally since the time of the Khazarian state, as the disruptive provocateur in the midst of the Europeans with some memories of past history. Then, they enrolled Putin of Russia, a man of obscure background who for unknown reasons is a sworn devotee to the Jewish cause. And then there was Trump, fully immersed in Jewish support since his father’s peculiar devotion and gallantery of his much of his accumulated wealth to the Jewish agenda, more so than to any Christian cause, despite his official claims to belong to.

For Netanyahu, it seemed like everything was set in stone for him to prevail in cleansing Palestine of Palestinians in the historical year of 2024.

But something different happened; we don’t know what exactly. But there is very solid evidence that the Trump connection failled. Trump continues to talk big in support of Israel, including absolutely inconsistent babble when it comes to Gaza, but his appointed man for Israel, Mr. Witkoff, got into action and that ain’t been good for Israel.

Somehow, around the month of August 2024, Trump seems to have been coopted by the “Globalists”, for want of a better term. That is, by the higher-ups of the British power structure.

The orders to Netanyahu were unambiguous. Get out of Gaza; retreat from your ambitions of Greater Israel if you don’t want to end up in jail.

The axis of resistance is under total attack. Mr. Putin got a good offer to end the war in Ukraine, or else. Mr. Orban is deprived of 23 billion dollars in essential, free EU money and he is under threat to be replaced in the 2026 elections.

If Mr. Putin doesn’t get the message, it will be all-out war and probably a losing war for Russia.

Looking back at the 3-year old SMO in Ukraine, one can see that despite the Russians’ boasting about their successful campaign, they actually barely made it to victory using a vastly superior army against the poorly improvised Ukainian defense forces. See this https://t.me/AlgoraPublishing/845 and this https://t.me/AlgoraPublishing/854.

I can only imagine the outcome of a war between the full force of NATO and Russia’s struggling lines of defense. Russia cannot possible win such a war and it would end up as a former empire, like so many others.

Of course, Russia has only one option and that is to capitulate with honor. Russia is not the main prize and it can be allowed to survive. The main target for now is China. And that is a real open unknown outcome.

Let’s face it. If George Soros’ goal was to bring the world-dominating US military and finance to their knees, it seems to me that his party has succeeded.

No matter the cries to keep the US in the driver’s seat for another generation, the fact is that the US is bankrupt. Out of a budget of 5 trillion in revenues plus 2 trillion by debt financing, 1 trillion is now marked as interest on the accumulated debt alone. That is approximately 1/3 of the real budget revenues.

And that is at the current artificially low interest rate of 3.3 percent. But what happens if the interest doubles to a historically normal rate of 5-6 percent? Or 12 to 20 percent, as it did in 1980?

At 37 trillion dollars federal debt alone, the US can hardly hide the incoming train wreck. Because that debt is not against a growing economy and is not against a GDP anywhere near the official numbers of 27 – 28 trilion dollars. Rather the real GDP, excluding the virtual economy, the imaginary financial ghost, the real GDP is somewhere around 20 trillion dollars. And that makes the real federal debt ratio close to 200 percent. And then there is the rest of the debt: state, local and private.

The best the US can do is to lift the sanctions against Russia, close the military open confrontations and hope that nobody is going to notice that it has been defeated. And claim it is all done for the benefit of peace and the benefit of people.

by John Helmer via John Helmer

by John Helmer, Moscow

@bears_with

Compos mentis was missing in the Oval Office on Monday morning. French President Emmanuel Macron recognized it, and was so pleased, he repeatedly said: “Thank you, dear Donald”.

The answers to press questions given by President Donald Trump, sitting beside Macron, revealed that Trump doesn’t understand what end-of-war terms President Vladimir Putin has announced, nor the substance of the conversations, back channel and front in Riyadh, which have been going on between the Russians and Trump’s representatives.

In the 28-minute morning presser, Trump spoke in repeated slogans except for a handful of new briefing points he was given by his staff: the President stressed he has no points of difference with the French, the other Europeans, or NATO on how to negotiate an end to the Ukraine war. “There was great unity in that room”, Trump claimed of the first round of meetings with the Macron delegation, which included a videolink to other G7 leaders.

“Take back some of the land”, Trump then claimed after being asked what end-of-war terms in the Ukraine he has discussed with Macron. “We’ll see if we get some land back”, Trump repeated.

Asked if he planned to go to Moscow on May 9, Trump revealed he does not know the significance of the May 9 celebration in Russia. “If this all gets settled out, sure I would go, and he could come here, too. I don’t know Ninth of May, no – I, err, that’s pretty soon. At the appropriate time I would go to Moscow…Within weeks. I think we could end it within weeks if we’re smart. If we’re not smart, it’ll keep going…” Trump revealed, however, that he has given up his effort to hold a summit meeting with Putin without preparatory agreement of terms for an end of the Ukraine war.

In the Oval Office, and in a simultaneous social media post, Trump repeated his interest in getting “payback” for US war spending in the Ukraine by negotiating a “rare earths” agreement. “I emphasized”, the media post said, “the importance of the vital ‘Critical Minerals and Rare-Earths Deal’ between the United States and Ukraine, which we hope will be signed very soon! This deal, which is an ‘Economic Partnership’, will ensure the American people recoup the Tens of Billions of Dollars and Military Equipment sent to Ukraine, while also helping Ukraine’s economy grow as this Brutal and Savage War comes to an end. At the same time, I am in serious discussions with President Vladimir Putin of Russia concerning the ending of the War, and also major Economic Development transactions which will take place between the United States and Russia. Talks are proceeding very well!”

In repeating to Macron his preoccupation with “rare earths”, Trump revealed in the Oval Office that he has no idea of the geography of the minerals he is negotiating to take over, so that “we get our money back over a period of time. But it is also beneficial to their economy, to them as a country.” Trump does not comprehend that the minerals — “rare earths and other things”, he called them — are mostly located, no longer in Ukraine but in the four new provinces of Russia and on the seabed off Russian Crimea.

Trump also revealed he has no idea of how his proposed US investment in the minerals would be protected and by whom.

Reporters pressed to see if the minerals agreement is subterfuge for a US security pledge to the Kiev regime, substituting for NATO membership. Asked explicitly if the minerals deal will engage a US security guarantee for the Ukraine, Trump answered: “Well, uhh, it’ll be — Europe is going to make sure nothing happens. I don’t think it’s going to be much of a problem. I think once we settle, ahhh, there’s going to be no more war in Ukraine. You’re not go – uhhh, it’s not going to be a very big problem. That’s going to be the least of it.”

Several hours later, when the French president was asked at the second press conference after the talks had concluded, Macron hinted at a division and combination of military “deterrence capacity” between European and US forces which, he said, is a “turning point in my view, and one of the great areas of progress we have made during this trip.” Trump was uncomprehending; he did not remember what Macron had been saying over lunch.

From evidence in Moscow of talks on Trump’s priority “major Economic Development transactions”, Putin has promoted his negotiator, Kirill Dmitriev, to ministerial rank with the title “Special Representative of the President of Russia for Investment and Economic Cooperation with Foreign Countries.” The text of the decree was signed on Sunday evening.

The Kremlin was asked if Dmitriev has been promoted to ministerial rank, and if in future negotiations with the Americans he will be equal in precedence with Foreign Minister Lavrov and Presidential Assistant Yury Ushakov, the Kremlin spokesman said: “I don’t know.”

Dmitriev was talkative in Riyadh on February 18 on the prospects for the return to Russia of US businesses, product brand-names, and investors. But on the US agreement with Kiev for takeover of coal, iron ore, oil, gas and other resources in Novorossiya and the Crimea, Dmitriev has been silent.Late on Monday evening at his country residence, Putin called in a reporter to respond to the Oval Office record. “We would be ready to offer [cooperation] and our American partners, when I say partners, I mean not only administrative and government structures, but also companies – if they showed interest in working together… We would be happy to work with any foreign partners, including those of American ones. Yes, by the way, as for the new territories, the same thing: we are ready to attract foreign partners, and the so-called new our historical territories, who have returned to the Russian Federation, there are also reserves certain. We are ready with our foreign partners, including with American ones, work there too.”

The display of Trump’s incomprehension was emphasized by Macron who prompted him at several points.

Click to follow the 28-minute Oval Office press conference: https://x.com/
Note the presence at right of Vice President J.D. Vance. Sitting next to him was Secretary of State Marco Rubio. Behind them was Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent. Bessent made a single remark; Vance and Rubio remained silent.

Replying to a question of whether he is preparing to abandon the Ukraine, Trump insisted: “No, we’re going to help Ukraine like nobody’s ever helped Ukraine before.”

He then became confused when asked what form this US help would take. “European troops may go into Ukraine as peacemakers [sic]…I don’t think that’s going to be a problem.” Asked if such a European force would have US backing, he said: “Well, we’re going to have a backing of some sort. Obviously, the European countries are going to be involved. And, errr, I don’t think you are going to need much backing. It’s not going to be a problem. Once an agreement is signed, Russia is going to get back to its business, and Ukraine and Europe are going to get back to their business. I don’t think it’s going to be a problem.”

“We’re trying to do some economic development deals with Russia. They have a lot of things we want, and we’ll see – I mean, I don’t know if that will come to fruition. But we’d love to be able to do that. We could — you know, they have massive rare earth – it’s actually the largest, in terms of land, it’s by far the largest country. And they have very valuable things we could use, and we have things they could use, and it would be very good if we could do that.”

As Trump stumbled over what he could remember and was trying to say, his staff published a tweet on the Truth Social platform, repeating Trump’s idée fixe on rare earth minerals, and insulting Canada’s Prime Minister Justin Trudeau once again.

Source: https://truthsocial.com/

It is apparent that if Trump’s staff and advisers have drawn his attention to the US Geological Survey (USGS) tabulation of rare earth mineral reserves by country, Trump cannot remember. The table published in January 2025 shows that China leads in both production and reserves; that Russia trails in fifth place; and that the Ukraine’s rare earth reserves are minuscule by comparison.

RARE EARTH MINERAL PRODUCTION AND RESERVES, BY COUNTRY, JANUARY 2025

Source: https://pubs.usgs.gov/

In Putin’s response to the Trump tweet, the Russian president corrected Trump’s geography: “we have an order of magnitude – I want to emphasize this – an order of magnitude more resources of this kind than in Ukraine. Russia is one of the undisputed leaders in the reserves of these rare earth metals. We have them in the North – in Murmansk, in the Caucasus – in the Kabardino-Balkaria, in the Far East, in the Irkutsk region, and in Yakutia, in Tuva. These are quite capital-intensive investments, projects capital-intensive. We would be happy to work with any foreign partners, including those of American ones… Pavel Zarubin: In the new regions too? Vladimir Putin: Yes, of course.”

Following further talks with Macron over lunch at the White House, a second press conference was held. This ran for 43 minutes. Trump began by reading from a script which repeated the slogans of his Oval Office presentation. Click to follow here.


Source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F_icClkj0Eo
The White House House has released the videotape, but after almost 24 hours, it has issued no transcript. There is also no official White House listing of the US officials who participated in the talks.

Trump continued to repeat himself. Then Macron made the only detailed disclosure of what agreements he and Trump had reached during the day. “Can you confirm there is an agreement,” a French reporter asked, “to send European peacekeeping troops? Will France participate in that? How many troops? What will they be doing?”

“Well,” Trump began, “I guess, this is a little strange question”. He then avoided answering, speaking instead for the third time in the day on the restoration of the Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris. “I was there. I saw the work. I’m very good at construction. I know good construction and I know bad construction. They did a beautiful job, and this man has to be given a lot of credit for that.”

Macron responded directly to the question of the end-of-war settlement. He said there had been three areas of discussion on which Trump and the US delegation had agreed during the day at the White House. The first, Macron said, was the terms Vladimir Zelensky will sign in a few days’ time on US takeover of Ukrainian minerals. The second was the sequence of truce, ceasefire, and peace settlement which Trump agreed his negotiators will pursue with the Russians. The third agreement with Trump, according to Macron, was “a clear American message that the US as an ally is ready to provide that solidarity for that approach. That is a turning point in my view. And that is one of the great areas of progress we have made during this trip. And during this discussion.”

What Macron meant is an idea he said he has already worked out with British Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer for preserving the Ukraine politically and territorially with a combination of the NATO forces currently on the Ukrainian battlefield, in a change of deployment and engagement conditions.

“When it comes to troops,” Macron said, “in the past, a year ago specifically, we saw a reason to talk about sending troops for strategic reasons. Today, when we talk about troops, we are talking about sending them in after we have negotiated a lasting peace…. Then at that point … not to go to the front lines, not to go into occupied territory, but as a show of support for — to show we have a negotiated peace, signed by both sides, and that is a peace we will preserve. So these will be peaceful deployments of troops, not for combat. These will be deployments of an assurance force.”

Macron implied that Trump had agreed to provide US military backing for this “assurance force” in the Ukraine. During the talks the US Secretary of Defense, Peter Hegseth, was absent; he was hosting the Saudi Defense Minister at the Pentagon instead.

In his finale at the White House, Macron concluded: “The real change now, compared to 2014, is that we have this deterrence capacity on the American side. We have the capacity for engagement on the European side. And that’s something we are going to continue working on together.”

Trump was unable to respond to the details, nor to the strategic point Macron was claiming Trump has now agreed for a NATO-type military guarantee including US “deterrence capacity” inside the Ukraine. “Emmanuel,” Trump stopped the press conference, ” thank you very much. Great job. And it’s been wonderful being with you. Say hello to your beautiful wife, and we will see you again soon. “

Source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F_icClkj0Eo

NOTE: In his new interview, Putin made a pitch for US investment in low-cost Russian aluminium production as a counter to Trump’s raised tariffs on the imported metal from Canada and to the European Union’s new sanctions on exports of Russian aluminium.

Russian aluminium is controlled by the oligarch, Oleg Deripaska. For the archive on the metal, click. For the history of Deripaska, read the book.

Left, Oleg Deripaska with President Putin; right, the history of Deripaska’s business practices, including his attempt to assassinate me and then expel me from Russia. The book is available here.

“If it is decided to open the American market for our [aluminium] producers,” Putin said, “then we could sell about two million tonnes in the US market. This would not significantly affect the formation of the price, but, in my opinion, it would still have a restraining effect for the stabilization of prices. In addition, and most importantly in my opinion, is that we could, together with American companies, think about a joint work in this area. For example, in the Krasnoyarsk Territory in the Soviet time there were plans to build a new hydroelectric power plant and create additional production of aluminium production. Aluminium is before everything, energy, and preferably cheap energy. Hydropower is cheap, and among other things, it is also environmentally friendly.” Putin implied that Deripaska’s Rusal is already negotiating with US counterparts. “Yes, some of our companies are in contact with each other and such projects are discussed.”

Reflecting on the Russian debacle in the SMO undertaken by Putin 3 years ago. There were 2 stages:

Stage One. Special forces broke through the border into Ukraine. 15% of the territory is being taken in addition to the 10% that are already under control in Donetsk and Lugansk regions. But not a single large city has been taken. The largest cities targeted by the SMO were Kherson and Melitopol.

Kharkov, Kyiv, Chernigov, and Sumy were blockaded. But there were not enough forces to take them. The main problems.

1. The number of Ukrainian troops, due to mass mobilization, was 5 times greater than the number of Russian troops in the theater of military operations.
2. The generals of the Armed Forces of Ukraine were breaking agreements to go over to the Russian side.
3. The Armed Forces of Ukraine were not fleeing, but stubbornly fighting.
4. The population was frightened and took a neutral position, rather than greeting the Russian army with jubilation, as was the case in 2014.
5. Poor communication in units.
6. The government of Ukraine was not falling apart.

As a result, it was not possible to establish control over the territory of Ukraine. Military actions became positional. The extended lines of communication were subject to increasing attacks.
Since Russia failed to achieve a quick victory, as everyone expected, support for the Ukrainian army from the West and from the Ukrainian population increased sharply.

Mr. Putin miscalculated by a large margin. The Russians were trapped by the better Western intelligence. It went downhill from there.

The SMO was stopped. Peace talks began in Istanbul. The Russians were scrambling to save face and were willing to sign any agreement to stabilize the situation. But they were too week to prevail, hence the rejection of the Istanbul truce.

Stage Two follows.

by Gilbert Doctorow via https://gilbertdoctorow.com/2025/02/11/waiting-for-the-munich-security-conference-to-open-what-peace-plan-is-team-trump-bringing/#comments

Has the lifting of U.S. pressure of state censorship on social media and video platforms like youtube since Donald Trump’s inauguration made a difference in what we see and hear on the internet? My intuitive judgment says ‘yes.’ Day by day, I am struck by the proliferation of disinformation and fake news now coming from online broadcasters in the alternative media as ‘yellow press’ sensationalism rises for the sake of attracting an audience and signing up paying sponsors. Platforms may change with technology, but human instincts remain the same. By curious coincidence, this is happening at the very moment when lying and propagandistic mainstream media like The New York Times and The Financial Times have cooled to the notion of Ukraine dealing a strategic defeat on Russia while retaking all of its territories lost since 2014 and are presenting more fact-based reporting on the daily setbacks of the Ukrainian forces and the approaching Russian victory.

A case in point about rumor mongering was delivered to my inbox a day ago by friends in Brussels who sent me the link to a just released podcast by Clayton Morris (Redacted) claiming to know the contents of the peace plan Trump’s team will present at the Munich Security Conference that opens in two days. This plan supposedly will provide for joint Russian-Ukrainian control of the contested Eastern Ukraine regions of Novaya Rossiya now held by Russian troops, while Ukraine’s entry into the European Union is foreseen. It will provide for an immediate cessation of hostilities. Moscow will be incentivized to agree by the release of their frozen assets to Russian oligarchs. Oh, yes, and at the start of a cease fire, the United States would halt all further arms deliveries to Kiev.

Who knows? Perhaps such an improbable plan is among the papers that General Kellogg, Trump’s emissary to Ukraine and Russia, Vice President J.D. Vance and Secretary of State Marco Rubio are carrying with them to Munich. The notion that Putin can be moved to genuflect before Washington’s strong man by the self-serving dictates from his own Russian oligarchs is so utterly ignorant of Russian realities that it could easily have been put forward by Trump’s staff, who seem to be as poorly informed about what makes Russia tick as were Jake Sullivan and Tony Blinken in the Biden administration.

We can be left guessing, because Trump himself in his latest chats with Fox News reporters yesterday declared that he has made great progress towards a peace in the past week. He said he has spoken by telephone to Putin. He still hopes to bring together Vladimir Putin and Volodymyr Zelensky for face-to-face negotiations.

Note that so far Donald Trump’s approach to negotiating an end to the Russia-Ukraine war has exactly the same elements of bravado, bullying, hubris as we see in all of his other opening moves on the international front, such as his threats of 25% tariffs against Mexico and Canada, his demand that Denmark ‘sell’ Greenland to the USA and his imposition of what are intended to be crushing new sanctions on Iran so as to open talks on a comprehensive settlement of decades long confrontation from what Americans perceive as ‘a position of strength.’

Note also, that in the case of Iran, Trump’s tactics have so far failed completely. A week ago, the country’s Supreme Leader Ali Khameini, flatly rejected entering into negotiations with Trump, saying that the Americans were not trustworthy and that Trump’s opening moves were ‘undignified.’

Exactly the same new crushing sanctions were imposed by Trump on Russia to show off his muscle to American admirers: namely sanctions directed against the so-called shadow fleet of oil tankers that Russia, like Iran, has assembled to take the delivery of oil to export markets entirely in its own hands, including provision of insurance coverage for the tankers. The intention of Trump in both instances is to reduce the exports and foreign currency earnings of both countries to nil.

All of the optimism coming from the Trump camp that it holds the high cards in relations with Russia flies in the face of the statements made yesterday afternoon by Russia’s Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov that relations with the USA “are at the breaking point.” The war will end, said Ryabkov, only when the conditions set down by Vladimir Putin in June 2023 are satisfied. These conditions include the withdrawal of all Ukrainian military forces from the 4 Eastern Ukrainian regions that have been formally integrated into the Russian Federation, disavowal by Kiev on its hopes to enter the NATO alliance together with acceptance of neutral status without the presence of any foreign military personnel or installations on its territory. Let us remember that Ryabkov is the same official who announced in December 2021 Russia’s ultimatum to the USA calling for return of NATO to its borders of 1997, that is to say, before the multiple expansion waves that took in the former Warsaw Pact countries and the Baltic States.

Yesterday, Ryabkov also said that there are no prospects presently for successful discussions with the United States about limitations on medium range ground-based missiles or other items on the agenda in regulating strategic stability. Needless to say, Ryabkov’s very depressing message is not being reported by Western media. No one wants to spoil the party about to open in Munich.

When we look at the attendance list for the Munich conference, everyone seems to be present…except the Russians. What does the American delegation headed by the number two (vice president) and number three (secretary of state) officials in the U.S. federal government expect to achieve other than to ‘confer’ with its European allies who are in fact just vassals who will do whatever Washington tells them to do. Of course, Volodymyr Zalensky will also be in attendance, though here again, he is just dead weight on the talks since his opinion counts for nothing.

MOSCOW, February 10. /TASS/. Kremlin Spokesman Dmitry Peskov, commenting on US President Donald Trump’s idea to buy and rebuild the Gaza Strip, said that it is necessary to wait for the details of this plan, as there are many questions.

“We need to wait for some details if you mean a coherent plan of action. There are almost 1.2 million Palestinians who live there, that’s the key concern. These are the people to whom the relevant [UN] Security Council resolutions promised a state solution to the Middle East problem, and so on and so forth. There are a lot of such issues. We don’t know the details yet, so we need to be patient,” the Kremlin spokesman said.

People have got to realize that Russia is an Israel-first country as much as the US until now. Despite the fact that one can justify Putin’s defensive actions in Ukraine and the fact that he’s finally doing something about saving the world from the “liberal” new world order, it does not mean we should overlook his unprincipled friendship with Israel. For years, Putin allowed Israel to bomb Syria. Iran better not put all its faith in Putin coming to their rescue against Israel. It will not happen.

Putin and China will talk about how what Israel is doing is wrong, but will not do anything concrete to protect or help the Palestinians. They are both invested in Israel. Every year, Russians hold Victory Day parades in remembrance of the Great Patriotic War and the millions of Russians lost, but how much did Russia do while Israel intentionally set out to starve and kill the Palestinians? Putin’s older brother died of starvation during the war, but what exactly did Russia do to try to force Israel to allow food into Gaza? Why does Russia, or, even more so, Putin, never call genocide “genocide”? Why does Russia condemn October 7 as a terrorist attack while it never condemns in stern words and actions the 70 years of Israel’s war crimes against the Palestinians?

No one should be surprised, Russia goes along with the ethnic cleansing of Palestinians from Gaza and that makes Putin’s Russia complicit to Israel’s crimes just as much as Biden.

Only the steadfast European Union stands up and backs up the ICC, calling attention to the murder taking place in full view of the complicit world.