Important Takeaways:
- More than any other personnel decision former President Donald Trump, the president-elect now, has made for his incoming administration, his decision to pick attorney Kash Patel to lead the FBI as the bureau’s next director has electrified Trump’s most ardent supporters.
- The raw energy with this selection may be because Patel is viewed as one of the movement’s most aggressive fighters–he was critical in the effort to undercut in Trump’s first term the Russia hoax against the then-president and then later led counterterrorism efforts in the White House–but it’s perhaps even more because of the distrust American conservatives have in the FBI over the past several years that finding someone who just will not appease the world’s preeminent law enforcement agency’s bad actors and will aim to steer the bureau back towards actually enforcing the law and away from political witch hunting.
- Senators may disagree with Patel on one thing or another, but they cannot legitimately argue that the person who led counterterrorism activities for the Trump White House including overseeing the raid that killed ISIS leader Abu Bakr Al-Baghdadi, serving as a senior adviser to the Director of National Intelligence, as chief of staff at the Pentagon, and as a top attorney for the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence (HPSCI), as well as a long and illustrious career both as a prosecutor and as a public defender, is not qualified for the job. So see, this move by Trump puts these forces that his base has long distrusted and sought to counter in check–if not checkmate–and that’s why his base is so excited.
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Important Takeaways:
- The spectacular snow event fueled by brutally cold air and particularly warm lake water has been going on since Friday, with snowfall rates exceeding 4 inches per hour at times into Saturday. Thunder and lightning accompanied the snowfall, which dumped more than 5 feet on New York’s Tug Hill Plateau. Barnes Corners, just south of Watertown, New York, tallied 65.5 inches. Nearby Montague got 60 inches.
- Elsewhere in New York, Cassadaga — about 10 miles inland from Lake Erie and midway between Buffalo and Erie, Pennsylvania — wound up with 54.1 inches. Downtown Buffalo mostly missed out, logging only 1.2 inches. Orchard Park, just 14 miles to the south, picked up 26.2 inches.
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Important Takeaways:
- According to several reports, stores around the U.S. are experiencing egg shortages, and states that require cage-free hens are particularly hard hit due to rising cases of Highly Pathogenic Avian Influenza (HPAI), also known as “bird flu.”
- CBS MoneyWatch. “Where we are hearing reports of shortages it’s at stores like a Whole Foods or a Trader Joe’s.”
- As CBS noted, more than 40% of America’s egg-laying hens are raised in cage-free environments, with 60% of bird flu cases involving cage-free farms.
- As of December 2, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) reported that 111,412,626 birds had been affected by bird flu across 49 states, which experts say is making eggs more expensive — not inflation.
- However, birds aren’t the only animals affected by the virus. As Food & Wine previously reported, the bird flu was also detected in a batch of raw milk sold in California, triggering a recall. It’s also been detected in a child in California, marking the first positive case of the illness in a child in U.S. history.
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Important Takeaways:
- Conflicts reach highest peak globally since World War II
- Ukraine, Gaza, Sudan, Ethiopia, Afghanistan, Syria, Democratic Republic of the Congo, Colombia… and so on. There are up to 56 active conflicts in the world, the highest number since World War II. Moreover, these carry an increasingly international component, with 92 countries involved in wars outside their borders. These are data from the latest Global Peace Index produced annually by the Institute for Economics & Peace (IEP), a think tank that analyzes everything from military investment and the cost of violence to military laws and deaths in combat in 163 states and territories. “Getting the information is a challenge, but it allows us to compare dynamics. And what we see is a deterioration of peace over the last decade, especially in the last five years,” says Michael Collins, executive director of IEP.
- The risk of low-intensity hostilities erupting into open conflict has also increased. Moreover, Collins warns, “this year is a high-risk year because half of humanity is voting and the world is increasingly polarized. We see risk of conflict spillover. We see sparks that can start a fire,” he adds. “There are a lot of unresolved but dormant conflicts.” At any time, the report warns, these can flare up and become major wars. This has happened, the authors cite, with cases such as Sudan or Gaza, which in last year’s edition of the study were on the list of unstable territories with low-intensity hostilities and have since escalated to the category of wars.
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Important Takeaways:
- President Yoon Suk Yeol on Tuesday said he had no choice but to resort to such a measure to safeguard free and constitutional order in his country.
- He accused opposition parties for allegedly taking hostage of parliament to throw the country into a crisis and for sympathizing with North Korea.
- In a televised address to the nation, the president vowed to ‘eradicate pro-North Korean forces and protect the constitutional democratic order.’
- In response, opposition leader Lee Jae-myung, who narrowly lost to Yoon in the 2022 presidential election, called his announcement ‘illegal and unconstitutional.’
- It has been reported that the parliament building, the National Assembly, has been shut, with entry and exit blocked to members.
- Protesters charged towards the building in Seoul, with people breaching the main gate shortly after the announcement.
- South Korean Democratic Party chair Lee Jae-myung said there is a high possibility military is mobilized to arrest members of National Assembly.
- Meanwhile, defense minister Shin Won-sik has ordered all military units to strengthen readiness.
- Martial law involves the temporary rule by military authorities. It is usually invoked in time of war, rebellion, or natural disaster.
- Curfews are usually introduced, in addition to the suspension of civil law and civil rights. Civilians defying martial law being subjected to military tribunes.
- It was not immediately clear how the steps would affect governance and democracy.
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Important Takeaways:
- China has been supporting Russia’s economy since the start of the Ukraine war by buying its oil while supplying it with everything from microelectronics to washing machines.
- Meanwhile, Beijing has been getting its own strategic benefit: a real-world case study in how to circumvent Western sanctions.
- Russia’s economy has been surprisingly resilient throughout the Ukraine war, but it has shown fresh signs of cracking under Western pressure recently. In the past week, the Russian ruble plunged to its lowest point since the early days of the conflict after the U.S. imposed new banking sanctions.
- Moscow owes much of its economic durability to its oil exports and its cooperation with Beijing, as the leaders of both countries seek to challenge the U.S.-led world order.
- “Sanctions can be really disruptive for any production sector that is enmeshed in global supply chains,” Fishman said. “That makes China highly vulnerable.”
- While the U.S. has already imposed sanctions on China, including export restrictions on advanced semiconductors and measures against telecommunications giant Huawei, a crisis over Taiwan could lead to an economic war of a different magnitude.
- Full-scale financial sanctions by the West would disrupt the country’s financial system, interrupt trade and put $3.7 trillion in Chinese overseas bank assets and reserves at risk, according to a report last year by the Atlantic Council and Rhodium Group think tanks.
- One major lesson for China from Russia’s experience has been the importance of preparation, analysts say. Before the war, Russia had sought to diversify its foreign reserves, de-dollarize its economy and build domestic financial plumbing. Even though its success was mixed, those moves helped shield the Russian economy and buy it time to adapt.
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Important Takeaways:
- Some analysts now argue that World War III is no longer a distant possibility – it has already begun, just in ways more subtle than Western societies experienced at the start of the 20th century’s global conflicts.
- National security expert Mark Toth and former US intelligence officer Col. Jonathan Sweet are among those arguing that World War III is already upon us.
- ‘This third global conflagration doesn’t look or feel like what Hollywood envisioned,’ they claim.
- ‘No mushroom clouds or apocalyptic wastelands. Rather, it is war by a thousand cuts, conducted across multi-regional and multi-domain battlefields.
- The concept of hybrid warfare lies at the heart of arguments that World War III is already underway.
- Toth and Sweet point the finger at Vladimir Putin as the main driver of the march toward disaster and say Russia’s strategy spans multiple arenas
- In Africa, Russian paramilitary groups, such as the Wagner Group, have fueled coups, destabilizing democracies and consolidating Moscow’s influence.
- And in Europe, espionage and damaging covert operations have resurfaced with Cold War intensity.
- Arson attacks targeting logistical hubs across the West to disrupt critical supply chains while daring assassinations cut down Russian dissidents and political opponents in the streets
- ‘Putin’s ability to conduct hybrid warfare is arguably his greatest strength,’ they emphasize, pointing to Russia’s continent-spanning efforts to spread disinformation, construct pro-Kremlin narratives and influence governments and citizens alike to turn against the West.
- This includes sophisticated AI tools that generate deepfakes and fabricated narratives, such as the fake documentary ‘Olympics Have Fallen,’ designed to incite fear ahead of the Paris Olympics.
- Even space has become a battlefield, with Putin threatening anti-satellite weapons aimed at crippling Western communications and intelligence networks.
- Recent Ukrainian strikes using US-provided ATACMS missiles and UK-provided Storm Shadow missiles prompted Putin to unleash the never-before-seen ‘Oreshnik’ – a new hypersonic ballistic missile – on Ukraine.
- Days prior, the Kremlin chief signed into effect an amended nuclear doctrine which officially lowered the threshold under which Moscow can deploy their devastating weapons.
- Although their ranks are suffering heavy casualties, the Russian army is advancing westward in Ukraine at a rate faster than any other time after the initial days of the 2022 invasion, taking an area half the size of London over the past month.
- Elsewhere, the Middle East is reeling amid the aftermath of Hamas’ October 7, 2023 attacks on Israel – a dastardly scheme that triggered an inferno of violence and has left tens of thousands dead in Gaza and Lebanon with no clear end in sight.
- Hamas and Hezbollah’s chief backer Iran has further escalated the situation with missile and drone strikes against Israel, while analysts suspect Tehran is drawing dangerously close to developing nuclear weapons.
- And in the Indo-Pacific, China’s escalating aggression against Taiwan and the Philippines has stoked fears of an explosive clash in this strategically critical region.
- Recent months have seen Beijing adopt an increasingly threatening posture with top US defense officials warning China could attempt an invasion of Taiwan well before the end of the decade.
- All the while… North Korea’s burgeoning nuclear arsenal having completely severed ties with South Korea and sent troops to aid Putin in his war on Ukraine.
- ‘Putin’s invasion of Ukraine was the opening stage (of World War Three). It was his marker to the global community that the world order as it had existed since the end of the Second World War was no longer,’ argued Sweet and Toth.
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Important Takeaways:
- President-elect Donald Trump threatened the BRIC group of emerging-market nations on Saturday, warning that he would impose 100% tariffs if they make any moves to undermine the U.S. dollar.
- The BRIC alliance, originally comprised of Brazil, Russia, India, and China, now includes five other countries: South Africa, Egypt, Ethiopia, Iran, and the United Arab Emirates.
- On Saturday, Trump wrote, “The idea that the BRICS Countries are trying to move away from the Dollar while we stand by and watch is OVER.”
- “We require a commitment from these Countries that they will neither create a new BRICS Currency, nor back any other Currency to replace the mighty U.S. Dollar or, they will face 100% Tariffs, and should expect to say goodbye to selling into the wonderful U.S. Economy,” Trump said. “They can go find another ‘sucker!’ There is no chance that the BRICS will replace the U.S. Dollar in International Trade, and any Country that tries should wave goodbye to America.”
- At a summit of BRIC nations in October, Russian President Vladimir Putin accused the U.S. of “weaponizing” the dollar and described it as a “big mistake,” the Associated Press reported.
- Collectively, the nine-country BRIC group accounts for 45% of the world’s population. Turkey, Azerbaijan and Malaysia also have applied to become members.
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Important Takeaways:
- A long-duration lake-effect snowstorm is continuing to pummel the Great Lakes region after dumping 3-5 feet of snow in cities from Michigan to New York that paralyzed travel as people tried to get home after the busy Thanksgiving holiday weekend.
- The impacts from the historic lake-effect snowstorm have been far-reaching, not only because of the sheer amount of snow that fell but also because of the intense snowfall rates reaching up to 4 inches per hour, which overwhelmed crews who were relentlessly working around the clock to remove the snow and ice from roads and highways such as the heavily traveled Interstate 90 from New York state to Ohio
- Travel is expected to remain treacherous in areas still impacted by bands of heavy snow coming off the Great Lakes. Drivers are being urged to stay off the roads if possible, significantly slow their speeds, and leave plenty of distance between vehicles to ensure the safety of people out and about on Monday.
- And it wasn’t just the snow that was making headlines over the weekend. The paralyzing lake-effect snowstorm also produced rare thundersnow and even waterspouts off the shores of Lake Erie.
- Winter weather alerts remain in effect across the region, including Lake-Effect Snow Warnings from Cleveland to southwestern New York that will remain in effect until at least Tuesday morning.
- Travel could again become dangerous on major roads and highways across the region, including I-90, I-86 and I-79, which could become nearly impassable. In the heaviest snow bands, visibility could drop to less than a quarter-mile, and strong winds could blow snow that has already fallen.
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Important Takeaways:
- MSNBC is facing a staggering ratings collapse in the wake of the 2024 election, with the network’s audience shrinking by nearly half as Fox News became the only cable news outlet to show post-election growth.
- According to Nielsen data, MSNBC’s total viewership has dropped by 47 percent post-election, and its critical 25-54 demographic plummeted to just 63,000 during primetime—a sharp contrast to its pre-election numbers.
- Fox News soared to 3.2 million, an 86 percent year-over-year increase in total viewers. In the coveted 25-54 demographic, Fox saw a 147 percent surge, averaging 476,000 viewers.
- shows like Morning Joe recorded some of their lowest numbers in years. The network’s flagship morning program saw a 37 percent drop in viewership after co-hosts Joe Scarborough and Mika Brzezinski met with President-elect Donald Trump.
- CNN also faced steep declines, losing 33 percent of its total audience, but MSNBC’s dramatic losses stand out as the most severe
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