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Adam Christian Johnson, also known as the "Podium Guy" and "Via Getty", is an American who took part in the United States Capitol attack on January 6, 2021.

On January 20, 2025 he received a full pardon from President Donald Trump. Adam Christian Johnson, a participant in the January 6 Capitol riot and widely recognized for his infamous photo with Rep. Pelosi’s lectern, posted a picture today with Senator John Fetterman (D-PA)

wtyp to rheinmetal lobbyist pipeline

Ansarullah Rejects U.S. Terrorist Designation, Calls It a Badge of Honor - Telesur English

Damn, stone cold.
https://english.almayadeen.net/news/politics/white-house-spanish-website-removed-following-trump-s-inaugu

By midday Tuesday, attempting to access the Spanish-language version of the website led to an error message stating, "Page Not Found." The only clickable button initially read "Go Home," which many social media users criticized as carrying an unintended double meaning. By 1 p.m. local time (18:00 GMT), the text was changed to "Go To Home Page."

Are there any resources to track the occurrence of ICE raids, aside from the raids in Newark it's hard to get a grasp on the situation since news media are either not reporting it or reporting vaguely on it

Accidents, not Russian sabotage, behind undersea cable damage, officials say (WaPo) | archive

I am very surprised by this. No one saw that coming. Nevertheless:

At a Baltic summit in Helsinki on Jan. 14, NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte announced plans for new patrols by frigates, aircraft, submarine satellites and a “small fleet of naval drones” designed to detect undersea sabotage.

Mission accomplished I guess.

https://earth.nullschool.net/#2025%2F01%2F24%2F0300Z%2Fwind%2Fsurface%2Flevel%2Forthographic=-6.31%2C53.26%2C4382

eire about to experience a storm tomorrow morning, stay safe conrades

*wait, the link breaks over time?

60-100 km winds over nearly whole ireland

Iraq Parliament allowing marriage to children as young as 9 https://www.theguardian.com/global-development/2025/jan/22/women-children-rights-iraqi-law-allows-child-marriage

:sicko-poll-watcher: but actually, it just sucks that voters defect to right wing parties (same with spd->afd) instead of plausibly leftist like greens/linke

Ukrainian media report that the head of Zelensky's office, Yermak, and Zelensky himself are ready to remove the commander-in-chief of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, Syrsky, from his post for failures at the front.

• Telegram

4 IDF soldiers handed over to the Red Cross by Saraya al-Quds and the Qassam Brigades

https://streamable.com/wj9l08

Just remembered they’re still in space

https://www.cnet.com/science/stranded-nasa-astronaut-on-the-iss-takes-a-spacewalk-with-another-planned/

Jeremy Corbyn’s cat, El Gato has passed away

He was less popular with much of the wider media, and was – like me – subject to intense activity of the right-wing press who wished to smear his character. He was very much of the Left, and wanted a socially just and fair society.

Indeed, at one time he brought a stray cat into his orbit, sharing his shelter and food.

As this shows, El Gato was very empathetic to the needs of a homeless cat.

Trump tells Putin to reach Ukraine ‘deal’ soon or US will increase sanctions direct FT link archived page not latest version of article yet

Donald Trump has warned Vladimir Putin that the US is ready to punish Russia with a barrage of new trade restrictions if Moscow fails to reach an agreement soon to end the war in Ukraine.

Trump’s statement in a Truth Social post on Wednesday comes as the president tries to ratchet up pressure on Moscow to launch negotiations with Ukraine.

It marks his first broad statement about the conflict since he returned for his second term in the White House after promising on the campaign trail to end the war within 24 hours of returning to power.

“If we don’t make a ‘deal,’ and soon, I have no other choice but to put high levels of Taxes, Tariffs, and Sanctions on anything being sold by Russia to the United States, and various other participating countries,” Trump wrote.

“Let’s get this war, which never would have started if I were President, over with! We can do it the easy way, or the hard way — and the easy way is always better,” he continued.

Joe Biden’s administration imposed sweeping sanctions on Moscow after it launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022. US trade with Russia has since plummeted, so any additional tariffs would have a limited impact.

But Trump administration officials believe there are more ways that the US could tighten the screws on Russia financially, particularly by targeting its energy sector.

The Biden administration was reluctant to ban Russian oil and gas exports for fear of disrupting global energy markets. Under the former president, Washington imposed some restrictions on liquefied natural gas projects in Russia and set an international price cap for Russian oil, which Moscow has managed to circumvent.

During his confirmation hearing to be Trump’s treasury secretary, Scott Bessent last week told Congress that he would be “100 per cent on board for taking sanctions up, especially on the Russian oil majors, to levels that would bring the Russian Federation to the table”.

Bessent added that he believed the US sanctions on Russia set by Biden were “not fulsome enough”.

Trump, who has been sceptical of US military aid to Ukraine, said he expected to meet Putin soon and the Kremlin has said the Russian leader is ready to sit down with the US president, but no summit has been scheduled.

In his post, Trump touted his “very good relationship with President Putin” and said he was not looking to “hurt” Russia, but would be doing it a “favour” by pushing it to reach a deal.

Hours after being sworn in on Monday, Trump told reporters in the Oval Office that Putin was “destroying Russia” by continuing to wage war in Ukraine.

But the president’s announcement reveals his frustration that Moscow does not appear to be listening to his calls for a settlement.

“Putin doesn’t want to end the war, and doesn’t want to be pressured to peace,” a senior Ukrainian official close to President Volodymyr Zelenskyy told the Financial Times in response to Trump’s comments.

Trump’s special envoy for the Ukraine war, Keith Kellogg, told Fox News earlier this month he hoped to find a solution within “100 days”.

Kellogg had postponed a trip to hold meetings with top officials in Kyiv earlier this month, according to people with knowledge of the plans. The people said the envoy delayed his visit because Trump had not formulated a plan to get the Russians to the negotiating table and bring the war to an end.

Kellogg is expected to visit Kyiv next month but the Ukrainians may first meet him and other members of Trump’s team in Washington.

David Arakhamia, head of Zelenskyy’s party’s faction in the Ukrainian parliament, said a delegation from Kyiv was planning to meet with members of the new administration in the US capital in the coming days.

“Active contacts between the delegation from the Ukrainian parliament and the new Trump team may begin in early February as part of the ‘Ukrainian Week’ to be held in Washington,” he told Ukrainian television on Tuesday.

Nothing ever happens: judge blocks Trump's rollback of the 14th amendment.

https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2025/1/23/us-judge-blocks-trumps-order-restricting-birthright-citizenship?traffic_source=rss

The Cradle - Netanyahu signals Israel will remain in south Lebanon after withdrawal deadline

The deadline for Israel to exit Lebanese borders is today, and they are instead making plans to extend their occupation.

“The IDF withdrawal process is conditional on the deployment of the Lebanese army in southern Lebanon and its full and effective implementation of the agreement, while Hezbollah withdraws beyond the Litani. Since the ceasefire agreement has not yet been fully implemented by the Lebanese state, the gradual withdrawal process will continue in full coordination with the United States,”

Mind you Israel violated this agreement 1000 separate times.

In particular they're looking for permission from Donald Trump to hold five military strong points.

The Lebanese Military tasked with actually replacing Hezbollah south of the Litani River seems clueless about the situation, stating they weren't told anything about a delay. Hezbollah gave a statement the other day:

“As we continue to monitor the developments of the situation, which are supposed to culminate in a full withdrawal in the coming days, we affirm that any breach of the agreement or attempt to evade commitments under weak pretexts will not be tolerated. We call for strict adherence to the agreement, without concessions.”

US: The Houthis are terrorists (again).

Yemen: https://xcancel.com/Aldanmarki/status/1882830465050059262

https://www.rawstory.com/amp/fema-trump-sign-2670968114 Trump floats eliminating FEMA so states can ‘take care of their own problems'

silk road guy ross ulbricht was just pardoned. wtf is going on

‘Very important step’: Chinese scientists turn E coli into a photosynthetic life form

A dangerous bacteria is being used by researchers to help create a range of bioproducts with no carbon footprint

https://www.scmp.com/news/china/science/article/3296173/very-important-step-chinese-scientists-turn-e-coli-photosynthetic-life-form

With all the crazy shit going on I forgot about the other demon convention going on, the Davos Summit. It hasn't even made it to the news

Protests in Slovakia have reddit libs furiously masturbating. Anything to worry about? Anyone been paying attention? I know precisely zero about it.

The harmony between milei and trump couldn't be any better since both presidents are aligned with the same principles -- to defend the national interests of the United States of America.

Saudi Arabia plans $600 billion in new US investment, trade over four years

In a phone call between the two leaders, the crown prince said the Trump administration's expected reforms could create "unprecedented economic prosperity", the state news agency reported.

The report said Saudi Arabia wants its investments to capitalize on these conditions. It did not detail the source of the $600 billion, whether it would be public or private spending nor how the money would be deployed.

…

Trump said following his inauguration on Monday that he would consider making Saudi Arabia his first destination for a foreign visit if Riyadh agreed to buy $500 billion worth of American products, similar to what he did in his first term.

"I did it with Saudi Arabia last time because they agreed to buy $450 billion worth of our product. I said I'll do it but you have to buy American product, and they agreed to do that," Trump said, referring to his 2017 visit to the Gulf kingdom.

Remember when we all naively believed that the US confiscating $300 billion of Russia’s foreign reserves was going to “break the trust” in the dollar and leading to the world abandoning them?

Remember when people thought that Saudi Arabia was looking to abandon the so-called “petrodollar” and the US dollar is somehow going to collapse from it?

What we have learned since is that foreign holdings of US Treasuries soared to all-time peak in 2024, more than two years after the incredible sanctions against Russia.

This is what I have been saying since a couple years back: the dollar was at its weakest when the Fed under Biden first raised its interest rate back in 2022 to “fight inflation” - but if nobody was seizing the opportunity to provide an alternative, it is only a matter of time before the treasuries mature and huge interest payout reverses the flow of the dollar back to the foreign sector once again.

And here we are, with the dollar primacy strengthened not weakened after nearly three years of “recklessly” confiscating hundreds of billions of foreign assets. This should disillusion anyone who still thinks the dollar is built on “trust” or “reputation” rather than through coercion. The harvest phase is over, and the consolidation phase has begun.

This piece is quite interesting. I won't put the whole thing here since it's long. Just a few interesting snippets that stand out.

Government Monitoring Those With "Negative" Views of Health Insurance Companies

New documents reveal flurry of intelligence activity following Luigi Mangione's arrest

https://www.kenklippenstein.com/p/government-monitoring-those-with

“Following the shooting, the New York State Intelligence Center (NYSIC-CTC) identified a large amount of negative sentiment towards healthcare executives and health insurance companies on social media,” a bulletin produced by a regional intelligence group on December 12 says. The bulletin goes on to warn of “users online wanting to counter ‘corporate greed’” as well as “growing negative sentiment around conglomerates, the wealthy, and executive staff at private and public organizations.” Setting aside the yeah-no-shit factor, the report provides rare insight into how the government threat machine stokes fear among law enforcement agencies across the country.

...

To give a sense of just how many of these kinds of reports are pinballing around the law enforcement world, here’s one produced by the Southern Nevada Counter Terrorism Center (SNCTC) and also obtained by Property of the People. Like the New York bulletin, this one also focuses on “online rhetoric” expressing “criticism of the public health care system and corporate executives.” Sound familiar?

The shooting spurred online support from Racially Motivated Violent Extremists (RMVE), anticapitalists, Anarchist/Anti-government/Anti-authority violent extremist groups (AGAAVE), and unaffiliated individuals

Amuses me that they lump all of these together under "AGAAVE" because they're too lazy to understand the differences but also refer to "anticapitalists" as a different thing to AGAAVE. I assume that what they actually mean when they say anticapitalists is socialists/communists but they do not want to use that language for one reason or another.

When New York Governor Kathy Hochul touts more funding for “social media intelligence analysts & counterterrorism intelligence analysts,” as she did earlier this month, reports like these are what those taxes dollars are going towards.

As absurd as these reports might seem, they’re taken seriously not just by law enforcement, but also the media outlets they’re routinely leaked to. They are also frequently provided to private industry, which are given alarmist recommendations like these:

Lol this shit is so basic.

Chat, is Hexbear accessible in Belarus? Lukashenko spent his 7th (Gaius Marius speedrun any%) re-election speechtelling China to step up. Is he lurking in the news mega?

"We sent greetings and congratulations to Xi Jinping and his family. [...] I won't repeat the cliches about happiness, health and success. I'll just say one thing: You must endure. Today, the future of multipolarity on our planet depends on you. If China holds strong - and I'm confident it will - we are ready to work together on this. [...] We need multipolarity. A unipolar world cannot ensure prosperity for all nations."

Latest statement from Trump, via truth social, on the Russia - Ukraine war.

I'm not looking to hurt Russia. I love the Russian people, and always had a very good relationship with President Putin - and this despite the Radical Left's Russia, Russia, Russia HOAX. We must never forget that Russia helped us win the Second World War, losing almost 60,000,000 lives in the process. All of that being said, I'm going to do Russia, whose Economy is failing, and President Putin, a very big FAVOR. Settle now, and STOP this ridiculous War! IT'S ONLY GOING TO GET WORSE. If we don't make a "deal," and soon, I have no other choice but to put high levels of Taxes, Tariffs, and Sanctions on anything being sold by Russia to the United States, and various other participating countries. Let's get this war, which never would have started if I were President, over with! We can do it the easy way, or the hard way and the easy way is always - better. It's time to "MAKE A DEAL." NO MORE LIVES SHOULD BE LOST!!!

Very typical Trump, exaggerating the numbers (I think total allied deaths was 60 million, not the USSR alone). But he's really planning to go through with the peace through strength policy he promoted during his campaign apparently. Don't know how helpful sanctions against Russia will be unless he really plans to screw over the "participating countries" Russia does business with (so Europe) in the meantime by closing all the loopholes.

Donald Trump in fiery call with Denmark’s prime minister over Greenland. Hexbear post

Donald Trump insisted he was serious in his determination to take over Greenland in a fiery telephone call with Denmark’s prime minister, according to senior European officials.

The US president spoke to Mette Frederiksen, the Danish premier, for 45 minutes last week. The White House has not commented on the call but Frederiksen said she had emphasised that the vast Arctic island — an autonomous part of the kingdom of Denmark — was not for sale, while noting America’s “big interest” in it.

Five current and former senior European officials briefed on the call said the conversation had gone very badly.

Meta genai org in panic mode

It started with deepseek v3, which rendered the Llama 4 already behind in benchmarks. Adding insult to injury was the "unknown Chinese company with 5..5 million training budget"

Engineers are moving frantically to dissect deepsek and copy anything and everything we can from it. I'm not even exaggerating

Management is worried about justifying the massive cost of gen ai org. How would they face the leadership when every single "leader" of gen ai org is making more than what it cost to trained deepseek v3 entirely, and we have dozens of such "leaders"

Deepseek r1 made things even scarier. I can't reveal confidential info but it'll be soon public anyways

It should have been an engineering focused small org but since a bunch of people wanted to join the impact grab and artificially inflate hiring in the org, everyone loses

https://www.teamblind.com/post/Meta-genai-org-in-panic-mode-KccnF41n

Even Ukraine doesn't recognize Edmundo Gonzalez (Juan Guaido 2) as the president of Venezuela.

settlerman is cooking here, head of pentagon should be a drunk marine (this is motion to vote, not a final vote i think)

https://doge.gov/

they use imagedelivery.net to serve that Dollar image

Elon Musk's personal project, unelected parasite has a .gov domain

Fico said that a third of the participants in mass protests in Slovakia are Ukrainians who oppose the Slovak government. According to the Slovak Prime Minister, people at the protests were deceived by the organizers. Fico also said he would not resign, despite demands from tens of thousands of people across Slovakia. "Ukraine will never be in NATO, and if you listen to the statements of some politicians recently, it will have huge problems joining the EU" - Fico

The US/EU wants to remove the Socially Conservative SocDem PM because he's against the War in Ukraine?

POV: I'm in a "completely useless sack of shit" competition and UN peacekeepers show up
https://africanstream.media/un-peacekeepers-abandoning-goma-residents/

With Goma in east DRC now surrounded by Rwanda-backed rebels after the fall of Sake on Thursday, videos emerged online of what‘s claimed to be UN troops leaving the region. It’s left people furious that supposed peacekeepers are leaving a city of 2 million (plus the influx of people fleeing the surrounding towns and villages) in the lurch.

The main objective of UN operations has been to protect Congolese civilians from armed groups and to support government efforts to stabilise eastern Congo. However, there have been growing protests against the mission over its abject failure to secure those goals. There are now fears that the M23 could capture Goma again, as they did in 2012.

https://www.ft.com/content/43746784-4e14-4c70-a6be-1aa849cd66ee

Syria to dismantle Assad-era socialism, says foreign minister at Davos

How could they invite foreign investments when the country is destroyed, sanctioned and with all the trade wars that's going to happen under Trump?

Syria needs a larger public sector.

Just a note to newsheads that today's moonofalabama (Jan 21) is transphobic

Well it seems that despite the brave face and fiery rhetoric from Colombia, they have completely folded on the key issue towards the United States, the issue of the freedom of navigation for US military aircraft in Colombia. United States military aircraft are allowed to fly into Colombia unrestricted, including to deport migrants, according to a statement from the White House. In exchange, the sanctions and tarrifs on Colombia are placed in reserve, and the visa restrictions will be lifted as soon as the first US plane lands. Colombian president Gustavo Petro reposted this statement on twitter, before quickly deleting the repost.

Axios News: Trump pausing Colombia tariffs after migrants deal, White House says, 27 January 2025

So now the question is what does this mean for México, will they also fold to the US and allow US military transport aircraft to fly deportation flights inside their airspace? Colombia only managed to resist for half a day, and got made an example of quickly. The warning is loud and clear. The United States is prepared to follow through on their threats. Trump is actually serious about this, or at least playing the part. México don't really have many options here. I also think these kind of power moves will be very popular amongst the average US citizen, so there can be no reliance on any internal resistance to stop it.

The tariffs on MX/CA are going to be REALLY bad

Like, wouldn't this kill neoliberalism in the US? At least severely weaken it? And it'll fuck over workers everywhere

Hopefully Sheinbaum nationalizes any shuttered manufacturing plants, to minimize their losses somewhat

We need like a once a year Hexbear/news mega holiday where we can post our wacky heterodox ideas and you aren't allowed to yell at anyone, so I can tell people about Dengism with Burger Characteristics.

https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2025-01-06/the-energy-outlook-europe-s-summer-to-bring-worries-about-next-winter-s-gas

https://archive.is/0fiV3

Europe’s Summer Will Bring Worries About Next Winter’s Gas

The reasons are twofold. First, Ukraine – understandably — didn’t renew at the end of 2024 a transit contract that allowed its archenemy Russia to ship gas into Europe via its pipelines. Russia doesn’t sell as much gas into Europe as it once did, but Moscow has remained an important supplier for countries including Slovakia, Austria, Italy, Czechia and Hungary. The loss of that Russian gas will force Europe to rely more heavily on other sources, such as US liquefied natural gas and its own storage.

Definitely not because US asked Ukraine to not renew.