On 27th November, ten of the UK’s leading experts briefed an invite-only audience of around 1,250 politicians and leaders from business, culture, faith, sport and the media with the latest implications for health, food, national security and the economy.

Sign the letter to Keir Starmer and broadcasters

New polling reveals a clear and sustained decline in public approval of Trump and his policies that is already reshaping US electoral prospects, with significant implications for Congress and beyond.

There has been a significant and measurable decline in Americans’ assessment of President Trump.

 

Bob McMullan

Charting Trump's decline

 

NATO members should find ways to be more aggressive towards Russia, the US-led bloc’s top military chief has said.

Admiral Giuseppe Cavo Dragone, chair of the NATO Military Committee, told the Financial Times in an interview published on Sunday that member states have been weighing options to respond to what he described as Russia’s “hybrid war.”

“We are studying everything … being more aggressive or being proactive instead of reactive is something that we are thinking about,” Dragone said.

The commander added that a “pre-emptive strike” could be considered a “defensive action,” though it would be “further away from our normal way of thinking and behavior.”

Oops. Kaja Kallas, the de facto EU foreign minister already notorious for her chirpy incompetence, has done it again: displayed such elementary ignorance that you have to rub your eyes and double-check before you believe it’s true. But – as always with her – it is. This time, she has informed the world that Russia has not been attacked by anyone for a hundred years.

 

The EU’s top diplomat casually rewrites WWII history on her way to WWIII
Kaja Kallas’ striking ignorance – or willful revisionism – is precisely why no one is taking the bloc seriously anymore...

BY Tarik Cyril Amar

 

While prominent figures in the political and academic worlds bitterly acknowledge the failure of the European project they have always championed, Brussels institutions are multiplying decisions that reveal France's growing powerlessness to influence the European Union.

 

Europe Running Out of Breath: When Liberals Confess to the Failure of the European Dream

Article of General Interest

Elucid readers voted to make this article free.

 

Newly declassified files show President John F. Kennedy’s alleged assassin Lee Harvey Oswald was monitored for years by James Angleton, the CIA’s infamous veteran counterintelligence chief, right up until the President’s death.

In this context, freshly released FBI documents indicating Oswald was removed from Bureau watchlists six weeks before Kennedy’s assassination, despite being judged a high security risk, at the express direction of Angleton’s staff, take on a distinctly disquieting character.

The US-Russian peace plan for Ukraine certainly puts an end to a conflict. But, above all, it paves the way for a rewriting of history. No, the Russian military operation was not an "illegal, unprovoked, and unjustified military aggression," but rather an application of Security Council Resolution 2202, in accordance with international law. If the people of Europe recognize that they were mistaken, or that they were misled, they will change their regimes just as Ukraine will change its own.—

 

The Fall of Zelensky’s Regime and Those of His Allies
by Thierry Meyssan

 

UNFORTUNATELY, THE FOLLOWING ARTICLE IS TOO REAL... IT COULD BE A SPOOF — OR WELL DISGUISED SATIRE AS FAR AS I COULD MAKE IT... BUT.....

Christmas is, without a doubt, the time to pull out the big gun gifts — especially when buying for the Second Amendment lovers in your life. Whether you need help scoping out the best presents for your firearm-loving friends and family or you are ready to pull the trigger on a purchase for yourself, you’re in luck. Get the most bang for your buck with these nine handpicked suggestions.

 

On Target: The Perfect Guide To Gifting Your Favorite Firearm-Loving Friends And Family

BY: TREVOR BOYD

 

Ol’ Reliable

Starting off strong, we have Sig P365 — SIG Sauer’s hottest carry gun of all time. 

A few weeks after the Russia-Ukraine war began, Belgian economist Paul De Grauwe penned an article for the website of the London School of Economics with the title ‘Russia cannot win the war’. No military specialist, De Grauwe based his conclusion on some simple math: Russia’s GDP was roughly equivalent to the combined output of Belgium and the Netherlands. Therefore, he claimed, Russia is an “economic dwarf in Europe.” Its military operation was thus doomed.

 

The GDP myth: What it really shows, and what it doesn’t
The most-often cited metric of economic success more often than not simply tells us what we want to hear – or what the West wants us to hear.

BY Henry Johnston

Only joining NATO, hosting nuclear weapons, or accepting a major foreign military force can truly guarantee Ukraine’s security, ex-top general Valery has claimed.

Ukraine’s former armed forces commander-in-chief made the remarks in a piece run by The Telegraph on Saturday.

The general, who has reportedly been quietly building a campaign team from London to be able to run for president, shared his musings about how Russia could be defeated, how to build what he called a “better Ukraine,” and what “security guarantees” Kiev would have to secure in order to prevent the conflict with Moscow from reigniting in the future.

 

In every era, certain industries become so large, so politically embedded, and so culturally unexamined that their performance ceases to matter.

They are judged instead on the confidence with which they declare themselves indispensable. In contemporary Australia, that industry is property. It has woven around itself a powerful myth: that towers equal progress, population growth equals prosperity, and the private development model is synonymous with the national interest.

 

Stewart Sweeney

The great failure of the property industry

 

The cockroach saw my shadow 

And knew death was coming his way

Equipped with a shoe a hammer and a spray

I was tricked when he crawled into a hollow

 

Bastard

 

Through the floorboards behind the old wardrobe

That had never moved since dad had died abroad

While raking the dust with my panhandle

I found an old badge that had seen battle

 

Weirdo

 

The square and the compass typical pack

Of belonging to an elite of men

In aprons for the immemorial kitchen

Prior to my birth and after my death

As eternity is passing us blow by blow 

 

 

The hollow was shallow as a wisecrack

The beast saw me distracted

He could hear the angels sing heavenly loaded

On the blaring bleeding radio 

 

 

Axios clarified the obvious this week: Ted Cruz is preparing to run for president, again. 

A lot has changed since Cruz conceded to Donald Trump in 2016. Trump completely remade the GOP and American politics over the last decade. Different issues and new rhetoric determine political discourse. Cruz ran as an anti-establishment insurgent in 2016, only to be outflanked by the genuine outsider Trump.

 

Everything is more expensive these days, but especially those beauties already expensive to begin with.

By the way, swung by the Colonel's place the other day and a bucket with sides is $50 now…and I heard the Confederates lost the war! (*joking*…the appellation is an Honorific in the Bluegrass State, of which a forbear of Yours Truly in fact bears the distinction…as seen here during the last Great Recession.)

Except, never fear! As always, your best good pal Somerset has you covered, Sportsfans!

Herein shall ye find my invaluable Tips on how to Gift-Give your way to the heart (or other locations further south) of that little cutie you hold so dear this coming yuletide.

 

GUY SOMERSET