‘I’m tired of these blatant misrepresentations’: Judge blows up at CNN’s lead attorney during defamation case and says he owes Navy veteran ‘an apology’ for calling him a liar...

The Florida judge overseeing the high-stakes defamation case between a U.S. Navy veteran and CNN repeatedly lost his patience with lawyers for the parties on Wednesday morning.

Advisers to President-elect Donald Trump are crafting a wide-ranging sanctions strategy to facilitate a Russia-Ukraine diplomatic accord in the coming months while at the same time squeezing Iran and Venezuela, people familiar with the matter said.

The outgoing Biden administration on Friday imposed the most disruptive sanctions on Russia’s oil trade by any Western power to date. The move created an open question about how Mr Trump views the measures, given his commitment to quickly ending the war in Ukraine.

German election will be test for Sahra Wagenknecht and BSW
Marcel Fürstenau
The former parliamentary leader of the Left party is seeking to enter the Bundestag with her BSW. But the party will need to make inroads in the western states where she has always performed weakest.

Last weekend's party conference in Bonn, western Germany, was extra special for the Sahra Wagenknecht Alliance (BSW): The party will take part in its first federal election in February, and this was its chance to present its manifesto.

President-elect Donald Trump said his swearing-in ceremony will be held inside the Capitol Rotunda due to expected freezing temperatures in Washington D.C. on January 20.

President-elect Donald Trump's inauguration ceremony is moving indoors to the Capitol Rotunda because of expected dangerous cold temperatures in the nation's capital, Washington D.C.

"There is an Arctic blast sweeping the Country," Trump wrote on his social platform, Truth Social. "Therefore, I have ordered the Inauguration Address, in addition to prayers and other speeches, to be delivered in the United States Capitol Rotunda," he said. 

US President-elect Donald Trump has named movie icons Jon Voight, Mel Gibson, and Sylvester Stallone as his “special ambassadors” to Hollywood, a position apparently invented by the incoming president on Thursday.

”It is my honor to announce Jon Voight, Mel Gibson, and Sylvester Stallone, to be Special Ambassadors to a great but very troubled place, Hollywood, California,” Trump wrote on his Truth Social platform on Thursday.

“They will serve as Special Envoys to me for the purpose of bringing Hollywood, which has lost much business over the last four years to Foreign Countries, BACK—BIGGER, BETTER, AND STRONGER THAN EVER BEFORE!” he continued, adding that the three men will serve as his “eyes and ears” inside the film industry.

The Grayzone’s Max Blumenthal has unleashed a torrent of criticism at US Secretary of State Antony Blinken over the Israeli war on Gaza that Washington did nothing to stop for 15 months.

Blinken appeared at the last State Department briefing of the Biden presidency, just days before President-elect Donald Trump is scheduled to be sworn in, to claim the past four years have seen successful diplomacy.

In particular, the departing secretary of state described the Israel-Gaza ceasefire as something the current administration proposed in May 2024, although most who were involved in the talks credited Trump’s intervention.

”Why did you keep the bombs flowing when we had a deal in May?” Blumenthal can be heard saying at one point. “We all knew we had a deal. Everyone in this room knows we had a deal, Tony, and you kept the bombs flowing.”

Last week, news headlines heralded the disaster of 24 lives lost in Californian wildfires. Yet the same media outlets petered out the news of thousands more being killed by deliberate man-made bombing, starvation and destruction of homes and hospitals by Israel in Gaza.

Despite the decades both major parties have spent ingratiating themselves with the leaders of the United States, Australia is unlikely to receive any favours from the Trump administration.

For once the clichés about turning points and game changers seem appropriate, even understated. Just when you might have been forgiven for thinking the international situation couldn’t get much worse, even in the privileged heartlands of liberal democracy we are about to endure another four years of Donald Trump.

Ukraine: UK's Starmer signs '100-year' treaty
Shortly before the inauguration of US President-elect Donald Trump, British Prime Minister Keir Starmer arrived in Kyiv as the latest among European politicians highlighting their solidarity with Ukraine.

British Prime Minister Keir Starmer arrived in the Ukrainian capital of Kyiv on Thursday morning.

President Joe Biden, in his farewell address, reflected on a decades-long political career but also issued a stark warning to the nation as he prepares to cede power to President-elect Donald Trump.

Speaking from behind the Resolute Desk in the Oval Office, Biden said he was proud of what his administration accomplished as the country climbed out of the coronavirus pandemic and made investments in the economy, infrastructure, gun safety, climate change and more.

A Ukrainian border guard who was taken prisoner by Russian forces recently has revealed that Western instructors rely on outdated methods when training Ukrainian troops and even try to "learn" from their trainees.

The reason NATO military "instructors" not only train Ukrainians but also seek to benefit from them is very simple, former Swedish Armed Forces officer and politician Mikael Valtersson explains to Sputnik:

NATO always assumed that it has complete air, information and long-range weapon superiority over the enemy, with the ground forces essentially being given the role of mopping up what’s left. “So the result is they don't have any relevant methods of fighting on the ground.”

The bloc's belief in its superiority leads to another problem: “they are not prepared to meet the adversary that's at the same level or superior to them.”

WASHINGTON (Sputnik) - The United States' official position on the Ukraine conflict must be that it should be brought to an end, Republican Senator Marco Rubio, President-elect Donald Trump's secretary of state nominee, said on Wednesday.

"I think it should be the official position of the United States that this war should be brought to an end," Rubio said during a hearing in the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, when asked to elaborate on his decision late last year to vote against aid to Ukraine.

A recalcitrant US government could turn-off Australia’s ability to defend itself within days.

In 1932, the wonderful Mexican artist Frida Kahlo painted a “Self-portrait along the Borderline between Mexico and the United States”. With due alteration for detail, Kahlo’s passionate political statement of self-respect and independence can be seen as foreshadowing the abject nature of Australia’s defence mindset, currently epitomised by AUKUS.

YOURDEMOCRACY.NET RECORDS HISTORY AS IT SHOULD BE — NOT AS THE WESTERN MEDIA WRONGLY REPORTS IT.

         Gus Leonisky

         POLITICAL CARTOONIST SINCE 1951.

PLEASE DO NOT BLAME RUSSIA IF WW3 STARTS. BLAME AMERICA.

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the YD continuum since 2005....