NEWS OF THE WORLD: BITS AND BITES FOR THE NEW YEAR

  

👉FOR SOME TIME NOW, most of us have come to the realization that the American president, Donald Trump, is either demented or senile or both. He has become, in a remarkably short time, an emperor with no clothes; butt-naked, self-absorbed, capricious, whose ire is easily aroused against friend and foe alike. It's quite possible that Trump is not his own man and is beholden to donors, or members of the deep state, or the MIC (Military-Industrial Complex). His uncompromising support of Israel, clearly guilty of war crimes and genocide, seems inexplicable unless you assume there’s some “compromat” about, perhaps beach-blanket-bingo pics from Epstein Isle that found their way into the hands of Israeli security services. Who knows?

His kooky trade policies: sanctions on again, off again. Most recently, because Carney seemed to criticize him in Davos (he did) the day before he came and delivered his usual rambling, cranky, talking points, now he's “decertified” several types of Bombardier business-class jets to get even. (Maybe he was pissed that Carney got a standing ovation and he received only sparce applause?) We'll see where this goes. His domestic clusterfuck around his ICE (Immigration and Customs Enforcement) brownshirts officers killing innocent American citizens while searching for illegal immigrants in Minneapolis is eroding support among younger voters. As is his criminal support for the beyond-the-pale administration of “Bibi” Netanyahu as the prime minister of Israel conducts a genocide and ethnic cleansing in Gaza before the eyes of the world.

BTW, young people are fleeing TikTok, now that it’s been bought by Zionist billionaire Larry Ellison and coverage of cute kittens dancing competes with tips on how to tighten one’s derriere. Under thirty-fives are finding other venues and platforms to gather news of the world, like the latest from Gaza and other crimes scenes.

What will happen in the next while around Venezuela? Greenland? Canada? Will Trump continue half-heartedly supporting Zelensky or drop him like a hot potato? And what about the New START arms limitation treaty which ends in five days?! Will Trump renew it for a year while the U.S. and Russia negotiate a new one? I doubt it, and that may be another sign he is not his own man and bows to behind-the-scenes pressures. Will TACO Trump launch an attack on Iran even with the danger of a major Iranian response against American bases in the region and Israel? Can Israel survive an all-out missile and drone attack from Iran? Will it resort to nuclear weapons if it appears it is losing? It's quite possible. And then the world will change in ways we can’t yet apprehend. 

So, stop fucking around Mr. TACO! Man-up and do what is necessary to end this dangerous sabre-rattling. There’s already enough blood spilled on your watch.

Screw it for now. A hit of Soma, the latest feelie, and I'm right as rain.

 

👉AT THE DAVOS CONFAB earlier this month, Canada’s PM, Mark Carney, gave a memorable speech that went viral a couple of weeks ago. I know what many of you are thinking: ‘Jake, how can you say with a straight face that a Canadian politician could give a speech that was in any way memorable?’ True enough, dear readers. So, it goes without saying that I was more than a little surprised when our Prime Minister laid bare in Davos a couple of whopping truths rarely spoken by Western politicians and their hangers-on. His speech came after months of roiling and thrashing about on the part of the American president, with buckets venom upended on his neighbours, friends and foes. Including Canada. Carney’s Davos debut (as Canadian PM) came after a career in finance (at the giant, “vampire-squid” investment bank, Goldman-Sachs), and serving as head of both Canada’s and England’s central banks. On 23 April 2025 he was installed as Canada’s twenty-fourth Prime Minister, following Justin Trudeau’s departure from politics in late January 2025.

 

FUN FACT: Originally, in the mid-Twentieth Century, during the Cold War, global economies were divided into the ‘First World’, composed of democratic, capitalist, industrialized NATO countries aligned with the United States; the ‘Second World’ was composed of the USSR, other communist countries, and Warsaw Pact countries aligned with the USSR; and the ‘Third World’ originally referred to non-aligned countries that were members of neither bloc. Today, the ‘Third World’ usually refers to impoverished and mostly Global South countries. 

 

MARK CARNEY IS NO RADICAL—he’s very much an ‘insider’, an elite member in the globalist, neo-liberal, IMF, World Bank, de-industrialism, financialization, free trade, post-WWII economic order. He’s a banker; he doesn’t want to tear down the system that, for decades, benefited ‘First World’ countries and their elites. Yet, his Davos speech, in which he said the world order was entering a “rupture” with the past, was interesting because he said the quiet part out loud to an audience of his peers. He said the system, also dubbed the “rules-based international order” is no longer working. Instead, “Great Power” rivalry, where the use of military force and economic sanctions has eroded the fiction that Western governments, particularly the United States (though Carney doesn’t mention it by name), all act in accordance with international law or promote rules that facilitate trade and regulate interactions between countries in a fair and equitable manner.😆

CARNEY SAID it had all been a lie—that we were not the ‘good guys’, that actions taken by powerful nations against weaker ones were not done because they were upholding “democracy” or “freedom” or “good governance”. They were done to advance Great Power dominance, period, and operated less from United Nations’ principles and international laws than from rules made by stronger nations for their own benefit. It was a convenient and profitable fiction for the countries promoting it, including nations within the hegemon's orbit.

 

THAT FICTION Carney ripped away, leaving the ugly scar exposed for all to see. The PM stated, bluntly, that everyone knew* the ‘rules based international order’ was a fiction but we went along with it because we benefited, were made rich by it. We rode the coattails of the United States for decades, “comfortably numb” to how often America’s actions benefited us at the expense of blood and treasure levied against other nations. Trump’s actions in the first year of his second presidency exposes the hypocrisy so evident in the West’s preeminent nation—that it wasn’t a good-faith actor abiding by rules along with the rest of us.

Carney said that we in the West promoted the lie when we claimed we believed in the so-called rules-based international order. We didn’t, actually, but we went along with the masquerade. The Prime Minister made his Davos speech at a time when it's becoming clear that the United States no longer wishes to pretend it abides by international laws when they prove inconvenient. As a global hegemon since the fall of the Soviet Union in 1991, the United States uses military force, sanctioning and coercion against whomever it considers an enemy or peer competitor. Even countries once considered allies are now being targeted with sanctions or by threats of invasion or by other coercive methods. 

Since he’s returned to office, Trump has taunted Canada about becoming the fifty-first state. His actions vis-à-vis Venezuela and potential actions against Greenland no doubt convinced Carney that Canada needs to diversify its trading networks and to form new alliances and not be so dependant on the US market. In his speech, he said middle-powers like Canada need to come together with other middle-powers to push back, or better weather the times when hegemons, old and new, begin using their power untempered by law, rule or morality.

 

“We live in a world in which you can talk all you want about international niceties and everything else, but we live in a world, in the real world, Jake, that is governed by strength, that is governed by force, that is governed by power. These are the iron laws of the world that have existed since the beginning of time.” (Joseph Goebbels Stephen Miller, White House Deputy Chief of Staff. CNN interview, with Jake Tapper 3 January 2025.)

 

AND IF ANYONE THINKS the above quote is hyperbolic and not representative of the Trump administration or of Trump himself, think again. Listen to what Trump himself has been saying about acquiring Greenland, “the easy way or the hard way,” to name just one piece of real estate the president is interested in adding to his portfolio. He sounds like he’s channeling Don Corleone these days more than anything else. So, keep your head down and don’t fly your kite in stormy weather.¹

 

👉RECALL the case of Montrealer, Eves Engler—political activist, author, and recent NDP leadership candidate who, in 2025, was charged with “harassment” of the pro-Israel social media influencer, Dahlia Kurtz, and spent five days in jail while the charges were processed. The complaint stemmed from Engler’s social media replies to Kurtz’s posts on X, some months prior to his arrest. Kurtz is a rabid Israeli apologist and Engler challenged her assertions by replying to some of her posts. He says: “I’ve had no other interaction with Dahlia Kurtz in my life except for responding to her anti-Palestinian and pro-genocide messages on X.” (Rabble.ca) He was told by the arresting officer he would be granted bail with the stipulation he does not write about police actions in his case, a requirement both Engler and his lawyer rejected. He was released on bail after a few days. Subsequently, he wrote posts critical of the police in their zeal to defend Kurtz’s right to publish pro-Israel posts while denying Engler’s right to challenge her positions. 

 

His supporters started a letter writing campaign after Engler suggested in his blog one be started for which he was charged with “harassment” of the arresting officer who received about two-thousand emails supporting Engler. The officer complained that having to deal with so many emails limited her ability to perform other police duties. [Set up an email filter. Easypeasy. Ed.] He was subsequently charged with four offences including “intimidation” of the snowflake officer in question. IIUC, he was found guilty and has an upcoming sentencing date in April.

This is an example of “lawfare” used by the state to intimidate and silence critics, especially critics of Israel and its Hasbara minions in Canada like Kurtz. If Yves receives anything more than a slap on the wrist or a small fine, it will be obvious that the government is trying to silence his voice and that censorship is alive and well in Canada. Who’s next? Keep your eyes open, folks.   

 

👉BITE OF GOOD NEWS: The Appeals Court of Canada ruled the Trudeau government’s use of the Emergencies Act in February 2022 to break up the “Freedom Convoy” trucker protests in Ottawa and several key border towns infringed on protestor’s Charter rights. Three Court of Appeals Justices agreed with Federal Court Justice Richard Mosley² in his earlier ruling that the threat posed by the protestors did not rise to a level that warranted the federal government’s invocation the Emergencies Act. [That’s the updated version of the War Measures Act, invoked by Trudeau senior in 1970 during the “October Crisis”. The Emergencies Act (1988) had never been used before young Justin wielded it to batter the protesting truckers. Ed]. The federal government appealed Justice Mosley’s ruling and on 23 January 2026 the Appeals Court upheld Mosley’s ruling.

 

The Emergencies Act’s purpose is to give a range of additional powers to the federal government in situations that, “cannot be effectively dealt with under any other law of Canada.” It may be invoked when “an emergency arises from threats to the security of Canada that is so serious as to be a national emergency.” The Act uses the CSIS (Canadian Security Intelligence Service) definition of a serious threat “which includes serious violence against persons or property, espionage, foreign interference or an intent to overthrow the government by violence.” Hardly the characteristics of the Ottawa protests. Though they were unruly, noisy and disruptive, the Federal Court of Appeals upheld the lower court ruling that the protests fell well short of a threat to national security and should have been dealt with through regular policing and laws.

   

CHEERS, JAKE. _____________________________________

 

* Perhaps I’m being unfair. Given the thick swamp of propaganda that Western publics are forced to wade through, particularly since 2001, it is understandable that most people still swallow the mainstream pap fed to them 24/7. Politicians, military leaders, academics, analysts, etc., should  know better, and Carney is saying most do know the “rules-based international order” story was hooey, but they went along to get along. Carney says the lies we told ourselves and the world—endlessly! —that we were the good guys, that it was those evil [take your pick] doing bad things to their populations, to other countries etc., that those lies hid the truth: It was Great Power machinations and little fish devilry that roiled beneath the fiction of international laws that prove inconvenient and vexatious to hegemons. 

The powerful accept the rule of law when it favours them. And they ignore it when it doesn’t. Now, it seems, the United States no longer needs to use such fictions, or excuses, couching their real-politic actions as “defending democracy” or some other vacuous and meaningless trope. For example, Trump says he wants Greenland because it is “necessary for U.S. security”, period. Never mind that its part of Denmark, a NATO ally. And never mind that Denmark would welcome any additional American bases or investments in Greenland.

 

👉SO here we are today with institutions, laws, agreements, treaties, legal processes fair and unbiased and, most recently, laws guaranteeing the sovereignty of nations (Gaza, Venezuela, Greenland, Canada?), that are being shredded by the country that once exemplified and promoted the rule of law and unbiased, international ‘rules of the road’ for all. It’s a sorry state of affairs, I’m sure you’ll agree.

 

1. Critics of Carney's speech call it hypocritical because it’s only now, when Canada is 'on the menu', that he speaks out, denouncing the system that for decades Canadians and other Western sycophants benefited from, with our obsequiousness before the hegemon’s court extending to the unwritten rule never to speak about the emperor and the fact he has no clothes.

A further criticism of Carney is his solution to defend against our great neighbour to the south—that other middle-powers need to act in concert to push back or soften the harms done, but keeping intact the visibly failing system of late-stage capitalism, with all its inequities, instead of looking for other ways to organize our economies and our foreign and domestic affairs. Nevertheless, the first half of Carney’s Davos speech came as something akin to a breath of fresh air. Stay tuned.🙋

 

2. The legal advocacy group, Canadian Constitution Foundation took the government to court. The case was heard by Justice Mosley who ruled in 23 January 2024 that the government failed to provide convincing arguments the trucker protests were a threat to Canadian security, and that its actions to shut down and remove trucks outside Parliament Hill, and in particular the freezing of protestors’ and supporters’ bank accounts in order to break the blockades, was an overreach by the government and unlawful. The government subsequently appealed the decision, but the Federal Court of Appeals upheld Justice Mosey’s ruling last week.

 

 

 

 

 

RANT: SILENCE! YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED!

  

I DID A POST on 8 January, about Belgium-based ret. Colonel Jacques Baud* and how the EU is sanctioning him because his analysis and public posts contradicts and challenges government narratives and MSM (mainstream media) reporting. For his ‘crime’ he was “sanctioned” by the EU, and his life was put through the ringer when his bank accounts were frozen, his freedom of movement curtailed, his right to earn a living and pay his bills was throttled, and he was denied access to basic services from government or private companies. EU strictures allow only a modest stipend for personal needs, and for a time, he could not even buy a loaf of bread, unless he paid in cash. “Although the regulation allows minimal subsistence payments…the effect is to paralyse a person economically and professionally.” (The Bullet) Recently, there has been a campaign collecting over 4200 signatures from academics, analysts, journalists and political figures that has been presented to the European Commission demanding his name be removed from the sanctions list. As of this writing, those draconian penalties are still in place.

 

AND WHEN you’re whistling past a graveyard, giving thanks such a thing can’t happen over here, across ‘the pond’, well, think again.¹  Scott Ritter, a former US Marine who fought in the first Gulf War and afterwards became a United Nations Weapons Inspector in Iraq responsible for ensuring Saddam Hussein had no WMD (weapons of mass destruction) stockpiles or facilities to manufacture biological or nuclear materials. He was in Iraq, in this capacity, from 1991-98.  He is an author, a geopolitical analyst and political commentator who speaks truth to power and challenges Western governments’ standard talking points and mainstream media narratives with respect to Ukraine and other global hotspots. On 11 January 2026, Scott was “debanked”. His bank of twenty-three years closed his accounts, cancelled his credit and debit cards, and froze all his assets. He couldn’t buy gas for his car, pay his bills, or do anything which would involve using his chequing account. He couldn’t receive electronic payment for his journalism because he didn’t have a place to deposit the payment. IIRC Scott mentioned in a Judge Napolitano interview that the bank was supposed to be sending him a cashier’s cheque within two weeks. It’s unclear whether that has happened. Of course, that would mean finding another bank to deposit the cheque his former bank deigns send him, but who’s to say that wouldn’t happen at his new bank? In Scott’s case, a private corporation acts against him, crippling his livelihood, at least for a time.²  With Colonel Baud it is the EU Commission and its sanctioning regime.

 

    The emperor never did have any clothes

DIFFERENT AVENUES OF REPRESSION, but with the same goal—to cripple or destroy each "target’s" freedom of expression and to silence their voices. Both Scott and the Colonel are critics of the foreign policy of the United States and the EU. Both are critics of the wars in Ukraine and the Levant. Both challenge the rationales made by their governments for going to war or for sponsoring proxy wars of aggression. Both expose government lies, malfeasance and corruption, and lay bare the flaccid, foolish leadership we have throughout the West today. 

 

👉WE LIVE in increasingly dangerous times, and it is therefore of the utmost importance that clear-sighted critics be allowed to speak their minds and to make public those insights and evaluations people need to know in order for them to make informed choices.That's a no-brainer, I should think.😊

  

CHEERS, JAKE.  _____________________________________

 

* “Jacques Baud, a former Swiss army colonel and strategic analyst, is a regular guest on pro-Russian television and radio programmes. He acts as a mouthpiece for pro-Russian propaganda and makes conspiracy theories, for example accusing Ukraine of orchestrating its own invasion in order to join NATO. Therefore, Jacques Baud is responsible for, implementing or supporting actions or policies attributable to the Government of the Russian Federation which undermine or threaten stability or security in a third country (Ukraine) by engaging in the use of information manipulation and interference.”— EU Charge sheet (Annex #57) for Colonel Baud published 15 December 2025, signed by EU High Representative for Foreign Affairs Kaja Kallas.

 

1. And 2022's "Trucker Protests"? There's more where that came from (brought to you by the former Minister of Finance, Chrystina "Crissy" Freeland.) Don't get me started!

 

2. Scott goes into detail in his Substack article how his troubles have unfolded, and it's a safe bet that the FBI or another "three-letter" security agency whispered in the ear of some panjandrum at Citizens Bank's corporate headquarters to lean on Scott, eventually designating him a "high risk" customer and debanking him.

 

[Street art by FUKT] 

 

 

RANT: I'LL HAVE ONE TREATY TO GO AND A SIDE SERVING OF DIPLOMACY, PLEASE

   

“The ability to think is one of the most defining features of humankind. In different cultures, the definition of humanity is associated with concepts such as consciousness, knowledge and reason. According to the classic western tradition, human beings are defined as “rational” or “logical animals”. Logic, as the investigation on the principles of reasoning, has been studied by many civilizations throughout history and, since its earliest formulations, logic has played an important role in the development of philosophy and the sciences.” (UNESCO)*

 

THIS PAST WEDNESDAY was “World Logic Day”, and I don’t know about you, but to me it feels like that bird—logic—has flown the coop! And are you getting a little worried that the American president Donald Trump has bats in his belfry? The forty-seventh president of the United States has been in office one year into his four-year second term, and his administration seems to churn out one example of head spinning nonsense after another:

 

His Gaza peace plan has seen over 460 Palestinians killed and 1200 wounded by Israeli bombs, drones and gunfire since October 2025’s so-called ‘ceasefire’. Israel still occupies almost half of Gaza with its troops and is not likely to withdraw them any time soon. His hot and cold, amateur-hour diplomacy with Russia conducted by Mutt & Jeff (Whitkoff, Kushner) hasn't altered the Ukraine war's trajectory in the slightest. Last summer’s bombing of Iran’s nuclear research sites and the recent Mossad/CIA attempt at “regime change” in Iran by arming agitators both failed to achieve their desired results. Recently, Trump’s folly in Venezuela and his kidnapping of President Maduro and his wife also may not have the desired effect of making the Venezuelan government kowtow to Washington. And as far as exploiting the South American country's oil reserves, Amereican oil companies are not do keen to go into Venezuela, citing internal instability, degraded petroleum infrastructure, and added costs extracting the heavy, “sour” petroleum reserves of the inland Orinoco Oil Belt. There is also the likelihood of sabotage by Venezuelans who’ll not take kindly to the arrival of ‘Gringo carpetbaggers to their patch.

 

IT'S BEEN AN ERRATIC foreign policy to say the least (and don’t forget Trump wants Greenland by hook or by crook), along with scandals at home—the Epstein files have much to reveal yet; Brownshirts ICE agents usurping constitutional rights of American citizens in their hunt for illegal aliens, including the murder in Minneapolis of a mother of three followed by incredibly lame excuses from ICE (Immigration and Customs Enforcement) officials and other politicos, and shameful, blame-the-victim comments by Vice President J D Vance. Just watch the video; it was a totally unjustified shooting by a masked ICE agent who should be charged with murder. And, despite what White House Deputy Chief of Staff Stephen Miller (AKA ‘Little Mussolini’) says, ICE officials are supposed to abide by the law, they are not above it. Miller is truly a piece of work, a neo-con nutbar, who spits more venom than a viper. And he has the ear of the US president.

 

THERE IS SO MUCH to delve into in this post that I’ll have to pick one news item for now: the dangers of escalation in the Ukraine/NATO/US v. Russia conflict. Does anyone in their right mind think it was a good idea to attack Russian strategic deterrence facilities on three separate occasions: One in 2024, the missile attack on Russia’s early-warning radar installations. In 2025, the drone attacks on the Russian strategic bomber fleet damaged several heavy bombers, and the recent, and perhaps most dumb fuck, was the drone attack late last month on an official residence of President Putin in the Volgograd region of western Russia. And the compound also contains a strategic weapons control centre! What were they thinking? 

 

Fortunately, all the drones were shot down. Ukraine’s president Zelensky, disavowed any knowledge of the attack, as did Trump, in a call Putin made to the American president shortly after the attack. Putin may not have been there--Russian security around the president whereabouts is tight--but if he had been, we might have been in a WWIII scenerio!

Question: WTF were they hoping to accomplish by this hostile and provocative action? Poke the Russian bear? Keep it dancing? Don't they know the cage door is open and the bear’s patience is wearing thin?😕

 

TWO THINGS TO WATCH FOR in the coming weeks:

👉One is whether America will finally appoint an ambassador to Moscow. The position has been vacant since June of last year, with only an interim head of mission running things. In addition, as a sign of good faith, Washington could return Russian embassy property. Two compounds were seized during the Obama presidency for alleged Russian interference in the 2016 election at the beginning of the RussiaRussiaRussia! psyop to create a Russian ‘boogeyman’ and Trump as ‘Putin’s puppet’ nonsense we had to put up with during the first Trump presidency. Reinvigorating diplomatic ties between the world’s two nuclear superpowers is a no-brainer. Trump has said he wants a thaw in US/Russia relations, but we’ll see what happens. While he’s at it, direct fights between the US and Russia could be re-established; that’s easy-peasy and it would benefit both countries. (Opening air traffic between the two might encourage EU and NATO member states to do likewise and get over their giant hissy-fits with Russia. But that would assume Western leaders weren’t a pack of incompetent nincompoops. Just sayin’)😜

 

👉THE SECOND MAJOR THING we should be watching for is something that needs to be resolved in less than a month’s time. The New START (nuclear) arms control treaty between the US and Russia is set to expire on 5 February. On 8 January Trump recently made another of his off-hand comments in the Oval Office during an interview with the New York Times when he said, “If it expires, it expires. We’ll just do a better deal.” Russia, some months ago, proposed a one-year extension to the treaty during which time discussions could be held to update and strengthen its core principles. Recall in 2019, during President Trump’s first administration, the Americans walked away from another nuclear arms treaty, the INF (Intermediate Nuclear Forces) treaty, citing Moscow’s non-compliance because of its testing of a mobile, ground-launched, intermediate-range nuclear-capable missile.

FOR its part, Russia complained about the construction of missile US bases in Poland and Romania housing Aegis Ashore launch systems. Ostensibly, they were sited in the East European countries as ‘defensive’ installations to intercept intermediate and long-range ballistic missiles coming from the Middle East, Iran being the chief bug-a-boo in this lame scenario. Moscow pointed out that the launch arrays could easily be reconfigured with nuclear warheads and be used to attack Russia. American officials poo-pooed the idea and disregarded Russia’s legitimate concerns that the US was in violation of the INF treaty.

To be fair, both sides, as far as I understand, were ‘effing around’ the edges of the treaty, looking for an advantage, though the Americans really tipped over the applecart by walking away from ABM, Open Skies, and INF treaties.

 

US PRESIDENT George Bush’s unwise 2002 walkaway from the 1972 ABM (Anti-Ballistic Missile) treaty, was done so the US could develop an intermediate-range anti-ballistic missile “shield” that would give them, on paper at least, the possibility of launching a successful “first strike” against Russia (and China?), and relying on their ABM system to destroy the inevitable counter-attack from Russia. It should be noted that the defensive system never got off the drawing board. But, after Bush’s destabilizing walkaway from the ABM treaty, Moscow began work on new missile systems that could penetrate any ABM system developed by the Americans. Hence, the array of new types of Russian missiles unveiled¹ during the later stages of the Ukraine War. Before Bush withdrew the US from the ABM treaty, both sides, Russian and American, were vulnerable to devastating counterattacks from the other, where both societies would be destroyed no matter who fired first. This Cold War treaty lasted for decades, was dubbed “MAD” (Mutually Assured Destruction) and along with the substantial drawdown of nuclear weapon arsenals under predecessor treaties to New START (Strategic Arms Reductions Treaty), things were basically balanced between the nuclear superpowers.

 

That went away in 2002, and with the US, over the next decade siting ‘defensive’ missile emplacements in Poland and Romania, with the unspoken threat of more bases—perhaps ringing Russia with defensive and offensive missile bases in NATO member states along its borders.² New missile systems began design and development in Russia but were under wraps for years. 

A saving  grace in 2009 was the New START nuclear disarmament treaty that was negotiated during the Obama presidency. It helped keep things cooler with further drawdowns in nuclear stockpiles. But Trump’s foolish walkaway from the INF treaty in 2019, opened the door to develop and deploy an array of short and medium range nuclear and non-nuclear missiles for both sides.³ After that, Russia began unveiling their new weapons.

 

REALLY SORRY about going into the weeds about this stuff (and I hope that I’ve been accurate and that all this makes sense), but all of us should be concerned that the ONLY nuclear weapons treaty left on the books is New START which expires 5 February. After that we can envision the Americans and Russians (and perhaps other nuclear powers) adding to their arsenals or deploying more warheads onto their siloed missiles, mobile launch systems, bombers and submarines.

SO, WATCH AND SEE what Trump does. Will full diplomatic relations between Moscow and Washington finally be restored? And will Trump decide (hopefully not during a sundowner episode) to renew this important nuclear treaty?

I'm not hopeful, so for now I’m taking a tab of Soma® and going to an orgy-porgy.  

  

CHEERS, JAKE. _____________________________________

 

* In association with the International Council for Philosophy and Human Sciences (CIPSH).

 

1. Like the new hyper-sonic missiles, against which no anti-ballistic missile arrays can stop. And other intermediate and inter-continental missiles that are being showcased in Ukraine. 

 

2. Last year, the United States installed a similar missile system in the Philippines. Temporarily, I believe. But they weren’t after any giggles and grins in doing so. Such a base would be a threat to Beijing, who were livid at the time over the operation. Fun times in Holocene where things are heating up.

 

3. China, not part of ABM, INF or New START treaties (but is part of the Non-proliferation and Test Ban treaties) has recently begun enlarging its strategic nuclear weapons arsenal in response to the growing instability and potential for a new nuclear arms race. The more the merrier! What could go wrong?

 

       

RANT: THE CURIOUS CASE OF COLONEL JACQUES BAUD

   

sanction- noun: a threatened penalty for disobeying a law or rule. Codes of practice should be accompanied by sanctions for offenders. Punishment; deterrent; punitive action; embargo; ban; discipline; penalization; correction; retribution

 

WE HEAR A LOT ABOUT sanctions these days, country-based restrictive measures “imposed by one country or entity on another with the aim of limiting the target country’s trade and business relations.” (A Brief History) Such sanctions can have significant effects on a country but can also have unintended consequences (or intended ones) causing immiseration of poor and vulnerable populations within the target country. We’ve witnessed how the EU, Britain, the United States and most Western nations have imposed round after round of sanctions against Russia* since its invasion of Ukraine in 2022, in the form of trade restrictions, assets freeze, travel bans, and transaction denials, for example.  Countries, entities within target countries like their militaries or branches of government, companies, banks and individuals have had sanctions imposed on them by the United Nations Security Council. Since 1966 the UNSC has put in place sanction regimes on 726 individuals and 273 entities.

 

“Sanctions are a common tool for seeking to influence foreign governments and individuals to change their behaviour. The United Nations Security Council (UNSC) can impose sanctions in response to a threat to international peace and security.” (mfat.govt.nz)

 

Sanctions can be imposed by UNSC or by countries with the political and economic clout to do so. By far, the United States is the country that imposes the most with "three times as many sanctions as any other country or international body, targeting a third of all nations with some kind of financial penalty on people, properties or organizations.” (Wikipedia) A list of over 12,000 individuals, entities and countries.

IN TERMS OF ACTIONS against individuals, the July 2025 sanctioning by the United States of the United Nations Human Rights Council Special Rapporteur on the Occupied Palestinian Territories, Francesca Albanese, stands out as a particularly shameful abuse of governmental power.

 

“Albanese has been a vocal critic of Israel's treatment of Palestinians, and…published a report accusing over 60 companies, including some U.S. firms, of supporting Israeli settlements in the West Bank and military actions in Gaza.” (Reuters)

 

Albanese, an Italian citizen, was denied a visa to enter the United States, even though she’s a UN diplomat and had duties to attend the opening 2025 fall session in New York. (She had to attend virtually.) The sanctions froze her American assets and bank accounts; her credit cards no longer worked. She could no longer access her American healthcare plan or have transactions with American companies, banks, other services, etc. The sanctions regime imposed on Albanese significantly affected her professional and personal life, though she remains the UN Special Rapporteur for Palestine. [One spunky gal! Ed.]

And over the last few years, it’s been one Russian oligarch (or bank or whatever) after another being sanctioned, their property in the West seized, their assets frozen by the U.S, EU, et al, until they surely must have run out sanctions or oligarchs by now!

 

👉BUT TURNING TO THE RECENT CASE of Colonel Jacques Baud, there is a different and quite disturbing wrinkle to the never-ending sanctions saga. On December 15, 2025, the EU Commission issued a list of the latest individuals, entities and countries to be sanctioned. And Baud’s name was on it. Just so you know, Colonel Baud is a Swiss national whose home is in Brussels, Belgium where he has lived for many years. He is a ret. Swiss Army Colonel with an extensive CV and experience in NATO and intelligence services; he provides analyses on security and intelligence matters as well as geopolitical commentary. He is the author of several books.

👉HERE'S THE QUESTION TO ANSWER: What is the difference between the sanctions imposed on Russian oligarchs and ones placed on Colonel Baud? The answer is: they’re the same. The only difference is that Baud is a citizen of the EU not a foreign national living abroad. The EU is using a sanctions regime meant to target those living outside the EU and who might be considered enemies or at least acting against the interests of the EU or acting in ways that are contrary to EU “values”. As Colonel Baud put it when interviewed shortly after he made the list: “The EU now considers its own citizens as enemies.”¹  

LIKE ALBANESE who was sanctioned by the U.S., Baud has had his bank accounts and assets within the EU frozen. He cannot withdraw money or use his credit cards. He cannot engage in any business transactions with EU companies or services, and I suspect even his access to healthcare, private or public is denied, without express permission. (From whom?) Furthermore, he cannot travel within the EU, within the Schengen “free borders” system. Banks and businesses within the EU will not have anything to do with him, fearful they would come under fire from European Union fascists commissioners and be slapped with secondary sanctions or penalties themselves. No money can be transferred to him from abroad, nor from inside the EU. If Colonel Baud wanted to return to Switzerland, to access his Swiss bank account for example, and he could somehow get to Switzerland, a non-EU state, he would not be allowed to return. It's as if Baud is being ‘shunned’ by Europe. This is truly Kafkaesque and a ‘catch-22’ trap Baud finds himself ensnared in.²

 

👉As I’ve said, sanctions regimes are meant to address foreign “threats”. But going forward, they may increasingly be used to silence dissenting voices within the EU. It’s telling that this latest sanctions list was assembled during a meeting of EU foreign ministers and was presented to the European Council for adoption by Kaja Kallas, the EU’s foreign affairs chief. Baud points out internal sanctions protocols override European legal practices whereby, under normal circumstances, an accused is given warning of the state’s actions; they have the right to legal representation during the charging and pretrial regime, and have their day in court in a timely fashion. Colonel Baud was given no warning he was to be listed. There was no forum, no court or tribunal for him to attend and defend himself against these charges. A decision was made by the European Council and he was given notice he was on the sanctions list. It was a fait acompli and as far removed from proper legal procedings in a democracy as you can get. Furthermore, he has no clear path to make enquires about his case, nor any clear procedure to challenge it.

There are few legal avenues open to him. This is because sanctioning is a political process separate from legal system. He may get a lawyer to challenge the ruling, but the court would almost certainly conclude they have no jurisdiction or judicial authority to compel the EU Commission to rescind its decision. Even the EU’s highest court, the European Court of Justice (ECJ), should it even decide to hear the case, might not have the jurisdiction or authority to abrogate the European Commission’s decision to place Colonel Baud on its list. The high court would be able to examine the rather brief “Statement of Reasons” given for sanctioning the Swiss National for accuracy only. [#57, p. 11 of “List”] Suppose the Statement claimed, incorrectly, that Jacques Baud was a French national. The court could issue an injunction to cease and desist. In other words, the ECJ would likely be limited to a narrow examination of the case, just whether the nuts and bolts of the Statement were accurate. 👉AND THE KICKER HERE is that the European Commission could simply reissue a corrected version of the Statement of Reasons and put Baud back on the list. Easy-peasy. 

IIUC, it's a political case that can be resolved only by political means. Not through the courts. Courts at all levels, it seems, would run into similar jurisdiction issues, and the same goes for human rights tribunals. All of them would hit the brick wall where they have no authority to overrule the European Commission, even if Baud's legal and human rights, as spelled out in the EU's own founding charter, are being trampled on by the current wrecking crew in Brussels! 

 

IT'S CLEAR that Colonel Baud’s legal rights of due process, of legal representation during the charging period, and a prompt trial by a jury of his peers are subverted by the sanctions process. So, too, are his human rights. In Brussels, he cannot access his bank. He cannot use credit/debit cards. He would need special dispensation from, I assume, the EU Commission itself. His rights of freedom of movement and expression, even his right to work are trampled on by power-hungry technocrats. Put yourself in his position. If he wants to buy groceries, he needs to engage with the EU bureaucracy at its highest level, a cumbersome, time-consuming, expensive and Byzantine process simply to get permission to buy a loaf of bread. It's outrageous! Frans Kafka must be spinning in his grave!

NEIGHBOURS, FRIENDS, COLLEAGUES make offerings of support. But money cannot be transferred from Switzerland to Colonel Baud. If someone wished to send him money electronically that would be flagged by the banks and credit card companies and stopped. Even if someone wanted to “Uber Eats” a bag of groceries to him, the individual could be charged with..what? Over-kindness? And the service could receive secondary sanctions or an onerous penalty. Colonel Baud suggests that deliveries to his address would be flagged by the authorities. Fortunately, he has received help from neighbours and friends with food, but this is an untenable situation and a gross violation of his legal and human rights. His lawyer is currently making an appeal to the European Commission, in what will be a messy, convuluted and costly process with a limited margin for success. Baud suggests part of the problem is what I mentioned earlier: these sanctions are meant to be placed on individuals and entities outside the EU. He gives the clarifying example of a typical country’s security apparatus. Most countries have an institution for foreign threats and a separate one for internal threats. For example:

    Army vs. Police

    MI6 vs. MI5 in Britain

    CIA vs. FBI in the United States

    CSIS vs. the Mounties in Canada(?)

PROBLEMS OCCUR when you confuse or conflate the two systems. The former USSR combined services for external and internal threats under one roof—the KGB. Baud notes dryly that the EU has created ‘its own KGB’ by such actions.

 

👉BAUD HAS NOT broken any laws. He is not a threat, a terrorist, or a “mouthpiece” for pro-Russian propaganda like the Commission’s Statement of Reasons claims. He is neither a propagandist (though Baud notes creating propaganda is not illegal), nor is he someone who ‘makes up conspiracy theories’, also something that is not illegal. But by circumventing the legal system and using vague, ill-defined political powers and tools, the EU is attempting to silence those who ask critical and uncomfortable questions about, for example, the Ukraine war, or about Russia-EU-NATO-United States relations. In his carefully argued, unbiased investigations it is obvious to anyone who listens to him that he is sincere in his beliefs and scrupulous in his analysis, dealing with facts, not conjecture or 'wishcasting'. He pushes back, against the party line, for example, by saying Ukraine has lost the war, a view that runs counter to the government's narrative and MSM's talking-heads. He also says that Russia was provoked into invading Ukraine in order to counter what it considers to be an existential threat from NATO’s ever-eastward expansion to its borders, with a Ukraine in NATO being a bridge too far. Again, Jacques Baud's views may be contrary to those held by EU authorities, even heresy to some, but expressing them in public forums (and providing convincing arguments supporting his claims) is not illegal. At least not yet.

👉AND for his measured and scholarly analysis, and thoughtful commentary, he is to be sanctioned into silence.³   

 

 

CHEERS, JAKE. _____________________________________

 

* Sanctions against a country the size of Russia, with its natural resources and mature industrial base have failed to  cripple it’s economy or change its war aims in Ukraine.

1. Jacques Baud is the second Swiss national to be hit with sanctions related to supposed Russian propaganda claims in recent months. The Swiss-Cameroonian pan-African activist Nathalie Yamb was banned from entering the EU and her assets in the EU were frozen in April of this year.

2. Kafkaesque is used to describe situations that are disorientingly and illogically complex in a surreal or nightmarish way. It can be used to describe any situation or literary work, which often involves characters navigating bizarre bureaucracies (unnecessarily complicated government systems full of confusing and contradictory procedures and paperwork)” (Dictionary.com)

Catch-22 "is a paradoxical, no-win situation where the only solution to a problem is denied by a rule or circumstance inherent in the problem itself, creating an impossible loop, like needing experience for a job, but needing a job to get experience. From Joseph Heller's 1961 novel, it describes illogical rules that trap individuals, often highlighting arbitrary authority or bureaucracy, as seen [in the novel] when an Airforce pilot must be insane to be grounded but by applying to be grounded (for being insane) that proves the pilot is sane (for not wanting to fly and be killed), thus forcing them to fly.” (ibid.)

3.  The Swiss government has provided Baud with less than fulsome support. Baud reckons this is because Switzerland wishes to have closer ties with the EU (it is not a member of the EU) and doesn’t want to ruffle any feathers as it negotiates. The Swiss people, on the other hand, are more engaged with Baud’s case. They look at what the EU Commission has done to trample on Colonel Baud’s legal and human rights and are increasingly concerned about becoming intertwined with an institution that is becoming more repressive with each passing day. With more attention paid to Baud’s case, public pressure may sway the nabobs in Brussels to remove him from the list. Or they may stick to their guns and use their new, extra-judicial cudgel to further damage freedom of speech in the EU. Time will tell.

 

[Finallly, I think Colonel Baud's case and others are 'test runs' to see how far the EU bureaucracy can go in clamping down on freedom of expression and dissenting views. The same thing was said about the 2022 Trucker Strike in Canada where participants' and supporters' bank accounts were frozen by the federal government to break the protests in Ottawa and out west. Stay tuned. It's going to be a rocky 2026, and the year's only eight days old! Ed.] 

 

p.s. A bit of good news is a recent appeal to the EU Commission that is being sent today with the signatures of dozens of academics, political commentators and journalists. We will see if their appeal falls on deaf ears.