Friday News Roundup
Foreign Policy Watch
European leaders will gather for an emergency summit on Ukraine, but the more recent catalyst for calling the summit was J.D. Vance’s support of the German far right. Vance argued that European leaders themselves were a bigger threat to Europe, because of their tolerance of immigration, than either Russia or China. Vance had previously broken a U.S. foreign policy taboo by meeting with Alice Weidel, the leader of the Alternative fur Deutschland party, a party with neo-Nazi ties.
In South Africa, a protest group of several hundred Afrikaners engaged in a pro-Trump demonstration at the U.S. embassy in Pretoria. Demonstrators hoisted racist signs there, including one that read “Recognise the white nation.” Protesters also sang Die Stem van Suid-Afrika, the defunct national anthem of the old apartheid regime. Trump is not purely anti-immigration; he is anti-nonwhite immigration. By contrast, for racist Afrikaners, he is carving out special refugee status privileges for them.
Danish prime minister Mette Frederiksen announced a massive 50 billion kroner increase (about $4.5 billion US dollars) in their country’s defense budget. The stated reason was fear of Russian rearmament, but Donald Trump’s threats to annex Greenland must also be playing a role.
The dictatorship of Saudi Arabia hosted a small summit meeting between the United States and Russia about the Russia-Ukraine war, but with Ukraine and the European Union completely shut out of the talks. Trump’s National Security Adviser Mike Waltz said the U.S. deserves “some type of payback” in exchange for previous military aid from the Biden Administration. Waltz is clearly making a play to steal Ukraine’s national resources and argues that Ukraine should give up its resources to the Trump regime "in terms of their rare earths, their natural resources, and their oil and gas.”
Brazil has now charged former president Jair Bolsonaro for his involvement in a coup plot against Brazilian president Lula de Silva. First South Korea, now Brazil! Americans should learn this is how you deal with insurrectionist leaders.
Elon Musk Watch
Elon Musk’s DOGE project is auditing NASA, which raises massive red flags in a conflict of interest sense, because Musk’s company SpaceX is a contractor with NASA. (The only other NASA contractor that gets more money than SpaceX is Caltech.) The business journal in Huntsville, Alabama has noted suspicious activity by DOGE:
Before the week started, a variety of new DOGE-affiliated X accounts went online including one with user handle @DOGE_NASA. Shortly after the account was created, it sent out its only tweet (at the time of writing): “DOGE is seeking help from the public! Please DM this account with insights on finding and fixing waste, fraud, and abuse at NASA.”
Many quickly point out the apparent conflict of interest in Musk using his privately-owned social media company to gather evidence justifying budget cuts that would ultimately benefit another of his private enterprises.
Elon Musk also made an appearance at the Conservative Political Action Conference hyping his DOGE attacks on federal agencies. Musk’s appearance at the conference was so bonkers that I recommend reading the whole transcript provided by The Verge.
Here are some highlights from that Musk appearance:
Right-wing libertarian president of Argentina Javier Milei presented Musk with a chainsaw as a gift. Milei is currently facing a scandal in his home country for promoting the sketchy cryptocurrency $LIBRA, which now looks to be an obvious rug pull scam.
Actual Elon Musk quote from the event: “This… is… the chainsaw for bureaucracy. [pumps the chainsaw in the air] CHAINSAAAW!”
Another Elon Musk quote: “I mean, in Europe, they put people in prison for memes. Yeah. You know, I’m like, that’s insane.” (Fact check: no country in the European Union is putting anybody in prison for memes. The only European country putting anybody in jail solely for memes is Russia, such as the Russian woman facing 6 years in jail for reposting memes that offended the Putin regime.)
Elon Musk promised that Kash Patel, now head of the FBI, is going to investigate conspiracy theories about the assassination attempt against Donald Trump in Butler, Pennsylvania.
Elon Musk praised El Salvador’s authoritarian president, Nayib Bukele, for his program of mass arrests, which according to Amnesty International have led to 132 deaths in custody of people not charged with any crime.
Elon Musk also spread disinformation about FEMA paying money to put undocumented immigrants in New York luxury hotels.
Elon Musk also pretty much showed evidence of his mind completely addled by ketamine addiction: “My mind is a storm. So. It’s a storm.”
Pandemic Watch
The Wyoming Department of Health confirmed the first human bird flu case in the state.
A case study of a bird flu outbreak at a highly secure chicken farm in the Czech Republic has led scientists to conclude that wind may be responsible for spreading bird flu between farms.
The state of New Mexico has begun a milk testing program to prevent the spread of H5N1 flu from dairy cows to the human population.
Canada bought half a million doses of H5N1 influenza vaccine to protect at-risk populations. With anti-vaxxer RFK, Jr. in charge at HHS, it is doubtful the U.S. will take similar precautions in protecting the at risk.
The National Animal Health Laboratory Network has a staff of only 14 people that coordinates national responses to pandemic outbreaks in farm animals that contribute to the food we eat, but the Trump administration has fired almost 25% of the staff, which will slow down response to spreading bird flu as well as leaving the government powerless to do anything about rising egg prices.
Mass Deportation Watch
The Senate passed a budget resolution on a slim 52-48 margin to fund Donald Trump’s mass deportation plans.
On Wednesday, Donald Trump signed an executive order that bans undocumented immigrants from all public benefits, even though such immigrants are already ineligible for most programs.
If you didn’t need any more proof that Donald Trump’s anti-immigrant program is motivated by white supremacist bias, take a look at recent deportations of immigrants to Panama, including many non-Spanish speakers from Iran, Pakistan, Uzbekistan, and China. Donald Trump just wants to erase nonwhite faces from American territory. The immigrants, who are placed under armed guard, include several Iranian converts to Christianity who face potential execution for apostasy under Iran’s sharia law.
Ever wondered what happened to Dr. Phil? It turns out the quack is shilling for Trump’s mass deportation policies, including filming ICE raids for the amusement of MAGA cretins.
Pope Francis blasted newbie Catholic J.D. Vance for his religious justifications of Trump’s mass deportations. You love to see it.