Friday News Roundup
Russia and Ukraine Watch
On Saturday, UK Labour Prime Minister Keir Starmer gave Ukrainian leader Volodymyr Zelensky a loan of £2.26 billion (equivalent to $2.9 billion in US dollars) to Ukraine to pay for military supplies. The loan will be paid back with money from seized Russian assets. As Zelensky said, “This is true justice. The one who started the war must be the one to pay.”
A summit among EU leaders including both Canada and Turkey has assembled a “coalition of the willing” to enforce a ceasefire deal crafted by the UK, France, and Ukraine to submit to Donald Trump.
U.S. defense secretary Pete Hegseth has ordered to U.S. Cyber Command to stop all disruptive cyber operations against Russia. The easing of cyber campaigns against Russia is also consistent with Trump previously freeing a Russian cybercriminal in a prisoner swap to free a man jailed by Putin for possessing medicinal marijuana. According to a former NSA hacker consulted in an article by Axios, the end of anti-Russian cyber operations could end up enabling Russia to identify U.S.-based “white hat” hackers who had been covertly working for our government against Putin.
After Donald Trump paused all military aid to Ukraine and ended sharing U.S. intelligence with Ukraine, France responded by announcing the continuation of sharing anti-Russian intelligence with Ukraine. European leaders have responded to Trump’s abandonment of Ukraine by rearming. According to El Mundo, Spain will increase defense spending to 2% of GDP over the next four years. Several more European countries have already announced increased military spending to aid Ukraine, including the Netherlands ($3.8 billion), Norway ($7.8 billion), and Poland ($215 million).
Danish and Swedish consumers have also formed two major groups to boycott American goods (“Boykot frarer va USA” in Denmark and “Bojkotta varor Fran USA” in Sweden) in response to Donald Trump’s betrayal of Ukraine. The Salling Group, the biggest grocery retailer in Denmark, has also responded to Danish consumer demand by putting a star on European-made products to help consumers avoid buying US goods.
The Trump Trade Wars
China has announced a 15% tariff on U.S. farm exports of chicken, pork, soy, and beef. Meanwhile, Canadian prime minister Justin Trudeau issued a statement on Monday announcing 25% tariffs on American goods.
The trade wars have had the effect of tanking the stock market, which plummeted 670 points on Tuesday and then fell another 428 points on Thursday.
Trump’s behavior has also touched off major consumer boycotts of American goods in both Canada and Europe. The province of Ontario has banned American alcohol sales, and several Canadian provinces are planning to follow suit.
In Europe, where electric cars represent almost 95% of all new cars purchased, sales of Teslas plummeted 44% in Norway. Similarly declining sales for Tesla have been reported in Sweden, Denmark, and France. In addition to being a response to Trump trade wars, the boycott also reflects Europeans’ negative reaction to Elon Musk’s support for far-right European political parties. French Prime Minister Macron criticized Musk for supporting a “reactionary international” and Spanish Prime Minister Sanchez accused Musk of “openly calling for support of the heirs of Nazism in Germany.”
DOGE and State of the Union Nonsense
As of March 3, Elon Musk and his DOGE project has claimed savings of $105 billion due to terminating leases, canceling contracts, and firing workers. This savings is almost totally negated by a minimum of $38 billion in government subsidies to Elon Musk’s companies and a likely $11.8 billion in additional contracts to Musk’s companies that haven’t been fully awarded yet. In addition, the quoted amounts in subsidies to Elon Musk is likely an underestimate due to Musk’s involvement in classified US defense contracts. Musk is totally in sympathy with Trump’s pro-Russia tilt and shut off Starlink in 2022 to stop the Ukrainians from attaining a victory against Russian naval forces.
A letter from Democrats on the House Oversight Committee has set a March 11 deadline to address concerns that DOGE is exposing American citizen’s data that can be accessed by malign actors.
A recent LinkedIn article by a cybersecurity professional has detailed how DOGE violates basic data governance standards for protecting U.S. citizen’s data.
Fact-checks highlighting the numerous lies and inaccuracies in Donald Trump’s State of the Union speech can be found here and here.
Donald Trump also made incorrect claims about an increase in autism diagnoses, attributing the increase to “toxins” and “poisons” in the food supply instead of the broadening of diagnostic criteria. He also claimed that autism used to be only present in 1 in 10,000 children based on an outdated study over 50 years old.
Donald Trump ranted in the State of the Union address about Biden spending money on “making mice transgender.” It turns out that Donald Trump is confusing “transgender” with “transgenic,” a term that refers to genetically modified mice. Donald Trump’s administration issued a statement to double down on the claim in attempt to avoid making Trump look like an ignoramus, but the list attacks legitimate medical research that uses sex hormones on mice to treat asthma, breast cancer, and HIV. As a general rule of thumb with the Trump Administration, if you think it can’t possibly be that stupid, it probably is that stupid.