While you're distracted Look who is trying to sneak in a new war!

Israel ready to strike Hezbollah while Washington seeks to avert wider Lebanon war

Two weeks before deadline for disarming Hezbollah and Israel is convinced that conflict is inevitable, because terror group is recovering more than it is being damaged; As IDF continues to bomb, Washington believes that escalation can still be stopped

The deadline for Hezbollah to disarm south of the Litani River, set for the end of the year, is drawing closer, as is Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s visit to the United States, where the question of possible Israeli action against the Shiite terror group is expected to be decided. In Israel, officials are convinced that a military confrontation is inevitable, while in Washington there is still a belief that escalation can be avoided.

In the meantime, as Hezbollah continues to build up its capabilities and refuses to disarm, the IDF has continued striking its operatives across southern Lebanon. On Tuesday afternoon, in an unusual move, the IDF spokesperson issued real-time announcements of two separate strikes on vehicles: one operative was targeted in an airstrike in the al-Taybeh area, and another in the Jadra area, north of Sidon. Lebanese reports said two people were killed in the strikes and five others were wounded. According to those reports, three of the wounded were members of Lebanon’s security forces who happened to be passing through the area. Watch:

The reason Israel believes there is no alternative to escalation is its assessment that the Lebanese government “wants to but is unable” to disarm Hezbollah. The United States backs Israel on the issue, but still believes escalation can be prevented.

An American official said that there are “good signs in Lebanon. The local army is strengthening and improving. The president of Lebanon, Joseph Aoun, is positive. We hope we are approaching a stage in which Hezbollah will no longer be a threat to Lebanon or to Israel. This is a process, and it will take more time.”

Israel has told the Americans that it is acting against Hezbollah, but that the terror organization “is strengthening faster than we are hitting it.” Israeli officials have also stressed that the Lebanese army is not doing the job. In Washington, there is an understanding that Israel is serious, but at this stage there is less support for Israeli military action against Hezbollah. Trump has repeatedly made clear that his legacy is peace and that he will not allow it to be undermined. As a result, for now, the likelihood of a renewed war in Lebanon is high, but still not inevitable.

https://www.ynetnews.com/article/syxufrkxbg

Top British General Warns That UK Families Must Be Ready To Lose Sons and Daughters in a War Against Russia

“Speaking at a Royal United Services Institute event in Westminster last night, Sir Richard called on civilians to help build national resilience to ensure the UK functions in a crisis.

He said: ‘Every day the UK is subject to an onslaught of cyber-attacks from Russia and we know that Russian agents are seeking to conduct sabotage and have killed on our shores.”

‘Sons and daughters. Colleagues. Veterans will all have a role to play. To build. To serve. And if necessary, to fight. And more families will know what sacrifice for our nation means’.

https://twitter.com/i/status/2000718046659276874

FBI Releases Enhanced Footage of Brown University Person of Interest – And Video of Him Walking By Police, First Responders Minutes After Shooting

https://rumble.com/embed/v70x6sq/?pub=4

>>23989270

The Great Culling

FBI Agents Thought Clinton's Uranium One Deal Might Be Criminal - But McCabe, Yates Stonewalled Investigation: Report

Remember Uranium One? The massive 2010 sale of US uranium deposits to Russia approved by Hillary Clinton and rubber-stamped by the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States (CFIUS) - after figures linked to the deal donated to the Clinton Foundation?

Turns out rank-and-file FBI investigators thought there was enough smoke to launch a criminal investigation, but internal delays and disagreements within the DOJ and FBI ultimately caused the inquiry to lapse, newly released records reveal.

The materials, made public by Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley (R-IA) and first reported by Just the News, reveal that investigators argued internally over the delays - which allowed the statute-of-limitations to expire and ultimately halt the case.

The Uranium One transaction - involving the sale of a Canadian mining company with substantial U.S. uranium assets to Russia’s state-owned nuclear firm Rosatom - became a flashpoint during Hillary Clinton’s 2016 presidential campaign. Critics argued that then-Secretary of State Clinton, a member of CFIUS, helped approve the deal while donors connected to Uranium One made large contributions to the Clinton Foundation.

The New York Times reported in 2015 that “as the Russians gradually assumed control of Uranium One in three separate transactions from 2009 to 2013 … a flow of cash made its way to the Clinton Foundation. Uranium One’s chairman used his family foundation to make four donations totaling $2.35 million. Those contributions were not publicly disclosed by the Clintons, despite an agreement Mrs. Clinton had struck with the Obama White House to publicly identify all donors. Other people with ties to the company made donations as well.”

“And shortly after the Russians announced their intention to acquire a majority stake in Uranium One, Mr. [Bill] Clinton received $500,000 for a Moscow speech from a Russian investment bank with links to the Kremlin that was promoting Uranium One stock,” the Times reported. “At the time, both Rosatom and the United States government made promises intended to ease concerns about ceding control of the company’s assets to the Russians. Those promises have been repeatedly broken, records show.” -Just the News

Resistance from senior officials - including then-Deputy Attorney General Sally Yates and then-FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe - slowed the inquiry to the point where statute-of-limitations concerns were later cited to justify shutting it down.

https://www.zerohedge.com/political/fbi-agents-thought-clintons-uranium-one-deal-might-be-criminal-mccabe-yates-stonewalled

FDA is still comped!

FDA Not Adding 'Black Box' Warning To COVID-19 Vaccines: Commissioner

The Food and Drug Administration is not adding “black box” warnings to COVID-19 vaccines, even though an agency center recommended it, FDA commissioner Dr. Marty Makary said on Dec. 15

“When it comes to the ‘black box’ warning, we have no plans to put that on the COVID vaccine,” Makary said during an appearance on Bloomberg Television.

Black box warnings are the highest safety-related warnings that FDA officials can place on products. Scenarios warranting their usage include when there is an adverse reaction so serious that it is “essential that it be considered in assessing the risks and benefits of using the drug” or when there is a serious adverse reaction that can be prevented or reduced by appropriate use of the drug, according to FDA documents.

The announcement comes several weeks after FDA officials reported deaths of children following COVID-19 vaccination and concluded that at least 10 deaths were related to the vaccines, according to a November memorandum obtained by The Epoch Times. The review, which included looking at autopsies, has been broadened to other age groups.

The announcement also came several months after regulators updated language on the vaccine labels for a form of heart inflammation called myocarditis. The inflammation was discovered after the FDA first authorized COVID-19 vaccines in December 2020. The updated labels state that the highest observed risk of myocarditis was among young males aged 12 to 24 after receipt of vaccines from Pfizer-BioNTech and Moderna.

Makary said Monday that an FDA safety and epidemiology center did recommend adding a black box warning to the COVID-19 vaccines, and indicated the recommendation stemmed from the risk of myocarditis.

But, he said, Dr. Vinay Prasad, the agency’s top vaccine official, and other FDA leaders opted against accepting the recommendation because the dosage people are receiving has changed from the original two doses within weeks or months of each other.

“When you have those two doses three months apart, that’s when you see the side effects go way up, like myocarditis in young people,” Makary said on Bloomberg.

“Now that it’s annual, you may not see that same prevalence. So we don’t want to extrapolate findings to today if it’s not transferable.”

https://www.zerohedge.com/covid-19/fda-not-adding-black-box-warning-covid-19-vaccines-commissioner

Pew Research's 'Most Striking' Findings From 2025

https://www.zerohedge.com/geopolitical/pew-researchs-most-striking-findings-2025

EU admits corruption scandal forced Zelensky into peace talks – WaPo

The Ukrainian leader had earlier rejected the terms of the US-brokered proposal

Kiev was rocked by its latest major graft scandal last month when Zelensky's close associate, Timur Mindich, was accused of running a $100 million kickback scheme in the energy sector. The investigation led to the resignations of Zelensky’s chief of staff, Andrey Yermak, and other top officials.

The scandal has weakened the Ukrainian leader’s negotiating position at a critical stage of talks with Washington, EU diplomats told the outlet on Monday.

According to one senior official cited by the outlet, Kiev has “never been as serious as we are right now,” linking the shift to “the whole scandal on corruption and the whole domestic mess.”

Domestic pressure on Zelensky has coincided with an intensified US push for a breakthrough in peace talks. During negotiations in Berlin on Monday, Washington reportedly offered Kiev NATO-style security guarantees comparable to the bloc’s Article 5 collective defense clause.

However, US negotiators warned that the offer “will not be on the table forever,” urging Zelensky to accept Washington’s terms, according to officials cited by The Telegraph.

US officials have said that around 90% of the proposed peace framework has already been agreed, but acknowledged that progress has stalled on key issues, including Ukraine ceding territory and accepting Russia's control over the Zaporozhye nuclear power plant.

Zelensky has continued to refuse to recognize Russia’s new borders, suggesting that Ukraine could hold a referendum on possible territorial concessions and organize long-delayed presidential elections if binding Western security guarantees are secured beforehand.

https://www.rt.com/russia/629527-ukraine-turmoil-us-deal/

>>23989347

With your Israeli backdoored or in some instances run systems

Privacy For The Powerful, Surveillance For The Rest: EU's Proposed Tech Regulation Goes Too Far

Last month, we lamented California’s Frontier AI Act of 2025. The Act favors compliance over risk management, while shielding bureaucrats and lawmakers from responsibility. Mostly, it imposes top-down regulatory norms, instead of letting civil society and industry experts experiment and develop ethical standards from the bottom up.

Perhaps we could dismiss the Act as just another example of California’s interventionist penchant. But some American politicians and regulators are already calling for the Act to be a “template for harmonizing federal and state oversight.” The other source for that template would be the European Union (EU), so it’s worth keeping an eye on the regulations spewed out of Brussels.

The EU is already way ahead of California in imposing troubling, top-down regulation. Indeed, the EU Artificial Intelligence Act of 2024 follows the EU’s overall precautionary principle. As the EU Parliament’s internal think tank explains, “the precautionary principle enables decision-makers to adopt precautionary measures when scientific evidence about an environmental or human health hazard is uncertain and the stakes are high.” The precautionary principle gives immense power to the EU when it comes to regulating in the face of uncertainty — rather than allowing for experimentation with the guardrails of fines and tort law (as in the US). It stifles ethical learning and innovation. Because of the precautionary principle and associated regulation, the EU economy suffers from greater market concentration, higher regulatory compliance costs, and diminished innovation — compared to an environment that allows for experimentation and sensible risk management. It is small wonder that only four of the world’s top 50 tech companies are European.

From Stifled Innovation to Stifled Privacy

Along with the precautionary principle, the second driving force behind EU regulation is the advancement of rights — but cherry-picking from the EU Charter of Fundamental Rights of rights that often conflict with others. For example, the EU’s General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) of 2016 was imposed with the idea of protecting a fundamental right to personal data protection (this is technically separate from the right to privacy, and gives the EU much more power to intervene — but that is the stuff of academic journals). The GDPR ended up curtailing the right to economic freedom.

This time, fundamental rights are being deployed to justify the EU’s fight against child sexual abuse. We all love fundamental rights, and we all hate child abuse. But, over the years, fundamental rights have been deployed as a blunt and powerful weapon to expand the EU’s regulatory powers. The proposed Child Sex Abuse regulation (CSA) is no exception. What is exceptional, is the extent of the intrusion: the EU is proposing to monitor communications among European citizens, lumping them all together as potential threats rather than as protected speech that enjoys a prima facie right to privacy.

More

https://thedailyeconomy.org/article/privacy-for-the-powerful-surveillance-for-the-rest-eus-proposed-tech-regulation-goes-too-far/