There is always that one person. That would be the person whom one wonders how they ever actually graduated from school. I am not talking about college or high school. I am referring to kindergarten. The person in politics to whom I refer is Donald Trump Junior’s wayward son — Don Junior.

I am convinced there are few people walking this planet as vacant and stupid as Junior. The Trump spawn is the type where one truly has to marvel and ask themselves — is there even one — one tiny little itty bitty virtue that this person has? Anything redeeming? The answer to that question, I believe in Junior’s case, is no.

Junior managed to get himself in trouble on Twitter — not an easy thing for a republican to do these days with Elon Musk running things. Junior, who has not stopped mocking Zelenskyy, posted a tweet that was so humiliating (for him) that I can’t believe he hasn’t left town. What junior did was post an image of Zelenskyy – with an image of Hunter Biden standing next to him. Nude. In the raw, as many so quaintly say.

So, to sum up — this is an adult (Man-baby) posting fake naked images of another man thinking it’s — what? Funny? Perhaps we really do live in a simulation, and Junior was created as a joke — a very bad one. Twitter removed the image, making Junior one of the few Republicans to get disciplined in the new Elon-run era.

Of course, Junior is now being mocked mercilessly for his actions. What an astonishingly STUPID thing to do. Can Junior possibly believe that he’s funny? When not posting memes of naked sons of presidents, Junior can usually be found insulting democrats and trying to kill our magnificent outdoor friends by going on hunting trips. There does not appear to be much else that interests him.

So in the spirit of the upcoming new year, allow me to dub Junior this year’s useful idiot — the BIGGEST idiot of 2022 — and there were plenty of candidates. But somehow, Junior managed to win this one effortlessly. This is likely the only thing he will ever succeed at in his miserable life.

The post This is just embarrassing for Donald Trump Jr appeared first on Palmer Report.

North Korean leader Kim Jong Un has kicked off a key meeting of the ruling Workers’ Party, state media reported on Tuesday, a venue he has often used to announce major policy decisions marking the New Year.

The Sixth Enlarged Plenary Meeting of 8th Central Committee of the Workers’ Party of Korea (WPK) was convened on Monday, the official KCNA news agency said.

The days-long gathering of party and government officials caps a year when the isolated country fired an unprecedented number of missiles, including intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBM).

A new round of tension flared on Monday as five North Korean drones crossed into South Korea, prompting Seoul to scramble fighter jets and attack helicopters, and open fire to try to shoot them down.

Kim also faces mounting economic challenges amid international sanctions over its weapons programmes, the fallout from an anti-coronavirus lockdown and natural disasters.

At the meeting, the participants approved five big agenda items including a review of the implementation of major policies and the budget in 2022, as well as the work plan and a draft budget for 2023.

Kim presented a detailed report on how the country’s power has “remarkably increased in all fields of politics, military, economy and culture, and successes and progress have been made in carrying out the gigantic tasks … through this year’s unprecedentedly arduous and fierce struggle,” KCNA said.

“He stressed the need to lay out more exciting and confident struggle policies based on valuable facts that achieved practical advance while persevering all difficulties.”

The report specified the main goals for 2023 in key sectors including metal, chemical, electricity, construction, agriculture and light industry, it added.

North Korean state media previously released its leader’s speech on New Year Day, but in recent years, Kim has called party gatherings at the end of the year to make major policy announcements.

Ukrainians have experienced an incredibly traumatic year but the country enters 2023 with reason for cautious optimism. While the war is still far from over, a number of domestic and international trends emerged during the first ten months of the Russian invasion which pointed to the possibility of a future Ukrainian victory. The following eight factors helped determine the course of the war in 2022 and will be crucial in shaping the ultimate outcome of the conflict in the months ahead.

1. Ukraine’s military prowess: Few outside the Kremlin doubted that Ukraine would fight to defend itself, but the question on everyone’s lips in early 2022 was “how long can the Ukrainian armed forces realistically resist the full might of the Russian military?” Many commentators were convinced that any organized Ukrainian resistance would rapidly collapse.

Back in spring 2014, it was the weakness of the Ukrainian army that allowed Russia to gain its initial foothold in eastern Ukraine’s Donbas region. Ukraine’s armed forces quickly adapted and improved, but how would they fare against what was widely viewed in February 2022 as the second-best army in the world?

The first ten months of the Russian invasion demonstrated that Ukraine’s army has in many ways achieved or even surpassed NATO standards. Despite often being heavily outgunned and outnumbered, Ukrainian soldiers have proven highly skilled and well led. They are also superbly motivated by the need to defend their homeland. As G.K. Chesterton once observed, “the true soldier fights not because he hates what is in front of him, but because he loves what is behind him.”

2. Ukrainian resilience: The entire world has been stunned and impressed by the remarkable strength and courage demonstrated by the Ukrainian nation in 2022. Meanwhile, Russia has been taken completely by surprise. In the build-up to the invasion, the Kremlin relied on self-serving intelligence reports that dismissed Ukraine’s national spirit and predicted the capitulation of Kyiv within three days. This disastrous miscalculation should serve as a textbook example for future generations of an authoritarian regime believing its own propaganda.

Since February 24, the Ukrainian people have remained defiant despite occupation, sieges, energy blackouts, and Russian war crimes including systematic sexual violence, forced deportations, and mass killings. A country that came through the horrors of the 1930s Holodomor terror famine and the brunt of the fighting on the apocalyptic Eastern Front during World War II should never be underestimated. And yet that is exactly what Russia did.

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3. Anglo-American allies: The “special relationship” between the United States and United Kingdom has once again proven a blessing for the free world over the past year. For Ukraine, the sharing of intelligence, training, financial aid, and weapons by the US and UK has helped destroy much of the invading Russian army on the battlefield. Every Ukrainian has become familiar with the names of delivered military equipment such as Himars, Javelins, Stingers, NLAWS, Harpoons, and now Patriots. While many of these weapons are close to 30 years old, they have proved devastating against the Russian military.

4. Polish solidarity: Poland and Ukraine have experienced plenty of bad blood over the centuries, but the current relationship between the two neighboring nations is the strongest it has ever been. By opening its doors to millions of Ukrainian refugees, Poland has practiced the Golden Rule of “loving thy neighbor as thyself.” Many countries have helped Ukrainian refugees, but the openhearted embrace provided by Poland stands out. Poland’s military assistance, training, and diplomatic support have likewise been outstanding. There are few examples in history of such neighborly solidarity.

5. Turkish support: Some observers continue to debate the exact nature of Turkey’s position on the Russo-Ukrainian War, but nobody can deny that Turkish help over the past year has been a huge gift to Ukraine. Without Turkey’s success in negotiating an agreement to ship Ukrainian grain, Ukraine’s farmers would be facing an even more desperate situation and the wider world would be suffering famine.

Turkish Bayraktar combat drones made a critical difference in the first weeks of the war, helping to save Kyiv and Kharkiv from Russian occupation. Additional Turkish contributions of note include the decision to close the Bosphorus Strait to Russian military vessels and recent steps to provide emergency electricity supplies to Ukraine.

Ankara’s response to the Russian invasion of Ukraine has underlined Turkey’s re-emergence as a major regional power with credible global ambitions. Indeed, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan currently looks by far the most likely broker of an ultimate peace agreement between Russia and Ukraine as he is the only leader adept enough to navigate both sides.

6. United Europe: Kyiv has benefited during 2022 from a surprisingly high degree of European unity in support of Ukraine. This unity appeared to be under threat in late 2021 as Germany pushed to complete the Nord Stream II pipeline together with Russia. Today, Nord Stream II is dead and Russian aggression has persuaded formerly neutral Sweden as well as Finland to join the NATO alliance. Not only is NATO stronger than ever, but the European Union finds itself with greater purpose than at any time since its inception. This unity comes despite Russian attempts to divide Europe via weaponized energy exports and subversive activities throughout the EU. Moscow was counting on a divided Europe, but the invasion of Ukraine has united the continent.

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7. Russian imperial arrogance: Putin’s decision to invade Ukraine has exposed the often shambolic realities behind Russia’s imperial posturing. The criminally conceived and incompetently executed invasion of Ukraine has destroyed the myth of Russia as a military superpower and left the country more internationally isolated than at any time since the Bolshevik Revolution.

Today’s Russia can only count on a handful of fellow pariah states such as Belarus, Iran, and North Korea as allies. China is happy to take economic advantage of Russia’s weakened position, but Beijing has so far been careful to distance itself from Putin’s invasion.

For years, Russian generals exaggerated their army’s capabilities while simultaneously looting the state budget to buy mansions in Monte Carlo. They now lack the military strength to accomplish the inflated imperial objectives demanded by the Kremlin. This has forced Putin to rely on nuclear blackmail while attempting to urgently mobilize Russian society.

8. President Zelenskyy’s leadership: Perhaps the biggest surprise of 2022 was the inspirational leadership provided by Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy. During the first two-and-a-half years of his presidency, the former comedian had failed to win over his many doubters. However, in the first ten months of the Russian invasion, he achieved unprecedented levels of global acclaim as a wartime leader.

Throughout Ukrainian history, many national leaders have left the country during moments of crisis. Zelenskyy did the opposite. His iconic “I need ammunition, not a ride” quote and his memorable “the president is here” selfie video helped galvanize Ukraine’s national resistance in the first days of the invasion and set the tone for ten months of increasingly self-confident defiance.

It would be hard to motivate Ukrainians from abroad. Had Zelenskyy chosen to relocate to Lviv or leave Ukraine altogether and establish a government in exile, it would have dramatically increased the chances of Kyiv falling. His decision to stay in the country’s capital was one of the turning points of the entire war. It demonstrated to the Ukrainian people and the watching world that he was a leader they could rally around.

Brian Mefford is the Director of Wooden Horse Strategies, LLC, a governmental-relations and strategic communications firm based in Kyiv, Ukraine. He is a senior nonresident fellow at the Atlantic Council.

Further reading

UkraineAlert
Dec 13, 2022

Vladimir Putin: 2022 Loser of the Year

By
Peter Dickinson

Russian leader Vladimir Putin is the biggest loser of 2022. His disastrous decision to invade Ukraine has left Russia internationally isolated and shattered the country’s reputation as a military superpower.

Belarus
Central Asia

UkraineAlert
Dec 25, 2022

Bakhmut: Fortress of Freedom

By
Andriy Yermak

Western support for Ukraine must remain strong in 2023 to prevent a Russian victory that would fuel a global authoritarian revival, warns the head of Ukraine’s Office of the President, Andriy Yermak.

Conflict
European Union

UkraineAlert
Dec 22, 2022

Russia’s defeat is the top global priority for 2023

By
Oleksii Reznikov

Ensuring that the Russian invasion of Ukraine ends in defeat is vital for the international security system and must be the strategic priority for 2023, writes Ukrainian Defense Minister Oleksii Reznikov.

Conflict
European Union

The views expressed in UkraineAlert are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of the Atlantic Council, its staff, or its supporters.

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The post Eight reasons for Ukrainian optimism in 2023 appeared first on Atlantic Council.

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• Visitors to China will no longer be subject to strict COVID restrictions starting January 8.
• China is ending quarantine requirements for visitors, and will begin managing COVID as a Class B disease.
• The announcement comes after China eased domestic measures, even as cases skyrocketed.

Travelers to China will soon not have to quarantine and abide by previous COVID measures, according to China’s National Health Commission.

The updated guidance comes after rare protests roiled the country over a strict domestic “zero-COVID” policy, which China ultimately moved to ease in early December. Now, visitors will also no longer have to abide by previous COVID restrictions.

Previously, travelers had been subject to mandatory quarantines as long as 10 days, although the latest policies required a five-day hotel quarantine and then three days of home isolation, according to CNN. Now, starting January 8, none of that will be required — although visitors will still have to show a negative PCR test result from 48 hours before travel, but will not need to submit it ahead of time.

China is also reclassifying COVID and managing it as Class B, instead of Class A, disease. China will instead focus on increasing vaccination among vulnerable populations, epidemic education, and investing in medicine, among other measures.

Part of that is easing restrictions for visitors to China — and, according to NHC, “the outbound travel of Chinese citizens will be resumed in an orderly manner.”

It marks another turning point in the globe’s response to the pandemic. China had clung to tight restrictions longer than many areas, battering the economy and angering citizens. But easing restrictions has also led to an explosion in cases, with the government no longer making daily reports on cases. According to the Financial Times, officials in China estimated that 250 million people were infected in just the first 20 days of December — amounting to 18% of the population.

At the same time, the NHC is no longer counting asymptomatic cases, saying that it’s impossible to do so. As of December 19, there were 116,634 confirmed cases in China, according to the World Health Organization, with 28,493 new cases in the prior 24 hours.

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• Members of the US government are reportedly mulling whether to call for TikTok’s US unit to be sold.
• Ongoing “security concerns” about TikTok are behind the thinking, the Wall Street Journal reported.
• TikTok is working to “address all reasonable national security concerns,” a representative told Insider.

Some US government officials are reportedly considering calling for TikTok’s US unit to be sold in order to allay issues they’ve already been working for years to address with the ByteDance-owned social media app.  

Security officials who are part of the Committee on Foreign Investment in the U.S. have been considering such a plan, the Wall Street Journal reported. A representative for TikTok told Insider in a statement on Monday that the company has been cooperating with the US government “for over two years to address all reasonable national security concerns about TikTok in the U.S.” 

“We believe those concerns can be fully resolved, and CFIUS is currently considering a comprehensive solution that addresses key concerns around corporate governance, content recommendation and moderation, and data security and access,” said Brooke Oberwetter, a representative for TikTok. 

“We have made substantial progress on implementing that solution over the past year, and look forward to completing that work to put these concerns to rest,” Oberwetter said.   

Regardless, some US officials believe that concerns about data security and potential propaganda directed at US users of the app would be better addressed by a possible sale of TikTok’s US unit, the Wall Street Journal reported, citing people familiar with the talks. 

A representative for CFIUS could not immediately be reached for comment on Monday. 

China-based ByteDance said earlier this month that its own internal review showed that its employees accessed data belonging to two journalists in the US, among others in the country, the New York Times reported. 

Congress has also pushed the issue, with the US Senate voting earlier this month to stop US government employees from having the app on government-issued phones.

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• A former Watergate prosecutor thinks Sam Bankman-Fried should avoid a trial and cut a deal.
• Nick Akerman told Yahoo Finance that an acquittal at a trial is “virtually impossible.”
• Akerman said he’d “advise him to cut his losses, take a plea, and make the best possible deal.”

A former Watergate prosecutor, Nick Akerman, suggested that Sam Bankman-Fried should avoid a trial and push for a plea deal because the FTX founder has almost no chance of getting acquitted by a jury in a trial.

In an interview with Yahoo Finance on Thursday, Akerman pointed to the fact that Caroline Ellison, the former CEO of Alameda Research, and Gary Wang, an FTX cofounder, have agreed to plea deals and are cooperating with prosecutors.

“It’s going to be very tough, if not impossible, for him to go to trial on these charges,” said Akerman, who also served as an assistant US attorney in the Southern District of New York. “It seems to me that when you have two insiders that were that close to him basically laying out the scheme, it is almost virtually impossible to ever think that he could be acquitted by a jury.”

Bankman-Fried was arrested earlier this month in the Bahamas and has been extradited to the US, where he faces federal charges of defrauding investors. He was released on $250 million bail on Thursday and will stay with his parents in Palo Alto, California.

Akerman suggested Bankman-Fried could help his case and get a lesser sentence by going before the court to show some remorse and take some responsibility for the FTX debacle.

“If I were his lawyer, I would basically advise him to cut his losses, take a plea, and make the best possible deal he could,” he said.

FTX collapsed as it faced a shortfall of billions of dollars between its liabilities and assets amid reports that it had transferred client funds to Alameda.

Bankman-Fried has said he wasn’t aware of what was going on and “didn’t knowingly commingle funds” between Alameda and FTX. The Securities and Exchange Commission’s complaint said he often directed Ellison to manipulate or misstate the trading firm’s financial position.

While crypto is a relatively new asset class, Akerman suggested the case is straightforward under existing law. He described the collapse of FTX as essentially an “old traditional fraud” that involved misleading people, taking their money, and moving it around “like it was one big slush fund.”

“There is nothing unusual about this fraud,” he added. “I mean, this is a pretty classic fraud that is perpetrated and has been perpetrated for years. And the fact that it’s a new asset class really doesn’t make a bit of difference.”

Ships put out to sea by the Carnival Cruise Line, referred to lovingly by some as “Carnivore” cruises, have a reputation for being floating bacchanals. “Choose fun,” the company tells its cruisers.

James Michael Grimes took the company’s advice as the Carnival Valor floated down to Cozumel, Mexico. The 28-year-old Alabama native was having the time of his life. But then he went a little overboard. Actually, a lot overboard.

Around 11 p.m. on November 23, Grimes told his sister he was going to use the bathroom and would be back shortly. He never came back.

Grimes says he has no memory of what happened next. “When I came to, regained consciousness, I was in the water,” he told Good Morning America. In fact, the last thing he remembers is winning an air guitar contest. But he didn’t fret. He just kept swimming.

By the time his family reported him missing the following afternoon, Grimes had been in the Gulf of Mexico treading water for more than 12 hours. And something caught his eye: “It had more like a flat mouth and came up and bumped one of my legs and I kicked it with the other leg. It scared me not knowing what it was.” (He refers to it as a sea creature.)

As for sustenance, Grimes told GMA, “A stick come floatin’ by. It looked like bamboo. So I started eatin’ on it, and it actually—I’m not gonna say it tasted good but it gave some type of flavor in my mouth other than saltwater.”

It took the Coast Guard another six hours to find their missing man, who was swimming toward a tanker—the search radius was 7,000 square miles. “The Lord was with me,” said Grimes, who was able to climb aboard the rescue litter with the last ounce of energy he had. Also, he was naked.

Grimes admits he drank during the day—he earned a free drink for his victory in the air guitar competition. When GMA pressed him on exactly how many drinks he had, Grimes replied: “I couldn’t really say.”

Nor should he.

For keeping his head above water, fending off sea creatures, being an air guitar champion, and wanting to go on another cruise “because I really didn’t get to go on this one,” James Michael Grimes is a Washington Free Beacon Man of the Year.

The post 2022 Man of The Year: James Michael Grimes appeared first on Washington Free Beacon.

Pancake-crusher John Kasich and others have dubiously attributed the popular “if you want a friend in Washington, get a dog” mantra to President Truman. It’s unclear if Harry ever actually dropped that verbal bomb, but this year we learned that if you’re a hitman in a Mexican drug cartel looking for a ride-or-die pet, a spider-monkey will do just fine.

After a June shootout between Mexican federales and the La Familia Michoacana drug cartel that left 11 dead, authorities made a startling discovery: the corpse of a small primate hugging his also deceased drug-trafficking owner. His name was El Chango.

The La Familia Michoacana cartel may operate their narcotics manufacturing labs in the jungle, but their work is no monkey business. It’s a serious endeavor that requires everyone to be properly attired, ready for a fight at any time. El Chango was no exception to that rule.

The murdered monkey was found dressed for war: sporting a camouflage jacket, a bulletproof vest, and a diaper. No reports suggest the diaper was soiled. It’s ape-solutely safe to assume a brave soul like El Chango remained continent when the bullets started flying like the final scene in Scarface.

Graphic images of a slain El Chango captured worldwide attention. A campy meme featuring angelic wings and several emojis went viral on social media. Jeff Bezos’s Washington Post took time away from writing incessantly about Trump and ignoring Amazon’s continued expansion into Saudi Arabia to cover an infectious ballad celebrating the departed spider monkey.

The paper noted that El Chango “appears to be the first animal memorialized in a narcocorrido—a style of music usually reserved for stories of drug lords and their betrayals, arrests, and standoffs.” It added that the song “puts El Chango among the ranks of notable narcos—such as the Sinaloa Cartel’s Joaquín ‘El Chapo’ Guzmán.”

The lyrics offer an insight into his personality: “The changuito [little monkey] was not mean, but he was not timid either.”

It’s an undisputed truth that dogs are a man’s best friend. But as El Chango has shown, spider monkeys may not be far behind. When times were tough, he was tougher: clinging to his owner in a hug as they breathed their final bullet-ridden breaths.

The story of El Chango’s death is bananas, but the short-yet-epic life he lived is a testament to loyalty that has earned the sicario sidekick the honor of being a 2022 Washington Free Beacon Man of the Year.

The post 2022 Man of the Year: Cartel Monkey appeared first on Washington Free Beacon.

A powerful blizzard that paralyzed western New York over the Christmas weekend has killed at least 25 people, local officials said on Monday, as road and utility crews struggled to dig out the snowed-in region around Buffalo.

Erie County Executive Mark Poloncarz told reporters on Monday that the county’s tally of storm-related deaths had jumped by 12 overnight, and included cases of people who were found in snow banks, in their cars or who had died from cardiac events while plowing or blowing snow.

More deaths had been reported, Poloncarz said, but the county medical examiner was trying to determine if they were directly attributable to the weather.

“There still are probably additional deaths that will be announced later today,” Poloncarz said.

At least 55 people have died in U.S. weather-related incidents since late last week, according to an NBC News tally.

The storm has wreaked havoc with travel across the United States over the weekend, stranding passengers as thousands of flights were canceled.

The blizzard, deemed the Buffalo area’s worst in 45 years, took form late on Friday and pummeled western New York through the Christmas holiday weekend. It capped an Arctic freeze and winter storm front that had extended over most of the United States for days, stretching as far south as the Mexican border.

The greater Buffalo region, on the edge of Lake Erie near the Canadian border, has been one of the hardest-hit places, with nearly 50 inches (127 cm) of snow recorded at Buffalo Airport as of Monday morning, according to the National Weather Service.

Cars and buses were buried under towering snow drifts and high-lift equipment was being used for hospital transports where ambulances could not drive.

A few grocery stores that had been closed for days reopened on Monday, and people trekked more than a mile (1.6 km) through the middle of the impassable streets to get there.

Up to a foot (30 cm) of snow was still forecast to fall through Tuesday in some areas south of Buffalo and north of Syracuse.

Heavy winds and “lake-effect” snow – the result of moisture picked up by frigid air moving over warmer lake waters – produced a storm that New York Governor Kathy Hochul said would go down in history as “the Blizzard of ’22,” ranked as the worst since a 1977 blizzard killed nearly 30 people.

President Joe Biden tweeted on Monday that he had spoken to Hochul on the phone and that his administration would provide resources to help the region cover the daunting expense of storm rescue and recovery.

“My heart is with those who lost loved ones this holiday weekend. You are in my and Jill’s prayers,” Biden said.

Hundreds of national guard troops were assisting local first responders and state police on Monday as crews rescued people trapped in homes and cars, performed wellness checks and delivered food and basic needs.

Emergency workers have struggled to navigate past snow drifts to do their jobs, and many snow plows, tow trucks, ambulances and other emergency vehicles dispatched over the weekend had to be rescued themselves after getting stuck in the snow, county officials said.

Thousands of people in Erie County had power restored as of Monday morning, Poloncarz said, while some 14,000 customers were still without power statewide, according to poweroutage.us.

A driving ban was still in effect in Buffalo on Monday, for safety purposes and to keep the roads clear for emergency and utility workers trying to weave through an obstacle course of buried cars and snow banks.

“There are cars everywhere. Everywhere. Pointing the wrong direction on roads. They’ve basically been plowed in and they need to be dug out and towed. It’s going to take time to clear those,” Poloncarz said.

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