Ex-Secretary of State and failed Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton apparently couldn’t pass up the opportunity to trash former President Donald Trump before an audience of Western defense leaders in Europe. A gathering of elite European defense bureaucrats is perhaps the only venue she remains ‘popular’.Clinton said during a panel of the Munich Security

Democratic Socialist Rashida Tlaib (D-MI) encouraged Democrats to “vote uncommitted” in the Feb. 27 presidential primary due to the Biden administration’s handling of the conflict in the Gaza strip.An “uncommitted” vote is a form of protest designed to send a message.”Right now, we feel completely neglected and just unseen by our government,” Tlaib said in a video to Michigan residents filmed outside of a civic center in Dearborn. “If you want us to be louder, then come here and vote uncommitted.

With America facing population collapse thanks to a pandemic which compounded already-shrinking birth rates, petrified young men who don’t want to get #MeToo’d for trying to get past 1st base, and record numbers of young Americans identifying as anything but heterosexual, The Economist wants you to know that it’s “probably fine” to bang your cousin, which they also note is “illegal in 25 American states.”

Starting last month the Zelensky government began calling for China to get more involved in the international effort to find a peace formula in Ukraine. “China needs to be involved in talks to end the war with Russia,” a Zelensky top aide said during January’s WEF meeting in Davos.

WEIRTON, West Virginia – Most people in this town will tell you they’d rather have taken a physical punch to the gut than get the news they received yesterday when Cleveland-Cliffs Steel announced it was idling its tinplate production plant, a move that directly cost 900 people their jobs.

It isn’t just those workers who face catastrophic uncertainty; this closure also jeopardizes the jobs of thousands more people whose businesses supported the plant: the barber shops, gas stations, mom-and-pop grocery stores, the machine shops that make the widgets for the steel industry. And there’s also the demise of the tax base, which affects the school district and the quality of the roads.

US Prepares New Weapons Transfer To Israel, Ironically While Pushing For Ceasefire

Just days ago President Biden told Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu that the military operation in refugee-packed Rafah “should not proceed” unless civilians are evacuated first.

Yet at the same time, the Biden administration is preparing another major weapons transfer to Israel. Not only is Washington pushing for another ceasefire (ostensibly at least) but Biden recently called the Israeli operation in Gaza “over the top” amid the soaring civilian death toll.

All of this serves to highlight that the White House is talking out of both sides of its mouth – on the one hand seeking to deflect international and domestic criticism by issuing statements warning over the unfolding humanitarian catastrophe, but on the other directly fueling the Israeli war machine.
AFP via Getty Images

On this latter point, the Wall Street Journal has detailed in a fresh weekend report:

The proposed arms delivery includes roughly a thousand each of MK-82 bombs, KMU-572 Joint Direct Attack Munitions that add precision guidance to bombs, and FMU-139 bomb fuses, the officials said. The arms are estimated to be worth tens of millions of dollars. The proposed delivery is still being reviewed internally by the administration, a U.S. official said, and the details of the proposal could change before the Biden administration notifies congressional committee leaders who would need to approve the transfer.

Since the Hamas terror attack of Oct.7, the US administration has given Israel 21,000 precision-guided munitions to Israel, an estimated half of which have been used.

This new proposed transfer is valued at “tens of millions of dollars”. Already the bulk of Israel’s arsenal is supplied from the US, also given it has historically been the biggest recipient of American foreign aid.

The WSJ says that even now, with a reported over 28,000 Gazans killed and a massive refugee crisis, the Biden White House is not expected to attach any conditions to the use of these weapons:

An assessment of the proposed arms transfer drafted by the U.S. Embassy in Jerusalem, and viewed by The Wall Street Journal, said the Israeli government requested “rapid acquisition of these items for the defense of Israel against continued and emerging regional threats.”

The assessment said there were no potential human rights concerns with the sale. “Israel takes effective action to prevent gross violations of human rights and to hold security forces responsible that violate those rights. In the past, Israel has been a transparent partner in U.S. investigations into allegations of defense article misuse,” the assessment says.

Below: an example of Biden’s change in rhetoric toward sharply criticizing Israel…

Biden’s full answer on Gaza. He calls the response from Israel “over the top,” says he got humanitarian aid into Gaza adding “there are a lot of innocent people are starving. Lot innocent people or in trouble and dying. And it’s got to stop” pic.twitter.com/EZM01RP9HX
— Andy Kaczynski (@KFILE) February 9, 2024
But again, strangely Biden himself has highlighted the humanitarian disaster, and has warned Israel. This is yet another example of Biden’s contradictory policies and statements, while apparently having no long-term plan. The current policy is tantamount to Biden telling Netanyahu to stop killing so many civilians, while simultaneously handing him more guns and military hardware ‘with no strings attached’. Biden’s progressive supporters are taking note going into November too, and he’s likely to lose some of his base.

Tyler Durden
Sat, 02/17/2024 – 18:05

The ‘Liberal Gap’ Opening Up Between American Men & Women

According to conventional wisdom, how conservative or liberal someone is would largely be determined by their age.

However, as Statista’s Katharina Buchholz details below, while this used to be the case, a major shift has taken place in the United States and elsewhere.

As of 2023, gender is a better indicator of U.S. political leanings – as seen in data collected by Gallup.

As of last year, 18 to 29-year-old men as well as women over the age of 65 in the U.S. were equally likely to describe themselves as liberal or very liberal.

A quarter in each group did so.

This is a far cry from the gap of around 10 percentage points that existed between the two groups in the late 1990s – when Gallup’s data begins – as well as in the early 2010s.

Back then, both young men and women were the leading liberals of the country, while older generations were less likely to label themselves as politically liberal.

You will find more infographics at Statista

The trend of liberalism took off among women, especially young and middle-aged women, in 2013, when Femen activists and HBO drama Girls were the feminist rage of the day.

The election of Donald Trump as U.S. president in 2016 and accompanying women’s marches as well as the #MeToo movement in 2017 seem to have fueled liberalism in these age groups initially.

However, liberal sentiment among females actually peaked in the 30-49 demographic in 2018.

It continued its rise in younger women until 2020 and 2021, but has slumped since then even when the Supreme Court overturned abortion precedent Roe v. Wade in 2022. Despite all this, liberalism in women is near the highest point it has ever been.

The story is much different for men, where the biggest increase in liberal sentiment in any age group was just 5 percentage points between 1999 and 2023. While older men became slightly more liberal, liberalism among young U.S. men between 18 and 29 years old gained by just 1 percentage point in a quarter century.

Author Susan Faludi has labeled this a backlash against feminism, which according to her research is a phenomenon that occurred before at times when women have made headway. Other feminist organizers also speak of polarization and a hardening of positions around feminism and the advancement of women.

Tyler Durden
Sat, 02/17/2024 – 09:55