For those convinced there are no moments of amazement left in the West-East conflict, this report shows we are not out of the woods yet. The elites, desperate to prop up their waning world order, always seem able to dig up a story to either dehumanise Russia or its leader, Vladimir Putin. This one, for me, literally takes the cake.
In the latest geopolitical circus act, the liberal order managed to drag a Jewish Ukrainian in front of the German parliament to support continued support for Kyiv and Zelensky against mean old Putin and the Russians. Sorry, the quote from 88-year-old Roman Shvartsman is another comparison of two polar opposites, Adolf Hitler and Vladimir Putin. Here is what Shvartsman said:

"Back then (WW2) Hitler wanted to kill me because I am Jew. Now Putin wants to kill me because I am a Ukrainian."

If you're familiar with the reasons for, and the goals of Russia's military intervention in Ukraine, I've no doubt your alarm sirens went off like mine did. Why would a Jew, the head of who was allegedly rescued from a Nazi concentration camp by the Red Army, speak of a Russian leader in this way? Does it seem unusual that the Chairman of the Odesa regional Association of Jews, given that Banderites have overrun the city during the Euromaidan and since? Shvartsman's comments, at the place and time they would do the most "good" where Zelensky is concerned, urged me to dig further.

It's happening fast after Sunday statements of Elon Musk confirming President Trump "agreed" to shut USAID down... USAID's headquarters in Washington D.C. has been closed for the day on Monday, with employees receiving an early morning email telling them to remain at home.

Musk says the agency has effectively been shut down. The email, which is now widely circulating on social media postings, was sent from Gavin Kliger via an official usaid.gov. address. He is one among the twenty-somethings assisting Musk in implementing Trump's order to slash foreign aid and stop waste.

The United States Agency for International Development has "been run by a bunch of radical lunatics, and we're getting them out", Trump said.

Elon Musk attacked the US Agency for International Development, calling it a "criminal organisation" on Sunday, as Donald Trump said the agency was "run by radical lunatics" and said he was considering its future.

The assault on the agency tasked with humanitarian relief overseas marks a significant new front in Trump's move to give unprecedented power Musk to upend government departments and counter what the pair consider wasteful official spending and overreach.

The United States Agency for International Development has "been run by a bunch of radical lunatics, and we're getting them out... and then we'll make a decision (on its future)," Trump said on Sunday without elaborating.

"USAID is a criminal organisation," Musk, the billionaire owner of Tesla and SpaceX who has become the president's most powerful backer, wrote on his X platform, replying to a video alleging USAID involvement in "rogue CIA work" and "internet censorship."

In a subsequent post, Musk doubled down and, without giving evidence, asked his 215 million X followers, "Did you know that USAID, using YOUR tax dollars, funded bioweapon research, including Covid-19, that killed millions of people?"

The Trump administration is not messing around.

Let's review. In the past thirteen days;

• Border crossings are down 94% after Trump declared a national emergency and sent US troops to the southern US Border

• Special Envoy Ric Grenell flew down to oil-rich Venezuela, got 6 hostages freed (that Biden didn't even care to check up on), and convinced Maduro to accept tens of thousands of migrants we're about to deport.

• Trump halted almost all foreign aid for 90 days, including to Ukraine, while each program undergoes review to make sure they align with the new agenda.

• Elon Musk's DOGE descended upon the US Treasury and revealed that we've been 'auto paying' all sorts of bad actors, including terrorist groups. DOGE then kicked the door down at Deep State slush fund USAID, where employees were placed on paid leave last week for trying to circumvent Trump's orders, causing a massive Democrat freakout.

• Trump just slapped tariffs on China, Canada and Mexico for failing to control the flow of illegal immigration and fentanyl.

• Secretary of State Marco Rubio sent a worldwide cable announcing the end of DEI policies within State, prioritizing American interests, and told his Chinese counterpart that America is done kowtowing.

Opponents of the new US leader's political trajectory within the bloc will soon be brought to heel, the Russian president believes

The EU has always taken its political cues from Washington and will continue doing so with Donald Trump in office, Russian President Vladimir Putin has said. Despite some EU leaders actively opposing Trump's election, the newly inaugurated president "will restore order" and bring the bloc to heel "quite quickly," Putin believes.

The Russian president made the remarks on Sunday in an interview to Russia-1 TV journalist Pavel Zarubin.

SUMMARY

• The National Endowment for Democracy is a grantmaking organization that receives substantially all of its $300 million annual budget from the State Department's congressional appropriations.
• In recent years, investigators and watchdog groups like FFO have faced difficulty locating NED's grantees and projects, despite NED having a federal mandate to operate openly and share grantee information with the public.
• Audits of the NED for FY 2021, 2022, and 2023 reveal NED continuously failed to publish grant project information publicly, violating the Federal Funding Accountability and Transparency Act.
• NED entered an unusual agreement with their Department of State Grants Officer to label the entirety of their $315 million congressional appropriation for 2024 "sensitive," allowing them to hide all U.S. taxpayer-funded NED grantee information and activities from the public.
• NED rebuffed an offer from the State Department to review its subgrantees on a case-by-case basis, removing another layer of democratic oversight from its activities.
• It expects to never be subject to ordinary transparency requirements again, with taxpayers almost completely in the dark about how its $300-million budget - which has been used in the past to advance a global regime of online censorship with blowback against Americans - is spent

The National Endowment for Democracy (NED) has since at least 2021 failed to comply with transparency requirements regarding the more than $300 million of taxpayer funding it receives from the U.S. Department of State, potentially violating federal regulations under 22 CFR 67.4 and the Federal Funding Accountability and Transparency Act (FFATA).

In recent years, NED failed to take any corrective action regarding failures to report their grantmaking activities publicly. NED's Financial Report for FY23 reveals that NED and Department of State Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights, and Labor (DRL) leadership assessed these transparency failures to "determine a long-term resolution."

Two air accidents a couple of days apart, one in the heart of Washington DC, the other in Philadelphia... one may have been an accident, but both? Also on this NewsReal, tense times in the Senate as Trump's MAGA nominations - RFK Jr, Tulsi Gabbard and Kash Patel - are grilled, and trouble on the horizon for empire-lovers as Trump's tariffs kick off in earnest.


Running Time: 02:19:06

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With federal funding paused to USAID, pro-Western media outlets from Ukraine to Nicaragua are panhandling for donations, and a multi-billion dollar regime change apparatus is in panic mode.

Among the flurry of executive orders issued by President Donald Trump in the first days of his administration, perhaps the most consequential to date is one titled, "reevaluating and realigning US foreign aid."

Under this order, a 90-day pause was instantly enforced on all US foreign development assistance across the globe - excepting, of course, the largest recipients of US aid in Israel and Egypt. For now, the order forbids the disbursement of federal funding for any "non-governmental organizations, international organizations, and contractors" charged with delivering US "aid" programs overseas.

On February 1, the Trump administration will slap 25% tariffs on Canada and Mexico, and a 10% tariff on China, as announced during Friday's press briefing by White House spox Karoline Leavitt, denying reports of a delay to March 1.
There will be no delay, selective targeting, or slow roll-out of phased-in tariffs as speculated by Goldman Sachs and Deutsche Bank. That said, there could be certain exemptions - such as for oil and gas, which Leavitt did not elaborate on. For now, all we have to go on is Trump's most recent comments on oil.

The US Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), created by President Donald Trump and led by Tesla and SpaceX CEO Elon Musk, has announced that it has managed to save over $1 billion thanks to the elimination of contracts related to diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI).

The agency posted the breakdown of federal government savings on Friday via its official X account. The published index lists off 30 federal bodies, stating that 104 contracts with a "ceiling value" of over $1.2 billion were eliminated as part of Trump's move to scrap DEI initiatives.

DOGE was initially proposed during Trump's presidential campaign last summer and was later established as a presidential advisory commission. Despite its name, the agency is not a permanent federal executive department, but a temporary body dedicated to reducing government spending, the key goal of which is to slash up to $2 trillion in federal spending by July 2026.

Earlier this week, the new agency stated that it had managed to cut federal spending by approximately $1 billion per day as of January 29, due to an effective halt to "the hiring of people into unnecessary positions, deletion of DEI, and stopping improper payments to foreign organizations."