The violation of the agreement of March 10, 2025, sparked an outburst of another escalation in northeastern Syria, led to Turkish intervention, and contributed to the defeat of the Kurdish SDF forces. As a result, a new Syrian-Kurdish agreement was signed on January 18 on Damascus's terms, with the participation of Washington and Ankara.

The Idea of the Kurdish Autonomy of Rojava as a US "Bargaining Chip" in the Middle East

The Kurdish issue has once again ended up on the fringes of the world's agenda. With the start of the civil conflict in Syria, the Kurds, backed by the US, managed to form powerful military and political structures such as the People's Protection Units (YPG) and the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF). These forces became a key player in the fight against ISIS*.

The alliance with the US and Israel gave Syrian Kurds hope for external support in defending their national rights in Syria, which is particularly crucial in the view of Damascus's discriminatory policy towards Rojava. Politically, the SDF sought recognition of national autonomy or even an independent entity, similar to that of Iraqi Kurdistan. Rich oil fields in the Kurdish provinces of northeastern Syria served as an additional incentive. Such an American line, which presupposed balancing between supporting the Kurds and the interests of other players, was ringing the alarm bells in Turkey, which has long been fighting the Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) in its own southeastern territories.

Calls to strip a former Austrian foreign minister of her citizenship set an abysmally low bar for rule of law.

Every time I hear about some new attempt by EU officials to sanction or otherwise institutionally punish their own people for saying things about Russia or Ukraine that they don't like, I'm reminded how many legal rules and principles I learned in law school that they now treat as if they were printed on a roll of Charmin.

I also can't help but think of a scene from the iconic '90s movie, 'Pretty Woman'. The one where the hooker, played by Julia Roberts, tells her client played by Richard Gere: "I can be anything you want me to be." But then it emerges that she actually has a whole lot of rules - from no kissing on the mouth to no drugs or emotional intimacy or disrespect.

Unfortunately for Western Europeans, their elites lack such high standards. The EU establishment brags about being defenders of democracy. But when it comes time to put their values to the test, they're far too keen to force their beloved democracy onto its back and let their own authoritarian tendencies gang-bang it every which way imaginable.

At least 150 child sex abuse lawsuits were filed against Jewish institutions in New York over the past two years, under a special law that temporarily lifted the statute of limitations barring old claims, according to an analysis of the New York court system by the Jewish Telegraphic Agency.

This look-back window for reviving allegations was created by the Child Victims Act of 2019 and it led to a dramatic wave of lawsuits that peaked just ahead of the August 14, 2021 deadline. Survivors took advantage of the CVA window to file nearly 11,000 civil suits against individuals and institutions, according to data provided by the New York's Office of Court Administration.

Only a small fraction of the total involve Jewish institutions, but the number is high enough to reflect a widespread desire among Jewish survivors to hold officials accountable and expose policies and practices that allegedly enabled the abuse.

The number is also a function of the fact that New York is home to almost two million Jews, far more than any other state, and is the seat of the headquarters of nearly all major Jewish institutions. The bulk of cases involving Jewish institutions were filed in Brooklyn and Manhattan.

The United States and the European Union are vehemently condemning Iran over alleged repression, while the West says nothing about the Israeli genocide in Gaza. The contradiction, of course, exposes the West's rank hypocrisy. It also confirms that Iran is the target of a Western regime-change operation.

U.S. President Donald Trump this week repeated his threat to launch a blitzkrieg on Iran, bragging that an armada led by the USS Abraham Lincoln aircraft carrier was in place to strike. "Don't make me do it," warned Trump with thug-like menace.

Meanwhile, the European Union declared Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps a "foreign terrorist" organization. Given that the IRGC is a central component of Iran's national security forces, the EU's blacklisting is effectively designating the Iranian state as a terrorist entity. The EU's provocation is paving the way for American aggression and all-out war, which will have devastating consequences, not least of all for Europe.

Washington and Europe are ostensibly basing their hostility towards Tehran on dubious claims that the Iranian authorities have committed systematic atrocities in repressing peaceful protesters in Iran demanding political change.

Trump has urged Iranians to keep protesting and vowed that "help is on the way."

The European Union's foreign affairs chief, Kaja Kallas, hailed the blacklisting of the IRGC, saying: "Repression cannot go unanswered... clear atrocities mean there must be a clear response from Europe."

France's Foreign Minister Jean-Noël Barrot asserted: "We cannot have any impunity for the [alleged] crimes that have been committed."

The Dutch top diplomat, David van Weel, added: "I think it's important that we send the signal that the bloodshed that we've seen, the bestiality that has been used against protesters, cannot be tolerated."

This all sounds noble and chivalrous of Western governments. But it is a contemptuous charade, belying disingenuousness and duplicity.

Since the internet bombshell launched by WikiLeaks' release of John Podesta emails and the uncovered Comet Pizza's bizarre and suspicious activities leading to last fall's Pizzagate scandal, and the simultaneous reporting of unprecedented number of arrests made in child sex trafficking rings worldwide, clearly demonstrate that law enforcement is finally treating the global epidemic seriously. Yet the systematic kidnapping, torturing and raping of children by highly organized trafficking rings have barely if at all even scratched the surface of mainstream media coverage, which has chosen to act as a complicit accomplice and partner-in-crime in the unholiest of alliances with the child rapists themselves, consistently ignoring child sex trafficking rings being operated by powerful members of the world's elite ruling class.

A prime example is the state owned BBC that knew for a number of decades that entertainer Jimmy Savile was raping hundreds if not thousands of defenseless, innocent children throughout the United Kingdom, and said and did absolutely nothing to stop it other than punish and silence those few who came forth trying to expose the evil. Johnny Rotten of the Sex Pistols was banned by the BBC after he spoke up and once the 37-year old TV presenter Jill Dando called attention to the known pedophilia abuse at the BBC, she was abruptly murdered outside her West London home in April 1999.

The shadow government led by former President Barack Obama is working overtime to delegitimize President Donald Trump and his administration. They've accused and even set up Trump's people to tie his administration to "evil" Russia and now Trump's alleging that Obama tapped his phones. There's never been such a concerted effort in modern history, if ever, to overthrow a democratically elected U.S. president by not only the Democrats but by some Republicans aka RINOS as well. The bigger question is why are they so desperately trying to stage this coup and sabotage his presidency? Why is Obama remaining in Washington D.C. and moving his top adviser Valerie Jarrett into his new mansion? Furthermore, why is Trump's opposition so hell bent on tying him to Russia and using the superpower as a scapegoat when they are the actual ones who have far more questionable ties to the Kremlin? As Trump's enemies continue to tell the masses to pay no attention to that man behind the green curtain, let's dare to do just that.

On Feb. 25, I published a column here analyzing why the mainstream media is ignoring Trump's massive sex trafficking busts and his recent press conference addressing the problem. I concluded it's partly because the MSM and the left don't care about protecting children if it doesn't enable them to destroy their political opposition. This story quickly became the no. 1 trending story on Townhall's site. Not only did the MSM continue to ignore this issue, I received dozens of messages from readers complaining that social media forums were censoring my column. In a strange twist, one of the few media outlets that did a follow-up on my story was the Russian state-run Sputnik news outlet. Social media also censored their follow-up on my story. I've written several investigative pieces on how social media has censored conservative voices; however, they now appear to be censoring stories that expose child sex trafficking and pedophiles.

The Podesta brothers - John and Tony - are creepy.

Most recently, John was the Clinton campaign's chairman, but he has worked with Bill and Obama too. Tony is considered one of Washington's most powerful lobbyists. (For more on their political background, see Abby Martin's recent Empire Files on teleSUR.)

Not knowing much about them - aside from the fact that Podesta is interested in UFOs - the first ping on my radar was the "spirit cooking" revelation from the leaked Podesta emails.The relevant email suggests that not only are Tony and John close enough to Crowleyite "magickian" and "artist" Marina Abramovic to be on a first-name basis with her, but also that they are familiar enough with her "spirit cooking" to know what that involves and presumably be fine with attending a session. The casual tone sounds as if the planned "dinner" was probably not their first. (See: Sickos: Wikileaks reveals Podesta bros participate in disturbing, occult-themed "spirit cooking" involving copious bodily fluids?)

Since the release of Podesta's emails, users on sites like 4chan, Twitter, Reddit and YouTube, among other blogs and forums, have been uncovering a ton of strange connections, creepy implications, and perhaps outlandish speculations about the brothers and their circle of friends. For example, see this compilation of info by "ausbitbank" on steemit. There's a ton of other stuff out there, so knock yourself out searching and combing through it all. There's a ton of speculations and unsourced assertions on the topic, but there are also some genuinely creepy people and connections involved. Here I'll present just the facts. Let's start with Tony.

On July 16, 2015, Politico published a photo essay "inside Hillary's campaign headquarters" that featured an image of John's office. On the wall is a painting, on loan from his brother Tony, that features a suited man lying on a table, with two men standing over him. The visual suggestion - given the plates and cutlery held by the two - are that they are preparing to eat him.

Use monetary and sex bribery to obtain control of people already occupying positions in high places in the various levels of all governments and other fields of endeavor. Once an influential person had fallen for the lies, deceits, and temptations of the Illuminati, they were to be held in bondage by application of political and other forms of blackmail, threats of financial ruin, public exposure, and physical harm, and even death to themselves and their loved ones. - Adam Weishaupt, Illuminati Founder

Back in February 2015 I wrote a piece for Veterans Today about the undeniable age-old nexus between power and pedophilia when suspected pedophiles Bill Clinton and attorney Alan Dershowitz were caught with their pants down as frequent flyers on their registered sex offender buddy Jeffrey Epstein's Lolita Express documented flight logs. This coincided with the English royalty connection through Prince Andrew's known involvement. Having spent the better part of a quarter century career in mental health as a licensed therapist and clinician directly working with child and adolescent victims of sexual trauma and abuse in Los Angeles, I recognize pedophilia as a pathological mental disorder and international crime of the worst disorder and over two and a half years ago was compelled to write about human trafficking. Its tentacles have spread like a cancer to every corner of this earth to where slavery is far more widespread today than any previous time in recorded human history. And Pizzagate as the scandal that won't go away is currently forcing us to deal with this abominable human malady like never before.

Last month a few days ahead of Election Day, FBI director James Comey was forced to reopen the criminal investigation of Hillary Clinton due to smoking gun evidence discovered on the laptop filed under "life insurance" belonging to Anthony Weiner, the disgraced former New York congressman and husband of 20-year Clinton aide Huma Abedin. With 26 logged flight plans for Bill and at least a half dozen for Hillary, it directly linked both Clintons to Epstein's child sex slave pedophilia operation on his Caribbean island estate. A second file on the Weiner laptop named "DNC Nuclear Arsenal" contained the dirt on Podesta and the DNC. In a third file labeled "Intimate" an NYPD insider claimed it included "X-rated photos of Huma Abedin, Hillary Clinton with a teenager."

Part 3 of an ongoing documentary series - 'Pedgogate 2020', created and published by 'Mouthy Buddha' - was released on August 24th. We're publishing it here along with Part 1 (released April 14th this year) and Part 2 (released on June 1st).

So-called investigative reporting on 'pedophilia in high places' rarely meets the threshold of 'reasonable speculation' - whatever about generating reliable and factual information. However, we find this particular series useful because the creator is cautious about his claims, aware that this avenue of research is a veritable 'hall of mirrors', and is proactively reporting his more solid findings to law enforcement.

We did some investigation into 'Pizzagate' when it surfaced in 2016, and while we could not establish anything conclusive, we're satisfied that there is substance to the core premise that certain disturbing characters in the Washington DC area can and do call on 'friends in very high places'.

Furthermore, the general claim that politicians and other VIPs from among 'the elites' are themselves sometimes pedophiles, pederasts, and serial child sex abusers is well-established by the historical context of criminal investigations (and, occasionally, successful prosecutions) into child sex crimes in a whole host of countries going back decades.

The ambiguous nature of these 'networks' - part-informal, part-organized - makes proving or at least reasonably suggesting criminality difficult at best. They are at once both 'hidden in plain sight' and 'plausibly deniable', helped by the apparent but recurring impression that the long arm of the law invariably falls on their side.

The content in these videos is not graphic, but the subject matter is nevertheless distressing, so steel yourself before viewing. Finally, take the content creator's advice and DO NOT ATTEMPT TO SEARCH FOR TERMS he looked into. You may only end up incriminating yourself.

Part 1

Why is it so hard to believe congressmen in Washington wouldn't be delving into the disgusting realms of pedophilia? Pizzagate, the fabled rumor of child sex slaves being held in Washington, DC pizzerias caused quite a controversy in late 2016. But as we embark into 2017, the idea of those in power participating in this gruesome habit is not far-fetched at all. In fact, as we will show, it's disgustingly common.

Pizzagate was preceded by talk a former U.S. president with the surname Clinton had a close relationship with billionaire pedophile, Jeffrey Epstein. As the alleged conspiracy theory goes, Clinton allegedly took numerous flights on the "Lolita Express" (Epstein's private jet) to "orgy island" (Epstein's private island in the Caribbean) to engage in sex with underage girls.

But no sooner did the controversy begin than it was immediately rejected by the mainstream media, seemingly replaced still unproven statements the Russians had attempted to cyber-hack the presidential election of 2016. The attention span of Americans was then redirected by press conferences, some led by President Obama himself, claiming the consensus of the intelligence community agreed the Russians engaged in cyber-attacks intent on helping Donald Trump become the next president.

One could say a pattern has now emerged with how the mainstream media deals with stories it does not want to investigate or have uncovered: Reject, Replace, and Redirect. All of which leads us back to Pizzagate, and the question of whether or not the rich and powerful, politically elite, are engaged in sex with children. While Pizzagate itself may not be a provable idea, to dismiss it like it is impossible is simply irresponsible — especially given the history of people in authority in this country.