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The North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) hasn’t just outlived its usefulness. One of its member states has been wearing out its welcome since the fall of the Soviet Union. Turkey was considered a secular nation when it sought entry into NATO after World War II. Since the fall of the Soviet Union, Turkey has been attempting to resurrect its Islamic fundamentalist, Ottoman roots. Sadly, we the people of the United States are obligated to protect and defend it.

Exactly 30 years ago, in 1994, while speaking to young fundamentalist Muslims in Antwerp, Belgium, a Turkish Sheikh named Nazim Al-Kibrisi al-Haqqani took to the stage in a stadium filled to capacity, with close to 20,000 people present. After putting the phrase, “Allahu Akbar” to a repetitive musical chant, he exhorted the crowd to join him. He even referred to the audience as a “flood of people (being) a small sign of the glorious rise of Islam”.

There, in the front row, stood a smiling, young Recep Tayyip Erdogan, who is currently the President of Turkey. In his speech, Kibrisi bemoaned the failures of his generation over the previous 70 years to preserve Islam. He insisted the young crowd which filled the stadium would restore the glory of Islam. This was a clear reference to the defeat of the Turkish Ottoman Empire at the end of World War I, in 1922. It was also a personal reference. Kibrisi was born that year. Even the stadium was built between 1921 – 1923.

Did I mention that Erdogan was in the front row?

In 1952, a very secular Turkey joined NATO amid concerns that the Soviet Union be problematic. Membership in NATO provided Turkey with a hedge against invasion. Then, when the Soviet Union fell, Neo-Ottomanism began to rise. Unfortunately, NATO continued growing as well, even becoming more corrupt, with the central component of its mission – Soviet style communism no longer a threat.

Neo-Ottomanism seeks a restoration of the old empire, which seeks expansionism and ultimately, a global Islamic caliphate.

The Muslim Brotherhood was founded in the 1920’s as well. It too seeks a return to life under the Ottoman Empire. During the one year reign of the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt following the Arab Spring, this became even more evident. Erdogan’s support for the Muslim Brotherhood was clear. Both expressed a desire to restore an era of Islamic rule.

As an aside, the history between Turkey and Russia goes back well more than 500 years; it is an adversarial history at that. It includes the fall of Christianity in Constantinople. The seat of the Eastern Orthodox Church then moved to Russia. Even then it was Muslims vs. Christians. This says nothing of the Armenian genocide committed by the Ottoman Turks during World War I. Despite the extermination of between 600,000 and 1.5 million Armenians, the Turks remain holocaust denialists.

The removal of Bashar al-Assad is largely perceived as a good thing. Is it? The answer to that question depends on what replaces him. The Syrian rebels are comprised of various factions, but the Muslim Brotherhood is chief among them. Again, the Muslim Brotherhood’s loyalties to the Neo-Ottoman movement should not be questioned; it’s alive and well.

Of course, a rudderless Syria, especially one that helps to serve Turkey’s interests, doesn’t bode well for the Iranian Mullahs either. The attacks of October 7, 2023, have had a cascading effect that has very much helped us get to this point. Israel, rightly so, decimated Hamas and its leadership; it did the same to Hezbollah. Exploding pagers and precision strikes very much contributed to the conditions that led to Assad’s ouster.

It's far too early to tell if the Iranian regime has been weakened, if at all. It’s likely very capable of counteroffensive attacks. Nonetheless, if the Iranian mullahs are toppled the same question will need to be asked: Is it a good thing? Again, it depends on what replaces it.

Russia is currently bogged down in Ukraine and that reality is seen as having contributed to Assad’s fall from power. What happens next in Syria is anybody’s guess. Does Israel acquire any of that territory? Does the Muslim Brotherhood take over and align with Turkey? Does Turkey have any aspirations there upon dispatching the Kurds to the north?

Should the mullahs fall, the resulting power vacuum could pave the way for radical groups, including the Muslim Brotherhood or its affiliates, to seize control. This would present a grave threat to regional stability, as the Brotherhood’s ideology aligns with more extreme interpretations of Islam. Should the Brotherhood move into Iran (Persia), Turkey would not be far behind.

Turkey’s membership in NATO adds a dangerous layer of complexity. Article 5 of the NATO treaty obligates member states, including the United States, to come to the defense of any member that is attacked. Should Turkey engage in a conflict with Russia—a historical adversary and current competitor in Syria and the Black Sea—the U.S. and its NATO allies could be dragged into a direct confrontation with Moscow. Such a scenario risks escalating into World War III, a catastrophic outcome for global security.

Syria is a mess right now. Stability is paramount but we have no idea what that country is going to look like in the future.

As for what should happen moving forward, Turkey should be jettisoned from NATO and Iran’s nuclear facilities must be taken out.

Then we can talk about those Mullahs.

2024 will be another year not forgotten any time soon. A look at the biggest trending Google searches can serve as a reminder for just some of the events and situations that have shaped our world over the last 12 months.

The following chart, via Statista's Anna Fleck, looks at the most-googled terms between January 1 and November 23.

You will find more infographics at Statista

At the top of the trending news-related searches was the U.S. election.

With 3.7 billion people having had the opportunity to go to the polls worldwide this year, 2024 has been dubbed a ‘super year’ for elections. In November, the victory of Republican nominee Donald Trump against the Democratic Party’s pick Kamala Harris will have major implications both domestically and abroad, in terms of trade and foreign policy. Other elections this year included BJP leader and Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi winning a third term in office, despite losing a parliamentary majority, and the Labour Party’s Keir Starmer ousting the Conservative Party after 14 years in power.

The second fastest growing news search term was “excessive heat”.

As of November, 2024 was on track to be the warmest year on record. It was a year when more than 1,300 people died during the Hajj pilgrimage in Saudi Arabia due to heat.

In the world of music, Sean “Diddy” Combs was the most searched-for artist among the English-speaking world this year.

Combs has been at the center of sexual assault, rape and sex trafficking lawsuits. The next most searched-for artists were Usher, Linkin Park, Sabrina Carpenter and Justin Timberlake.

In terms of movies this year, the ones to garner the most search attention included Inside Out 2, an animated Pixar and Disney movie about different emotions personified as well as the Marvel superhero movie Deadpool & Wolverine and Saltburn, a thriller and social commentary on wealth.

This year, Google also revealed the top earworms around the world. The eclectic mix of “Beautiful Things” by Benson Boone, “Bling-Bang-Bang-Born” by Creepy Nuts and “Die With a Smile” by Lady Gaga were the three tunes that were looked up most frequently using the “hum to search” function.

Finally, the most prolific people searched for this year included both Trump and Harris together with Princess Kate, who was diagnosed with cancer earlier this year and after treatment is now reported to be cancer free.

Sadly, not all of the world's well-known and popular people made it to the end of 2024. The most high-profile passing, at least in terms of Google Search queries, was that of One Direction singer Liam Payne.

According to Google Trends’ methodology, the round up of searches in 2024 excludes data from China, Iran and North Korea.

For some families, the search for the right Christmas tree is an annual event.

However, as Statista's Felix Richter reports, for large shares of Americans and Brits though, this search may have ended a long time ago - the perfect tree already sitting safely in the attic or garage, ready for its glorious but fleeting return to the living room.

As new survey data from Statista Consumer Insights shows, it's a different story in Germany.

You will find more infographics at Statista

There, at the home of the Christmas tree tradition, the practice is still very much alive - 42 percent of adults said they would be putting up a real tree this year, compared to 26 percent in the U.S. and just 20 percent in the United Kingdom.

Authored by Robert Malone via The Brownstone Institute,

The Fathomless Bottom of the Deep State

The Senior Executive Service (SES) class of federal employees was created under President Carter through the passage of the Civil Service Reform Act of 1978. The SES was established to “…ensure that the executive management of the Government of the United States is responsive to the needs, policies, and goals of the Nation and otherwise is of the highest quality.”

Another Carter-created component of the State, as is the Department of Education. The SES employees were supposed to ensure top performances in all the various agencies. That was the theory, but the reality is something entirely different, as is so often the case with these initiatives such as the “Department of Homeland Security.”

Members of the SES serve in the key positions just below the top Presidential appointees. SES employees are the major link between these appointees and the rest of the Federal workforce. They operate and oversee nearly every government activity in approximately 75 Federal agencies. They are referred to as members by the Office of Personnel Management and are considered above “employee” designation. They are members of the SES, and don’t you forget that! Today’s SES runs the country.

The SES even has its own flag (which has been largely removed from the government web pages since I last wrote about the SES in June of 2022). and their own non-profit agency called the Senior Executive Association (SEA), whose stated goal is to protect the rights of SES members – which lists both lobbying Congress and instituting legal action to protect SES member status. This non-profit acts like a union.

SES members operate and oversee nearly every government activity in approximately 75 Federal agencies and serve in key positions just below the top Presidential appointees. Thus positioned, the SES bosses enforce political orthodoxy and fidelity to the deep state. They can act in this manner because their employment is virtually guaranteed. An SES employee’s job is so secure that an Agency Head cannot terminate an SES employee unless the Commissioner issues a certificate stating that the termination is in the public interest. Even then, the termination is subject to litigation.

Barack Obama believed that the SES program should be expanded and, through a 2015 executive order, “Strengthening the Senior Executive Service,” sought to expand and “facilitate career executive continuity between administrations.” But more than that, his executive order implemented:

“a comprehensive, integrated, and strategic focus on diversity and inclusion as a key component of the recruitment, hiring, retention, and development of their SES cadre.”

Yep – the federal government has been using DEI-based hiring and promotions for the SES instead of merit, well…ever since Obama’s presidency.

By May 31, 2016, agencies with 20 or more SES positions were tasked with developing a plan “to increase the number of SES members who are rotating to improve talent development, mission delivery, and collaboration.” 

Obama’s other objective, other than securing more DEI employees, was to secure more loyal troops for the administration of his chosen successor, Hillary Clinton. Luckily, she then lost to Donald Trump. However, the increased number of SES employees, strengthening their stranglehold on government power and over the presidency, remained. 

As it turns out, the Justice Department includes those elite, highly paid bosses from the Senior Executive Service. So does the Department of Homeland Security, from which the SES also deploys personnel into the Secret Service. As does just about every agency in the US government. As of 2018, there were almost 8,000 SES employees.

The other important point about the SES is that the president has no role in choosing them; he can’t reassign them or fire them. The SES comprises the non-transparent group of managers and elites who run the country from within. They are the employees who quietly block, slow-walk, and defer presidential orders. What President Trump and Kash Patel might call the “deep state.” 

In effect, our democracy has been turned upside down while being captured by bureaucratic and corporate interests that endorse authoritarian policies – hence, we are now living under a system of “inverted totalitarianism.” The United States has been co-opted into a managed democracy, thanks to Carter and Obama. 

President Trump was stymied in his efforts to reform the government due to the SES cadre, and then he finally hit upon a solution.

That is an executive order known as “Schedule F,” which he signed in October 2020, just prior to leaving office. Biden canceled the Schedule F executive order on the first day of his presidency. 

This new employee classification system would have included federal workers in “confidential, policy-determining, policy-making, or policy-advocating character,” which are “not normally subject to change as the result of a presidential transition.”

The “Schedule F” executive order would have allowed agencies to reclassify policy jobs under a new employment schedule and had proposed to give senior managers greater flexibility in hiring candidates and firing employees. Hence, the SES employees would have functionally become “at-will” employees. At-will employment means that an employer can dismiss an employee for any reason, without having to establish “just cause” for termination, as long as the reason is not illegal. At-will employment is the law of the land in all states except Montana.

President Trump stated that this executive order would be reinstated on day one. 

But Not so Fast!

On January 22, 2021, shortly after taking office, President Biden repealed the Schedule F executive order. This action prevented Schedule F from being implemented, as it had not yet taken effect when Trump left office.

In September 2023, the Biden administration, through the Office of Personnel Management (OPM), began working on new regulations to make it difficult to reintroduce Schedule F policies.

On April 4, 2024, OPM issued a final rule aimed at stopping potential future attempts to implement Schedule F or something similar. This rule ensured that the new civil service job protections couldn’t be removed by reimplementing Schedule F.

However, all of these political machinations may come to naught.

Remember the Chevron Deference?

The Chevron deference was a key principle in U.S. administrative law for nearly 40 years, established by the Supreme Court in 1984 in Chevron U.S.A., Inc. v. Natural Resources Defense Council, Inc. It directed courts to defer to a federal agency’s reasonable interpretation of an ambiguous statute that the agency administers.

This doctrine significantly empowered federal agencies by giving them considerable leeway in interpreting and implementing ambiguous statutory provisions. It essentially allowed the administrative state to create laws without Congressional oversight.

However, in June 2024, the US Supreme Court overturned the Chevron doctrine in Loper Bright Enterprises v. Raimondo. The Court ruled that the Administrative Procedure Act requires courts to exercise their independent judgment in deciding whether an agency has acted within its statutory authority, and courts may not defer to an agency’s interpretation of the law simply because a statute is ambiguous. 

The end of Chevron Deference represents a major shift in administrative law, reducing the power of federal agencies and increasing judicial scrutiny of agency actions. One of the implications of the Chevron deference is the reduced power for federal agencies in interpreting laws. 

How Does This Affect Schedule F?

The Office of Personnel Management (OPM) may need to provide more robust justifications for its new policies regarding Schedule F, as it can no longer rely on the Chevron deference to support its interpretations of federal employment laws.

The truth is that as soon as President Trump implements Schedule F, the Senior Executives Association may challenge it in court, and the OPM will use its new rules to fight it tooth and nail.

Due to the Chevron deference, this legal fight may be aborted or short-circuited. Time will tell.

On the Legislative Side

In 2023, the House adopted an amendment to the annual defense authorization bill for 2023 that would prevent future administrations from reviving Schedule F or similar measures. However, during the reconciliation process between the House and Senate versions of the bill, the Schedule F ban was omitted from the final compromise version. The final version of the 2023 NDAA that was signed into law did not include the language banning future attempts at creating Schedule F, but Congress may pull those clauses out of the Democrat party’s bag of tricks at any time.

The easiest way out of this quandary in the long term is for Congress to amend the Civil Service Reform Act of 1978 to clarify the role of the SES employee and other employees within the federal government. This would be a permanent solution instead of a temporary bandaid.

Republished from the author’s Substack

President-elect Donald Trump's threat to impose a sweeping 25% tariff on all goods and services from Canada, aimed at pressuring the neighbors to the north to curb cross-border fentanyl and human smuggling, has thrown Prime Minister Justin Trudeau's government into a state of turmoil. 

Trade between Canada and the US is the largest of any two nations, with cross-border trade totaling $926 billion in 2023—roughly $2.5 billion daily. This dark tariff reality for Trudeau of not responding adequately to Trump's border security demand risks pushing Canada into an economic crisis. 

In response, the Canadian government unveiled a new border security plan on Wednseday, costing about a billion dollars to strengthen border security with the US. 

"President Trump is securing the border and he hasn't even taken office yet," Trump's transition team wrote in a news release, adding, "Facing an uproar among his own citizens ... embattled Prime Minister Justin Trudeau just announced a billion-dollar plan for major border security improvements and increased border patrols." 

The new border proposal outlines the deployment of drones, helicopters, and other advanced technologies along the 5,525-mile northern border.

Despite Wednesday's announcement, calls for Trudeau's resignation continue to mount, while his approval ratings implode. The longer far-left Trudeau remains in power, the more his popularity will erode, with citizens frustrated by his years of incompetence.  

David Asher, who previously led a Trump-era task force on fentanyl, commented on the border proposal. He appeared on CBC News Network earlier this week to share his insights.

Asher told the CBC News host that the new border proposal "looks rather unimpressive" and is a "drop in the bucket compared to what we actually need." 

Asher then segued the conversation, stating that his "concerns go well beyond the border," highlighting the expansion of fentanyl superlab production across Canada—much of which is destined for the US.

"US law enforcement has a lot of sources telling us - that not only the Mexican cartels are setting up operations in Canada - but also Chinese organized crime - and even Iranian organized crime..." 

He stated that all three organizations were tied into a massive bust in Vancouver of drugs and chemicals equal to more than 95 million pills. 

Asher said whoever was running that superlab in Vancouver had their eyes on the US market. 

"This has gotten to a point, with superlabs and super laundering networks and lack of super cooperation with the US, that these issues have irritated President Trump and others," Asher concluded. 

Watch David Asher, fellow at the Hudson Institute, tear a strip off Canada for its fentanyl super lab and organized crime problems.

Unimpressed with the limp plan on the border - no new dollars this year.

Critical of disclosure laws and Cameron Ortiz for leaking all of Five… pic.twitter.com/jvaB5vbNNZ

— cbcwatcher (@cbcwatcher) December 20, 2024

The question now is, will Canada's new border proposal be enough to satisfy Trump?

Chinese TP-Link routers, the best-selling ones on Jeff Bezos' Amazon, have been intensely scrutinized by US investigators due to links to multiple Chinese cyberattacks. This has prompted US officials to consider a potential ban on these routers, citing national security concerns. 

Sources familiar with investigations at the Commerce, Defense, and Justice departments told the Wall Street Journal that a nationwide ban on TP-Link routers could come as soon as next year. 

WSJ noted that the Shenzhen-based router manufacturer accounts for an alarming 65% of the US router market in homes and small businesses, adding, "It is also the top choice on Amazon.com, and powers internet communications for the Defense Department and other federal government agencies."

Sources told WSJ that some TP-Link routers shipped to the US have security flaws, and the company has resisted cooperating with security researchers to address the identified issues. 

In October, Microsoft published a report that revealed a Chinese hacking group had access to thousands of compromised TP-Link routers. 

"CovertNetwork-1658 specifically refers to a collection of egress IPs that may be used by one or more Chinese threat actors and is wholly comprised of compromised devices. Microsoft assesses that a threat actor located in China established and maintains this network. The threat actor exploits a vulnerability in the routers to gain remote code execution capability," the report explained.

When Microsoft published the report, TP-Link was already under scrutiny. In August, the House Select Committee on the Chinese Communist Party called for an investigation into TP-Link routers. 

In the letter to Secretary of Commerce Gina Raimondo, the lawmakers wrote, "TP-Link's unusual degree of vulnerabilities and required compliance with PRC law are in and of themselves disconcerting. When combined with the PRC government's common use of SOHO [small office/home office] routers like TP-Link to perpetrate extensive cyberattacks in the United States, it becomes significantly alarming." 

WSJ reported that Biden-Harris officials are exploring potential action against TP-Link in response to recent cyberattacks connected with China. The likely action could come during Trump's second term. 

The potential ban on TP-Link routers could mark the largest removal of Chinese tech from the US market since the Trump admin removed Huawei tech from America's infrastructure.

It might be a good time to check what type of router or mesh network you have before Trump takes office next month.

Authored by Turner Wright via CoinTelegraph.com,

Hailey Welch, the influencer behind the viral ‘Hawk Tuah’ TikTok video, has released a statement after a memecoin bearing her handle pumped and dumped quickly after its December launch.

In a Dec. 20 X post, Welch said she was “fully cooperating” with lawyers who represented investors in the Hawk Tuah (HAWK) token.

The crypto users filed a lawsuit against the project’s creators and partners - Welch herself was not named as a defendant in the suit - alleging they engaged in the promotion and sale of an unregistered securities offering.

A statement posted to X on Dec. 20. Source: Hailey Welch

On Dec. 4, the HAWK token launched, rising to a market capitalization of roughly $500 million before quickly dropping by 90%, prompting many users to speculate there had been a rug pull.

Welch called on anyone affected to contact lawyers, adding she took the situation “extremely seriously.”  

From TikTok stardom to memecoin promoter?

Welch, who rose to internet fame after a June clip of her describing a sexual act went viral on TikTok, has parlayed the incident into her Hawk Tuah nickname and brand.

Her likeness was used on the HAWK token, and she promoted the memecoin on social media.

According to blockchain data, one wallet sniped HAWK tokens shortly after the project launched, purchasing roughly 18% of the memecoin supply and then selling it for more than $1 million in profit.

Many of the memecoin’s investors, however, reported massive losses after the price pumped and dumped.

It’s unclear whether Welch or the project’s founders could face criminal or regulatory lawsuits in the United States as a result of the memecoin launch.

Under Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) Chair Gary Gensler, the regulator has treated the majority of tokens as securities under its purview. However, the SEC is set to change hands to Republican control beginning in January.