As we approach the end of 2025, the SOTT.net team would like to wish all our readers a merry Christmas and a happy new year. Truly, a happy new year! In the spirit of the holiday season, we ask once again that you consider making a donation to help keep SOTT.net running, in return for which you can select from the SOTT.net merchandise on offer below. We're 23 years old this year, and remain one of the oldest, truly independent, advert- and AI- and Big Interest-free news and commentary websites on the Internet!

You may have noticed that, in recent years, especially since Elon Musk bought Twitter and reversed its transformation into a mouthpiece for government propaganda, some of us SOTT.net editors have been active there. It's been interesting watching the evolution of political and social debate since Musk "freed the bird," but as Musk himself has discovered this past year, there are limits to free speech even he won't cross. And those limits are set by influences outside of his control.

When he "let that sink in" and began his overhaul of Twitter, now X, Musk articulated his goal of the platform becoming a "high signal-to-noise, one-stop shop for news and information," generating high user participation in "networking for the truth" and thus "YOU becoming the media!" A worthy goal, certainly, but it must contend with vested interests wielding enormous amounts of money and leveraging their influence through powerful government agencies to ensure compliance with THEIR version of "networking for the truth."

In her series "Conversations with Grok," published this year on her Substack Letters from the Edge of Reality, SOTT.net founder Laura Knight-Jadczyk interrogated Musk's "truth-seeking AI" to understand what these limitations are, why platforms like X have these 'blocks' through which truthful information seemingly cannot pass, and why it is that X has become an echo chamber - or rather, a legion of silos - where raging but futile dissent and discontent remains impotent in affecting events for the better. While mainstream CorpGov narratives are frequently successfully exposed as such on X, ultimately, X is not really a free speech platform. You (and thousands of others engaging with you) can solve any puzzle or 'truthify' any narrative, but as soon as your content takes off, controls kick in to ensure that your message's visibility to others is heavily limited. Ostensibly, you have free speech, but functionally, you're censored.

The development of social media over the last decade - from wild frontier to government-mandated corporate media takeovers under cover of "fact-checking fake news," to "freedom of speech, but not reach" - is reflected in the evolution of 'MAGA'. After surviving assassination attempts and winning handsomely in last year's election, Donald Trump had the mandate he needed to - as he promised repeatedly while campaigning - "dismantle the deep state." But that's not happening, and the frustration of seeing the popular will absorbed into 'business as usual' by the political class is so disappointing to (most of?) his base, that even Trump's most loyal MAGA congresswoman, Marjorie Taylor Greene, has announced she is resigning.

Coming into 2025, expectations were sky high. It was supposed to be glorious. Trump heralded his second term as "the beginning of America's golden age," and promised full transparency and justice for a long list of deep state crimes, and even dangled ideas of abolishing income tax and auditing Fort Knox. The political momentum behind "Trump's Avengers" was going to reduce consumer prices "starting on day one," bring justice for the regime's crimes against humanity in the forever-wars, the Covid bioweapons and pandemic-response tyranny, the deplatforming and mass censorship, and the stolen elections. Trump signed a record number of Executive Orders in his first 100 days. VP Vance flew into the Munich Security Conference and excoriated European leaders for supporting the cancellation of Romania's election and suppressing political dissent. The ungrateful Ukrainian dictator Zelensky was mauled in public by Vance and Trump in the Oval Office ("you don't have all the cards!"), and Trump spoke with Putin on the phone, the first such contact with the Russian leader in three years of the "S.M.O.," apparently making good on his promise to "end the Ukraine War."

But now, 11 months later, frustration with Trump from his own base over the affordability (cost-of-living) crisis, his erratic and frankly suspect handling of 'the Epstein Files', his obsequiousness towards the Israel lobby, his attacks against MAGA loyalists in Congress and the Senate, his apparent lack of interest in finding out what really happened to another loyalist, Charlie Kirk, and his sabre-rattling against Venezuela, has deflated all the exuberance and hope that life in the USA - and thus in the broader 'Pax Americana empire' - would drastically improve under Trump.

As always when it comes to expectations and Trump, the elephant in the room is a 'deep state' of ramified networks of permanent bureaucrats and oligarchs' corporate fiefdoms, entrenched interests with tentacles right across the West that work around the clock to outright block or subvert the actual enactment of Trump's electoral mandate. Two events last January now appear as 'shots across the bow' from the CIA, the main 'organizing power' behind the US presidency: the Los Angeles wildfires and the New Year's Day twin terror attacks in New Orleans and Las Vegas. The former, reminiscent in several respects of the 2003 Hawaii fires, was a terrifying demonstration of what the deep state can do and thus reminded everyone that, "if L.A. can burn, nowhere is safe." The latter, involving a Tesla Cybertruck exploding outside Trump Tower in Las Vegas, was a more pointed message to both Trump and Musk as they took office: "you can have some influence, but remember that we're in charge."

What we did get was D.O.G.E., Musk's "Department of Government Efficiency," with Trump authorizing Elon Musk to take a "chainsaw" to the federal government, and making savings, they claimed, of some $200 billion. D.O.G.E. disclosures also resulted in large parts of USAID being shut down, and around 15% of the entire US federal workforce being laid off. While we got a good laugh at hearing what US taxpayers' money was being thrown at in far-flung places, massive quantities of military aid continued pouring into Israel and Ukraine all year long, prolonging the wars that Trump inherited and vowed to end, one of them "within 24 hours." Despite the relative gutting of USAID, the constellation of Washington think-tanks and 'democracy NGOs' still maintains America's traditional global regime-change apparatus which tries to pressure "populist, Moscow-aligned" governments across Eurasia into changing course.

The demographic crisis in America, namely the flooding of the country with non-Americans, remains front and center in US politics. Illegal border crossings on the US-Mexico border have plummeted this year and so, in a sense, Trump finally got his 'wall'. But his promise to round up and deport tens of millions of illegal migrants from the US has proven trickier and so far hasn't resulted in deportation rates any higher than under Obama or Biden. This infuriates his base of course, but when the numbers of illegals are so high that there isn't even a reliably accurate figure for the true size of the US population, and when well-funded groups with powerful backing are actively disrupting Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), to the point of rioting in L.A. this summer, Trump risks worsening the situation, especially in Democrat-controlled cities. But his September fee hike to $100,000 for (legal) H1-B visas, followed by his Thanksgiving Day announcement that he would "permanently pause migration from all Third World Countries to allow the US system to fully recover" suggests Trump has not yet thrown in the towel on this core campaign promise.

A year on from Bashar al-Assad fleeing Damascus, in March and April the new regime cracked down on Assad loyalists among the coastal Alawites in an orgy of violence that left over a thousand dead, followed by clashes with Israeli-backed Syrian Druze south of Damascus. The Syrian civil war was declared over, but the former ISIS 'victors' are reduced to going cap-in-hand to Western governments while Israel continues routinely bombing Syrian military sites, and the US military still occupies Syria's northeastern oilfields. The irony of having the heir to ISIS - which he still insists he defeated in Syria - now rule over a ruined and fragmented country is apparently lost on Trump, who in November hosted the Western-backed president of Syria, Ahmed al-Sharaa, at the White House, where Trump showed off his Trump-branded cologne ("It's the best fragrance!") and agreed to lift all US sanctions on Syria - which, he said, he did at Israel's request. What a farcical yet fitting end to the 'global war on Muslim terror'.

On 2 April, a date he declared "Liberation Day," Trump launched his flagship plan to place tariffs on imports, with a view to generating $billions of income for the US government, equalizing or flattening America's trade imbalances with other countries, and stimulating growth in US-based industry and manufacturing. Has it worked as intended? As Trump might say, "who the hell knows?" It's too early to tell, but the mass confusion and frantic 'deal-making' it prompted, along with yo-yoing rates, ever-changing deadlines and expanding lists of exemptions, and the fact that the Chinese economy, arguably Trump's real 'target' here, grew by another 5% this year, suggest that his plan is faltering because the US is no longer really in a position to set the terms of global trade.

It's become clear over the course of 2025 that, for Trump, this is the only part of 'MAGA' that matters - from Trump's perspective, all else flows from minimizing US reliance on global supply chains in key sectors, and maximizing economic advantage for US firms by leveraging US military dominance - military dominance that he knows is, and will continue to be, eroded by the upward-trending military-technological development of peer competitors like Russia and China. When he refers to this being "America's golden age," he has in mind the "gilded age" of the late 19^th century, when President McKinley raised tariffs to 50%. Additionally, he prefers to address this 'imbalance' without resorting to warfare and minimizing civilian carnage (except in Gaza, because Israel remains the exception to this rule - more on that later).

On all other MAGA campaign promises - "dismantling the deep state," ending the wars, and not starting new ones, full disclosure on the JFK assassination, a real investigation into the attempted assassination(s) on Trump, the Epstein files, disclosure on that 2024 New Jersey 'UFO drones' flap, justice for victims of Covid tyranny, removal of mRNA 'clotshots' from the market, and ending H-1B visas - Trump is now ambivalent at best, or has completely flipped at worst. The tragedy of the situation is that the most Trump or any other Western leader can really do is 'manage the decline', not 'make America great'. Some of his 'major trade deals' this year have substance to them, but if you examine the details of many, there's nothing really there. For example, when the EU sought exemption from Trump's tariffs, the resulting 'best ever trade deal', saw EU chief bureaucrat Ursula Von Der Leyen 'promise' - to great fanfare at Trump's castle in Scotland - "$600 billion in EU investment in the US." But the EU doesn't even have the authority to sign investment commitments on behalf of either its member-states or private European companies, much less the funds to do so itself. Anyway, it would be some months - and a farcical 180-degree turn on 'the Epstein Files' - before Trump's reneging on many MAGA promises became clear.

Also in April, Trump gave the green-light to the Pentagon to launch stand-off strikes against Houthi targets (and tribal gatherings, and hospitals) in Yemen. It had been a year since the US-led Operation Prosperity Guardian began against the Houthis, whose brave stand against Israel's genocide of Palestinians has seen them successfully blockade the Red Sea to counter shipments to (and shipping interests owned by) Israel. But while Trump talked a good game ("The Houthis want peace because they're getting the hell knocked out of them!"), in reality - something completely censored by the Pentagon - the Houthis struck back, hard, hitting multiple US ships, including the USS Truman aircraft carrier, and possibly sinking a smaller vessel. By the end of April, even US media reports were acknowledging that US naval commanders were reluctant to enter the Red Sea, and Trump soon announced a 'ceasefire', saying the Houthis "showed a lot of bravery." As a result of the US backing down, shipping traffic has returned to around half what it was before the Houthis' blockade began last year, but not even the mighty USA could force the Houthis to stop blockading Israel-bound ships. It's a different world when even the poorest countries, if their leaders have guts and access to precision missiles, can humble the mighty.

At the end of April a brief but total power grid blackout occurred in Spain and Portugal. To this day, investigations haven't found the cause, but a report in October confirmed it was the first ever blackout caused by overvoltage. Although Spain's over-reliance on 'green', unstable solar power is most likely to blame, it's open as to whether 'someone' gave the Iberian power grid a 'push' - someone perhaps angry at the Spanish government's series of cancellations of weapons contracts with Israel and outspoken defence of Palestinians?

Also in late April, a terrorist attack by Pakistan-based group Lashkar-e-Taiba killed 26 Indian tourists in Pahalgam, Kashmir, sparked a brief war between India and Pakistan in early May, which the Pakistani government thanked Trump for ending shortly thereafter. We should mention that this terrorist attack came right after VP Vance had visited Indian PM Modi in New Delhi, and was India's deadliest attack since Mumbai in 2008, which was "masterminded" on behalf of Lashkar-e-Taiba by David Coleman Headley, a 'born-again jihadist' American-Pakistani heroin-smuggler who was moonlighting as a DEA informant. So did agents of the US, again, put out a fire they themselves started?

In early May a new pope was chosen following the death of Francis: Robert Francis Prevost, the first-ever American pope, and the first Anglophone pope in almost a millennium.

As the summer rolled around, Musk publicly clashed with Trump over the passage of the 'One Big Beautiful Bill' - comprising the core of Trump's tax and spending policies, and mega-handouts to vested interests. Musk described it as an "outrageous, pork-filled spending bill," and "a disgusting abomination," but was he really just upset because Trump wanted to cut government handouts for electric vehicles, thus affecting his Tesla company? Musk says no, his problem was with the resulting increase in US government debt, rendering all savings made by D.O.G.E. a mere drop in the ocean. Musk's parting shot at Trump, that his name is "in the Epstein Files" foreshadowed trouble.

On April 12th, Trump initiated negotiations with the government of Iran to reach "a nuclear peace agreement" and replace the JCPOA deal he himself had torn up in his first term. He also issued Iran with a 60-day ultimatum. No one thought much of it at the time and figured this clause was just Trump doing his 'art of the deal'. In the meantime, rumors were spreading of a 'rift' between Trump and Netanyahu, strongly implying that the US and Israeli governments were clashing over these peace talks. But this turned out to be a ruse. In the background, the US and Israel were cooperating to launch a sneak attack against Iran.

Publicly, Trump was touring the Gulf states, declaring in Riyadh an end to American "nation-building" and praising rich Arabs for "getting rich the Arabian way" - a way that is and always has been dependent on the US' massive military footprint in the region, which was underscored here by Trump signing major weapons and hi-tech 'deals' worth almost half a trillion dollars. Trump also acknowledged, for the first time, that Gazans were being starved to death by Israel.

On 13 June, Israel 'unilaterally' launched Operation Rising Lion against Iran, with Israel bombing military and nuclear facilities, and assassinating senior military leaders, nuclear scientists and even politicians. Launched from jets that flew unhindered over Syria, Jordan and Iraq, Israel also killed around 1,000 Iranian civilians in their 'targeted strikes'. As Iran fired back at Israel, in waves of missile strikes against military, energy, and government sites, Israel moved in for the kill, narrowly missing a successful 'decapitation strike' against Iran's Supreme Leader and president. Clearly, Israel intended 'regime change', and expected Iranians to 'rise up' and 'finish the job'. But Iranians, of course, overwhelmingly rallied in defense of their country. US missile interceptors stationed across the region took out most of what was thrown at Israel, and Israel's heavy media censorship protected Israeli 'prestige' from reports showing the Iranian damage done to Israel, but we nonetheless observed dozens of videos uploaded to social media showing the largest-ever strikes on Israel.

As quickly as it began, Trump put an end to this 'war', with B-2 stealth bombers dropping bunker-buster bombs on Iran's Fordow and Natanz nuclear facilities, then declared - on his Truth Social account, of course! - that Israel and Iran had agreed to a ceasefire - which was news to the Iranian government - and that Iran's nuclear program was dead and buried and the "12 Day War over! GOD BLESS THE WORLD!" The Iranians, however, got one last 'counter-strike' in, successfully hitting the American communications radome at their Al Udeid Air Base in Qatar. Netanyahu obviously wasn't done either, so when he sent Israeli jets back towards Iran, Trump publicly rebuked him and said, "they [Israel and Iran] don't know what the f**k they're doing!"

Now, which is more likely: Trump really believes Iran was "weeks away from having a nuclear bomb" and thus agreed to facilitate an Israeli attack against Iran to delay or even destroy such an outcome? Or Trump knows the Israelis have greater designs on the Middle East, which includes regime change and likely chaos in Iran, and he went along with the Israelis but only as far as "ending Iran's nuclear program," and thus succeeded in preventing a longer, wider war that would have required far heavier US involvement?

Whatever the case, it's clear to us that, no matter how cosy Trump seems with Israel, the Israelis are paranoid that Trump's implicit acknowledgement of the emergence of 'a multipolar world order' - demonstrated by his obsession with rebuilding American industry, reducing American dependence on foreign markets for key resources and technologies, and refocusing Washington's 'geopolitical outlook' onto its near-abroad - will, sooner or later, see the US draw down its heavy military presence in the Middle-East. In short, the Israelis are paranoid they will one day be 'cut loose', and they have thus spent the last three years 'going for broke', seeking the destruction of the 'axis of resistance' in the Middle East and a 'final solution' to their 'Palestinian problem'.

But this nuance didn't translate into intelligent public discourse back home, where the war ignited major discussion on the Right about US 'undying support for Israel', which underwent a phase shift from 'fringe topic' to national debate, and fuelled 'the great noticing', wherein, really for the first time ever, the very nature of America's symbiotic (or parasitic?) relationship with Israel was being questioned in a big way. Turbo-charging the issue was the re-emergence of 'the Epstein files', which Trump suddenly began claiming was "a Democrat hoax."

Back on 21 February, AG Pam Bondi assured us that the Epstein Files are "sitting on my desk right now to review. That's been a directive by President Trump." Trump himself said on 22 April that, "100% of all of these documents are being delivered," and Bondi said earlier in March that the public would "get the full Epstein files," and that "everything's going to come out to the public." Clarifying that the Trump administration understood the potential for the files to contain information that would seriously incriminate some of the powerful people Epstein associated with, Bondi said as late as 7 May that the information in the files included "tens of thousands of videos of Epstein with children or child porn."

But then, on 18 May, FBI Director Kash Patel and his deputy Dan Bongino, two men who rode their 'MAGA dissident' podcast fame into cabinet positions in Trump's government on the back of heavy 'Epstein conspiracy theorizing', including pushing for disclosure of the Epstein files, appeared on TV to state sheepishly that they'd looked into Epstein's prison 'death' in 2019 and now agreed that Epstein killed himself. By early June, Musk, in his social media break-up with Trump, claimed Trump was informed in May that he's named in the files, and hence the u-turn, clearly insinuating that Trump himself 'liaised with minors'. The next day, Patel went on Joe Rogan's podcast to lower expectations, saying, "We're gonna give you everything we can," and contradicting Bondi's video evidence claim by stating he's seen nothing incriminating in videos retrieved from Epstein's island.

In July, the Dept of Justice published an unsigned memo affirming that "Epstein killed himself, there is no Epstein client list," and that no further disclosure of materials will be made. Trump, when asked about this reversal, feigned disinterest, telling reporters, "Are you guys still talking about Jeffrey Epstein? I can't believe you're asking a question on Epstein at a time like this!" and spent the next two months shutting down questions about it by referring to it as "a Democrat hoax."

Fast-forward to today, and Trump has signed into law the Epstein Files Transparency Act, requiring disclosure, by Christmas, of "all information from federal investigations into Epstein," except such related to "active criminal investigations," or those "deemed to invade personal privacy." And, as we'll likely see, those exceptions can be used to redact a lot of lines on a page. But the question lingering over this 180-degree turn as it weaved through US domestic politics all summer long is: why did Trump foolishly attempt to dismiss the topic only to wind up, seemingly against his will, caving in to disclosure?

The 'mini-disclosures', by the House Oversight Committee in October, certainly don't flatter Trump, and the media's sensationalization of their contents support the point Trump was apparently trying to make during the summer: the Epstein files have been, or have the potential to be, 'weaponized' against him, and thus overshadow his second term - as Russiagate did during his first term - because the documents number in the millions, and no one knows the full chain of custody for all sets of files through dozens of criminal and civil cases dating back 20 years.

Trump's wacky handling of the issue since June, in the context of the growing public debate about Israel's influence in (and over) all branches of the US government, has only 'confirmed' suspicions that Trump has something to hide. But perhaps it's not that Trump is 'one of them', a degenerate elitist who "likes 'em young," as he once said of his old pal Epstein. The real reason this Epstein thing is so explosive is that it threatens to expose the decades-long Israeli and American intelligence agencies' blackmail of American (and other) elites. Trump's reluctance to come clean on the Epstein files is due to his awareness of the power of this 'deep state' and the repercussions he may experience - including another assassination attempt on him or his family members - if he were to cross one of their 'red lines'.

The impact of all of this are readily apparent within his own party and support base. Observe, for example, the recent rise in popularity of far-right commentator Nicholas Fuentes, who has pilloried Trump all year long "for putting Israel, not America, first." House Speaker Mike Johnson called an early summer recess for Congress just to avoid Representative Thomas Massie forcing a vote on releasing the Epstein files. Massie spent that recess teaming up with Democrat Rep. Ro Khanna to initiate a discharge petition, which allows regular members of Congress to bring a vote to the House, provided they acquire a minimum of 218 signatures.

They were at 217 signatures, which included MAGA Republicans Massie, Greene, Boebert and Mace, when Speaker Johnson cited the government shutdown as reason for delaying the swearing-in of Adelita Grijalva, a Democrat congresswoman for Arizona elected by special election following the death of the incumbent, her father, earlier in the year. Sure enough, she signed onto the petition with her fellow Democrats, who no doubt believe the media hype that releasing the Epstein files will damage Trump more than all of Epstein's Democrat friends. This triggered the House vote in November that Trump then urged Republicans to vote for, and the Epstein Files Act passed almost unanimously.

Why the change of mind? Trump still insists it's all a "Democrat Hoax perpetrated by Radical Left Lunatics in order to deflect from the Great Success of the Republican Party," and his vehement resistance to disclosure, to the point of repeatedly attacking his most loyal MAGA congressmen as "low-lifes, traitors and weaklings," for the first time leaves Trump clearly on the opposite side to the people. He has lost a months-long battle, during which he endorsed the campaign to unseat Massie in next year's mid-term elections, and into which Israel First billionaire donors like Miriam Adelson are sinking up to $20 million. The episode has so shaken Marjorie Taylor Greene, his most loyal supporter in Congress, that she has announced her resignation because "our government is broken beyond repair."

While the merger of domestic politics with Israeli special interests - or rather, the exposure of that state of affairs - drove Trump nuts at home, in early August he quietly brokered another 'big optics' meeting, this time with Vladimir Putin. Their meeting in Alaska was brief, and, while the NATO-Russia proxy war in Ukraine grinds on to its inevitable conclusion of Russia achieving its goals, having the Russian president land on American territory may yet yield an 'early' end to the conflict and a genuine, long-term 'reset' between the US and Russia. While his optimism in this regard depends on which day of the week Trump is posting on his social media platform, all year long both Russian and American officials have generally remained upbeat about the prospects for genuine peace.

The problem comes, as we saw on multiple occasions in 2025, when the Euro leaders (the UK's Starmer included) immediately insert themselves into the situation and 'demand' - "on Ukraine's behalf" - that their version of 'peace' be enacted. And their version of 'peace' is, in fact, another forever-war. Lacking popular mandates at home, they all rely on the maintenance of European Union cohesion and the backing of powerful banking and industrial donors, along with gimmicks like 'Russian drones stalking Europe'. They are determined that Ukraine join the EU and NATO, while Russia is determined that Ukraine does not. They cannot force their will on the battlefield, where Russia continues winning. And so they lobby Trump hard to maintain US involvement. And even refer to him as "daddy."

Do they really believe their own propaganda about this war? That Russia is losing more men than Ukraine, and that its economy is suffering accordingly? Because the truth they're hiding, or won't admit, is that the ratio of Ukrainian to Russian deaths is closer to 15-1, in Russia's favour. All year long, the numbers of bodies exchanged by each side has told the true story. The European media space has become so uniform, sclerotic and paranoid, with the Euro regime upholding mass censorship of the Russian perspective (and anything that smacks of being "pro-Russia"), along with increasing rates of targeted arrests for 'WrongThink'. Euro leaders' ambitions become ever more delusional, warning citizens that "we too will be at war with Russia by 2030," while floating ideas of sending NATO troops into 'our' western Ukraine.

In the end, however, this is all one great big grift to maintain the myth of Putin's Russia being 'our' external enemy, which they need in order to suppress political dissent at home, while redirecting taxpayer money towards the beneficiaries of government largesse: select, international, military-industrial companies. Euro leaders' priorities are clear when you examine France, which has seen 5 prime ministers come and go in less than 2 years, and its paralyzed parliament cannot pass a budget because Macron wants to drastically slash social spending and shift the savings towards military spending.

Meanwhile, Eurasian integration and the tectonic shift in the global balance of power from West to East continues apace, with both Chinese and Russian freight ventures opening new train routes to Iran. All three countries were front and center at the Shanghai Cooperation Organization summit in China in early September, along with India's Modi, seen chuckling with Xi and Putin. This set off bouts of hand-wringing among Western leaders who are wondering why their schemes to keep India and China apart have apparently failed, while Trump said, "Looks like we've lost India and Russia to deepest, darkest, China." The subsequent optics of the gargantuan military parade in Beijing, commemorating the 80^th anniversary of the end of WW2, was attended by 28 world leaders, and brought together Putin, Xi and Kim for the first time. (Compare and contrast with Trump's sad July 4^th military parade in DC, an event best forgotten!) The optics of that event also irked Trump, who messaged Xi via Truth Social: "Please give my warmest regards to Vladimir Putin, and Kim Jong Un, as you conspire against the USA." Putin laughed it off and responded graciously that no one present had a bad word to say about the American president.

Also in early September, the US Department of Defense was rebranded as the Department of War. Which is what it used to be called, before WW2, and which is symbolically interesting in light of 'global Pax Americana' ending, or receding, as multipolarity advances. Critics lampooned the move, as they did Trump's 'renaming' of the Gulf of Mexico to the Gulf of America, and his half-joking sabre-rattling towards Canada and Greenland earlier in the year, but they again miss the strategic point of Trump's 'aggressive posturing' towards his near-abroad: Trump's government is tacitly acknowledging the objective reality of emergent global multipolarity that heralds the end of US hegemony in favor of 'regional spheres of influence'.

Which brings us to 'our' Venezuela. Trump's missile strikes against 'narco-terrorists' in the Caribbean, beginning in September, along with a major build-up of US military forces right off Venezuela's coast, are obviously not about 'stopping drug-smuggling'. This is such a fig-leaf, many US officials have come right out and said that what they really want to see is "Maduro gone!" Venezuela has the world's largest oil reserves, and yet most people don't associate it with the rich Arab oil states. That's because its oil fields remain mostly untapped due to decades of stringent US sanctions, imposed because, for 25 years, Venezuelan governments have refused to kowtow to Washington DC. Hugo Chavez came to power on the promise of developing his country into the rich oil state it properly ought to be, with the proceeds being enjoyed by the whole population rather than an ultra-rich few. That local oligarchy has, ever since, worked hand in glove with the CIA to attempt to 'regime change' Venezuela back to where it was before 1999. And they've thrown everything at it: multiple color revolutions, election-rigging, assassination attempts (and probably succeeding with Chavez, who died of aggressive cancer), currency manipulation, sanctions, and blockades... and even just parachuting in a pretender and declaring him the country's new leader!

But Nicholas Maduro, Chavez's popular successor, has stood firm. Maduro even likes Trump, and the two cooperated earlier this year to release American 'POWs' (CIA mercenaries who'd been busted in Venezuela conducting black ops). We know that Maduro recently reached out to Trump and offered him 'maximum cooperation' in order to avoid war, to which Trump responded, "that's because he knows not to f**k with America." So what is Trump's beef with Maduro? Why can't he just 'make great deals' with him and free US multinationals to extract and refine Venezuelan oil, generating a 'win-win' for both countries? Because, in the meantime, while the US spent decades keeping Venezuela's oil 'in reserve', Chinese and Russian firms have been answering Caracas' calls and stepping in to develop their fields. And selling the Venezuelans lots of weapons. And so here we are, in something of a replay of the Cuban Missile Crisis of 1963, Trump wants to 'muscle them out' of 'our backyard'.

On this topic, it's difficult to separate Trump from the CIA 'one-worlders'. Trump genuinely thinks funding coups and 'nation-building' the whole world over is insane, but when it comes to Latin America, he is of one mind with the old order. Their synchrony was evident when Trump, practically demanded that he be awarded this year's Nobel Peace Prize, but was overlooked in favor of María Machado, the CIA's chosen 'leader of Venezuela's political opposition'. Still, a war on Venezuela is far from the common understanding Trump's supporters had of how to deal with their country's chronic addiction to hard drugs. The well-informed know that the only real 'clear and present danger' to the USA in that respect are the cartels in Mexico and their unholy alliance with American intelligence agencies.

The single most demoralizing event for the MAGA faithful this year was undoubtedly the brutal open-air assassination of political activist, right-wing influencer and Trump 'youth advisor', Charlie Kirk. The official story of what happened to him is obviously bogus, and most people don't believe it. We don't think he was hit by a sniper's bullet at all. Rather, his lapel mic was specially rigged with shaped charge that pierced his neck and instantly killed him. This would have been triggered remotely, synchronized with actual (though perhaps blank) bullet(s) being fired to produce the gunshot sound(s) and mask the true weapon. If someone from among his security detail could arrange for this mic to be placed on him, then they could also remove what was left of it afterwards, ensuring an 'untraceable' professional hit.

As to motive, well, 'the internet' figured that out pretty quickly. Almost immediately, in fact. While the feds spent 3 days getting their narrative and patsy lined up, anons online rapidly pieced together convincing contextual evidence that Kirk was undergoing a transformation that would see him 'divorce' from 'The American Church of Latter Day Judeo-Christians', by which we mean the contemporary capture of American Christians into uncritical, unthinking support for Israel, no matter what it, and the US military on its behalf, does. In short, Kirk was beginning to think.

Now, this is not to say that it's simply that 'the Israeli government killed Kirk' - although its prime minister didn't allay suspicions by immediately and strongly signalling Kirk's 'undying love for Israel' and not once but TWICE declaring that Israel did not kill Kirk! "The guilty flee when none pursue." As influential as Kirk may have been, he was not as influential as Trump and other MAGA leaders. Kirk was killed in part because of his potential to damage the US-Israel alliance, should he have continued using his organization's platform to give voice to others who are also 'noticing' a whole lot. But he was also killed for the purpose of generating the very effect his murder had: to inflame Left-Right tensions, give the 'Culture War' a boost, and thereby dampen populist Left-Right conciliation against the American oligarchy and its entrenched 'deep state' structures. Finally, 'paging' Kirk with a 'special device' to his throat was also a way to 'send a message' to others with similar potential to use their voices to bring truths to the masses - not least, Tucker Carlson and Candace Owens, now among the most popular podcasters anywhere.

So go ahead and say 'Israel did it', but don't pretend that Israel can commandeer Egyptian government jets to bring assassins and intelligence operatives - via Paris - into sensitive US air bases to "rid ourselves of this troublesome priest" without the US side of that alliance - which dwarfs Israel's in size - not only knowing about it and approving it, but perhaps even commissioning the deed. The 'deep state' spans both countries, and no amount of 'noticing' can account for the wilful participation of non-Jews in conspiracies against the American people, and wider humanity.

Part of the reason 'Israel' was most people's 'go-to' when Kirk was taken out was because, in just 3 days leading up to it, Israel had bombed 6 different countries: Gaza, of course, but also Lebanon, Syria, Tunisia, Qatar and Yemen. They actually took out the latter's prime minister during that bombing run. In Qatar they attempted to take out the Hamas negotiating team responding to Trump's pressure to release all remaining Israeli hostages in Gaza. In Tunisia, they droned several of the boats on the Global Sumud Flotilla, a valiant effort by hundreds of volunteer activists - the indomitable Greta Thunberg among them - to bring humanitarian relief to Gaza in the largest civilian-led convoy of its kind ever.

So Israel was kind of on everybody's minds when Kirk was assassinated, as it had been, with increasing intensity, all year long. Americans could not fail to notice Netanyahu's four visits to Washington DC, his "7-war front" that necessitated the US bombing Iran, evidence all over social media that Israel is using starvation as a weapon of war against Palestinians, and the lengths to which the political and media class were going to in order to obscure the truth that Jeffrey Epstein worked for Israeli intelligence.

And this 'great noticing' of the vile things done by and for Israel, and in the name of religion no less, will continue no matter how much influence Zionist billionaires buy and wield. The nauseating theatrics surrounding Trump's 'Gaza Peace Plan' during his October visit to Israel and Egypt, in which he declared "everlasting peace" and gathered signatures and empty pledges, stand in stark contrast to the reality of an ongoing holocaust that won't stop until Israel is stopped. But who will stop Israel? Not even those sympathetic to the Palestinians seem to grok the scale of what has taken place in Gaza: the likely true death toll at this point is one million people. Not only has Israel since breached the 'ceasefire' hundreds of times, it has shrunk the arbitrary 'yellow line' demarcating the supposed withdrawal of Israeli forces from its 'kill zone', squeezing the remaining population into an area barely half size of the original Strip.

Charlie Kirk tried to warn Trump that he was hemorrhaging support for Israel among American youth, and that this issue would translate into a perception shift that could ruin Trump's legacy and end the 'unbreakable alliance' in future elections. The deep state obviously sees that coming too, and so Zionist and 'Christian' organizations are resorting to desperate measures - just name-calling and vague threats for now - to hold back the tide. Historically, Israel has dealt with dissent among Palestinians through campaigns of targeted assassinations, for which it needed to provoke Palestinians into committing to the path of armed resistance in order to justify militarized state repression. If this murderous method of 'governing the natives' should be transplanted into US government 'counter-insurgency' strategy, perhaps an American 'intifada' is in the cards?

Earth Changes are upon us

As we've always maintained, the climate and the very planet itself, over time, generally reflect the state of human affairs. And the state of human affairs, as we've seen above, is parlous to say the least. Those of you following our monthly Earth Changes Video Summaries are surely noting the recurrence of 'record-breaking' flooding - sometimes highly localized, sometimes widespread and regional - in the very locations where records were only recently broken. This past summer saw the highest number of flood warnings issued nationwide by the US National Weather Service since it began doing so 4 decades ago. Thailand is currently experiencing "1-in-300-year" flooding, and that's just one event within a larger series of extreme rainfall events right across southeast Asia in October and November.

Earth's climate is a complex system of course, so many factors are in play. The Global Warmists are correct when they say heat is a major factor behind increasing weather extremes, but they're either missing or downplaying the source of this extra heat: it's coming from within the planet, and this is disrupting ocean-atmosphere circulation cycles to produce 'marine heatwaves'. We saw one in the Mediterranean during the summer, and now in the waters off southeast Asia. So yes, extreme heat events are on the rise, but no, this doesn't mean human CO₂ emissions are causing them. 'Global warming' is part of the human experiential cycle it seems. Thus the 'quickening' in chaotic geopolitical events and downward social trends is reflected in increasing climate and terrestrial extremes, and the primary cause for both is heating from within the planet.

What in turn causes the planet to heat up is undoubtedly even more complex but the answer most likely involves core-mantle dynamics, the planet's interaction with the Sun, and the Sun's interaction with comets (and other bodies out there?). Our Sun has been 'acting up' of late - a lot. Back in 2015, scientists were predicting that solar cycle 25, like 24 before it, would be relatively weak in terms of sunspot activity and thus solar flares and geomagnetic storms affecting Earth. But as we hit the peak of cycle 25 this year, solar activity has been much stronger, and stranger, than predicted. In early and mid-November Earth took a direct hit from multiple coronal mass ejections (CMEs) resulting from a string of 6 X-class solar flares, including two of X5.1 and X4, the strongest yet in this cycle, and which caused geomagnetic storms, spectacular auroras and strong radio blackouts over Africa and Europe.

We suspect that the proximate cause for this recent intense space weather is Comet 3I/Atlas. Classified as an "interstellar comet" and discovered only in July, Atlas continues to 'amaze' astronomers as it travels around the Sun. For some bizarre reason, the media decided to amplify one Harvard astronomer's 'joke' theory that it is in fact an alien mothership disguised as a comet. Perhaps if they actually paid attention to the interaction between Atlas and the Sun, they'd be less 'mystified' by why Atlas 'suddenly sprouted a tail', and a 'sunward spike'. In line with Professor James McCanney's 'plasma discharge comet model', the Sun began 'acting up' right when Atlas approached it, 'discharging' the Sun and causing it to send gargantuan plasma eruptions not just in Earth's direction, but also in the comet's direction, which altered its trajectory. This is the action-at-a-distance capability of comets that is STILL completely ignored by the mainstream - even as the comet visibly, in real time, caused the Sun's mass ejections and geomagnetic storms here on Earth!

In October 2019, astronomers announced that Saturn had 20 new moons, bringing the total amount of Saturn moons to 82. In 2023, they discovered 62 more, bringing the total to 145. And in March this year, another 128. Officially, it's now 274 moons! These are not really 'moons' of course, these are space rocks recently captured into Saturn's orbit. Sure, some of them may become actual moons one day, but their real significance is that they almost certainly indicate an increase in comets and cometary debris reaching the inner solar system.

Media messaging constantly reassures that we've nothing to worry about from cometary debris here on Earth, but try telling that to the three Chinese astronauts left temporarily stranded when 'space junk' recently hit their return capsule, or the pilot who was forced to divert to Salt Lake City when the cockpit of his United Airlines plane was peppered with micro-meteorites somewhere over Moab, Utah. The risk of 'direct hits' from space rocks remains statistically small, but Airbus recently recalled thousands of its A320 planes for software upgrades following the discovery that the intense radiation from recent solar storms likely caused the onboard computer system of an A320 JetBlue en route from Cancun, Mexico to Newark, New Jersey, to malfunction, suddenly sending the aircraft plunging, injuring 15 passengers and requiring an emergency landing in Florida.

The world ain't ending, but it's sure headed for turbulence, so buckle up and enjoy the ride!

Support SOTT.net in 2026

We editors want to thank you again for your continued support of SOTT.net, which still refuses corporate advertising and sponsorship, achieving its objectives solely via its own resources and reader donations. This is how we keep this website, the monthly Earth Changes videos, the MindMatters and NewsReal podcasts all going, and try to provide you with as objective a picture of the global reality as possible - day in, day out, (for 23 years now!) through the diligent efforts of dozens of volunteer editors around the globe. Any and all 'advertisements' you see on our sites are either ads for our own products, which directly support our work, or our non-commercial support for others engaged in the fight against lies, corruption and the general 'ponerization' of our world.

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2026 SOTT Merch

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A thousand thanks, dear readers, and let's continue shining the light for as long as we can.

God bless you, Merry Christmas, and a very Happy New Year!