Elerond

Underlined are either done or started

Taking hostages is strategy that is doomed to fail so releasing hostages is would be best option for Hamas, but I don't think that it can prevent war from continuing, but unlike keeping hostages, releasing hostages would increase pressure of other countries to intervene.

Both Hamas military and political wings have presence in West Bank and they actively commit strikes against Israel from West Bank, but they aren't in control in West Bank and their support there is many times lesser than it is in Gaza, but thousands come to celebrate and welcome Hamas soldiers that Israel freed to West Bank in exchange of hostages in Gaza (with caveat that Israel quite freely names Palestinians as members of Hamas when they prison them). Also many Israel's actions in West Bank don't have anything to do with Hamas, but are just Israel taking more land to themselves. But overall hostage taking by Hamas has caused worst tragedy in history of Israel and Palestine and has lead more deaths than all previous conflicts together and current Israeli leadership has welcomed the opportunity with open arms.

First they say Money Laundering and Asset Forfeiture. The Criminal Division's Money Laundering and Asset Recovery Section shall prioritize investigations, prosecutions, and asset forfeiture actions that target activities of Cartels and TCOs. Task Force KleptoCapture, the Department's Kleptocracy Team, and the Kleptocracy Asset Recovery Initiative, shall be disbanded. Attorneys assigned to those initiatives shall return to their prior posts, and resources currently devoted to those efforts shall be committed to the total elimination of Cartels and TCOs. then they remove resources from investigating main form of money laundering https://news.bloomberglaw.com/us-law-week/bondis-day-one-corporate-crime-memos-rattle-white-collar-bar I predict that this works as well as war on drugs, US prison industry will be the main benefactory and cartels continue to exist as long as people are willing to pay billions and billions each year for drugs. World Wide drug problem will just get worse as western countries are cutting their foreign aid and trade wars loom and cause economic uncertainty that will hit hardest towards poor. World is full of chemicals that lets people lose their sorrows for minute and more there is misery more there is demand for relief.

Even though things are credited for Trump, truth is that whole republican party supports them and as republicans control both senate and house, majority of state governments, and federal courts are full of republican picked judges, there is wide support for everything that is happening. Republicans just like to hide behind Trump's back.

https://www.canada.ca/en/public-safety-canada/news/2024/12/the-government-of-canadas-border-plan-significant-investments-to-strengthen-border-security-and-our-immigration-system.html Maybe calling head of new task force as fentanyl czar was what US needed more from Canada so that they know that they are serious in their commitment

But nothing was done to it? Mexico and Canada promised to do what they already promised for Biden and US only postponed tariffs start day not redacted them. This theater seem more like distraction from Musk taking over USAID and US treasury and at the end tariffs will put in place because new republicans like them because they think they worked in 1800s

one would think he and his team gets presidential pardon for all crimes they may have committed. And in future all presidents will have their task forces that can do anything regardless what law says and no one can charged because everyone gets blank pardon against all possible crimes they could be accused of committing. In other news tariffs for Canada were canceled as they promised to implement their border plan that they already had decided to do in December, so victory for Trump????

EU car issue is that countries decided to stop subsidizing buying new cars, because it was seen as supporting rich people and when you combine it with increasing energy prices especially in Germany, it create situation where European car makers were producing expensive cars that people didn't have money to buy which was already problem them and then Chinese manufactures started to increase their imports thanks to subsidies that they receive from their government. So EU was in hard place where they had with their actions caused their car manufactures be in bad competitive situation and they can't even give subsidies because they are currently unpopular, so tariffs were only way to ensure that Chinese producers can't take much of market when European manufactures adjust, as most of them already have cheaper electric cars in their pipelines, but for most they are coming out 2026 or 2027. So in EU case tariffs were specific to answer in specific problem. In US case tariffs are general, which effect is harder to predict, but they most likely will not help US that much as their manufactures supply lines rarely are just in US and as Mexico, Canada and China are not just their biggest trading partners but main suppliers for many products that US manufactures use, tariffs will most likely cause need to increase prices of products produced in US also, not only imported products. And as US workforce is expensive and tariffs aren't universal, companies will move their manufacturing facilities in countries that aren't targeted by tariffs. Chinese companies have in past moved their production in countries like Vietnam when Chinese products are targeted with tariffs. And some companies do virtual moves to US, like Mercedes that circled US tariffs by having facility in US where they shipped cars manufactured in Germany in parts and they had single robot line that put them together in US and claimed that they were build in US.

Successful marketing where they blame issues to some population that isn't really blame of those issues, but it is easier to sell than trying to tell that in past we have collected too little pension money, which now causes issues because population does not grow but gets older causing increase of both pension and health service expenses And failure to increase value of goods and services that we export, causing problems when it comes to increasing salaries in such extend that inflation has started to eat people's purchasing power. Failure to act on research about changing climate in past 50 years, which has lead to need to try find fast ways to fix infrastructure and policies that are designed to different kind of climate Failure to understand we can't lean single supplier in important products like fertilizers, gas and oil. Failure to see that tying large parts of economy to few big companies is as dangerous if not even more dangerous than tying it to public sector, because it both makes difficult to refocus economy if there is global issue and people's livelihood is tied to entity which they don't have any say over. Failure to see that we need to invest to future not pump billions and billions to sectors that are dying, even if that would cause short term problems. Failure to understand that short term gains from privatizing public infrastructure will lead to monopolies that will cause issues Failure to ensure bureaucracy of people immigrating to work does not prevent creation of jobs and cause people to go else where. System where seeking asylum is easiest way to get residence but with prohibition to work, will lead situation where migrants are see only as burden. Failure to create rules to prevent tax havens, unchecked imports, equal postal fees, need to have same standards for imported goods than domestically produced goods have, have same refund rules for imported goods than domestic goods, have equal tariffs. Failure to have coherent clear foreign policies that are same for all and lots of other issues.

Migration crisis in Finland happened when right wing parties were in government, they failed miserably to handle it. Then left wing government rise to power and rightwing opposition constantly complained about migration crisis and illegal migration even though it was minimal because of covid restrictions, but right wing parties succeeded to win election with their agenda. And now they are looking how to migrate more people in Finland for work force and same time their poorly executed spending cuts have caused domestic demand to drop two digit numbers which has caused massive layoffs and record high unemployment. So are you sure that right wing parties are getting election victories because how migration crisis has been handled?

Considering that COVID vaccines are now some of the most distributed vaccines in world and their long term side effects are close to zero still, but people still are spreading claims that they killed millions of people, caused lots of long term side effects like infertility, miscarriages etc. without proof and same time demanding proof that they work, even with dozens of studies showing that they work at least on short term. So I am quite sure that those people see only things that they feel to prove their claims and anything proving something else is just lies by lizard people

Abortion right was based on constitution until it was not. Supreme court has made lot of decision in history what constitution actually means. What will people do if they decide that interpret this clause to mean that if person's parent's aren't US citizens then the baby is not subject of US jurisdiction and therefore they aren't US citizens All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside.

United States v. Wong Kim Ark was 6-2 decision, so there are ways to see that it is constitutional even by judges in supreme court

Considering that he was able to create legally enforceable rule with his executive order that court had to suspend speaks says something else. Still government lawyers are arguing in courts that order is justified using tax payers money to do so and arguing that states don't have right to challenge the ruling because they aren't party in the ruling. I would also point that they were aware that it will be challenged in courts and they count on supreme court to change how 14th Amendment is interpret as they appointed their judges there in Trump's last term. Meaning that they think that supreme court will rubberstamp their orders. Another thing they are doing is to put out n+1 executive orders so courts too busy to handle them all, which give them ability to do what they want. And they hope that people see temporal suspension of one of the orders as win as mark that checks and balances are working, without releasing that they have already appointed lots of judges, congress is in their pocket and best that people can expect from them is to pretend that nothing is wrong and worse they will do their best prevent anything that could hinder their new ruler.

At first day in office they declared end of birthright citizenship, which is constitutional right in USA So that seem to be something that can only be done in authoritarian state where constitution is irrelevant

https://open.who.int/2024-25/contributors/contributor Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation contributes about same amount as USA and is second largest contributor. Interesting tidbit is that based on voluntary contribute percentages, Somalia (0.38%) contributes more than China (0.32%), South Africa (0%), Russia (0.17%) and Brazil (0%) combined. WHO's budget is bit over 6.5 billion dollars, so quite big sunk of the countries would be able to handle it alone without massive problems.

US presidential election is not democratic by design. It was designed to protect state rights. Every state has their own rules for voting (like who are eligible to vote, how to register to vote, where you can vote, how you can vote, when you can vote, when your vote is eligible) and how state electors are elected. US citizens living in US territories like Puerto Rico don't get to choose any electors, because only states have electors. Some states have more electors per capita than other states. Most states give all their electors to person that got most votes, which has lead to situation where many states can be said to belong to republicans or democrats before they even have picked their candidates. There is no federal system that gives people right to vote for their president, there is no federal laws that says that states can't override result of the state vote. We can call it democratic system, but we can also call Russian elections democratic, but that don't change reality how those systems are designed to give people in power to go around will of the general population

Considering that as democracy demands that majority of people support the decision, then less than half of 66% that does not include over 3,2 million citizen of country isn't a democratic way to elect leader. But in this case democracy has never existed.

Finnish Bureau of Investigation currently suspects that nine member of the crew of the Eagle S purposefully cased cable damage. So I am not sure who the nameless officials that WaPo used as their source are.

Price is a lie. 80% of tokens are owned by CIC Digital LLC and Fight Fight Fight LLC, which belong to Trump and his associates. So from the 200 million tokens that they released to market, only 40 million is actually in open market, and some people were given pre-emption to tokens. This is typical meme coin trick to cause coin to gain lots of value and mentions in media. Trump and his associates make most of the money from handling fees that are certain percentage of value of traded tokens. And if there are enough demand on market CIC Digital LLC and Fight Fight Fight LLC will cash in their tokens and will most likely make big bank. And those that end to own tokens in that point will most likely lose their money. They say that they aim to increase token count to billion, but most likely in that point tokens value has already dropped to pennies.

https://news.un.org/en/story/2023/09/1141417

Assassination of generals happens in every war

But how this will anyway make things worse or increase hostilities? That weren't caused by killing 63 civilians fleeing war on railway station or killing over 20 people by blowing a shopping mall or blowing up a children hospital? Generals are legitimate targets in a war so they will be targets of strikes

You mean that raping and murdering civilians like happened in start of didn't make it already much worse?