Chancellor Friedrich Merz, President Emmanuel Macron, Prime Minister Kier Starmer and President Volodymyr Zelenskyy met in London to discuss their collective next steps in their plan for opposition to Russia.

Politico is reporting that Germany is going to replace the United States as the direct contact for negotiations with Russia; that’s according to a spokesperson for Merz. However, if you read the actual printout from their collective agreement there is nothing of the sort mentioned [SEE HERE].

Instead, what actually exists within the statement are five terms they have agreed upon in order to start direct discussions between Zelenskyy and Russian President Vladimir Putin.  At least two of the terms are non-starters for Russia:

[…] Conditions that would need to be in place for a just and lasting peace. 

• • First, a stop to the fighting. They called on President Putin to agree to an immediate and complete ceasefire. 
  • Second, the current line of contact should be the starting point for negotiations. International borders must not be changed by force, and Ukraine’s sovereign right to choose its own security arrangements and alliances must be fully respected.  
  • Third, Ukraine must have robust and legally binding security guarantees in place once a ceasefire enters into force, building on commitments made in Berlin in December 2025 and Paris in January 2026. This includes the deployment of the Multinational Force – Ukraine.  
  • Fourth, Russian assets will remain immobilised until Russia ceases its war of aggression and compensates Ukraine for the damage caused by the war. 
  • Fifth, that European security interests must be safeguarded in any deal.  Elements of any negotiation related to the EU and NATO would need the consent of the EU and its Member States and NATO Allies respectively. 
  • [SOURCE]

The #3, #4 and #5 points are not going to go anywhere.

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On Monday afternoon, the defense team officially rested its case without calling Karmelo Anthony to the stand. According to multiple media observers the defense was very weak.  The defense witnesses ended up being solid witnesses for the prosecution upon cross examination.

The evidence against Karmelo Anthony is overwhelming. The defense was reliant upon previous fabrications sold to the media that did not prove out in the courtroom.

The prosecution witnesses were consistent and strong in the case against the accused.

The jury was dismissed for the day Monday and is expected to return Tuesday morning for closing arguments.

There was an initial discussion about a plea agreement, likely spurred by the weight of the prosecution. However, no plea deal was reached, likely rejected by the prosecution, and the case is now headed toward jury deliberation.

Keep in mind if Karmelo Anthony had taken a plea agreement before the trial, his family would not have been able to fundraise from the process. The decision to push the case to trial was as much for financial gain as it was a roll of the dice on whether their attempted racist narrative would work.

The jury will be sequestered during deliberation.

Karmelo Anthony is ineligible for both the death penalty and life in prison without parole since he was only 17 when he killed Austin Metcalf.

The maximum sentencing he’ll receive is life in prison with the possibility of parole, if he is convicted on his first-degree murder charge. This means parole eligibility after 30 years, or half of his sentence, depending on the specifics.

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The California bespoke ballot process is unique in the nation and developed with a previous legal partnership between California politicians and former Attorney General Eric Holder.

It has been one week since election day and there are likely many more days of ballot curation ahead.  As a consequence, the republican candidate, Steve Hilton, who carries President Trump’s endorsement, is likely to be pushed into third place eliminating him from the general election.  The creation of California ballots takes time and resources.

Locally sourced, artisanal ballots can take much longer to be created and curated than in other states.

[SOURCE]

As the bespoke process now unfolds, Democrat billionaire Tom Steyer will begin the process of gaining a higher percentage of mail-in ballots than previously assigned.  Many people have questioned the length of time; however, Steyer has to make up about 300,000 votes, so the ballot counting will take longer.

Each subsequent batch now needs a controlled lift in the progression. If the ballot counting closed the gap all at once, it would look sketchy. So, the counters need to elevate Steyers percentage a little more with each batch of ballots counted. A slow climb to eventually eclipse Hilton will enable the media to justify a few more weeks of ballot curation effort.

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I have spent a lot of time around people.  Out of a general sense of curiosity, I watched the Scott Pelley interview with NYT journalist Lulu Garcia-Navarro, who, by professional obligation and sense of career enhancement, stepped into the role of codependent enabler in order to advance a professional narrative that is very disturbing to witness.

In this short video segment below, less than a minute long, what we see is a glimpse into the world of deeply disturbed and mentally unstable people; very likely narcissists, with intensely overstated internal senses of grandiosity and self-importance.

That sense of identity is certainly why these trait carriers need to cloister together in groups, tribal media, in order to receive the affirmation needed to retain their worldview without challenge. These are deeply intolerant, and emotionally unstable people.

What you see below is not emotionally mature or mentally stable behavior. What is witnessed in this video is a psychological pathology and a codependent enabler of that pathology, under the mistaken premise of sensitivity.

This is the opposite of intellectual. This is a disturbed child in an adult physiology. It is alarming to witness outside a clinical or institutional setting. WATCH:

♦ Take it or leave it advice.  If you ever encounter this personality trait in a person or group, professionally or personally, I would strongly advise exiting the proximity as quickly and carefully as possible.

Find a way to get away. Do not engage. Do not attempt to talk, discuss, frame counterpoints, debate or engage this mindset with any challenge.  Just politely disappear in the least controversial way possible.

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**BUMPED**

The authority for the United States government to capture the electronic records of all Americans without warrant falls under the auspices of FISA-702.  Reauthorization of the current authority is being debated.  This is a deep walk into why this issue is so important to our government.

Having researched almost every aspect to the construct and the argument, I am confident FISA-702 authority underpins a much bigger, quasi-constitutional justification for the collection of U.S. citizen metadata.  Without the 702 authority the legal justification for the apparatus of surveillance no longer exists.  It really is that simple.

It is not the just the illegal searching of the NSA database that presents the issue, although that aspect has received the majority of attention, the capture itself violates the Fourth Amendment. The only way the government can justify the capture of U.S. Citizen data is if there is some quasi-constitutional or national security reason for it.  That’s where FISA-702 comes in.

Take away “702” search authority, and the data collection argument collapses. Any “incidental” search of the database then loses any plausible legal justification.  702 is the camel’s nose under the privacy tent that forms the baseline for all data records to be intercepted, stored and ultimately available for review.

♦ Only one legal case has ever pushed into the sphere of challenging this unconstitutional exploitation. A 2025 decision in the U.S. v. Hasbajrami in Brooklyn, New York, where Eastern District Judge LaShann DeArcy Hall identified the misuse of FISA-702 “backdoor searches” regarding defendant, Agron Hasbajrami.

Hasbajrami plead guilty to charges of attempting to provide material support to a terrorist organization, alleging that he intended to travel to the Federally Administered Tribal Area of Pakistan, where he expected to join a terrorist organization, receive training, and ultimately fight against U.S. forces and others in Afghanistan and Pakistan. However, after his guilty plea, while he is serving time in prison, prosecutors admitted some of the evidence against him came as a result of privacy violations, unlawful FISA-702 searches.

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In an effort to keep the Daily Open Thread a little more open topic we are going to start a new daily thread for “Presidential Politics”. Please use this thread to post anything relating to the Donald Trump Administration and Presidency.

This thread will refresh daily and appear above the Open Discussion Thread.

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Our Father, who art in heaven, hallowed be thy Name. Thy kingdom come. THY WILL BE DONE, on earth as it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread. And forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive those who trespass against us. And lead us not into temptation, but DELIVER US FROM EVIL.

For Thine is the kingdom and the power and the glory, forever and ever. Amen †

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LA Mayoral Candidate Spencer Pratt has dropped to third place and will not make the runoff.  Leftist city council member Nithya Raman, who previously conceded defeat, has now leaped into second place after winning approximately 40% of all mail-in ballots received in the past few days.  A stunning, remarkable, incredible and some say unbelievable outcome.

There are still several days of ballot counting ahead.  After all, the creation of ballots takes time and resources, and as noted by several people in/around the LA area, locally sourced, artisanal ballots can take much longer to be grown and curated.

With an estimated 83% of the post-election ballots now received, Nithya Raman’s concession is null and void.  Her campaign must wipe away the tears and restart efforts toward the general election. Remarkable.

[SOURCE] 

What a difference a week can make.  However, that said, this California ballot approach has been happening since election year 2018.

Remember, in 2016 California Democrats hired former U.S. AG Eric Holder to assist them with voting constructs.  The legislature then passed ballot harvesting and universal mail ballot laws; which were signed by Democrat governor Jerry Brown.  However, the 2016 presidential election created some panic amid those who organized new ballot creation, mailing and harvesting efforts.

Following the Trump presidential win and fearing a new administration might cross reference the voter rolls to the AB60 laws that linked the ballot creation to illegal alien DMV registration; following the advice of Eric Holder, Governor Brown, Attorney General Xavier Becerra and Secretary of State Alex Padilla quickly deleted the AB60 administrative code that would have permitted cross referencing.

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Representative Jim Himes is the ranking Democrat on the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence (HPSCI).  During an interview on Face the Nation with Margaret Brennan, Himes looks forward to the political benefit he predicts following terrorist attacks inside the USA as soon as the FISA (702) program expires next Friday.

Elimination of FISA (702) authority is not a bad outcome; in fact, many of us want that outcome because FISA (702) is warrantless surveillance of American citizens.  However, watching Himes be gleeful at the possibility of terrorist attacks resulting from FISA (702) expiring, is, well, a little weird.

In the non-pretending world, we fully understand a terrorist attack is highly unlikely. However, if there was a terrorist attack, it would likely originate from our own intelligence community organizing it in an effort to get FISA (702) authorized again.  It’s far more likely the FBI would be motivated to create a false flag, than the odds of an actual terrorist attack.

[TRANSCRIPT] –  MARGARET BRENNAN: We turn now to the top Democrat on the Intelligence Committee, Representative Jim Himes, who joins us this morning from Greenwich, Connecticut. Welcome back to Face the Nation.

REP. JIM HIMES: Good to be with you, Margaret.

MARGARET BRENNAN: Congressman, President Trump appointed the Federal Housing Finance Agency head, Bill Pulte, to be the next Director of National Intelligence. The President said it is temporary, but even in that acting role, he could stay in it for over 200 days, and it would bypass Congressional approval. Pulte himself was Senate-confirmed for the housing job. Three Democrats voted for him. Do you know if he has a security clearance to do the intelligence work?

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Here’s the full interview between President Trump and NBC’s Kirsten Welker. The video and transcript:

[Transcript] – KIRSTEN WELKER:President Trump, welcome back to Meet the Press.

PRES. DONALD TRUMP: Thank you.

KRISTEN WELKER: Thank you so much for being here. We are going to talk about your visit, why you’re here in Wisconsin. But I’d like to start off by talking about the major issue that you are focused on every day which is Iran. Sunday will mark 100 days since the first strikes. Your secretary of state, Marco Rubio, said that the war had concluded. And yet, just this week, Iran attacked U.S. allies in the region, calling it retaliation for a set of U.S. air strikes. Is the United States at war with Iran?

PRES. DONALD TRUMP: Well, they’ve been largely decapitated. And I call it a military exercise because people would rather have it called that. It’s not a big war for us. It’s not. We have the most powerful military in the world. I built it, frankly. I built it in my first four years. And I’m using it a little bit in my second four years. Their navy is gone. Their air force is gone. Their anti-aircraft is gone. They might’ve built it up a little bit over the last four weeks during this little ceasefire that we did at the request of some very good people, very, very fine people from — actually from numerous places, as you know. You know, there are a lot of people involved. But from Pakistan in particular, the field marshal and the prime minister. And we’re very close to having a deal. And if we don’t have a deal, we’ll do it one way or the other. Either way, we win.

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