Trump's expansionist designs, from Greenland to the Panama Canal


In a rambling and provocative speech on Tuesday, incoming US president Donald Trump refused to rule out military force to press a series of territorial claims. Since his victory in November’s presidential election, Trump has made several seemingly absurd and perplexing claims regarding neighbouring Canada, Greenland and the Panama Canal, leaving supporters and opponents alike puzzling over his true intentions.



AFP
 08/01/2025 
FRANCE24
By: Sébastian SEIBT

Donald Trump Jr. visits Nuuk, Greenland, on Tuesday, January 7, 2025, following his father, the soon-to-be 47th president of the United States claims on the territory. © Emil Stach, via Reuters


President-elect Donald Trump told a press conference at his Mar-a-Lago estate in Florida on Tuesday that he would not rule out the use of military force to take control of Greenland and the Panama Canal, and warned Canada of heavy economic sanctions after suggesting that it should become part of the United States as the “51st state”.

Since his re-election to the White House in November 2024, Trump has advanced a series of lofty but bewildering claims on foreign territories, starting with the USA’s northern neighbour.

Trump called Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau the “governor” of the “Great State of Canada” in December while proposing that the country become the 51st US state in what was widely seen as a jest.

Trump has since repeatedly mocked Canada with similar comments. And on Tuesday, following Trudeau’s surprise resignation, Trump said the “artificially drawn” border between the US and Canada should be erased while threatening to impose 25 percent tariffs on imports if Canada did not join the US.

03:08




Trudeau, for his part, has said there is “not a snowball’s chance in hell” of Canada joining the United States.

The soon-to-be 47th president of the United States also has his eyes set on Greenland and the Panama Canal.

In recent weeks, Trump has reiterated claims made during his first administration regarding Greenland, saying the “ownership and control” of which is an “absolute necessity”.

In 2019, while still in office, Trump expressed interest in purchasing the semi-autonomous territory from Denmark: an idea that was quickly dismissed by leaders in both Denmark and Greenland.

Trump’s expansionist designs did not stop there, however. In late December he demanded that one of the world’s most important waterways, the Panama Canal, be returned to the US.

Slamming the canal’s “ridiculous” fees, Trump noted that the passageway that connects the Atlantic and Pacific oceans was “vital” to US shipping.

The French foreign minister on Wednesday warned Trump against attacking Europe’s "sovereign borders”.
Old school war-making

Trump’s claims lack both legitimacy or authority, and many see them as no more than political grandstanding. But others say it’s possible Trump may try to act on them.

"There's a lot of sabre-rattling. It's sort of gesturing, posturing to create an image. [But] it doesn't mean it doesn't matter,” said Corina Lacatus, a political communications specialist and senior lecturer in global governance at Queen Mary University of London.

Citing Trump’s interest in buying Greenland during his previous mandate, Lacatus said that Trump “cares a lot about consistency”. His pursuit of the Arctic island may be meant to show voters that “there's some sort of continuity, that he delivers on his promises".

But this time round, Trump is looking even farther as he adds Canada and the Panama Canal to his list.

01:52




"He feels emboldened not only by the fact that he won in a pretty significant way, but he also sees other countries where people who share his ideas are being elected. There is a momentum for this kind of politics," said René Lindstädt, a specialist in US politics at the University of Birmingham.

Trump’s display of one-upmanship is also spurred on by the rise of the far right and populist rhetoric in Europe.

"With the likes of [Prime Minister] Giorgia Meloni in Italy and the rise of the [far-right Alternative for Germany] AfD, with an election being right around the corner, Trump thinks he has an opportunity," Lindstädt said.

Trump is looking to “demonstrate the US is still a great power in the world that can annex territories”, Lacatus said.

“What I think he's trying to do now is tap into this kind of good-old, realist war-making that involves, you know, not necessarily sending drones, but like occupying territory, [the] annexation of territory, which is very old-school war-making", she said.

Trump’s statements can also be seen as the direction on foreign policy that the incoming US administration will be taking.

President Joe Biden and former US president Barack Obama “would have worked through all these alliances and would have signalled, before taking office, that that's the path they want to pursue” Lacatus said. What Trump is doing instead “is saying, 'I will annex territory, and I don't care'."

Strategic claims

Far-fetched as they may seem, Trump’s territorial claims fall in line with his foreign policy objectives, said Richard Johnson, senior lecturer in US politics and policy at Queen Mary University of London.

"One of Trump's objectives with these bold claims is working on energy independence, where Canada and Greenland could play a role,” Johnson said.

Home to the Pituffik Space Base, the northernmost US military base, Greenland is of geostrategic importance to Washington.

The territory also has abundant natural resources, similar to Canada, with both regions particularly rich in hydrocarbons (shale gas in Canada, oil in Greenland), a factor that is crucial to Trump, who speaks a lot about US energy independence, Lindstädt said.

In fact, US energy independence already hit record levels last year, and the US has been a net exporter of energy since 2019.

Meanwhile, the Panama Canal, a vital passage for global trade, is also used by Chinese ships. And control of the Canal would provide Trump with additional economic leverage over China.

Trump-style negotiations

As Trump continues to reiterate his claims on Canada, Greeland and the Panama Canal, many wonder whether he would act on them when he takes office on January 20.

“What he is doing is actually a typical way that Trump approaches negotiation,” Johnson said. “And if you look at the long history of his career in business as well as in politics, [your] beginning negotiation position is to ask for the impossible. And then you try to move the other side as close to a favourable position … as possible.”

“Trump understands how to generate media attention,” Johnson said, adding: “He understands the value of shock claims."

Despite Trump’s record of breaking promises, it would be “wrong and naive to think Donald Trump would not press the claims further if given the opportunity", Lindstädt said.

For Trump, it’s “his final shot to enter history as a powerful figure”, Lindstädt said, adding that the seeming lack of consequences for Trump may just spur him into more extreme actions.

"If there is not enough pushback, it might incentivise him to push further. At the end, he might look at things and say, 'Why wouldn't I?'"

This article has been adapted from the original by Natasha Li.

 

France warns Trump against threatening EU ‘sovereign borders’ after Greenland comments


French Foreign Minister Jean-Noel Barrot on Wednesday warned Donald Trump against threatening the EU's "sovereign borders" after the US president-elect refused to rule out military action to take control of Greenland, an autonomous territory of EU member Denmark.

AFP
Issued on: 08/01/2025 
FRANCE24
By: NEWS WIRES
Video by: James VASINA


The European Union will not let other nations attack its sovereign borders, France's foreign minister said on Wednesday, responding to comments by U.S. President-elect Donald Trump on taking over Greenland.

Trump declined on Monday to rule out military or economic action as part of his avowed desire to have the U.S. take control of Greenland, as well as the Panama Canal.

French Foreign Minister Jean-Noel Barrot said he did not believe the U.S. would invade the vast Arctic island that has been part of Denmark for over 600 years.



"There is obviously no question that the European Union would let other nations of the world attack its sovereign borders, whoever they are," he told France Inter radio. "We are a strong continent."

Trump's comments further outlined an expansionist agenda, two weeks before he is sworn into office at the Jan. 20 inauguration in Washington.

"If you're asking me whether I think the United States will invade Greenland, my answer is no. But have we entered into a period of time when it is survival of the fittest? Then my answer is yes," Barrot said.

He said the EU should not let itself be intimidated or be overly concerned, but should wake up and strengthen.

(Reuters)

LADY TRUMP

$40 Million Amazon Documentary Deal for Melania Trump Slammed as Corporate 'Pandering'

That's a "staggering amount of money for any figure, let alone one who commands relatively little public interest," wrote one journalist.

KEEPING UP WITH AMERIKA'S OWN PSEUDO ROYAL; MEGHAN MARKLE

Melania Trump, U.S. President-elect Donald Trump wife, arrives on New Year's Eve at his Mar-A-Lago Club on December 31, 2024 in Palm Beach, Florida.
(Photo by Eva Marie Uzcategui/Getty Images)

Eloise Goldsmith
Jan 08, 2025
COMMON DREAMS

In a move panned as kowtowing to the incoming Trump administration, Amazon confirmed Sunday that it will release a documentary about the life of incoming First Lady Melania Trump, which will premier in 2025 on its platform Prime Video and in theaters.

Puck news reported that Prime Video is paying $40 million to license the film, and the deal includes the documentary as well as a multiple episode follow-up docuseries. That's a "staggering amount of money for any figure, let alone one who commands relatively little public interest," wrote Hafiz Rashid at The New Republic.

The deal was denounced by the watchdog group Public Citizen, which called the move another example of "corporations pandering to Trump."

"I see we're back to openly bribing the Trump family," quipped Matt Stoller, the research director at the American Economic Liberties Project.

Writer Heidi Moore said, "imagine how much financial benefit Amazon hopes to get from the Trump administration if they think $40 million is an easy investment in Melania's doc."

Brett Ratner, the director of the film, has directed multiple blockbuster movies including the Rush Hour film series and X-Man: The Last Stand, but hasn't made a major Hollywood production since multiple women accused him of sexual harassment and misconduct in 2017 (Ranter has denied all the allegations).

The news of the deal follows multiple reports that Amazon executive chairman Jeff Bezos is making overtures to President-elect Donald Trump, likely hoping to change the script after Trump came down hard on Bezos for his ownership of The Washington Post during his first presidency and Amazon argued it was unfairly passed over for a Pentagon contract in 2019.

Bezos dined with Trump in mid-December and committed to donating $1 million to Trump's inauguration fund through Amazon.

The tech titan also intervened to halt a planned endorsement of then-candidate Vice President Kamala Harris in The Washington Post right before the presidential election. Bezos justified his decision, writing in an op-ed: "Presidential endorsements do nothing to tip the scales of an election...What presidential endorsements actually do is create a perception of bias. A perception of non-independence. Ending them is a principled decision, and it's the right one."

A cartoonist at The Washington Postquit last week after the paper's opinion section rejected a cartoon she submitted that depicted billionaires, including Bezos, genuflecting before Donald Trump.

In a Substack post, the cartoonist—Ann Telnaes—wrote that it was the first time a cartoon of hers was rejected because of "the point of view inherent in the cartoon's commentary."

"That's a game changer...and dangerous for a free press," she wrote.

Bezos' business ventures have enormous exposure to the federal government. Amazon, which faces an antitrust lawsuit by Federal Trade Commission, holds contracts with the federal government through its cloud-computing service Amazon Web Services. Bezos' company Blue Origin has a multibillion-dollar NASA contract for a moon mission that is supposed to launch in 2029. The firm is also able to compete for a next round of national security launch contracts, the Post reported in October 2024.

THE LA WILDFIRE DOSSIER; TYRANT TRUMP

Trump throws new all-caps Truth Social tantrum blaming Democrats for California fires

Sarah K. Burris
January 8, 2025 
RAW STORY

Donald Trump press conference at Trump Tower / Shutterstock

President-elect Donald Trump continued his rants about the California wildfires on Wednesday afternoon by once again blaming the ordeal on Democrats.

Trump for years has claimed that California is suffering from fires because it does not properly "rake" its forests, which was a theme he continued when it comes to the current fire despite the fact that it started in a residential area.

"As of this moment, Gavin Newscum and his Los Angeles crew have contained exactly ZERO percent of the fire. It is burning at levels that even surpass last night. This is not Government. I can’t wait till January 20th!" Trump first posted.


A few moments later, he raged: "NO WATER IN THE FIRE HYDRANTS, NO MONEY IN FEMA. THIS IS WHAT JOE BIDEN IS LEAVING ME. THANKS JOE!"

Also Read: Trump Cabinet pick raises alarm on unchecked domestic terrorism

FEMA continues to dispel the myth that they don't have any funds to aid Americans in disasters. This particular myth began after hurricanes hit Florida and the east coast this past fall.


The Palisades Fire largely burned populated areas like Santa Monica, Malibu, and the Pacific Palisades. Fire officials said that they are investigating the cause of the blaze that began around 10:30 a.m. Tuesday.

The California fire chief briefed the press and President Joe Biden on Wednesday, saying that in her 25-year career, she's never seen winds that strong. She explained that firefighters are being forced to lean into the wind just to continue standing and holding a firehose.

The police chief echoed the comments, saying, "I've never seen anything like this."

Southern California is suffering from drought conditions and strong Santa Ana winds. The National Weather Service announced on Monday that the winds were coming and that they would be powerful and destructive.

"The combination of low humidity, dry fuels and shifting winds has heightened the potential for spot fires and rapid expansion," Cal Fire said in an update.

'Far right doesn't like facts': Outrage as MAGA blames DEI for wildfire devastation

Erik De La Garza
January 8, 2025 

RAW STORY


A U.S flag flies as fire engulfs a structure while the Palisades Fire burns during a windstorm on the west side of Los Angeles, January 7. REUTERS/Ringo Chiu

Conservative condemnation of diversity, equity and inclusion, or DEI, initiatives reached new heights Wednesday when MAGA world laid blame on its frequent boogeyman for the disastrous California wildfires.

And political observers across social media are taking note.

The internet began to chime in Wednesday evening when it became clear that conservatives were baselessly attacking DEI for yet another catastrophe days after connecting the bloody New Orleans ramming attack to the same initiatives.


“Conservatives and Donald Trump Jr out here blaming the devastating fires on DEI,” journalist Wajahat Ali wrote to his Bluesky followers. “Not climate change or other environmental factors. Nope. DEI. They never miss an opportunity to be hateful.”

“Much like the discourse that followed the fires in Canada and Hawaii in recent years, conspiracy theorists are blaming the California fires on DEI, homelessness, ‘anti-whiteness’ and weather modification,” Sara Aniano, a disinformation analyst at the Anti-Defamation League's Center on Extremism, posted to her Bluesky account. “Conspiracy theorists always recycle, and the internet always rewards.”

Other users took to social media to respond to tech billionaire and Donald Trump ally Elon Musk’s remark that the LA Fire Department “prioritized DEI over saving lives and homes.”

“Whenever there is a tragedy, you can count on Musk to argue that the root of the problem is not enough white people are in charge,” Progressive journalist Judd Legum posted Wednesday on Bluesky above a screenshot of Musk’s X post.

“Speaking as someone whose life is currently being saved by the LA firefighters, I think they're doing fine,” writer Alex Kirshner told his followers on Bluesky.

Rep. Jasmine Crockett (D-TX) defended DEI initiatives during a CNN panel discussion after some on the right questioned Los Angeles Fire Department Fire Chief Kristin Crowley.

“I am so tired,” Crockett said. “And the fact that people actually decide that they want to engage in public service – whether it's sitting in Congress or whether it's serving on the fire department or the police department – should not be an issue. The fact is, stop trying to act as if only white men are the ones that are capable because right now you're sitting at a table with three very capable Black women."

The progressive advocacy group Public Citizen wrote in an X post that climate change was the real culprit behind the fires that have killed at least five and destroyed hundreds of structures.

“Climate change is making natural disasters like wildfires worse & more frequent. Full stop,” the group told its followers. “But the far right doesn't like facts, so they'll blame everything else, even DEI and Ukraine. Instead, they'll keep letting Big Oil kill the planet and find a new scapegoat.”

TRUMP'S GREEK CHORUS

'Newson may be criminally responsible': MTG suggests CA gov may face charges over fires

Daniel Hampton
January 8, 2025 

A staircase remains standing amid the ruins of a burnt structure along the Pacific Coast Highway, as powerful winds fueling devastating wildfires in the Los Angeles area force people to evacuate, in Malibu, California, U.S. January 8, 2025. REUTERS/Daniel Cole

A firebrand MAGA Republican said Gov. Gavin Newsom (D-CA) may be "criminally responsible" for the raging wildfires near Los Angeles that so far have scorched more than 25,000 acres and left at least five people dead.

The fast-moving infernos have forced more than 80,000 to evacuate. The two largest fires in the area, the Palisades and Eaton fires, were zero percent contained as of Wednesday evening.

Fire officials have estimated that the Palisades Fire destroyed 1,000 buildings. Over 300,000 homes and businesses were without power in the region.

Rep. Marjorie Taylor Green (R-GA) on Wednesday night suggested Newsom could face criminal charges over the devastation.

"Governor Newson may be criminally responsible for these California wildfires. As governor, Newsom has literally dismantled every responsible way to combat these devastating deadly wildfires. California, you need to choose new leadership and hold your current leaders accountable," she wrote on X, misspelling the governor's name.

In a separate post, Greene said that her "prayers go out to everyone in Southern California dealing with these raging fires" — but that she's "also angry it is even happening." She again faulted Newsom.

ALSO READ: Trump intel advisor Devin Nunes still dismisses Russian election meddling as a 'hoax'

"Governor Gavin Newsom failed so miserably in water and land management, and now the State of Canada is sending firefighting planes to bail him out," she said, before taking a shot at President Joe Biden. "And while Los Angeles is burning in the Pacific Palisades fire due to horrific Democrat mismanagement, Joe Biden is set to announce half a billion dollars in additional aid to Ukraine."

Biden, she said, is "putting America Last constantly in her time of need."

Greene, no stranger to controversial statements, said in 2018 that a massive wildfire in the state was ignited by a "laser beam or a light beam" from space.

“If they are beaming the suns energy back to Earth, I’m sure they wouldn’t ever miss a transmitter receiving station right??!! I mean mistakes are never made when anything new is invented. What would that look like anyway? A laser beam or light beam coming down to Earth I guess. Could that cause a fire? Hmmm, I don’t know. I hope not! That wouldn’t look so good for PG&E, Rothschild Inc, Solaren or Jerry Brown who sure does seem fond of PG&E," she wrote in a since-deleted Facebook post.

Watch: Fox News reporter fact checks Trump's uninformed rants about California fires

Brad Reed
January 8, 2025

RAW STORY

President of the United States Donald Trump (Shutterstock)

Fox News senior national correspondent William La Jeunesse on Wednesday pushed back when anchor John Roberts asked him about President-elect Donald Trump's comments about devastating fires consuming California.

As La Jeunesse was covering the fires live from Malibu, Roberts asked him about why California had supposedly left itself open to such a disaster by not following Trump's recommendations for "clearing underbrush to make sure that the forests' floors were clean."

"Why does this keep happening again and again?" Roberts demanded to know.

La Jeunesse paused for a couple of seconds before answering.

"Number one, this fire... started in a residential area," he replied. "That didn't have anything to do with the wild fires that we often see that start in the national forest or in what we call the urban-rural interface where a lot of people have moved into and where, frankly, they don't take proper care."

La Jeunesse then added that California right now has a "year-round fire season" because "we've had marginal rain the last few months."

"I think you can blame California on some things," he acknowledged. "But other things, I don't want to say it's Mother Nature, I haven't looked at the total statistics for acres burned, but in a situation like this, as I said, where it starts in the middle of a community, you're going to have problems."

'This is insanity!' Critics pounce on Trump for mocking California amid fires

Brad Reed
January 8, 2025 
RAW STORY


Donald Trump speaks during a rally aboard the Battleship USS Iowa in San Pedro. (Joseph Sohm / Shutterstock.com)

President-elect Donald Trump's decision to attack California Gov. Gavin Newsom while his state is suffering from catastrophic wildfires has drawn the ire of many online critics.

In the wake of a Wednesday Truth Social post, in which Trump labeled the California governor "Newscum" and blamed him personally for the fires, many critics expressed fury, but not surprise, that the president-elect would use a horrific tragedy to lob attacks at his political rivals.

"I hope he has a massive stroke," raged the anonymous X account that goes by the name of Spiro's Ghost. "He is a deeply sick man."

"Whatever the crisis Trump can be relied on to say and do the wrong thing," wrote former Republican political strategist Mark Salter. "Unfailingly."

National security journalist Kevin Baron, meanwhile, marveled that Trump took time in his rant about the fires to insult the smelt, a fish that the president-elect deemed as "worthless."

Over on BlueSky, Naval War College professor David Burbach slammed Trump for his ignorance about the causes of the fires.

"This is insanity," he wrote. "Increased pumping of water through the aqueduct to Central Valley farms and LA urban lawns would have done absolutely nothing for the dry chaparral mountainsides. Is the Trump admin going to pay to install lawn sprinklers up and down the San Gabriels???"

Former TV meteorologist Brad Carl took a whack at Americans who think that taunting states undergoing natural disasters was a desirable trait in a president.


"I just can't believe that half of America wanted a guy like this at the top to treat fellow Americans like this (ones especially dealing with ongoing, horrific disasters in this way)," he wrote.

And journalist Jon Schwarz expressed astonishment that conservatives' reactions to the massive fires was to triple down on climate change denial.

"I used to think that when global warming truly began to bite, deniers would face reality and we could act," he wrote. "Now I think it's more likely it will lead to a kind of fascism that will respond to global warming by, like, executing everyone who says global warming is real

This is insanity. Increased pumping of water through the aqueduct to Central Valley farms and LA urban lawns would have done absolutely nothing for the dry chaparral mountainsides. Is the Trump admin going to pay to install lawn sprinkers up and down the San Gabriels???

[image or embed]
— David Burbach (@dburbach.bsky.social) January 8, 2025 at 12:27 PM

 

I just can't believe that half of America wanted a guy like this at the top to treat fellow Americans like this (ones especially dealing with ongoing, horrific disasters in this way). I'm all for Dems adjusting their messaging and such, but I would never want us to become this callous and awful

 

[image or embed]

— Brad Carl (@dcbradcarl.bsky.social) January 8, 2025 at 12:44 PM

I used to think that when global warming truly began to bite, deniers would face reality & we could act. Now I think it's more likely it will lead to a kind of fascism that will respond to global warming by, like, executing everyone who says global warming is real.

[image or embed]
— ☀️ Jon Schwarz ☀️ (@schwarz.bsky.social) January 8, 2025 at 12:38 PM

'People literally lost everything': CNN conservative faces blowback over Trump defense

Travis Gettys
January 9, 2025 
RAW STORY

CNN

CNN panelists faced off over Donald Trump's political attacks on California Gov. Gavin Newsom over the wildfires devastating the Los Angeles area.

Conservative commentator Scott Jennings justified the attack, saying that Democrats' leadership in the state was at least partially to blame for the destruction.

"If I were a California Democrat, I would also be screaming politicization because I wouldn't want anybody drawing attention to my management of this or decision-making either," Jennings said. "I don't think it's politicizing anything to draw attention to public policy choices, and whether the governor or whether the mayor of L.A., whether you're looking at things that happen in the city, such as cutting the firefighter budget, whether you're looking at issues, like, because it's California, they can't manage to build water storage, which would have come in handy on this. I think if I lived out there, I would have these questions right now, too."

"Congress, by the way, is going to spend a bunch of money here, which they're going to need to do, some of these issues need to be addressed," Jennings added, "so the fact that Trump is bringing them up now is actually, I think, most taxpayers are going to want to see policy changes so that we don't have to repeat of this in the future."

California native Meghan Hays, a former White House staffer for president Joe Biden, said water issues in the state were far more complicated than Trump and Jennings had portrayed it.

"These water fights have been older than I am, and the longest time, and I'm from northern California, so there's always the fight [over] the water," Hays said. "But L.A. doesn't actually get most of its water from northern California, it gets it from the Colorado River. But needless to say, you are right on these some of these policy decisions, and that's fair to look at. I just, you know, you say you want to the president-elect wants to get along with the governor, but calling him 'Newscum' is probably not the best way to do that. But I agree that people should look at their policy decisions, but I don't think now is the time to do that."

"People literally have lost everything they have, and these urban fires are not something that California is used to," Hays added. "We're used to wildfires, and so I think there is a little bit different argument here."

Watch below or click here.

'We have lost everything': Despair in the Los Angeles fires

Agence France-Presse
January 9, 2025 

Swathes of the Los Angeles area have been ravaged by violent fires that have killed at least five people (Robyn Beck/AFP)

by Sébastien VUAGNAT

Homes reduced to ashes, businesses in flames, and in the midst of the devastation, haggard residents: the California city of Altadena, ravaged Wednesday by a violent fire, looked like an area that has just been bombed.

"This was our home," William Gonzales told AFP, pointing to smouldering ruins where only embers and a chimney remain.


"We have lost practically everything," he sighed. "The flames have consumed all our dreams."

Swathes of the Los Angeles area have been ravaged since Tuesday by violent fires that have killed at least five people.

More than 100,000 people have been told to flee their homes in the face of flames and violent winds that have gusted up to 100 miles (160 kilometers) per hour.


In Altadena, behind the mountains north of Los Angeles, firefighters have been overwhelmed by the scale of a blaze that has already destroyed around 500 buildings, including many homes.

On Wednesday, the streets were filled with ash, with buildings everywhere in flames.

AFP met a shopkeeper in his sixties who was crying in front of the ruins of his liquor store.


"This was my whole life," he sobbed.

A dazed Jesus Hernandez said he did not know if his parents would be compensated for their $1.3 million house.

"Hopefully the insurance can pay for most of it, if not, then we're going to have to stay with friends or someone," he said.

- Water cut -

Fires have sprouted all over the Los Angeles area in little more than 24 hours, with the latest breaking out in the Hollywood Hills, mere yards (meters) from storied Hollywood Boulevard.

Vicious winds have flung embers up to 2.5 miles (4 kilometers), sparking new spot fires faster than firefighters can quell them.


The Santa Ana winds that are currently blowing are a classic part of Californian autumns and winters.

But this week, they have reached an intensity not seen since 2011, according to meteorologists.

That has combined with tinder dry countryside to create the perfect fire storm -- and a nightmare for firefighters who have also struggled with water supplies.


In the Pacific Palisades fire, hydrants stopped working after massive storage tanks ran dry.

David Stewart said he was not prepared to just surrender his neighborhood to the flames.

"The county turned off our water supply so we're out there with shovels throwing dirt on fires," he told AFP.


"We saved I think three neighbors' houses so far but the fires are still moving towards our house."

He struggled to make sense of the area he has lived his whole life.

"This was a just a little antique shop, a pizza place. These places have been here forever, ever since I've been alive."

A fretful Jesse Banks was trying to make contact with his son, who had fled the flames earlier in the day.


"My son left the house before us on foot, he doesn't have a cell phone or anything like that, so I'm searching for him now," he said.

"I've lived in this area for over 20 years and we've seen fires in the mountains and the hills and that, but never anything like this."

The fight is far from over.


Wind speeds were expected to moderate, but a Red Flag warning -- alerting residents to high fire risk -- was set to remain in place until Friday evening.

Amid the catastrophe, scientists' warnings, which regularly remind us that humanity's dependence on fossil fuels is increasing the frequency and intensity of extreme events, are being felt in the flesh.

"It's probably climate change affecting everything," said shop owner Debbie Collins.


"I'm sure it's added to it, made this happen. The world's just in a really bad place and we need to do more."

© Agence France-Presse

'Inexplicable decision': Critics blast LA mayor over Ghana trip as wildfires ignited

Daniel Hampton
January 9, 2025 
RAW STORY

Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass attends a press conference at an LA4LA permanent housing facility in Los Angeles, California, U.S., December 9, 2024. REUTERS/Daniel Cole

The mayor of Los Angeles is facing intense backlash as internet critics question her glaring absence as raging infernos have killed at least five people and forced tens of thousands to evacuate.

Several fires scorched more than 25,000 acres late Wednesday and destroyed more than 1,000 buildings.

Karen Bass, a six-term congresswoman who became the first woman elected as mayor of Los Angeles in 2022 when she defeated billionaire developer Rick Caruso, was thousands of miles away on Tuesday as the wind-swept fires ignited.


Bass flew to Ghana on Saturday to celebrate the inauguration of its new president. As The Los Angeles Times noted, her departure coincided with the National Weather Service escalating warnings about the coming windstorm.

Despite arriving in Los Angeles on Wednesday, her early absence was glaring as state and local officials took stock of the carnage— and drew fierce criticism.

"Of course, you don’t go,” Caruso told Politico of her trip. “That’s not leadership, that’s abandoning your post.”

“Is it as bad as Ted Cruz going to Cancun? No. But it could be an indelible dent in her image,” an anonymous veteran Democratic consultant in Los Angeles told the outlet.

“Inexplicable decision to not come back earlier,” former Obama staffer and Pod Save America host Tommy Vietor wrote on X.

"LA Mayor Karen Bass has finally returned from a trip to Ghana, but it's concerning she went at all - & didn't return sooner - given forecasts of severe fire danger. It's a surprising concept, but local leaders are elected to lead locally," wrote San Francisco Chronicle columnist Emily Hoeven.

Bass addressed the criticism on Wednesday and urged her constituents to avoid politicizing the devastation, according to Politico.

“This is going to be an effort of all of us coming together, and we have to resist any effort to pull us apart,” she said, adding that she was on the phone coordinating with officials "every hour" during her flights back, including on a military plane.

“So although I was not physically here, I was in contact with many of the individuals that are standing here throughout the entire time,” she said. “When my flight landed, I immediately went to the fire zone and saw what happened in Pacific Palisades.”

Trump monsters’ new playbook features lies, fear and the cult of dehumanization

Thom Hartmann,

 AlterNet
January 9, 2025


Supporters of Donald Trump gather outside his residence at Mar-a-Lago in Palm Beach, Florida, U.S., December 11, 2024. REUTERS/Marco Bello

To get the public to go along with the kind of radical social change that strips people of rights and privileges — and, eventually, their wealth — requires a shock to the political system which can then be exploited by a cynical political leader, his party, and their media allies.

In the second month of his reign, for example, Hitler had his Reichstag Fire, which pushed the German Parliament to pass “emergency” laws expanding his executive power and limiting the reach of parliament and the rights of average people. It ended the rights of assembly, freedom of speech and the press, protections against unlawful search and seizure, and gave him the power to designate persons and organizations as terrorists by decree.

Somewhat similarly, George W. Bush had 9/11 during his first year, which enabled him to push through the PATRIOT Act and other laws that expanded our government’s ability to surveil Americans, engage in warrantless wiretaps, access personal records, and monitor financial transactions. Bush also established Guantánamo Bay as a center to illegally detain, torture, and even murder people without due process, did the same with multiple “black sites” around the world, and used 9/11 to falsely justify invading Iraq and Afghanistan.


Now it looks like Trump and his rightwing buddies are trying to do the same with the MAGA terror attack in Las Vegas and the American citizen and military veteran who drove his truck into a crowd in New Orleans. Republicans were all over the Sunday shows this past weekend arguing that these events mean “the southern border is wide open” and thus the Senate should quickly confirm Trump’s most radical nominees for his cabinet.

History proves it’s vital that Senators push back against the rush to judgement now being demanded by Trump and his enablers. This is exactly the sort of environment — mass violence being exploited with lies — which can turn otherwise normal people into monsters who then seize control and ultimately destroy nations from within.

Speaking specifically to Trump’s habit of spinning lies that fall on average people like an evil spell, historian and Nazi expert Richard Evans has just published a new book, Hitler’s People.


In it, he dispels the myth that the senior leadership of the Third Reich were “a group of psychopaths, a gang of criminals, a collection of outsiders, even a modern version of the most deranged and destructive Emperors of Ancient Rome and their courts.”

Instead, Evans — the acclaimed author of a famous trilogy about the Nazi era and Hitler’s rise to power — notes that for most of the senior leaders of the Third Reich the Nazi Party restored to them personal status and privilege they’d lost during the economic crises of the 1920s and 1930s.
“As individuals, the perpetrators whose lives are recounted in this book were not psychopaths; nor were they deranged, or perverted, or insane, despite the portrayal of many of them as such in the media and the historical literature. …
“In most of their life, they were completely normal by the standards of the day. They came overwhelmingly from a middle-class background; there was not a single manual labourer among them. Many of them shared the conventional cultural attributes of the German bourgeoisie, were well-read, or played a musical instrument with some proficiency, or painted, or wrote fiction or poetry.”

Monsters rarely start out as monsters, and almost never proclaim themselves as such. They are made, to a large extent, by circumstance and opportunity, and — most critically — a charismatic leader who draws them into what is essentially a political cult with heavy religious and reactionary cultural tinges.


Once deeply indoctrinated into the cult, these “normal Germans” gave vent to the brutality we appear to have inherited from a common ancestor with our chimp cousins, who also routinely engage — when properly provoked and led by an alpha male — in sadistic violence.
“The Nazi regime created a framework that encouraged its followers, especially during the war, to commit acts that would have been unimaginable in other circumstances. The regime first dehumanized whole categories of people, including the mentally ill and handicapped, Slavs, Gypsies, petty criminals, the ‘asocial’ and the ‘work-shy’, and above all, of course, Jews, then ‘placed at the disposal of its followers means of violence normally beyond the reach of most people’.
“Upending the moral restraints common to all human societies in normal times, the regime made murder, cruelty, even sadism and torture legitimate, even desirable, attributes of those who worked for it.”

Expressing concern for America when truth becomes disposable in the service of a charismatic and vengeful leader, Evans notes in his book’s introduction:
“The emergence in our own time of a class of unscrupulous populist politicians who do not care whether what they are saying is true, and the massive growth of the internet and social media, have fostered a much more widespread uncertainty about truth, coupled with a disdain for evidence-based statements and the work of scholars and experts.”

This is what, he confesses, caused him to go back and re-examine his famous and widely-read previous works about the Nazis, saying bluntly that today’s American “unscrupulous populist politicians” have “prompted reflections on my earlier work” and “provided the opportunity to revisit and in some cases reconsider the conclusions I reached in it.”


And here we stand on the verge of something similar in America.

Trump and many of his followers are engaging in both direct and inferential lies to convince Americans that the terror incidents in Las Vegas and New Orleans were connected to brown people crossing our southern border, thus justifying a massive emergency response that ignores the Bill of Rights.

Even after Fox News corrected the record, noting that the terrorist in New Orleans was an American citizen and ten-year military veteran, Trump doubled down on his lie, writing on Truth Social:

“With the Biden ‘Open Border’s Policy’ I said, many times during Rallies, and elsewhere, that Radical Islamic Terrorism, and other forms of violent crime, will become so bad in America that it will become hard to even imagine or believe. That time has come, only worse than ever imagined. … What he [Biden] and his group of Election Interfering ‘thugs’ have done to our Country will not soon be forgotten! MAGA.”

This is the rhetoric of hate and radicalization that leads to atrocities, and the most dangerous aspect of it all is that the American media and most politicians, by and large, refuse to identify it as such. Instead, they treat it as “Trump being Trump” or some other such nonsense. To make matters even worse, Republicans are largely silent in the face of Trump’s promise to pardon the people who sent over 170 police officers to the hospital, killing four of them.

In fact, history repeatedly tells us that unscrupulous politicians using the language of victimhood and depersonalization of “the other” have the ability to turn democratic nations and civilized people into monsters. And, most critically, people who’ve been indoctrinated this way by a psychopathic, lying leader often don’t, at the time, even realize the horror of the crimes they’ve either sanctioned or committed.

It’s like a form of temporary insanity.


We saw this in the echoes of Abu Ghraib, when thousands of American soldiers and civilian contractors — under the spell of Bush’s and Cheney’s lies — routinely committed torture and murder, then returned to slip back into polite society. Were it not for worldwide exposure and condemnation that put the Bush administration back on its heels, America might still be behaving like a rogue state.

Similarly, under the spell of a violent rightwing political cult and charismatic leader, Evans writes, even educated, middle-class men and women fail to realize how deeply they’ve fallen into the role of monster.
“It is none the less striking how Nazis and other perpetrators, in the army or the professions or the world of business, failed after the war to realize that they had committed gross violations of human decency and morality or, if they were put on trial, understand why they were in the dock.
“Many if not most of them knew, like Himmler in his Posen speech of 1942, that they were breaking the legal and moral norms accepted by most societies across the globe, but like him, they felt deeply that they were doing this in the service of a higher necessity – the future of the human race and its protection from the evil machinations of the Jews.”

The lies of the Bush administration caused Americans to commit obscene war crimes. The lies of Trump and his Republican enablers, accusing immigrants and queer people of committing horrific crimes against “innocent civilians and children,” threaten to provoke something even worse.


Trump‘s whitewashing of the murderous crimes committed on January 6th in his name — particularly if he follows through with his pardons — is normalizing in advance violent criminal behavior in the service of raw and unaccountable power for one man.

There are a few voices proclaiming the dangers of the path Trump has laid before us: Timothy Snyder, Ruth Ben-Ghiat, Heather Cox Richardson, Jim Stewartson, Heidi Siegmund Cuda, Teddy Wilson, Sabrina Haake, Anne Applebaum, etc. And a few voices in the media — Ali Velshi, Rachel Maddow, and Joy Reid in particular — have tried to awaken their viewers.

This must now become the work of the mainstream media more generally, and the Democratic Party specifically.

Once the mass deportations, retributive arrests, lawsuits, and states of emergency are established it may well be too late to stop a larger national MAGA onslaught driven by fear, rage, and hate and enabled by the awesome police power of the federal and Red-state governments.


The time for politicians, reporters, and people of good faith and conscience to stand up and speak out, to take a stand against Trump’s lies and normalizing political violence, is ow.

FASCIST FRIENDS OF A FEATHER

French far-right's Zemmour to attend Trump inauguration

Agence France-Presse
January 9, 2025 

French far-right politician Eric Zemmour will attend Donald Trump's inauguration ceremony, his party said (CLEMENT MAHOUDEAU/AFP)

French far-right politician Eric Zemmour will attend Donald Trump's inauguration ceremony, his party said on Thursday, with the pundit the only high-profile French politician to have been invited so far.

The far-right prime ministers of Italy and Hungary, Giorgia Meloni and Viktor Orban, are also on the list of invitees, although French President Emmanuel Macron is not.

Zemmour, head of the far-right Reconquest party, and his partner Sarah Knafo were invited to attend Trump's inauguration ceremony in Washington on January 20, the party told AFP.

Knafo, a 31-year-old member of the European Parliament, attended one of the US president-elect's campaign rallies in Pennsylvania last year.

She has praised Trump as a champion of "freedom of expression, alongside Elon Musk".

There has been no indication from the Elysee that Macron was planning to attend Trump's inauguration, although it is not customary for foreign leaders to attend US inauguration ceremonies.


Leaders of France's main far-right party, the National Rally, have so far received no invitation to the ceremony, a member of Marine Le Pen's team told AFP on Wednesday.

On Wednesday, European leaders warned Trump against threatening "sovereign borders" after the US president-elect refused to rule out military action to seize Greenland, which is an autonomous territory of European Union member Denmark that itself has eyes on independence.

Musk, who has secured unprecedented influence due to his proximity to Trump, is set for a role in the incoming president's administration.

He has provoked fury across Europe with a string of attacks on the continent's leaders, including German Chancellor Olaf Scholz and UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer.

© Agence France-Presse

GEOGRAPHY 101

‘Mexican America’: President of Mexico trolls Trump with vintage map

David Badash,

 The New Civil Rights Movement
January 8, 2025 


Mexican President Dr. Claudia Sheinbaum (Reuters)


The President of Mexico, Claudia Sheinbaum, wasted no time trolling President-elect Donald Trump, posting a vintage map showing that a large portion of what is now the United States of America used to be called "Mexican America." President Sheinbaum delivered her remarks in response to Trump's claim that he will rename the Gulf of Mexico the "Gulf of America.

President Sheinbaum "used her Wednesday morning news conference to show a world map dating from 1607. The map labeled North America as Mexican America and already identified the Gulf of Mexico as such, 169 years before the United States was founded," The New York Times reports.

“Why don’t we call it Mexican America? It sounds pretty, no?” Dr. Sheinbaum said in Spanish (video below).


READ MORE: DOJ to Release Special Counsel’s J6 Report on Trump, His Lawyers Expected to Object: Report

"In response to Mr. Trump’s comment that Mexico was 'essentially run by the cartels,' Ms. Sheinbaum told reporters on Wednesday that, 'with all due respect,' the president-elect was ill-informed," The Times also noted.

Dr. Sheinbaum, a former Mayor of Mexico City, has a PhD in energy engineering. She is a Nobel Peace Prize-winning physicist who appeared on the BBC's "list of 100 inspiring and influential women from around the world for 2018."


During her Wednesday press conference, President Sheinbaum also told reporters, "In Mexico, the people rule.”

“And we are going to collaborate and understand each other with the government of President Trump, I am sure of it, defending our sovereignty as a free, independent and sovereign country.”

According to The Times, she stated that her country is "very interested in stopping the entry of U.S. firearms into Mexico,” and complained about the large number of guns illegally smuggled from the U.S.

The Washington Post's global affairs columnist Ishaan Tharoor, pointing to the Mexican President's comments, noted, "We're seeing some responses to Trump's absurdity."

Watch the video below or at this link.

 

Waymo exec hopeful Trump will boost autonomous driving

Los Angeles man is trapped in circling Waymo on way to airport: 'Is somebody playing a joke?'

By AFP

January 9, 2025


Waymo Co-Chief Executive Officer Tekedra Mawakana said she welcomed competition in the growing autonomous driving space - Copyright AFP Ian Maule

A top Waymo executive said Wednesday the United States could lead globally on autonomous driving, expressing hope that a national standard under the incoming Trump administration would boost safety.

Tekedra Mawakana, co-chief executive of the Google-owned robotaxi venture, said the “race” around autonomous driving had “matured” compared with Donald Trump’s first presidential administration, alluding to a global competition in which the US company is competing with Chinese and German auto players.

“This is a real opportunity for US leadership and so enabling safe sustainable transportation that is autonomous is very aligned with what I think this administration will want to do,” Mawakana said during a fireside chat interview at the Consumer Electronics Show.

Tech experts expect the Trump administration to set a national standard on autonomous driving standards after Trump donor and Tesla Chief Executive Elon Musk embraced the move.

Musk, who is expected to play an influential role in the Trump White House, has expressed frustration with the gap between Texas and California when it comes to rules on autonomous vehicles.

Musk plans to launch a robotaxi venture that would compete directly with Waymo. He is targeting the venture to begin by 2027.

Mawakana declined to comment directly on whether she trusted Musk to treat competitors fairly in his dealings with Trump. But she welcomed competition, saying “making the road safer is an important mission, and it’s too big for one company.”

Although autonomous driving is still a long way from mainstream use, Waymo made strides in 2024. The company operates commercially in three US cities and plans two more US city launches in 2025. It currently provides more than 150,000 trips weekly.

Mawakana cautioned of the risk with a national standard of “a race to the bottom on safety,” but said Trump’s team had been “very forward-leaning” on autonomous driving.

“As far as a national framework, that’ll be great. It’s just that that framework should require people to demonstrate their safety record,” she said.

UK FM Lammy refuses to condemn Trump comments on Greenland

LABOUR SUCKS UP TO TRUMP

\
By AFP
January 9, 2025


British Foreign Secretary David Lammy once described Donald Trump as a 'tyrant' and 'xenophobic' 

- Copyright GETTY IMAGES NORTH AMERICA/AFP/File MARIO TAMA

British Foreign Secretary David Lammy on Thursday refused to condemn president-elect Donald Trump’s Greenland ambitions while insisting that the US acquiring the self-governing Danish territory is “not going to happen”.

“I’m not in the business of condemning our closest ally,” Lammy told Sky News, adding that he was “in the business of interpreting what sits behind this and there are some very serious national economic security issues”.

The comments contrast with the response of some European leaders on Wednesday to Trump refusing to rule out using economic or military force to acquire Greenland.

Germany’s Olaf Scholz said the stance had sparked “notable incomprehension” and “uneasiness” among EU leaders, and later noted on social media that “borders must not be moved by force”.

London, which prizes its so-called special relationship with Washington, is eager not to damage relations with Trump and his team under the UK’s new Labour government.

It follows a number of Labour ministers previously making disparaging comments about the president-elect, including Lammy, who once described him as a “tyrant” and “xenophobic”.

Trump has designs on the mineral- and oil-rich Arctic island, an autonomous territory of European Union member Denmark that itself has eyes on independence.

He set alarm bells ringing on Tuesday at a news conference when he said the US needs Greenland “for national security purposes”.

In a round of interviews on Thursday, Britain’s top diplomat branded the incoming US president’s remarks “classic Donald Trump” and said they were centred around “Americans’ national economic security”.

“In the end, that is up to the people of Greenland and their own self-determination, and there is a discussion within Greenland about those very same issues,” he told Sky News.

Asked by BBC radio how Britain would respond if Trump acted on his claim that the US might try to acquire Greenland by economic or military force, Lammy insisted that “it’s not going to happen”, noting that “no NATO allies have gone to war, since the birth of NATO”.

But he was also careful not to criticise Trump, noting that while his “rhetoric” and “unpredictability” can be “destabilising”, the outcomes of that can be beneficial to Western allies.

He cited Trump’s insistence on increased defence spending by NATO members as an example.

Lammy added that Trump was addressing valid “concerns about Russia and China in the Arctic” as well as “national economic security” in his Greenland comments.

“He recognises, I’m sure, that in the end, Greenland today is a (part of the) Kingdom of Denmark. There is a debate in Greenland about their own self-determination.”

Lammy also noted that the US has troops and a military base on Greenland.

“So it has got a stake in that Arctic theatre,” he added.

US emissions stagnate in 2024, challenging climate goals: study


By AFP
January 9, 2025


The US Supreme Court ruled in June that the government's key environmental agency cannot issue broad limits on greenhouse gases. 

— UK PARLIAMENT/AFP/File JESSICA TAYLOR

Issam AHMED

US greenhouse gas emissions barely decreased in 2024, leaving the world’s largest economy off track to achieve its climate goals, according to an analysis released Thursday, as the incoming Trump administration looks set to double down on fossil fuels.

The preliminary estimate by the Rhodium Group, an independent research organization, found a net fall of just 0.2 percent in economy-wide emissions.

Lower manufacturing output drove the modest decline, but it was undercut by increased air and road travel and higher electricity demand.

Study co-author Ben King told AFP the small drop came despite the US economy expanding last year by 2.7 percent, “a continuation of a trend that we’ve seen where there’s a decoupling between economic growth and greenhouse gas emissions.”

Overall, emissions remain below pre-pandemic levels and about 20 percent below 2005 levels, the benchmark year for US commitments under the Paris Agreement.

The accord aims to limit global warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels, to avert the worst catastrophes of planet-wide heating.

But with 2024 effectively static, decarbonization must accelerate across all sectors.

“To meet its Paris Agreement target of a 50-52 percent reduction in emissions by 2030, the US must sustain an ambitious 7.6 percent annual drop in emissions from 2025 to 2030,” the report said — an unprecedented pace outside of a recession.

What’s more, Trump has signaled plans to roll back President Joe Biden’s green policies, including rules that require sweeping cuts from fossil fuel power plants and provisions of the Inflation Reduction Act, which channels hundreds of billions of dollars into clean energy.

Should these plans materialize, the US would likely achieve only a 24–40 percent emissions reduction by 2035, the report concluded.

– Off track –

Even under Biden, the US has logged more tepid reductions compared to some other major emitters.

German greenhouse gas emissions fell by three percent in 2024, following a 10 percent year-on-year drop the previous year, according to Agora Energiewende.

The European Union’s emissions are forecast to have dropped by 3.8 percent in 2024, according to Carbon Brief, a UK-based analysis site.

Such predictions precede official government data and only represent estimates, meaning final figures can vary significantly.

Lower manufacturing output drove a modest decline in US emissions in 2024, but it was undercut by increased air and road travel and higher electricity demand
– Copyright GETTY IMAGES NORTH AMERICA/AFP/File MARIO TAMA

US emissions have been trending downward in bumpy fashion since they peaked in 2004. They fell 3.3 percent in 2023 but rose 1.3 percent in 2022 and 6.3 percent in 2021 amid a post-pandemic rebound.

“When we looked at the Inflation Reduction Act a couple of years ago… we would have expected slightly lower emissions today than we’re seeing right now,” said King.

Still, these investments may just need more time to pay off: with the report finding clean energy and transportation spending reached a record $71 billion in last year’s third quarter.

“It’s kind of a mixed bag from my perspective,” King said.

– Air conditioning demand –

Positives in the report include a bigger share of green energy in the grid — solar and wind combined surpassed coal for the first time — and a drop in methane emissions from reduced coal use and cleaner oil and gas production.

Climate scientist Michael Mann of the University of Pennsylvania told AFP he welcomed the continued decoupling of growth and emissions.

But “emissions aren’t coming down anywhere near the rate they need to, yet at least,” he added.

“Simply flatlining emissions puts the United States even farther off track from meeting its climate commitments,” warned Debbie Weyl, US Acting Director for the World Resources Institute.

Rachel Cleetus, policy director with the climate and energy program at the Union of Concerned Scientists, called the findings “sobering,” noting the increased electricity demand came from residential buildings requiring more air conditioning.

“Now that’s a reality, as we see year upon year of the temperature records being broken,” she told AFP, as 2024 is set to be named the hottest year on record.