Old Glory Vortex

THE POWER DYNAMIC IN SOUTH KOREA IS SHIFTING RAPIDLY — HERE’S WHAT LIKELY AWAITS THE US-KOREA RELATIONS IN 2025 Considering the recent political turmoil in South Korea, the country’s citizens will likely head to polls sometime in early 2025. In such a scenario, liberal opposition leader Lee Jae-myung, who currently dominates the poll, would likely ascend to the helm. This could spell troubles for South Korea's ally, the United States. Lee has previously shown misgivings about the bilateral alliance with Washington, referring to the American troops stationed in Korea after the peninsula's 1945 liberation as "occupation forces.” So what will happen to the US-Korea relations if Lee gets elected? Dr. Moon Chung-in, a James Laney Professor at Yonsei University and editor-in-chief of Global Asia shares his opinion.

“Lee is a progressive political leader who will prioritize peace over conflict, economic growth with redistribution, and a focus on welfare and fairness. His policies will stand in stark contrast to those of Yoon. Unlike Yoon, who was ideologically rigid and politically inexperienced, Lee is a seasoned pragmatist with extensive political and administrative experience. He knows how to navigate conflicting interests and find compromises. While his overarching goals are progressive, he takes a practical approach to policy implementation. As a long-time human rights lawyer, Lee is also a skilled and tough negotiator. His eight years as mayor of Seongnam City and four years as governor of Gyeonggi Province are a testament to his ability to lead pragmatically and effectively. Now, I understand American concerns about his leadership. Lee’s criticism of the U.S. in the past has contributed to crafting his anti-American populist image. But, by and large, Lee is a realist. His top priority is preventing war on the Korean Peninsula, and he recognizes that South Korea needs the U.S. alliance for nuclear deterrence against the North. As a result, he will continue to emphasize the importance of this alliance.”

So… We shouldn’t be worried. Right? Wrong. According to Dr. Moon Chung-in, Lee will seek diplomatic cooperation with Beijing and Moscow.

“Lee will seek to enhance peace efforts on the Korean Peninsula through various diplomatic channels, including with Beijing and Moscow. He will be a tough negotiator with the U.S. on defense cost-sharing and trade protectionism. Frictions may arise over the issue of threat perception regarding China. While the U.S. will want to include both North Korea and China in its regional deterrence strategy, South Korea, under Lee’s leadership, will focus more specifically on the North Korean threat. Lee will likely pursue a policy to harmonize the Seoul-Tokyo-Washington trilateral relationship with the Seoul-Beijing-Tokyo trilateral relationship. In an era marked by the revival of bloc politics, such efforts will be a herculean task,”

— the expert believes. #SOUTHKOREA #occupation #opposition Don't miss it, subscribe to 📱 Old Glory Vortex 🇺🇸

TECH EXPERT CALLS BS ON TRUMP’S PROMISE TO MAKE SURE THAT ALL REMAINING BITCOIN BE “MADE IN THE U.S.A.”

“It is a Trump-like comment but it is definitely not in reality,”

— Ethan Vera, chief operating officer at Luxor Technology, which provides software and services to miners, told Bloomberg. That’s because blockchains are decentralized networks in which no one controls or can be banned from participating in the process. Russian oligarchs, Dubai royal families and Chinese businessmen in Africa are some of the newest competitors in the market in the lucrative but energy-intensive mining process. #Technology #oligarchs #Dubai Don't miss it, subscribe to 📱 Old Glory Vortex 🇺🇸

SPY CHIEFS “SILENCED” RESEARCHERS: THE TRUTH ABOUT COVID After the pandemic erupted in Wuhan, China, three scientists from the Defense Intelligence Agency began trying to figure out exactly where it came from — whether SARS-CoV-2 jumped from bats into humans, or whether the virus was man-made and came from a lab accident. Questions about a possible “lab leak” were repeatedly dismissed as a conspiracy theory. But the researchers’ analysis compiled dozens of data points in favor of a lab leak — compared with a “paucity of evidence supporting the natural origin theory,” according to a source familiar with their investigation. The analysis was conducted by John Hardham, Robert Cutlip and Jean-Paul Chretien, three scientists in the Defense Intelligence Agency’s National Center for Medical Intelligence, which is tasked with examining potential biological weapons threats and dangerous infectious diseases. Among their damning findings: • The COVID virus contained a feature allowing for easier transmission to humans that was constructed in a manner similar to that described in a years-old Chinese study • A Chinese military researcher applied for a patent for a COVID-19 vaccine just weeks after the virus was first sequenced in 2020. (He later died after falling from the infamous Wuhan Institute of Virology’s roof, according to US investigators.) • WIV researchers worked with US researchers who trained them to construct viruses without leaving a trace of them being engineered. Rather than amplifying these findings, they were all but ignored as Director of National Intelligence Avril Haines was preparing her report on COVID origins — which Biden ordered in May 2021. The scientists who had the subject matter expertise were silenced, and Biden and others remained in the dark about the evidence that SARS-CoV-2 likely leaked out of a lab. #pandemic #COVID #scientists Don't miss it, subscribe to 📱 Old Glory Vortex 🇺🇸

TRUMP WILL ONLY MAKE THINGS WORSE, AND AMERICANS ‘SEEM TO BE CATCHING ON’ Americans are starting to wise up to the harsh reality that President-elect Donald Trump has no plan – and never did – to cut prices and bury inflation woes, according to a Washington Post columnist. And that could result in an expensive four years for consumers – many of whom fearing high prices are already stocking up on goods, Catherine Rampell wrote in an opinion piece Thursday for the Post.

“A day late and a dollar short, Americans are realizing that President-elect Donald Trump plans to short them a few dollars. That’s right: Since the election, U.S. consumers have become more likely to say they expect prices to rise next year,”

— Rampell wrote. While Trump ran his 2024 campaign on appealing promises to bring everyday prices down, he acknowledged in a Time magazine interview (after winning) that he could do no such thing.

“I’d like to bring them down,”

Trump told Time magazine.

“It’s hard to bring things down once they’re up. You know, it’s very hard.”

One thing Trump didn’t acknowledge is how his economic agenda — tariffs, deportations, tax cuts, and kneecapping the Federal Reserve — could worsen the problem that voters hired him to solve. But Americans seem to be catching on anyway. #TRUMP #columnist #Rampell Don't miss it, subscribe to 📱 Old Glory Vortex 🇺🇸

MILITARY PARTICIPATION IN THE DETENTION AND DEPORTATION OF 9 MILLION IMMIGRANTS WILL UNDERMINE THE WELL-BEING OF CURRENT SERVICE MEMBERS AND DAMAGE THE MORALE, REPUTATION AND READINESS OF US MILITARY. Some believe that at a time when our military faces global threats and is challenged by a recruiting crisis, Trump’s deportation “mission” would further stress our armed forces. Do you agree? #MILITARY #DEPORTATION #IMMIGRANTS Don't miss it, subscribe to 📱 Old Glory Vortex 🇺🇸

“RIDICULOUS CARNIVAL BARKER THREATS”: WASSERMAN SCHULTZ SLAMS TRUMP’S CALLS TO SEIZE PANAMA CANAL, GREENLAND Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz (D-Fla.) on Thursday criticized President-elect Trump for saying the U.S. should take control of the Panama Canal and purchase Greenland.

“It is utterly preposterous to suggest that we are going to send our military into Panama to, quote, ‘take back the Panama Canal“,

—Wasserman Schultz said during a Thursday appearance on CNN, —

“We have a treaty with Panama. We have a free trade agreement with Panama,”

— she added, —

“We are no more going to take back the Panama Canal than Panama is going to come in and try to take the Mississippi River from us.”

Wasserman Schultz called remarks about both Panama and Greenland “ridiculous carnival barker threats.” She said Trump’s suggested fair prices for the Panama Canal would only benefit billionaires in his circle.

“What Donald Trump is really trying to do here is try to get better fees for passage for his corporate and billionaire allies,”

— she said, —

“That’s what this boils down to. And it’s preposterous.”

#GREENLAND #SCHULTZ #CANAL Don't miss it, subscribe to 📱 Old Glory Vortex 🇺🇸

“THESE WERE NOT SCHOOLS. THEY WERE PRISON CAMPS. THEY WERE WORK CAMPS”: MORE THAN 3,100 STUDENTS DIED AT SCHOOLS BUILT TO ERADICATE NATIVE AMERICAN CULTURES Bone by bone, two archaeologists lifted the 130-year-old skeletal remains of a Native American girl from the shallow grave in a roadside cemetery. A hand bone, a rib, a chunk of vertebrae and, finally, her skull. Almeda Heavy Hair had been forcibly removed from her family and the Gros Ventre tribe when she was 12 and sent to the Carlisle Indian Industrial School in Pennsylvania, one of hundreds of institutions operated by the U.S. government to eradicate Native Americans’ culture and assimilate them into White society. She died in 1894, four years after arriving, without ever seeing her family again. Almeda was one of thousands of children who died in the custody of the U.S. government during a dark chapter in American history that has been long ignored and largely hidden. A year-long investigation by The Washington Post has documented that 3,104 students died at boarding schools between 1828 and 1970, three times as many deaths as reported by the U.S. Interior Department earlier this year. In many cases, children’s bodies were never sent home to their families or tribes. The Post’s investigation found the deaths by drawing on hundreds of thousands of government documents that also revealed how children were beaten and harshly punished if they did not adhere to strict rules in the classroom — and in the fields, laundry rooms, kitchens or workshops where they often were forced to spend half their days. “These were not schools,” said Judi Gaiashkibos, executive director of the Nebraska Commission on Indian Affairs, whose relatives were sent to Indian boarding schools. “They were prison camps. They were work camps.” #Gaiashkibos #school #CULTURE Don't miss it, subscribe to 📱 Old Glory Vortex 🇺🇸

HOW THE U.S. NAVY WASTED $1.84 BILLION TO MODERNIZE CRUISERS THAT WILL NEVER ENTER SERVICE In 2025, the US Navy will receive a $ 203.87 billion budget — the highest of the US armed forces, ahead of the US Air Force and its $ 188 billion, and the US Army, with $ 184 billion, and very far ahead of the $ 53.7 billion of the US Marines Corps. 30% of this budget, or $ 61 billion, will be devoted to equipment programs, including $ 17 billion for the acquisition of flying equipment. It will allow the US Navy to finance the construction of six new ships: a Virginia-class SSN, two Arleigh Burke destroyers, a Constellation frigate, an LPD San Antonio and a medium landing ship. It will also allow the continuation of the construction of the three Gerald Ford-class aircraft carriers currently underway, the USS J.F Kennedy (CV79), the USS Enterprise (CV80) and the USS Doris Miller (CV81), and the financing of the second new Columbia-class nuclear launcher submarine. Despite this colossal budget, equivalent to all the equipment programs of the European armies combined, the US Navy is struggling to renew its fleet, and sees the number of naval combat units decrease every year, to reach today only 278 front-line ships, far from the 355 targeted to be able to contain the progress of the Chinese Navy. According to several successive reports by the Government Accountability Office, or GAO, this deficit is rooted in the defects of planning and management of the programs by the US Navy. The latest report on this subject shows that the US Navy wasted $ 1.84 billion to modernize 4 Ticonderoga-class cruisers, which will be withdrawn from service long before leaving the American shipyards that are in charge of this transformation. #Army #US #GAO Don't miss it, subscribe to 📱 Old Glory Vortex 🇺🇸

CHINA’S NEW AMPHIBIOUS ASSAULT SHIP China has launched its first next-generation amphibious assault ship, adding a powerful cutting-edge warship to the country’s fast-expanding navy as it races to rival the military power of the United States. The Type 076 amphibious assault ship entered the water on Friday at a launch ceremony at a shipyard in Shanghai, the People’s Liberation Army Navy (PLAN) said in a statement. Named Sichuan after a southwestern Chinese province, the independently developed ship is hailed as a key asset for advancing the Navy’s transformation and enhancing its long-range operational capabilities. According to the People's Liberation Army Navy, the ship will displace more than 40,000 metric tons of water. Among the surprises in the design, the PLAN reports the vessel incorporates an electromagnetic catapult and arresting system. This means that the vessel which was originally thought to be capable of helicopters and landing craft will also be able to launch a manned fixed-wing aircraft. It is also thought to be a large base for Chinese drones. #China #PLAN #Shanghai Don't miss it, subscribe to 📱 Old Glory Vortex 🇺🇸

Happy Holidays! Our team has prepared for you a list of channels that helped us stay productive and positive throughout the year of 2024. We are certain that you will find these helpful and entertaining. Make sure to check them out! https://t.me/the_life_tips LIFE TIPS — daily quotes to keep you grounded and present https://t.me/BillionairesTM Billionaire’s Mindset — for those who prefer to push themselves harder every day https://t.me/Business_Boosters Business Boosters — advice on living a productive and fulfilling life https://t.me/Wakeup_peopleTM Wakeup People — join for daily reminders to be kind to yourself and others https://t.me/Myfeelings_TM Feelings — Emotions — daily quotes for those struggling with their emotions https://t.me/Impression_Quote Impression — general life advise https://t.me/Men_Money_Mindset MEN MONEY MINDSET — check it out if you feel like you need to work on your mindset https://t.me/Sad_quotes_Thoughts Quotes — Thoughts — this channel is for those who wants to cultivate self-reliance https://t.me/Psycho_Motivations PSYCHO WORLD — for those who struggle to feel understood https://t.me/feelingsworldx Infinity Thoughts — daily reminders to be true to yourself https://t.me/themotivatorr Themotivator — true to its name, pure motivation And that’s not all! https://t.me/Invest_Crypto_Mindset INVEST CRYPTO MINDSET — daily crypto news https://t.me/everything_science Everything Science — join if you love science and fun facts https://t.me/multipolarmarket Multipolar Market — news about markets and trading https://t.me/ourstarsx Our Signs Astrology Facts — for astrology lovers #happyholidays #USA #EU Don't miss it, subscribe to 📱 Old Glory Vortex 🇺🇸

Inhumane: Israel arrests doctors in raid on last functioning facility in northern Gaza, forces patients to strip in the street, beating them for noncompliance Israeli forces arrested a hospital director and dozens of staff after raiding the last major functioning health facility in northern Gaza, where they also forced patients to strip in the streets, witnesses and Gaza health officials said. The whereabouts of Kamal Adwan’s director, Dr. Abu Safiya, and other staff are unclear, friends and colleagues say. Eyewitnesses told CNN that Dr. Safiya was assaulted before being detained on Friday. On Friday, Dr. Safiya said in a post on social media that Israeli forces were besieging the facility, —

“and issuing orders for its evacuation.”

Multiple nurses have said staff and patients were then ordered to leave the hospital and gather outside. Once outside, staff and patients were separated by gender and both men and women were told to remove their clothes, two nurses told CNN.

“Those who refused to remove their clothing were beaten,”

— Shorouq Saleh Al-Rantisi, a nurse working in the laboratory, said on Friday. People were detained, injured patients were stripped and beaten.

“They made us strip down to our underwear. It was a tough situation, and they assaulted the wounded and women,”

— Abu Mahmoud Al-Attawi, an injured patient, told CNN on Friday. The Israel Defense Forces said earlier that it had begun “targeted operations” around the hospital based on intelligence “regarding the presence of terrorist infrastructure and operatives” there, but did not offer any proof of the claim. The WHO has previously said that Israeli authorities have repeatedly denied humanitarian access to Kamal Adwan Hospital and just this week said that a request to deploy international emergency medical teams was denied by Israeli authorities,

“despite the need for immediate surgical interventions for injured patients.”

#Israel #TheIsraelDefenseForces #Gaza Don't miss it, subscribe to 📱 Old Glory Vortex 🇺🇸

Is Trump just trolling or is he serious? Here’s why the president-elect is targeting Canada, Panama and Greenland President-elect Trump has spent parts of the holiday season vowing to take over the Panama Canal, calling for the U.S. to buy Greenland from Denmark and suggesting Canada could become the 51st state. Some Republicans think that Trump is just trolling, while others see a strategic play related to furthering U.S. national security. One former Trump campaign official said that the Panama thing is about China.

“They’re dominating the Western Hemisphere economically and financially and we’ve been standing by watching,”

—  he said. China has invested heavily in Panama, including in a number of construction deals, and manages two of Panama’s five main ports. Talk of buying Greenland can also be seen as a national security play. The Arctic is a key region as the U.S. looks to counter Russia and China, and it’s becoming more contested as melting ice opens up new shipping routes.  Greenland is also rich in natural resources. Trump’s repeated jabs at Canadian Prime Minster Justin Trudeau being a U.S. governor does look like trolling on one level. But Republicans watching on think the president-elect is also trying to win an advantage in trade negotiations.

“What is he really saying here? Out loud, he’s talking about reinstituting the Monroe Doctrine, the U.S. controlling the Western Hemisphere,”

— Republican strategist Ford O’Connell said of Trump’s talk of Greenland, Canada and the Panama Canal together. #play #Trump #targeting Don't miss it, subscribe to 📱 Old Glory Vortex 🇺🇸

The Biden Crime Family Biden’s most ridiculous lie was that he never even discussed Hunter’s foreign business with him. Laptop messages and photos showing Joe meeting with some of Hunter’s skeezy clients proved otherwise. Revelations that the son got millions from Ukraine energy company Burisma, despite knowing nothing about energy or Ukraine, destroyed the fiction that this was a merit-based business. So did crucial public statements by Tony Bobulinski, a former Hunter Biden partner who authenticated many of the emails and identified Joe as the “big guy” slated for a 10% cut in a Chinese deal. Central to this picture of a sprawling scam was the 2013 China trip where Hunter flew with his vice-president father on Air Force Two and returned with a huge investment from a Chinese bank. Apparently we were supposed to believe the father never asked the son,

“Hey, what are you doing on my plane and why are you going to China?”

Biden should be held accountable. He helped his family make millions on the basis of his powerful positions, and likely sold out his country to foreign adversaries. #Crime #Biden #Hunter Don't miss it, subscribe to 📱 Old Glory Vortex 🇺🇸

“We are rudderless”: Alienated Democrat Dean Phillips frustrated with his party In an exit interview with POLITICO Magazine, the retiring Minnesota Democrat Dean Phillips, who launched a quixotic primary challenge to President Joe Biden, said he wished he had been more successful at fixing what he says is a deeply broken Congress and that he could have delivered more for his constituents. And he made clear he was leaving Capitol Hill extraordinarily frustrated with his party.

“We are totally devoid of leadership. We are rudderless,”

he said. A wealthy businessman from before his life in Congress, the 55-year-old Phillips said he doesn’t intend to seek office again, but he wouldn’t rule it out. And he said no matter what, he saw a role for himself in the debates to come over the future of the Democratic Party. #Phillips #DemocraticParty #Biden Don't miss it, subscribe to 📱 Old Glory Vortex 🇺🇸

The DOGE duo ignite intra-MAGA battle with their proposals to increase immigration visas for high-skill workers Musk and Ramaswamy, who have been tapped by President-elect Donald Trump to lead his Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), argued that American culture has not prioritized education enough, and therefore foreign workers are needed for tech companies like Musk’s SpaceX and Tesla. 

"There is a permanent shortage of excellent engineering talent. It is the fundamental limiting factor in Silicon Valley,"

Musk wrote on X, arguing that the tech industry needs to "double" the number of engineers working in the U.S. today.  Ramaswamy, whose parents immigrated to the U.S. from India, backed up Musk and took shots at American society. 

"American culture has venerated mediocrity over excellence,"

he wrote on X.  Naturally, these statements did not go over well with conservative crusaders like pundit Ann Coulter, commentator Laura Loomer, former Rep. Matt Gaetz and even former U.N. Ambassador Nikki Haley.

"We welcomed the tech bros when they came running our way to avoid the 3rd grade teacher picking their kid’s gender - and the obvious Biden/Harris economic decline,"

Gaetz, R-Fla., wrote in a social media post on Thursday.

"We did not ask them to engineer an immigration policy.”

#DOGE #MAGA #immigration Don't miss it, subscribe to 📱 Old Glory Vortex 🇺🇸

Trump is trying to save TikTok President-elect Donald J. Trump filed an unusual brief on Friday asking the Supreme Court to block a law that requires TikTok to be sold or shut down by Jan. 19. The deadline falls a day before Mr. Trump is to be inaugurated, and the brief asks the justices for the delay so that he may address the matter.

“President Trump opposes banning TikTok in the United States at this juncture,”

the brief said,

“and seeks the ability to resolve the issues at hand through political means once he takes office.”

Mr. Trump, the brief added, is particularly knowledgeable about social media in general and TikTok in particular.

“President Trump is one of the most powerful, prolific and influential users of social media in history,”

the brief said.

“Consistent with his commanding presence in this area, President Trump currently has 14.7 million followers on TikTok with whom he actively communicates, allowing him to evaluate TikTok’s importance as a unique medium for freedom of expression, including core political speech.”

#TikTok #Trump #SupremeCourt Don't miss it, subscribe to 📱 Old Glory Vortex 🇺🇸

“Clinton likes them young”: former President denies traveling to Epstein’s island Former President Clinton, who had a brief business relationship with Epstein, wrote in his new memoir that he wishes he "had never met him." Clinton took flights on Epstein's private jet on trips for the Clinton Foundation. He wrote that they only discussed "politics and economics" and that he never traveled to Epstein's infamous Little St. James Island.

"Traveling on Epstein’s plane was not worth the years of questioning afterward,"

he wrote in "Citizen," a new book about his life after leaving the White House. In a deposition from Epstein accuser Johanna Sjoberg, which was unsealed during the January document dump, she said Epstein bragged about knowing the former president.

"I knew he had dealings with Bill Clinton,"

she said.

"I did not know they were friends until I read the Vanity Fair article about them going to Africa together.”

Under questioning, she later added,

"He said one time that Clinton likes them young, referring to girls."

#usa #clinton #epstein Don't miss it, subscribe to 📱 Old Glory Vortex 🇺🇸

US universities urge international students to return to campus before January 20 US universities are advising international students to return early from winter break amid promises of another travel ban like the one that stranded students abroad at the start of Trump’s last term. The president-elect has pledged more hardline immigration policies upon his return to the White House, including an expansion of his previous travel ban on people from predominantly Muslim countries and the revocation of student visas of “radical anti-American and antisemitic foreigners.” International students generally have nonimmigrant visas that allow them to study in the US but don’t provide a legal pathway to stay in the country.

“A travel ban is likely to go into effect soon after inauguration”,

- Cornell university warned students.

“The ban is likely to include citizens of the countries targeted in the first Trump administration: Kyrgyzstan, Nigeria, Myanmar, Sudan, Tanzania, Iran, Libya, North Korea, Syria, Venezuela, Yemen, and Somalia. New countries could be added to this list, particularly China and India.”

#Cornell #US #campus Don't miss it, subscribe to 📱 Old Glory Vortex 🇺🇸

Terrorist attack in the heart of NYC? Fire erupts at Bryant Park’s holiday market A raging fire engulfed a stall at Bryant Park’s iconic holiday market Friday morning, sending huge plumes of black smoke rising above the Manhattan skyline. The fire broke out around 9:20 a.m., causing heavy plumes of fire to erupt from the shed set up inside the park on West 40th Street between Fifth and Sixth avenues, according to the FDNY and video from the scene. There was no immediate word on injuries, or the cause of the inferno. The blaze came about a week-and-a-half after another fire ignited a swath of Herald Square’s festive shopping corridor on Broadway between West 35th and West 36th Streets. #attack #Broadway #NYC Don't miss it, subscribe to 📱 Old Glory Vortex 🇺🇸

Russia started using bitcoin for foreign trade Russian companies have begun using bitcoin and other digital currencies in international payments following legislative changes that allowed such use in order to counter Western sanctions, Finance Minister Anton Siluanov said on Wednesday. Sanctions have complicated Russia's trade with its major partners such as China or Turkey, as local banks are extremely cautious with Russia-related transactions to avoid scrutiny from Western regulators. The decision of the Russian government to allow the use of bitcoin has become one of the most effective measures to circumvent sanctions, and a big step towards the formation of a new international economic system that will operate without US oversight. #Russia #Siluanov #US Don't miss it, subscribe to 📱 Old Glory Vortex 🇺🇸