The Venezuelan Public Ministry announced the initiation of a criminal investigating against María Corina Machado “for her promotion and support of the recent criminal act of the United States House of Representatives that approved the BOLIVAR Act. This imperialist legislation seeks to amplify the illegal sanctions against the Venezuelan people.”
Related:
Venezuela Denounces ‘Offensive’ BOLIVAR Act and US Recognition of González as ‘President-Elect’
The incoming Trump administration is poised to pick up where the Biden administration has left off on the decades-spanning centerpiece of US foreign policy ‒ the encirclement and containment of China.
US Foreign Policy vs. China Continues Under Trump (archived)
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AFPI: America First Policy Institute
The Walton Family Foundation, the United States Agency for International Development (USAID), and a coalition of fishermen’s associations and environmental institutions join forces to promote responsible fishing practices.
China’s A2/AD (ACE Concept/Joint All-Domain Operations)
Draining the Swamp, huh?
President-elect Donald Trump announced Friday that he’ll nominate former George Soros money manager Scott Bessent, an advocate for deficit reduction, to serve as his next treasury secretary.
Trump names hedge fund founder Scott Bessent as pick for treasury secretary
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Read More »After once and future President Donald Trump named Matt Gaetz, a loyalist, to be his pick for Attorney General in his incoming administration, former top Scientology executive Mike Rinder last week announced at his blog that Scientology would have nothing to worry about from the Department of Justice for the next four years.
Scientology sitting pretty as Trump names Pam Bondi his pick for Attorney General
MANILA, Philippines — United States Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin III has revealed the existence of what appears to be a military unit of American troops in the country called the “US Task Force Ayungin.”
Related:
What’s Really Going On In the South China Sea Between the Philippines and China
Protracted wars in the Middle East and Ukraine are draining the US arsenal of interceptor missiles. The problem is especially severe in Palestine and in the Red Sea, where dozens of missiles are launched monthly against incoming rockets and drones.
Read More »
No, it’s not Communism! It’s the privatization of education. “School choice” takes away from government spending for public schools!
Trump Chooses Longtime Ally Linda McMahon to Run Education Dept.
Read More »President-elect Donald J. Trump on Tuesday tapped Linda McMahon, a former professional wrestling executive who ran the Small Business Administration for much of his first term, to lead the Education Department, an agency he has routinely singled out for elimination in his upcoming term.
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In part because of her recent policy role and her experience as the small business administrator, Ms. McMahon had been discussed as a possible pick to lead the Commerce Department until the role was officially offered to Howard Lutnick, a Wall Street executive and a chairman of the Trump transition team, earlier in the day.
Ms. McMahon will be in charge of overseeing what is widely expected to be a thorough and determined dismantling of the department’s core functions, as Mr. Trump and many of those in his orbit have questioned the agency’s purpose and disparaged its work as overregulating schools on political and ideological terms.
Other than a brief appointment in 2009 to the Connecticut State Board of Education, where she served for just over a year, Ms. McMahon has no experience in overseeing education policy. She would assume the role at a time when school districts across the country are facing budget shortfalls, many students are not making up ground lost during the pandemic in reading and math, and many colleges and universities are shrinking and closing amid a larger loss of faith in the value of higher education.
While Mr. Trump has repeatedly called for an outright dissolution of the agency, any effort to shutter it would require congressional action and support from some Republican lawmakers whose districts depend on federal aid for public education.
But the America First Policy Institute has set out a more immediate list of changes it says could be achieved through vastly changing the department’s priorities. Those include stopping schools from “promoting inaccurate and unpatriotic concepts” about American history surrounding institutionalized racism, and expanding “school choice” programs that direct more public funds to parents to spend on home-schooling, online classes or at private and religious schools.
WASHINGTON (Reuters) -U.S. President-elect Donald Trump said on Tuesday that he had chosen celebrity doctor Mehmet Oz to serve as administrator for the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services.
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“Our broken Healthcare System harms everyday Americans, and crushes our Country’s budget,” Trump said in a statement. Saying Oz would be a leader in “incentivizing disease prevention”.
Related:
RFK Jr. claims Canadian Froot Loops have 3 ingredients. They have 17.
Kennedy, known for his debunked medical claims, was wrong about the numbers of ingredients in Canadian and American Froot Loops, which are similar: 17 and 16, respectively. The biggest difference is the dyes, which in the American version are known as Red 40, Yellow 5, Yellow 6 and Blue 1. Canadian authorities limit the use of those dyes.
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“Their highest priority is profit to stockholders,” she said.
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About a decade ago, cereal giant General Mills spent two years listening to consumers who said they wanted natural colors in Trix, despite the cereal appearing more pale, Nestle said.
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Other companies have tried to go natural over the years. Candy producer Mars said in 2016 that it would stop using artificial dyes in its confections, which include M&M’s and Skittles, within five years. But five years later, the nonprofit Center for Science in the Public Interest criticized Mars for continuing to use the dyes. Mars posted on its website that “since that time, a cross-functional Mars team” found “consumer expectations regarding colors in food differ widely across markets and categories,” and thus the company would reevaluate its promise.
Some breakfast cereals and other processed foods have faced backlash in the United States over artificial colorings. Last month, activists* protested outside the Michigan headquarters of WK Kellogg Co. to demand that the company remove artificial dyes from its U.S. breakfast cereals.
[Marion] Nestle said the FDA is too cozy with cereal companies to properly regulate the multibillion-dollar businesses [regulatory capture]. She said Trump has shown no interest in regulating the food industry, but she would welcome Kennedy’s attempt to regulate corporate food producers.
I didn’t see WaPo mention that Kellogg’s promised to remove artificial food colorings by 2018, despite the fact that the article that they link to says it! 👇🏻
*Kellogg’s faces protests over food dyes in popular breakfast cereals
Nearly 10 years ago, Kellogg’s, the maker of Froot Loops and Apple Jacks, committed to removing such additives from its products by 2018.
For Taiwan, Trump’s ‘protection’ money may mean new and early big ticket arms deals
“Watch for Taiwan on the defence side to try and start engaging them on a big arms package – to do something significant, very large,” Rupert Hammond-Chambers, president of the U.S.-Taiwan Business Council which helps broker defence exchanges between Washington and Taipei, told Reuters, adding it could come in the first quarter of next year.
“But think of it as a down payment, an attention getter,” he said. “They’ll stack up several big platforms and big buys of munitions.”
The U.S. is already Taiwan’s most important arms supplier, although Taiwan has complained of an order backlog worth some $20 billion. A new order, almost $2 billion of missile systems, was announced last month.
Related:
Profile at BowerGroupAsia: Rupert Hammond-Chambers
Ms. Cat’s Chronicles 
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