Ukraine, Russia react to controversial US minerals sharing deal + Trump administration notifies Congress of proposal to sell Ukraine $50m or more of ‘defense articles’

Ukraine, Russia react to controversial US minerals sharing deal

The draft published by lawmakers does not include any explicit U.S. security guarantees — long one of Kyiv’s primary demands. However, the agreement “guarantees new deliveries of American weapons, including air defense systems — their cost will be credited to a joint fund,” according to Mykhailo Podolyak, an advisor to President Volodymyr Zelenskyy.

Related:

The U.S.-Ukraine Mineral Deal: What We Know

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Here’s your Facebook “whistleblower”

WEF

‘Careless People’ author testifies to Senate, as bipartisan pressure builds on Mark Zuckerberg

Wynn-Williams testified that Meta censored a Chinese dissident at the request of Chinese officials, and that the dissident was Guo Wengui, a federally convicted fraudster and MAGA-friendly ally of far-right activist Steve Bannon. Wynn-Williams said Facebook’s claim that a 2017 suspension of Guo’s account stemmed from a temporary glitch was a lie, and that the decision to temporarily kick him off the platform actually came as a result of pressure from a Chinese official.

Stone, the Meta spokesperson, said in a statement that Guo “faced account restrictions because he shared personally identifiable information such as passport numbers, social security numbers and addresses,” The Washington Post reported.

After downloading the book and searching for mentions of Palestine, the sole reference I found involved the author criticizing Facebook Maps for labeling a location in Israel as Palestine (p.71)—a claim I find dubious, given the platform’s well-documented history of censoring Palestinian content. Most Palestinian activists are likely aware of this pattern, as evidenced by countless reports and articles easily accessible through a simple Google search for “Facebook censorship of Palestine.”

Related:

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Dems Demand Pete Hegseth Halt ‘Orwellian Book Purges’ In Military Schools

Dems Demand Pete Hegseth Halt ‘Orwellian Book Purges’ In Military Schools

After DoDEA last month directed its schools to pull lessons from its curriculum related to immigration, gender and sexuality, the schools responded with things like book bans, a portrait of former first lady Michelle Obama being removed, a Harriet Tubman poster being pulled down, rainbows being taken down in kindergarten classrooms and bans on school clubs for LGBTQ+ students and girls in STEM.

Ironically, Vice President JD Vance’s memoir, “Hillbilly Elegy,” was also banned. 😹😹😹

Trump’s Medicaid reversal should worry Social Security recipients.

Trump’s Medicaid flip-flop should worry any American on Social Security

House narrowly passes budget resolution containing $100B for defense

The House budget resolution would add about $3 trillion to the deficit in a decade while mandating deep cuts that threaten to significantly shrink Medicaid and food programs for low-income people. It also calls for the debt limit to be raised by $4 trillion.

Democrats decried the blueprint as a “betrayal of the middle class.”

Rep. Mark Takano of California, the top Democrat on the House Veterans’ Affairs Committee, said the plan would harm 9 million veterans that rely on Medicaid for health insurance coverage and more than 1 million veterans who use the SNAP food assistance program, formerly known as food stamps.

He said the Republican budget blueprint would also “take a chainsaw” to the Department of Veterans Affairs. The resolution does not specify exact cuts, but it mandates committees find $2 trillion in total spending reductions to finance tax cuts or reduce the amount of the tax cuts.

Previously:

Speak Up Before VA Health Care Is Gutted #Project2025

Donald Trump’s Next Diversity Target: People With Disabilities

DOGE Sets Its Sights on Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid

Congress Considers Neocon Lesson Plans to Keep Kids Off Communism

Lady Izdihar

Congress Considers Neocon Lesson Plans to Keep Kids Off Communism

In the latest front in the culture war over school curricula, the House of Representatives is set to vote Friday on a bill that would give a congressional stamp of approval to the lesson plans of the Victims of Communism Memorial Foundation, a group closely linked to fervently hawkish corners of the foreign policy blob. 

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New US-Ukraine partnership proposal from influential senators is a recipe for World War III

Atlantic Council resident fellow Andrew D’Anieri describes a new potential U.S.-Ukraine partnership

New US-Ukraine partnership proposal from influential senators is a recipe for bipartisan success

Related:

Washington wants Ukraine’s resources – US Senator

“According to open-source data, the total value of Ukraine’s former mineral resource base is estimated at almost $14.8 trillion, but $7.3 trillion of this is now in the Luhansk and Donetsk People’s Republics. That means almost half of the former Ukraine’s national wealth is in Donbass!” Medvedev explained in a lengthy Telegram post.

“To get access to the coveted minerals, the Western parasites shamelessly demand that their wards wage war to the last Ukrainian. They are already directly voicing such intent without hesitation,” Russia’s former leader added.

WikiSpooks: Atlantic Council

The future of critical raw materials: How Ukraine plays a strategic role in global supply chains

Ukraine is a key potential supplier of rare earth metals, including titanium, lithium, beryllium, manganese, gallium, uranium, zirconium, graphite, apatite, fluorite, and nickel. Despite the war, Ukraine holds the largest titanium reserves in Europe (7% of the world’s reserves). It is one of the few countries that mine titanium ores, crucial for the aerospace, medical, automotive and marine industries.

Before February 2022, Ukraine was a key titanium supplier for the military sector. It also has one of Europe’s largest confirmed lithium reserves (estimated at 500,000 tons), vital for batteries, ceramics, and glass. Ukraine is the world’s 5th largest gallium producer, essential for semiconductors and LEDs, and has been a major producer of neon gas, supplying 90% of the highly purified, semiconductor-grade neon for the US chip industry.