Iran’s President Expected to Sign ‘Strategic Partnership’ Deal in Russia

 Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian is expected to visit Moscow on Friday for talks with strongman Vladimir Putin, which both governments confirmed would include the signing of a new “Comprehensive Strategic Partnership Treaty.”

Pezeshkian, who is subordinate to Iranian “supreme leader” Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, is currently on a regional tour including a stop in Tajikistan on Thursday before his arrival in Russia. International observers are watching the Iranian-Russian meeting with anticipation as the Kremlin and Tehran both teased the new “partnership treaty” as significantly reinforcing the close ties that already exist between the two rogue states, particularly on the economic front.

Iran and Russia have long maintained a diplomatic relationship and supported each other’s goals internationally. Together, they were the key allies responsible for keeping Syrian dictator Bashar Assad in power for over a decade of civil war; Assad’s regime fell to the jihadist militia Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) in December. The two countries are also members of the anti-American BRICS coalition, where Pezeshkian proclaimed the coalition hoped to “neutralize” American interests.

The two countries are upgrading their ties officially to replace a 24-year-old cooperation deal, the “Treaty of the Foundation of Mutual Relations and the Principles of Cooperation,” that was supposed to last ten years but expires in 2026 after several extensions. The Iranian state propaganda outlet PressTV reported on Monday that the new comprehensive agreement will focus heavily on multiple economic sectors and facilitate trade to help keep both floundering economies afloat.

“The agreement covers multiple areas, including economy, transportation, energy, healthcare and agriculture,” Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman Esmaeil Baghaei said on Monday, “as well as cooperation in the field of common challenges such as organized crime, and terrorism and dealing with climate change.”

The agreement is expected to last at least 20 years.

One field that the deal will not cover, Iranian Ambassador to Moscow Kazem Jalali said on Thursday, is direct military aid. The agreement will not include any mutual defense provisions, Jalali told reporters, according to the Russian news agency Tass. International observers had expressed some concern that Moscow and Tehran could agree to such a mutual defense provision as Russia has signed similar agreements with fellow rogue states in recent memory, most prominently with North Korea in June.

The signing of the North Korean mutual defense deal, which occurred during a visit by Putin to Pyongyang, preceded Ukraine reporting the presence of thousands of North Korean soldiers on its borders, fighting alongside Russians in the ongoing invasion of that country. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky announced last week that his troops had captured at least two North Korean soldiers alive.

“The nature of this agreement is different,” Jalali insisted. “[With North Korea], they established cooperation in a number of areas we did not really focus on. Our country’s independence and security, as well as reliance on our own strength, are very important.”

“We are not interested in joining any blocs,” Jalali said, a year after Iran joined the BRICS coalition. “In 45 years, we have paid a [heavy] price for the independence of the Islamic Republic of Iran.”

The deal will include, Jalali shared, a note on respecting the “territorial integrity” of both countries, which would indicate that Iran would accept Russia’s false claims over sovereign Ukrainian territory.

Top Putin spokesman Dmitry Peskov did list “military” cooperation, without offering specifics, as part of the new comprehensive agreement in remarks to the state-run Islamic Republic News Agency (IRNA) on Wednesday.

“The areas of cooperation will include military, political, trade, economic, scientific, educational, cultural, and humanitarian activities,” he reportedly said.

In addition to signing the agreement, the Kremlin press service explained in a statement on Thursday that Peseshkian and Putin would discuss the war between Israel and Iran’s proxies in Gaza, the fall of the Assad regime in Syria, and other “developments in the Middle East.”

“Russian-Iranian relations are on a rise, intensively developing under the principles of mutual respect and due regard for interests,” the statement emphasized, according to the news service Interfax.

Jalali independently highlighted in a separate interview on Thursday that finding a way to pay for bilateral trade outside of the SWIFT international payment system, from which Russia has been banned over the Ukraine invasion, is on the docket for the two leaders.

“The situation in banking and currency cooperation has significantly improved,” he said. “At the moment, we are working on a confidential financial messaging channel to completely get rid of SWIFT.”

The timing of Pezeshkian’s trip has caused some concern, as it arrives immediately before the anticipated inauguration of President-elect Donald Trump on Monday. Russian Foreign Ministry Sergey Lavrov insisted in remarks on Wednesday that the agreement the two parties will sign, and the visit to complete the partnership, is meant to benefit Russia and Iran, not to hurt the United States.

“This treaty, like the Treaty on Comprehensive Strategic Partnership between the Russian Federation and the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea, is not directed against any third country,” Lavrov told reporters. “It is constructive and aims to enable both Russia and Iran, as well as our friends in various parts of the world, to better develop their economies, address social issues, and ensure reliable defence capabilities.”

Democrat Rep. Rashida Tlaib Calls Netanyahu a ‘Genocidal Maniac’ for Not Meeting to Approve Ceasefire Deal

 Rep. Rashida Tlaib (D-MI) on Thursday spewed harsh criticisms against Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu regarding a ceasefire deal in the Gaza Strip.

“Genocidal maniac Netanyahu and his cabinet will never stop until we have an arms embargo,” Tlaib wrote in a social media post.

Her post featured an Aljazeera news story with the headline “Israel’s Netanyahu says cabinet will not meet to approve ceasefire deal”:

A few social media users replied to Tlaib’s message, one of them calling him “evil.”

However, Netanyahu’s office said his Cabinet will not meet to approve the agreement for a ceasefire and the release of several hostages until the terrorist organization known as Hamas “backs down from what it called a ‘last minute crisis,'” the Associated Press (AP) reported Thursday.

“Netanyahu’s office accused Hamas of reneging on parts of the agreement in an attempt ‘to extort last minute concessions.’ It did not elaborate,” the article said.

Iranian-backed Hamas terrorists murdered 1200 Israelis and abducted more than 250 hostages on October 7, 2023, per Breitbart News:

In the year since, Israel has smashed the Hamas terrorist organization in Gaza; begun uprooting Hezbollah terrorists from its northern border; destroyed facilities in Yemen used by Houthi rebels; and threatened Iran itself with attack.

…

Politically, Israel is a more united and cohesive nation than it was on October 6, 2023. When the terrorists attacked, Israelis ran toward the battle, with reservists driving across the country to join the fight. Volunteers emerged to do whatever was needed for those in the line of fire, or anyone affected by the war. Israelis know they cannot be broken.

It is important to note that on Wednesday, President-elect Donald Trump (R) was the first to announce a ceasefire deal was reached in Gaza between Israel and Hamas, per Breitbart News.

“Israeli officials soon confirmed an agreement was in place to secure the release of Israeli hostages held by Hamas since the October 7 atrocities,” the report said.

Pelosi to Skip Trump’s Inauguration

 

Pelosi uses a walker on House floor

Former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi won’t be attending Trump’s inauguration on Monday, according to ABC News.

Pelosi’s spokesperson did not give a reason for the lawmaker’s absence.

Nancy Pelosi attended Trump’s inauguration in 2017.

ABC News reported:

Former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi will not attend President-elect Donald Trump’s inauguration, according to her spokesperson.

Pelosi notably attended Trump’s inauguration in 2017, when she was the House Democratic leader.

A spokesman did not disclose a reason why the California Democrat is skipping the high-profile event.

The last time Pelosi was seen in public she was shuffling around the House floor with a walker. 

Earlier this month, fresh off of a hip transplant, Nancy Pelosi was spotted using a walker during the 2024 election certification.

Pelosi, 84, appeared on the House floor as Congress met in a joint session to certify Trump’s 2024 victory.

WATCH:

Nancy Pelosi uses a walker today in Congress:pic.twitter.com/wqU3JY6v5Q

— Eric Daugherty (@EricLDaugh) January 6, 2025

Pelosi was hospitalized during a congressional delegation trip overseas after she fractured her hip.

The 84-year-old had hip replacement surgery after she lost her footing on a marble staircase and fell to the ground.

“The operation was conducted at Landstuhl Regional Medical Center at Landstuhl Army Base in Germany, her office said. The Defense Department provided medevac support to transport Pelosi there from Luxembourg,” CBS News reported.

The spokesperson added, “Speaker Pelosi is grateful to U.S. military staff at Landstuhl Regional Medical Center at Landstuhl Army Base and medical staff at Hospital Kirchberg in Luxembourg for their excellent care and kindness.”

Hohmann: United Nations Renews Push for Globalized Digital Marking System to Deal with ‘Emergencies’

 Regardless of who’s occupying the White House, the global beast system marches forward. Don’t be caught in the camp of ‘irrational exuberance’ or you will be deceived.

United Nations flag – USAID photo

The United Nations is calling on governments around the world to fight climate change and other “emergencies” by mandating biometric digital ID systems, giving governments worldwide the ability to tag and track the masses in their every move.

Digital ID systems that have already been implemented in other countries are typically tied to the financial system, allowing the government to track one’s spending habits as well as their movement.

A biometric digital ID requires the recipient to upload a face scan, eye scan, palm scan or other unique identifier, which is then integrated into a central system and tracked by an app on the person’s phone. Eventually, the plan is to place this surveillance device “under the skin,” as the Israeli historian and World Economic Forum adviser Yuval Harari has repeatedly stated.

As reported by Slay News, unelected foreign bureaucrats who serve on the United Nations Development Program (UNDP) renewed the demand for digital IDs.

UNDP officials made the case for why digital identity is allegedly a key weapon in their anti-human climate agenda in an article titled: “Why legal identity is crucial to tackling the climate crisis.”

If governments assign digital identities to citizens, they explained in the article, authorities can track populations more easily in an “environmental disaster.”

The UNDP further argued that countries that roll out digital identity programs will have more data about their taxpayers that can then be used in an emergency.

We all know how governments use so-called emergencies to enact tyrannical and authoritarian policies they would otherwise never get away with. They do this by using the news media to whip up fear in the population, dividing the people against each other.

During Covid, more than a few states implemented 24-hour snitch-lines where residents could call and turn in their neighbors for not following the lockdown rules.

Governments should know the income and health status of every taxpayer, as well as their education level, the UN agency states in the document.

This would help authorities have a more “targeted response” to citizens during, for example, a weather disaster, according to the world body.

However, as noted by Slay News, a digital identity is not only for tracking taxpayer movements and backgrounds.

It can also be used to track how much energy taxpayers are consuming.

Once a government has this data, it can force citizens to change their energy-consumption habits.

The UNDP euphemistically refers to this state coercion in Orwellian fashion, calling it “inspiring behavior change.”

When’s the last time you were “inspired” to perform a certain action by the government, may I ask?

“Leveraging digital legal ID data to track energy consumption, inspire behavior change, and enhance sustainability measures can mitigate climate-related disasters,” the UNDP officials wrote.

That’s a nice way of saying we will force you out of your gasoline-powered vehicle, out of your house on an acre or more of land, and into a tiny apartment in the city, eating bugs and riding public transit.

The United Nations has long pushed for a global ID system that would digitally tag every human being on the planet. This is embedded within the global body’s 17 sustainable development goals associated with its Agenda 2030 document, adopted by some 190 nations, including the U.S., in September 2015.

On its website, the U.N. writes:

Sustainable Development Goal Target 16.9 (“legal identity for all, including birth registration, by 2030”) is key to advance the 2030 Agenda commitment to leave no one behind, and equally relevant is SDG 17.19 — support to statistical capacity-building in developing countries, monitored by the indicator “proportion of countries that have achieved 100 per cent birth registration and 80 per cent death registration”.

This is just another way of describing what is, in essence, a social-credit scoring system similar to what’s already in place in communist China.

If you drive too much, spend too much on the wrong products, such as meat or dairy, or if you’re guilty of wrongthink, you will see your social-credit score dip, meaning you will be banned from getting loans or the best housing, jobs, or educational opportunities.

This agenda will no doubt be brought up at the 2025 World Economic Forum meeting in Davos, Switzerland, later this month. President Trump has reportedly agreed to address the WEF remotely.

None of this agenda has any place in any country that claims to be free.

House Republicans Target Federal Unions After 11th-Hour Deals Tie Trump’s Hands On Remote Work

 House Republicans on Wednesday said the Biden administration misled the American people about a federal workforce that has largely not shown up to the office in years, and that Donald Trump inheriting COVID-style telework was emblematic of Biden prioritizing the interests of federal unions and employees over the American people.

At the first hearing of the 119th Congress’ House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, members called for a clampdown on federal union privileges and grilled former Social Security Commissioner Martin O’Malley for signing a contract locking in extensive telework in his last week on the job, citing a Daily Wire report that found O’Malley flew to Florida to party with union members just before signing.

“How is this good for democracy?” Chairman James Comer (R-KY) asked O’Malley. “The voters just granted Donald Trump an electoral mandate to run the executive branch. Should union contracts designed to tie his hands take precedence over the mandate by the people?”

He noted that the American Federation of Government Employees (AFGE), which signed the contract, has called its own staff back to the office in order to more effectively fight against Trump.

“The union’s message couldn’t be clearer: For those doing the people’s business in a federal job, showing up should be optional. Those charged with blunting the Trump agenda, they need to be on their A-game, and that requires showing up in person. I, for one, want federal employees to also be on their A-game,” Comer continued.

 

Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA) added, “This was the union he was supposed to be negotiating against, not for. As Commissioner he was supposed to be serving the American taxpayers who pay his salary.”

A committee report, prepared for the hearing, noted that O’Malley stood to personally gain from the giveaway, as it could help him win his race for chair of the Democratic National Committee.

O’Malley claimed the telework agreement, which required the rate of telework to stay the same, would not stop Trump from making changes, pointing to a potential loophole. “It reads ‘management has sole discretion to temporarily change, reduce or suspend approved telework days … due to operational needs,” O’Malley said.

A witness at the hearing said that 98.5% of Social Security Administration employees are eligible for telework, leaving only 900 employees spread across 1,400 offices and servicing 73 million people. Processing time for Social Security checks is now lower than pre-pandemic levels, tracking with the increase in remote work, the report said.

Across the federal government, 10% of employees are “remote,” meaning they never have to go to an office and can live anywhere in the country, the report said. Between 2019 and 2024, the Department of Health and Human Services went from 2% remote to 29%, while the Office of Personnel Management — which itself is in charge of federal telework policies — went from 7% to 40%.

Half of all Department of Education employees never show up to work, and the remainder work from home most of the time under “telework.” Biden’s head of the General Services Administration, which manages federal buildings, herself worked from home most of the time.

When Biden took office, he issued an order requiring masks in federal offices and said federal buildings could not exceed 25% occupancy. With the virus long receded, little changed, with 17 of 24 agencies using less than a quarter of their buildings in 2023.

By the time of Biden’s 2022 State of the Union address, he was acknowledging the ill effects of telework, and said, “The vast majority of federal workers will once again work in person.” His chief of staff repeatedly followed up, highlighting the benefits of in-person work — but his cabinet secretaries wouldn’t listen, in part, because they were cowed by unions, the report said.

Then, despite Biden himself believing telework had gone too far, his administration worked with unions to hamstring the Trump administration on the issue, it said.

The committee said that Biden never set a government-wide policy on telework. In March 2023, then-OPM Director Kiran Ahuja said she didn’t even know what portion of the workforce was teleworking.

Agencies claim telework is necessary to retain employees, but the committee said that the government has a higher retention rate than the private sector, and that when people leave, it is usually for another government agency — meaning a government-wide policy would stop agencies from trying to poach each other’s employees by giving ever more lenient telework.

Congress also asked agencies how they were measuring whether employees were more or less efficient when working at home, and they did not have substantive answers. The Department of Justice, for example, simply said that “[s]upervisors are responsible for monitoring employee performance to ensure telework and remote work policies are being used effectively and efficiently.”

Admissions that the Biden administration was not actually tracking how telework impacted productivity undermined the White House’s contention that it was delivering “effective and efficient telework,” the report said.

Agency heads have themselves had previously blamed telework when asked to explain poor performance. NASA’s Associate Administrator for Mission Support, Robert Gibbs, said of an asteroid mission, “One of the contributing factors to poor performance on Psyche was telework.”

Social Security Administration Executive Counselor Oren “Hank” McKnelly said that due to telework, “Our front office workers, specifically the trainees that you are talking about, they did not feel connected to the mission, and they did not feel connected to the teams that they were working with.”

At the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, stakeholders complained that they showed up for meetings to find no one was there.

Other agencies attributed negative changes to factors other than telework — only to admit that they had never examined whether telework was to blame, citing the “complexity” of studying it.

When the committee asked agencies for information about how union contracts affected their ability to bring employees back, most agencies did not respond, even as some privately found unions to be damaging to their efforts. The Department of Housing and Urban Development failed to respond to Congress, even though its union filed a grievance against it for merely asking its workers to come in once a week. The Department of Education also didn’t respond to Congress, but acknowledged to the White House that union contracts were its biggest obstacle.

Hearing witness Rachel Greszler, a visiting fellow at the Economic Policy Innovation Center, said that private companies may be able to use telework effectively, but the same unions that are demanding telework also make disciplining poor performers difficult — a necessity to deal with people who aren’t independent enough to work from home.

“Telework can be very useful if it is flexible, responsive, and employees are held responsible, but that can be hard to accomplish with civil service protections and practices that make it extremely difficult, costly and time-consuming to effectively discipline or dismiss federal employees,” she said.

She said it’s so difficult to deal with low performers in government that most managers don’t even bother. In a survey, less than a third of federal employees said steps were taken to deal with poor performers who can’t or won’t improve. “Even just not giving them a performance-based bonus requires setting up a performance improvement plan,” she said.

She also targeted the policy known as “official time,” where federal employees get paid for hours spent working on union business, and the government also provides space and other resources for union use.

“That includes things like nurses at the VA spending 100% of their time working for the union instead of treating veterans, and a VA hospital allocating half of its hospital wing primarily for the union’s use,” she said. “The irony of all this official time is federal unions can’t bargain for pay or benefits, so they’re often left negotiating for things like the height of cubicle space, the right to smoke on a smoke-free campus, or the right to wear spandex to work.”

Greene, who chairs the subcommittee working with the Department of Government Efficiency, said DOGE will target official time, and noted that Biden broke with prior presidents by hiding data on its cost.

Republicans and one witness said a return to the office would help the D.C. economy — D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser is aligned with Republicans on the issue — while a witness called by the Democrats said that remote work could “reverse brain drain, bring more jobs to states, and prevent economic decline in both cities and rural communities.” But those benefits would also come from relocating federal offices to other areas of the country. That wouldn’t help the D.C. area, but the D.C. suburbs are already the wealthiest areas of the country.

The committee suggested legislation that would prevent unions from being able to bargain over telework, and reopen contract negotiations at the start of each presidential term. It also said remote employees should be paid a standard rate, not paid more to live in high cost-of-living areas when they don’t go to any office.

LA Reporter’s Aerial Video Shows Near-Entire Town Destroyed In SoCal Fires

 Los Angeles helicopter reporter Chris Cristi’s aerial video he posted on social media showed nearly an entire town in southern California destroyed in one of the multiple wildfires in Los Angeles.

In a clip posted on X that has since gone viral, the ABC7 reporter wrote that, “This is the closest aerial view I’ve been able to capture yet of almost the entire town of Altadena, CA. There are no words… #EatonFire.”

The video showed an overview of rows and rows of homes, as far as the eyes could see, in the town completely destroyed with little more than burnt palm trees left standing on each of the properties in a city of 42,000.

It is truly hard to estimate exactly how many lots shown on the video were wiped out in the San Gabriel Valley town, north of Pasadena.

Three fires in the area — Palisades Fire, Eaton Fire, and Hurst Fire — quickly spread last week thanks to the high speed Santa Ana winds leading to the evacuations of tens of thousands. It has wiped out some 7,000 structures and burned up 14,000 acres in Altadena and Pasadena alone, KTLA reported.

As of Wednesday, officials said the fire is 45% contained, but they warn that they are still on high alert as more strong winds are expected in the area that has very dry conditions, CBS reported.

 

The Palisades fire has scorched some 23,000 acres and destroyed 10,000 structures, the outlet noted. A map from KTLA showed the homes destroyed. The ones completely wiped out are in red in the map that can be seen here.

“Today’s efforts are focused on mop up and reinforcing containment lines to ensure perimeter control,” an incident report from California Fire read. “Hazard trees along roadways are being mitigated to protect both firefighters and the public.”

“The fire is expected to remain within its current footprint, with aircraft continuing to support firefighters with retardant drops in inaccessible terrain,” it added. “As repopulation efforts progress, the focus remains on ensuring that people are brought back into a safe and secure environment. Contingency resources are strategically prepositioned and ready to respond throughout communities along the fire’s western edge to due to the Santa Ana wind conditions.”

BYE-DEN: President Caps Five Decades In Politics In Final Oval Office Address

 President Joe Biden capped five decades in politics in a final address from the Oval Office on Wednesday evening.

In his valedictory address, Biden began by taking credit for the hostage deal signed hours earlier between Israel and Hamas. Over the course of the roughly 18-minute address, Biden touted his record on climate, health care, job creation, and foreign policy. He also took veiled shots at President-elect Donald Trump, Elon Musk, and others.

Unmentioned throughout his address were several major flashpoints of his term, such as the chaotic withdrawal of U.S. troops from Afghanistan and the pardoning of his son, Hunter.

“After 50 years at the center of all of this, I know that believing in the idea of America means respecting the institutions that govern a free society: the presidency, the congress, the courts, a free and independent press,” Biden said.

The president’s address was largely seen to be his last attempt at characterizing his legacy for posterity. The address avoided obvious questions regarding his record, such as Trump’s role in securing the hostage deal, the disintegration of peace in the Middle East and Europe, and the impact artificial shutdowns during the pandemic had on job creation.

Biden also delivered warnings of what he characterized as dangerous trends in the United States: the rise of an American “oligarchy,” climate change, and disinformation.

 

In what appeared to be a veiled shot at Trump and his allies, including Elon Musk, Biden warned of a “dangerous concentration of power in the hands of a few ultra wealthy people.” He also appeared to blame North Carolina hurricane damage and California wildfires on the dangers of climate change.

He called for a crackdown on social media for the spread of “misinformation” and “disinformation.”

“I’m equally concerned about the potential rise of a tech-industrial complex that could impose real dangers for our country, as well. Americans are being buried under an avalanche of misinformation and disinformation enabling the abuse of power,” Biden said.

“Social media is giving up on fact checking. The truth is smothered by lies told for power and for profit. We must hold the social platforms accountable,” he added.

Biden’s threat toward social media platforms comes after Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg announced earlier this month that Facebook was severing ties with third-party fact-checking groups and moving to an X-style system with community notes on Facebook. While announcing the change, Zuckerberg said that restrictions on speech on Facebook had grown too censorious.

Biden also called for other reforms, such as an 18-year term limit on Supreme Court justices and legislation against so-called “dark money” groups. He also called for an amendment to the Constitution to “make clear that no president, no president is immune from crimes he or she commits while in office.”