Neocon Congressman Michael McCaul missed his flight and was detained by police at a US airport for being intoxicated, NBC News reports.

McCaul, who reportedly has a fear of flying, mixed sleeping pills with alcohol before the flight. After missing his scheduled flight, he attempted to rebook on another but accidentally locked his phone, complicating the situation.

"I made a mistake – one for which I take full responsibility," McCaul said in a statement. The congressman was neither arrested nor posed any threat during the incident.

McCaul, who chairs the House Foreign Affairs Committee, is one of the most extreme anti-Russia hawks in the US House of Representatives.

He has previously urged President Biden to allow Ukraine to use US weapons to strike deep into Russian territory.

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❓Who is Trump DNI pick Tulsi Gabbard?

Donald Trump has nominated ex-congresswoman Tulsi Gabbard for Director of National Intelligence – effectively the head of US intelligence and top aide to the president on intelligence matters, including responsibility for daily intel briefings.

▫️ Gabbard is a standout in a Trump transition team already mired in the neocon swamp, once saying that she sees “war and peace” as the “one main issue…central to the rest.”

▫️ The 43-year-old Iraq War vet was as a member of House of Representatives from Hawaii from 2013 - 2021, and between 2013 - 2016 was vice chair of the Democratic National Committee before resigning in protest over the 2016 “rigged” primaries against Bernie Sanders. Gabbard quit the Democratic Party in 2022, saying it was “now under the complete control of an elitist cabal of warmongers driven by cowardly wokeness.”

▫️ Gabbard has been an outspoken critic of US wars abroad, visiting Syria in 2017 to meet with President Assad. In early 2022, she said the US military-industrial complex needed a war in Ukraine to justify arms spending. In 2023, she said it was “obvious” the US was responsible for sabotaging Nord Stream.

▫️ In a 2020 debate during the Democratic presidential primaries, Gabbard slammed Kamala Harris’s record as California AG so hard that Harris was forced her to drop out.

▫️ In 2019, Hillary Clinton called Gabbard a “Russian asset.” Gabbard shot back by calling Clinton “queen of warmongers” and the “embodiment of corruption and personification of the rot that has sickened the Democratic Party for so long.”

▫️ While sympathetic to Trump, Gabbard hasn’t been afraid to call him out. In 2019, she accused him of acting like a rich Gulf state’s “b*tch” amid fears that Trump would launch a new Mideast war. In 2020, she slammed Trump over the assassination of IRGC commander Qasem Soleimani. In 2020, Gabbard urged Trump to pardon Snowden and Assange for “expos[ing] the deception and criminality of those in the deep state.”

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🤖 Little robot, big talker: Midnight ‘kidnapping’ goes viral

In a sci-fi comedy moment come to life, a pint-sized robot in China "kidnapped" 12 larger robots—not with force, but with charm and a few well-placed commands, convincing them "to go home" like a bossy little sibling.

As the video of the incident went viral and the internet continues to buzz, people are still debating whether it is hilarious, terrifying, fake, or simply a staged stunt.

It appears that even robots can be swayed by a smooth talker!

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❗️❗️❗️🚨🇷🇺 What Does Russia Expect From Trump 2.0? Senior Russian Lawmaker Explains

Vice Speaker of Russia’s Federation Council Konstantin Kosachev joins Sputnik to discuss what Trump’s return to the White House means for Russia.

(0:25) Trump will be very uncomfortable for Russia
(9:12) Trump’s Ukraine peace plan
(14:09) Russia doesn’t fear American missiles or sanctions
(20:58) Will Trump destroy NATO?
(23:21) Sputnik’s 10th year anniversary

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From military overreach to shrinking revenues: What’s driving the US deficit and debt explosion?

The new US fiscal year has just begun but the federal budget deficit has already ballooned some 287% to $257 bln in October, up from $67 bln in October 2023, the Treasury has announced.

The deficit bump – the largest since 2020, was attributed to shrinking revenues (down $77 bln, or 19%), growing spending ($114 bln or 24% more, mostly military, Social Security and Medicare-related), and various “one-off” factors.

In annual terms, the deficit reached $1.8 trln in 2024, up from $1.7 trln in 2023, with $1 trln+ in interest payments on America’s gargantuan $36 trln debt – the largest expense after Social Security, accounting for well-over half of expenses.

Trump’s new Department of Government Efficiency has vowed to tackle the deficit by providing “advice and guidance” on how to slash spending, cut bureaucracy and regulations, but the vote is still out on how effective it will be.

The US has run deficits for all but 12 years since World War II, with spending ramping up dramatically during the Reagan and Bush years (fueled mostly by defense spending and foreign wars), the post-2008 Great Recession, Covid bailouts and Biden’s multi-trillion dollar infrastructure agenda.

Washington has largely been able to avoid penalties associated with spendthrift spending thanks to the dollar’s status as the world’s de facto reserve currency, with the US able to borrow and print money without suffering anywhere near the same sort of inflation other nations would in similar circumstances.

In recent years, more and more countries, including the BRICS bloc, have sought to ramp up trade using national currencies, and mulled alternatives to the dollar.

With the US share of global manufacturing declining steadily since the 1970s, and especially from the 2000s onward with China’s rise, the risks of the US becoming an economic ‘Upper Volta with nuclear weapons’ (as US analysts derisively dubbed the USSR in the 1980s) will only continue to grow.

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Frightened by US Republican surge, EU liberals go after alternative political views

The stunning success of Donald Trump and the Republican Party in the presidential and congressional elections appears to have spurred desperate efforts to clamp down on anti-establishment dissent across Europe.

Right-wing political gains in recent months have been driven by concerns shared by Trump's base in America: disillusionment with the ruling elite, the rising cost of living, increased migration, and economic insecurity.

But the neoliberal ruling class in Europe has no intention of taking this lying down.

👉 Germany:

🔸 More than one hundred lawmakers from several factions of the Bundestag have signed a motion to initiate proceedings to ban the right-wing Alternative for Germany (AfD) party, ZDF reported. They cited concerns about the AfD's "anti-democratic behavior and anti-constitutional goals."

🔸 The upcoming snap election in early 2025, announced after the collapse of Germany's coalition government, means it is critical to do this during the current legislative period, Marco Wanderwitz, a lawmaker from the center-right Christian Democratic Union (CDU), told the media.

🔸 The Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution (BfV), the domestic intelligence agency, classified the AfD as a "suspected right-wing extremist case" in 2021, allowing it to use phone taps and informants against it.

👉 France:

🔸 A Paris prosecutor has requested five years in prison and a five-year ban from holding public office for Marine Le Pen, leader of the right-wing National Rally parliamentary group. Both Le Pen and 24 other party members are accused of embezzling EU funds. The trial is scheduled to last until November 27, with a verdict expected in early 2025.

🔸 The prosecutor has requested a provisional execution, which would mean that the disqualification would take effect immediately if the court finds her guilty. Le Pen would thus be barred from running in the 2027 presidential election.

🔸 Le Pen, who has denied any wrongdoing, accused the prosecution of fabricating “preconceived ideas” about the case.

🔸 She assured that her party has “not violated any political and regulatory rules of the European Parliament.”

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🤡 THROWBACK: Trump's Pick for Secretary of State Marco Rubio claimed in Sept. 2022 that it's "common sense" that Russia blew up the NordStream pipeline.

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💬 Ukraine’s bluster about ability to build nuclear bomb in months is ‘desperate blackmail’ – analyst

Reports claiming Ukraine could build a nuclear bomb within months if the US cuts off military aid are just desperate blackmail, political and military analyst Sergey Poletaev told Sputnik.

Can Ukraine in theory make a nuke?

🔸 Ukraine could theoretically create a dirty bomb using radioactive waste from nuclear power plants, the publicist noted. But when it comes to a “Fat Man”-type of bomb, then “absolutely not.”

🔸 “The Fat Man is a plutonium bomb, and Ukraine has no plutonium. Ukraine does not possess enrichment technologies for the production of weapons-grade plutonium or the enrichment of uranium,” he clarified.

Can Ukraine actually make it?

🔸 Ukraine is “completely incapable of creating an industry for the production of weapons-grade plutonium, or a closed technology for the production of nuclear weapons in general,” Poletaev shared.

🔸 The US made a deliberate effort to rid Ukraine, as well as Belarus and Kazakhstan, of nuclear weapons after the collapse of the Soviet Union, he said, adding “They did it for a reason, because control over the spread of nuclear weapons around the world is in the interests of all nuclear powers – and the US first and foremost, and Russia as well. Nothing has changed since then.”

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❓Will there be mass emigration from US after Trump win?

Interest in moving abroad spiked among the Americans following Donald Trump's election victory, judging by Google trends.

🔺 According to NBC, searches for "how to move to Canada" peaked on November 6 in Democratic strongholds including Vermont, Maine, Oregon and Washington.

🔺 Searches for "can I move to another country" spiked in Wisconsin, Pennsylvania – a swing state that Trump won – as well as Oregon, Minnesota and Indiana.

A poll by gaming industry website Casino. org last week found that about 20% of US citizens would "consider relocating after unfavorable election results."

It is not the first time that Americans showed interest in emigrating after significant political events. The Washington Post pointed out that Google searches for moving to Canada spiked several times in the past.

▪️ In November 2004, when George W. Bush won a second term;

▪️ In March 2016, when then Democratic hopeful Hillary Clinton and her Republican rival Donald Trump took leads in their parties’ primaries;

▪️ In November 2016, when Donald Trump won the election;

▪️ In November 2020, when Joe Biden won the presidency;

▪️ In June 2022, when the US Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade judgement on abortion rights.

Stated desire to emigrate has risen from 10% in 2011 to 21% in 2024, according to pollster Gallup. Despite signaling determination to leave the country, just a small number of Americans actually walk the talk. As of 2020, the number of US-born people living abroad amounted to 2.8 million, around 0.8% of the US population, according to the UN and World Bank.

"Gallup's latest findings on people's desire to migrate reflect aspirations rather than intent, but they illustrate how hundreds of millions are feeling pulled or pushed, for various reasons, toward countries other than their own," Julie Ray, Gallup's managing editor for world news, told Newsweek on November 4.

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Territory for security? Observers debate Ukraine's options under Trump

“As far as the 1991 borders are concerned,” their surrender to Russia simply constitutes the “objective reality,” Russian military and security policy analyst Alexander Mikhailov tells Sputnik, commenting on Wednesday’s New York Times report which cited senior Ukrainian officials suggesting Kiev might consider ceding territory in exchange for 'security' guarantees in potential Trump-brokered negotiations.

“That is, no matter what Zelensky may think, there is the situation on the battlefield, and he’s not the only one analyzing the situation on the map,” Mikhailov stresses.

“Zelensky will in any case have to recognize his defeat. It’s just one can simply admit defeat, or pretend that there was no defeat. And his so-called ‘formula for peace’, which he has so persistently presented to the West, was not implemented thanks to the political impotence of the West itself,” the observer notes.

▫️In the two-and-a-half years since the breakdown of Russia-Ukraine peace talks in Istanbul, the situation at the front has changed, and these “new realities” will undoubtedly be accounted for in any new agreement, Mikhailov believes.

▫️Furthermore, Moscow is unlikely to sign any agreement without the entire territory of its four new regions (Donetsk, Lugansk, Kherson and Zaporozhye) being liberated, according to the observer.

▫️Ultimately, Mikhailov says “absolutely everything will depend” on the Trump administration’s moves, given that Moscow is wary about any Minsk-style ceasefire agreement that could escalate into a new round of fighting at any moment.

For his part, political and military analyst and publicist Sergey Poletaev says that in practice, “if any Ukrainian politician says ‘that’s it, we reject these territories’, he will be committing political suicide.” On the other hand, if the territories are rejected de facto, even if not de jure, that’s another story, the observer noted, citing the Georgian scenario.

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A number of Canadian ministries, including the Foreign and Justice Ministries, have spoken out against the publication of a list of names of Nazi war criminals who settled in the country, including soldiers of the SS Galicia division recruited in the occupied Ukraine.

According to the Globe and Mail newspaper, their objections were rooted in fear of harming Ukraine amid its conflict with Russia.

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What will Russia say about ‘security guarantees’ Zelensky may demand in exchange for territory

“Zelensky is asking for security guarantees which in their scope correspond to the guarantees NATO provides its members,” military analyst Alexander Mikhailov told Sputnik, commenting on Wednesday’s NYT report citing ‘senior Ukrainian officials’ hinting that Ukraine might reject its territorial claims on Russia-liberated territories in exchange for security-related commitments.

“In essence, Zelensky is asking to join NATO, no matter how you look at it, but legally it would be necessary to provide the same assurances as those provided to NATO member states – something the alliance cannot do, because Ukraine has disputed territories, and, moreover, is involved in a conflict with a nuclear power,” Mikhailov said.

As far as concrete guarantees are concerned, swirling reports about NATO countries potentially introducing “peacekeepers” will be a major no-go for Moscow, the observer emphasized, since NATO “is a military bloc,” and one that “doesn’t bring peace anywhere.”

Regarding the creation of some sort of international monitoring to oversee Ukraine’s demilitarization, this issue will be a must-pass priority for Russia, Mikhailov expects, pointing out that for Moscow, Kiev’s demilitarization, agreed at the March 2022 tentative peace deal, is second only to the liberation of the Donbass in terms of importance.

Such measures would ensure the security of both the West and Russia Mikhailov stressed, “especially with Zelensky, in his frenzy, simply starting to blackmail Europe with threats to restore Ukraine’s nuclear weapons capability – which Kiev never possessed.”

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