WEEKLY ROUNDUP: ‘Peace President’ doubles down on war against Russia, looks to start new war with Venezuela, as Putin responds with dire nuclear message… Also new warnings about Bill Gates’ fake meat

Below, I break down the most important stories of the week. If you appreciate these updates, please consider making a donation to support my work. 

While most Americans are being distracted by the government shutdown and news from the sporting world that NBA Basketball is actually part of a Mafia-run gambling ring, the Trump administration continues to focus its attention overseas and not on “America first.”

Any semblance of the “Peace President” flew by the wayside after this week’s dizzying array of aggressive global maneuvers coming out of the White House. Let’s break it all down…

First, Trump talked at the White House with Ukrainian dictator Zelensky and told him he’d better accept the territorial concessions demanded by Russia to end the war now or get obliterated on the battlefield. But then he turned on a dime and canceled his planned summit with Putin and hit Russia with the most extreme sanctions yet while threatening to let Ukraine use longer-range U.S. missiles against Moscow, possibly even Tomahawk cruise missiles. Trump was talking in favor of sending Tomahawks until about two weeks ago when he said he’d decided against it, now he’s reportedly changed his mind again and given the disastrous idea the green light. British PM Keir Starmer told British media Friday that negotiations are now underway on the transfer of U.S. Tomahawk missiles to Ukraine for use against Russia.

Could the Tomahawks be Putin’s last straw, the final provocation that jolts him to his senses and convinces him of the fact that, hey, NATO really does want to destroy Russia, break it up into several smaller countries, and install Western puppets to run it?

My sources say it was Secretary of State Marco Rubio, a longtime Russophobic neocon war hawk, who convinced Trump to change his mind and go hard against Russia.

Diplomacy seems to have become a lost art when your top diplomat, the U.S. Secretary of State, is the one arguing for measures sure to provoke war.

There can no longer be any doubt that the neocons are fully in control of Washington and Trump. They appear convinced they can go hard against Russia without Putin coming back hard against them. Perhaps they’re right? Putin is starting to look weak and cowardly, like maybe he is just too scared of America and Trump to defend his own country against clear provocations from the West.

Ever the bully, Trump will continue coming hard against anyone he perceives to be weak and standing in the way of a U.S./U.K-dominated global world order (the history on this plan goes all the way back to 1890 as envisioned by mega-wealthy British diamond merchant Cecil Rhodes).

We hear a lot from the BRICS nations about how the world is ready to transition from a unipolar world order into a multipolar order less dominated by America. And if we look purely at economics, the BRICS have us beat. The problem for them is this: they may not ever have the opportunity to beat us economically until they are willing to confront us militarily and beat us on the battlefield.

That’s just the reality, because dying empires don’t just quietly fade away. They will eagerly pursue war with the up-and-coming powers before they concede any type of global power shift.

And this is exactly the attitude I see coming out of Washington today, where Trump seems willing to force his will on rival nations over threats of tariffs and crude gunboat diplomacy. Do this or we’ll bomb you. Do that or we’ll hit you with 500 percent tariffs.

Until I see China, Russia and India present a true unified front against U.S. intimidation, I would say the control of the New World Order will continue to run through London, New York, Brussels and Washington, not Moscow or Beijing.

Regardless of which side wins in the end, the outcome will likely be the same for the masses. Digitization of everything and greater control over every facet of life. What you buy, what you eat, where you are allowed to travel, what opinions you are allowed to express online, etc., will all be surveilled in real time, monitored, assessed, and given a social credit score.

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Trump’s rapacious search for new war opportunities only intensified as the week wore on.

The president has now ordered the world’s most feared Naval strike force into the Caribbean in a major escalation of his undeclared war on Venezuela. This war is fought under the guise of “stopping drugs coming into America.” The administration blew a 10th small vessel out of the water on Friday off the coast of Venezuela, killing all six occupants aboard. They are alleged to have been part of a “narco-terrorist” drug ring. What started as a few alleged drug boats being bombed a month has now escalated to several a week.

But this doesn’t resemble any drug interdiction operation the world has ever seen.

The USS Gerald R. Ford, the world’s largest aircraft carrier, is now joining the deployment of U.S. Southern Command, Chief Pentagon spokesman Sean Parnell announced on Friday. 

The $20 billion, 1,090-ft vessel, which can carry more than 75 warplanes, moves as part of a carrier strike group that includes a cruiser, three destroyers and nine aircraft squadrons.

It “will enhance and augment existing capabilities to disrupt narcotics trafficking and degrade and dismantle the cartels,” Parnell said in a statement.

But don’t be fooled. This is not a drug interdiction operation. This is a regime-change operation.

The 100,000-ton warship joins the largest American force deployed to the Caribbean since the Cold War, including nuclear submarines, F-35 fighter jets, MQ-9 Reaper drones, P-8 Poseidon reconnaissance planes, and B-52 bombers. 

Not a fraction of such firepower would be required to disrupt or even eliminate the “narco-terrorists.”

The Daily Mail notes that “the extraordinary deployment comes after Trump’s declaration that America is now in a ‘state of armed conflict’ with cartel forces, giving his commanders sweeping latitude to hunt traffickers beyond U.S. waters.”

The Mail goes on to report that, “Pentagon has established a new joint task force under U.S. Southern Command, despite Democratic lawmakers warning the president is going rogue and drifting towards a secretive conflict on foreign soil.”

Earlier on Friday, Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth announced another strike on a narco-terrorist boat in the region, killing six alleged drug smugglers, again offering zero proof that the boat was actually U.S. bound with drugs onboard and seemingly oblivious to the obvious violation of all international norms by firing on an unarmed vessel that didn’t fire on the U.S. first. I have never seen anything like this in my lifetime, where the U.S. has become the worst pirates on the high seas. I hardly recognize the country I grew up in. It’s become an aggressive, permanent war state looking to pick fights wherever it can find one. And it’s all being done in the name of “peace.” Orwell would be proud.

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Trump’s escalation in South America is being carried out at the same time he’s chosen to wildly escalate the war in Ukraine with nuclear superpower Russia.

Trump declared Thursday that he will levy a fresh round of sanctions on Russian oil, a move that Russian leaders have said is “an act of war.”

Rosneft and Lukoil, Russia’s two biggest oil companies, were slapped with U.S. Treasury sanctions along with dozens of their subsidiaries, causing global oil prices to rise by 3% on Thursday.

The U.S. Treasury Secretary, Scott Bessent, said the government would freeze all the U.S. assets belonging to the two Russian companies, as well as ban American companies and individuals from trading with them. The White House is also threatening secondary sanctions on foreign financial institutions that do business with Rosneft and Lukoil. The sanctions have already led to serious consequences for the Kremlin, with Chinese state oil companies halting their purchases of seaborne Russian oil. India, the largest importer of Russian oil, has also drastically cut its purchases.

Donald Trump has done absolutely nothing to stop the Russia-Ukraine war, as he promised, but he’s done much to escalate it, even beyond Joe Biden’s wildest dreams.

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Russian President Vladimir Putin launched a nuclear exercise on Wednesday during which ICBMs and cruise missiles capable of striking the United States were launched, the Kremlin confirmed.

The drill came a day after an expected meeting between U.S. President Donald Trump and Putin to discuss ending Russia’s war with Ukraine was abruptly called off.

The exercises involved Russia’s full nuclear triad—land-based, sea-based, and airborne assets, according to the statement reported by Russia’s state RIA news agency on Telegram.

During the exercise, a Yars intercontinental ballistic missile was launched from the Russian Cosmodrome and Tu-95MS strategic bombers conducted air-launched cruise missile strikes, the Kremlin said.

A strategic submarine cruiser launched a ballistic missile from the Barents Sea.

Putin is sending a message. Is Trump listening?

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CNBC reports that Meta, the parent company of Facebook, will lay off roughly 600 employees within its artificial intelligence unit as the company looks to reduce layers and operate more nimbly, a spokesperson confirmed to CNBC on Wednesday.

The company announced the cuts in a memo from its chief AI officer, Alexandr Wang, who was hired in June as part of Meta’s $14.3 billion investment in Scale AI. Workers across Meta’s AI infrastructure units, Fundamental Artificial Intelligence Research unit (FAIR) and other product-related positions will be impacted.

However, the cuts did not impact employees within TBD Labs, which includes many of the top-tier AI hires brought into the social media company this summer, people familiar with the matter told CNBC. Those employees, overseen by Wang, were spared by the layoffs, underscoring Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg’s bet on his expensive hires versus the legacy employees, the people said.

Within Meta, the AI unit was considered to be bloated, with teams like FAIR and more product-oriented groups often vying for computing resources, the people said. When the company’s new hires joined the company to create Superintelligence Labs, it inherited the oversized Meta AI unit, they said.

Meta has been aggressively overhauling its approach to AI in recent months as it works to keep pace with rivals like OpenAI and Google, pouring billions of dollars into infrastructure projects and recruitment.

CEO Mark Zuckerberg had grown frustrated with Meta’s progress in AI, especially after the release of its Llama 4 models in April received a lukewarm response from developers.

Following Meta’s massive investment in Scale AI, Zuckerberg unveiled a new unit called Meta Superintelligence Labs that’s made up of top AI researchers and engineers.

During the company’s second-quarter earnings call in July, Meta said it expects its total expenses for 2025 to come in the range of $114 billion to $118 billion, raising the low end of its previous outlook. That number is only expected to increase, as Meta said its AI initiatives will “result in a 2026 year-over-year expense growth rate that is above the 2025 expense growth.”

This tells me a couple of things. First, AI is very expensive and, so far at least, it’s not a profitable venture for the major developers.

Second, a bubble is forming and will likely burst sometime in the near future when all of the investors who have thrown money at AI start to wonder if they’ve made a mistake. And when the bubble does burst, it will make the dot.com bubble look like child’s play.

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LifeSite News reports that Christians in Turkey are being deported because they pose a “national security threat.”

During remarks given at a human rights conference in Warsaw on October 13, Lidia Rieder, a legal expert for Alliance Defending Freedom International, said Christians are being targeted by Turkey’s government.

Reider stated:

“Turkey’s labeling of peaceful Christian residents as ‘security threats’ is a clear misuse of law and an attack on freedom of religion or belief. When governments manipulate administrative or immigration systems to exclude people based solely on their faith, it undermines both the rule of law and the very principles of tolerance and peaceful.”

At present, Turkey’s population is 99 percent Muslim with less than 1 percent being Christian. Until the Ottomans started invading Asia Minor in the 1300s, the area now known as Turkey was nearly 70 percent Christian. Where did all the Christians go? They were either killed in the genocidal jihad attacks on Armenians and Greeks or run out of their homelands.

In recent years Turkey, run by autocratic Islamic hardliner Recep Erdoğan, has played an influential role in geopolitics thanks to its size and strategic location bridging Europe with the Middle East. While officially a member of NATO, Turkey retains strong ties to the Muslim world, including nations like Qatar and Azerbaijan, which recently forced over 100,000 Christians out of that country and into Armenia with help from Turkish weapons.

An ADF press release noted that since 2020 “more than 200 foreign Christian workers and their families, affecting roughly 350 individuals, have been expelled from Turkey, many of whom had lived there for decades.”

It added that “the Ministry of Interior has assigned these individuals so-called ‘security codes’ such as N-82 and G-87, effectively banning their re-entry and classifying them as national security threats.”

The world continues to wallow in mostly trumped-up fears of “Islamophobia” and “anti-Semitism,” but this is meant to distract attention away from the real growing threat of persecution against worldwide followers of Christ. Look for this trend to continue as we march closer to the age of the antichrist, culminating in a period when Christians – true born-again God-fearing believers, not pew sitters or other pretenders – will increasingly be singled out for persecution.

It’s already happening in many parts of Africa and China, but it’s coming soon to Western Europe, Canada and America. Anyone who rejects the government’s biometric digital marking scheme, now in the works, will be rejected by society and punished for putting their loyalty to their God above loyalty to their government. We will be allowed to live outside the system for a while, perhaps a period of years, but at some point, you won’t be allowed to drive, have a bank account, work a job, receive government benefits such as Social Security, or own a business without submitting to the digital marking system. This is how you will know it is the beast system spoken of in the Bible.

Those who choose to submit to the mark and accept it rather than trust God will deeply regret their decision, even though it seemed like the easy and right thing to do in the moment. They put their trust in man’s fake system of “safety and security” rather than the loving arms of their Father God.

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The Pentagon announced on Wednesday that more than 60 so-called journalists have agreed to the restrictive new press policies implemented by Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth and will form the “next generation of the Pentagon press corps.”

The Defense Department did not identify the journalists or outlets that have signed the new media access policy, which requires reporters to acknowledge in writing that it could be considered a security threat to solicit unapproved information from sources.

In a statement, chief Pentagon spokesman Sean Parnell said that “26 journalists across 18 outlets were among the former Pentagon press corps” who agreed to the new policy. They were not identified in the statement.

As of last week, when journalists were required to sign the document or give up their press credentials, only one major outlet, One America News Network, had agreed to the new policy.

But according to reports, several more conservative news outlets including The Gateway Pundit, The Post Millennial, Human Events and The National Pulse also agreed to the new restrictions for covering the government’s $1 trillion a year military complex.

Newsmax, The Washington Times and Fox News all refused.

I’d have to ask the top editors at the outlets who agreed to play by the government’s rules, don’t you value your independence? Are you sure you want to become the government’s official media mouthpieces, where everything you report about the U.S. military must come with a stamp of approval from that same government agency?

I mean, really, have they not thought this through?

What if a scandal arose involving, say, financial graft among the Pentagon’s top brass? Do you really think they would allow you to cover that and sign off on your articles?

For this reason, it’s my opinion that any news outlet signing Pete Hegseth’s document and agreeing to play by his rules, is really not a news outlet at all. It’s state-run media. And isn’t this the type of thing our government and our media have criticized China and North Korea for?

How are we any different if we agree to be subservient to the agency we are pretending to cover with impartiality?

Please don’t call yourselves journalists. You dishonor your profession, along with the great history of the American press as the Fourth Estate, serving as a watchdog over government corruption. And you have made a mockery of our Constitution’s First Amendment.

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President Trump went on a tirade against American cattle ranchers and demanded they lower their beef prices, claiming they are not passing tariff benefits on to consumers. 

The president wrote in a post on Truth Social: 

“The Cattle Ranchers, who I love, don’t understand that the only reason they are doing so well, for the first time in decades, is because I put Tariffs on cattle coming into the United States, including a 50 percent Tariff on Brazil. They also have to get their prices down, because the consumer is a very big factor in my thinking, also!”

The post was a surprise shot at U.S. cattle ranchers and producers who are typically conservative voters found in deep-red states such as Texas, Nebraska and Kansas. 

The Daily Mail notes that, in the post, the President claims responsibility for the industry’s current success and profits and seemingly demands that beef producers pass their profits on to consumers in the form of savings. But cattle ranchers are warning of market chaos as drought, disease and new imports from Argentina threaten their livelihoods. 

Trump’s threat comes as U.S. consumers feel the grind of punishing inflation, with a pound of ground beef costing more than $6.30 on average. 

Just 34 percent of Americans polled in a recent CNBC survey approve of the president’s measures to combat inflation and the cost of living. Roughly two-thirds, 62 percent, disapproved.

But cattle ranchers and their associations are warning that the U.S. should not turn to Argentina to lower beef prices. Instead, they say, the U.S. needs to invest in additional measures to protect already low domestic cattle herds.

Droughts have led to dwindling water for livestock across the southwest U.S. in recent years, leading to concerns from producers.

The lack of rain has prompted producers to lower the total U.S. cattle herd. 

In July, the total supply of U.S. cattle was approximately 94.2 million head – the lowest supply since 1951, according to government data. 

Still, Trump believes that, without him, the ranchers would all be bankrupt. He wrote:

“If it weren’t for me, they would be doing just as they’ve done for the past 20 years –Terrible!”

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The Irish people are getting fed up with migrants being forced into their country by the Irish government. And after an illegal Muslim migrant from Afghanistan allegedly raped a 10-year-old girl, thousands of flag-waving, bottle-throwing, firework-wielding Irish citizens surrounded a migrant hotel in southwest Dublin on Tuesday night, setting fire to a police vehicle. 

Here’s what happens when the citizens who are fed up with illegal invaders are ignored by their government.

Six people were arrested from a furious crowd estimated to have numbered more than 2,000.  The Irish police force say they were on the receiving end of sustained violence that included glass bottles, bricks and fireworks. Only a line of police in riot gear were able to prevent the crowd from reaching the hotel. 

Bringing the torches and pitchforks metaphor to life, the fed-up citizens brandished pitchforks and other garden tools, along with fireworks and handheld lasers, and chanted “GET THEM OUT!” Some 300 police mounted the defense, employing a water cannon to tame the crowd.

Here’s what they were upset about.

🇮🇪 A young girl was assaulted near the Citywest asylum hotel in Dublin.

Just 3 days ago, locals posted footage of migrants drinking outside a nearby primary school.

Now a child’s been attacked.

This was entirely preventable, our politicians created this. pic.twitter.com/o2jSLwm8LH

— Michael McCarthy (@punishablepress) October 20, 2025

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A major new study has found that Bill Gates–backed fake meat products are linked to a sharp rise in depression, raising fresh concerns about the billionaire’s global campaign to replace real food with synthetic alternatives.

The study confirmed that hyper-processed fake meats caused dangerous levels of inflammation in the brain, leading to severe neurological disorders that can trigger suicidal feelings.

As plant-based diets have gained traction, Gates and his network of globalist green investors have poured billions into ultra-processed lab-grown so-called meat, insect-based proteins, and genetically engineered fake beef and fake chicken, marketing them as sustainable solutions to save the planet from climate change.

But new research suggests these products may be doing serious harm to both mental and physical health, all while advancing Gates’s long-term agenda to centralize control over the global food system.

Using data from the UK Biobank cohort, scientists compared health markers among vegetarians who regularly ate plant-based meat alternatives (PBMAs) with those who didn’t.

The study, led by Professor Hana F. Navratilova, was conducted by a team of leading bio-scientists at the University of Surrey in the UK.

Their paper was published in the scientific journal Food Frontiers.

The findings were alarming.

Those who consumed PBMAs faced a staggering 42% higher risk of depression.

They also showed elevated blood pressure and higher C-reactive protein (CRP) levels, which are key markers of inflammation.

Even though overall nutrient intake, including sodium, sugar, and fat, was similar between groups, the plant-based meat eaters displayed different immune and metabolic responses, suggesting the damage wasn’t just nutritional but biochemical.

Researchers pointed to the ultra-processed nature of these lab-created products as a likely cause.

They noted that these alternative food products were filled with industrial additives, emulsifiers, and preservatives.

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On Tuesday, U.S. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent confirmed that the Trump administration has entered into what they’re calling an “economic stabilization agreement” with Argentina’s central bank. This is fancy terminology for a $20 billion bailout of a foreign country.

The Argentina bailout comes on top of tens of billions of dollars being allocated to fight wars on behalf of other countries over the last three years, most notably Israel and Ukraine.

The latest “deal” is part of a scheme that also involves the U.S. buying Argentinian beef, which will drive prices down for U.S. cattle ranchers, making it unprofitable for many smaller ranchers to continue doing business.

The agreement, announced by Argentina’s central bank on Monday, involves a $20 billion currency swap designed to prop up the struggling Argentine peso, as the nation approaches important midterm elections. These elections are crucial for the political future of President Javier Milei, a key South American ally of the Trump administration.

Here’s how Trump explained the situation, condescendingly, to a female reporter while boarding Air Force One on Tuesday:

Trump: Argentina is dying. They are fighting for their life.

They have no money, they have no anything.

Milei is trying his best but they are dying. pic.twitter.com/ZVVcoUt8mE

— Open Source Intel (@Osint613) October 20, 2025

So, this move appears to be all about propping up the Milei regime.

Despite criticism from Democrats and some conservative Republicans who view the aid as a bailout for a foreign nation, Bessent stated, “Argentina now has the opportunity to embrace economic freedom, and our stabilization agreement is a bridge to a better economic future for Argentina, not a bailout.” 

What’s that saying? If it looks like a duck, quacks like a duck, and smells like a duck… So much for America first. But we already knew that was a lie.

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President Trump infuriated the Zionist wing of his MAGA base, when he ordered Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to stop legislation from going forward in the Israeli Knesset that calls for the annexation of Judea and Samaria, otherwise known as the “West Bank.”

The Times of Israel reports that Netanyahu was hosting U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio Thursday amid mounting U.S. fury over the Knesset’s advancing of legislation to annex parts of the West Bank, while Vice President JD Vance was in the country Wednesday, and after Trump vowed last month that he wouldn’t allow Israel to make the controversial move.

Vance made comments to that effect on Thursday as well, calling the move by the Knesset “a stupid political stunt” and saying he was personally insulted that the bill was advanced during his visit.

Time magazine on Thursday published an interview with Trump in which he warned that Israel would lose all support from the US if it annexed the West Bank, and insisted that it will not happen, adding that he “gave my word to the Arab countries.”

Vance insisted that “the policy of the Trump administration is that the West Bank will not be annexed by Israel. That will continue to be our policy. And if people want to take symbolic votes, they can do that but we certainly weren’t happy about it. I personally take some insult to it.”

After Vance’s rebuke, Netanyahu ordered a halt to the advancement of the parliamentary bills.

This “order” from Trump defies the long-held idea among some conservatives that Netanyahu and the Israeli government call the shots in Washington and basically get whatever they want. I think it’s the other way around. Israel is funded to the tune of $3 billion a year by Washington, receiving more American aid than any other country by far, and so it is beholden to Washington if it wants to continue receiving that money. Israel will never be a fully independent country until it is capable of defending itself without US backing. It wasn’t even able to win its recent war with Iran, having to rely on Donald Trump to come to its rescue and stop the war after it basically ran out of Patriot missile interceptors. Now, it appears round two of that war may be about to kick off, some are predicting that will happen by the end of the year. Again, Israel’s only hope of winning is if America joins in on its side, or it uses its nuclear arsenal against Iran.

As Vladimir Lenin said, “There are decades where nothing happens, and then there are weeks where decades happen.” This seems to have been one of those weeks.

As an independent journalist specializing in globalism, religion, technocracy and world affairs, Leo Hohmann depends solely his readers for support. He gets no government handouts, corporate ads or sponsorships. If you appreciate these updates and wish to support the site, you may send a donation of any size c/o Leo Hohmann, PO Box 291, Newnan, GA 30264, or donate via credit card below.