Someone wondered aloud on a social media platform the other day, “Where is Pete Hegseth these days?”

What a good question. Let’s consider it. Figuring out where Pete Hegseth is keeping himself will tell us something important about the Trump regime and how it operates — or, better put, who actually operates it in the Trump White House’s name.

PATRICK LAWRENCE: Serial Buffoon at the Pentagon

Trump elevated outsiders without necessary experience to his cabinet to avoid the deep state subversion that was rampant during his first term. The “blob” responded by making some of them irrelevant. 

As the SA Premier basks in the campaign glory of a $3.9 billion downpayment on shipyard for nuclear subs, the Federal Government is kicking the nuclear waste can down the road.  Rex Patrick reports.

With much fanfare, last week, Peter Malinauskas and Anthony Albanese announced a down payment on the $30B shipyard being built for the AUKUS nuclear submarines, which will begin construction in Port Adelaide in 2040.

Meanwhile, two senior government officials have told the Administrative Review Tribunal that the public they serve need to be kept in the dark on plans to deal with civil and AUKUS nuclear waste.

They argued ‘narrative control’ was essential.

To a current US cabinet secretary from a former one.

The New York Times reports that Department of Homeland Security has sent Google (owner of YouTube), Meta (Facebook and Instagram), and other media corporations subpoenas for the names on accounts that criticise ICE enforcement. The Department wants to identify Americans who oppose what it’s doing.

Robert Reich

I’ll save them time.

Hello? Kristi Noem?

Ukrainian leader Vladimir Zelensky has launched another public attack against Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban, just hours after disparaging him during an address at the Munich Security Conference.

The Munich gathering honored Zelensky with its annual award for ‘outstanding’ contributions to peace on Saturday. Accepting the Ewald von Kleist Prize, the Ukrainian leader thanked his European sponsors for bankrolling Kiev’s war effort, especially the “biggest donators,” Germany and the UK.

“We are very thankful that we have such partners and friends,” he said, before going after the Hungarian prime minister.

“And I even want to thank Viktor – you all know who I mean – because in his own way, he pushes all of us to be better,” Zelensky said. “Better, so that we are never like him, someone who seems to have forgotten the word ‘shame.’”

They like the bedtime story: Europe was peacefully humming along in its post-history spa — open borders, cheap energy, NATO as a charity, Russia as a gas station with a flag… and then, one day, the barbarian kicked the door in for no reason at all.

That story is not just dishonest. It’s operational. It’s the propaganda you tell yourself so you can keep the addiction going without ever admitting how self-destructive it is.

By Gerry Nolan

Because the truth is uglier and far more incriminating:

UNITED STATES Secretary of State Marco Rubio gave the green light to European leaders for a new era of colonialism. 

Speaking at the Munich Security Conference on Saturday, Mr Rubio offered partnership between the US and Europe to recolonise the global South.

Rubio gives green light to new era of US-European colonialism

BY Roger McKenzie

He said: “For five centuries, before the end of the second world war, the West had been expanding — its missionaries, its pilgrims, its soldiers, its explorers pouring out from its shores to cross oceans, settle new continents, build vast empires extending out across the globe.”

The “woke, decadent” EU is not facing a decline regardless of what critics say, and some people, including nearly half of Canadians, “still want” to join it, the bloc’s foreign policy chief Kaja Kallas has claimed.

Kallas made the remarks at the Munich Security Conference on Sunday, as she urged the bloc to “reclaim agency”and seek a “stronger role in the world.”She dismissed concerns that the EU may be facing an “erasure” altogether, hitting out at unnamed critics.

“Contrary to what some may say, woke, decadent Europe is not facing civilizational erasure. In fact, people still want to join our club. And not just fellow Europeans. When I was in Canada last year, I was told that over 40 percent of Canadians have an interest in joining the EU!” Kallas insisted.

In his new book Geoffrey Robertson argues the UN Security Council can no longer defend democracy and proposes a new alliance of democratic states. The diagnosis is compelling – the path forward far less clear.

The indictment in Geoffrey Robertson’s latest book, _World of War Crimes_, is long, thoroughly evidenced and impregnable to rational challenge.

Andrew Fraser

Australia’s political and media establishments are struggling to adapt to a world where narratives can no longer be tightly managed. And attempts to restore authority through censorship, moral panic and regulation are deepening public alienation rather than restoring trust.

Scott Burchill

Australia’s political and media elites are slowly realising that outside their hermetically-sealed echo-bubble, the world has changed.

From curbing protests to controlling what can be said, state and Federal Labor governments are becoming authoritarian. Next in line is the thought police entering campus, Nick Riemer reports.

In December, the NSW Labor government gave itself the power to ban street marches for an indefinite period. We saw what that meant on February 9 as violent police charged, maced, beat and arrested protesters against Herzog’s visit.

In January, the federal ALP introduced new hate speech laws, which confer unprecedented discretion on the government to criminalise speech and groups to which it objects. Now, in a further stride down its authoritarian road, the federal government is reported to be proceeding with plans for political training for Australian university staff.

Set ups like the CIA and MI6 are not dilettante organisations. They not only advise the administrations of their respective countries, they also control the narratives that appear in the media. And they are VERY powerful — more powerful than Presidents or Prime Ministers that come and go, though Donald Trump is a handful and keep trampling the petunias that have been so carefully cultivated. 

The CIA and MI6 — and Mossad — are engaged in wars of disinformation and in ACTIVE terrorism nearly everywhere in the world. 

British state broadcaster, the BBC, has announced sweeping cuts, citing financial pressures. The move comes as the network faces mounting reputational issues and a $10 billion defamation lawsuit filed by US President Donald Trump.

The broadcaster told staff on Thursday of an impending 10% cut to its annual cost base over the next three years, and that the reductions would affect all parts of the corporation including its license fee-funded public service arm, according to The Telegraph.

”In a rapidly changing media market, we continue to face substantial financial pressures,” the outlet cited a BBC spokesperson as saying.

The BBC’s operating costs stood at just over $8 billion last year, meaning the savings would amount to around $800 million, the paper noted. The broadcaster had previously pledged $953 million of cutbacks under an existing cost-cutting program.

Steve Bannon, a former White House adviser to US President Donald Trump, discussed opposition strategies with convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein against Pope Francis, with Bannon saying he hoped to “take down” the pontiff, according to newly released files from the US Department of Justice.

Move aside, Melania -- Donald Trump's White House is celebrating Valentine's Day with some cheeky cards that applaud the administration's accomplishments ... while mocking the left.

Check out the V-Day cards the White House posted to ring in the holiday -- the first shows handcuffed and blindfolded Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro being flown out of Venezuela after the U.S. captured him in January, with the saying ... "You captured my heart."