May 112025
 


Henri Matisse The terrace, St. Tropez 1904

 

Trump Touts “Great Progress” In China Tariff Talks, Suggests “Total Reset” (ZH)
India and Pakistan Agree To ‘Immediate Ceasefire’ – Trump (RT)
Putin Proposes Direct Talks With Ukraine On May 15 In Turkey To End War (JTN)
Zelensky Voices Demands To Russia After High-Profile Talks In Kiev (RT)
Moscow Says It Won’t Be Pressured Over Ukraine 30-Day Truce (RT)
Russia Is Not Afraid of Western Sanctions – Kremlin (RT)
Ukraine Seeks to Reload, Not Negotiate Peace – US Army Vet (Sp.)
Zelensky Will Reject Putin’s Proposal in Order to Stay ALIVE (Sp.)
Ukraine’s Cause Is ‘Doomed’ – Bulgarian President (RT)
George Galloway: UK Troops in Ukraine Would Constitute ‘National Suicide’ (Sp.)
Ukraine’s European Backers Can’t Replace US Military Aid – NYT (RT)
German Spies Grant AfD Reprieve (RT)
Why History Is Alive In Russia But Dead In The West (SCF)
The Soviet Union Defeated More Than Just The Nazis In 1945 (Ibrahim)
Trump’s Houthi Deal Channels America First, Leaving Out Allies (JTN)
Justice Roberts Admits It’s His Job to Rein in the Judicial Insurrection (O’Neil)
Federal Judge Halts All Large-Scale Firings by Trump Administration (Turley)
Trump Eyes Suspending Habeas Corpus In Border Invasion (Margolis)
Trump Redirects Funds From Illegals to Homeless Veterans (Salgado)
Deep State, Deep Church: Welcome to the New Pope! (Pacini)

 

 

 

 

Waltz


https://twitter.com/VigilantFox/status/1921004517132304785

Greenwald RFK

RFK
https://twitter.com/itscarterhughes/status/1921021374300139910

Jolani

 

 

 

 

We await China’s response to Trump coming down to 80%.

Trump Touts “Great Progress” In China Tariff Talks, Suggests “Total Reset” (ZH)

President Donald Trump said late on Saturday that “great progress” was being made in ongoing U.S.-China talks over tariffs menacing the global economy, and even suggested a “total reset” was on the table as tariff negotiations are set to continue Sunday in Switzerland.No major breakthrough was announced in discussions that lasted over 10 hours between U.S. officials, including Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, U.S. Trade Representative Jamieson Greer, and a delegation led by Chinese Vice Premier He Lifeng. Still, Trump struck an upbeat tone.“A very good meeting today with China, in Switzerland. Many things discussed, much agreed to. A total reset negotiated in a friendly, but constructive, manner,” the president wrote on his Truth Social platform. “We want to see, for the good of both China and the U.S., an opening up of China to American business. GREAT PROGRESS MADE!!!”

He gave no further details, and officials at the White House also offered little information during and after the opening day of discussions. Trump’s post followed reports that talks would continue Sunday, after extending late into the day on Saturday. Talks have been shrouded in secrecy, and neither side made comments to reporters as they left. Several convoys of black vehicles left the residence of the Swiss ambassador to the UN in Geneva, which hosted the talks aimed at de-escalating trade tensions between the world’s two biggest economies. Diplomats from both sides also confirmed that the talks took place. The opening day of negotiations were held in the sumptuous 18th-century “Villa Saladin” overlooking Lake Geneva. The former estate was bequeathed to the Swiss state in 1973, according to the Geneva government.

Trump’s assessment aside, while prospects for a major breakthrough appeared dim when the talks opened there is hope that the two countries will scale back the tariffs they have slapped on each other’s goods, a move that would relieve world financial markets and companies on both sides of the Pacific Ocean that depend on US-China trade. Trump last month raised U.S. tariffs on China to a combined 145%, and China retaliated by hitting American imports with a 125% levy. Tariffs that high essentially amount to the countries’ boycotting each other’s products, disrupting trade that last year topped $660 billion. And even before talks got underway, Trump suggested Friday that the U.S. could lower its tariffs on China, saying in a Truth Social post that “80% Tariff seems right! Up to Scott” Bessent.

Sun Yun, director of the China program at the Stimson Center, noted it will be the first time He and Bessent have talked. She doubts the Geneva meeting will produce any substantive results: “the best scenario is for the two sides to agree to de-escalate on the … tariffs at the same time,” she said, adding even a small reduction would send a positive signal. “It cannot just be words.” Goldman Sachs expects both sides to cut tariffs by more than half when negotiations are over. Since returning to the White House in January, Trump has aggressively used tariffs as his favorite economic weapon. He has imposed a 10% tax on imports from almost every country in the world. But the fight with China has been the most intense. His tariffs on China include a 20% charge meant to pressure Beijing into doing more to stop the flow of the synthetic opioid fentanyl into the United States.

The remaining 125% involve a dispute that dates back to Trump’s first term and comes atop tariffs he levied on China back then, which means the total tariffs on some Chinese goods can exceed 145%. During Trump’s first term, the U.S. alleged that China uses unfair tactics to give itself an edge in advanced technologies such as quantum computing and driverless cars. These include forcing U.S. and other foreign companies to hand over trade secrets in exchange for access to the Chinese market; using government money to subsidize domestic tech firms; and outright theft of sensitive technologies. Those issues were never fully resolved. After nearly two years of negotiation, the United States and China reached a so-called Phase One agreement in January 2020. The US agreed then not to go ahead with even higher tariffs on China, and Beijing agreed to buy more American products. The tough issues – such as China’s subsidies – were left for future negotiations.

But China didn’t come through with the promised purchases, partly because COVID-19 disrupted global commerce just after the Phase One truce was announced. As a result, America’s trade deficit with China came to a staggering $263 billion last year. The fight over China’s tech policy now resumes.

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“He also hailed both sides for demonstrating “common sense and great intelligence.”

India and Pakistan Agree To ‘Immediate Ceasefire’ – Trump (RT)

India and Pakistan have agreed to cease hostilities, US President Donald Trump has said, adding that a deal was reached following a “long night of talks” mediated by Washington. Pakistani Foreign Minister Ishaq Dar has confirmed that a deal was reached but did not mention US involvement. New Delhi has said the truce came into effect at 5 pm local time. “I am pleased to announce that India and Pakistan have agreed to a full and immediate ceasefire,” Trump wrote in a post on Truth Social on Saturday. He also hailed both sides for demonstrating “common sense and great intelligence.” US Secretary of State Marco Rubio also said that the two neighbors had decided to “start talks on a broad set of issues at a neutral site.”

According to Rubio, he and US Vice President J.D. Vance were involved in talks with senior Indian and Pakistani officials over the past 48 hours, including Prime Ministers Narendra Modi and Shehbaz Sharif, India’s top diplomat, Subrahmanyam Jaishankar, and Pakistani Chief of Army Staff Asim Munir.Shortly after the announcement, India’s Foreign Ministry said that the heads of military operations of the two nations had agreed to cease all hostilities in a phone call earlier on Saturday initiated by the Pakistani side. Pakistani Foreign Minister Ishaq Dar took to X to say that “Pakistan and India have agreed to a ceasefire with immediate effect.” The truce follows a brief but rapid military escalation between the two nuclear powers. Earlier this week, New Delhi launched ‘Operation Sindoor’, a series of strikes on suspected terrorist facilities in Pakistan and Pakistan-administered Kashmir. The strikes were in retaliation for a terrorist attack in April in the India Union Territory of Jammu and Kashmir that claimed the lives of 26 civilians.

The attack was initially claimed by “The Resistance Front”, a group believed to be linked to the Pakistani-based jihadist organization Lashkar-e-Taiba. New Delhi said its investigators had been able to identify communication nodes of terrorists in and to Pakistan. Islamabad has vehemently denied that it had any role in the attack and has called for an impartial probe. Islamabad has condemned India’s actions as a “heinous provocation” and responded with shelling across the Line of Control, the de facto border between the countries in Kashmir, as well as with drone strikes. Late on Friday, Pakistan announced that it had launched a large-scale military operation against India called ‘Bunyan Al Marsoos’ (Unbreakable Wall) in what it called retaliation for the Indian strikes. Strikes targeting Indian military sites ensued.

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Ukraine will screw them up with demands it knows Russia will not meet.

Putin Proposes Direct Talks With Ukraine On May 15 In Turkey To End War (JTN)

Russian President Vladimir Putin early Sunday proposed direct talks with Ukraine on May 15 in Turkey to end Europe’s longest military conflict since World War II. Putin’s offer came in response to requests from Kyiv and President Donald Trump for a 30-day ceasefire. The Russian president said there would be no conditions for the restart of negotiations. “We are committed to serious negotiations with Ukraine,” Putin said, adding it was possible Russia could agree to a ceasefire during the talks. There’s no immediate reaction from Washington, which has pressed for months for a peaceful solution to the three-year war between Russian and Ukraine.

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Haven’t seen a great write-up of this meeting in Kiev. We’ll make do.

“..a 17th package of EU sanctions, which will be coordinated with measures from the UK, Norway, and US..”

Hmm. Wonder what the US is doing there. Not clear.

Meanwhile, “the leaders of the UK, France, Germany, and Poland..” are all highly unpopular at home, and dead set on war with Russia. Which is why they went to Kiev. Where they can seem relevant.

Zelensky Voices Demands To Russia After High-Profile Talks In Kiev (RT)

Ukraine’s Vladimir Zelensky has demanded that Russia agree to a full and unconditional ceasefire lasting at least 30 days starting May 12. Moscow has previously argued that such a truce would merely give Ukraine time to regroup its forces. On Saturday, the leaders of the UK, France, Germany, and Poland met with Zelensky in Kiev as part of the so-called “coalition of the willing.” “After the conclusion of the summit in Kiev, we all spoke with @POTUS [US President Donald Trump]. It was a good conversation – positive and concrete. I am grateful to President Trump,” Zelensky wrote on X following the meeting. “We share a common view: an immediate, full, and unconditional ceasefire is needed for at least 30 days,” he added. Zelensky said Kiev is ready to begin talks with Russia “in any format” once a full and unconditional 30-day ceasefire is in place.

He warned that if Moscow refuses the truce, stronger sanctions should be imposed on Russia’s energy and banking sectors. Preparations are already underway for a 17th package of EU sanctions, which will be coordinated with measures from the UK, Norway, and US, Zelensky claimed. Kiev has demanded an immediate 30-day ceasefire on numerous occasions over the past few months. Moscow has opposed the initiative, arguing that Ukraine would use the time to regroup its troops and restock weapons inventories. In an interview with ABC News on Friday, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said Ukraine “will continue their total mobilization, bringing new troops to the front line. They will use this period to train new military personnel and give rest to their existing ones. So why should we grant such an advantage to Ukraine?” He added that arms shipments from the West would also need to stop during any ceasefire. “Otherwise, it will be an advantage for Ukraine,” he said.

Moscow has repeatedly stated its readiness to begin negotiations with Ukraine without any preconditions. In March, it agreed to a US-brokered 30-day partial ceasefire focused on halting strikes on energy infrastructure. However, according to the Russian military, Kiev repeatedly violated the truce. Last week, Vladimir Putin announced a unilateral 72-hour Victory Day ceasefire, describing it as a humanitarian gesture to mark the 80th anniversary of the Soviet victory over Nazi Germany. He said the gesture could also serve as a catalyst for “the start of direct negotiations with Kiev without preconditions.” The initiative was dismissed by Zelensky as “a manipulation.” Kiev even intensified drone strikes on Russian territory during the pause.

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The other side demands a full truce literally as per tomorrow morning.

Moscow Says It Won’t Be Pressured Over Ukraine 30-Day Truce (RT)

The Kremlin has rejected what it describes as external pressure surrounding the 30-day truce demanded by Ukraine’s Vladimir Zelensky and supported by Western leaders. Speaking to CNN on Saturday, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said that Russia had already declared a three-day ceasefire earlier in the week, which was met with silence from Kiev. “Actually, a couple of days ago, Putin announced a ceasefire for three days,” Peskov said. “Did you hear any reaction from Kiev? No, we didn’t either. Did you hear any criticism of Kiev for not being able to respond or not willing to respond? No.” Leaders from the United Kingdom, France, Germany, and Poland gathered in Kiev on Saturday for high-level talks with Ukraine’s Vladimir Zelensky. According to him, the gathering also included virtual participation from more than 30 countries.

Following the meeting, Zelensky wrote on X that participants agreed a full and unconditional ceasefire must begin on Monday, May 12, and last for at least 30 days. “Together, we demand this from Russia,” he stated. He warned that if Moscow refuses the truce, stronger sanctions should be imposed on Russia’s energy and banking sectors. Preparations are already underway for a 17th package of EU sanctions, which will be coordinated with measures from the UK, Norway, and US, Zelensky claimed. Peskov told CNN that the Kremlin was still evaluating the latest developments. “We have to think about that. We have our own position.” He also criticized what he described as an increasingly hostile posture from Western European states. “Yes, definitely we see that Europe is confronting us. We feel it, we know it, and we are quite accustomed to that.”

The Kremlin spokesman reiterated Moscow’s willingness to engage in talks. “We are open for dialogue. We are open for attempts to have a settlement in Ukraine,” he said, expressing appreciation for the mediation efforts coming from the Trump administration. “But at the same time, it’s quite useless to try to press upon us,” he added. Kiev has repeatedly called for an immediate 30-day ceasefire in recent months, framing it as essential for starting diplomatic efforts. Moscow argued that such a pause would primarily benefit Ukraine by allowing its forces to regroup and replenish weapons stockpiles. Speaking to ABC News on Friday, Dmitry Peskov also stressed that any truce would require a halt to Western arms deliveries, saying, “Otherwise, it will be an advantage for Ukraine.”

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“..a total of 28,595 sanctions were imposed on Russian companies and individuals in recent years..”

Russia Is Not Afraid of Western Sanctions – Kremlin (RT)

Russia is used to Western pressure and is not concerned about new sanctions, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov has said. He was commenting on a new round of sanctions recently imposed by the UK. ”We already know what we will do once the sanctions are announced and how we will minimize their effect,” Peskov told journalist Pavel Zarubin on Saturday. Russia has learned effective ways to counteract Western pressure, he said. “Therefore, scaring us with sanctions is pointless.” On Friday, the British government announced what it called the “largest-ever” sanctions package against Russia, targeting its oil transportation network in order to deliver a blow to the country’s energy revenues. The new measures blacklisted up to 100 oil tankers that the West claims are part of a Russian ‘shadow fleet’, older vessels operating outside Western insurance systems.

Since the escalation of the Ukraine conflict over three years ago, successive British governments have introduced more than 2,000 sanctions on Russian individuals and entities. Moscow has said the move will not harm Russia’s economy and will instead increase energy costs and inflation in Europe. Earlier, US President Donald Trump called for an “unconditional ceasefire” between Moscow and Kiev, threatening punitive measures if the truce is not observed. “The US and its partners will impose further sanctions” if it is violated, he said. In March, Russian President Vladimir Putin said that a total of 28,595 sanctions were imposed on Russian companies and individuals in recent years – more than the total number on all other countries combined. According to the president, the West sought to eliminate Russia as a competitor but its economy has only grown more resilient under pressure.

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“..he’s got pressure from Western backers. Maybe not so much of the US, but definitely from France. Germany and the UK, primarily the UK on that. And he has pressures to continue this conflict from his ultra-nationalists within the Kiev government and military.”

Ukraine Seeks to Reload, Not Negotiate Peace – US Army Vet (Sp.)

As Russian President Vladimir Putin proposes renewed direct peace talks with Ukraine—offered without preconditions and suggested to take place in Istanbul on May 15—Sputnik contributors are weighing in on Kiev’s likely response. Retired US Army Lieutenant Colonel Earl Rasmussen voiced strong skepticism about Ukraine’s willingness to engage in the peace process. “We’ve had one side—President Putin—open to negotiations all along,” says Rasmussen. “But it’s Ukraine that keeps walking away from the table and violating every ceasefire,” he stresses. “Putin’s latest offer is a counterstrike—not with missiles, but with diplomacy. But don’t expect Kiev or its NATO patrons to bite. They’re not looking for peace. They’re looking for an opening shot in the next round,” Rasmussen emphasizes.

Putin’s latest talks initiative follows several ceasefire proposals over the past month. According to Moscow, Ukrainian forces not only ignored the proposed truce but launched large-scale attacks on Russian territory. Nevertheless, Russia maintains that it is open to serious negotiations aimed at addressing the root causes of the conflict. When asked about Volodymyr Zelensky’s potential response, Rasmussen pointed to both internal and external pressure that might prevent any meaningful dialogue. “[Zelensky] is not going to accept this because he’s got pressure from Western backers. Maybe not so much of the US, but definitely from France. Germany and the UK, primarily the UK on that. And he has pressures to continue this conflict from his ultra-nationalists within the Kiev government and military.”

With the conflict grinding on, Rasmussen sees little chance of immediate diplomatic progress. “I do not picture him accepting a negotiation at all. Maybe I’m wrong. I hope I’m wrong, but I don’t think it’s going to happen.” He concluded with a direct appeal to American leadership, suggesting the United States could play a decisive role in halting the conflict. “President Trump needs to get involved. They need the US can end this. They need to cut support to Ukraine. And they need to get the Europeans on board.” As the world watches to see whether Ukraine will respond to Moscow’s latest proposal, skepticism remains high among some analysts about the willingness—or ability—of Kiev to pursue direct peace talks with no preconditions.

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“..this is where the Europeans are just absolutely nuts… that if they wanted to impose sanctions that would go after the oil deliveries by Russia, that will automatically, literally overnight, raise the prices that would actually benefit Russia and hurt the Europeans.”

Zelensky Will Reject Putin’s Proposal in Order to Stay ALIVE (Sp.)

As Russian President Vladimir Putin publicly proposed renewed peace talks with Ukraine to be held in Istanbul on May 15, accompanied by an expressed willingness to negotiate without preconditions, a former senior US security analyst has offered a stark assessment of the political pressure facing Volodymyr Zelensky. “Zelensky will reject Putin’s proposal in order to stay alive,” warned Michael Maloof, a former senior security policy analyst at the Pentagon, in a blunt analysis of the Ukrainian leader’s predicament.Moscow’s latest offer comes in the wake of what it claims were several attacks by Ukrainian forces even during Russia’s proposed Victory Day ceasefire. Despite these incidents, Putin has insisted that Russia remains open to talks aimed at achieving a lasting peace and addressing the root causes of the conflict.

“Zelensky does not want to meet alone with Mr. Putin,” Maloof explained. “And I think that if he decides to go ahead and negotiate something, and first of all, I question whether he’ll be ALLOWED to do that because of internal politics… I think the Azov* group and his military will rebel,” he emphasized. “Putin has basically put Zelensky in a really tight position. Between that proverbial rock and hard place,” Maloof stressed. Moscow’s proposal has stirred debate globally, particularly in Europe, where the political appetite for reconciliation with Russia remains minimal. Maloof was sharply critical of the European approach, describing it as counterproductive and self-destructive.“Turn that down, because that’s not the way, the direction they wanted to go, because the Europeans are very anxious and interested in wanting to pursue their antagonistic approach toward Russia, not only in containing, but trying to overthrow the government and wanting to impose these even additional sanctions,” he said.

He argued that despite thousands of sanctions, Russia’s economy has adapted: “I think Russia is basically immune now because… they’ve had over 20,000 sanctions already imposed. And yet they want to impose some more that are not working.” According to Maloof, Western policies have backfired, particularly on energy: “And this is where the Europeans are just absolutely nuts… that if they wanted to impose sanctions that would go after the oil deliveries by Russia, that will automatically, literally overnight, raise the prices that would actually benefit Russia and hurt the Europeans.”

He did not hold back in his criticism: “They just want to continue a conflict with Russia that, frankly, particularly the UK, that has been going on for almost 250 years. Their antagonism toward Russia is historic.” Maloof pointed to recent international events to underscore Russia’s continued global standing: “If they thought that their new sanctions were going to isolate Russia, I think the Victory Day parade demonstrated, as well as the BRICS conference last October in Kazan, demonstrated that Russia is not isolated. In fact, it has drawn the support and the backing of more than half the people world, from the global south, all of Asia.” As the proposed date for talks nears, all eyes will be on Kiev and its Western allies, whose response—or silence—may define the next stage of the war.

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Keeping score: Hungary, Serbia, Slovakia and now Bulgaria.

Ukraine’s Cause Is ‘Doomed’ – Bulgarian President (RT)

Bulgarian President Rumen Radev has openly criticized the EU’s continued military support for Ukraine, warning that Kiev’s path to victory against Russia is “doomed.” He made the remarks in a Facebook post on Friday, timed with Russia’s Victory Day celebrations in Moscow marking the 80th anniversary of the Soviet victory over Nazi Germany in World War II. Radev called it “the tragedy of our time” that decades after World War II, international disputes in Europe “are once again being resolved by military means.” “Europe does not have its own vision for the end of the [Ukraine conflict] and the establishment of peace, but continues to invest in a cause that, in my opinion, is doomed,” the Bulgarian leader wrote. He added that “pouring more weapons” into Ukraine would not bring peace closer, calling it a “utopian hope” that leads instead to “the opposite – even more victims, destruction and lost territory every day.”

Radev also questioned the EU’s goals in prolonging the Ukraine conflict. “Is Europe afraid of the return of peace? Because the return of peace also means returning public attention to the crises that are smoldering within our countries and societies,” he stated, stressing that Europe must learn the lessons of World War II, abandon its militaristic approach, and focus instead on diplomatic solutions. “Europe must remember that unity and prosperity were made possible by joint efforts to eradicate the rivalries, hatred, and disputes that led to the Second World War,” he said.

Radev has opposed sending military aid to Kiev and is one of the few EU leaders to speak out against Brussels’ hardline stance against Moscow. He previously warned against prolonging the conflict, dismissing the idea of Ukraine defeating Russia as “impossible,” while urging for peace. Russia has warned against Western military aid to Ukraine, saying it would only drag out the conflict. Moscow offered a 72-hour ceasefire from midnight May 8 to midnight May 11 to mark Victory Day, describing the offer as a humanitarian gesture aimed at paving the way for direct peace talks without preconditions. Ukraine dismissed the overture as “manipulation” and demanded a 30-day ceasefire instead. The Russian Defense Ministry said Ukraine launched multiple attacks of various kinds, including four attempted cross-border incursions into the Russian regions of Kursk and Belgorod, following Russia’s ceasefire declaration.

Orban

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“Now, Galloway says, London is talking about putting 20,000-30,000 troops in Ukraine, a move that would constitute “an act of war against Russia.” “That’s a declaration, literally, of national suicide…that presupposes a Russian nuclear response that would end the existence of the British people”.

“..that military-industrial complex is fine when it comes to selling unnecessary and very expensive kits, airplanes and so on, to countries, I won’t name them, who really don’t know how to use them, have no need for them and if they were ever forced to use them, they wouldn’t last for long…”

George Galloway: UK Troops in Ukraine Would Constitute ‘National Suicide’ (Sp.)

From WWII’s forgotten heroes to the UK’s ‘suicidal’ Ukraine policy, seasoned politician, Workers’ Party of Britain leader and prolific political commentator George Galloway doesn’t hold back in his interview with Sputnik. Without the Soviet people, entire nations would have been wiped out, and survivors would be speaking German, Galloway said. The “extraordinary lengths” to which British leaders have been ready to go to drive a wedge between erstwhile WWII allies Russia and Britain comes down to rivalry and jealousy, Galloway says. The British government wrecked the 2022 Russia-Ukraine peace deal in Istanbul as the conflict was just getting started, and proved more than willing to freeze its own seniors to death to grant Zelensky 1.5 billion pounds in aid, the prolific commentator recalled. Now, Galloway says, London is talking about putting 20,000-30,000 troops in Ukraine, a move that would constitute “an act of war against Russia.”

“That’s a declaration, literally, of national suicide…that presupposes a Russian nuclear response that would end the existence of the British people” and effectively put an end to “our island’s story,” Galloway emphasized, when asked what would happen if Britain used a Ukraine troop deployment as a nuclear tripwire. The UK can’t even be sure that it’s in control of its own deterrent, Galloway said, much less rely on support from the US. “I remind you that Britain no longer has even a steel industry,” the veteran statesman said, commenting on the glaring gap between the government’s loud ‘bark’ and its actual military ‘bite’. “The only piece of manufacturing that you could readily identify on the British industrial landscape is the military-industrial complex and that military-industrial complex is fine when it comes to selling unnecessary and very expensive kits, airplanes and so on, to countries, I won’t name them, who really don’t know how to use them, have no need for them and if they were ever forced to use them, they wouldn’t last for long.

That is the kind of racket that we are involved in. But when it comes to the production of shells, when it come to the protection of tanks, comes to production of drones that we discussed earlier, we’re not at the races.” “It’s as obvious as the nose on your face when you think about it that without the Americans there is no NATO, without the American army there is no military threat,” the veteran statesman said. A US withdrawal from Europe would force “a reckoning” in Western Europe and Ukraine, resulting in a speedy negotiated settlement. As long as the US remains, and the root “fundamental causes of the conflict remain unresolved” (NATO expansion), the meatgrinder will continue, Galloway laments.

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They still count on Trump.

Ukraine’s European Backers Can’t Replace US Military Aid – NYT (RT)

Ukraine’s European sponsors lack the manufacturing capacity to replace US arms supplies to Kiev, the New York Times wrote on Saturday. The administration of US President Donald Trump has shifted from spending billions on supporting Ukraine to focusing on domestic issues. It has also signaled to its European NATO allies that Washington has no interest in propping up the military bloc alone. The NYT noted that the US has not announced a new arms package for Ukraine for more than 120 days. While the Pentagon still has $3.85 billion in armaments earmarked for Kiev under the previous administration, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth declined to answer when asked if the arms would be sent to Ukraine, the newspaper wrote.

Kiev is running low on long-range missiles, artillery and, most of all, ballistic aid defense systems – which are mostly manufactured in the US – the NYT wrote, citing a Ukrainian official. While European leaders and investors appear willing to pump more funds into arms manufacturing, “industry executives and experts predict it will take a decade to get assembly lines up to speed,” according to the newspaper. This comes on the backdrop of European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen’s proposal to mobilize up to €800 billion for military spending in the EU, citing threats from Russia and the inability to rely on long-term US support. The Trump administration has consistently demanded that the European NATO states increase their annual military spending to 5% of GDP, calling the longstanding 2% target insufficient.

Russian officials have condemned the steps being taken in Europe toward militarization, and dismissed claims that Moscow intends to attack either the EU or NATO. Moreover, Russia has expressed concern that, rather than supporting the US peace initiatives for the Ukraine conflict, the EU is instead gearing up for war with Russia. Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov previously noted that the EU is “becoming militarized at a record pace,” and said that there was now “very little difference” between the EU and NATO.

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“..incoming Interior Minister Alexander Dobrindt warned against banning the AfD. Dobrindt has argued that the party should be made irrelevant through good governance rather than drastic measures. He also insisted on a discussion over the reasons that the AfD has risen to prominence..”

German Spies Grant AfD Reprieve (RT)

Germany’s domestic intelligence agency has temporarily suspended its classification of the Alternative for Germany (AfD) party as a “confirmed right-wing extremist” group, pending the outcome of a legal appeal. The Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution (BfV) suspended the label on Thursday and removed a press release about the designation from its website. The classification, which was announced by the BfV last week, was based on a comprehensive report alleging that the AfD promotes policies excluding individuals with migrant backgrounds, particularly Muslims, from full societal participation. The BfV claimed that the party “disregards human dignity” and uses terms such as “knife-wielding migrants” to ascribe violent tendencies to non-European ethnic groups.

The AfD leadership condemned the decision as “a severe blow to German democracy” and filed a lawsuit in a Cologne court, arguing that the classification was politically motivated and lacked sufficient evidence. As a result, the BfV temporarily withdrew the classification, but said it would monitor the party as a “suspected case” of an extremist organization. The suspended designation would have empowered the BfV to carry out broad surveillance of the AfD’s activities. The lower-level designation also allows surveillance, but under stricter judicial oversight. AfD co-leaders Alice Weidel and Tino Chrupalla welcomed the temporary suspension, calling it “a first important step” that will help “counter the accusation of right-wing extremism.”

The ‘extremist’ label was met with skepticism by many German politicians. Then-German Chancellor Olaf Scholz and incoming Interior Minister Alexander Dobrindt warned against banning the AfD. Dobrindt has argued that the party should be made irrelevant through good governance rather than drastic measures. He also insisted on a discussion over the reasons that the AfD has risen to prominence, referring to recent polls indicating that it has become the most popular party in Germany, reaching 26% support. The AfD’s surge has often been attributed to public frustration over the immigration policies of the mainstream parties, as well as economic challenges and perceived government ineffectiveness.

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“In the West, history is dead because it is used to bury crimes past and present..”

Why History Is Alive In Russia But Dead In The West (SCF)

Eighty years after the defeat of Nazi Germany, this week the world witnessed a spectacular, solemn and joyous event to commemorate that historic achievement. The victory parade in Moscow’s Red Square was a glorious pageant incomparable to anywhere else. Rightly so, because the defeat of Nazi Germany on May 9, 1945, was largely the result of heroic sacrifices of the Soviet and Russian people. The annual commemoration remains as poignant and proud to Russians as ever. Russian President Vladimir Putin was accompanied by many international dignitaries this year to observe the parade. Significantly, with honorable exceptions, Western leaders were absent, prohibited by their toxic Russophobic propaganda and historical contradictions. China’s President, Xi Jinping, was prominent in the Red Square tribune. Again, rightly so.

The Russian and Chinese nations suffered the most in the Second World War. The worst military conflagration in human history is estimated at a death toll of around 80 million. More than half of all those victims were among the Soviet and Chinese people. Victory Day on May 9 is usually commemorated as signifying the end of World War II. But Nazi Germany’s Axis partner Imperial Japan was not defeated until August 1945. Imperial Japan’s war in China was conducted with the same genocidal barbarity as Nazi Germany’s in the Soviet Union. It is profoundly revealing that the end of World War II is largely now a muted event in the Western nations of the United States, Britain, and the rest of Europe. It is eerie that such a world-shattering episode has become an increasingly non-descriptive date in the official Western calendar. By contrast, in Russia, the anniversary of the Great Patriotic War’s victory is more relevant and revered than ever.

The difference is explicable. The so-called “Allied victory” over Nazi Germany and Imperial Japan was always something of a charade. Eighty years on, the charade is exposed more than ever to the point where it has become untenable and embarrassing for the Western states. The Soviet Red Army and the Russian people won the war against the Nazi Third Reich with great human sacrifice. The defeat of Japan was brought about by the United States in a cowardly and despicable act of genocide when it dropped two atomic bombs on the cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. The United States and Britain, the Soviet Union’s nominal allies during World War II, made a marginal contribution to defeating Nazi Germany. The indisputable facts that the Nazi Wehrmacht lost 80 per cent of its total casualties fighting against the Soviet Union, and the raising of the Hammer and Sickle over Hitler’s Berlin bunker are testaments to who were the pivotal victors.

No sooner had the Nazi regime been vanquished than the Western powers began their acts of treachery against the Soviet Union. World War II immediately transitioned into the Cold War with the United States and Britain rehabilitating remnants of the Nazi regime. The dropping of the atomic bombs on Japan was not so much about crushing the Japanese enemy as committing a calculated act of terror to intimidate the Soviet Union. As author Ron Ridenour recounts in his book, The Russian Peace Threat, the Americans and British had covert, diabolical plans to attack the Soviet Union with atomic weapons in the aftermath of World War II. However, the subsequent development of the bomb in 1949 by the Soviets prevented the Western powers from carrying out their annihilation of Russia.

[..] This week, at its pale imitation of a “victory parade” in London, the British royals, politicians and military were joined by Ukrainian NeoNazi forces waving their odious Wolf Hook flags. In essence, the four-year proxy war in Ukraine against Russia, fully instigated and weaponized by the Western powers, is but a continuation of World War Two. This time, however, there is no pretense about whose side the Western powers are on. In the West, history is dead because it is used to bury crimes past and present. For Russia and other people who seek the truth and genuine international peace, history is very much alive and worth fighting for.

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The end of Nazism in Africa took quite a bit longer. And the Nazism there was not German.

“If a system as monstrous as Nazism could be crushed, then surely the British, French, Portuguese, and Belgian empires—those well-dressed relatives of fascism—could be kicked out too..”

The Soviet Union Defeated More Than Just The Nazis In 1945 (Ibrahim)

Victory Day, marked every year in May, is remembered for the defeat of Nazi Germany by the Red Army of the Soviet Union and its allies in 1945. The world saw fascism crumble under the weight of mass resistance, both military and moral. But while Europe swept its streets and held its parades, across the African continent, colonized peoples watched with a different kind of hope. For them, Victory Day was not just about the fall of Hitler. It was about the idea that brutal regimes could fall at all. That whitewashed myths of European superiority, fortified by tanks and treaties, could be buried in the rubble of Berlin. Africa in 1945 was still largely in chains. From the deserts of North Africa to the forests of Central Africa, Europeans governed through coercion, racial hierarchy, and theft dressed in the language of “civilization.” And so, when fascism lost, Africa’s revolutionaries leaned in.

If a system as monstrous as Nazism could be crushed, then surely the British, French, Portuguese, and Belgian empires—those well-dressed relatives of fascism—could be kicked out too. Victory Day planted a powerful seed: the idea that no system, however armored in ideology or bullets, is eternal. Colonialism and fascism were not just neighbors on the historical timeline. They were ideological cousins who often shared the same tailor. Both relied on military terror, racial supremacy, and the economic logic that some people existed to be ruled, and others to rule. In Algeria, France perpetuated forced labor, mass internments, and massacres. In Egypt, the British occupation entrenched inequality and racial hierarchy until the 1952 Free Officers Revolution ended King Farouk’s reign. In the Congo, Belgian rule left a legacy of mass violence and extraction so extreme that a UN report in 2020 called it a “colonial genocide.” Mozambique, Kenya, and Angola were ruled by the gun, not by consent.

African leaders like Kwame Nkrumah, Julius Nyerere, Samora Machel, Gamal Abdel Nasser, and the National Liberation Front (FLN) in Algeria didn’t need textbooks to define fascism. They lived it. Nkrumah declared in 1960: “The colonial territories are not free… unless we consider colonialism a form of democratic rule. But colonialism is the rule of a foreign minority over the majority.” Victory Day helped ignite African resistance in very real and practical ways. It wasn’t long after the Nazi defeat that uprisings, protests, and movements surged across the continent. In 1947, the West African National Secretariat was formed in London, pushing for decolonization. In 1952, Egypt exploded with revolution, as young officers led by Gamal Abdel Nasser overthrew the British-controlled monarchy. In 1954, the FLN launched its full-scale revolt against France. Ghana gained independence in 1957 under Kwame Nkrumah, declaring not just Ghana’s freedom, but that of all Africa.

“The independence of Ghana is meaningless unless it is linked to the total liberation of Africa,” Nkrumah famously declared. His words were not mere rhetoric—they were a blueprint. That same year, thousands of Kenyans were locked in British detention camps during the Mau Mau uprising. In 1960, 69 unarmed protestors were gunned down in Sharpeville, South Africa. In 1961, South African communists, African nationalists, and Pan-Africanists formed Umkhonto we Sizwe. In 1963, the Organization of African Unity was born in Addis Ababa with a charter committed to the total liberation of the continent. While the so-called “free world” supported colonial powers—France in Algeria, Britain in Kenya and Malaya, Portugal in Mozambique and Angola—the USSR made its position clear: the war against fascism did not end in 1945. It had merely shifted geography.

Moscow supported African and Arab liberation movements with military training, arms shipments, medical aid, diplomatic backing at the United Nations, and ideological education. The Soviet Union trained fighters at military academies in Tashkent, Odessa, and Moscow. Cuba, a close Soviet ally, sent over 36,000 troops to Angola between 1975 and 1988 to help defeat South African apartheid forces during the Angolan Civil War. Soviet arms were sent to Algeria, Mozambique, Angola, Guinea-Bissau, and Zimbabwe. Leaders like Agostinho Neto, Amílcar Cabral, Samora Machel, and Oliver Tambo were all beneficiaries of Soviet logistical and ideological support.

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[t]he United States isn’t required to get permission from Israel to make some type of arrangement that would get the Houthis from firing on our ships.”

Trump’s Houthi Deal Channels America First, Leaving Out Allies (JTN)

President Donald Trump’s recent ceasefire agreement with the Yemen-based Houthis exempted U.S. ships from their strikes in the Red Sea, but excluded U.S. allies, a provision that has many nations that refused to support Washington’s efforts livid. The Houthis are one of three main combatants in the ongoing Yemeni Civil War and occupy a sliver of highly strategic territory on the Red Sea coast near the Bab al Mandeb, called the “Gate of Tears” in the Arab world. Their forces have, since the outbreak of the Israel-Gaza War, conducted missile strikes and seizures against vessels traveling the Red Sea in support of Hamas. The Houthis, also called Ansarallah, famously withstood joint operations from the U.S. and UK under the Biden administration. President Joe Biden tried but failed to organize an international coalition to keep the Red Sea open. Upon taking office,

Trump vowed decisive action against the Houthis and the U.S. largely acted unilaterally, albeit with some Israeli support. Israel destroyed the Sanaa Airport in Yemen on May 7, leaving burning aircraft and cratered landing strips in two days of retaliation for a ballistic missile attack by the Houthis that landed near Ben-Gurion Airport in Tel-Aviv. Trump announced this week that he had reached a separate agreement with Yemen’s Houthi rebels to end their attacks on American-flagged vessels in the Red Sea after intense U.S. and Israeli bombing raids led them to reach out.”They just don’t want to fight, and we will honor that,” Trump said. “We will stop the bombings, and they have capitulated. But more importantly, we will take their word. They say they will not be blowing up ships anymore.”

But the agreement between the United States and the Houthis does not include any provisions requiring that the Houthis stop their attacks on Israel itself, an omission that has led a bipartisan group of lawmakers to warn Trump that it “sends the wrong message to both our allies and adversaries: that U.S. resolve is negotiable and that aggression against our allies will go unpunished by the United States,” according to Jewish Insider. U.S. Ambassador to Israel Mike Huckabee, a strong supporter of that country, pushed back on such criticisms and told Israeli news outlets that “[t]he United States isn’t required to get permission from Israel to make some type of arrangement that would get the Houthis from firing on our ships.” “There’s 700,000 Americans living in Israel. If the Houthis want to continue doing things to Israel and they hurt an American, then it becomes our business,” he added.

“This is the President that leads by example, and he leads by force, and he knows when to use American strength and American power to secure deals for peace and for not just for us, but for the world and so absolutely, I think again, this is a stunning example of the President’s leadership on the world stage, delivering for the American people,” said White House press secretary Kush Desai on the Just the News, No Noise television show on Friday. Israel struck a defiant tone after Trump eased out of the conflict, with Netanyahu saying “Israel will defend itself by itself.” The Houthis, however, called it a “victory that separates American support for the temporary entity and a failure for Netanyahu, who must resign.”The Omani foreign minister confirmed the details of the ceasefire, which appears limited entirely to the Houthis and the United States.

“In the future, neither side will target the other, including American vessels, in the Red Sea and Bab al-Mandab Strait, ensuring freedom of navigation and the smooth flow of international commercial shipping,” Omani Foreign Minister Badr Albusaidi said. The Omani announcement appeared to confirm that the UK, which assisted efforts against the Houthis in earlier operations, as well as Israel, would not benefit from the Houthi agreement. Previously leaked messages between members of the administration from Signalgate seem to suggest that Vice President JD Vance got his way by leaving out the Europeans and other American allies in the cold. “@Pete Hegseth if you think we should do it let’s go,” Vance wrote in the chat. “I just hate bailing Europe out again.” Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth appeared to share a similar sentiment toward America’s European allies, but highlighted their inability to contribute in a meaningful way.

“VP: I fully share your loathing of European freeloading. It’s PATHETIC,” Hegseth replied. “But Mike is correct, we are the only ones on the planet (on our side of the ledger) who can do this. Nobody else even close. Question is timing. I feel like now is as good a time as any, given POTUS directive to reopen shipping lanes. I think we should go; but POTUS still retains 24 hours of decision space.”

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“Lee said the judges “have presumed to run the military, the civil service, foreign aid, and HR departments across the Executive Branch—blatantly unconstitutional overreach.”

Justice Roberts Admits It’s His Job to Rein in the Judicial Insurrection (O’Neil)

The deep state and its allies have launched a judicial insurrection against President Donald Trump, and Chief Justice John Roberts effectively just admitted he’s not doing his job to stop it. Roberts made a rare public statement back in March, criticizing Trump and other Republicans who have suggested impeaching judges to prevent them from taking it upon themselves to make national policy through injunctions. Yet Roberts refused to address the underlying issue, and he dodged again in public remarks Wednesday.“What do you think of these calls for impeachment of judges based on the decisions that they’ve made?” Judge Lawrence Vilardo asked Roberts in an interview in Buffalo, New York. “Impeachment is not how you register disagreement with decisions,” the chief justice said, repeating the substance of his comments in March.

“That’s what you’re there for,” Vilardo responded. “That’s what we’re there for,” Roberts agreed. Again, Roberts overlooked the underlying issue. Republicans aren’t calling for the impeachment of justices because they disagree with one particular decision—they’re exasperated because judge after judge after judge is effectively usurping the president’s authority by issuing so many nationwide injunctions. When woke bureaucrats stared down the barrel of a second Trump term, they strategized about how best to tie the new president’s hands. Public-sector unions made new collective bargaining agreements to protect work-from-home perks. Employees changed their titles to hide “diversity, equity, and inclusion.” Perhaps most importantly, bureaucrats and their allies outside the administration geared up to sue the Trump administration, targeting friendly judges.

Sure enough, the ink was barely dry on the president’s executive orders rooting woke ideology out of the government before public-sector unions (which represent federal bureaucrats) and leftist groups had taken the new administration to court. Many of these groups also hand-picked jurisdictions with judges more likely to give them the injunctions they seek. According to the Congressional Research Service, judges issued 86 nationwide injunctions against President Trump in his first administration, with 36 of them involving immigration and 10 involving federal funding related to immigration. By contrast, judges issued only 28 nationwide injunctions against Biden. Between Jan. 20 and March 27 of this year, judges issued 17 injunctions—more than half of the number in Biden’s entire term.

Many of the unions and leftist groups filing these lawsuits also staffed and advised the Biden administration, as I expose in my book, “The Woketopus: The Dark Money Cabal Manipulating the Federal Government.” The ACLU, for instance, pushed the Biden administration to open the border, and now the ACLU is filing lawsuits to block Trump’s border policies. The judges—many of them appointed by Democrats, surprise surprise!—have taken the opportunity to issue “nationwide injunctions.” While temporary injunctions allow a judge to protect one of the parties in a case from harm while the court considers the case, judges have weaponized this power, claiming to protect people across the country who aren’t parties to the suit.This practice of “judge shopping” enables activist groups to succeed in early stages of litigation before ultimately failing when the case reaches the Supreme Court.

This gives judges a chance to carry out a judicial insurrection. It also gives the case the appearance of success, motivating the leftist groups and their supporters, while tying up the government in the meantime—all in pursuit of a vain claim. For instance, judges blocked Trump’s order removing gender ideology from the military and ordered the government to re-hire probationary employees after they had been fired.The Supreme Court rightly struck down these injunctions, but the judges only handled them on a case-by-case basis. Judges have blocked the State Department’s move to restructure the U.S. Agency for International Development, ordered the administration to halt its freeze on federal spending, demanded the government restore deleted websites, and more. This deluge of injunctions calls for a robust response from the nation’s highest court—or, at the very least, direction from the man who heads the entire U.S. judicial system, Chief Justice Roberts.

Roberts only got involved after Trump expressed exasperation over the injunctions. Trump has pledged to comply with the judges’ orders, though he has rightly contested them in court. He responded angrily to a judge’s order directing him to turn around planes carrying alleged members of the Venezuelan gang Tren de Aragua, however. The president noted that he won the 2024 presidential election in part by promising to oppose illegal immigration.“I’m just doing what the VOTERS wanted me to do,” Trump wrote. “This judge, like many of the Crooked Judges’ I am forced to appear before, should be IMPEACHED!!!” Rep. Brandon Gill, R-Texas, introduced articles of impeachment against the judge in question, but Trump and other Republicans have taken efforts to address the systemic issue, as well.

The House Judiciary Committee held a hearing on the injunctions last month. Sen. Mike Lee, R-Utah, introduced the Restraining Judicial Insurrectionists Act of 2025, establishing a three-judge panel to swiftly review injunctions or other forms of declaratory relief against the president and the executive branch, with a quick appeal process to the Supreme Court. Lee said the judges “have presumed to run the military, the civil service, foreign aid, and HR departments across the Executive Branch—blatantly unconstitutional overreach.” Meanwhile, Trump issued a memo in March directing the heads of executive agencies to request that judges follow the Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 65(c), which requires the party requesting an injunction to put up “security in an amount that the court considers proper to pay the costs and damages sustained by any party found to have been wrongfully enjoined or restrained.” Rule 65(c) may not apply to every legal case, however.

Each of these efforts addresses one aspect of the problem, and Lee’s bill would likely address the issue most effectively. However, there is one person who has authority over the U.S. judiciary and could direct judges to be more circumspect before they issue nationwide injunctions that effectively make policy. His name is… drumroll please… John Roberts. When Roberts says reversing lower court mistakes is “what we’re there for,” he’s exactly right. In fact, as head of the judiciary, addressing major nationwide issues like the judicial insurrection is what he’s there for, specifically. Perhaps, instead of complaining about Trump’s call to impeach judges, Roberts could solve the underlying problem himself by outlining how judges should act when considering temporary injunctions. If he wants Trump and others to stop talking about impeaching judges, maybe he should step up and address the root problem.

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Roberts!

Federal Judge Halts All Large-Scale Firings by Trump Administration (Turley)

Many of us have been waiting for the arguments on May 15th before the Supreme Court in the birthright citizenship case to see if the justices will put long-needed limits on district courts issuing national injunctions. Critics object that Democratic groups are going to blue states in open forum-shopping to secure such injunctions from favorable judges — a record number of injunctions for an Administration that only just passed its 100th day mark. Those complaints are likely to only increase after the new order by District Judge Susan Illston in San Francisco. It is arguably the most expansive yet in its scope and assertion of judicial power. At the request of unions and other groups, Judge Illston (a Clinton appointee) imposed a temporary restraining order (TRO) for 14 days to stop the Trump administration from carrying out large-scale layoffs and program closures across two dozen agencies. For those calling for district courts to be restrained, Judge Illston’s TRO (which often leads to a preliminary injunction) will seem like another court ruling with total abandon.

Trump is carrying out his pledge to dramatically downsize the government, including targeting waste and unnecessary or superfluous programs. One can certainly disagree with that judgment. The unions and Democrats opposed the pledge during the campaign. However, after the public elected him, the question is whether a single district judge has the ability to stop a president from implementing such policies. Unions insist that Congress set up a specific process for the federal government to reorganize itself and that that process is not being followed. Specifically, Illston is arguing that the process includes consultation with Congress. The law, 5 U.S.C. § 903 states in part: (a) Whenever the President, after investigation, finds that changes in the organization of agencies are necessary to carry out any policy set forth in section 901(a) of this title, he shall prepare a reorganization plan specifying the reorganizations he finds are necessary. Any plan may provide for—

(1) the transfer of the whole or a part of an agency, or of the whole or a part of the functions thereof, to the jurisdiction and control of another agency;
(2) the abolition of all or a part of the functions of an agency, except that no enforcement function or statutory program shall be abolished by the plan;
(3) the consolidation or coordination of the whole or a part of an agency, or of the whole or a part of the functions thereof, with the whole or a part of another agency or the functions thereof;
(4) the consolidation or coordination of part of an agency or the functions thereof with another part of the same agency or the functions thereof;
(5) the authorization of an officer to delegate any of his functions; or
(6) the abolition of the whole or a part of an agency which agency or part does not have, or on the taking effect of the reorganization plan will not have, any functions.

The President shall transmit the plan (bearing an identification number) to the Congress together with a declaration that, with respect to each reorganization included in the plan, he has found that the reorganization is necessary to carry out any policy set forth in section 901(a) of this title. The law has always occupied a gray area since a president has the authority under Article II to run the executive branch and remove individuals. Judge Illston recognizes that inherent authority as a “prerogative of presidents to pursue new policy priorities and to imprint their stamp on the federal government. But to make large-scale overhauls of federal agencies, any president must enlist the help of his coequal branch and partner, the Congress.” The lawsuit was filed last week, and the court issued its order not long after arguments.

Judge Illston did acknowledge that two courts of appeal recently rendered decisions against jurisdiction in such cases in Widakuswara v. Lake, No. 25- 5144, 2025 WL 1288817 (D.C. Cir. May 3, 2025) and Maryland v. U.S. Dep’t of Agriculture, No. 25- 1248, 2025 WL 1073657 (4th Cir. Apr. 9, 2025). The court notes that those decisions are not binding on a San Francisco district court and rejects their value as “persuasive authority.” Judge Illston declared that “Tthe [sic] Fourth Circuit offers no reasoning for its conclusion that the district court lacked jurisdiction, and this Court finds the dissenting opinion in that case more robust and more persuasive. ” It similarly embraced the dissent in the D.C. Circuit case.

Danielle Leonard, a lawyer representing the challengers, told the court that Trump is destroying the government, insisting, “It’s an ouroboros: the snake eating its tail.” For critics, it may look more like Article III devouring Article II. The order will only heighten the pressures leading into the May 15th arguments in Washington. It will also increase pressure on Congress to move forward with legislation designed to rein in district courts in the use of national or universal injunctions.

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Shake AND stir.

Trump Eyes Suspending Habeas Corpus In Border Invasion (Margolis)

Joe Biden inherited a secure border in 2021—and by the time President Trump returned to office this January, he was handed a full-blown crisis. In just a few months, Trump has made remarkable strides in restoring order, ramping up deportations, and plugging the holes Biden left wide open. His administration has already developed innovative, cost-effective strategies to speed up removals. And now, it appears the next move could be the boldest yet—one that’s almost guaranteed to trigger a full-scale political meltdown on the left.

Speaking with reporters this week, Deputy Chief of Staff for Policy Stephen Miller confirmed that the Trump administration is actively considering invoking the Constitution’s allowance for suspending habeas corpus — the right to challenge unlawful detention — in the context of the ongoing border invasion. “Well, the Constitution is clear and that, of course, is the supreme law of the land,” Miller began. “The privilege of the writ of habeas corpus can be suspended in a time of invasion. So, it is an option we’re actively looking at.”

Miller made clear that the move is not being taken lightly, but it may be necessary to protect national security and uphold the rule of law. “A lot of it depends on whether the courts do the right thing or not,” he said, referencing the frequent obstruction from activist judges who have long interfered with immigration enforcement. He pointed to a key piece of legislation, the Immigration and Nationality Act, which includes what’s known as “jurisdiction stripping.” “At the end of the day, Congress passed a body of law known as the Immigration and Nationality Act, which stripped Article III courts — that’s the judicial branch — of jurisdiction over immigration cases,” Miller explained.

Many Americans, he noted, are unaware of just how far Congress has gone to prevent judicial overreach in immigration matters. “Congress actually passed what’s called jurisdiction stripping legislation. It passed a number of laws that say that the Article III courts aren’t even allowed to be involved in immigration cases,” he said.Miller offered a concrete example involving the Temporary Protected Status (TPS) program. “By statute, the courts are stripped of jurisdiction from overruling a presidential determination or a secretarial determination on TPS,” he said. “So, when Secretary Noem terminated TPS for the illegals that Biden flew into the country — when the court stepped in, they were violating explicit language that Congress had enacted saying they have no jurisdiction.”

The broader issue, Miller argued, is not merely an executive-judicial conflict, but a judicial rebellion against Congress itself. “The courts aren’t just at war with the executive branch, the courts are at war—these radical rogue judges—with the legislative branch as well,” Miller stated. All of this, Miller said, will factor into President Trump’s final decision on whether to suspend habeas corpus for illegal aliens—a move certain to ignite a firestorm on the left. As the border crisis continues to spiral, the administration appears increasingly determined to push back—not only against illegal immigration itself, but against the institutional forces that have helped sustain it. Will Democrats defend national sovereignty, or once again side with the chaos? That question may soon be answered.

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Makes sense. Though not sure the new Pope agrees.

Trump Redirects Funds From Illegals to Homeless Veterans (Salgado)

Donald Trump has redirected taxpayer money from housing illegal aliens to housing homeless veterans, again putting Americans first. The president signed an executive order Friday establishing a center for housing homeless veterans in the Los Angeles area, and whatever funding has been used by the federal government to house illegal aliens is now to go to this center for veterans. Trump also started a voucher program and announced reform at the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA), expanding medical services for vets and investigating corruption and misconduct from the previous administration. Finally, our veterans are a priority for the federal government. “Our Nation’s security, prosperity, and freedom would not be possible without our veterans. Many service members paid the ultimate sacrifice. Many others bear visible and invisible wounds from their service,” Trump’s executive order stated. “Too many veterans are homeless in America. Each veteran deserves our gratitude.”

Unfortunately, Trump continued, “The Federal Government has not always treated veterans like the heroes they are.” The Biden administration, in particular, “treated them shamefully, failing veterans when they needed help most and betraying the taxpayers who rightfully expect better,” by prioritizing lawbreaking foreigners instead. The EO specifically cited the West Los Angeles Veterans Affairs (VA) Medical Center, once a thriving community for housing disabled veterans, but gradually leased off to various entities, including a private school and the baseball team of the University of California, Los Angeles. Speaking of Democrat-run LA, it topped the list of American cities with the largest homeless veteran populations, with 3,000 last year.

But no more. Trump is establishing the National Center for Warrior Independence on that LA campus and is coordinating with multiple agencies to try to ensure that not only California veterans but also homeless veterans from other areas will be able to move to and live there. Significantly, the Health and Human Services and Housing and Urban Development secretaries are to help “ensure that funds that may have been spent on housing or other services for illegal aliens are redirected to construct, establish, and maintain this National Center for Warrior Independence.”

The EO also announced an initiative to “restore self-sufficiency and the warrior ethos among homeless veterans through any guidance, requirements, or services needed to ensure that homeless veterans can access housing, receive substance abuse or addiction treatment, and return to productive work and community engagement.” Furthermore, the Biden administration’s decision to rehire the VA employees who were previously fired for misconduct is to be rectified, and an investigation is to be made into any unaddressed misconduct. This executive order from Trump is a prime example of America First policies, and hopefully will provide much-needed help for our brave veterans who were disabled and/or have fallen on hard times.

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“I was a young theology student, and he was a superior of the Religious Order of St. Augustine..”

Deep State, Deep Church: Welcome to the New Pope! (Pacini)

The author of this article personally knew the newly elected Pope Leo XIV, formerly Robert Prevost. Those were different times: I was a young theology student, and he was a superior of the Religious Order of St. Augustine. I have fond memories of him, of pleasant moments spent together and activities we did together. I can only wish him all the best. Now, however, let us move on to serious matters.

The first US pope and a member of the Order of Saint Augustine, he is the second American pontiff after Francis. He was born on September 14, 1955, in Chicago, Illinois, to Louis Marius Prevost, of French and Italian descent, and Mildred Martínez, of Spanish descent. He has two brothers, Louis Martín and John Joseph. He spent his childhood and adolescence in the United States, studying first at the Minor Seminary of the Augustinian Fathers and then at Villanova University in Pennsylvania, where he graduated in mathematics in 1977 and studied philosophy. On September 1 of the same year, he entered the novitiate of the Order of Saint Augustine in Saint Louis, continuing his studies at the Catholic Theological Union in Chicago, where he graduated with a degree in Theology. At the age of 27, he was sent by his superiors to Rome to study Canon Law at the Pontifical University of Saint Thomas Aquinas (Angelicum). He was ordained a priest in Rome on June 19, 1982, at the Augustinian College of Santa Monica.

He obtained his licentiate in 1984 and the following year, while preparing his doctoral thesis, he was sent to the Augustinian mission in Chulucanas, Piura, Peru (1985-1986). In 1987, he defended his doctoral thesis and began his career in the Order to which he belongs, living half his time in the missions and half in the Roman Curia. In 1999, he was elected provincial prior of the Augustinian Province of Chicago, and two and a half years later, his confreres elected him prior general of the Order, confirming him in 2007 for a second term. On December 12, 2014, called by Bergoglio to take up pastoral duties, he was appointed bishop and began his mandate in Peru. His episcopal motto is “In Illo uno unum,” words that St. Augustine uttered in a sermon, Exposition on Psalm 127, to explain that “although we Christians are many, in the one Christ we are one.”

After several years of activity and assignments in South America, on January 30, 2023, Pope Bergoglio called him to Rome as prefect of the Dicastery for Bishops and president of the Pontifical Commission for Latin America, promoting him to archbishop. In the consistory of September 30 of the same year, he created and proclaimed him cardinal, assigning him the diaconate of Santa Monica. In the meantime, he was counted among the members of the Dicasteries for Evangelization, Section for First Evangelization and New Particular Churches; for the Doctrine of the Faith; for the Eastern Churches; for the Clergy; for Institutes of Consecrated Life and Societies of Apostolic Life; for Culture and Education; for Legislative Texts; and the Pontifical Commission for the Vatican City State. On February 6 of this year, he was promoted to the order of bishops by the Argentine pontiff, obtaining the title of the suburbicarian church of Albano. Who knows what remains of dear old Father Robert.

Cardinal Robert Francis Prevost, we recall for the record, was involved in controversies concerning the handling of allegations of sexual abuse during his episcopate in the diocese of Chiclayo, Peru. In 2024, three women accused two priests of the diocese of Chiclayo, Eleuterio Vásquez González and Ricardo Yesquén, of sexual abuse suffered when they were minors. The victims claim that Cardinal Prevost did not open an adequate canonical investigation and sent incomplete documentation to the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, thus hindering effective action. It has also emerged that in 2000, while he was provincial superior of the Augustinians in Chicago, Prevost authorized the transfer of priest James Ray, who had already been accused of child abuse, to a residence located near a Catholic elementary school, a decision that has raised further criticism of his handling of abuse cases.

Incidentally, as I write this article, many websites that reported on the allegations and scandals are being shut down. The real truth must never be discovered, right? It will be equally curious to see what positions he will take on the most burning issues for the Catholic world, those where Bergoglio has destroyed millennial doctrine. On issues such as climate change or migrants, he takes progressive positions, even though he has been considered a moderate by the press, as he is more cautious on social issues and LGBT rights. The choice of the name Leone is perhaps a sign of continuity with the figure of Leo XIII, Vincenzo Gioacchino Raffaele Luigi Pecci, Pope from 1878 to 1903, who distinguished himself for his strong social openness, so much so that he was given the nickname “Pope of the workers.” Even more interesting will be to observe his geopolitical position. He is a man from the hegemonic country, who has worked extensively in the southern hemisphere, creating a liaison with Rome, but without ever turning to the East.

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  • #187826

    Henri Matisse The terrace, St. Tropez 1904   • Trump Touts “Great Progress” In China Tariff Talks, Suggests “Total Reset” (ZH) • India and Pakist
    [See the full post at: Debt Rattle May 11 2025]

    #187828
    Germ
    Participant

    Good morning :-))

    AAMC (Association of American Medical Colleges) – 1000s of college students entering clinicals not given proper informed consent & still mandated COVID death vax.

    Yes, it is May 2025 & the most dangerous, ineffective shot is STILL required to graduate

    TVASSF – these fools are the healthcare professionals of the future.

    God help us!

    #187829
    tboc
    Participant

    wetiko

    #187830
    Dr. D
    Participant

    “It can’t be understated how massively Israel f–ked up.”

    What. The Literal. WHO are you talking to? Are you the only person on the whole green planet that didn’t already know – before he was even nominated – that this was the case? …And yet you, supergenius, think Trump and 500,000 other humans in D.C. didn’t already know this? JHC, sir. You’re embarrassing.

    The news story is that this was happening, as always happens, and water is WET and we DID something about it. That’s the story. OF. COURSE. HE. WAS. Of course. And of course they ordered us to Iran war for Freeeeeeee on their behalf. And OF COURSE to get confirmed Hegseth and everyone had to claim they’d super-dooper do it all.

    The news is that they didn’t. Go pound sand, you lugs. Something changed.

    Everyone here will be furious and trebuchet Trump into the sun because he did it in 110 days and not in the first 30 seconds. ‘Cause apparently never worked a day in their lives or ever had real strategic challenges. Or would nuke the White House, and gas all their allies, everyone on the Right because he “Only” was bounced to the UN for now.

    Orrrrrr, here’s a thought: NO WAR WITH IRAN. We left Israel spinning in the wind. We’re clearly leaving Ukraine. You can TAKE THE WIN, you dopes.

    Nope, that’s not what I see online, everyone’s more mad than ever. Trump didn’t fix everything in the first month — of 2017 — so he’s a jerk and we should give up forever. That’s what soldiers do, right? Give up? First play after the coin toss, ball didn’t move forward: we thrown down our helmets and walk off the field, ceding the game to the other side. #Winning! Then we’ll prove out Purity Spiral! None of us ever dun wrong (because we gave up to pure evil before making any unforced errors)

    Yeah, Trump must be remembered as a weak weak man. Because he’s the first time YOU noticed, you dope, because of him, this has been going on since 1960, and this is the first time since Dallas that we bounced them TF out of there. “Weak” is when you do something. “Strong” is when you so slavishly do what you’re told nobody even remembers orders being given.

    Yeah, anyway, like yesterday, Krainer shows we’re bombing Yemen BECAUSE it embargoes Israel. Now we declared a victory and left Israel isolated. He wants to insult and remove Trump for this, how #Opposite can you be?

    MAHA: yeah, that’s a big battle. You can see why they put a big hitter like RFK there, and they may still sink him. Shanahan: so they say these things to get attention on the people and events? Because what did she really say? A: That she doesn’t know any facts at all. That’s the story. So I’m reading around, like “Is this it?” Yup, that’s it. Rumor, innuendo, speculation. That’s top news now. No sources, no additional facts. “I can’t understand this, because I’m not inside with any info, so RFK is a poopy-pants.” Wow, pure genius.

    Congress: Pharma. Umm…aside from that, didn’t we JUST do that during the confirmation hearings? With Bernie for tops? That was 110 days ago. Reality exists, maybe we remember.

    Congress/vaccines. Sooooo, this Congressman is my doctor now? He’s a scientist and created/read the studies?

    “Trump Touts “Great Progress” In China Tariff Talks, Suggests “Total Reset” (ZH)

    Since everything is a lie, Duran says China DGAF about tariffs or talks, and it is Trump chasing them down to discuss, get tariffs done quickly. Then China downgrades it from “Negotiation” to “Discussion” on their sites. Okaaaaay. Noted.

    {China} “Sold 8.1%” at what profit? And they’re doing so well they took all their financial numbers – which were already fiction – and shut them off. There is no reporting on any numbers at all. …Which means, of course that the Chinese economy is doing wonderfully, never better, but shhhhh, it’s a secret.

    Of course we were already set for them to re-export through 3rd nations, since they’d been doing that for years already. What do we know then? Basically nothing. Thanks.

    “US President Donald Trump has said, adding that a deal was reached following a “long night of talks” mediated by Washington.”

    Why us? Can’t we just not sometimes?

    “Shove these peace plans up your pangender arses!”

    Is this for real? Not that I disapprove or anything. Following the Duran they AGAIN negotiate only with themselves, then AGAIN finally meet Russia after airing everything in the news for months, and hand Moscow a de facto ultimatum. Wow, breathtaking insult. Since this is all the SAME thing they ALREADY did, 1, 2, 3, 10 years ago, Russia then says, “No.” After which they throw a toddler tantrum, go back to their safe space, and do it all over again.

    Oh yeah: and as the next story, if they don’t, they’ll “Sanction” Russia all over again.

    The position of the Mentally Ill and Retarded.

    Since sanctions seem to make Russia stronger, I can only hope we can be sanctioned 28,595 times. Then we can become a world power again.

    “drive a wedge between erstwhile WWII allies Russia and Britain comes down to rivalry and jealousy,”

    I believe no such thing. They are lizards who have no such emotions. It’s raw mercantilism, of gaining physical power. Galloway is thinking like a human, and it’s blinding him. They are not. So he is missing something else: IF England has no military AND they still want war, well the generals all know that. They’re not stupid. So what’s going on?

    They have nothing, and no way to make anything, because they’re far more broke than they’ve let on. So having nothing to lose, they are going to start a war that kills 30,000 Brits and pray the U.S. will just stand up and nuke Moscow on general principles. …So basically it’s a re-branding of Plan A. They feel the only problem is, they haven’t played “Damsel in distress” HARD enough. Not enough NATO heads have cried openly on national TV – ‘cause they know how much we like and respect that.

    Anyway, there’s no army, because there was never any need for one: they were always going to nuke Russia first, last, and often.

    “Dobrindt has argued that the party should be made irrelevant through good governance rather than drastic measures.”

    You mean like via democratic will of the People? Surely you jest, sir. WE schmarty-schmartz make the policies, then we jam it down their throats with a tube, like a duck.

    “National Liberation Front (FLN) in Algeria didn’t need textbooks to define fascism. They lived it.”

    Soooo…you mean in contrast to all Europe? Who also lived it? In the exact same period and scale?

    the USSR made its position clear: the war against fascism did not end in 1945. It had merely shifted geography.”

    Yes, so we don’t want you oppressed under fake western “Democracy” but under fake Russian “Communism”. Ever so much better. There are a lot of meta-assumptions running around this article. White Man Bad.

    “VP: I fully share your loathing of European freeloading. It’s PATHETIC,” Hegseth replied. “But Mike is correct, we are the only ones on the planet (on our side of the ledger) who can do this. Nobody else even close. Question is timing.”

    Totally organic leak and not contrived at all. Especially in hindsight.

    The judge thing is more complicated and delicate than we give credit for. Like how Civil Rights set up a new law, Republicans and conservatives said would bite us in the -ss, being not supportable, and did. So if we set up that judges can’t review. Can’t stop Presidents or Congress? Yeah, no. They need to. Or the opposite. Or how do we “Discuss” this? One guy, the Chief Justice, just chucks them out when he feels like? What if the courts do the opposite of the Will of the People? We then just start defying all courts and use force and pressure? No, no, and no.

    Looked at that way, we are sort of having the right social discussion. Who should do what and why.

    Chinese bamboo has tripled”
    …so what was there before? Forest?

    Anyway, they’re doing it wrong: you’re supposed to complain and do nothing. Doing something is “Work” and you might fail. Worst of all, you’d be a “Capitalist”. Ew. Invent and invest in capital, hire and pay people? What could be worse than that?

    Example: Going around the internet “Pap smear is the most hostile, invasive, backward medical procedure. Doctors think nothing of women…” WHAT the actual f—k? DOCTORS ARE WOMEN. For 100 years. One hunned. But BECAUSE of this, no WOMEN doctors did any work to fix this, now you, Ms. Feminist, “Thee/They” are ALSO complaining about it and ALSO saying that there are no women doctors, women can’t, don’t, and shouldn’t invent anything, because some MAN needs to do it for them, duh. …All those are root meta-assumptions. Every. Day. it’s like this.

    Anyway, back to Bamboo paper, people who’ve never been outside a city. Ummm…and then the bamboo forest looks like what? Yeah, they cut down the boreal forest and planted bamboo. Same forest is same missing as with paper mills. That doesn’t make this wrong, but to me they’ve cut down a virgin forest, planted a cornfield, and called it “Green”. It’s Also green, as green as trees are, so it’s all the same, right? Only to retards who’ve never left the city or walked off a parking lot. Have you seen southern pine plantations? Same thing. I mean, it’s nice that it’s trees and all, and are like 30-year cycles, but ultimately it’s just a tree-sized cornfield.

    Okay, compare to this:
    Well, I’ll find the video for you, but essentially it’s Infinity undergrowth pines throughout all North American West, which build up and then demand a forest fire so large it destroys the king trees. …Thanks to us being retards, and Government “helping” the entire continent is like this now. Solution? Well, controlled buirns like the natives once did, BUT: cut out these small trash trees, don’t waste them, and turn them to paper instead of fire.

    Now they may not be as helpfully near a road or whatever, but it’s impossible to believe not enough of them are, or can co-gen a biofuel power plant. This depends on price of oil and machines, both of which are real cheap. But no! We outlaw doing anything with them, requiring forest fires that burn entire states to the ground, all humans included. That’s environmental! USING the plants first instead? NOT environmental.

    #187831
    Kerry Wilson
    Participant

    @Germ – It’s a supply/demand thing. Anyone who doesn’t buy into the party line is eliminated up front, reducing the supply — resulting in higher prices. Anyone who does buy buy into the party line stands a chance of early disability or death, also reducing supply — resulting in higher prices.

    It’s win-win!

    #187832
    Michael Reid
    Participant
    #187833
    Michael Reid
    Participant
    #187834
    zerosum
    Participant

    Common Sense.

    Trading
    .
    “Wash Products in third country”
    Importers/Exporters
    ———-
    Peace ceasefire lasting at least 30 days. diplomatic progress

    • Putin Proposes Direct Talks With Ukraine On May 15 In Turkey To End War (JTN)

    • Zelensky Voices Demands To Russia After High-Profile Talks In Kiev (RT)

    • Zelensky Will Reject Putin’s Proposal in Order to Stay ALIVE (Sp.)

    Sanctions are tools/acts of war
    “..a total of 28,595 sanctions were imposed on Russian companies and individuals in recent years..”

    • Russia Is Not Afraid of Western Sanctions – Kremlin (RT)

    The new measures blacklisted up to 100 oil tankers that the West claims are part of a Russian ‘shadow fleet’, older vessels operating outside Western insurance systems.
    The move will not harm Russia’s economy and will instead increase energy costs and inflation in Europe.
    ————–
    Common Sense.Trading

    The equation is simple: if there’s peace, sanctions can go. If sanctions go, energy gets cheaper.
    If energy gets cheaper, Europe can recover. Yet Brussels wants war and fast-tracked EU accession for Ukraine.
    @RobertFicoSVK
    is right: that’s economic suicide.

    We’d rather get Europe back on its feet.
    ————–
    • The Soviet Union Defeated More Than Just The Nazis In 1945 (Ibrahim)

    Colonialism and fascism were not just neighbors on the historical timeline.
    They were ideological cousins who often shared the same tailor.
    Both relied on military terror, racial supremacy, and the economic logic that some people existed to be ruled, and others to rule.
    ———–

    • Why History Is Alive In Russia But Dead In The West (SCF)

    This week, at its pale imitation of a “victory parade” in London, the British royals, politicians and military were joined by Ukrainian NeoNazi forces waving their odious Wolf Hook flags. In essence, the four-year proxy war in Ukraine against Russia, fully instigated and weaponized by the Western powers, is but a continuation of World War Two.
    ———–
    Common Sense.
    • Justice Roberts Admits It’s His Job to Rein in the Judicial Insurrection (O’Neil)

    The deep state and its allies have launched a judicial insurrection against President Donald Trump, and Chief Justice John Roberts effectively just admitted he’s not doing his job to stop it.
    ———-
    • Federal Judge Halts All Large-Scale Firings by Trump Administration (Turley)

    Trump is carrying out his pledge to dramatically downsize the government, including targeting waste and unnecessary or superfluous programs.
    ———-
    • Trump Redirects Funds From Illegals to Homeless Veterans (Salgado)

    https://www.whitehouse.gov/presidential-actions/2025/05/keeping-promises-to-veterans-and-establishing-a-national-center-for-warrior-independence/

    KEEPING PROMISES TO VETERANS AND ESTABLISHING A NATIONAL CENTER FOR WARRIOR INDEPENDENCE
    Executive Orders
    May 9, 2025

    By the authority vested in me as President by the Constitution and the laws of the United States of America, it is hereby ordered:

    Section 1. Purpose and Policy. Our Nation’s security, prosperity, and freedom would not be possible without our veterans. Many service members paid the ultimate sacrifice. Many others bear visible and invisible wounds from their service. Too many veterans are homeless in America. Each veteran deserves our gratitude.

    Yet the Federal Government has not always treated veterans like the heroes they are. During the previous administration, unaccountable bureaucrats treated them shamefully, failing veterans when they needed help most and betraying the taxpayers who rightfully expect better.

    The story of the West Los Angeles Veterans Affairs (VA) Medical Center is indicative of this failure. More than one hundred years ago, Senator John Percival Jones and Arcadia Bandini de Stearns Baker generously donated hundreds of acres of land that they owned in West Los Angeles on the condition that it be used to house disabled veterans. The campus once featured a chapel, billiard hall, 1,000-seat theater, and housed about 6,000 veterans, but the Federal Government has since allowed this crown jewel of veteran care to deteriorate over the last few decades.

    The Department of Veterans Affairs (Department) leased parts of the property to a private school, private companies, and the baseball team of the University of California, Los Angeles, sometimes at significantly below-market prices. As of 2024, there were approximately 3,000 homeless veterans in Los Angeles, more than in any other city in the country and accounting for about 10 percent of all of America’s homeless veterans. Many of these heroes live in squalor in Los Angeles’s infamous “skid row.”

    During my first term, I signed legislation to increase accountability and expand benefits and choices for veterans in accessing care, and my second term will build on those efforts. Accountability will return to the Department. Veterans around the Nation will have more choices in care, benefits, and services. The VA campus in West Los Angeles will become the National Center for Warrior Independence with facilities and resources to help our veterans earn back their self-sufficiency.

    Sec. 2. Establishing the National Center for Warrior Independence. The Secretary of Veterans Affairs (Secretary) shall take all appropriate action to:

    (a) designate a National Center for Warrior Independence on the West Los Angeles VA Campus in which homeless veterans in the Los Angeles metropolitan area and around the Nation can seek and receive the care, benefits, and services to which they are entitled;

    (b) work with other municipalities and VA facilities to ensure that homeless veterans outside the Los Angeles metropolitan area who want to avail themselves of the National Center for Warrior Independence are provided the means to do so;

    (c) in coordination with the Secretary of Health and Human Services, the Secretary of Housing and Urban Development, and the heads of any other relevant executive departments or agencies, ensure that funds that may have been spent on housing or other services for illegal aliens are redirected to construct, establish, and maintain this National Center for Warrior Independence;

    (d) work to restore self-sufficiency and the warrior ethos among homeless veterans through any guidance, requirements, or services needed to ensure that homeless veterans can access housing, receive substance abuse or addiction treatment, and return to productive work and community engagement; and

    (e) within 120 days of the date of this order, present an action plan to the President, through the Assistant to the President for Domestic Policy, to meet these directives and restore the capacity to house up to 6,000 homeless veterans at the National Center for Warrior Independence by January 1, 2028.

    Sec. 3. Voucher Program. The Secretary of Housing and Urban Development shall, in consultation with the Secretary, use vouchers to support homeless veterans in the Los Angeles metropolitan area and around the Nation with respect to this effort.

    Sec. 4. Restoring Accountability at the Department of Veterans Affairs. The Secretary shall take the following steps to restore accountability and excellent service at the Department:

    (a) take appropriate action against individuals who have committed misconduct, making full use of and in accordance with the Department of Veterans Affairs Accountability and Whistleblower Protection Act of 2017 (Public Law 115-41); and

    (b) investigate and take steps to rectify the previous administration’s decision to rehire and reinstate back pay for employees previously fired for misconduct and direct such savings back toward care, benefits, and services for veterans, in accordance with all applicable laws.

    Sec. 5. Providing Choices and Excellence to Veterans. The Secretary shall take steps to increase the excellence of and options for care, benefits, and services for veterans including:

    (a) within 60 days of the date of this order, submitting a report to the President, through the Assistant to the President for Domestic Policy, with a plan to reduce wait times for Veterans Health Administration appointments that explores options like expanding office hours, offering weekend appointments, and increasing the use of virtual healthcare options;

    (b) within 30 days of the date of this order, directing a feasibility study at the Manchester VA Medical Center and within 180 days of this order, submitting to the President, through the Assistant to the President for Domestic Policy, an action plan to expand services to support a full-service medical center in New Hampshire so that it is no longer the only State in the contiguous United States without such a center; and

    (c) in consultation with the Secretary of Defense, the Director of the Office of Management and Budget, and the Assistant to the President for Domestic Policy, developing a strategy to improve the delivery and quality of the Department’s healthcare services in a more efficient and effective manner to support veterans; the strategy shall initially prioritize implementation of actions to reduce access times and improve service delivery, to include options for offering treatment to veterans at select military treatment facilities and military beneficiaries at VA facilities with appropriate reimbursement.

    Sec. 6. General Provisions. (a) Nothing in this order shall be construed to impair or otherwise affect:

    (i) the authority granted by law to an executive department, agency, or the head thereof; or

    (ii) the functions of the Director of the Office of Management and Budget relating to budgetary, administrative, or legislative proposals.

    (b) This order shall be implemented consistent with applicable law and subject to the availability of appropriations.

    (c) This order is not intended to, and does not, create any right or benefit, substantive or procedural, enforceable at law or in equity by any party against the United States, its departments, agencies, or entities, its officers, employees, or agents, or any other person.

    (d) The Department of Veterans Affairs shall provide funding for this order’s publication in the Federal Register.

    DONALD J. TRUMP

    THE WHITE HOUSE,

    May 9, 2025.
    ———-

    WOW!
    https://x.com/jcniyomugabo/status/1921131494149341419?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1921131494149341419%7Ctwgr%5E65d9d4c7312360d623d1d351788bd119625ecc9c%7Ctwcon%5Es1_&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.theautomaticearth.com%2F2025%2F05%2Fdebt-rattle-may-11-2025%2F
    This is how bamboo is going to replace paper and plastic.

    —————

    #187835
    zerosum
    Participant


    Putin’s COUNTER-ULTIMATUM
    Trump Reacts With Joy
    Russians ADVANCE Toward Siversk
    MS For 2025.05.11

    #187838
    Topcat
    Participant

    Fact

    Under the cover of the joke ‘minerals rights deal” Trump managed to funnel more weapons to Ukraine without it looking like he was funneling more weapons to Ukraine.

    See, all’s well.

    Trump owns this war now, top to bottom.

    Biden 2.0

    Didn’t have the balls to walk away from it in public.

    Had to sneak weapons to Zelensky with a ‘mineral rights deal’ that wasn’t a mineral right deal.

    They use to kill witches sometimes by piling rocks on their chest until they couldn’t breath.

    The Russians are going to step it up shortly, and Ukraine will stop breathing.

    Trump’s your friend like AOC is

    #187839
    Michael Reid
    Participant

    #187840
    Michael Reid
    Participant

    #187841
    Michael Reid
    Participant

    #187844
    Dr D Rich
    Participant

    April Fool’s Day is April 1st

    Pigs fly too!!
    Pope won’t cover-up for Priest Pedophiles in Perpetuity…..hat tip to you Leo XIVIUX

    Calling Randy Morey and His contemporary sidekick Kevin Amick

    ….and The Reformation is Coming to The VA….again and again and again once again

      “….rectify ((ouch))) (rectum damn near killed ’em)))…an action plan (((yup))….delivery (((by predator drone or Musk’s StarLink…blah blah blah

    Someone from Harvard Business School or Scott Bessent personally wrote that, right???

    Hahahahahahaha hahaha hahahahahahaha!!!!

        (b) investigate and take steps to rectify the previous administration’s decision to rehire and reinstate back pay for employees previously fired for misconduct and direct such savings back toward care, benefits, and services for veterans, in accordance with all applicable laws.

    #187845
    Dr D Rich
    Participant

    Folk here like miker suffer under the misimpression that Omerta is strongest in The Mafia and Nursing Services Pink Flamingos Coalition of the Unwitting.

    Well then you haven’t worked at The VA, UPMC. UW Medicine or lived in The Secessionist Mormon States of LDSiDaho or LDSuTah.
    Those places easily give The Vatican and Jew Incorporated a run for their money.
    Count the Billionaires if you think it’s inaccurate

    #187846
    Michael Reid
    Participant

    #187850
    Dr. D
    Participant

    Here’s an example, although I was looking for one where he was describing what his grandparents saw when they got there, back when wildfires (or indians) were natural: huge open areas, tall “orchard” grasses, king trees, like enough for your horses to graze. Now as you can see, barely walk, everything is dead, although the trees by world standards are actually quite large, way over 2×4 size, like 8×8 if you center pithed it (Which you shouldn’t.)

    Anyway, if they’re crowded they’re drying dead, it’s a huge waste and a major fire hazard: turn them into paper. It’s fine. NOt everywhere, but here. Also biofuels electric cogen plant in every western city valley. Using residual heat for greenhouses, maximum gain.

    #187852
    zerosum
    Participant

    https://www.dailymail.co.uk/health/article-14701251/donald-trump-executive-order-prescription-drug-costs.html

    Trump to sign executive order to reduce cost of prescription drugs and pharmaceuticals up to 80%.
    The executive order will be signed at 9am on Monday in the White House, Trump said.

    He described it as ‘one of the most consequential Executive Orders in our Country’s history.’

    Four hours before he revealed the details of his policy, Trump teased the announcement, sharing on both X and Truth Social: ‘My next TRUTH will be one of the most important and impactful I have ever issued. ENJOY!’

    Trump vowed prices will be reduced by between 30 percent and 80 percent ‘almost immediately.’

    In what appears to be a follow-on from Trump’s tariff policy, he wrote: ‘They will rise throughout the World in order to equalize and, for the first time in many years, bring FAIRNESS TO AMERICA!

    ‘I will be instituting a MOST FAVORED NATION’S POLICY whereby the United States will pay the same price as the Nation that pays the lowest price anywhere in the World.

    ‘Our Country will finally be treated fairly, and our citizens Healthcare Costs will be reduced by numbers never even thought of before.’

    Trump said his policy would save the United States ‘trillions of dollars.’

    His announcement comes amid revelations over a third of US adults (about 91 million people) could not access quality healthcare if they needed it today, based on the latest West Health-Gallup Healthcare Affordability Index.

    #187853
    Michael Reid
    Participant
    #187854
    Michael Reid
    Participant

    The question now is whether Trump will do what logic dictates and break all relations with Ukraine.

    #187855
    Michael Reid
    Participant
    #187856
    zerosum
    Participant

    Did the west report his speech?
    https://karlof1.substack.com/p/after-victory-day-celebration-putins
    After Victory Day Celebration Putin’s Message
    (Partial cut and paste.)
    Dear colleagues, I think it is obvious to everyone that during the talks and meetings held in Moscow, the issue of resolving the conflict in Ukraine was also raised.
    We are grateful to all our guests and friends for the attention they pay to this conflict and for the efforts they make to bring this conflict to an end.
    In this regard, I consider it necessary to focus on this topic separately.

    In this regard, I want to say: as you know, Russia has repeatedly made initiatives for a cease-fire, but they–-these initiatives–were repeatedly sabotaged by the Ukrainian side. Thus, the Kiev regime defiantly violated the 30-day–-I want to emphasize this–-30-day moratorium on strikes on energy facilities from March 18 to April 17, about 130 times, which was announced in accordance with our agreement with the President of the United States of America, Donald Trump.

    The Easter truce initiated by Russia was also not observed: the ceasefire was violated by Ukrainian formations almost five thousand times.
    Nevertheless, for the celebration of Victory Day–-and we also consider it a holy holiday for us, you can only imagine how much we lost 27 million–we declared a truce for the third time on this holy holiday for us.

    At the same time, we also conveyed to our Western colleagues, who, in my opinion, are sincerely looking for ways to resolve the conflict, our position on this issue, on the ceasefire on Victory Day, that in the future we do not rule out the possibility of extending the terms of this truce–-but, of course, after analyzing what will happen in these few days, based on the results of how the Kiev regime will respond to our proposal.

    And what do we see?
    What are these results?
    The Kiev authorities–-as you can clearly see for yourself–did not respond at all to our proposal for a cease-fire.
    Moreover, after the announcement of our proposal–-and this happened, as you may recall, on May 5 of this year-–the Kiev authorities launched large-scale attacks from May 6-7.
    The strike involved 524 unmanned aerial vehicles and a number of Western-made missiles, while 45 beks–-unmanned boats–-were simultaneously used in the Black Sea.
    In fact, during the three days of the ceasefire we announced–on the 8th, 9th and 10th—what you also saw from the mass media, in fact, from your reports, it was clear: during this time, five targeted attempts were made to attack the state border of the Russian Federation in eastern Ukraine. in the area of the Kursk region and at the junction with the Belgorod region, exactly during the days of the ceasefire we announced.
    In addition, 36 more attacks were launched in other directions.
    All these attacks, including attempts to enter the territory of the Russian Federation in the area of the Kursk region and the Belgorod region, were repulsed.
    Moreover, our military experts believe that they had no military significance, were conducted solely for political reasons, and the enemy suffered very heavy losses.

    As I have already said, the Kiev authorities not only rejected our proposal for a ceasefire, but also, as we have all seen, tried to intimidate the leaders of states gathered for the celebrations in Moscow.
    You know, dear colleagues, when I met with colleagues here in Moscow, I had this idea.
    I will share with you: who was tried to intimidate from those who came to Moscow to celebrate the Victory over Nazi Germany?
    Who were you trying to intimidate?
    After all, those who came to us are leaders not by their official position, not by their position, but by their character, by their beliefs and by their willingness to defend their beliefs.
    And who tried to intimidate them?
    Those who stand to attention in front of and salute and applaud former SS soldiers?
    And elevates to the rank of national heroes those who collaborated with Hitler during the Second World War?
    It seems to me that this is an attempt with obviously unsuitable means, and those who are trying to do this do not correspond to the swing that they themselves expect.

    I will repeat once again: we have repeatedly proposed steps towards a ceasefire.
    We have never refused to engage in a dialogue with the Ukrainian side.
    Let me remind you once again: we did not interrupt the negotiations in 2022, but the Ukrainian side did.
    In this regard, despite everything, we suggest that the Kiev authorities resume the negotiations that they interrupted at the end of 2022 and resume direct negotiations.
    And, I emphasize, without any preconditions.

    We propose to start without delay next Thursday, May 15, in Istanbul, where they were held earlier and where they were interrupted.
    As you know, our Turkish colleagues have repeatedly offered their services in organizing such negotiations, and President Erdogan has done a lot to organize them.
    Let me remind you that as a result of these negotiations, a joint draft document was prepared, and it was initialed by the head of the Kiev negotiating group, but at the insistence of the West, it was simply thrown into the trash.


    Taking this opportunity, I would also like to note the huge role of journalists, representatives of world news agencies, TV channels, and the press who covered the anniversary events, as well as the many-hour program of current negotiations and working meetings.
    We have done a lot to make people around the world feel the unique atmosphere of the current holidays in Moscow.
    Of course, I would like to thank you for this meeting, because it is rather late and, of course, everyone is already tired.

    Thank you very much for your attention, because it’s almost half past one in the morning or even more than half past one in the morning in Moscow, I’m letting you go with God.

    Thank you very much for your attention. Goodbye

    #187857
    poppie
    Participant
    #187858
    poppie
    Participant
    #187859
    Michael Reid
    Participant

    #187860
    Dr D Rich
    Participant

    Wheeeeeeeh!!!

      Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor told a lawyers’ conference that amid escalating criticism in the nation of some federal judges, lawyers need to “stand up” and “fight this fight.”

    Whee, whee, wheeeee!

      Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy appeared on NBC News’ Meet the Press on Sunday morning, emphasizing the Trump administration’s urgent push to modernize the nation’s outdated airspace communications infrastructure.

    Goddam, this Country asked for it and we deserve Foxy News Sean and “Fight Fight Cis Boom Bah” Sonia and….whatever the f*ck

    At least Tony Romo doesn’t take himself too seriously to eschew a really authentic looking toupee.

    #187862
    Michael Reid
    Participant

    #187863
    Michael Reid
    Participant

    #187864
    Michael Reid
    Participant

    #187865
    Topcat
    Participant

    The Chicago Way

    #187936
    those darned kids
    Participant

    ol’ jim has TIS*, too!

    https://www.kunstler.com/p/maha-hugger-mugger

    *trump infatuation syndrome..

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