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Debt Rattle March 12 2026

Mar 122026
 
 March 12, 2026  Posted by at 10:08 am Finance Tagged with: , , , , , , , , , , ,


Willem de Kooning Rosy-fingered Dawn at Louse Point 1963
When I still lived in Holland I would go to the StedelIjk Museum all the time just to see this painting.


• Trump Says Iran War To End ‘Soon’ As ‘Practically Nothing Left’ To Target (ZH)
• Thinking About the Unthinkable (Michael Hudson)
• Iran Sleeper Cells ‘Activated’; Threaten To “Eliminate” Trump (MN)
• It Seems Netanyahu Has Trump In Over His Head (Paul Craig Roberts)
• The Die Is Cast: Either Iran or Washington/Israel Prevail (Paul Craig Roberts)
• The Global Elites Lose Again (Heather Mac Donald)
• Volkswagen Loses Half Their Profit, Plans to Cut 50,000 Jobs (CTH)
• Top DOJ Prosecutor Says Tens Of Thousands Of Noncitizens On Voter Rolls (JTN)
• Epstein’s Accountant To Testify Before House Oversight Panel (JTN)
• Microsoft Backs Anthropic’s Bid to Block the Supply-Chain Risk Label (ET)
• Are Bad Bots Taking Over The Web? (ZH)
• Ukraine Can’t Explain ‘War Mafia’ Cash Convoy – Hungary (RT)
• EU Members Could Loan Billions Directly To Kiev – Politico
• Looks Like The EU Might Have To Pay Zelensky Just To Shut Up (Rachel Marsden)
• The Big Lie: America Is a Divided, Hateful Country (Rick Moran)

 


 

 


 

 


 


92 million people in an ancient civilization, and after just a few days you have ‘Practically Nothing Left’ To Target? Sounds delusional, perhaps.

• Trump Says Iran War To End ‘Soon’ As ‘Practically Nothing Left’ To Target (ZH)

President Trump on Wednesday said that the war with Iran will end “soon” because there is “practically nothing left to target.” “Little this and that… Any time I want it to end, it will end,” Trump told Axios during a five-minute phone call, adding “The war is going great. We are way ahead of the timetable. We have done more damage than we thought possible, even in the original six-week period.” “They were after the rest of the Middle East. They are paying for 47 years of death and destruction they caused. This is payback. They will not get off that easy,” Trump said.


So, Mission Almost Accomplished™ after the Trump administration has given estimates ranging from weeks to months for how long this might take.Yet while Trump is signaling that the operation has largely accomplished its objectives, US and Israeli officials say there’s been no indication of when fighting might stop. As Axios notes further, Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz said Wednesday that fighting will continue “without any time limit, for as long as necessary, until we achieve all the objectives and decisively win the campaign.” Meanwhile, Israeli and US officials say they’re preparing for at least two more weeks of strikes in Iran.

* * * Update (0930ET): The most significant development in the Strait of Hormuz on Tuesday was the start of IRGC naval mining operations, which were met with massive U.S. firepower that destroyed 16 mine-laying vessels. As we continue monitoring the maritime chokepoint this morning after IRGC attacks on three commercial vessels, attention is now shifting to the IRGC’s drone production capacity, which appears to have been degraded. Bloomberg reports that 2,100 Shaheds have been fired so far in the 12-day conflict. U.S. forces struck IRGC production facilities, disrupting large-scale manufacturing. The report is based on comments from a senior European official.

“Since the Houthis have produced UAVs under bombardment, one would think the Iranians can, albeit not at the same rates, since facilities have to be dispersed and makeshift workshops used,” Sid Kaushal, a senior research fellow at the UK-based Royal United Services Institute, told the outlet.The Wall Street Journal reported earlier that Saudi Arabia’s kill-cost ratio, neutralizing $20,000 IRGC drones with $2 million-plus missiles, has spurred talks with a Ukrainian counter-drone company for cheap interceptor drones.

* * * America-Israel’s Operation Epic Fury entered its 12th day, with U.S. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth indicating that the most intense phase of U.S. strikes is expected on Wednesday. Tehran responded with retaliatory strikes against Gulf neighbors, as Goldman’s foreign affairs chief warned of a growing risk of regional spillover (read here). Overnight, market attention centered on energy, with the IEA reportedly proposing its largest-ever emergency crude release to combat Brent and WTI prices, which have reached triple-digit territory. “The most fighters, the most bombers, the most strikes. Intelligence more refined and better than ever. So that’s on one hand,” Hegseth said. “On the other hand, the last 24 hours have seen Iran fire the lowest number of missiles they’ve been capable of firing yet.”

Read more …

“Iran’s Grand Plan to End U.S. Presence in the Middle East..”

• Thinking About the Unthinkable (Michael Hudson)

Iran and Donald Trump have each explained why failure to fight the current war to the end would simply lead to a new set of mutual attacks. Trump announced on March 6 that “There will be no deal with Iran except unconditional surrender,” and announced that he must have a voice in naming or at least approving Iran’s new leader, as he has just done in Venezuela. “If the U.S. military must utterly defeat it and bring about a regime change, or else “you go through this, and then in five years you realize you put somebody in who’s no better.’”[1] It will take at least that long for America to replace the weaponry that has been depleted, rebuild its radar and related installations and mount a new war.


Iranian officials likewise recognize that U.S. attacks will keep being repeated until the United States is driven out of the Middle East. Having agreed to a ceasefire last June instead of pressing its advantage when Israeli and regional U.S. anti-missile defenses were depleted, Iran realized that war will be resumed as soon as the United States is able to re-arm its allies and military bases to renew what both sides recognize is to be a fight to some kind of final solution.

The war that began on February 28 can realistically be deemed to be the formal opening of World War III because what is at issue are the terms on which the entire world will be able to buy oil and gas. Can they buy this energy from exporters in currencies other than the dollar, headed by Russia and Iran (and until recently, Venezuela)? Will the present U.S. demand to control of the international oil trade require oil-exporting countries to price it in dollars, and indeed to recycle their export earnings and national savings into investments in U.S. government securities, bonds and stocks?

That recycling of petrodollars has been the basis of America’s financialization and weaponization of the world’s oil trade, and its imperial strategy of isolating countries that resist adherence to the U.S. ruler-based order (no real rules, but simply U.S. ad hoc demands). So what is at issue is not only the U.S. military presence in the Middle East – along with its two proxy armies, Israel and ISIS/al Qaeda jihadists. And the U.S. and Israeli pretense that it is about Iran having atomic weapons of mass destruction is as fictitious an accusation as that levied against Iraq in 2003. What is at issue is ending the Middle East’s economic alliances with the United States and whether its oil-export earnings will continue to be accumulated in dollars as the buttress of the U.S. balance of payments to help pay for its military bases throughout the world.

Iran has announced that it will fight until it achieves three aims to prevent future wars. First and foremost, the United States must withdraw from al its military bases in the Middle East. Iran already has destroyed the backbone of radar warning systems and anti-aircraft and missile defense sites in Jordan, Qatar, the United Arab Emirates (UAE) and Bahrain, preventing them from guiding U.S. or Israeli missile attacks or attacking Iran. Arab countries have bases or U.S. installations will be bombed if they are not abandoned.

The next two Iranian demands seem to far-reaching that they seem unthinkable to the West. Arab OPEC countries must end their close economic ties to the United States, starting with the U.S. data centers operated by Amazon, Microsoft and Google. And they not only must stop pricing their oil and gas in U.S. dollars, but disinvest in their existing petrodollars holdings of the U.S. investments that have been subsidizing the U.S. balance of payments since the 1974 agreements that made to gain U.S. permission to quadruple their oil-export prices.

These three demands would end U.S. economic power over OPEC countries, and thus the world oil trade. The result would be to dedollarize the world’s oil trade and re-orient it toward Asia and Global Majority countries. And Iran’s plan involves not only a military and economic defeat for the United States, but an end to the political character of the Near Eastern client monarchies and their relations with their Shi’ite citizens.

Read more …

“Even those greater than you could not eliminate the Iranian nation. Take care of yourself not to be eliminated!”

• Iran Sleeper Cells ‘Activated’; Threaten To “Eliminate” Trump (MN)

US intelligence intercepts reveal Iran may be triggering covert operatives abroad, as Tehran issues direct warnings to President Trump following the airstrike death of its former supreme leader. U.S. intelligence has intercepted an encrypted message from Iran that appears to be an “operational trigger” for sleeper cells embedded in foreign countries, raising alarms about potential attacks. This development comes amid ongoing conflict, with Iran’s new supreme leader, Mojtaba Khamenei, facing threats from multiple fronts after his father’s death in a U.S.-Israeli airstrike.


https://twitter.com/Breaking911/status/2031106637662920797


passcodes, with characteristics suggesting it was meant for operatives outside the country. The alert describes the signal as resembling historical methods used to activate covert assets without internet reliance. “The signals could be intended to activate or provide instructions to prepositioned sleeper assets operating outside the originating country,” the alert stated.Concerns are heightened by reports of Iranian-linked operatives using routes like Venezuela to enter Western nations, potentially establishing networks near the U.S.

Security experts warn of threats from both organized cells and lone actors. Former DHS adviser Charles Marino told the Daily Mail that simultaneous attacks by 10-20 people in a cell are possible, targeting soft spots like concerts or sporting events. The upcoming World Cup, a National Special Security Event, is a particular worry. Tensions escalated further with Iran’s defiant response to President Trump’s comments on the new supreme leader. Trump stated on Fox that Mojtaba Khamenei would be unable to “live in peace” and expressed dissatisfaction with the appointment, warning Iran to brace for “death, fire and fury” if it shuts the Strait of Hormuz. Iran’s security chief Ali Larijani dismissed these as “empty threats,” adding, “Even those greater than you could not eliminate the Iranian nation. Take care of yourself not to be eliminated!”


This exchange follows the conviction of Asif Merchant, a Pakistani national trained by Iran’s IRGC, for plotting to assassinate Trump during the 2024 race. Merchant was found guilty days ago, with the plot linked to revenge for Qasem Soleimani’s 2020 killing. In a related development, Merchant told FBI agents he suspected Iran was behind the July 13, 2024, Butler assassination attempt on Trump. He claimed it mirrored his own scheme, orchestrated under IRGC coercion with threats to his family. Prosecutors allege Merchant recruited hitmen targeting U.S. politicians, including Trump, Biden, and Haley. During his trial, he handed $5,000 to undercover agents. U.S. strikes have since killed the IRGC leader behind the plot, as announced by Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth.

Hegseth described Tuesday as the “most intense day” of attacks on Iran, with refined intelligence leading to more strikes. Iran has fired fewer missiles in recent hours, he noted. Iran’s IRGC announced that countries expelling U.S. and Israeli ambassadors would gain passage through the Strait of Hormuz, amid warnings from Saudi Arabia’s oil company of market “catastrophe” due to disruptions.] Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu stated Israel is “not done yet” in Iran, while warning Lebanese residents ahead of strikes on Hezbollah. French President Emmanuel Macron assured Cyprus of support amid regional strains.

Tehran saw massive airstrikes with “unusually large” explosions, as Trump vowed to end the war “very soon” but indicated further actions. Smoke billowed over the capital, and Iran’s Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi ruled out resuming U.S. negotiations, citing past betrayals. Mojtaba Khamenei, wounded in the conflict and dubbed “vengeful” by some, has ties to the IRGC and is seen as more extremist. Protests in Iran include chants of “death to Mojtaba,” while state media rallies support.

Trump reiterated warnings on Truth Social, promising to hit Iran “twenty times harder” if oil flow is blocked. Iran insists it will determine the war’s end and continue missile attacks as needed. The Strait of Hormuz remains effectively shut, halting oil tankers and filling storage, spiking global prices and raising economic crisis fears. These intercepts and threats underscore the precarious security landscape, with potential implications for U.S. safety and international stability as the conflict persists.

Read more …

I may not agree all the time, but I highly appreciate the view of a soon 87-year old former (assistant) cabinet secretary.

• It Seems Netanyahu Has Trump In Over His Head (Paul Craig Roberts)

White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt was asked at a news conference on March 9 if in view of the lack of success of the Israeli-American missile and air strikes to defeat Iran, now that Trump was talking about boots on the ground could America look forward to a draft? Leavitt’s answer was that the President keeps all options on the table.I don’t think that this is going to go down well with American mothers and fathers. Yes, they are brainwashed about “Israel’s right to defend itself,” and “you can’t be an American if you don’t love Israel,” but that was before their sons faced conscription to go to war and to die for Israel.


So far we have only had propaganda, not factual news, about the success for lack thereof of the Israeli-American attack on Iran. But all the indications are that the war has not gone as Trump expected. My own opinion at this time is that the only way Trump can avoid defeat in Iran is to nuke Iran, which I am convinced was Netanyahu’s intent from the beginning. Netanyahu will be telling Trump, “You promised victory. You cannot accept a defeat.”

The Republicans who support the war, ranging from 76% to 85% depending on the poll are too stupid and insouciant to comprehend that they are supporting a war likely to end in nuclear war and their own demise. Patriots are the easiest to deceive, because they wrap themselves in the flag. But a deceived population is a poor basis for survival. Has Netanyahu maneuvered an utterly stupid American president into a draft in a midterm election year?

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Not both.

• The Die Is Cast: Either Iran or Washington/Israel Prevail (Paul Craig Roberts)

President Trump recently declared that he has won the war ahead of schedule. But evidence supports the opposite conclusion. For example, Washington is having to remove sanctions on Russian oil in order to release Russian oil to the market in a weak effort to compensate for Iran’s closing of the Strait of Hormuz. So much for Trump’s “victory.” Washington has already been forced to waive its ban on refiners in India from purchasing Russian oil. US Treasury Secretary Bessent said: “We may unsanction other Russian oil . . . There are hundreds of millions of barrels of sanctioned crude on the water … by unsanctioning them, Treasury can create supply.” One might have thought that the dumbshit Trump regime would have thought of this prior to taking the world to war.


Here we will get a test of Putin’s mettle. Will he sell out his BRICS Iranian ally in exchange for Washington removing its Russian sanctions? Will Putin think he can parlay his cooperation with Israel-America for a mutual defense treaty? Such treachery would be isolating and would cost Russia China’s trust, leaving both countries isolated for Washington to try to destabilize. As Putin has already walked away from Syria and refuses to win the conflict with Ukraine, will he also sell out Iran for hopes that have no chance of being realized? Just how unrealistic is Putin? Can Russia survive Putin’s unrealism?

Until Washington renounces the Wolfowitz Doctrine of US hegemony and Israel renounces the Zionist agenda of Greater Israel, no agreement with Washington means anything other than the stupidity of the Russian or Chinese or Iranian government in giving Washington and Israel time to regroup, resupply, and renew the attack.

On Dialogue Works I discuss with Nima the basic fact that the operative foreign policies are Israel’s agenda of Greater Israel and Washington’s agenda of American hegemony. https://www.youtube.com/live/OEplHZWNG-E Israel’s agenda means that Iran’s only option is to fight for survival. Iran cannot negotiate its survival. The Wolfowitz Doctrine means that China and Russia’s only choice is to prevail over Washington or accept subservience to Washington. It is impossible to negotiate equality with a government, the agenda of which is its hegemony. It is extraordinary that governments, commentators, and media cannot comprehend such obvious facts.

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I kid you not: Their political rivals say the AfD is actively seeking to overthrow the German constitution. Like the Schiffs and Pelosi’s said about Trump.

• The Global Elites Lose Again (Heather Mac Donald)

To the despair of the European establishment, the Alternative für Deutschland (AfD), the most hated political force in Germany, keeps showing robust signs of life, whether in its impressive showing in a state election on Sunday or in a recent courtroom victory. On Sunday, the AfD more than doubled its previous vote share for the parliament of Baden-Württemberg, a key industrial state in western Germany. On February 26, a German court enjoined the country’s domestic spy agency from classifying Germany’s second most popular political party as a “confirmed right-wing extremist” organization. The “confirmed right-wing extremist” designation has been a key tool in the campaign among establishment and left-wing politicians to ban the AfD entirely. The AfD’s fate should not be a matter of indifference to American conservatives. The globalist elites must be broken everywhere if they are to be permanently broken at all.


Growing numbers of the German public defy their overseers and welcome the AfD as an antidote to the EU-Davos philosophy of open borders and the deindustrialization and immiseration that go under the banner of climate-friendly energy policy. The AfD polls second nationally to the Christian Democratic Union (CDU). The CDU was once the cornerstone of postwar conservatism, but its leaders have pulled it to the left in order to marginalize the AfD. In February 2025, Chancellor (and CDU party head) Friedrich Merz cobbled together an ideologically incoherent governing coalition whose sole purpose is to shut the AfD out of power, despite the AfD’s receiving the second largest share of the German vote. The establishment proudly refers to this exclusionary strategy as the “firewall,” which allegedly protects German democracy from falling into the hands of purported neo-Nazis.

Despite the relentless agitation against it, the AfD is the leading political force in many East German states. It is rising fast in the West, including in several states, such as Baden-Württemberg, holding elections this year for their local parliaments. That’s where the government-imposed “right-wing extremist” label comes in. If one wants to see the Deep State in its most perfected form, Germany is the place to look.

The country’s domestic spy agency, the Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution, has vast discretion to wiretap German citizens and to determine their political legitimacy. It assesses whether a political movement is an enemy of the “free democratic basic order” and “inimical to the Constitution.” Depending on how confident the Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution is regarding the anti-democratic character of a party, it classifies that party as “a suspicious case,” a “suspected extremist” party, or a “confirmed extremist” party. These categories govern how much surveillance the Office for the Protection of the Constitution is allowed to conduct on party members—a startling amount by non-German standards, yet now almost shrugged off by its nationalist targets as an unavoidable condition of political existence.

Previously, the Office for the Protection of the Constitution had classified the AfD as a “suspected” right-wing extremist organization. But in 2025, the office bumped up the classification to “confirmed extremist” on the basis of a secret 7,000-page dossier of materials, collected from public sources and from years of wiretaps on party members’ phones. That “confirmed extremist” designation meant that the office was now certain that the AfD was actively seeking to overthrow the constitution. The reclassification was clearly the result of prodding from the previous minister of the interior, Nancy Faeser, a member of the Social Democratic Party (SPD). The intention was to accelerate the movement to ban the AfD altogether.

So what makes the AfD so dangerous to German democracy? Has it called for suspending elections? For storming the Bundestag (parliament)? For jailing, banning, or censoring its political opponents? For preventing those opponents from participating in the parliamentary debate? For shuttering the internet to contrary opinion? Has it used violence against its enemies? Is it antisemitic? No, it is the AfD’s enemies who seek to ban and censor it, who deny it its parliamentary privileges, who have launched arson attacks against its leaders, and who have assaulted its members. The AfD has done none of these things to its opponents, nor has it called for doing so. It has abided by every legal ruling against it, however tendentious. The AfD is Germany’s staunchest supporter of Israel and German Jews; it alone has tried for years to cut off the U.N. slush fund that supports Palestinian terrorism.

Its representatives are the target of shunning that would make a teenage girl blush. If an AfD member enters a crowded elevator in the modernist Bundestag, he may suddenly find himself alone, as his fellow legislators flee from possible contamination. So what makes the AfD so toxic?

Its cardinal sin is to argue that mass third-world migration is destroying traditional German culture and identity. It is to point out that Germany’s open-borders policies are saddling the country with a crime- and terror-prone, welfare-dependent, culturally alien population that consumes taxpayer resources while only intermittently giving something back to German society. Its crime against democracy is in calling for the enforcement of laws already on the books regarding the deportation of criminal aliens and other migrants who have no right to remain in German society. At its core, its heresy is to assert that a country has a right to decide its level of immigration and resulting culture change, rather than that level being determined by the will of the migrants themselves.

These AfD positions do not threaten due process, popular sovereignty, or other democratic values. If the AfD is nonetheless antithetical to democracy, as we are told, then democracy at present means above all else a commitment to maximum demographic replacement. Speak out against unchecked immigration from the Third World, and you will be branded not just as a racist and xenophobe but as a threat to democracy itself, since democracy is now defined as the embrace of policies that erode national identity. (Such erosion is sought only in Western countries, however.)

Read more …

“..EU car companies buy Chinese car company carbon credits, to avoid the EU fines. The Chinese car companies then use the carbon credit revenue to subsidize lower priced Chinese EVs to the European car market, thereby undercutting the European EV car companies..”

• Volkswagen Loses Half Their Profit, Plans to Cut 50,000 Jobs (CTH)

The origin of this issue goes back to 2021 and the relaunch of the Build Back Better European green energy program to fight the non-existent climate change problem. We have been highlighting the consequences within the EU auto sector. We noted in October of last year, the EU’s mandated fines against auto manufacturers who do not hit their production goals for electric vehicle sales began in 2025. EU automakers unable to meet the regulatory compliance goal began purchasing carbon credits to avoid stiff EU fines. Many of those carbon credits were purchased from Chinese EV automakers, who then turned around and started using the extra EU revenue to discount Chinese cars sold in Europe.


At the same time as Chinese autos hit record highs in Europe, EU car sales are flat or declining. Now, Volkswagen is announcing they lost half their profits in one year and will be cutting 50,000 jobs in the next four years. (MSM – Europe) – Volkswagen just revealed its operating profit sank like a stone last year, dropping by more than half as tariffs, Chinese competition, and shifting strategies took a serious bite out of the bottom line. And that performance now has the VW Group’s execs reaching for the cost-cutting scissors, including plans to shed 50,000 jobs by the end of the decade.The German automaker reported an operating profit of €8.9 billion ($10.3 bn at current rates) for 2025. That’s down a hefty 53 percent from the year before and well below what analysts were expecting. Revenue, meanwhile, barely moved, slipping only slightly to around €322 billion ($374 bn). (read more)

This was very predictable. In essence, EU car companies buy Chinese car company carbon credits, to avoid the EU fines. The Chinese car companies then use the carbon credit revenue to subsidize lower priced Chinese EVs to the European car market, thereby undercutting the European EV car companies. The EU tariff applied to gasoline powered cars or hybrids from China is 10%. That tariff is not enough to stop the imports. The Chinese hybrid autos are substantially less than European car brands, and there’s no financial incentive for China to build auto plants in the EU zone especially when you consider the EU is subsidizing those cars by purchasing carbon credits.

When analyzed from a cost and consequence, the entire EU dynamic toward car companies is a little funny. However, for Germany this is a serious issue, and with the German industrial economy already stagnant – every impact to their auto industry only makes the situation worse. When you overlay the big picture of their expensive “green energy” costs, the EU find themselves in an unescapable downward spiral. Quite literally, all commonsense seems to have been lost in their green energy chase. By focusing on energy targets, specifically by trying to force production of European electric vehicles that are not favored by European car purchasers, the EU is shrinking their economy to the benefit of Beijing exploitation.

German Chancellor Friedrich Merz recently travelled to China for a discussion with Chairman Xi Jinping. Chancellor Merz returned to German with a stark message about how the nation needed to quickly get productive in order to meet the far superior work ethic he saw in China. At the same time, the EU has destroyed its energy sector by chasing windmills and solar farms instead of maintaining the much cheaper coal and gas alternatives. Overall, Europe has made a series of really bad decisions, but those consequences will surface the hardest within the largest industrial economy, Germany. They’ve got major problems now.

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“Assistant Attorney General for Civil Rights Harmeet Dhillon..”

• Top DOJ Prosecutor Says Tens Of Thousands Of Noncitizens On Voter Rolls (JTN)

The top Justice Department prosecutor for civil liberties and voting rights tells Just the News that her ongoing review of state voter rolls has proven tens of thousands of noncitizens made it into a position to cast ballots and that hundreds of thousands of dead or departed residents were not properly removed from state election systems. “It’s really frustrating that we’re being prevented from doing our job,” Assistant Attorney General for Civil Rights Harmeet Dhillon said Tuesday night, criticizing state election offices and federal judges who are blocking her office from her historic effort to obtain and review every state’s voter roll ahead of the 2026 midterm elections.


Dhillon gave an early accounting of the initiative, disclosing during a wide-ranging interview on the Just the News, No Noise television show that 16 states have turned over their voter rolls to DOJ or signed memorandum of understanding to provide the data while 29 are facing litigation to compel them to turn over the lists. “We want every American citizen to feel confident in voting and feel confident in the outcome of that election, and that is why we’re undertaking this massive project,” she explained. While having access to less than half the state’s election databases, Dhillon said she has already found deeply disturbing statistics that are only bound to get worse as more states are forced to comply.

“We’re finding tens of thousands of noncitizens on the voter rolls, hundreds of thousands of dead people on the voter rolls, and duplicate registrations between states,” she said. Earlier this month, DOJ announced it had indicted an illegal alien from Africa for illegally voting in seven federal elections in Pennsylvania. Federal law prohibits foreigners from voting in federal elections.Mahady Sacko, who came to the United States illegally from Mauritania, was arrested by Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers and the FBI in Philadelphia. He has been charged with voter fraud, officials said. “This criminal illegal alien committed a felony by voting in federal elections dating back to 2008. Illegal aliens should NOT be electing American leaders,” Deputy Assistant Homeland Secretary Lauren Bis said. “Our elections belong to American citizens, not foreign citizens. Congress must pass the SAVE America Act immediately to secure our elections.”

Dhillon revealed there are dozens more noncitizens who DOJ has confirmed voted illegally, but those cases have not yet been prosecuted because the U.S. Senate has not confirmed U.S. attorneys in many jurisdictions. “For every person that we’ve seen a story about, I know of dozens and dozens more cases, and U.S. attorney’s offices are wanting to bring these cases, but we have, of course, interference with the very appointment of these U.S. attorneys at the political level,” she explained. “So that’s above my pay grade, but it’s really frustrating that we’re being prevented from doing our job.

Dhillon said there are two reasons why states aren’t turning over voter rolls: some simply don’t want the DOJ to review their work and others are afraid of being sued by Democrat voting rights lawyers like Marc Elias or future Democratic presidential administrations. “You may ask, why don’t states clean it up themselves? Well, sometimes it’s just inefficiency, but more times it’s actually states wanting to clean up their voter rolls, and the Marc Elias’s of the world and even the DOJ (under Biden) are suing them to stop them from cleaning up their own voter rolls,” she said.

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I don’t care much for Epstein’s accountant. But this sentence stuck out. I had to read it twice and still have questions:

“Both Kahn and Indyke recently settled a lawsuit alleging they facilitated sham marriages for immigration purposes in which foreign-born victims married U.S. citizens whom Epstein abused.”

Does that state that Epstein abused US citizens who after that fact sham-married foreign-born victims -of Epstein?!

• Epstein’s Accountant To Testify Before House Oversight Panel (JTN)

An accountant for late convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein will testify Wednesday before the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee in a closed-door deposition. Richard Kahn was Epstein’s accountant for more than 10 years and became an executor of his estate after his death, CBS News reported. Kahn was one of Epstein’s closest associates in his final years, as he managed the financier’s investments, finances and other matters, such as renovations on his private island. Another executor of Epstein’s estate, lawyer Darren Indyke, is expected to testify before the committee on March 19.


According to documents from lawsuits and the Justice Department’s Epstein files, Epstein, Kahn, and Indyke together operated a sophisticated and tangled web of businesses. The release of the files has shed more light on Epstein’s association with some of the world’s most powerful men, some of whom continued to associate with him after he pleaded guilty in 2008 to soliciting a minor for prostitution. After the House committee issued subpoenas to Kahn and Indyke in January, Daniel H. Weiner, an attorney for both men, said that allegations against them are “false.”

“It is worth emphasizing that not a single woman has ever accused either Mr. Indyke or Mr. Kahn of committing sexual abuse or witnessing sexual abuse, nor claimed at any time that she reported to them any allegation of Mr. Epstein’s abuse,” Weiner said. “Indyke and Kahn did not socialize with Mr. Epstein, and they have always rejected as categorically false any suggestion that they knowingly facilitated or assisted Mr. Epstein in his sexual abuse or trafficking of women, or that they were aware of Mr. Epstein’s actions while they provided legal and accounting services to Mr. Epstein.” Both Kahn and Indyke recently settled a lawsuit alleging they facilitated sham marriages for immigration purposes in which foreign-born victims married U.S. citizens whom Epstein abused.

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“Their true objective is unmistakable: to seize veto power over the operational decisions of the United States military. That is unacceptable..”

• Microsoft Backs Anthropic’s Bid to Block the Supply-Chain Risk Label (ET)

Microsoft on March 10 filed an amicus brief backing Anthropic’s lawsuit against the Department of War, seeking a court order to temporarily stop the Pentagon from labeling Anthropic as a supply-chain risk. Anthropic filed the suit on March 9 after the Pentagon designated it a supply chain risk to national security, a label that would hinder the Pentagon and its contractors from using Anthropic’s artificial intelligence technology in their work for the U.S. military. The designation stemmed from Anthropic’s rejection of the Pentagon’s request for unrestricted access to its Claude models over concerns that the technology could be used for mass domestic surveillance or fully autonomous weapons. The Pentagon has denied that it planned to use Claude for such purposes.


In its amicus brief filed March 10, Microsoft said it was directly affected by the Pentagon’s designation of Anthropic because it uses Anthropic’s technologies in products made available to the Pentagon. The tech giant said that a temporary block on the designation would “enable a more orderly transition and avoid disrupting the American military’s ongoing use of advanced AI.” Microsoft warned that U.S. warfighters could be hampered “at a critical point in time” if companies are required to immediately alter existing product and contract configurations used by the Pentagon. It also warned that putting the Pentagon’s designation of Anthropic into immediate effect will have “broad negative ramifications for the entire technology sector and the American business community.”

Microsoft said the Pentagon gave itself a six-month period to transition services away from Anthropic’s technologies but did not provide the same transition timeline for contractors that use Anthropic products. “Should this action proceed without the entry of a temporary restraining order, Microsoft and other government contractors with expertise in developing solutions to support U.S. government missions will be forced to account for a new risk in their business planning,” it stated. “Should companies choose to forgo the opportunity to work with the U.S. government due to the attendant risks, the U.S. government, its missions, and the people it serves would lose access to state-of-the-art technological solutions,” Microsoft said.

[..] Anthropic alleged in its lawsuit that the federal government designated the company in retaliation for its viewpoint protected under the First Amendment. Secretary of War Pete Hegseth on Feb. 27 accused Anthropic of trying to dictate military operations by denying the Pentagon permission to use its Claude models for all lawful purposes. “Their true objective is unmistakable: to seize veto power over the operational decisions of the United States military. That is unacceptable,” Hegseth said in a post on X. The Pentagon used the Claude AI system for mission-critical functions, including intelligence analysis, modeling and simulation, operational planning, and cyber operations.

Read more …

We don’t even agree what is a ‘bad bot’.

• Are Bad Bots Taking Over The Web? (ZH)

The share of global web traffic generated by humans is shrinking, while bot activity is on the rise. According to Imperva Bad Bot Reports, in 2018, humans still accounted for 62 percent of web traffic, with malicious bots at 20 percent and benign bots at 18 percent. But over the past seven years, the balance of web traffic has shifted dramatically. As Statista’s Tristan Gaudiat shows in the chart below, humans now represent less than half of all traffic (49 percent in 2024), while malicious bots have surged to 37 percent, accounting for well over twice the traffic of benign bots (14 percent).


This rise in malicious bot activity reflects a growing cybersecurity challenge. Bad bots are often used to steal login details, collect sensitive data, spread misinformation and manipulate online ads. Industries like e commerce, finance and social media are particularly affected. Bot fraud is estimated to cost businesses billions each year. Yet, not all bots are harmful. Benign bots, such as search engine crawlers and chatbots, play a crucial role in indexing the web and improving user experiences. However, their declining share suggests that cybercriminals are outpacing legitimate automation. As AI and machine learning make bots more sophisticated, their growing share of web traffic is likely to remain a defining trend in the years ahead.

Read more …

Corruption ”R’ Us

• Ukraine Can’t Explain ‘War Mafia’ Cash Convoy – Hungary (RT)

Ukraine has failed to explain why an armored convoy carrying tens of millions of dollars in cash and gold, and supervised by people with ties to Ukrainian intelligence, was transiting through Hungary, Foreign Minister Peter Szijjarto has said. He also implied that the funds may be a sign of Ukrainian plans to meddle in Hungary’s upcoming elections. Tensions between the two countries escalated last week when Hungarian officials impounded two trucks belonging to Ukrainian state-owned Oschadbank near Budapest, seizing $40 million and €35 million in cash and 9 kg of gold as part of a money laundering investigation. The funds were being transported from Austria’s Raiffeisen Bank to Ukraine.


Hungary said the convoy was being supervised by a former general of Ukraine’s Security Service (SBU), with other escorts also reportedly having military backgrounds. All seven escorts were deported back to Ukraine, while the assets and the trucks remain in custody. Ukraine, meanwhile, has denounced the seizure as “state banditism” and “blackmail.” Speaking on Tuesday, Szijjarto – who previously suggested that the convoy could be linked to a Ukrainian “war mafia” – rebuked Kiev over what he described as a failure to answer basic questions about the convoy and previous transfers of the same kind. “I think the last time such a transfer happened was in the Stone Age, when two banks settled €1.1-1.2 billion in cash between each other,” Szijjarto said.

The minister further questioned the convoy’s route, pointing out it had bypassed Poland – a NATO member with relatively good relations with Kiev – in favor of Hungarian roads. “So what is this money doing here? And what are the Ukrainian secret service people and people with military connections doing among the escorts?” he said. He also described it as “very suspicious” that the detained Ukrainians were being represented in Hungary by a law firm linked to the Tisza opposition party. Szijjarto suggested that the cash could be tied to alleged Ukrainian efforts to influence Hungary’s April 12 parliamentary elections. “The Ukrainians have an interest in a certain election outcome, and 500 billion forints are again floating around in Hungary. How strong the connection between the two is – that is what needs to be found out now.”

Read more …

“A €90 billion loan plan is currently being blocked by Hungary and Slovakia over Ukraine’s refusal to allow them access to Russian oil ..”

• EU Members Could Loan Billions Directly To Kiev – Politico

Cash-strapped Ukraine could receive as much as €30 billion ($35 billion) from individual EU members, Politico reported on Wednesday. The idea is being discussed as Hungary and Slovakia pressure Kiev to resume Russian oil supplies by blocking a joint €90 billion EU loan. Kiev claims supplies through the Soviet-built Druzhba pipeline are suspended due to damage from a Russian attack, with repairs not expected until late April – after key elections in Hungary. Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban has accused Ukraine of orchestrating an energy crisis to boost the opposition.The freeze on the joint EU loan was part of Orban’s retaliation for the alleged Ukrainian plot. Slovak Prime Minister Robert Fico said his government would block the money even if Orban’s party loses at the ballot box next month.


Baltic and Nordic nations are considering bilateral loans to Ukraine totaling €30 billion to avert bankruptcy, Politico said, citing anonymous sources. Separately, Dutch Finance Minister Eelco Heinen reportedly told fellow EU ministers that the Netherlands intends to provide Ukraine with €3.5 billion annually through 2029. In late February, the International Monetary Fund approved an $8.1 billion loan to Ukraine, with $1.5 billion disbursed immediately to ease Kiev’s budgetary strain. The IMF agreed to postpone demands for financial reforms that the Ukrainian government declined to implement.

Supporters of Ukraine in the EU have proposed a similar scheme for its accession bid. Under the “reverse enlargement” idea, Ukraine would be formally admitted without meeting candidate criteria, enjoying limited privileges and obligations. The proposal has faced strong opposition from member states insisting that EU expansion must remain merit-based.The EU is also under additional economic pressure from the US-Israeli campaign to topple Iran’s government through military force. The Middle East conflict has disrupted oil and LNG supplies, and the resulting price shock poses heightened risks to European consumers, given the EU’s politically motivated rejection of Russian energy.

Read more …

Zelensky and the cabal all around him.

• Looks Like The EU Might Have To Pay Zelensky Just To Shut Up (Rachel Marsden)

Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban and Ukrainian leader Vladimir Zelensky have a little something for the ladies for Women’s History Month. They’re apparently going to spend the entire time beaking each other off on the global stage. Get your wads of bills ready to toss, girls! Especially you, Queen Ursula. Let’s peek in, shall we? Orban says he’s already on the verge of pulling out his tool. Guess we missed the part where they play footsie under the table first. “We have no military force for this, I can reassure everyone that this is not part of our plans. But we have political and financial tools,” the Hungarian PM said, in demanding that Zelensky open the tap on the Druzhba pipeline of Russian oil to Hungary that represents the landlocked country’s critical supply.


Orban has said he has no interest in taking his foot off the firehose of cash that the EU has been blasting out on itself and whatever else it has going on in the land of golden toilets amid the fog of war – all under the pretext of helping Ukraine, of course.“We hope that one person in the European Union will not block 90 billion or the first tranche of 90 billion, and that Ukrainian soldiers will have weapons” Zelensky said. “Otherwise, we will give the address of this person to our Armed Forces, to our lads. Let them call him and talk to him in their own language.”

Who could that “one person” possibly be? In any case, guess he’ll either be getting an email, or maybe a visit, depending on what the word “address” actually means here. Or maybe just a phone call with a bunch of guys breathing heavily down the line in a foreign language. Hard to tell. Zelensky, an actor, could probably use a better scriptwriter for his Godfather-style lines. Or maybe just drop a dead rat in the mail next time and skip the public speculation. The EU brass has told these two lovebirds to pipe down. But it really isn’t in Zelensky’s interest to do that. And Brussels seems to be making sure of it. If only because emerging info suggests that Zelensky is on the verge of ensuring that he gets rewarded for playing hard to get.

There are two possibilities shaping up. Either Orban feels enough pressure to drop his veto of the EU’s latest €90 million spending package in order to get the gas flowing during this heated Hungarian election period. An unlikely scenario given that his more pro-EU opponent in the April 12 national vote has left very little daylight between him and Orban on the issue of the need for Zelensky to restart the pipeline. Or, alternatively, Orban can double down and maintain his insistence, leaving Brussels with a new convenient pretext, since it’s being reported by Bloomberg that Brussels is considering the possibility of basically bribing Zelensky with EU money to “fix” the pipeline.

What’s that repair going to cost? Oh, let me guess – €90 billion, perhaps? And are European defense contractors also going to be involved in these “repairs”? Will they require golden toilets in the outhouses on-site? In which case, it’s not hard to see that it could end up serving as the ultimate workaround for much of same spending that’s being blocked by Orban – just rebranded as something that he couldn’t possibly pass up. What’s he going to do – block funding to Ukraine earmarked as “aid” meant to ensure that his Druzhba demands to get the oil flowing to Hungary are met?

No one seems to care too much anymore about whether the repair issue itself is even legitimate. Orban had proposed a fact-finding mission. Zelensky was like, bro, you don’t hear me asking to go peek into your closet to see if you have any weapons for me when you say that you don’t. Not the best analogy.

A better one would be to compare Ukraine to the local charity that asks whether you have old clothes to donate – and then insists on rummaging through your drawers to make sure that you’re not holding out. And Hungary’s request of Kiev is like ordering a pizza (from Russia, in this case), paying for it, watching the delivery guy arrive – and then the building’s security guard, let’s call him Vladimir Z., stands in the lobby eating slices and saying, “Sorry man, delivery seems to be delayed. Nothing I can do.” Or paying for express shipping and the mailman just keeps your package in his truck while telling you, “Yeah the postal system is slow these days. Really unfortunate.” .”

Read more …

“The Big Lie: America Is a Divided, Hateful Country With No Hope of Ever Being United Again”

• The Big Lie: America Is a Divided, Hateful Country (Rick Moran)

I am addicted to the internet. I freely admit it. As a news junkie, I am as well-informed as anyone in the country. I know a lot about a few things; I know something about a lot of things; and I know nothing about many things. I spend 10-14 hours a day online, reading, writing, researching, and thinking. While it’s my job, I would spend the time online anyway just because I can’t stand not knowing.And I’m trapped. The life I’m living is not “real” in the sense that most of the 320 million Americans live the same kind of life. Are they as angry as many of us? Do they fear for the future of the U.S. as much as most of us? Are they habitually offended by everything I write?


When I refer to “us,” I mean PJ Media readers and the online right and left: the politically aware, perpetually outraged, eternally wounded, aggrieved, displeased, and helplessly partisan among us who enjoy being outraged, get a rush from catching a political opponent in hypocrisy, and laugh at an enemy’s misfortune. Jim VandeHei and Mike Allen, co-founders of Axios, have a piece in that publication that we should all read to remind us that the “online political community” to which we ostensibly belong is only a tiny part of America. The “super majority” of Americans are “patriotic, hardworking, neighbor-helping, America-loving, money-giving people who don’t pop off on social media or plot for power.”

And the real shocker: “Most people agree on most things, most of the time. And the data validates this, time and time again,” they write. Axios: We’ve been manipulated by algorithms and politicians amplifying the worst of humanity. Our feeds and screens spread a twisted, inaccurate view of America.It makes it seem like the nation is hopelessly broken … Political enemies are evil … Facts are no different than fiction … Morality, honesty and service don’t matter … And salvation can only come from magical technologies or a powerful few.

What if we told you it’s a big lie that makes you stop believing your own two eyes? Every day, people battle over outrageous things said on X. Did you know that four out of five Americans don’t use X, and therefore don’t see what you see? Pew Research Center found last year that only 21% of U.S. adults use X, and just 10% visit it daily. The loudest platform in politics reaches barely one in five Americans. “Maybe, just maybe, it’s the very people on these platforms who are the crazy ones,” they write. “Maybe, just maybe, most people are simply normal, sane, real.”

We know this to be true. If we talk to our neighbors, co-workers, or members of our congregations, we know what they’re concerned about: family, work, bills, and everything else that goes into creating a normal life. They don’t give a crap about what AOC just said, Trump’s latest putdown, a Democrat calling us fascists, or a Republican calling Democrats communists.The overwhelming majority of the nation just doesn’t care. In a given year, you see hundreds of people frequently enough to appraise their character. Are they good people? Would they help shovel after a snowstorm or lift groceries for an aging neighbor? Do they volunteer and give to others? We bet the answer is a resounding yes. This is America’s Super Majority.

The numbers back this up. Americans gave $592.5 billion to charity in 2024 — a record, with individuals accounting for two-thirds of it.Over 75 million Americans formally volunteer each year, and 130 million informally help their neighbors. Gallup research out last month found that 76% of U.S. adults gave money to a religious or other nonprofit organization in the past year, and 63% volunteered their time. This isn’t a broken nation. This is a generous one, where the vast majority quietly do the right thing every single day. This is from two hard-headed, respected journalists who have been writing about politics for most of their lives, not a couple of starry-eyed kids. They’ve hit on something important that we should all try to keep in mind.

Read more …

 

 

 

 

https://twitter.com/XFreeze/status/2031514430588989542?s=20 I looked at it and I’m out for now, because I’m not in the US. https://twitter.com/BinsaeedRashid/status/2031373783424975177?s=20 https://twitter.com/YahooFinance/status/2031459370454659517?s=20 https://twitter.com/XCorpHub/status/2031460080265433303?s=20

 

 

 

 

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Home › Forums › Debt Rattle March 12 2026

Viewing 40 posts - 41 through 80 (of 93 total)
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  • March 12, 2026 at 3:00 pm #234395
    those darned kids
    Participant

    trump be a-pumpin’ an’ a-dumpin..

    ka-ching, gnu shoes for barron!

    March 12, 2026 at 3:03 pm #234396
    zerosum
    Participant

    RIM is back.

    Truth sayers coming out of the woodwork.

    Read em and weep

    https://pjmedia.com/rick-moran/2026/03/11/the-big-lie-america-is-a-divided-hateful-country-with-no-hope-of-ever-uniting-again-n4950533
    The Big Lie: America Is a Divided, Hateful Country With No Hope of Ever Being United Again

    I know a lot about a few things; I know something about a lot of things; and I know nothing about many things.

    ———-

    March 12, 2026 at 3:08 pm #234397
    Topcat
    Participant

    In Honor of Dr D

    “Here’s looking at you kid”

    March 12, 2026 at 3:13 pm #234398
    Celticbiker
    Participant

    Pedo Empire unleashed Operation Epstein Fury, assassinating leaders, murdering children, raining chaos and destruction, Gaza style, and they thought public opinion would galvanize behind them? The disconnect between Western governments and the people they fleece is a grand canyon. All those years of taking jew $, raping kids and partying turned their brains to shit. Every lamppost in DC should have a politician hanging from it.

    March 12, 2026 at 3:14 pm #234399
    Michael Reid
    Participant

    Iran’s New Weapon Just Hits 1,650 Ships in the Persian Gulf

    March 12, 2026 at 3:59 pm #234400
    Michael Reid
    Participant

    Prof. Mohammad Marandi : LIVE From Tehran: Iran Unites Under Pressure

    March 12, 2026 at 4:53 pm #234401
    Doc Robinson
    Participant

    Someone on X is looking at satellite images to report movements of aircraft carrier strike groups. The USS Gerald Ford is said to still be in the northern Red Sea, no further south than Luxor. Staying a safe distance away from Yemen?

    From Mar 12

    Carrier Strike Group 12 is actively building up its combat power in the Red Sea.

    Following my March 7th update where the USS Gerald R. Ford was operating with a single escort, new imagery confirms the defensive bubble is growing.

    Spotted ~80km off the coast of Al Wajh

    1x Ford-Class Carrier (CVN-78).
    2x Arleigh Burke Destroyers (an increase from the last visual).
    1x Kaiser-Class Oiler (USNS Kanawha).

    The Takeaway: The strike group is systematically assembling its heavy escorts. As more destroyers tie into the formation, when will CSG-12 push further south into higher-threat waters?

    From Mar 11 –

    Spotted today: An Arleigh Burke-Class Destroyer (likely USS Bulkeley or USS Thomas Hudner) operating ~168 km off the coast of Netanya, Israel.

    The Mission: The USN continues to operate at least 4 destroyers in the Eastern Mediterranean.

    The Impact: This surface action group is providing critical, continuous layered air defense for Israel while simultaneously serving as a launch platform for Tomahawk (TLAM) strikes into the theater.

    The carriers get the headlines, but the destroyers are doing the daily heavy lifting.

    https://xcancel.com/MT_Anderson

    March 12, 2026 at 5:05 pm #234402
    John Day
    Participant

    No Cease Fire This Time https://drjohnsblog.substack.com/p/no-cease-fire-this-time

    It may take time to pull current events into perspective which makes sense, but big wars seem to be how humans reset failing economies, and human industrial economy is now global in scope.
    Economic growth mkes a lot of problems manageable in human societies. Growth feels good. Everything is getting better for everybody, then things are getting better, but not for everybody, then things are getting better in virtual-reality, then something big breaks.
    Oil is real economy, or at least there is a 90% correlation, so it is truer than most statements. Natural gas is an important fuel for electricity, but also the main feedstock for plastics and fertilizers. The global economy has been spinning like a jet engine with just-in-time supplies and 20% of oil and gas just stopped.
    There is a perception that it can start again soon, and a strong case that it would take at least 6 months for various reasons, like mines in the Strait of Hormuz, and insurance difficulties in a war zone.
    We think of winning and losing, but this is resetting. There is massive collateral damage for the life-support systems of people who eat food grown with fertilizer, plowed, harvested and transported with diesel fuel, and purchased with money earned at their jobs. Persian Gulf monarchies are not getting food and drinking-water supplies. Desalination plant attacks have started, which could make the region mostly uninhabitable, as it used to be, except for Iran, which has water.
    Africans need fertilizer for subsistence farming. Asians and Indians, too. Who can buy the natural gas that’s left?
    Israel is stringently censoring all battle damage, but a lot of missiles have struck, and they are known to be accurate, and air-defenses are both exhausted and ineffective against Iran’s biggest ballistic missiles, now delivering 1 ton payloads, some with 80 submunitions. Netanyahu was rumored to have been killed over the weekend, but made an appearance with witnesses at the Port of Ashdod yesterday. Defense Minister BenGvir is reportedly critically injured and not appearing to witnesses. The State of Israel is holding together while aggressive war persists, but the economy is operating at a loss for half of businesses, and the largess of the US might end some day. How long can war be “the health of the state”? Will they mount nuclear attacks on their neighbors at some time?
    Will all of the economies of the world be able to make adaptations to not growing, to steady state and economic contraction? That will break the financial system, where currency value is based upon real financial gains on investments. There are a lot of IOUs in the cookie jars, more every day. The new monetary system is rumored to be based upon actual cookies, trade commodities like oil, what, beans and gold. Maybe it will be “X-money”, too, digital currency can decide if you can buy or sell that when you hit ENTER, or if you have anything in your wallet now, since you insulted your government. You’ll die cold and hungry if your wallet is frozen. You won’t get help from other digital wallets, once you are marked as EXCLUDED.
    Iran is now striking western banking and AI data servers with missiles, a vulnerability little-discussed previously.

    Simplicius, Iran Cows US Navy into Submission in Hormuz Standoff
    Iran has brusquely blown off all such attempts to negotiate and has doubled down into all out conflict. Iran’s leaders appear to have recognized much the same thing as the Russians did during the course of the Ukraine war: that a ‘temporary’ ceasefire is a useless exercise for giving your enemy breathing room to restock and reload for Round 2 against you.
    ​ Iran says the United States is pleading for a ceasefire.
    Ali Larijani, head of Iran’s Supreme National Security Council, stated:
    ​ “Tonight, we received messages from U.S. President Donald Trump through the Omani mediator, asking us to negotiate a ceasefire.
    Our response is that we will not accept any negotiations as long as an entity called Israel exists.”​
    ​ The whole region is now aflame, with US troops pulling out of bases, Arab oil economies being shut down, and no one seemingly able to figure out how to stop the Iranian juggernaut. All internal rumors point to neither the Israeli or US side having anticipated the Iranian “regime” surviving so intact. https://simplicius76.substack.com/p/iran-cows-us-navy-into-submission

    ​ New Ayatollah’s First Message: Hormuz Strait Stays Closed, Warns ‘More Fronts’ Could Open
    Shipping turmoil escalates as multiple vessels (at least six) struck overnight
    ​ Brent crude oil prices top $100 amid “the largest supply disruption in the history of the global oil market,” the IEA reports.
    Energy Secretary Chris Wright says the US Navy is not yet ready to escort tankers through the Strait of Hormuz, as military assets remain focused on degrading Iran’s offensive capabilities.
    ​ Dubai suffers significant drone attacks
    Northern Israel hammered by Hezbollah, “largest wave” of missiles since war began
    ​ US Intel assesses Iranian regime remains intact
    Oman port operations halted
    ​ Trump proclaims “we won”​ https://www.zerohedge.com/geopolitical/two-more-tankers-hit-bringing-total-six-ships-oil-tops-100-after-trump-declares-we-won

    ​ John Helmer points out interest-divergence between China, Russia and Iran: IRAN WAR CRACK-UP – CHINA DECLARES “NON-ALLIANCE” WITH RUSSIA, KREMLIN ANNOUNCES “NO-TERMS” TELEPHONE CALL WITH PEZESHKIAN
    Iran has made one point very clear to the United States. It will negotiate on terms for a “permanent peace” but not for a ceasefire. It will fight on against US troops if they land, against US bases in the Arab states, and against US vessels at sea; it will keep the Hormuz Strait closed.
    Foreign Minister Abbas Aragchi repeated this point in three interviews he gave the NBC and PBS television networks on March 6, March 8 and March 9. President Vladimir Putin has made one point very clear to Iran. “I want to confirm our unwavering support of Tehran and our solidarity with our Iranian friends,” he said in his message of March 9 to the new Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Mojtaba Khamenei. “Russia has been and will remain the Islamic Republic’s reliable partner. I wish you success in tackling the challenges in front of you, good health and strong spirit.”
    The next day Putin telephoned Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian to “reaffirm his principled stance in favour of de-escalating the conflict as soon as possible and resolving it via political means. Masoud Pezeshkian expressed gratitude for the support provided by Russia, including in particular the humanitarian aid granted to Iran.” De-escalation isn’t ceasefire first; as soon as possible isn’t a short war; humanitarian aid isn’t exactly military aid but it may be. Putin’s wish for Mojtaba Khamenei’s “good health” may extend to new Russian measures for his security; or they may be no more than Putin’s wish.
    ​..President Xi Jinping has made nothing very clear — by his silence.
    Instead, he has delegated Wang Yi to speak. Wang is a Communist Party Politburo member and Foreign Minister; the first rank is more important than the second. “China calls for an immediate stop to military operations to avoid the spiralling escalation of the situation”, Wang said on March 8. “All sides should return to the negotiating table as quickly as possible, resolve differences through equal dialogue, and make efforts for realizing common security.” That’s to say, ceasefire first; negotiations second.​..
    ​..The war against Iran is now exposing unexpected limits in the way the Russians and Chinese view each other and act.​..
    ​..This is Chinese neutrality, according to some analysts. It is China first; Iran after; Russia last of all, according to others because “Beijing cares about the oil, not the [Iran] regime”. https://johnhelmer.net/iran-war-crack-up-china-declares-non-alliance-with-russia-kremlin-announces-no-terms-telephone-call-with-pezeshkian/#more-93635

    In From The Cold Already: Putin Envoy Met With US Team On Energy Markets Crisis​ https://www.zerohedge.com/geopolitical/cold-already-putin-envoy-met-us-team-energy-markets-crisis

    March 12, 2026 at 5:06 pm #234403
    John Day
    Participant

    Gold & Geopolitics news scan: 3/11/16 Daily Digest
    Oil’s historic 30% single-day reversal — the trap nobody saw coming – WTI spiked to $119.48 intraday (largest weekly gain since 1983), then crashed to $84 (-30%) after Trump said the war is “very complete, pretty much” at 3:20 PM ET…
    ..IRGC Wave 33 escalation — warheads now 1-ton minimum – IRGC Aerospace Commander Majid Mousavi announced after Wave 33: “No missile with a warhead weighing less than one ton will be launched” going forward. Khorramshahr-4s (1,500-1,800 kg warheads) and Kheibar Shekans now dominate. Doubles blast radius, breaks interceptor math…
    ..Trump “Death, Fire, and Fury” + Iran “not one liter” — feedback loop – Trump posted 20x harder strike threat if Hormuz blocked. Iran responded: “Not one liter of oil will transit to enemies and their allies.” Two incompatible ultimatums with no off-ramp. Oil jumped back above $91 overnight…
    ..Hezbollah destroys Beit Shemesh satellite/radar station – Precision missile strike destroyed Israel’s SES satellite ground station (156 km from Lebanon border, 46 km from​.. Tel Aviv center). Major communications infrastructure…
    ..Trump called Putin — US initiative, Putin offering “exit ramp” – Trump called Putin (not the reverse). Kremlin confirmed Trump sought the call. Putin offered “considerations for a quick political and diplomatic resolution.” Trump later told press Putin was “very impressed.” Bolton warned Trump may trade Iran for Ukraine. Iranian FM immediately declared: talks “no longer on the agenda.”​…
    ..The war’s real mechanism is insurance, not missiles — and markets are mispricing it
    The most important analysis this period comes from Shanaka (@shanaka86), who has been consistently ahead of the field. His core thesis: the Strait is not closed by IRGC firepower — it’s closed by seven P&I clubs (Gard, NorthStandard, Skuld, Steamship Mutual, The American Club, The Swedish Club, London P&I) who cancelled war-risk coverage on March 5 under Solvency II capital rules.​.. The brutal detail: reinstatement requires actuarial recalibration of incident density, which takes 12-24 months after hostilities cease. Every US strike, every Iranian retaliation, every Trump “Death and Fury” post feeds incident density. A ceasefire tomorrow starts a 12-24 month clock. The market is pricing a 4-6 week resolution.​..
    ​..IRGC Mosaic doctrine is working — 31 autonomous commands, no central authority needed
    The IRGC’s 31 provincial commands with pre-delegated firing authority are operating exactly as designed. New Supreme Leader Mojtaba Khamenei has not been seen, spoken, or issued any verified order. The doctrine was built to survive exactly this scenario. Shanaka quantifies: at 99% daily restraint per actor, combined probability across 31 commands of simultaneous ceasefire compliance drops below 10% over a week. Near zero over a month.
    ​ Iran’s ceasefire condition as reported: stop all aggression, then negotiate. Meanwhile IRGC says “We will determine the end of the war.” The regime is simultaneously celebrating a leader who may be critically wounded and launching 33 waves without a single confirmed order from him.​..
    ​..Petrochemical cascade — 13 force majeures, plastics hitting supply chains
    Shanaka documented the mechanism in detail: QatarEnergy (20% global LNG), Bapco Bahrain (405,000 b/d, only refinery), Kuwait cuts, Saudi Aramco — then downstream. PCS Singapore declared force majeure on olefin cracker, TPC Singapore followed (feeds off PCS), Yeochun NCC South Korea, Formosa Taiwan, Chandra Asri Indonesia, TKSC Kuwait styrene. Each declaration triggers the next. European PE/PP prices up 60-200 EUR/ton. Asian polypropylene offers lifted or suspended.​ “The war did not just close a waterway. It closed the industrial supply chain that feeds half the world’s manufacturing base.”​…
    ..Trump market manipulation — the 3:20 PM signal
    The “war is very complete” comment arrived at exactly 3:20 PM ET, 80 minutes before market close, after markets had their worst session of the year. S&P recovered +$2T. SPY $675 calls went from $0.02 to $4.95. The Kobeissi “Conflict Playbook” — published March 3 — had Step #7 (“conditional de-escalation”) mapped in advance. Within hours, Iran escalated again, oil rebounded, and Trump posted his “20x harder” threat. The 3:20 PM pump and dump is being widely discussed.​ https://no1sdailydigest.substack.com/p/daily-digest-2026-03-10

    ​ Gold & Geopolitics, March, 9: the digital age​ – Everything’s connected. Nothing’s working.
    Footage surfaced yesterday of the Minab school strike. I want to be precise about what it shows, because precision matters when 168 children are dead and the President of the United States is lying about it on camera.
    ​ A cruise missile. Terminal diving mode. Tracked by a civilian as it adjusts its trajectory downward, finds the building it was given coordinates for, and hits it. Bellingcat geolocated the impact. Identified the weapon as a Tomahawk.
    ​ Diving mode is not a malfunction. It is the final phase of terminal guidance, when the onboard seeker confirms it has acquired the designated target and commits to the strike. The missile did exactly what it was programmed to do.
    ​ Forty minutes later, a second impact. Same site. When the parents and first responders were pulling the seven-year-olds out of the rubble.
    Double tap.
    ​ NBC confirmed in a classified congressional briefing that the school was on the Pentagon strike map. Trump, asked about it: “Based on what I’ve seen, that was done by Iran”. Hegseth: “We’re still investigating”.​..
    ..Yesterday, Israel bombed over thirty oil depots across Tehran without telling Washington the scale of what was coming. A senior US official – quoted directly by Axios – “We don’t think it was a good idea”. Graham – Graham! – told Israel to “please be cautious about what targets you select”. The man who told cameras he was going to “make a ton of money” from this war suddenly discovered restraint when the oil he planned to profit from started burning.​ https://no01.substack.com/p/march-9-the-digital-age

    ​ 175 – 180 deaths in the latest reports: Investigation Suggests US Navy Likely Behind Attack That Killed 150 Schoolgirls In Iran
    It’s looking more and more like the US Navy was responsible for killing more than 150 Iranian schoolgirls in the first hours of Operation Epic Fury, according to separate analyses of new video performed by research firm Bellingcat and the New York Times, who each tapped weapons experts to study the footage. Their conclusions contradict President Trump’s casual accusation that inaccurate Iranian weapons were to blame.​ https://www.zerohedge.com/geopolitical/global-force-good-us-navy-likely-slaughtered-150-schoolgirls-iran

    ​ Gold & Geopolitics, March, 11: no ceasefire, no tankers, no plan​ – Day 12 of whatever the hell this is
    Twelve days ago, Iran fired in response to being bombed. They fired again in response to the next bombing. And the one after that. The principle: You bomb us, we bomb you. Always escalating, yes, but still inside a framework. Reciprocal. Proportional. A war with rules.
    ​ That ended today.
    The IRGC announced that Tehran’s policy of “reciprocal hits” is over. From now on? Continuous strikes. Not in response to anything. Not after a trigger. Continuously. The framework isn’t suspended. It’s been dissolved.
    ​ Col. Ali Razmjou, speaking for Khatam al-Anbiya – the joint command running all of Iran’s armed forces – issued three declarations that should raise every US commander’s hackles:
    ​ “We will never allow even a single liter of oil to pass through the Strait of Hormuz for the benefit of America, the Zionists, or their partners”
    “Any vessel or oil shipment […] will be a legitimate target for us”
    ​ “You should prepare for $200 per barrel”
    That’s it. That’s the new doctrine.​ https://no01.substack.com/p/march-11-no-ceasefire-no-tankers

    “The Situation Is Dire”: Half Of Available Global LNG Tankers Are Trapped In The Persian Gulf​ https://www.zerohedge.com/markets/situation-dire-half-available-global-lng-tankers-are-trapped-persian-gulf

    March 12, 2026 at 5:07 pm #234404
    John Day
    Participant

    ​ Chemical attacks upon civilians: In Tehran, Iranians Struggle to Breathe After Israeli Oil Facility Strikes
    “By the time we finally packed our bags and locked the door, our fingernails were caked in chemical grime, and our lungs were burning just from breathing inside our own living room.”​ https://www.dropsitenews.com/p/tehran-iran-oil-depots-israeli-strikes-toxic-acid-rain-breathing-chemicals

    ​ Naked Capitalism: Interview on Glenn Diesen​’s channel by Professor Sayed Mohammed Marandi on Iran’s objectives and requirement (Recall that Marandi is a commentator, not an official spokesperson) amount to decolonization of the Gulf region. Iran is not merely seeking an end to the US military presence. It is also seeking an end to the Gulf states economic support of what Russia has called the Collective West, via its demand for reparations…
    ​..Ceasefire is not an option. This war will continue until Iran’s demands are met. Iran will no longer accept a situation in the region where the United States can threaten it again. That’s that’s over. Iran will no longer allow regimes in the Persian Gulf to be bases to act as bases for the United States to threaten Iran. And Iran will demand and it will get full compensation for the slaughter and the destruction.
    ​ And the longer that this will last, the more compensation Iran will take from the regimes in the Persian Gulf or whoever else. What Iran will receive is compensation….
    ​ Iran is going to keep the Strait of Hormuz closed. He [Trump] can try his best to talk the markets down. It will work for a couple of days, but the fact is that there’s going to be a shortage of energy every day…​
    ..Later from Marandi: Just a couple of hours ago, they carried out air air strikes in tan and bombed highways and bombed civilian targets, slaughtering more people just like they did last night. Last night they carried out multiple massacres in terror. So what more can they do? If they want to destroy Iran’s key infrastructure, that’s a possibility. But then Iran will destroy all key infrastructure in this region. Everything. All the oil and gas installations in the Persian Gulf region and in the caucuses will be gone, finished. They won’t be damaged. They’ll be destroyed. And that will mean that the key infrastructure of the United States will collapse. The world will collapse because the we will enter a severe global economic depression…
    • The IEA said to propose releasing record 300-400 million barrels from reserves. Still, brent pushes higher to over $90
    • G-7 ministers to meet later to discuss stockpile release
    • Market volatility follows a day of mixed messages from US officials
    • Military strikes continue across the Middle East
    • Three ships were hit in Middle East; Drones fell near Dubai airport​ https://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2026/03/iran-war-iran-seeks-decolonization-of-gulf-region-iea-proposes-emergency-release-of-reserves-nuclear-strike-risk-assessment-iran-escalates-strikes.html

    ​ Paul Craig Roberts, Has Trump Made a Bad Choice of War?
    It seems that the US Navy that Trump was going to use to escort oil tankers through the Strait of Hormuz has had to be moved away outside of the range of Iranian missiles. It seems that the American bases in the oil city states are no longer functioning and that the US will be operating out of far away Italy.​..
    ..This is for Iran an existential conflict. The survival of Iran as a sovereign nation rest entirely on an Iranian victory. An Iranian government that submitted to mediation would be submitting to the erasure of Iran as a country. It would be a government of traitors.​..
    ..The nuclear issue was never more than a pretext to be used to destroy Iran. The real issue has always been to clear Iran out of the way of Greater Israel. The previous pretext was the “war on terror” that the Zionist Bush and Obama regimes used to destroy Iraq and Libya and that was used to destroy Syria. Zionists have been extremely clear that their agenda is Greater Israel. Netanyahu himself and several Israeli ministers have held up maps on television of Greater Israel, a territory that encompasses the Muslim Middle East. This new phrase of the 21st century American war for Greater Israel has been launched by the Zionist regime of Donald Trump. How is it possible that the Iranian government thought Washington had any interest in negotiating a non-nuclear weapon agreement with Iran?​ …
    ..Zionist neoconservatives allied with Israel, who have been in control of American foreign policy since the regime of George W. Bush, are pushing too hard against Russia, against China and against Iran. The Zionist American neoconservatives’ agenda of American world hegemony and Israeli hegemony in the Middle East are roads to nuclear Armageddon.​ https://paulcraigroberts.org/has-trump-made-a-bad-choice-of-war/

    Pentagon burned through $5.6B in munitions in first 2 days of Iran war​ https://thehill.com/policy/defense/5776761-pentagon-war-munitions-estimate/

    U.S. Begins Withdrawing THAAD Missile Defence Systems From South Korea to Replenish Losses in War with Iran​ https://militarywatchmagazine.com/article/us-withdrawing-thaad-skorea-replenish-iran

    March 12, 2026 at 5:08 pm #234405
    John Day
    Participant

    ​Nuclear capable: North Korea test-launches ‘strategic cruise missiles’ from new destroyer https://www3.nhk.or.jp/nhkworld/en/news/20260311_11/

    Trump Threatens Harder Strikes If Iran Hits Global Oil Supply, Pledges US ‘Excursion’ Nearly Complete​ https://www.zerohedge.com/geopolitical/iran-says-no-room-talks-us-seeks-partition-country-take-oil-new-hardline-ayatollah

    Oil Soars As 2 Oil Tankers Explode In Persian Gulf, Iraq’s Oil Ports Stop Operations​ https://www.zerohedge.com/geopolitical/hegseth-warns-most-intense-day-operation-epic-fury-iea-plans-largest-ever-spr-dump

    ​Not safe? US envoys cancel scheduled visit to Israel for Iran talks – Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner were scheduled to visit Israel on Tuesday https://www.aa.com.tr/en/world/us-envoys-cancel-scheduled-visit-to-israel-for-iran-talks/3856168

    Speculation Swirls About Netanyahu’s Possible Death, Injury​ https://www.tasnimnews.ir/en/news/2026/03/10/3536698/speculation-swirls-about-netanyahu-s-possible-death-injury

    March 12, 2026 at 5:09 pm #234406
    John Day
    Participant

    No real details: Trump and Putin discuss end to Iran and Ukraine wars on call https://www.axios.com/2026/03/09/trump-putin-iran-ukraine-war-phone-call

    It looks like Bibi with witnesses on Tuesday. PM Netanyahu visited Ashdod Port https://www.gov.il/en/pages/event-ashdod100326

    Andrew Korybko reports that nuclear Pakistan likes Saudi Arabia more than Iran. The Pakistan Navy’s Regional Escort Mission Puts Iran In A Dilemma https://korybko.substack.com/p/the-pakistan-navys-regional-escort

    ​ Europe looks on in disbelief as US appropriates its weapons for Iran war
    European allies are increasingly concerned that the US military campaign against Iran is consuming munitions at a pace that could delay or disrupt deliveries of American weapons they have already purchased. The US reportedly burnt through five-years worth of Tomahawk missiles in just the first four days of the Iranian conflict and has already scaled back its volleys in an effort to preserve ammo. US President Donald Trump reportedly called the CEOs of the major arms producers into the White House last week and demanded they massively ramp up production, but was told it will be at least a year before production can accelerate due to the need for time-consuming investments.
    ​ Officials from nearly a dozen EU governments told Politico that the Pentagon’s decision to reroute weapons shipments to support operations in the Middle East has left partners concerned that systems the White House demanded they during the Nato summit in the Hague may not arrive on schedule.​ https://www.intellinews.com/europe-looks-on-in-disbelief-as-us-appropriates-its-weapons-for-iran-war-430108/?source=baltic-states

    US Argues ‘Emergency’ of Iran War Means Israel Needs 20,000+ More Bombs Without Congressional Approval​ https://scheerpost.com/2026/03/08/us-argues-emergency-of-iran-war-means-israel-needs-20000-more-bombs-without-congressional-approval/

    March 12, 2026 at 5:09 pm #234407
    John Day
    Participant

    President Of Iran Demands “Reparations” As Trump Says War To End ‘Soon’ As ‘Practically Nothing Left’ To Target​ https://www.zerohedge.com/geopolitical/hegseth-warns-most-intense-day-operation-epic-fury-iea-plans-largest-ever-spr-dump

    Trump Threatens ‘Unprecedented Military Consequences’ As Iran Reportedly Starts Mining The Strait Of Hormuz ​ https://www.zerohedge.com/geopolitical/irgc-says-iran-not-us-will-determine-wars-end-trump-threatens-strikes-20-times-harder

    “Risk Of Attack Is Too High”: US Navy Refuses To Provide Escorts To Ships Transiting Hormuz Strait​ https://www.zerohedge.com/markets/risk-attack-too-high-us-navy-refuses-provide-escorts-ships-transiting-hormuz-strait

    Ex-Goldman Commodity King Warns ‘No Policy Response Can Meaningfully Reverse Oil Prices’​ https://www.zerohedge.com/commodities/ex-goldman-commodity-king-warns-no-policy-response-can-meaningfully-reverse-oil-prices

    Energy Shock Threatens Fertilizer Supplies As Echoes Of 2022 Food Price Spike Return​ https://www.zerohedge.com/commodities/energy-shock-threatens-fertilizer-supplies-echoes-2022-food-price-spike-return

    March 12, 2026 at 5:10 pm #234408
    John Day
    Participant

    ​ John Helmer, INDIA APPLIES FOR, RECEIVES US REWARD FOR SUPPORTING WAR AGAINST IRAN – CHINA ANNOUNCES WELCOME FOR TRUMP ON MARCH 31
    The loss of confidence between Russia and India has been growing rapidly since Prime Minister Narendra Modi declared his support for Israel three days before the Israeli-American attack on Iran began with the assassination of the Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.
    To signal Russian hostility, Denis Anpilov, the Russian ambassador to India, went to the Iranian Embassy in New Delhi on March 5, signed the condolence book for Khamenei, and gave a statement to the Indian media, declaring “full solidarity with the people of Iran [and] the government of Iran.”
    President Vladimir Putin had sent his condolences to Teheran on March 1. He reiterated them in a telephone conversation with Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian on March 6.
    Prime Minister Narendra Modi spoke first on March 1 with Israel’s prime minister. He then followed up with calls to the heads of state of the United Arab Emirates (UAE), Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, Jordan, Oman, Kuwait, and Qatar. Modi ignored Iran and Russia. He also hosted two leaders of the NATO alliance against Russia on state visits to India – Canada’s Prime Minister Mark Carney and Finland’s President Alexander Stubb. In Moscow contacts have stopped between the Russian Foreign Ministry and Indian officials. https://johnhelmer.net/india-applies-for-receives-us-reward-for-supporting-war-against-iran-china-announces-welcome-for-trump-on-march-31/#more-93612

    Larry Johnson, Russia Serves a Cold Dish to the GCC and India
    As the war against Iran continues to escalate, Russia finds itself in a powerful position to deal with the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC), which has kowtowed to the United States and allowed the US to dominate militarily the Persian Gulf on behalf of Israel, and India, which has taken advantage of their long friendship with Russia to engage in a disgustingly abject act of sycophancy with Israel at the expense of fellow BRICS member Iran. Russia has delivered a firm diplomatic message to both.​ https://larrycjohnson.substack.com/p/russia-serves-a-cold-dish-to-the

    ​ During the last war, Israel killed so many paramedics that occasionally I would meet one at a funeral and a day or a week later, I’d be going to his funeral. In watched them bury their colleagues and then go right back to work saving lives.
    ​ I even once helplessly witnessed a double-tap attack on paramedics here in Tyre. The scale of Israeli violence against medical professionals has been horrific. In the last two days, I have been to three sites of attacks on medical personnel. Three. In two days.
    ​ Attacks on medical staff are a violation of the Geneva conventions. I met this man last year; last night he was murdered while performing his humanitarian duty. May he rest in peace.​ https://x.com/cbonneauimages/status/2031596984281288852

    IOF raids homes, kidnaps Palestinians in W. Bank​ https://english.palinfo.com/news/2026/03/10/359302/

    Settler violence displaces more Palestinian families in Tubas​ https://english.palinfo.com/news/2026/03/10/359298/

    March 12, 2026 at 5:12 pm #234410
    John Day
    Participant

    ​ More than 500,000 displaced in Lebanon as Israel escalates attacks
    Lebanon’s social affairs minister said 517,000 people had been registered as displaced since the conflict resumed last week.​ https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2026/3/8/israel-escalates-attacks-across-lebanon-as-two-soldiers-killed?

    ​ Israel Says It’s ‘Too Late’ for Peace Talks, Lebanon War Will Continue Even if Iran War Ends​ – Family of eight killed in Israeli attack on southern Lebanon town​ https://news.antiwar.com/2026/03/10/israel-says-its-too-late-for-peace-talks-lebanon-war-will-continue-even-if-iran-war-ends/

    ​ Targeting Financial Data​ Centers​ With Missiles: Tehran tells US ‘get ready’ for $200 oil price and warns banks now targets​ – Iran vows to strike US and Israeli economic centres in the region​ https://www.middleeasteye.net/live/live-us-and-israel-attack-iran

    Gallium, Germanium, Neodymium,,, No Magnets, No Drones: How China Controls the Future of Warfare​ https://oilprice.com/Energy/Energy-General/No-Magnets-No-Drones-How-China-Controls-the-Future-of-Warfare.html

    March 12, 2026 at 5:15 pm #234412
    John Day
    Participant

    Testing this link:

    ​ In a sane world, Zelensky’s mafia regime would be isolated
    Hungary and Slovakia are the only EU nations standing up to the Kiev Godfather and truly representing Europeans’ interests​ http://web.archive.org/web/20260308184050/https://www.rt.com/news/634179-zelensky-mafia-eu-oil/

    March 12, 2026 at 5:16 pm #234413
    John Day
    Participant

    The very next non-war: Trump Talks ‘Takeover’ Again as Cuban Protests Hit Day 4 https://pjmedia.com/sarah-anderson/2026/03/10/trump-talks-takeover-as-cuban-protests-hit-day-4-n4950462

    Working their way up to the armed gangs? US and Ecuadorian militaries burn homes and torture workers in “Operation Total Extermination”
    The US-Ecuadorian joint military operation launched March 3, ostensibly against drug cartels, has turned Ecuador into a proving ground for unleashing military violence upon every country in the hemisphere in furtherance of US hegemony.
    ​ Neither the Pentagon nor the Ecuadorian Ministry of Defense, which has dubbed the onslaught “Operation Total Extermination,” have reported casualty figures.
    ​ Subsequent reports, however, have made clear that the Pentagon and Ecuadorian forces are following a scorched-earth policy aimed not at cartels but civilians, akin to that employed by the military dictatorships in Central and South America over the last century.​ https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2026/03/11/nshg-m11.html

    ​Everybody killed is a “terrorist”, Israeli-style: US military kills six in strike on alleged drug boat in Pacific
    Sunday’s attack brought death toll to at least 157 people since the Trump administration began targeting alleged ‘narco-terrorists’​ https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2026/mar/09/us-military-drug-boat-strike-pacific

    ​ Resist Early! As U.S. Military Threats and Actions Escalate, Coalition Calls for Ending Preparations for a Military Draft​ https://www.antiwar.com/blog/2026/03/10/as-u-s-military-threats-and-actions-escalate-coalition-calls-for-ending-preparations-for-a-military-draft/

    ​ Israel Googling Real Names of Anonymous X Users
    A wide range of anonymous X (Twitter) users have reported that their real names are suddenly being Googled in Israel shortly after they began criticizing the country for its actions in Palestine. Some connected the phenomenon to Au10tix, the software X requires users (even anonymous ones) to use in order to verify their real identities.​ Au10tix is an Israeli company founded and staffed by former Israeli spies from the elite Israeli military intelligence group Unit 8200. MintPress News investigates this disturbing phenomenon.​ https://consortiumnews.com/2026/03/09/israel-googling-real-names-of-anonymous-x-users/

    March 12, 2026 at 5:17 pm #234414
    John Day
    Participant

    ​Epstein the Mossad & Rothschild opertive: House Of Horrors: Cops Search Epstein’s Zorro Ranch For Strangled Girls, ‘Human Experimentation’ https://www.zerohedge.com/political/house-horrors-cops-search-epsteins-zorro-ranch-strangled-girls-human-experimentation

    Was an Epstein double murdered? Epstein Guard Called To Testify As Oversight Committee Explores Potential MURDER https://modernity.news/2026/03/11/epstein-guard-called-to-testify-as-oversight-committee-explores-potential-murder/

    This is Satellite-smartphone CBDC for the whole world, now in Beta Testing, Turn-key Technocracy for All:
    Elon Musk just activated the final piece of the most ambitious vertical integration in the history of capitalism.
    Musk: “This is intended to be the place where all money is. The central source of all monetary transactions.”
    Twenty-five years ago, a 28-year-old named Elon Musk tried to build this exact thing at X. com. The banking system killed it. They forced a merger, gutted the vision, and sold the remains as PayPal.
    He just finished what they killed. Only this time he does not need their infrastructure. He built his own. Starlink owns the orbital communication layer. Tesla and Optimus own the physical execution layer. xAI owns the cognitive reasoning engine. SpaceX owns access to space itself.
    X Money captures the financial layer. These are not separate companies. They are a single vertically integrated loop that compounds on itself and depends on nothing it does not already own. https://x.com/r0ck3t23/status/2031079741504049553

    Escape Key explains 70 years of lead up to this technocracy-public-release: Pergamon Press
    Robert Maxwell’s company, Pergamon Press, was one of the most successful academic publishing businesses of the 1900s. He started it in 1951 with just a few journals, and by the time it was sold to Elsevier in 1991 for £440 million, it had grown to over four hundred journals covering nearly every area of science and technology.
    ​ Maxwell is mostly remembered as a powerful media boss and a con man. But he’s also known as one of the most well-documented secret agents of the Cold War.
    ​ The spy connections didn’t start with Maxwell. They were there from the very beginning. Before Pergamon Press existed, a company called Butterworth-Springer was established after the Second World War as a platform for Paul Rosbaud — an Austrian scientist who had worked as an editor at the German publishing company, Springer Verlag. What most people didn’t know was that Rosbaud was also one of Britain’s most important spies during the war, known by the codename ‘The Griffin’.​ https://escapekey.substack.com/p/pergamon-press

    ​ Workers who love ‘synergizing paradigms’ might be bad at their jobs
    Employees who are impressed by vague corporate-speak like “synergistic leadership,” or “growth-hacking paradigms” may struggle with practical decision-making, a new Cornell study reveals.
    ​ Published in the journal Personality and Individual Differences, research by cognitive psychologist Shane Littrell introduces the Corporate Bullshit Receptivity Scale (CBSR), a tool designed to measure susceptibility to impressive-but-empty organizational rhetoric.
    ​ “Corporate bullshit is a specific style of communication that uses confusing, abstract buzzwords in a functionally misleading way,” said Littrell, a postdoctoral researcher in the College of Arts and Sciences. “Unlike technical jargon, which can sometimes make office communication a little easier, corporate bullshit confuses rather than clarifies. It may sound impressive, but it is semantically empty.”​ https://news.cornell.edu/stories/2026/03/workers-who-love-synergizing-paradigms-might-be-bad-their-jobs

    March 12, 2026 at 5:18 pm #234415
    John Day
    Participant

    ​ Nate Hagens does a book review. How might we survive global AI, now being instituted? Ballistic-missiles? [Essay] A Country of Geniuses
    The bottom line will depend on whether Homo sapiens can grow up fast enough to live with what we are building and have already built. If that sounds like a tall order it’s because it is. But it’s also very high stakes for both our species and the biosphere.
    ​ In my heart of hearts I don’t dream of a “country of geniuses.” I actually dream of a country of ecologists – not necessarily the best in their fields, but those who operate from an understanding of humanity’s place within the Earth and what it means to live and pass on that knowledge.
    ​ I’d like to close with an oft-used quote from the late ecological giant E.O. Wilson, who I regret never being able to have on the podcast: “The real problem of humanity is the following: We have Paleolithic emotions, medieval institutions, and godlike technology. And it is terrifically dangerous, and it is now approaching a point of crisis overall.”​ https://natehagens.substack.com/p/essay-a-country-of-geniuses

    ​ Ever seen a train hit another vehicle? My high school friend, Don died that way: Terrifying moment Waymo stops between railway tracks and stop arm as train passes by inches away – The driverless car in Texas is seen with the stopping arm resting on its roof as the train speeds past
    ​ Footage showed a driverless Waymo car stopping between the railway tracks and the stopping barrier as a train passed just inches away.
    The incident occurred on Saturday in Austin, Texas, though no passenger was in the vehicle at the time. In the video, captured by Tristyn K Donovan and uploaded to TikTok, the car is seen with the stopping arm resting on its roof as the train speeds past.
    ​ “Waymo vehicles have safely traversed railroad crossings millions of times fully autonomously,” a Waymo spokesperson told The Independent.​ https://www.the-independent.com/news/world/americas/waymo-train-tracks-texas-b2935778.html

    ​ Paul Marik MD has his second article in a series looking at the other, “complimentary” side of treating all cancers: How does your lifestyle measure up? The Metabolic Approach to Treating Cancer – The Key to HEALING https://paulmarik.substack.com/p/the-metabolic-approach-to-treating

    Submitted myocarditis data was witheld from decision-makers under Jacinta Arden: New Zealand fully vaccinated children against expert advice https://okaythennews.substack.com/p/new-zealand-fully-vaccinated-children

    Dr. Marian Laderoute is diplomatic. I believe this was the core feature of the military project: No one could have imagined what the spike mRNA gene therapy products really achieved…unbelievable yet true. Discussion coming up at the ACIP March 18 & 19, 2026 https://hervk102.substack.com/p/no-one-could-have-imagined-what-the

    March 12, 2026 at 5:21 pm #234416
    Dr. D
    Participant

    “Dr D. You (like most Americans) are calling it a war for emotional reasons that buoy a sense of nationalism. It is in fact an invasion. You just get to hide using words (which have meanings) because they are successfully fighting back with the bombs you only 2 days ago were fairly sure they were running out of.”

    Everything is wrong with this: First, ad hominem projection of my internal emotional state. Irrelevant among others. I wouldn’t call it a war but everyone else does, and they’ll be mad as h—l if I call it a nothingburger, yes? Okay, it’s not nationalism bc nobody here gives a s—t. Mostly because they’re exhausted, both with the nation, but also with their own lives. They don’t know wtf Trump is up to but don’t have a lot of choices so are suspending judgment more than I expected they would. If anything that’s the dead Opposite of Nationalism. The Left of course doesn’t care because I heard he’s murdering everyone in the streets and raised prices 1,000% (yes I heard this yesterday) and if Trump cured cancer or drank water he should be killed.

    It is decidedly NOT an invasion, as that specifically requires landing and occupation, that’s literally what the word means. It’s not even the beginning of one because as I say daily we have no men, and no machines to invade the men. It IS definitely an attack, it IS definitely an offensive, aggressive one. If it’s unprovoked I guess we’ll find out but even IF Iran was building 11 bombs, I’d probably still rule it unprovoked.

    What are they successfully fighting back against and how do you define it? They blew up Israel, so no surprise but cost the U.S. some money? So? We’ll print more, it’s literally no deterrent and is probably an incitement to us. Again, as nobody cares or even knows what’s going on, it’s not going to alter behavior a whit. There’s no actions here whatsoever, and no price rises now or in sight, so that will mean nothing either. When you’re not changing behavior, that to me is the same as not fighting back at all. I mean, why bother? You’ll just get tired.

    I don’t remember discussing Iran running out of bombs besides suggesting that was Trump’s position, but I believe it will be true. In a war between relatively major powers, you expect me to know the exact hour of arms within 48. Really? And if they run out by midnight tonight will you pay me? If it takes until next week will I be wrong?

    Moving on to useful stuff, they are NOT mining the Straits. At all it seems. Wha??

    Yes, IRAN wants oil to move and is authorizing the ships of several nations, both as allies and because they need the money. Okay, cool. That oil hits world markets, therefore no shortage, right? Oil is “fungible”. Oil => out. Okay, whatever.

    Well you can’t MINE the Strait then, because mines are SECRET. They either float around randomly (very bad) or are tied like a minefield. But if someone walks through a minefield in a straight line, you just follow them. In your 1,000ft ship. So there’s no point.

    However, 3 ships ARE on fire, therefore their plan is to pick who can pass using drones, etc. Fine. But that’s pretty relevant, and the Straits now cannot be said to be “Closed” nor ever will be it seems. The Straits are officially open, the Oil is officially moving, Lloyd’s is officially insuring, and the U.S. is officially unharmed. I don’t get to decide, I just report it.

    IS Iran running out of missiles? Almost certainly, but what does that mean? Their attacks have dropped 90% from the peak. But if they can do “Enough” or to enough important places, they are still relevant.

    “ANDREI MARTYANOV – IRAN EFFECTIVELY DEFEATS US IN A WEEK – NO WAY US CAN OPEN STRAIGHTS OF HORMUZ

    We just showed, Iran just said, They’re not Closed. Trust Iran, Andrei. They probably know what they’re talking about.

    “framing out past the tiny time space window for gas prices”

    Totally fair. And if we can hold from whatever, $75 to $95 or something we still have a 25% increase or what-not. That’s not nothing. But inflation in America has stalled for a year, so to us it feels way, way down. The point of those prices is mostly: The Markets Look Forward. They are looking and seeing nothing …but they’re also rigged, as I say daily. I don’t see the stress or contradiction though, so for a change it just seems to be prediction. The richest people think it’s over, and the richest people think it’s contained. I don’t get to tell them what to do, and I can’t afford the illegal intel they buy, I just report it. You seem to WANT high prices so poor people can suffer. Why? But yes, IF we got a price rise in oil — and we’re still in a very normal range — then SOMEDAY it would pass through. Or if we hit a refinery HERE then quickly. That’s instantly true in the Middle East and very soon Europe but they all WANTED this war. I heard nothing but all you wanted war all my life, now you got it. I’m only sorry we were involved at all and not at home, but: Reasons.

    “From now on? Continuous strikes. Not in response to anything.”

    Well that will reassure all their neighbors. I guess we’ll also find out how much ammunition they have. Suits me fine.

    You’re thrilled that guys in UAE and Kuwait will die. I’m not. I’m also not thrilled and pretty pissed off that Iranians died. Gleeful and triumphant love of death is not a good look on anyone. Everyone is so elated that murders are happening I can’t even get back to what probably happened and what, in a perfect world we should have done about it. It’s quite possible we’ll never know or not for decades.

    March 12, 2026 at 5:48 pm #234417
    wdt
    Participant

    >the IRGC, run by London
    Really? You are the only one (AFAIK) saying this
    Do you have “proof”, or a STRONG supposition?
    I rather doubt this.
    >Wrecking things is easy; building and running things is hard.
    Quite true. In the long run, entropy always wins.
    The trick is making “long” really long
    Personally, I am driving a 28 yo car

    March 12, 2026 at 6:12 pm #234419
    Michael Reid
    Participant

    48:00
    I don’t recognize the country. It is run by morons

    March 12, 2026 at 7:25 pm #234422
    Michael Reid
    Participant

    Here is the enemy
    “
    the Zionist regime of Donald Trump
    “

    Has Trump Made a Bad Choice of War?

    March 12, 2026 at 7:56 pm #234423
    Doc Robinson
    Participant

    Iranian media viewpoints. Front page for Mar 13.

    March 12, 2026 at 8:20 pm #234424
    Doc Robinson
    Participant

    More delays for America’s first hypersonic missile, which “was initially forecast to be ready in September, 2023.” Operational testing of the missiles is now expected to be completed in 2027.

    “Tests in 2023 and 2024 were marred by launcher, launch sequence and missile production quality issues.” The estimated cost of the program is more than $10 Billion.

    (Bloomberg) — The Pentagon testing office said it won’t get enough data to evaluate the combat effectiveness of the US’s first hypersonic missile until early next year, another troubling sign as the US struggles to catch up with China and Russia in deploying the weapon.

    Tests so far of the Army’s Dark Eagle haven’t produced enough data to determine its “operational effectiveness, suitability and survivability,” according to the Director of Operational Test and Evaluation. Also unknown is its ability to withstand a cyber-attack, the office found.

    The testing office forecasts that it will get sufficient data after operational testing is completed in March, 2027. In January, the Army had said it planned to field the weapon this year.

    The conclusions are part of the office’s annual report, which is scheduled to be published in the coming days. The insufficient data is another concerning development for a weapon that was initially forecast to be ready in September, 2023. Lockheed Martin Corp. and a unit of Leidos Holdings Inc. are the prime contractors of the program, which is estimated to cost more than $10.4 billion..

    The Army has repeatedly failed to demonstrate the Dark Eagle system’s success in real-world testing. Tests in 2023 and 2024 were marred by launcher, launch sequence and missile production quality issues, according to the Government Accountability Office.

    https://www.livemint.com/companies/pentagon-test-office-needs-more-data-on-new-hypersonic-missile-11773343162624.html

    March 12, 2026 at 8:27 pm #234425
    Doc Robinson
    Participant

    Meanwhile, “TASS data show Russia has used Kinzhal hypersonic missiles at least 44 times in the Ukraine conflict.”

    The missile was first used on 18 March 2022, when it destroyed a large underground depot of rockets and aviation munitions belonging to the Ukrainian Armed Forces near the settlement of Deljatin in the Ivano-Frankovsk region.

    In 2022, three Kinzhal strikes were officially mentioned, and two more were recorded in 2023. TASS notes that in 2024 the number of launches rose to 14, while the peak came in 2025, when the system was employed 23 times in the special operation zone.

    The agency reports that this year hypersonic missiles have been used at least twice.

    https://voennoedelo.com/en/posts/id13944-russia-s-kinzhal-strikes-44-hypersonic-uses-in-ukraine

    March 12, 2026 at 8:55 pm #234426
    Michael Reid
    Participant

    Is this what you believe in Dr. D?
    US and Ecuadorian militaries burn homes and torture workers in “Operation Total Extermination”
    Let the drug people free to live their lives and die as they chose. None of your business.
    Working their way up to the armed gangs? US and Ecuadorian militaries burn homes and torture workers in “Operation Total Extermination”
    The US-Ecuadorian joint military operation launched March 3, ostensibly against drug cartels, has turned Ecuador into a proving ground for unleashing military violence upon every country in the hemisphere in furtherance of US hegemony.
    ​ Neither the Pentagon nor the Ecuadorian Ministry of Defense, which has dubbed the onslaught “Operation Total Extermination,” have reported casualty figures.
    ​ Subsequent reports, however, have made clear that the Pentagon and Ecuadorian forces are following a scorched-earth policy aimed not at cartels but civilians, akin to that employed by the military dictatorships in Central and South America over the last century.​ https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2026/03/11/nshg-m11.html

    March 12, 2026 at 9:04 pm #234427
    Michael Reid
    Participant

    Everybody killed is a “terrorist”, Israeli-style: US military kills six in strike on alleged drug boat in Pacific
    Sunday’s attack brought death toll to at least 157 people since the Trump administration began targeting alleged ‘narco-terrorists’​ https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2026/mar/09/us-military-drug-boat-strike-pacific

    Are you a Epstein class Dr. D?

    That parses correctly.

    You are no American living the dream of a common man.

    March 12, 2026 at 9:23 pm #234428
    Michael Reid
    Participant

    ​ In my heart of hearts I don’t dream of a “country of geniuses.” I actually dream of a country of ecologists – not necessarily the best in their fields, but those who operate from an understanding of humanity’s place within the Earth and what it means to live and pass on that knowledge.

    Worth repeating

    March 12, 2026 at 9:52 pm #234429
    Michael Reid
    Participant

    Andrei Martyanov: It’s OVER: Iran Just EXPOSED the Weakness of US-Israel Air Defense

    March 12, 2026 at 10:02 pm #234430
    Fisher
    Participant

    I’ve developed a bad case of carpal tunnel scrolling past the D.

    March 12, 2026 at 10:24 pm #234431
    Michael Reid
    Participant

    This is my ride. I remember the trip to Arkansas to pickup my Llewellin setter.

    All before my world collapsed. Thank you America for the dream and collapse.

    2002 Pontiac
    FIREBIRD TRANS AM
    https://www.classicautomall.com/vehicles/1157/2002-pontiac-firebird-trans-am

    March 12, 2026 at 10:52 pm #234432
    zerosum
    Participant

    PISSST! (We are not laying mines.) There are lots of reason for Trump to lie about mines.

    https://www.zerohedge.com/geopolitical/irgc-says-iran-not-us-will-determine-wars-end-trump-threatens-strikes-20-times-harder

    “Risk Of Attack Is Too High”: US Navy Refuses To Provide Escorts To Ships Transiting Hormuz Strait​
    https://www.zerohedge.com/markets/risk-attack-too-high-us-navy-refuses-provide-escorts-ships-transiting-hormuz-strait
    ———–
    – Three commercial ships attacked after the U.S. destroyed mine‑laying vessels.
    – The Thai cargo ship Mayuree Naree was hit by projectiles and set ablaze.
    – Additional merchant vessels were struck by projectiles in the same week, indicating several attacks in this narrow corridor.

    – Four vessels were struck by projectiles in Gulf waters.
    – Two fuel tankers (Safesea Vishnu and Zefyros) were attacked by explosive‑laden Iranian boats in Iraqi waters.

    March 12, 2026 at 10:54 pm #234433
    Michael Reid
    Participant

    Iran Just Offered a Deal to End the War With America

    March 12, 2026 at 11:08 pm #234434
    Michael Reid
    Participant

    Iran was well prepared for this

    March 12, 2026 at 11:16 pm #234435
    Michael Reid
    Participant

    Dr. Dr. D,
    A dumb gamble.

    And pure American evil sauce on the side.

    March 12, 2026 at 11:17 pm #234436
    zerosum
    Participant

    https://x.com/BowesChay/status/2032041812093764030
    Reports that the Houthis just struck the US owned / linked oil tanker “Chios Lion” in the Red Sea.

    If true, it represents a major escalation in support of Iran.
    (verified by my A.I.)

    March 12, 2026 at 11:35 pm #234437
    kultsommer
    Participant

    Michael Reid

    In my heart of hearts I don’t dream of a “country of geniuses.” I actually dream of a country of ecologists – not necessarily the best in their fields, but those who operate from an understanding of humanity’s place within the Earth and what it means to live and pass on that knowledge.

    Where the psychopaths fall in that picture?
    They seem to be the only drivers of “progress” that we are forced to accept?

    March 12, 2026 at 11:38 pm #234438
    Michael Reid
    Participant

    Without popular support everything falls apart.

    March 12, 2026 at 11:44 pm #234439
    kultsommer
    Participant

    Dr D. is “well adjusted man in immoral society”.
    I think that I’ve written this long time ago in the midst of our endless comm/soc/capitalism back and forth.

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