Menu Icon

Debt Rattle April 16 2026

Apr 162026
 
 April 16, 2026  Posted by at 10:00 am Finance Tagged with: , , , , , , , , , , ,  Add comments


Thomas Cole The Course of Empire – Desolation 1836


• Why Is Trump Making The Global Energy Crisis Worse? (RT)
• US Says Iranian Trade Through Strait Of Hormuz Fully Halted (RT)
• Trump’s Blockade Is Breaking Iran And European Elites Are Angry (Alt-M)
• 10,000 Troops: CENTCOM Update on US Blockade of the Strait of Hormuz (Salgado)
• Vance Says President Trump Wants To Make ‘Grand Bargain’ With Iran (JTN)
• Bessent Delivers Another Powerful Blow to Iran (Nick Arama)
• Why Netanyahu Won’t Let The Middle East Have Peace Any Time Soon (Sadygzade)
• The Chinese Try Pussyfooting at the Hormuz Strait (Helmer)
• Europe Drafts Plan To Free Up Hormuz Without ‘Belligerent’ Parties (ZH)
• Dershowitz: Trump Should Move to Expunge 2019 Impeachment (Salgado)
• The Two People DNI Gabbard Issued Criminal Referrals For (Matt Vespa)
• Gabbard Sends Criminal Referrals For 2019 Trump Impeachment Whistleblower (ZH)
• New Intel Watchdog Launches Review Of Past Whistleblower Complaints (JTN)
• Merz Wants Ukrainian Men In Germany Sent To The Front (RT)
• US Prosecutors Make Surprise Visit To Fed HQ Renovation Project (ZH)
• April 15 Reminds Us of How Unfree We Are (Paul Craig Roberts)

 


 

https://twitter.com/toxiccowboy1/status/2044207743020462437?s=20 https://twitter.com/Real_RobN/status/2044114932002967665?s=20

 


 

“Individual Moslems may show splendid qualities, but the influence of the religion paralyses the social development of those who follow it. No stronger retrograde force exists in the world. Far from being moribund, Mohammedanism is a militant and proselytizing faith… were it not that Christianity is sheltered in the strong arms of science, the civilization of modern Europe might fall, as fell the civilization of ancient Rome.”

-Winston Churchill, 1899

 


 


The US hardly has a energy crisis.

• Why Is Trump Making The Global Energy Crisis Worse? (RT)

The US has tightened its grip on energy exports from the Persian Gulf with a new naval blockade on Iranian supplies, risking fresh shocks to already fragile global markets. The move appears intended to increase pressure on Tehran following unsuccessful efforts to secure a diplomatic off-ramp after the US-Israeli bombing campaign stalled. However, it has left American allies uncertain and drawn a pointed response from China, which has issued veiled warnings regarding US naval activity.


Why is the US blocking shipping from the Middle East?
US Central Command announced a blockade targeting vessels traveling to and from Iranian ports in both the Persian Gulf and the Gulf of Oman, effective Monday. The restrictions, it said, “will be enforced impartially against vessels of all nations,” though further operational details remain unclear. President Donald Trump described the measure as an effort to stop “any and all ships trying to enter, or leave, the Strait of Hormuz” — the vital corridor linking the two bodies of water and a cornerstone of global energy trade.


Iran had retaliated to the US-Israeli strikes in late February by effectively restricting transit through the strait, blocking shipments tied to what it considers “unfriendly” nations, imposing tolls on vessels from “neutral” countries, and allowing free passage for “friendly” ones. While US officials accused Tehran of violating freedom of navigation, Trump suggested Washington could impose its own tolling system. Earlier in the conflict, US sanctions on Iranian oil had been relaxed to cushion global markets. The new blockade reverses that approach, reinforcing economic warfare on Iran while further undercutting supply for import-dependent economies.

What does Iran seek by blocking the Strait of Hormuz?
Tehran’s broader war strategy combines resilience under bombing with escalating economic costs for the US and its allies. In addition to restricting maritime traffic, Iranian forces have targeted American military bases in Arab states and key energy infrastructure, including refineries, gas liquification facilities, and a Saudi pipeline enabling crude exports to bypass the Strait of Hormuz. Iran’s payment system is designed to weaken US financial leverage, demanding settlement in yuan or cryptocurrencies. Iran, Russia, and other sanctioned states have been building infrastructure to circumvent Western-controlled financial channels for many years. Tehran views continued control of Hormuz as a way to compensate for damages inflicted on Iran.

The approach has had some impact. Last week, Trump announced a ceasefire and a willingness to pursue negotiations aligned with elements of Tehran’s proposed framework for ending the conflict. However, indirect talks hosted by Pakistan on the weekend did not produce a breakthrough. As US Vice President J.D. Vance put it: “What we have given here is a ceasefire. We stopped bombing the country. What we expect the Iranians to give up is a reopening of the Strait of Hormuz.”

Read more …

“A blockade of Iranian ports has been fully implemented..”

• US Says Iranian Trade Through Strait Of Hormuz Fully Halted (RT)

American warships have effectively blocked Iranian trade through the Strait of Hormuz, the US Central Command (CENTCOM) has said. “A blockade of Iranian ports has been fully implemented as US forces maintain maritime superiority in the Middle East,” CENTCOM Commander Admiral Brad Cooper said in a statement on Tuesday evening. “In less than 36 hours since the blockade was implemented, US forces have completely halted economic trade going into and out of Iran by sea,” Cooper added.


The Wall Street Journal (WSJ), citing two unnamed US officials, reported earlier that more than 20 commercial vessels, including tankers, had passed through the strait over the past 24 hours. According to AFP, at least two vessels sanctioned by the US sailed through Hormuz on Monday: the Iranian-flagged container carrier Kashan and the Comoros-flagged tanker Elpis. The WSJ also reported that the US has intercepted eight tankers since the start of the blockade on Monday morning.

US President Donald Trump announced the blockade of the vital waterway on Sunday after Pakistani-mediated talks failed to produce a peace deal with Iran. Trump had previously failed to rally European NATO members to help secure Hormuz, which Iran had closed to “enemy ships” in response to the US-Israeli bombing campaign launched on February 28. Iran has since demanded recognition of its “sovereignty” over the waterway and the right to impose tolls. On April 8, the US and Iran agreed to a two-week ceasefire, raising cautious optimism for an end to the conflict, which has disrupted global trade and driven up energy prices. However, both sides have since accused each other of putting forward unacceptable terms.

Read more …

(I think every action the Trump Administration has taken so far from Venezuela to Iran has largely been designed to contain China)

• Trump’s Blockade Is Breaking Iran And European Elites Are Angry (Alt-M)

In March I published an article titled “Global Energy Crisis Or Iranian Surrender In Five Weeks?” in which I outlined the “worst case” and “best case” scenarios for the war in Iran. In my best case scenario I argued in favor of a specific plan to end the conflict quickly: A US naval blockade of the Strait of Hormuz, flipping the tables on Iran by blocking or seizing any oil tankers or gas tankers which exit Iranian ports. Two weeks later, the Trump Administration has implemented this exact strategy.


The effectiveness of the blockade is already apparent; the propaganda bots on social media are scrambling to find a narrative to counter it, but they are failing. Why? Because Iran already tried to lock down the strait (which is an international waterway), and any government cheering (or secretly cheering) for Iran’s actions is now unable to make a rational argument against the US doing the same thing to Iran. As I noted in March: “We constantly hear about international exposure to the Hormuz shutdown, but the media rarely mentions that Iran is the MOST exposed economy of all. For now, Iranian oil ships continue to pass through the strait and these vessels are Iran’s economic lifeline. Strategic estimates suggest that without the steady passage of these oil tankers, the Iranian economy would completely collapse within five weeks…”

I then summarized what I believed was the simplest solution to end the war: “Iranian cargo ships can be targeted for seizure by a US blockade of the Persian Gulf well away from the narrow waters of the Hormuz. The ships could be destroyed, but I suspect the Department of Defense will try to avoid oil spills and ecological disasters. Instead, the best option is to capture Iran’s tankers and then redirect the oil to countries in danger of shortages. Iran has the option of shutting off GPS tracking for their vessels (shadow fleet), but this would not help them maneuver past a comprehensive US blockade. In other words, I argue that the US could turn the tables on Iran and use their reliance on the Hormuz against them.

With Iran’s economy in shambles, they will no longer be able to purchase missiles or drones for resupply from Russia and China. They won’t be able to pay for logistic resources for their military and they won’t be able to contain public unrest. The Iranians would be forced to negotiate and the war would be over quickly with minimal risk to US troops.” For now, the US is not seizing Iran’s tankers and is merely sending them back to where they came from. However, it would seem that the Trump Administration and their military advisers have come to the same basic conclusions I did.

For years I have expressed my concerns about a potential conflict in Iran, largely because of the precarious global economic risks associated with mass energy shortages caused by a closure of the Hormuz, which transits around 25% of the world’s energy exports. That said, I do not care about “picking sides” when it comes to Israel or Iran. This debate is irrelevant and designed, I think, to divide US conservatives over ancient tribal vendettas that do not involve us. I don’t care about the Israeli government or “Zionism” and I certainly don’t care what happens to the theocratic and tyrannical Muslim regime in Iran. We have much more important things to think about.

What matters to me is how the US and the American people are affected by geopolitical events. There has been endless debate on what the war is really about, whether it be Iranian nukes, Israeli schemes, Saudi schemes, control of global oil markets, etc. (I think every action the Trump Administration has taken so far from Venezuela to Iran has largely been designed to contain China). In any case, a long term closure of the Hormuz will eventually result in market cascades and a stagflationary crisis. What matters now is ending the war as quickly and decisively as possible without leaving the Homuz and 25% of global energy exports under Iran’s control. After that, people can wrestle over the “moral and constitutional” quandary to their heart’s content.

Read more …

Iran says it’s not “blockadable”.

• 10,000 Troops: CENTCOM Update on US Blockade of the Strait of Hormuz (Salgado)

Over 10,000 American troops are involved in the blockade of the Strait of Hormuz as repeated Iranian ceasefire violations and the regime’s refusal to make a peace deal have brought the conflict to a hostile standoff. U.S. Central Command (CENTCOM) provided an update Tuesday morning that confirmed no vessels made it past the American blockade within the first 24 hours of its existence. During the failed ceasefire negotiations with the genocidal Iranian regime, the regime announced to the U.S. delegation that it had scattered so many mines in the strait that it didn’t know where they all were.


Furthermore, it wouldn’t or couldn’t disable them even if it could find them, and in conclusion, it would require tolls from any country that tried to send ships through. Donald Trump declared that unacceptable and immediately ordered a blockade of the strait, as Americans search for and disable the mines, and to prevent the Iranians from forcibly collecting any tolls or receiving imports.

CENTCOM’s update stated, “More than 10,000 U.S. Sailors, Marines, and Airmen along with over a dozen warships and dozens of aircraft are executing the mission to blockade ships entering and departing Iranian ports.” It proudly affirmed, “During the first 24 hours, no ships made it past the U.S. blockade and 6 merchant vessels complied with direction from U.S. forces to turn around to re-enter an Iranian port on the Gulf of Oman.”

Nor is the United States providing special treatment to the ships of one country over another, CENTCOM clarified. “The blockade is being enforced impartially against vessels of all nations entering or departing Iranian ports and coastal areas, including all Iranian ports on the Arabian Gulf and Gulf of Oman. U.S. forces are supporting freedom of navigation for vessels transiting the Strait of Hormuz to and from non-Iranian ports,” the statement ended.

Any Iranian ships that attempt to attack the blockade will find themselves facing deadly consequences. Trump posted on Truth Social Monday morning, “Iran’s Navy is laying at the bottom of the sea, completely obliterated – 158 ships. What we have not hit are their small number of, what they call, ‘fast attack ships,’ because we did not consider them much of a threat.”

Unfortunately, it appears that the attack ships could be more of a consideration than the Americans originally believed. “Warning: If any of these ships come anywhere close to our BLOCKADE, they will be immediately ELIMINATED, using the same system of kill that we use against the drug dealers on boats at Sea,” Trump threatened. The types of American ships and aircraft involved in the blockade include an aircraft carrier, an amphibious assault ship, both land- and sea-based aircraft, unmanned aircraft, guided missile destroyers, and reconnaissance aircraft, according to the update from CENTCOM. Please pray for all Americans involved.

Read more …

“..if you guys commit to not having a nuclear weapon, we are going to make Iran thrive..”

• Vance Says President Trump Wants To Make ‘Grand Bargain’ With Iran (JTN)

Vice President JD Vance told Americans in Georgia Tuesday night that President Donald Trump wants to make a “grand bargain” with Iran that promises economic success to the Middle Eastern country. The vice president said a deal the United States offered Iran during peace negotiations in Pakistan over the weekend could normalize economic ties between the two countries if they commit to not having a nuclear weapon. “He doesn’t want to make, like, a small deal. He wants to make the grand bargain,” Vance said at a Turning Point USA event.


“The reason why the deal is not yet done is because the president wants a deal where Iran doesn’t have a nuclear weapon, Iran is not state-sponsoring terrorism, but also, the people of Iran can thrive, prosper and join the world economy.” “He’s saying if you guys commit to not having a nuclear weapon, we are going to make Iran thrive, we’re going to make it economically prosperous, and we’re going to invite the Iranian people into the world economy,” Vance continued. “That’s the kind of Trumpian grand bargain that the president has put on the table.”

Vance also urged young voters at the University of Georgia not to be disillusioned over American foreign policy because the administration has other successes under its belt, including securing the southern border. “I’m not saying you have to agree with me on every issue,” Vance said. “What I’m saying is, don’t get disengaged because you disagree with the ad ministration on one topic, get more involved, make your voice heard even more.”

Read more …

Freeze their funds.

• Bessent Delivers Another Powerful Blow to Iran (Nick Arama)

President Donald Trump is beginning to turn the screws on the Iranian regime. He’s blockaded any shipments coming in or out of their ports while letting other ships through. That’s going to put their economy, which was already heading into the dumper, on potential life support. It’s going to hit the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) right where they live. If they don’t find their way out of that situation, it’s not sustainable. It will either force them back to the table for a deal, or it’s going to put even more pressure on the regime.


Additionally, after Iran tried to create chaos and control the Strait of Hormuz, tankers coming to the U.S. Gulf coast oil then increased, making us more of an alternative. But if that wasn’t enough, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent had another shoe to drop on them. Bessent announced that, in addition to what they had already done with their “maximum pressure” campaign on Iran since last year, the Trump administration was also launching “Operation Economic Fury,” and making use of what might prove to be a “fatal mistake” by the regime to bomb their Gulf neighbors.

Bessent explained that the neighbors were now being “much more transparent in terms of the funds” or willing to “do a deeper dive in investigating the funds that are held within their banking systems” from the Iranian regime. “So, we have pushed out to them the request that we want to freeze more funds of the leadership of the IRGC, and any members of Iranian leadership.” If Iran is expecting any money back from the oil sales they’ve made, they may be out of luck there as well. “The other thing that we have done is we have told companies, we have told countries that if you are buying Iranian oil, that if Iranian money is sitting in your banks, we are now willing to apply secondary sanctions, which is a very stern measure.”

“The Iranians should know that this is going to be the financial equivalent of what we saw in the kinetic activities.” Bessent said they would also be going after the funding of the terror proxies. Under @POTUS’ leadership, Treasury will continue to cut off Iran’s illicit smuggling and terror proxy networks. Financial institutions should be on notice that Treasury will leverage all tools and authorities, including secondary sanctions, against those that continue to support Tehran’s terrorist activities. Folks in Saudi Arabia, which is not keen on being bombed, appreciated what Bessent had to say.

https://twitter.com/majeed66224499/status/2044491186069504378

You have to think the Iranian leaders are tearing their hair out at this point, trying to figure out what to do.

Read more …

Territory.

• Why Netanyahu Won’t Let The Middle East Have Peace Any Time Soon (Sadygzade)

Israel’s war in Lebanon has entered a stage in which claims of supposedly precise strikes on military infrastructure can no longer be taken seriously. The scale of the operations, the depth of the advance in the south, the destruction of bridges and residential neighborhoods, the massive strikes on Beirut, and the steady expansion of the so-called buffer zone all show that this is not merely a tactical effort to contain Hezbollah. It is an attempt to reshape the military and political reality of southern Lebanon for years to come. Israel describes this as the creation of a security belt up to the Litani River. In the language of the region, however, it reads differently. It is a course toward long term control of territory, the depopulation of the border strip, and the creation of facts on the ground that will be extremely difficult to reverse.


Formally, the new phase of the war began on March 2, when Hezbollah opened fire on Israel after American and Israeli strikes on Iran and the killing of Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. Israel responded with a broad air campaign against Lebanon and then expanded its ground operations in the south. At that point, the government of Nawaf Salam tried to distance itself from Hezbollah’s decision and took the unprecedented step of banning the movement’s military activity outside state institutions, demanding that its weapons be handed over to the state. This was an important sign of a shifting balance within Lebanon itself. Hezbollah can no longer act as though its armed autonomy is automatically accepted by the entire state. Yet the move also revealed the other side of the crisis. Beirut is exerting political pressure on Hezbollah, but it has neither the resources nor the internal consensus to disarm it quickly without risking a deeper internal fracture.

A land grab by any other name
From a military point of view, Israel rapidly moved far beyond the boundaries of retaliatory strikes. By late March, Defense Minister Israel Katz had openly declared the intention to hold southern Lebanon up to the Litani as a security zone, which means nearly a tenth of Lebanese territory. This was followed by strikes on bridges, the destruction of homes in border villages, and evacuation orders for residents south of the river. Soon afterward, Israel was already constructing new fortifications and destroying increasingly empty villages, while Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was openly speaking of expanding the security strip. The Israeli military machine was no longer concealing the long-term nature of the operation. This was no raid. It was a project of territorial transformation under the military pretext of combating Hezbollah.

This is where the central political question emerges. For the Israeli right, southern Lebanon is increasingly becoming an ideologically charged space. The bluntest statement came from Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich, who said in late March that Israel’s new border should run along the Litani – the clearest call yet by a senior Israeli official for the seizure of Lebanese territory. True, at the current moment there is no officially approved government program for the construction of Jewish settlements in southern Lebanon in a formal cabinet document. Yet when a senior minister speaks of changing the border, while the army simultaneously burns out the border zone, destroys homes, and prepares for prolonged control of the territory, the analytical conclusion is already clear. This is occupation, from which the idea of future settlement expansion follows almost naturally. For the far right in Israel, that appears to be a desired outcome. The stated pretext is the struggle against Hezbollah. The real content is the consolidation of a new coercive order on the ground.

Read more …

“‘So they’re not going to be able to get their oil. They can get oil. Not Iranian oil,’ Bessent said, adding that China had been buying more than 90% of Iranian oil and it constituted about 8% of their annual purchases.”

• The Chinese Try Pussyfooting at the Hormuz Strait (Helmer)

Between saying something if you are a Chinese admiral and Defense Minister and meaning something if you are a Politburo member and Foreign Minister, there is a pussyfooting difference. If you are the US Treasury Secretary and you tell the Chinese what you mean, that’s different. And then if you are the President of China, these differences of meaning might be interpreted as “the law of the jungle”. Might be is a conditional verb. Sometimes in grammar it connects the subject of sentences with the object. Sometimes in politics it doesn’t.


And so, on or about Monday, April 13, Dong Jun (lead image, 2nd left), China’s Minister of Defense, said: “We are committed for peace & stability in the world. We are monitoring the situation in the Middle East. Our ships are moving in and out of the waters of Strait of Hormuz. We have trade and energy agreements with Iran. We will respect and honour them and expect others not to meddle in our affairs. Iran controls the Strait of Hormuz and it is open for us.”

Where Dong said this, when, and in front of whom, were unclear in the press reports which, unusually, were not official state Chinese media or commercial media like the South China Morning Post. China experts noticed that the style of the remarks in Chinese was “very different from the official Chinese language style.” This isn’t necessarily a disqualifier. In Russian practice, sensitive official thinking can often be leaked through unofficial, even obscure sources, in part to test what happens in response.

Dong’s first two sentences were official boilerplate and obvious. The third sentence refers to the fact that in the first month of the US-Israeli war against Iran, an estimated 18 Chinese vessels transited the Strait – with Iranian permission and following a territorial route dictated by the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC). On Monday, if and when Dong was speaking, a Chinese-owned tanker moved through the Strait. This was the Rich Starry which had loaded 250,000 barrels of methanol at the Emirati port of Hamriyah. The tanker is owned by Shanghai Xuanrun Shipping Co Ltd. but sanctioned by the US because it has been used to transport Iranian crude.

Dong’s fourth sentence is also boilerplate. There are many trade and energy agreements between China and Iran; the most important of them is the Comprehensive Strategic Partnership (2021–2046), signed in March 2021. It is the Defense Minister’s fifth and sixth sentences which have drawn immediate and serious attention, especially in Teheran and Moscow, where they are interpreted as the first explicit Chinese declaration of support for Iran’s military control of the Strait and the first explicit Chinese warning to reject President Donald Trump’s naval blockade of the Strait which had begun on Monday.

Combined with the exit of the Rich Starry and another tanker, the US-sanctioned Elpis, which had loaded a cargo of Iranian methanol at Bushehr, Dong’s sentences appeared to signal that Beijing had decided to run Trump’s gauntlet and challenge the US Navy blockade. US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent replied that “the U.S. blockade of the Strait of Hormuz would ensure that no Chinese ships or others would be allowed to pass. ‘So they’re not going to be able to get their oil. They can get oil. Not Iranian oil,’ Bessent said, adding that China had been buying more than 90% of Iranian oil and it constituted about 8% of their annual purchases.”

As Bessent spoke, several hours after Dong’s speech and the tanker movements, both the speech and the ship courses were reversed. The Chinese Defense Ministry tweeted an official claim that the reports were “fake news” and “entirely fabricated.” The maritime tracking media reported the Rich Starry had stopped in the Gulf of Oman and then made a U-turn towards the Strait. The Elpis was reported to have stopped off the Iranian oil terminal port of Kooh Mobarak, which is located outside and east of the Strait, in the Gulf of Oman.

So now, all things said, what have the Chinese done?

Read more …

Isn’t Iran one of the belligerent parties?

• Europe Drafts Plan To Free Up Hormuz Without ‘Belligerent’ Parties (ZH)

This is quite the ambitious headline revealing the latest ‘plan’ for Hormuz to come out of Europe, as it sits on the sidelines watching the US get potentially bogged down in the region following a month of heavy airstrikes on Iran: Europe drafts postwar plan to free up Strait of Hormuz without US, WSJ reports. This is apparently a plan for after the main crisis is over, amid the strait still being blockaded (with the each warring side insisting it is they in control of the strategic chokepoint waterway). It seems the main idea is to eventually take the United States out of the equation, allowing only for the ‘neutral’ countries to free up and clean the Hormuz Strait.


But the whole thing is very strange – on the one hand, it purports to keep one of the key belligerents, namely the United States, at bay – while on the other envisioning European/NATO military ships engaged in freedom navigation operations, including some mine-clearing. For example, there is this line from the Journal report: “French President Emmanuel Macron said Tuesday the plan is for an international defensive mission that doesn’t include the ‘belligerent’ parties, meaning the US, Israel and Iran. European diplomats familiar with the plan say European ships wouldn’t be under American command.”

to a Newsquawk summary of the WSJ main highlights:
—European countries are putting together a plan for a broad coalition of countries to help free up shipping through the Strait of Hormuz, including sending mine-clearing and other military vessels. But the plan would only come after the war and may exclude the US.
—Some differences must still be worked: French diplomats think that any US involvement in the operation would make it less palatable to Tehran, while British officials worry that not including the Americans will anger Trump and limit the operation’s scope.
—The plan has three broad aims:

1) put logistics in place to ensure the hundreds of ships currently stuck in the strait can leave.
2) Employ a major demining operation to clear the way for a far larger number of ships to use a broader part of the strait.
3) Removing Iranian mines in Hormuz is crucial to getting ships going again.

The reality is that this supposed plan brings things back full circle to problem #1… as it’s not as if either Iran, or the United States, will simply shrug and cede control so that a European military coalition can step in and take over. Which side will ever actually agree to this? The obvious answer, at least for the time being and foreseeable future is… nobody.= And then there’s the question of what leverage or force will Europe employ to assert its military presence in the strait in order to keep all parties in line… some mere harsh language and strong words?

Read more …

Never tried before.

• Dershowitz: Trump Should Move to Expunge 2019 Impeachment (Salgado)

After newly declassified documents showed that an inspector general wrongly pushed an unvetted accusation from a Democrat operative who lied to launch the first impeachment of Donald Trump, legal expert Alan Dershowitz said that the president has a strong case for moving to expunge that first impeachment from his record.


While Dershowitz was a Democrat himself, he defended Trump during the impeachment trial. Dershowitz went on the Just the News, No Noise TV show to suggest that Trump go straight to the U.S. Supreme Court and Chief Justice John Roberts to request a reversal of the impeachment. The defense team never got to confront the accuser with evidence that was exculpatory for the president, and now we have these new revelations to confirm how bogus the whole impeachment was.

Referring to an impeachment reversal, Dershowitz admitted, “It’s never been done. I don’t see any reason why it couldn’t be done. Impeachment is a quasi-judicial procedure, whether you have to go back to Congress and ask them to expunge it or go to the courts.”

Referring to the new exposure of the key source for the accusations, who met with top Democrat Adam Schiff before filing his complaint, Dershowitz added, “But I have to tell you one thing, history will expunge it already based on your work, because what you’ve done is you’ve created so much doubt about the credibility of the main accuser that it’s hard for anybody to sit back now and say that was a just, a just impeachment, but I don’t know that there’s going to be any remedy. Maybe we should try to create one.”

RealClearInvestigations named the “whistleblower” in question as intel analyst Eric Ciaramella. He was a registered Democrat, he met with Schiff before submitting his complaint, and he would not reveal any credible contacts, yet Inspector General Michael Atkinson didn’t even question, let alone rigorously assess, either the honesty or motivations of this “whistleblower.”

In fact, Atkinson did not even follow standard inspector general procedures, Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard revealed. Atkinson conducted interviews with four individuals only: “the Whistleblower, the Whistleblower’s friend who was a co-author of the January 2017 Russia Hoax Intelligence Community Assessment (ICA) and close colleague of disgraced former FBI Agent Peter Strzok, and two character references who had zero firsthand knowledge of the July 2019 phone call.” Yet Atkinson exceeded his statutory jurisdiction based just on all that blatantly biased hearsay.

Ciaramella later admitted that all of his accusations were based on second- and third-hand accounts rather than anything he himself knew, making the impeachment basis even more preposterous, Just the News reported. “I do not have direct knowledge of private comments or communications by the President,” the whistleblower confessed. Gabbard accused, “Deep state actors within the Intelligence Community concocted a false narrative that was used by Congress to usurp the will of the American people and impeach the duly-elected President of the United States.”

Read more …

Tulsi has turned out to be a force of nature.

• The Two People DNI Gabbard Issued Criminal Referrals For (Matt Vespa)

It was a major document release this week: the files that were not given to President Trump’s lawyers during the 2019 impeachment effort were revealed by Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard. One could argue that the documents, which were hidden until now, were textbook exculpatory evidence. The Ukraine whistleblower, who sparked the quid pro quo controversy, had no evidence to back his claims, admitted to working closely with then-Vice President Joe Biden, was a registered Democrat, and his allegations were based on poor spycraft.


Even his colleagues acknowledged this was a weak complaint, and one of them contributed to the similarly flawed, Obama-ordered 2017 Intelligence Community Estimate, which endorsed the collusion hoax. Gabbard sent criminal referrals for the whistleblower, Eric Ciaramella, and former intelligence community inspector general Michael Atkinson (via Fox News):

The Office of the Director of National Intelligence sent criminal referrals to the Justice Department for the whistleblower whose complaint helped trigger President Donald Trump’s 2019 impeachment and for the former intelligence community inspector general who notified Congress of the allegations, Fox News Digital has learned. “I want to refer information that may constitute possible criminal activity in violation of federal criminal law committed by one or more former employees of the intelligence community,” ODNI’s general counsel wrote in the referral to the Justice Department.Fox News Digital on Wednesday reviewed the referrals ODNI sent to the Justice Department. v”The possible criminal activity concerns the circumstances described in the following congressional briefings: Discussion with Intelligence Community Inspector General, House Permanent Select Comm. on Intel., 116th Cong. (2019); Briefing by the Intelligence Community Inspector General, House Permanent Select Comm. on Intel., 116th Cong. (2019),” it continued. The referrals come after DNI Tulsi Gabbard released documents earlier this week exposing what was described as a “coordinated effort” by elements within the intelligence community—including then-Inspector General Michael Atkinson, to “manufacture a conspiracy” that was used as the basis to impeach Trump in 2019.

Lock ‘em up. Someone must go to jail over this. This wasn’t some lost paperwork; it was a deliberate attempt to unseat a duly elected president. It was a coup. For all their smarts and resources, the Deep State has continuously failed to usurp Trump.

Read more …

When she took the job, I don’t think Tulsi was a Trump ally. Perhaps she is now.

• Gabbard Sends Criminal Referrals For 2019 Trump Impeachment Whistleblower (ZH)

On Monday, DNI Tulsi Gabbard and the House Intelligence Committee released declassified transcripts revealing that the whistleblower whose complaint about Trump and Zelensky’s ‘perfect call’ as an extreme parisan who had a “prior professional relationship with one of the Democratic Presidential candidates,” and despite those facts, former-Intelligence Community Inspector General (ICIG) Michael Atkinson claimed “I did not find the complainant (whistleblower) was biased.”


Well, tonight they’re the recipients of two criminal referrals. Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard on Wednesady referred who is believed to be former CIA analyst Eric Ciaramella – along with the former intelligence community inspector general who fast-tracked it – for potential criminal investigation, the Office of the Director of National Intelligence announced Tuesday.

The referrals to the Justice Department, first reported by Fox News and confirmed by multiple officials familiar with the matter, come days after Gabbard’s office declassified more than seven-year-old transcripts and supporting documents that Democrats and the intelligence community had kept under wraps since the fall of 2019. The newly public records raise fresh questions about the origins and handling of the complaint that accused Trump of pressuring Ukraine to investigate Joe Biden and his son Hunter.

Ciaramella was a CIA analyst detailed to the National Security Council at the time. According to the declassified materials, he had no firsthand knowledge of Trump’s July 25, 2019, phone call with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy and instead relied on secondhand accounts from NSC colleagues. He was a registered Democrat who had previously worked on Ukraine policy under then-Vice President Biden – including traveling with him – and had pre-complaint contacts with Democratic staff on the House Intelligence Committee, including aides to then-Chairman Adam Schiff (D-Calif.), the records show.

Former Intelligence Community Inspector General Michael Atkinson, who received the complaint in August 2019, is accused in the declassified files of deviating from standard procedures. He allegedly changed the whistleblower complaint form to accommodate hearsay information, ignored Justice Department guidance that the complaint did not qualify as an “urgent concern,” did not review the actual call transcript, and relied on a narrow set of interviews – including one with a witness who had co-authored the controversial 2017 Intelligence Community Assessment on Russian election interference and had ties to former FBI official Peter Strzok.

Gabbard, a Trump ally installed as DNI earlier this year, framed the declassification and referrals as long-overdue accountability. “Deep state actors within the Intelligence Community concocted a false narrative that was used by Congress to usurp the will of the American people and impeach the duly-elected President of the United States,” Gabbard said in a statement accompanying the release. “Inspector General Atkinson failed to uphold his responsibility to the American people, putting political motivations over the truth.”

The ODNI general counsel’s referral letter, obtained by outlets covering the story, cited possible violations of federal criminal law by “one or more former employees of the intelligence community,” specifically referencing Atkinson’s 2019 congressional briefings. The declassified package – released by the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence at the request of Chairman Rick Crawford (R-Ark.) following a March 24 committee vote – includes closed-door transcripts of Atkinson’s 2019 testimony before the panel. Those transcripts had been withheld from Trump’s defense team during the impeachment proceedings and from the broader public for more than seven years.

The move revives one of the most contentious chapters of Trump’s first term and comes as his second administration aggressively pursues investigations into perceived abuses by the intelligence community during the Russia investigation, the 2020 election challenges and both impeachments. Schiff, now a senator from California, and other Democrats involved in the original impeachment have not yet commented publicly on the latest developments. A spokesman for the House Intelligence Committee under Democratic control in 2019 called the declassification “a partisan stunt designed to rewrite history.”

Read more …

“..the former watchdog had “weaponized the whistle-blower process” and used his office to “manufacture a conspiracy that was used as the basis to impeach President Trump.”

• New Intel Watchdog Launches Review Of Past Whistleblower Complaints (JTN)

The new chief watchdog for U.S. spy agencies has opened a review of several “urgent concern” whistle-blower complaints fielded by his predecessor after bombshell documents revealed that intelligence officials kept exculpatory evidence from President Donald Trump’s 2019 impeachment proceedings and may have suppressed concerns about Chinese meddling in the 2020 election. Officials told Just the News that Intelligence Community Inspector General (ICIG) Christopher Fox, who took over the job in October, ordered the review as part of a larger effort to reform and better resource his office to handle whistle-blower complaints that can range from abuse of civil liberties and fraud to unmitigated national security threats related to terrorism and espionage.


“It also relied more on the opinions of attorneys than the objective findings of investigators” ICIG says..””The past treatment of urgent concerns as more of a legal/document review than an investigative activity left important evidence on the table,” the ICIG office said in a statement. “It also relied more on the opinions of attorneys than the objective findings of investigators. Ultimately, this process did not serve the Intelligence Community or the American people well.”

Fox’s review comes after Just the News reported Sunday that documents recently declassified by the Office of Director of National Intelligence (ODNI) showed that the ICIG office under Fox’s predecessor, Michael Atkinson, flagged concerns about the CIA analyst who launched the 2019 impeachment proceedings against Trump with Ukraine policy-related allegations but those concerns were kept classified and never made public during the congressional proceedings.

The concerns included that the accuser had the “potential for bias,” had provided false information in his initial complaint and had animus toward conservatives inside Trump’s circles, according to documents declassified by DNI Tulsi Gabbard this week. Gabbard blasted Atkinson’s work on Monday, suggesting the former watchdog had “weaponized the whistle-blower process” and used his office to “manufacture a conspiracy that was used as the basis to impeach President Trump.”

Others, including former Trump defense lawyers, the FBI and members of Congress, also sharply criticized the withholding of such evidence for six years, with famed law professor Alan Dershowitz going so far as to suggest Trump might have grounds to expunge his 2019 impeachment in the House of Representatives.

China’s hacking of voter data kept hidden by Intelligence Community
Separately, Just the News reported that the National Intelligence Council had concluded in 2020 that China had hacked or gained access to several states’ voter registration databases, but that information was suppressed from the American public, state election officials and Congress despite a whistle-blower named Christopher Porter’s complaints trying to bring attention to it.

The intelligence community ombudsman even raised concerns that U.S. spy agencies may have exhibited bias in trying to suppress word of China’s election activities. Officials told Just the News that intelligence agencies were informed recently that Fox’s office will be reviewing anew the handling of Porter’s whistle-blower complaint. Fox’s office said it can “neither confirm nor deny whistle-blower identities or details that might reveal them, or whether any specific matter is under investigation.”But it did confirm to Just the News that Fox has launched a systemic review of “urgent concern” whistle-blower complaints handled during Atkinson’s tenure.

“IC IG Fox has also directed a comprehensive review of all past urgent concern complaints to identify lessons learned, improve internal policies, and determine whether previous matters warrant additional oversight activity,” the office said. Officials said under the old regime, “urgent concern” complaints from intelligence community whistle-blowers inside 18 separate agencies were handled by the Center for Protected Disclosures, operating separately from the Investigations Division and its trained investigators.

That meant most complaints just got a cursory review during a limited 14-day period that usually included:
• An intake interview;
• Limited witness interviews;
• An initial document examination.

“After the statutorily required 14-day review period, IC OIG did not historically continue any investigative activity. Instead, a memorandum reflecting the IC IG’s determination would be transmitted to the DNI and to Congress, and the case would be administratively closed (frozen in time), regardless of the national security implications,” Fox’s office said.

Congress received “only a preliminary assessment based on an incomplete evidentiary record” ICIG says
Fox’s office said the 2019 impeachment case revealed in the newly declassified documents that “Congress received only a preliminary assessment based on an incomplete evidentiary record.”In January, Fox launched what he called internally an “IC OIG 2.0” reorganization that consolidated six divisions into four offices, allowing a more robust and thorough “cross-disciplinary” to apply “consistent investigative rigor and objectivity to every complaint” that came in, officials said.

Read more …

Berlin will coordinate the repatriation of military-age males with Kiev, the German chancellor has said ..”

They fled there to escape that… More Merkel mayhem.

• Merz Wants Ukrainian Men In Germany Sent To The Front (RT)

Berlin and Kiev will coordinate efforts to return military-age Ukrainian men residing in Germany to their home country, German Chancellor Friedrich Merz has announced following a meeting with Vladimir Zelensky. As Ukrainian forces suffer mounting losses in the conflict with Russia and the pool of willing recruits continues to shrink, draft enforcement squads have increasingly turned to violent methods to fill the ranks in recent months. Men are being snatched off the streets, from workplaces and residential areas, as evidenced by hundreds of videos circulating online.


The heavy-handed tactics employed by Ukrainian press gangs have led to a rise in violent confrontations with unwilling recruits, their families, and passersby, with multiple recruits and draft enforcement officers being injured or even killed. Speaking at a joint press conference with Zelensky in Berlin on Tuesday, Merz reiterated the German government’s “support for Ukraine’s efforts to reduce the number of Ukrainian men of military age leaving [their home] country.” According to the German chancellor, “this is essential to ensuring Ukraine’s defense capabilities, social cohesion, and reconstruction.”

“We need rapid, tangible progress here, also in the interest of both sides,” he stressed. Zelensky concurred that the issue “must be addressed,” adding that “of course, our armed forces would want these people to return to Ukraine.” In January, Merz similarly called on Ukraine to create conditions that would encourage its young men to remain in the country rather than flee to Western Europe. Following the escalation of the Ukraine conflict in 2022, Germany became the top destination for Ukrainian migrants in the EU, taking in more than a million people, according to the Federal Statistical Office.

Some Ukrainian officials have acknowledged escalating public discontent with the forced mobilization campaign. According to Vadim Ivchenko, a member of the Ukrainian parliament’s national security committee, only around 8-10% of new personnel entering the armed forces are willing recruits. Moscow has repeatedly accused Kiev’s Western backers of waging a proxy war against Russia “to the last Ukrainian.”

Read more …

“More recently, he said the lead contractor “is probably one of the richest men in the country right now.”

• US Prosecutors Make Surprise Visit To Fed HQ Renovation Project (ZH)

Federal prosecutors on Tuesday made a surprise visit to the Federal Reserve headquarters building that’s undergoing a $2.5 billion renovation, as they continue to investigate whether Fed Chair Jerome Powell lied to Congress about the cost and scope of the project. Construction workers told the prosecutors they couldn’t come on the site without prior authorization, the Wall Street Journal reported. Instead, they were referred to the Fed’s lawyers to coordinate a return visit.


The provocative move is the latest chapter in a months-long legal drama over the enormously expensive renovation of two Fed office buildings built in the 1930s, and whether Powell made false statements about the project in a congressional hearing last June. Specifically, Powell disputed media reports and accusations from administration officials and congressional Republicans that the project had extravagant design features, such as a VIP dining room, premium marble, water features and a rooftop terrace garden.

Last year, Office of Management and Budget Director Russell Vought reported that the $2.5 billion cost was $700 million over budget. President Trump, who has repeatedly criticized Powell for not pushing interest even lower than they are, was quick to condemn the Fed director for the steep price of the project. “When you spend $2.5 billion on, really, a renovation, I think it’s really disgraceful,” he said last year. More recently, he said the lead contractor “is probably one of the richest men in the country right now.”

The ongoing drama had a moment of comic relief in July, when Trump joined Powell in touring the construction site with reporters tagging along: Last month, US District Judge James Boasberg threw out two subpoenas that federal prosecutors had issued to the Fed. “There is abundant evidence that the subpoenas’ dominant (if not sole) purpose is to harass and pressure Powell either to yield to the President or to resign and make way for a Fed Chair who will,” wrote Boasberg, an Obama appointee. Tuesday’s surprise visit to the construction zone signals the DOJ’s dedication to chasing the case.

“Any construction project that has cost overruns of almost 80 percent over the original construction budget deserves some serious review,” US Attorney for the District of Columbia Jeanine Pirro told the Journal on Tuesday. “And these people are in charge of monetary policy in the United States?” Pirro, a long-time Trump ally, gave a green light to the investigation in November.

Powell’s term as chair will expire on May 15, though his underlying seat on the Fed’s Board of Governors doesn’t end until 2028. In January, Trump nominated Kevin Warsh to replace him, but his Senate confirmation is being held up by Republican North Carolina Sen. Thom Tillis, who said he won’t vote to advance Warsh’s nomination until the DOJ investigation of Powell and the Fed is complete. Powell has said he’ll stay on as chair until his successor is confirmed. Fed chairs usually give up their Board of Governors seat after leaving the top job, but Powell has said he will make a decision on that “based on what I think is best for our institution and the people we serve.”

Read more …

“Serfs received protection for their taxes. Slaves received housing, food, and medical care. Post 1913 Americans receive wars.”:

• April 15 Reminds Us of How Unfree We Are (Paul Craig Roberts)

Citizens of democracies think of themselves as free. This belief reflects their indoctrination, not the facts. Historically, the definition of a free person is a person who owns his own labor. A serf and a slave did not own their own labor, and neither does a citizen of a Western democracy today. Today, April 15, is a good reminder of that fact.


Once upon a time April 15 was the deadline for paying one’s taxes for the prior year. This imposed a burden on taxpayers not to spend all of the prior’s year income, but to set aside the share of their earnings that belonged to government, just as serfs had to set aside the proportion of their labor that belonged to feudal lords, the government of that time. Initially, only the federal government owned part of an American citizens income, but then states followed as did the city of New York. Americans who pay federal, state, and city income taxes are actually taxed higher than Medieval serfs and 19th century slaves on Southern cotton plantations, which means that Americans are less free than serfs and slaves.

Today April 15 is the deadline for filing your tax return, but for most Americans the taxes have already been paid by the withholding tax on wages and salaries and by quarterly estimated tax payments by those with income from investments that are unpredictable such as stocks and bonds. The withholding tax is paid by that part of your wage or salary that you never see. The quarterly estimate is paid by the person writing a check based an an accountant’s estimate. Many Americans might be unaware that the government claims the monetary value of 30-40% of their labor. They never see the money as employers pay it directly to the government. Many Americans are overwithheld. Instead of having to pay the IRS, they receive a check from the government.

As I remember from my study as a graduate student of the medieval economy in Europe under the direction of University of California, Berkeley, Professor of Economics Henry Rosovsky, later Dean of Arts and Sciences at Harvard University, the highest tax rate that could be extracted from a serf was 30%. Generally, it was lower, but 30% was the maximum, the reason being that agricultural technology in those days was so low that if serfs lost more than 30% of their labor, they could not reproduce. On 19th century plantations, such as those in the Caribbean and southern United States, agricultural technology permitted 50% of a slave’s labor to be a return to the slave’s owner on the slave’s purchase price of $63,500 in 2025 dollars.

A plantation owner with 30 slaves as field hands, blacksmiths, and carpenters had $2,000,000 in today’s money invested in his labor force. How likely is he to demoralize and alienate his labor force and give them incentives to run away by beating them with whips, raping their wives, and working them to death in harsh conditions, thus destroying his investment? The slave owner was vastly outnumbered by his slaves, many of whom were warriors captured by the black King of Dahomey in slave wars. Good relations were in the slave owner’s interest.

Yet the propaganda “Uncle Tom’s Cabin” constitutes the education of generations of Americans and the content of university Black Studies programs. Perhaps we need another Harriet Beecher Stowe to chronicle the treatment of Americans today as human property, not the property of an individual but property of the state, just as was 30% (maximum) of the serf’s labor a property of the state of that time. Unlike taxation today, which serves little, if any, of the interests of those taxed, serfs gained protection in exchange for their labor. In Europe following the collapse of the Roman Empire free men farming for their existence were subject to raids from Vikings, Saracens, Magyars. The raiders came by boat, by horse. The isolated free farmers were helpless.

A would-be strongman appeared with a deal: Supply me with your labor and I will construct a fortress and employ men-at-arms to protect you against raids. You can come to our defended walls and be safe. These protectors became the aristocrats, and the free men became the serfs. But the feudal lords kept their promises as it was in their interest to defend the people. I remember reading historical accounts of how what became the aristocracy bred large war horses that could carry armored knights and were capable of overriding the smaller horses of the Magyars who attacked Europe for a century.

A serf was tied to the land and could not be bought and sold. Medieval serfs paid their taxes in kind–in their labor–initially for protection and then as an inherited obligation. Over time, some of the serfs’ labor obligation could be converted into delivery of products of the serfs’ labor. The 19th century slave paid his tax to his owner in his labor time as a return on his owner’s investment. The difference today is that a “free” American pays his slavery in the form of a monetary payment equivalent to government’s share of the monetary earnings of his labor–not in kind in direct labor service.

As Americans pay in money and not directly in labor, the illusion of a free people is created. A “free” American is like a serf. He cannot be bought and sold, but his failure to deliver the monetary value of government’s claim to his labor is harshly punished. Most would prefer whippings to imprisonment. Until the Reagan marginal tax rate reductions, high earner incomes were taxed at 50% on wages and salaries and 70% on investment income. This put them in the slave class. The rest of Americans are in the tax position of medieval serfs. The difference is that Americans today get nothing for it except wars they do not want and masses of immigrant-invaders to support. The United States government today stands in extremely poor comparison with the feudal lords of the Medieval Era. And so do the governments of every European democracy.

Today there are no Americans alive who were not born under the income tax. All Americans alive today were born into slavery. But when I was young, there were millions of Americans who had lived most of their lives as free people. These were the last free Americans. The US income tax came into being in 1913–a deception of the citizens like everything else the US government has done, such as the wars on Iran, Iraq, Libya, Syria, Vietnam. The first income tax rate–1%–only applied to very high incomes. The top tax rate of 7% was only for tycoons. As hardly any Americans were subject to the income tax, the Constitutional amendment allowing an income tax easily passed.

The income tax became law on the eve of World War I, a war America had no business being involved in, and the income thresholds were quickly lowered and the tax rates quickly raised. The United States dating from the Declaration of Independence is 250 years old. The US income tax is 113 years old. The US has existed for more than twice as long as the income tax.

The US never needed an income tax and does not need one now. The liberals wanted an income tax so that they could redistribute income. An income tax is not needed for the normal functions of government such as roads, bridges, social infrastructure. Modern Monetary Theory has demonstrated that government can finance these operations by creating money as the productive investments raise GDP and pay for themselves in rising output.

Welfare was the province of churches and private charities like the Salvation Army.In place of a good society, the income tax has brought us endless wars and generations of a welfare class that exists on redistributed income confiscated from working people. Serfs received protection for their taxes. Slaves received housing, food, and medical care. Post 1913 Americans receive wars.

Read more …

 

 

 

 

https://twitter.com/UnearthedHQ/status/2044093959698559308?s=20 Lynch

 

 

 

 

Support the Automatic Earth in wartime with Paypal, Bitcoin and Patreon.

 

 

 

 

 

Home › Forums › Debt Rattle April 16 2026

Viewing 40 posts - 1 through 40 (of 79 total)
1 2
  • Author
    Posts
  • April 16, 2026 at 10:00 am #238454
    Raúl Ilargi Meijer
    Keymaster

    Thomas Cole The Course of Empire – Desolation 1836 • Why Is Trump Making The Global Energy Crisis Worse? (RT) • US Says Iranian Trade Through Strait O
    [See the full post at: Debt Rattle April 16 2026]

    April 16, 2026 at 11:40 am #238475
    tboc
    Participant

    Does a finer example of human gullibility exist than the acceptance of Winston Churchill as moral arbiter?

    “were it not that Christianity is sheltered in the strong arms of science” – Churchill
    no greater illustration of the proof of that statement than Giordano Bruno.

    April 16, 2026 at 11:47 am #238476
    Dr. D
    Participant

    So Day 26 of Trump putting Epstein in headline news and Melania requesting Congress look into it, because they’re both Totes guilty, and she’s a Epstein girl, so in honor let’s add a second reward for any evidence of that. Not like “Was at a party/beauty pageant once” but like, normal, human evidence we used BEFORE all the haters started worshiping Trump as God, the only man in the universe, who fills their minds leaving no room for other thoughts.

    Mandani’s grocery already dying, hasn’t opened yet. $30M to open a bodega, like 5x the usual cost AND THEY OWN THE LAND. Like I said, they’re STARTING with no rules and unlimited capital.

    Duran: “Iran Nuclear Standoff: US Military Blockade or Negotiating Tactic? w/ Jim Webb”

    There is no “Standoff”. Those words mean we both have active nukes and are planning on using them on each other. Only WE have nukes, and much to the contrary of every dum s—t on Fox News, have never even suggested we would use them. They made that up one Tuesday for no reason anyone can tell.

    Duran then says the #Opposite (of yesterday): 21 hours is no time at all to negotiate, and no rational person would think you could solve such a deal in that time. It’s moronic. I agree, Alex: Every expert on Fox News IS moronic. I didn’t fully realize before now.

    The Straits are Again neither open nor closed, as the U.S. so far isn’t stopping anybody. No one knows why, but there will also be no break in the ceasefire over that.

    Their guest is also a moron, as 60% uranium means nothing. Ah. Did not know that. I want to buy some for my kids then. Also they never cheated in refining it. Also false. At high refinery it gets ridiculously easy to weaponize. Apparently he never “Asked” nor “knows”.

    Also believes no ship will stop if the US Navy hails and says they will sink them. Ah. Cool. Good thing you’re not my captain, I guess. If I’m in a commercial jet, and the US Air Force says they’ll shoot us, I PROMISE you I will land. He won’t, so I guess he’s smarter than I am. He thinks so fast, he can out-think bullets.

    He then says words like “Somehow, perhaps, Trump thinks, maybe, we might have the moral high ground, so everyone will obey that.” Ah. Amazing. Not like NO OIL TO CHINA WILL EXTEND PRESSURE? No? Not a bit, sir? No REVENUE to Iran will ALSO cause leverage? No? None?

    China shuts down all their factories, Iran runs out of money, but they’re all earnestly discussing how “Trump has no leverage.” And go on using their DonaldTelepathy, that “Wars never won nothin’ never n stuff.” Cuz “The US Navy can’t sink ships n’ stuff” after sinking all Iran’s Navy AND a ship in India for s—ts n’ grins. I guess that’s what we pay them for, to not sink anything. Any Navymen here? So sinking ships is not a thing you do? This marine private says you’re all incompetent p—ys who can’t sink a garbage scow.

    I’m turning off. I can’t take another 10 minutes of delirious crayon-munching. Where tf do they FIND these guys? Read a book. Ask for a “Statement”. All three nodding in unison like bobbleheads.

    “Russia Vows To ‘Fill China’s Energy Resource Gap’ Amid Hormuz Crisis In Lavrov-Xi Meeting

    As this helps get the three major powers into balance. We’re looking at them, but we regularly discuss how the U.S. is far weaker than it seems, fragile, and needs many years or restoration.

    “Iran Boasts It Is Fast Rebuilding Bridges & Rail Lines After US Wrought Destruction

    I’m sure they are, but it’s way faster to bomb them. Esp when neither China nor Russia are doing air support.

    “Iran already tried to lock down the strait (which is an international waterway), and any government cheering (or secretly cheering) for Iran’s actions is now unable to make a rational argument against the US doing the same thing to Iran.”

    Classic Trumpism. He does a thing, like Oxygen, knowing they’ll protest or outlaw oxygen if he breathes. Then flips the narrative, saying “If not push then pull” and say arresting Comey becomes okay because they arrested Flynn eg. They MAKE him do this, they taught him. He/We tried everything else, all the rational arguments. Being irrational, this was the only way to deal with infantile behavior, so he uses it and again here.

    “That said, I do not care about “picking sides” when it comes to Israel or Iran.
    This debate is irrelevant and designed, I think, to divide US conservatives over ancient tribal vendettas that do not involve us. I don’t care about the Israeli government or “Zionism” and I certainly don’t care what happens to the theocratic and tyrannical Muslim regime in Iran. We have much more important things to think about.”

    I guess I agree with Brandon Smith via Alt-Market.us

    I can take a side, and am moderately clear on it, but if you’d followed Herr Docktor’s path of trusting the morality and intelligence of the People – America and world both – we would have long since lost and be living in a Globalist mass-murdering dystopia. That’s not entirely because I have more morality, being an outside amateur, I think we all had no idea how fast other humans would throw us in ovens or approve of genocide before Covid and Gaza. Every Muslim approved of Gaza and didn’t lift a finger, then pointed at US to blame, doing literal f–k all themselves. (Lookin’ at you Turkey, largest Army within 2,000 miles)

    Well? OUR strategists apparently DID know. Being their Day Job n’ stuff. So the White Hats continue to do THIS which, if not winning fast, at least DOESN’T LOSE, since the fate of the planet rests on it.

    So I wanted to say that, everyone saying we need to fight a global war against the most evil forces ever devised without telling a single lie or losing a single man. I’m only half as zealous and I would have lost already. They’re still in the game. I want to emphasize that.

    Article is worth reading, what’s actually happening: https://alt-market.us/trumps-blockade-is-breaking-iran-and-european-elites-are-angry/

    Just listen: 90% of all Fox News Experts – always wrong – are emotional words, not details. This is exclusively facts and details, as he adds, he isn’t even going to BOTHER with emotion or morality right now. “Reality” rests on “Facts”. Not feelings. Here you go.

    “Iran pays for new weapons and military logistics with oil revenues. Their soldiers are paid in part with oil revenues. They mitigate civil unrest with oil revenues.
    I suspect that the blockade will force Iran back into negotiations within a couple weeks. That’s how little time they have left.
    Lie #5: Iran Has Alternative Ways To Bypass The Blockade
    No, they don’t. Overland routes without ample pipelines are no substitute for the ease of oil tanker shipments. Even if they did have such pipelines, those lines could be easily destroyed.
    By extension, as Iran’s oil exports stack up they will quickly run out of storage space, which means they will have to shut down drilling. This would cause significant damage to their oil infrastructure within weeks due to pressure differentials.
    Recent news indicates that Iran has already halted all petrochemical exports until further notice. If true, this proves that the blockade is highly effective.”

    This isn’t whether the IRGC WANTS to keep fighting and kill all life on earth. They do, I guess. Fine. That’s not the basis wars are fought on though. It’s that THEY CAN’T fight with no missiles, bridges, power plants, supply roads, communication lines, or revenue remaining. And so here. So the wells are damaged, then they have even MORE expensive problems they can’t solve, or buy the materials to solve. That’s “You were fighting with a Jeep and an AK. I broke both. What now?”

    And we can keep breaking stuff forever if we have air superiority to all borders.

    Their only hope is that we do what every Fox News Expert says and voluntarily surrender to Iran for no reason at all and let them occupy us and rule the planet. Why? Why would we do that again, after all this?

    “Lie #6: The Chinese Will Intervene And Force The Strait To Reopen

    That’s why they will pressure Iran to flip governments and open.

    “Only Iranian ports are closed. Furthermore, China has stayed away from direct intervention in the Hormuz because they simply don’t have the naval capacity to square off with the US even if they wanted to.
    Keep in mind, only a week ago the Chinese government vetoed a UN resolution to reopen the strait when they thought Iran was going to control it.”

    So China just voted to keep it closed. Iranian oil is already embargoed by Europe. We’re just enforcing Europe’s own embargo on themselves.

    “Lie #7: The US Is Losing All Its Allies Over The Blockade
    Wrong. What the blockade (and the war in general) is doing is exposing the countries which were pretending to be our allies when it was convenient. I examined this problem in my last article “The US Separation From Europe And NATO Is Long Overdue”, and this brings me to my final point on the war.
    The fact that the European elites are suddenly so concerned with the US blockade, enough to call for a “coalition” to reopen the strait and “circumvent” the US, tells us all we need to know. I continue to believe that the globalists in these nations have been feeding off the US while at the same time organizing a “multicultural alliance” behind the scenes – A socialist new world order to supplant western civilization and leave the US behind as a husk.
    Part of this agenda clearly involves a partnership with Islamic fundamentalists as a goon squad to oppress native western populations. This is why the elites have flooded Europe with third world migrants – Ignoring the concerns of citizens and even arresting people who speak out.
    This is also why the Pope is so adamant to call for a Muslim/Christian pact (while he blatantly ignores the fact that Europeans have been terrorized by Muslim immigrants for over a decade). Let’s not forget that during the pandemic lockdowns, the Vatican joined with the globalists to form the Council for Inclusive Capitalism (run by Lynn Forester de Rothschild). Modern-era Popes are not friends to conservatives or Christians, but I plan to go into that problem in my next article.
    The blockade, I believe, is so effective that it has struck fear in Iran, fear in China, and fear in the liberal order in Europe which was counting on the war to drag on for months or years. Look at how angry they all are that Trump flipped the script on the Hormuz? Why all the emotion and irrational hand wringing after the strait has been opened to MORE ships and oil traffic? Why all the panic when oil prices are falling? It doesn’t make sense unless they WANT the US to fail.”

    EVERY Fox Guy. EVERY Republican I guess. Certainly all allies, everyone in Europe. They want the U.S. to collapse and Iran to run the world. Those are your actions. That’s the triumphalism at every missile shot killin’ some kids in Kuwait or some such.

    “”I love when people call Trump Stupid.. You mean the multi-billionaire who…”

    I’m beside myself. If they can’t grasp it, don’t let them I guess. It’s like saying the QB of the Patriots with 5 Superbowl rings, is really just a JV High Schooler who got lucky. …And they say far, far worse than that daily. Should be easy to beat him then!

    “China loses its CHEAP oil supply”

    They were paying wholesale to Russia, Venezuela, and Iran. And Europe was making sure of that, tipping the tables to “Fabian Socialist” pick the winners and losers. Now China pays retail. So sad. I thought we wanted Fair Trade. And without a “Chaos Premium,” an open Ven and Iran, oil is $40bbl worldwide because of doubling the flow. We in America have to be open to competition, while China has no CAFE, no EPA, no OHSA regulation no health care, and 30% discount on oil. ‘Cause that’s fair.

    “(I think every action the Trump Administration has taken so far from Venezuela to Iran has largely been designed to contain China)
    • Trump’s Blockade Is Breaking Iran And European Elites Are Angry (Alt-M)

    Interesting. I don’t. I’m not sure we care about China much at all from our actions. But maybe we could say we want FAIR trade worldwide, and we’re shutting off a bunch of secret and unjust tollbooths of the rentier class.

    “Iran says it’s not “blockadable”.

    Um. I don’t see how you wouldn’t be. Show me. Can you take 20 barrels out the Caspian in a pickup truck? Sure.

    “China had been buying more than 90% of Iranian oil and it constituted about 8% of their annual purchases.”
    “• Vance Says President Trump Wants To Make ‘Grand Bargain’ With Iran (JTN)

    That’s the point of installing Muslim Brotherhood and IRGC types: because they’re irrational, you can count on their behavior. Zealots are narrow, blind, idiots. Humans are open, curious, calculating new creative solutions. So London can count on IRGC turning Iran into a wasteland for their religion, and that’s really effective – to everyone but the IRGC and the Iranian people.

    Again, not picking on somebody, same here with our Woke crowd. You can count on them being narrow minded idiots, unwilling to engage with facts and discussion. Easily directed and controlled. This is worldwide they set up groups like this for 100 years, like Falan Gong, German Green Parties, whatever. All European women voting for mass rape not to be “Mean”. We’re just focused on the latest example.

    “Iran BOMBED Gulf neighbors, those countries are suddenly opening up Iranian regime BANK accounts to Treasury So he can FREEZE their assets!”

    This was optional. The IRGC personel could have left with those bank accounts. And essentially those are LONDON bank accounts. This will pressure and de-collateralize Europe again. Does Khomeni own billions of NY and Miami real estate? No. LONDON real estate, sanction-free.

    More, we will see all the transaction interactions and put them in AI trackers, if we didn’t already know. This is why we wanted Maduro, is this inside tracking.

    “• Europe Drafts Plan To Free Up Hormuz Without ‘Belligerent’ Parties (ZH)

    They’ve worked up a way to all hold hands and no more war forever. Just as working so well in the EU so far, with no agitation, all peace, and the magical prosperity of the Garden People.

    Impeachment: don’t care, arrest somebody.

    Federal Reserve: Basis for ending them as an institution when the time presents. Remember we have warehouses of Treasury $100 bills never released. Years back.

    ““Serfs received protection for their taxes. Slaves received housing, food, and medical care. Post 1913 Americans receive wars.”

    Point taken, but here’s your deal: go trade places with them then. Game? Want to?

    “Elon Musk is not productive because he works harder he’s productive because he kills nonsense faster than anyone else”

    Having been in companies this seems very plausible. It takes so little, almost zero. Don’t lie.

    April 16, 2026 at 12:09 pm #238477
    John Day
    Participant

    Choking The World https://drjohnsblog.substack.com/p/choking-the-world

    Simplicius, Masterful 5D Stroke: Trump’s Blockade Charade Deflects From Ceasefire Flop
    And after Trump’s juvenile braggadocio about wiping out any Iranian ships that attempt to interfere in US’s own blockade, footage surfaced appearing to show Iranian speed boats chasing away US warships that attempted to vaunt their way across the Strait. https://simplicius76.substack.com/p/masterful-5d-stroke-trumps-blockade

    Simplicius, Anti-Blockade Blockade Comes Into Effect to Mass Confusion
    Yesterday Trump’s “blockade” went into effect, with an alleged 16 US warships attempting to enforce it somewhere outside the Strait of Hormuz. This has led to a wide array of speculation on what exactly is happening, and how much fact vs. fiction there is in Trump’s ambitious claims.
    ​ AP confirmed that not a single US warship was in the Persian Gulf…
    ..That, however, doesn’t stop many from speculating that the current peace talks are still a deflection from a troop build-up for an ensuing ground operation of some kind. Russia’s Security Council itself floated the idea…
    ..At the end of the day, the anti-blockade blockade charade has devolved into a scrum of he-said-she-said, which will likely continue playing out over the coming days. Trump will claim Iran is facing a “total economic blockade”, while Iran will call the US’s attempts bogus. The fact that US ships have to gaggle around the edges of Hormuz without ever getting close remains chiefly a humiliation to the US in this ongoing back-and-forth PR war.
    The US’s erratic efforts have exasperated the rest of the world, with Europe now eyeing plans for a parallel Hormuz “reset” without any American involvement…
    ..As the circus stretches out, only one thing is for certain: Iran is rebuilding whatever as lost, while the US has depleted its most advanced and strategic systems.
    Any future resumption of hostilities will give Iran an increasingly bigger edge, particularly now that the deterrent factor of US’s “shock-and-awe” mystique has been eroded and squandered by an ineffective campaign.
    ​ That said, Trump appears to intuit this, which is why he’s now targeting Iran economically in the hopes of simply crashing its economy. But this would never work, particularly on a short time-scale. Just look how long Cuba survived, and Iran is a far larger and more resourceful nation, with a far more proximate complement of powerful allies able to help sustain the country through times of hardship.
    ​ The US has very few cards, and it is for the Americans—and particularly Trump’s political career—that time is ticking.​ https://simplicius76.substack.com/p/anti-blockade-blockade-comes-into

    ​ Iran Halts All Petrochem Exports While Official Signals Compromise Strait Passage Opening, As Negotiators Cite ‘Progress’
    ​ The Iran war is “very close to over” with authorities in Tehran eager to agree a peace deal, Trump says, adding: “We’ve beaten them militarily.” Axios cites ‘progress’ toward framework to end war. Iran state media says halt to all petrochemical exports, RTRS cites possible compromise on strait passage.
    ​ AP/Bloomberg reporting the two sides have an “in principle agreement” to pursue further diplomacy; however, this is batted down as ‘unconfirmed’ by Tehran & a US official.
    ​ The Pentagon is sending thousands of additional troops into the Middle East in coming days: WaPo
    ​ Trump claims China “very happy” the US is permanently opening the Strait of Hormuz, also Xi told him Beijing was not sending weapons/defense items to Tehran.
    ​ Significant Lebanon fighting continues: Israel issues more evacuation orders, moving into south; Tehran outraged, threatens Red Sea shipping. Unconfirmed reports of one-week Lebanon ceasefire about to take effect.​ https://www.zerohedge.com/geopolitical/war-very-close-over-trump-says-iran-ceasefire-extension-reportedly-advances-more-us

    Iran Used Chinese Spy Satellite To Target US Bases During War, Outraged Beijing Denies​ https://www.zerohedge.com/geopolitical/iran-used-chinese-spy-satellite-target-us-bases-during-war-outraged-beijing-denies

    April 16, 2026 at 12:10 pm #238478
    WES
    Participant

    London Banks:

    I suspect that the London Banks are doing a quiet accessment of all their Iranian clients, to see what funds the London Banks can safely relieve their Iranian̈ clients of, the burden of having such funds.

    Clients who can’t complain!
    Preferably dead clients!

    April 16, 2026 at 12:10 pm #238479
    John Day
    Participant

    Gold & Geopolitics, Daily digest: 2026-04-15
    ​Hormuz blockade reality gap: CENTCOM vs. satellite data. CENTCOM claims zero breaches in first 24 hours. Maritime tracking firms Kpler and TankerTrackers identify multiple vessels that transited anyway, including a sanctioned VLCC supertanker entering Iran with AIS switched on. A US destroyer interdicted two tankers leaving Chabahar, but tanker “Quar” is crossing toward China…
    ..Iran mulls voluntary Hormuz shipping pause to preserve talks. Bloomberg reports Iran is considering halting its own maritime traffic through Hormuz for several days to prevent incidents that could derail fragile negotiations. Trump tells NY Post talks could resume in Pakistan within two days…
    ..Italy suspends defense agreement with Israel. PM Meloni announced suspension of automatic renewal of the bilateral defense memorandum, citing the “current situation”. The Italian opposition rallied behind Meloni against Trump’s subsequent attacks. Trump escalated, calling Meloni “unacceptable” and attacking Pope Leo for criticizing the Iran war…
    ..Trump called Pope Leo’s statements “unacceptable,” said he “doesn’t understand and shouldn’t talk about war,” then claimed “Iran would blow up Italy in two minutes” [I think Israel, not Iran, would nuke Italy.]​ …
    ​..Mossad declares regime change mission in Iran​ – Head of Mossad Barnea: “Our commitment will only be complete when the extremist regime in Iran is replaced” — contradicts Trump’s “war is over” narrative
    ​ [AI?] Netanyahu boasts: “Trump admin briefs me every day on Iran” per ZH​…
    ​..IAEA Director says Iran was not weeks or months from a nuclear bomb — directly contradicting the war’s core justification​…
    ..Russia launches large-scale offensive on all fronts, crosses into Sumy region. Russian forces crossed the international border on a wide front, capturing multiple settlements. Ukrainian forces retreating in several sectors. Germany responds with $4.7B defense package including hundreds of Patriot missiles and joint AI drone production…
    ..Hezbollah-Israel: IDF soldiers reportedly lured into explosive trap in Bint Jbeil. Reports of a “serious security incident” where soldiers were lured into a rigged building that was detonated. Separately, 49 red alerts in northern Israel on April 14 including rockets hitting Kiryat Shmona. Lebanese government reportedly agreed with Israel to disarm Hezbollah, prompting street protests in Beirut…
    ​..Physical oil vs. paper: the spread screams​ – Dated Brent at record highs. The spread between physical Dated Brent and nearest futures has surged to ~$35/barrel​…
    ​..IEA now expects global oil demand to contract 80K BPD this year due to scarcity — a sharp cut from prior forecast​…
    ​..Iran is 10-14 days from maxing out oil storage capacity; once full, wells must shut down​…
    ​..Saudi officials warn the Hormuz blockade could push Houthis to escalate in the Red Sea and Bab al-Mandab — choking Saudi’s remaining export routes per WSJ​ – Saudi FM: “The era of relying on the US has ended”. https://no1sdailydigest.substack.com/p/daily-digest-2026-04-15

    ​ (?) IRANIANS HAVE PUBLISHED SOME OF THE NAMES OF US SOLDIERS ( DELTA FORCE) WHO ARE CAPTURED AS PRISONERS OF WAR DURING THEIR FAILED RESCUE MISSION BUT THE US HAS DENIED AND DON’T WANT ANY PRO WESTERN MEDIA TO PUBLISH THEIR NAMES OR WRITE STORY ABOUT THE FAILED RESCUE MISSION ​ 50 Delta force currently in the custody of Iran IRGC.​ https://x.com/Cool_Ustaz/status/2043656359766290701

    ​ How Many People Have the US and Israel Killed in Iran?
    If the Iran Health Ministry’s casualty figures were accurate, it would mean that only one person is being killed for every 13 people wounded. But if the figure of 26,500 people wounded was accurate, and the ratio between dead and wounded was similar to what is found in other wars, we would expect that around 10,000 people have probably been killed.
    ​ Looking at other sources, the UK-based Iran International website, on March 31, reported Iranian military, militia and police casualties of 4,770 killed and 20,880 wounded.​ https://www.globalresearch.ca/people-us-israel-killed-iran/5922210?doing_wp_cron=1776193581.3876039981842041015625

    Israeli attacks in Gaza kill six Palestinians, injure others​ https://english.palinfo.com/news/2026/04/13/361225/

    ​ Second Contractor Steps Forward to Blow the Whistle on Israeli Attacks at Gaza Aid Site
    In his first interview since returning from Gaza, David McIntosh says he witnessed Israeli soldiers firing open fire on crowds of Palestinians seeking aid.​ https://www.dropsitenews.com/p/gaza-ghf-srs-aid-israeli-military-palestinians-security-contractor

    April 16, 2026 at 12:11 pm #238480
    John Day
    Participant

    The Israeli occupation forces (IOF) carried out a wide campaign of raids and arrests across various areas of the West Bank and Jerusalem last night and at dawn Monday, kidnaping about 30 Palestinian citizens, including two children.​ https://english.palinfo.com/news/2026/04/13/361243/

    Shortage of tires, oil and spare parts paralyzes life in Gaza and threatens vital services​ https://english-wafa-ps.translate.goog/Pages/Details/169379?_x_tr_sl=auto&_x_tr_tl=en&_x_tr_hl=en&_x_tr_pto=wapp

    WHO: Gaza’s health crisis deepens under Israeli aid restrictions​ https://english.palinfo.com/news/2026/04/13/361255/

    ​ Over 200 occupiers led by rabbi storm Jerusalem’s Al-Aqsa Mosque under Israeli police protection
    Jerusalem Governorate calls incursion ‘blatant violation of sanctity of the site and a provocation of the feelings of Muslims worldwide’​ https://www.aa.com.tr/en/middle-east/over-200-occupiers-led-by-rabbi-storm-jerusalems-al-aqsa-mosque-under-israeli-police-protection/3904423

    ​ Israeli Strike Targeting Police Vehicle in Gaza City Kills Four, Including a Three-Year-Old Boy​ – At least nine Palestinians were killed by Israeli attacks across Gaza on Tuesday​ https://news.antiwar.com/2026/04/14/israeli-strike-targeting-police-vehicle-in-gaza-city-kills-four-including-a-three-year-old-boy/

    April 16, 2026 at 12:11 pm #238481
    John Day
    Participant

    Global Sumud Flotilla sets sail from Barcelona toward Gaza to break the siege​ https://english.palinfo.com/news/2026/04/13/361240/

    ​ Four people, including a woman, were killed and others wounded in an Israeli airstrike on the town of Maaroub in the Tyre district at dawn, according to the Lebanese Ministry of Health.
    ​ The Lebanese Red Cross announced the martyrdom of a paramedic and the wounding of another while carrying out a humanitarian mission at a site on the road to the town of Beit Yahoun in the Bint Jbeil district, after its teams were directly targeted by an Israeli drone.
    ​ Israeli artillery also shelled the towns of Haniyeh and Qalila, while the town of Zibqin in the Tyre district was subjected to artillery and phosphorus shelling.​ https://english-wafa-ps.translate.goog/Pages/Details/169356?_x_tr_sl=auto&_x_tr_tl=en&_x_tr_hl=en&_x_tr_pto=wapp

    French lawmakers set to push bill criminalising speech on Israel​ – Nearly 700,000 people have signed a petition calling for the proposed legislation to be blocked​ https://www.middleeasteye.net/news/french-lawmakers-set-push-bill-criminalising-speech-israel

    ​ Hezbollah Drone Strikes Continue to Take Heavy Toll on Israeli Armour
    ​The Lebanese paramilitary group Hezbollah has increased its drone strikes on Israeli Army armoured units using First Person View (FPV) drones, mirroring similar technological trends seen in the Ukrainian theatre, as part of a broader war effort to repel Israel’s invasion of Southern Lebanon. There are indications that Hezbollah has learned from Russian and Ukrainian experience in utilising fiber-optic guided drones to evade Israeli electronic interference, fuelling speculation that a sharing of experience between Hezbollah and Russian forces may have taken place. The paramilitary group operated closely alongside Russian forces in the 2010s as part of joint counterinsurgency operations in Syria. https://militarywatchmagazine.com/article/hezbollah-drone-strikes-heavy-toll-israel

    ​ Hezbollah has the bigger army, battle tested against Israel. The Lebanese army cannot disarm it: Hezbollah Chief Torches ‘Futile’ Israel Talks, Urges Lebanon Walkout As Rubio Hypes ‘Historic Opportunity’​ https://www.zerohedge.com/geopolitical/hezbollah-chief-torches-futile-israel-talks-urges-lebanon-walkout-rubio-hypes-historic

    April 16, 2026 at 12:12 pm #238482
    John Day
    Participant

    Dozens arrested as protesters demand Schumer and Gillibrand block sale of bombs to Israel​ https://apnews.com/article/chuck-schumer-kirsten-gillibrand-protest-israel-e53eab511e0d5f435b76c66ad772c6f9

    ​ Trump Signals High Gas Prices Through November Midterms
    Trump told Fox News’ Maria Bartiromo that gas prices could “stay the same, or maybe a little bit higher, but it should be around the same” when asked if gas prices would be lower by the fall.​ https://oilprice.com/Latest-Energy-News/World-News/Trump-Signals-High-Gas-Prices-Through-November-Midterms.html

    Italy’s Anti-Israel Opposition Declares ‘Victory’ After Meloni Suspends Defense Pact​ https://www.zerohedge.com/geopolitical/italys-anti-israel-opposition-declares-victory-after-meloni-suspends-defense-pact

    Professor ​Ugo Bardi looks at the declining resource base of industrial civilization: The Coming Civilization Collapse: A Biophysical Analysis – A New world war will have disastrous consequences.
    ​ War is a sector of the economy; it only has the characteristic of being more destructive than most.
    So, this post is an attempt at an analysis of the current situation using biophysical economics as the main tool. It is a long story, and I can’t pretend to have treated the matter comprehensively, but I think there is sufficient data to arrive at reasonable conclusions. We are facing the start of a new cycle of global military build-up. Unlike previous cycles, this one may be disastrous at the global level because it coincides with a larger civilization cycle that’s taking us to a long-term economic decline.
    ​ Engaging the remaining resources in a major war is the fastest way to civilization collapse​. https://senecaeffect.substack.com/p/iran-the-reasons-for-a-new-world

    ​ Et Tu, Indonesia!
    As the squeeze continues on China’s energy supply (and Xi has started to lash out here and here), we suspect the next words out of the Chinese leader’s mouth (if he spoke Latin) will be “…et tu, Indonesia!”
    ​ As Stephen Green writes at PJMedia, it might have seemed like one of those dry, bureaucratic, almost meaningless announcements on Monday, when War Secretary Pete Hegseth posted on X that the U.S. and Indonesia “are elevating our relationship to a Major Defense Cooperation Partnership.”​…
    ​..But a Major Defense Cooperation Partnership is kind of a big deal – and it’s aimed directly at China’s oil imports.
    China’s difficulties begin in the Strait of Hormuz, but they peak at Malacca.
    ​ Nearly two-thirds of China’s imports – largely the raw materials that keep its export machine humming – and a whopping 80% of its energy imports pass through Indonesia’s Strait of Malacca.​ https://www.zerohedge.com/geopolitical/et-tu-indonesia

    April 16, 2026 at 12:13 pm #238483
    John Day
    Participant

    ​ John Helmer takes the long way into saying that China floated a trial balloon of firmness in Hormuz, then quickly obscured it, effectively saying nothing:
    THE CHINESE TRY PUSSYFOOTING AT THE HORMUZ STRAIT https://johnhelmer.net/the-chinese-try-pussyfooting-at-the-hormuz-strait/#more-93928

    ​ Russia Vows To ‘Fill China’s Energy Resource Gap’ Amid Hormuz Crisis In Lavrov-Xi Meeting
    The Russian foreign minister announced to a press conference that Moscow stands ready to increase energy supplies to China.
    ​ “Russia can certainly fill the resource gap that has arisen in China and other countries interested in working with us on an equal and mutually beneficial basis,” Lavrov stated.
    ​ The two-day Lavrov visit is toward laying the groundwork for an upcoming summit between Xi and Russian President Vladimir Putin. It’s expected for the first half of this year, but likely after Trump’s upcoming May 14-15 summit with the Chinese leader.​ https://www.zerohedge.com/energy/russia-vows-fill-chinas-energy-resource-gap-amid-hormuz-crisis-lavrov-xi-meeting

    Russia’s oil export revenue jumped 94% in first month of Iran war​ https://san.com/cc/russias-oil-export-revenue-jumped-94-in-first-month-of-iran-war

    US reinstates sanctions against Russian oil​ – The US administration has revoked temporary waivers for Russian oil.​ https://unn.ua/en/news/us-reinstates-sanctions-against-russian-oil-media

    US Treasury says not renewing temporary Iranoil sanction easing​ https://www.spacewar.com/afp/260414201225.oba7m6je.html

    April 16, 2026 at 12:15 pm #238485
    John Day
    Participant

    With US Bogged Down in West Asia, Cuba Agrees to Grant Russian Companies Management of Cuban Industries​ https://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2026/04/with-us-bogged-down-in-iran-russia-just-took-over-management-of-cubas-industrial-facilities.html

    Scoop: U.S. suggests Cuba complicit in helping Russia fight Ukraine​ https://www.axios.com/2026/04/14/congress-cuba-russia-trump-administration-congress

    ​Meryl Nass MD, Ireland Blockades widespread–protesting the fuel shortages and huge increases in price. Police supportive right now. https://merylnass.substack.com/p/ireland-blockades-widespread-protesting

    ​ Irish Patriots Are Fighting Back
    Tens of thousands of farmers, truckers, and other fed-up “normies” are taking to the streets of Dublin to protest fuel taxes, mass immigration, and poverty-inducing “climate change” policies. For the most part, corporate news propagandists in both Europe and North America are intentionally ignoring the combustible situation.​ https://www.zerohedge.com/political/irish-patriots-are-fighting-back

    April 16, 2026 at 12:17 pm #238487
    John Day
    Participant

    Magyar beats Orban in battle for Hungary: What happens now?​ https://web.archive.org/web/20260413102608/https://www.rt.com/news/638268-magyar-beats-orban-hungary/.

    After Orbán Loss, Polish MEP Warns EU Set To “Subjugate Everything And Everyone” As VDL Moves Quickly To Abolish Veto Power
    For many who backed Viktor Orbán, one of their greatest fears was exactly what von der Leyen is now advancing: an unconstrained EU able to take action on foreign policy, health, and migration without the threat of a veto.
    ​ It is widely assumed that the incoming prime minister of Hungary will seek a fast resolution of Brussels’ key issues with Hungary in order to unlock some €35 billion in funding.​ https://www.zerohedge.com/geopolitical/after-orban-loss-polish-mep-warns-eu-set-subjugate-everything-and-everyone-vdl-moves

    Hungary has refused to finance Ukraine and will continue to purchase oil from Russia.​ https://avia-pro.net/news/vengriya-otkazalas-finansirovat-ukrainu-i-prodolzhit-zakupki-nefti-u-rossii

    ​ Brussels piles the conditions on Hungary to unlock EU funds — could Magyar’s honeymoon be over before it’s even started?
    Brussels makes it clear: to be “welcomed back into Europe,” Hungary will need to play by its rules
    ​ The incoming Hungarian government faces an immediate challenge to its election pledges, with Brussels making clear that unlocking billions in EU funds will require sweeping changes that contradict much of Péter Magyar’s campaign promises.
    ​ According to the Financial Times, Hungary must meet 27 separate conditions to access roughly €35 billion in frozen EU funding — including the lifting of its veto on Russian sanctions and rolling back policies on asylum. These demands directly challenge Magyar’s pledges to prioritize national sovereignty and maintain tight border controls.​ https://rmx.news/article/brussels-piles-the-conditions-on-hungary-to-unlock-eu-funds-could-magyars-honeymoon-be-over-before-its-even-started/

    April 16, 2026 at 12:19 pm #238488
    John Day
    Participant

    ​ Gilbert Doctorow on the Belgian banning of a documentary he was able to watch, on the Genocidal war of Ukraine since 2014, upon ethnic Russian citizens, which conveyed their statements, sentiments and recollections: A word to J.D. Vance: witness the latest suppression of human rights and ‘European values’ in Belgium! A black stain on the record of Prime Minister Bart De Wever https://gilbertdoctorow.substack.com/p/a-word-to-jd-vance-witness-the-latest

    Vance heckled at TPUSA event over US action in Middle East: ‘You’re killing children!’​ https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/news/white-house/4529294/vance-heckled-tpusa-georgia-genocide/

    Watch: Vance Pledges Probe Into Epstein ‘Pizza’ And ‘Grape Soda’ References​ https://www.zerohedge.com/political/watch-vance-pledges-probe-epstein-pizza-and-grape-soda-references

    ​ Frances Leader, in the UK, THE FABIANS​ – The Secret Society Running Britain’s Left for 140 Years
    The Fabian Society has supplied every Labour Prime Minister in history.
    ​ 141 of 411 Labour MPs are members.​ – More than half the cabinet.
    And they tell you all this on their website!
    ​ The Fabian Society is a British socialist organisation founded on January 4, 1884, dedicated to advancing social democracy and democratic socialism through gradualist and reformist methods rather than revolutionary overthrow.​..
    ​..Founded in 1884 with a wolf in sheep’s clothing as their coat of arms, the Fabian Society is Britain’s oldest political think tank — and the organisation most people have never heard of. Their strategy, which they openly called “permeation,” was to infiltrate institutions from within rather than build new ones. They founded the London School of Economics, started the New Statesman, wrote Labour’s constitution, and traced a direct pipeline from pamphlet to law that still operates today.​ https://francesleader.substack.com/p/the-fabians

    The road to dispossession? Treasury Secretary Says Order On Citizenship Proof For Banking Is ‘In Process’​ https://www.zerohedge.com/political/treasury-secretary-says-order-citizenship-proof-banking-process

    April 16, 2026 at 12:19 pm #238489
    Michael Reid
    Participant

    Iran’s determination to break out from the panopticon of Western 360° containment
    Contact us: info@strategic-culture.su

    The temporary cessation of hostilities across West Asia very much hangs in the balance. Originally, there was to be a cessation of military actions across “all fronts” including Lebanon — that being one of the ten Iranian preconditions to negotiations towards a permanent ceasefire. Trump duly affirmed that Iran’s 10-point framework provided a “workable basis” to begin direct negotiations with Iran.

    For Iran, the points were seen as pre-conditions, rather than starting points from which negotiations would flow.

    CBS has reported that Trump had been told that Iran’s terms, that he accepted on Thursday, would apply to the Middle East region as a whole – and he agreed that would include Lebanon. Mediators reported that the ceasefire would include Lebanon, and Pakistani Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif’s announcement included it. Foreign Minister Araghchi also confirmed that Lebanon was included.

    Trump’s position however reversed itself following a phone call from Netanyahu. According to Israeli correspondent, Ronan Bergman, writing in Yediot Ahoronot, Netanyahu suddenly and belatedly exploded the situation: In Israel, both echelons — military and political — were instructed to prove that there was no ceasefire for Hizbullah by mounting a huge attack on crowded residential neighbourhoods in Lebanon – killing and wounding over 1,000 persons, largely civilians.

    And at the same time as the attacks on Lebanon were taking place, Israel announced that it sought to open a political initiative – direct talks with the Lebanese government centred on the disarmament of Hizbullah and on Lebanon’s normalisation with Israel – in order to buttress Netanyahu’s demand “for a short window of time for additional attacks against Hezbollah, before the Americans try to roll the same spirit of calm to Lebanon”, Anna Barsky writes in Ma’ariv.“Assessments in Israel speak of a partial American understanding of this need; but this is by no means assured”.

    Alon Ben David, a prominent Israeli military correspondent, noted that the PM’s initiative might result in civil war in Lebanon, adding in parenthesis that ‘this had always been the objective’.

    The Iranian equation however, runs counter to the ‘revised’ U.S. position that Lebanon was never integral to the ‘all fronts’ demand. For Tehran, it is ‘ceasefire for all, or ceasefire for no one’. It is that simple.

    The negotiations were only going to take place if Trump was capable of imposing a veto on Netanyahu’s thirst for further rounds of blanket bombing in Lebanon. Has Trump effective agency to control Netanyahu — who (together with some Gulf states reportedly) still wants Trump “to go all the way, until the overthrow of the evil regime”, Ronen Bergman emphasises.

    Yet the U.S. reality is stark:

    “The U.S. has lost its naval presence and military bases in the Persian Gulf region; its entire inventory of stand-off munitions has been nearly exhausted, along with its air defences, which have been proven woefully ineffective”.

    “This is what decisive strategic defeat looks like”.

    As Ben Rhodes, former U.S. Deputy National Security Advisor, put it: “It’s hard to lose a war this short: this comprehensively”.

    What took Trump from a Tuesday night posting that “a whole civilization will die tonight”, to acquiesce a few hours later to negotiations on the basis of Iran’s 10-point plan is for conjecture. But perhaps the juxtaposed images of the crashed helicopter from President Carter’s ill-fated attempt to rescue U.S. hostages from Iran in 1980, together with the wreckage of U.S. aircraft near Isfahan from the abandoned Saturday (4 April) attempt to seize enriched uranium from a tunnel at Isfahan, tells its story.

    As one commentator notes, the only thing missing from the later 1980 scene is the presence of the assassinated Supreme Leader, Ali Khamenei. President Carter, of course, became the political casualty from that event.

    Let us recall too, that this current war was launched by a snap strike to kill the Supreme Leader, Ali Khamanei – and was expected to be a short war of days’ duration only. The NY Times report of the 11 February 2026 meeting at which Netanyahu persuaded Trump to join with an assault on Iran confirms that “the President appeared to think it would be a very quick war … (and) at no point during the deliberations did the Chairman [General Caine] directly tell the President that war with Iran was a terrible idea … [General Caine] would constantly ask, “And then what? But Mr. Trump would often seem to hear only what he wanted to hear”.

    And what Trump chose to hear at the 11 February briefing dovetailed closely with Netanyahu’s own deep longings: “Iran stood apart” for Trump, as for Netanyahu. “He [Trump] regarded Iran as a uniquely dangerous adversary and was willing to take great risks to [fulfil] his desire to dismantle the Iranian theocracy”, the NY Times reported.

    Neither Trump nor Netanyahu — despite the three-hour official briefing on 11 February — at all anticipated the strong Iranian response of immediate attacks on U.S. bases in the Gulf that swiftly ensued upon the killing of the Supreme Leader, though this prospect had been clearly prefigured in earlier Iranian warnings.

    The entire 11 February strike plan that was green-lighted in the White House Situation Room meeting hinged on decapitation strikes, stand-off air bombardment, and a visceral (rather than evidence-based) conviction that an internal uprising surely would follow — one that would topple the state.

    It is no surprise then, that Trump should now be desperately seeking an exit from the Israeli débacle that was set for him. Like Carter, he is on the rocks politically, as well as militarily. But any meaningful off-ramp will require of him to make major concessions — concessions that will grate painfully with his rancorous feelings toward Iran and Iranians.

    It seems likely that the negotiations will not produce an agreement. Iran is engaged in exploding a 70 year-old paradigm through forcing — by threat of economic and market pain — a U.S. acquiesce to Iran’s ‘release’ from the panopticon of U.S. and Israeli repression. Will this involve more pain and death (more war), or less. That is the question.

    April 16, 2026 at 12:20 pm #238490
    John Day
    Participant

    Gold & Geopolitics on Modern Monetary Theory, Steve Keen’s magical accounting​ – An Austrian response to “balancing books”
    Here’s the core Austrian insight: money is not wealth. Money is a claim on wealth. When you increase claims without increasing wealth, you haven’t made anyone richer. You’ve made the claims worth less.
    ​ Government can create infinite dollars. It cannot create infinite resources.
    ​ Keen’s model shows this without realizing it. When government runs deficits, private sector equity goes positive. Government equity goes equally negative. Zero sum. No new wealth created. Just nominal claims shuffling around.
    ​ But in the real world, that shuffling has effects. It bids up prices. It distorts signals. It enables malinvestment. It makes economic calculation harder. It punishes savers. It rewards debtors. It creates boom-bust cycles.
    ​ None of this shows up in accounting identities. All of it shows up in the economy.
    ​ The Austrian answer is simpler: maybe giving one entity monopoly control over the monetary system and letting it create infinite nominal claims is a bad idea regardless of how the accounting works.
    ​ Maybe the question isn’t “can government run deficits forever” but “should it”.
    ​ I’ll end with this: Keen says only he and Richard Murphy understand money because only they understand double-entry bookkeeping. But maybe the Austrians understand something Keen doesn’t.
    ​ The ledger isn’t the economy. The menu isn’t the meal. And you can’t eat accounting identities no matter how perfectly they balance.​ https://no01.substack.com/p/steve-keens-magical-accounting

    ​ Meryl Nass MD, More Americans doubt vaccine safety than trust it, POLITICO Poll finds
    And “antivaxxers” are simply people who want market forces to be applied to vaccines, says Jeffrey Tucker. Most antivaxxers took vaccines–until an injury happened.​ https://merylnass.substack.com/p/more-americans-doubt-vaccine-safety

    ​ Musk Says COVID Shot Almost Killed Him.​ – Elon Musk has revealed that he experienced a severe reaction to his second COVID-19 vaccine dose, describing it as feeling “close to death.” He contrasted this with his experience of contracting the original Wuhan strain of COVID-19, which he described as similar to a bad cold.​ https://thenationalpulse.com/2026/04/13/musk-says-covid-shot-almost-killed-him/

    ​ Nobody tried this before: NEW STUDY: Frog-Derived Gut Bacterium Completely Eradicates 100% of Tumors After a Single Dose in Mice
    A single intravenous dose of Ewingella americana achieved complete tumor elimination in 100% of treated animals, with no detectable toxicity—outperforming chemotherapy and immunotherapy.​ https://www.thefocalpoints.com/p/new-study-frog-derived-gut-bacterium

    ​Paul Marik MD, Ivermectin: A Network Amplifier in the Metabolic Cancer Trap – Moving Beyond Single-Target Thinking https://substack.com/home/post/p-193378982

    April 16, 2026 at 12:22 pm #238491
    John Day
    Participant

    ​ 84.4% of Cancer Patients Taking Ivermectin + Mebendazole Reported Tumor Regression, No Evidence of Disease, or Cancer Stabilization After 6 Months​ – Epidemiologist Nicolas Hulscher breaks down the findings on Real America’s Voice​ https://www.thefocalpoints.com/p/844-of-cancer-patients-taking-ivermectin

    ​ Paul Marik MD presents the case against cheap seed oils and refined carbohydrates in food. Good Fat, Bad Fat -Reframing Lipids in Human Health and Disease https://substack.com/home/post/p-193601327

    Laser drones go up and down the rows zapping weeds, so you won’t need herbicides. Not the Onion: Can New Farming Technology Replace Toxic Herbicides? https://www.themahareport.com/p/can-new-farming-technology-replace

    April 16, 2026 at 12:22 pm #238492
    John Day
    Participant

    My flexible succession-rotation gardening protocals from July 4, 2016: Liberty Garden, Central Texas, Climate Zone 8A https://www.johndayblog.com/2016/07/liberty-garden-central-texas-climate.html

    Meryl Nass MD, They predict famine next year, so start gardening now. Here is my quick and dirty primer for new gardeners. https://merylnass.substack.com/p/they-predict-famine-next-year-so

    Dr. Nass, The fertilizer shortage, and it isn’t just nitrogen​ – Why famines are being predicted. Read the whole article. https://merylnass.substack.com/p/the-fertilizer-shortage-and-it-isnt

    Dr. Nass explains It’s not the poop, but the carcinogens: The Sierra Club tested 9 bags of commercial garden fertilizer and all contained at least 50% sewage sludge, seven 100. https://merylnass.substack.com/p/the-sierra-club-tested-9-bags-of

    Dr. Nass, What do you think you are putting on your garden?​ You are going to want to read and share this article https://merylnass.substack.com/p/what-do-you-think-you-are-putting

    April 16, 2026 at 12:25 pm #238493
    Michael Reid
    Participant

    Iran’s determination to break out from the panopticon of Western 360° containment

    April 16, 2026 at 12:38 pm #238494
    those darned kids
    Participant

    “Climate Zone 8A”

    well, aren’t we smug..

    April 16, 2026 at 12:43 pm #238495
    Dr. D
    Participant

    More Larry Johnson, the whole MI6 Rupert Murdock constellation of anti-Americans, and Iranian press releases: certain to never lie or bend the truth or nothin’. Okay.

    We have OPEN speech, who are their counter-arguments? We don’t listen to only one side (there essentially IS no “pro-American” side anywhere) and we also don’t count only one side’s missiles falling and ignore the other.

    April 16, 2026 at 12:44 pm #238496
    D Benton Smith
    Participant

    Since everything just is what it is, that leaves us with only one question. What is it anyway?

    April 16, 2026 at 12:47 pm #238497
    those darned kids
    Participant

    “I’m beside myself.”

    what a horrible place to be.

    April 16, 2026 at 12:55 pm #238498
    Dr. D
    Participant

    “Dear Dr. D,
    Is London wielding Israel and the Israel lobby?

    This is like all these “Feminine” Intel forms: is the IRGC wholly controlled by London, every action, and they’re aware they’re nothing but an employee? No. And they don’t obey and are instantly aware. This is even more diabolical. IF you are a slave, you know you are a slave, as often said. While IF you are “an employee” you THINK you are free, but are a debt slave, and this works better. Like any Narcissistic abuser, you THINK you are free in the relationship, you’re doing this for YOU, but really it’s the lies and web of the abuser.

    This is what what they do in the CIA and Presidents: merely carefully feed JFK lies about Cuba from the Dulles brothers, and make it obvious he needs to nuke Russia. Or the IRGC. They set up that Iran has “a mole” into MI6 then feed that fake mole anything they want back to the Iranian leader-heirarchy, Generals, Presidents, Ayatollahs, doesn’t matter, same thing. Feed them s—t that makes them act crazy or however you want.

    Narcissistic Abuse.

    Or back to Israel WE KNOW Israel is a co-British Colony And ALWAYS HAS BEEN. That’s why we all point to “Balfour”. We all know that their biggest backer is London, after the U.S., the Anglos, the 5 Eyes, the “Young Lions of Tarsus” of Revelations. And we know equally well that MI6 is in push-pulling all U.S. policy too, particularly NeoCon policy. So: everyone on God’s earth hates the NeoCons like cancer: left, right, center, even people in government! Yet they keep getting installed, no matter how many dozen times they fail. HOW? At first it wasn’t obvious, but when the most hated, the biggest failing failures in the history of fail keep cutting deals to be installed in Trump’s cabinet (then banished to Mongolia, hilarious) then WHO has the power to install them OVER even the DerpState own standing bureaucracy, Pentagon, State, who hates them just as much?

    Okay, WHERE are the NeoCons and their lines? U.S., UK, Israel (little of other Anglos). So they act as one glob, blob, nationless, body, in form, trying to cause a specific end…somewhere. So it’s very, very hard to tell who the “Head” is with a stateless, hidden government that can install and remove Cabinet Members at will in all three nations and more.

    But we know it’s London-Israel because they are tight, and have no resistance, and go back to Day 1. The U.S. HAS support of Israel, but also 50% resistance. So like NeoCon cabinet ministers, they pay infinity money (from where????) to boost every Israel Baptist evangelist, and Shoot every Charlie Kirk, and STILL the U.S. is 50% against Israel when our leaders are 90% Pro-Israel. So it can’t be us, among the Blob, we’re a major resistance and P.I.T.A for them and their plans. And that’s even at the heights. From Truman to JFK we were WAY down on Israel, and from 2016 on we’ve been geometrically dropping them, maybe because there are no longer any Christians here. This is not reflected in the news, run as it is by the same people, but nobody dgaf about Israel here. You got Jewish community in NYC and a couple retards on the side. The media makes them appear 10x larger and relevant. Even most US Jews don’t care.

    That leaves Israel is running the UK entirely, or UK is running Israel entirely. Clearly we’re not running UK! All Russiagate Stuff, AND last 3 elections all openly rigged there, and going back way far to Dulles, OSS, and 1949. Or they could be co-equal, I guess, but that never really happens in practice.

    Well you could hypothesize, but now we know. Israel is being destroyed, so how is it them? All the actions set up are flattening Israel. Then on one random Tuesday after 10-7, suddenly the whole media said “It’s okay to be anti-semetic, ackshully!” The “Jewish” media, ppl have been saying for 100 years. Huh? The Jews are against the Jews? Israel is destroying Israel? Wtf???

    Wait, wait: WHO BENEFITS? Quo Bono? Not Israel. Not the U.S.

    That leaves….??? London and Europe. If the U.S. is internally divided, a U.S. (Republican) civil war over domestic/foreign policy. Money flows. Kicking off a world war they, Europe doesn’t fight, but we do. All the “Global capital flows” as Armstrong says, go where? To a U.S. collapsed, mired, and in a Civil War? No. To Europe.

    Which is their DAILY TALK using BRITISH CITIZENS and agents of Rupert Murdoch at Fox News. EVERY. SINGLE. SENTENCE. from every Davis and Johnson are these talking points, global capital flows. The U.S. has been conquered. (although we’ve taken no damage at all). So where you move your money now, Western Man?

    So we could have GUESSED, but we didn’t KNOW that 1) Apparently the media isn’t Jewish at all. Wtf. Who knew? 2) Israel has been double-crossed and got a burn notice from London, who seeing Israel’s usefulness waning, are sacrificing a queen in order to check(mate) Trump and the U.S. 3) Nutsy, manaic that he is, sadly isn’t stupid either. He realized after 10-7 that MI6 had sold him out and made what was supposed to be a minor incident making Gazan deaths logical, into an “Israel-destroying nightmare.” He then “turns on” London, shuts off their 5 Eyes intel – as Trump/Tulsi did – and blind them. Having no alternative, he rushes to the U.S. for aid and the lobby, but he’s still a maniac. That is, BOTH us and Israel have taken open action publicly identifying England as the enemy.

    We see just recently that the Israeli LOBBY also is making irrational moves that out them, make the U.S. turn on Israel by headlining how much control they have over us. So it’s very likely UK is deeper into AIPAC than they are in the Israeli state, and are running more burn notices on it. But this is very, very hard to tell. The slightest strategic sense and self-preservation would tell them to hide like they always have. The only explanation everyone gives is “Everyone is suddenly stupid but me tho”. No.

    Take the opposite view: Nutsy and Israel BOMBED AND FLATTENED THEMSELVES. This was their super-master plan. Uhhh…no. That does not make sense. The U.S. did it, because we like to break our own (Republican) party and have a Civil war that will kill everyone Deagle.com said, like 60M Americans. Uhhhh, no. That is NOT the case.

    OR! London is broke, and desperately needs to stay in the game, the money flows to remain/come back, and to feed. They can’t get the U.S. to fight Russia for them while they eat chips and watch now, so their only hope is to start a brush fire and see if it can be puffed into a general World War. Ah. Yes. That IS what happened, and you see them running around the world doing it while other players refuse to hop in (Russia, twice, but China, just now). So running the inverse theory, still holds.

    Yes, London was ALWAYS deep into Israel (proof) and the Israeli Lobby thereby. They do all the banking that moves those billions to Tel Aviv and back 100 secret ways to Congress, ‘coz sure ain’t Kentucky National Bank! You can’t say “100% total employee, W-2 form, where all actors are aware of it” because that’s not how Intel and influence works, ever. And it was never very obvious as they had aligning interests for 100 years, and all three of us for like 50 years since Suez or JFK.

    But if we break up, then we are not aligning interests, proving we are still sovereign actors. Process of elimination and recent event say, “Yes, London (was) running Israel.” Israel is a northern European ethnic colony, same as Belgian Congo, and it was run almost exclusively by London, not Berlin, not Madrid, and London’s OTHER colony, the United States since 1913 or 1949.

    This is only becoming clear because of the stress lines created since Oct 7. And again, WHO is in charge? Nusty is running TRUMP? Hahahahahaaha! No. When has TRUMP ever obeyed anyone? Besides that we’re 100x larger and more than half the nation hates Israel. But that the recent actions DESTROYED Israel. So Israel is completely in control of all events and chose to…suicide themselves? And not complain even now? No. This makes no sense. That leaves only London, Europe, Globalists, as Sherlock Holmes would say.

    “‘When you have eliminated all which is impossible, then whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth.'”

    April 16, 2026 at 12:56 pm #238499
    tboc
    Participant

    a referral is not an arrest warrant – think Lucy a football and Charlie Brown

    what a clever manuever to further enable Greater Israel is the destruction of trust in GCC banking.
    Nothing says sovereign monarch better than granting life support for the petro-dollar and opening the exchequer to a predatory power.

    how could there be a more apt end to a morning of dark humor than a Paul Craig Roberts missive?

    April 16, 2026 at 1:04 pm #238500
    D Benton Smith
    Participant

    Netanyahu suddenly and belatedly exploded the situation: In Israel, both echelons — military and political — were instructed to prove that there was no ceasefire for Hizbullah by mounting a huge attack on crowded residential neighbourhoods in Lebanon – killing and wounding over 1,000 persons, largely civilians.

    That reported fact (and I have no doubt whatsoever that it is a fact) breaks my brain and my heart at the same time.

    The clinical observation of monstrosity, and recognizing it for just what it is, no more and no less than just what it is, is quite a sobering experience.

    There he is, folks. He is killing people as we speak and he is killing them for the most monstrous of evil reasons (pure, undiluted, selfish and greedy bad, for its own sake, because he wants it).

    And yet we enable him to continue doing just that, right to our collective faces. His evil logic breaks my brain, and his love of evil breaks my heart.

    April 16, 2026 at 1:09 pm #238501
    Topcat
    Participant

    THIS DAY IN HISTORY – Titanic sinks – 1912

    I approve this message:

    April 16, 2026 at 1:16 pm #238502
    Topcat
    Participant

    London Banks Control Everything!

    Even on Venus!

    They are more omnipotent than the Joos!

    Secret codes and handshakes and Everything!

    hahaha

    Ah’merican Fabian Society!

    April 16, 2026 at 1:20 pm #238503
    D Benton Smith
    Participant

    @DrD

    This is like all these “Feminine” Intel forms: is the IRGC wholly controlled by London, every action, and they’re aware they’re nothing but an employee? No. And they don’t obey and are instantly aware. This is even more diabolical. IF you are a slave, you know you are a slave, as often said. While IF you are “an employee” you THINK you are free, but are a debt slave, and this works better. Like any Narcissistic abuser, you THINK you are free in the relationship, you’re doing this for YOU, but really it’s the lies and web of the abuser.

    By that logic (and I am not implying that your logic is wrong) then all the world is slaved to the printers and owners of money. Who turn out to be the same old list of Usual Suspects, I should pointedly add!

    That would mean that both Netanyahu and the assassin who eventually puts him out of his misery are merely slaves to the same “employer”: City of London, and whoever it turns out to be the owners of them.

    If that’s the case (and it does seem to be the case) then is there anybody at all who is NOT a slave, and slave to who or what exactly?

    It’s a puzzle alright.

    April 16, 2026 at 1:23 pm #238504
    Topcat
    Participant

    Two kinds of TDS:

    #1. He’s Globohomo Satan

    #2. HE’S BEJESUSMOSES

    TAE

    He Walks on Water!

    >>>

    April 16, 2026 at 1:26 pm #238505
    tboc
    Participant

    Milorganite on sandy soil retains moisture and is a slow release of nutrients. Alternating years of chemical fertilizer with organic fertilizer works well for St. Augustine turf in NW Florida.
    Did anyone take a look at solar radiation’s effect on the organic fetilizers? A good daily dosing of IR and UV light should have an effect on a range of invasive bacteria.

    April 16, 2026 at 1:30 pm #238506
    Topcat
    Participant

    The Big ‘Reveal’

    Not a London banker?

    I am so puzzled….


    .
    .
    The War SOW Speaks
    .
    .

    April 16, 2026 at 1:34 pm #238507
    WES
    Participant

    London’s Canada:

    Here in Canada, we know London is our master.

    They installed their man Carney as our PM

    We are watching Carney trying to use Canada as a battering ram against the US, just like they are using the Ukraine to batter Russia.

    Neither Ukrainians nor Canadians benefit.
    Instead we get to pay the price!

    April 16, 2026 at 1:46 pm #238508
    D Benton Smith
    Participant

    @DrD

    Besides that we’re 100x larger and more than half the nation hates Israel. But that the recent actions DESTROYED Israel. So Israel is completely in control of all events and chose to…suicide themselves? And not complain even now? No. This makes no sense. That leaves only London, Europe, Globalists, as Sherlock Holmes would say.

    “‘When you have eliminated all which is impossible, then whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth.’”

    After attaining a certain level of understanding of how the Mob works it is not all that meaningful to more minutely determine which of the Mob Bosses are mere Capos of a family or Capo de Tutti Capo of the entire Mafia.

    Trump and Netanyahu are obviously taking orders, which means that neither one of them is the nameless one who gives them orders. Names change. The structure doesn’t.

    April 16, 2026 at 1:55 pm #238509
    D Benton Smith
    Participant

    The only way that anyone can have their freedom of speech removed is by not speaking their mind freely.

    There are plenty of people seriously discouraging and obstructing your free speech, but those are mere impediments, not stoppages. The only one literally stopping you from expressing yourself freely is YOU.

    April 16, 2026 at 2:04 pm #238510
    tboc
    Participant

    i hope it is some small blessing of childlike innocence that prevents me from finding any noblility in or justification for the brutality of the developed nations.

    “Laying low, seeking out the poorer quarters
    Where the ragged people go
    Looking for the places only they would know” Simon

    April 16, 2026 at 2:15 pm #238511
    D Benton Smith
    Participant

    So I just gotta wonder how many people are not freely communicating what is truly on their minds because they are stopping themselves due to various impediments like fear of repercussions?

    I bet life would get VERY interesting if everyone just popped off all of a sudden and plainly said what they really thought.

    April 16, 2026 at 2:35 pm #238512
    tboc
    Participant

    @dbs – “then is there anybody at all who is NOT a slave, and slave to who or what exactly”

    yes, but they are the most hated of human beings due to their lack of decorum and concern for social position. More than likely they have “gone to the dogs” philosophically.

    the bell tolls

    April 16, 2026 at 2:37 pm #238513
    D Benton Smith
    Participant

    One of the things that I bet would happen is that when the craziest ones starting saying stuff like how they were going to annihilate with bombs an entire civilization, kill all of the subhuman “Amalek” animals called Palestinians, or reduce by any means the world’s human population by 90%, then most people would not even believe that those criminally insane lunatics meant what they said.

    April 16, 2026 at 2:40 pm #238514
    D Benton Smith
    Participant

    @tboc

    the bell tolls

    Yes, and I hear it ringing for me.

    April 16, 2026 at 3:16 pm #238515
    zerosum
    Participant

    blockades

    Iran had retaliated to the US-Israeli strikes in late February by effectively restricting transit through the strait, blocking shipments tied to what it considers “unfriendly” nations, imposing tolls on vessels from “neutral” countries, and allowing free passage for “friendly” ones.

    A US naval blockade of the Strait of Hormuz, by blocking or seizing any oil tankers or gas tankers which exit Iranian ports.

    Next … renewal of blockade of Red Sea and Bab al-Mandab.

    Will blockades expand to Indonesia’s Strait of Malacca.?
    ————
    Old tactic.
    Seen it before.
    Comments attacking the host of a blog,
    It is irrelevant and designed, to shut down the message of the blog.
    It is attempting to stop the exchange and the flow of information.
    ————–

  • Author
    Posts
Viewing 40 posts - 1 through 40 (of 79 total)
1 2
  • You must be logged in to reply to this topic.