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Debt Rattle May 18 2026

May 182026
 
 May 18, 2026  Posted by at 9:45 am Finance Tagged with: , , , , , , , , ,  Add comments


Carl Frederik Aagaard View to the Amalfi Coast c1860 (woodblock)


• Trump Tells Iran ‘Clock Is Ticking, Move Fast’ After New Peace Proposal (ZH)
• Uranium Transfer, Nuclear Limits: US Issues 5 Peace Ultimatums To Iran (ZH)
• Removing Iran’s Uranium Mostly About ‘PR’ – Trump (RT)
• The Spoiled Prince of Kiev: Zelensky Has Deceived and Ruined His Country (Amar)
• Trump’s Deportation Push Meets Small-Town Plumbing (David Manney)
• Democrats Refuse To Even Talk To the American People Anymore (Derek Hunter)
• Russia Hoax Figures May Want Lawyers Handy After Blanche’s Latest (Clark)
• Todd Blanche Discusses Conspiracy and 2020 Election Investigations (CTH)
• Mercedes Willing to Enter Military Production Sector (CTH)
• Texas Never Surrendered Its Right to Defend Its Borders (Andy Hopper)
• Sadiq Khan: Claims London Devolving Into A Sh*thole Is Just AI Driven (MN)
• EU ‘Not Very Relevant’ On Global Stage – Borrell (RT)

 


 

 


 


“Short but Intense… and Costly.”

• Trump Tells Iran ‘Clock Is Ticking, Move Fast’ After New Peace Proposal (ZH)

Update(1410ET): President Trump has warned Iran on Sunday that the “clock is ticking” as Pakistani-mediated talks have not only stalled, but show no signs at all of restarting anytime soon. “They better get moving, FAST, or there won’t be anything left of them,” he wrote on Truth Social. “TIME IS OF THE ESSENCE!” He spoke the same day with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who along with Lindsey Graham has been calling for resumption of robust anti-Tehran action to ensure Iran can never go nuclear. Trump’s words have been somewhat of a familiar refrain going back several weeks.


As we detailed below, Iran says it received a counter proposal of ‘5 conditions’ for peace from the White House. In many ways they are directly opposite the 5 conditions Iran sent to the US last week, which Trump had rejected as “garbage”.

But as yet there’s been no indicator that the US side has attached a timeline to its latest demands. Trump is perhaps pushing this new “clock is ticking” as a timeline threat of sorts. But again, there was no specific date included in the fresh warning. Last week Bloomberg Intelligence circulated a report titled, Iran Rejects Trump’s Offer – Return to War Likely. It concluded: “The diplomatic dance continues: the US and Iran exchanged offers yet again. But they remain far apart, shooting maximalist demands at each other. A comprehensive peace deal is unlikely to materialize. We think the US and Iran will likely return to strikes. But we expect an intense exchange of fire to be temporary and reduce to lower-levels of fighting – what we call the new normal in this protracted conflict. ”

More from the Bloomberg Intelligence analysis: “Short but Intense… and Costly. Trump doesn’t want long war. His popularity is taking a hit as its economic impact is being felt. We think Trump will likely revert to a short air and missile strike campaign on Iranian infrastructure, military positions, and energy assets while simultaneously continuing the blockade. Tehran will likely respond with strikes of its own, both on US military assets and America’s regional partners. But we expect this to be a short bombardment, rather than the sustained, high-intensity strike campaign that marked the beginning of the war.

The war has already imposed a heavy economic cost. Oil markets flipped from an expected record surplus to historic supply disruption. Major central banks, facing fresh inflation risks, are turning more hawkish. Consumers now pay more for energy, while their borrowing costs also rise, and the future grows more uncertain. The longer the Strait of Hormuz remains closed, the more it will drain the oil stockpiles cushioning governments, companies, and consumers today. Once inventories run thin, prices need to do the hard work: rising high enough to curb demand back in line with available supply.

Read more …

“..as the seemingly unbridgeable gulf remains, also as Iran is digging in its heels.”

• Uranium Transfer, Nuclear Limits: US Issues 5 Peace Ultimatums To Iran (ZH)

According to a Sunday report from Iran’s semi-official Fars news agency, the United States has laid down a firm, take-it-or-leave-it ultimatum to Tehran. Both sides are still trying to patiently wait out the Hormuz crisis, hoping to inflict more economic pain on the other until they blink. At the top of the list, the US is demanding a near-total dismantling of Iran’s atomic ambitions, “allowing only one Iranian nuclear facility to remain operational.” The list includes direct rejections in response to Iran’s own five conditions from a week ago, which President Trump said were “unacceptable” and “garbage”.


For example the US is refusing to pay compensation for damage caused during strikes on Iranian territory – a ‘maximalist’ sticking point which Tehran had demanded previously. Washington is also reportedly insists that 400 kilograms of enriched uranium be transferred from Iran to the US, while only one active nuclear facility would remain operational inside the Islamic Republic. Iran for its part has recently vowed to never transfer its nuclear material out of the Islamic Republic, calling the issue a matter of national sovereignty and energy security which it alone has say over. This after even Russia offered to take it.

The newly reported five conditions by the US side further states that the US does not intend to release more than 25% of frozen Iranian assets. Tehran has demanded the dropping of all US sanctions as a key basis for lasting settlement. Here are the five newly proposed Washington conditions, which some pundits have called ‘wishful thinking’:

  1. No war compensation from US
  2. Give up 400kg of Highly Enriched Uranium to US
  3. Iran can only have on nuclear facility to remain active
  4. Not more than 25% of frozen assets to be unfreezed
  5. Halting war on all fronts depends on negotiations

So this leaves a huge distance between the Washington list and Tehran’s list, as the seemingly unbridgeable gulf remains, also as Iran is digging in its heels. As a reminder, the below is the Islamic Republic’s list, which it hasn’t backed down from. It has offered the following as the only basis on which to restart talks:

  1. Ending the war on all fronts, including Lebanon
  2. Lifting all sanctions
  3. Releasing frozen Iranian assets
  4. Compensation for war damages and losses
  5. Recognition of Iran’s sovereign rights over the Strait of Hormuz

While a Pakistani-mediated ceasefire managed to take effect on April 8, subsequent talks in Islamabad completely collapsed, but then President Trump later extended the truce indefinitely, likely to buy time and to figure out “what’s next” – while seeking a complete blockade of Iranian oil exports, and of all vessels entering or exiting Iranian ports. With Washington demanding total disarmament and Iran demanding control over the world’s most critical oil transit choke point, the stage is set for a likely coming renewal of direct clashes, given the zero sum demands of each side now on the table.

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The US knows where it is, they got 9 cameras on it. Iran can’t touch it without the US knowing.

• Removing Iran’s Uranium Mostly About ‘PR’ – Trump (RT)

US President Donald Trump has said recovering Iran’s highly enriched uranium is “more for public relations” than anything else, downplaying what remains one of the key sticking points in negotiations aimed at ending the Middle East war. Following the US-Israeli bombing campaign against Iran last year, Trump claimed the strikes had “obliterated” Iran’s nuclear facilities and severely limited Tehran’s ability to continue enrichment. However, an estimated 400 kg of uranium enriched to 60% purity – a short technical step from weapons-grade level – is believed to be buried beneath the rubble of bombed nuclear sites.


In an interview with Fox News on Thursday, Trump suggested removing the material was not urgent because the US maintained round-the-clock surveillance over the facilities, but added he would still “feel better” if the uranium was removed. “We have nine cameras on that site, on those three sites, 24 hours a day. We know exactly what’s happening. Nobody’s even gotten close to it,” he said. “I think it’s more for public relations than it is for anything else. The other thing we could do is bomb it again, just make it absolute. But I just, I would just feel better getting it.”

Trump, who has repeatedly warned he could resume strikes on Iran, also signaled his patience with negotiations is running out. “I am not going to be much more patient. They should make a deal,” he said. While active fighting triggered by US-Israeli strikes on Iran in late February paused under a fragile ceasefire reached in early April, negotiations on a broader peace deal remain deadlocked over Tehran’s nuclear program. The US and Israel, which accuse Iran of seeking nuclear weapons, are demanding “zero enrichment” and the removal of all enriched uranium from Iranian soil. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu told CBS News this week the conflict could not fully end while the material remained in Iran, calling its removal a “terrifically important mission.”

Iran insists its nuclear program is solely for peaceful purposes, arguing that abandoning enrichment would undermine its sovereignty and technological independence. Tehran has repeatedly rejected demands to dismantle the program or surrender its uranium stockpile – including proposals to store it in Russia – though it has reportedly offered to downblend it to lower civilian-grade levels. However, Iranian parliamentary spokesman Ebrahim Rezaei warned earlier this week that Tehran could enrich uranium to 90% purity – considered weapons-grade – if attacked again.

Despite accusations of pursuing nuclear weapons, US intelligence agencies assessed before the conflict that Tehran was not actively developing a bomb, according to former National Counterterrorism Center Director Joe Kent. IAEA Director General Rafael Grossi has also said the nuclear watchdog found no evidence of a “structured program to manufacture nuclear weapons” in Iran.

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Good article.

“Deceived and Ruined His Country ..with Western help..”

“..shows of the Tucker Carlson Network (TCN) are watched by, on average, over 55 million viewers, dwarfing, for instance, Fox News (Carlson’s former employer) with its prime time rating of 3.2 million “

“Indeed, TCN is on such a roll that Carlson is now rumored to be a contender for the presidency, and he has not ruled out a run “

• The Spoiled Prince of Kiev: Zelensky Has Deceived and Ruined His Country (Amar)

Rudyard Kipling, a modern classic of the Western literary canon, was both a champion of British imperialism and too honest not to know its very sordid underpinnings of greed, lies, and sheer selfishness. That’s why the same man who extolled the “white man’s burden” also wrote ‘The Man Who Would Be King,’ a story of two lowlife, ambitious adventurers who manage to swindle their way to becoming kings as well as rich in a remote country on the fringes of the empire, then at its late-nineteenth-century zenith of global primacy. Until, that is, one of them makes the mistake of messing with the wrong woman, who ends up biting him in public. Seeing him bleed, his subjects realize he is a mere mortal and mercilessly dispense with the two imposters.


Ukraine’s ruler – and de facto king (of the old-fashioned, non-constitutional kind) – Vladimir Zelensky is a social climber, too. In his formative years, his native Krivoy Rog was a provincial post-Soviet rustbelt town with a lively gangster scene, a “bandit city” in his own words. Zelensky is also an expert in make-believe by profession, a cynically profane showman of the ‘give-them-whatever-they-want-as-long-as-it-pays’ variety, the cruder and smuttier the better. Indeed, Zelensky even has a sidekick, who, as in Kipling’s dark story, has shared in the scheme of power-grabbing and plunder: Andrey Yermak, his former chief of staff and very intimate friend, making headlines (again) for being so corrupt and sinister that he stands out, even in Kiev.

And now Zelensky, the man who, it seems, would be Ukraine’s president forever, has just been bitten in public by a woman. Judging by the fierce, clearly orchestrated reaction of his media propagandists in Ukraine and the fact that the Western mainstream media are largely pretending not to have noticed, he must be bleeding, too. The woman is his former press secretary Yulia Mendel. And she has been able to draw (metaphorical) blood because Tucker Carlson, American alternative-media heavyweight and conservative dissident from Trumpism, has interviewed her for his show.

That has made it a very public bloodletting indeed. What Mendel has had to say is one thing, her ability to reach breathtaking numbers of Americans and other inhabitants of the West is at least as important and, from Kiev’s point of view, frustrating: Across various platforms, shows of the Tucker Carlson Network (TCN) are watched by, on average, over 55 million viewers, dwarfing, for instance, Fox News (Carlson’s former employer) with its prime time rating of 3.2 million. Recently, the Israeli-US war against Iran has further undermined public confidence in the mainstream media and boosted TCN. “Explosive growth” in the two first months of the war has produced over 1.5 billion “views across social media and podcast platforms.”

Indeed, TCN is on such a roll that Carlson is now rumored to be a contender for the presidency, and he has not ruled out a run. This is the amplifier for Mendel’s harsh memo to the US and the West. It is hard to think of a bigger one. And what a message she had to deliver. Consider a few highlights: Speaking, she underlined, as “an insider,” from her own close experience with Zelensky and the inner circle of his regime, Mendel has told us all that she believes Zelensky personally “stands behind many schemes of money laundering” and that he has always remained an “amazing actor” whose image “on camera” is “very different” from his real self.

For instance, while he is posturing as not merely some democrat but a shining epitome of democracy as well as everything else that is good and beautiful, such as rule of law, freedom of speech, civil society, and national unity, his real view, relentlessly repeated behind closed doors, is, as we learn from Mendel, that “Ukraine is not ready for democracy” and “dictatorship is an order,” too.So much, by the way, for those Zelensky propagandists in Ukraine and the West who habitually smear every critic of his devastating regime as diminishing Ukraine or not trusting ordinary Ukrainians with “agency.” The one really despising his compatriots as too backward to rule themselves and in need of a strong – namely, his – hand, is, it turns out, Vladimir Zelensky.

And as Mendel rightly points out, that also means that he does not symbolize or provide unity; he abuses it. Zelensky’s profound hypocrisy permeates his private life and politics. Mendel reveals, for instance, that he was still going on trips to Crimea – to have fun with friends and drugs – while it was already under Russian control. In December 2019, he privately told Russian President Vladimir Putin that Ukraine would never join NATO. While Zelensky’s public poll ratings are steadily declining, the polls produced for internal use are so bad that even some of his fixers privately admit that he is “unelectable.”

With no respect for the truth, Zelensky’s attitude to reality itself seems broken, even deranged. From her own conversations with him, Mendel reports that Ukraine’s leader believes that “it doesn’t matter what is [actually] happening.” Things, he has argued behind closed doors, become real when they are said often enough by enough propagandists or, as she quotes him, by “thousands of talking heads.” Considering this bizarre outlook, it is revealing and revolting but also somehow, sadly consistent that Zelensky, who is Jewish, has literally demanded “Goebbels”-type “propaganda” from his communications team.

Beyond a ruthless and deliberate regime of lying and manipulation, there also is pressure and compulsion. Again, Mendel’s catalogue of Zelensky’s dictatorial strong-arm methods is depressing and plausible: from threats to perfectly illegal “sanctions” imposed via Zelensky’s personal fiat, to lawfare and process-as-punishment to long and open-ended jail terms to sending critics to the frontline as a punishment to very odd lethal accidents – Zelensky and his regime have, as Mendel puts it, “no limits.” Their rule has established a situation that is “inhuman.”

Mendel is believable. Zelensky regime propagandists, in Ukraine and the West, have, unsurprisingly, smeared her as, in effect, a Russian asset, as reproducing “Russian narratives” and, worst sin of them all, sharing Kiev’s very dirty secrets with the West. Because – this seems to be the underlying logic – the West must share hundreds of billions with Zelensky and his ultra-corrupt cronies, but no one has a right to share the truth about them with the West.

In reality, Mendel’s biography proves that she is what she claims to be: an insider who has had enough. She has had an exemplary “national” career and if she had not broken with Zelensky a few years ago, she would still be part of the eager cadre who once caused scandals for physically shoving away journalists to protect her former boss. Even in the interview with Tucker Carlson, Mendel has made a point of carefully distinguishing between what she has seen herself and what she knows from – extremely strong – circumstantial evidence, for instance, that Zelensky has a long-standing cocaine habit.

And yet, by now Mendel – who displays no favor at all to Russia – considers Zelensky an evil and the key obstacle to peace for Ukraine. This peace, she warns, is the only alternative to what she calls being “on the verge of extinction.” She means it quite literally: There are far fewer Ukrainians left in the country than official statistics admit, perhaps 25 million, including 11 million impoverished pensioners. The only way to really support Ukraine, Mendel insists, is to “push for peace.”

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Infrastructure for illegal immigrants. Even if only for a short time..

• Trump’s Deportation Push Meets Small-Town Plumbing (David Manney)

President Donald Trump keeps delivering the border-security promise that helped return him to the White House. However, when the previous occupant of the Oval Office held the door open for millions, it created several problems. One of them is where to put ’em? The DHS wants more detention space because illegal immigrants can’t be processed, held, and quickly removed without beds, staff, transportation, and secure facilities. Transforming empty warehouses into detention centers sounds efficient on paper, especially after years of Biden-era border chaos. Then the plan reaches a small town with a water system, sewer capacity, and residents who still expect the faucet to work when they turn the knob.


One Trump-supporting community is dealing with the fight between enforcement and infrastructure. Social Circle, Ga., now sits in the middle of the fight. The federal government bought a 1 million square foot warehouse for nearly $129 million and plans to convert it into a massive immigration detention center. The proposal could house up to 10,000 detainees and require about 2,500 staff members in a city of roughly 5,000 people. Social Circle Mayor David Keener and City Manager Eric Taylor have made the obvious point that Washington skipped while measuring floor space: detainees drink water, toilets flush, kitchens run, showers drain, and small-town pipes don’t magically triple because federal lawyers say so.

The city has filed a federal lawsuit against the DHS and ICE, arguing the organizations moved ahead without the required environmental, health, and procedural reviews. Taylor previously locked the water meter at the site, and the City Council unanimously backed him. The detention center could house as many as 8,500 immigrants awaiting deportation to their home countries as part of a massive initiative by the administration of President Donald J. Trump. Social Circle is among the numerous cities across the country that have been targeted as detention center sites. At full capacity, the converted warehouse would nearly triple the population of Social Circle, outstripping its water, sewer and emergency services capabilities.

“We understand the reason why the water is off,” said Councilman Tyson Jackson at the Tuesday, March 17 city council meeting. “It’s not a political stunt. It’s just the fact of the matter that we do not have enough water. I just want to come to a vote saying that we are behind you [Taylor] on this, so it’s not Eric making the decision of having the water turned off. We’re looking out for the citizens of Social Circle right now, to make sure we have enough water for them.”

Taylor announced his unilateral decision on Thursday, March 12. He told a crowd of dozens of people at a community meeting—including a number of city and area residents and progressive activists opposed to the detention center plan—that the lock would remain in place until either the city council told him to remove it or a federal court order, in the event that ICE challenges the move, mandated that the lock be removed. As 95.5 WSB reported, their lawsuit brings up some points never considered. According to the lawsuit, DHS plans to convert the warehouse into a detention facility that would hold 10,000 detainees and employ up to 2,500 staff members.

The city says the proposal would strain Social Circle’s infrastructure beyond capacity, threatening the city’s water supply and risking sewage overflows. The lawsuit also accuses the agencies of violating federal laws and creating a nuisance under Georgia law. Social Circle says the planned “mega center” was part of what the lawsuit describes as an ICE director’s goal to operate “like (Amazon) Prime, but with human beings.” The lawsuit says the proposed facility’s plan to open in June and house 10,000 detainees would overwhelm the city’s fresh water supply and sewage treatment capabilities, potentially resulting in dry taps and raw sewage spills. By comparison, city leaders say Social Circle has about 5,000 residents.

None of that looks like a Berkeley-style fit over immigration enforcement; it looks like a small Georgia town saying its water and sewer systems already run near capacity, and no serious government should pretend 10,000 detainees plus thousands of staff can arrive without consequences. Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin, recently confirmed by the U.S. Senate, has reportedly paused parts of the larger warehouse-conversion program while reviewing DHS operations. The Social Circle site already belongs to the federal government, so the dispute now centers on whether Washington can force a project of this size forward before basic infrastructure questions get answered..

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“Alexandria Ocasio-Cortes speaks exclusively to friendly outlets.”

• Democrats Refuse To Even Talk To the American People Anymore (Derek Hunter)

Of all the problems Democrats have created and unleashed on the country, the unwillingness and inability to speak to anyone who disagrees with them is among the worst. They don’t even try anymore, liberals only engage with each other in an agreement-festival that rivals a row of bobblehead dolls double-sided taped to the dashboard of the family truckster all nodding with each other as they ramble down a bumpy dirt road.


When was the last time you heard a dissenting voice on MS Now? Anyone who dares disagree with the “progressive” narrative on CNN is spoken over, shouted down or cut off for a “correction” from the host or a quick commercial break. The left has gone from terrified of being called out for their lies to operating in a cocoon so that possibility becomes impossible. Joe Biden used to yell about how he wanted to be “the President of all Americans,” but he never gave an interview to Fox News. How can you be the President of everyone when you won’t talk to half the country for four years? He even passed on a softball Super Bowl interview – the biggest audience he’d ever have access to and he declined.

Alexandria Ocasio-Cortes speaks exclusively to friendly outlets. Even the “spontaneous” questions she takes when “tracked down” in the halls of Congress are more choreographed than a Broadway musical. How do you think it is that she just so happens to be “cornered” by the anti-American, Soror-funded Meidas Touch activist group that pretends to do news? She’s always by herself, always stops, and is more scripted than an Aaron Sorkin movie. How many times have you seen her running away from reporters asking basic questions, but somehow she manages to have time for this one outlet?

They’re likely feeding her the questions, coordinating with staff to get video of her relevant to the news cycle onto the Internet to try to improve her image with people not insane. There’s no other reason the few staffers in the video don’t run interference like they do with others or how they always manage to “find” her in cordoned off areas of the Capitol Building. When Katie Porter, the Democrat domestic abuser running for Governor of California, was asked how she planned to appeal to 40 percent of voters in the state who’d voted for Donald Trump the very concept seemed confusing to her. Why would she need to appeal to them, she could win without them. In other words, “screw those people creatures.”

Porter was confused by the question, then angered by her confusion, she ended the interview. Can you imagine a conservative politician saying people who aren’t in lockstep with them weren’t even worth talking to? Tennessee Democratic Congressman Steve Cohen announced this week that he was not going to seek reelection because the Supreme Court declared districts like his in Memphis, in accordance with the Civil Rights Act, to be illegal because they were gerrymandered based on race. Cohen is white and Jewish, the district he represents is majority black, designed to elect a Democrat, regardless of skin color. Now it’s designed to exist with about three-quarters of a million Americans in it, of all configurations of humans. The district now leans to the right, and Cohen is out.

Steve Cohen has been representing the area at the state and local level since 1982, and for the first time his district is not slanted 70+ percent Democrat, so he quit. He could have tried campaigning, he could have tried making a case to people who, while he may not have been their Member of Congress, he was certainly known by them through the media, but he didn’t. He quit. Cohen quit while insisting “I’m not a quitter.” He’s actually the very definition of the word. More importantly, and more telling, is how he didn’t try. The prospect of having to sell himself and his party’s ideas to people who do not immediately acquiesce to all of it was so daunting of a task that quitting was the more viable option.

College campuses across the country are overrun with leftists who would rather shout down speakers or physically attack people rather than allow them to speak to people who actively choose to hear them. School administrators indulge these little fascists in the hope that they mob doesn’t turn on them, but it always does. College Presidents are now targets of goon squads demanding a policy of Jew hatred and anti-Americanism. And they’ll likely get it.

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Todd Blanche appears to be a step up from Pam Bondi.

• Russia Hoax Figures May Want Lawyers Handy After Blanche’s Latest (Clark)

On Sunday morning, Acting U.S. Attorney General Todd Blanche appeared on Fox News Sunday Morning Futures opposite host Maria Bartiromo. The Acting AG was there to discuss ongoing investigations into the Russia collusion hoax around the 2016 presidential election, as well as election rigging in the 2020 presidential election. He had some very pointed comments, as well as some reasons as to why these investigations are taking as long as they are. First, on the Russia hoax:


The post reads: “JUST IN: AG Todd Blanche confirms it’s ABOUT TO COME OUT as the DOJ probes the deep state coup against President Trump based on the Russia hoax “We’re finding out some incredibly troubling things, and at some point at the right time, that will be made public, and the American people will see exactly what happened to this administration and President Trump over the past decade!” “The Southern district of Florida has an open criminal investigation. That involves hundreds of subpoenas, it involves hundreds of witnesses, and so, as far as time and one we can expect it, we are working hard and we are working efficiently, but we are going to do it right.”

Here’s that conversation:

Todd Blanche: We’re finding out some incredibly troubling things, and at some point, at the right time, that will be made public, and the American people will see exactly what happened to this administration and President Trump over the past decade.

Maria Bartiromo: Well, I mean, the country was ripped apart. We all know that. Half the country said he colluded with Russia; the other half said no, it didn’t. It ripped the country apart. But you say, when the time is right. When is the time right? When should we expect these charges of conspiracy?

Todd Blanche: Well, I mean, look, as has been publicly reported, the Southern District of Florida has an open criminal investigation. That involves hundreds of subpoenas. It involves hundreds of witnesses. And so, as far as timing, when we can expect it, we are working hard, and we are working efficiently, but we are going to do it right. We are not gonna rush something that isn’t ready. We’re not gonna reach a conclusion before our investigation is over. But I assure you, the American people, that we are completely focused on it.

Maria Bartiromo: OK, well, again, I don’t know… What is not ready? I mean, we’ve been watching this play out for a long time. And viewers and people watching are frustrated, because it just keeps happening. Weaponization keeps happening because it’s not corrected the time before.

Maria Bartiromo makes a good point here. While the GOP didn’t have the upper hand for some of that time, hampering efforts at the federal level, we’ve been waiting for answers on this matter for a decade now. The shouts of “Russia, Russia, Russia” started, it seems, within moments of then-candidate Trump’s famous descent on the golden escalator, and now it’s been ten years. If this investigation doesn’t result in some indictments and trials, then exactly these kinds of tactics will be tried by the Democrats, again and again.

Granted, it’s better to do a thing right than it is to do a thing fast, and possibly carelessly. But some indictments in the weeks leading up to the midterms would do the GOP a lot of good; mind you, these decisions, any possible indictments, shouldn’t be made for political reasons, but that doesn’t mean we shouldn’t be cognizant of the possibilities. In another segment, Acting AG Blanche talked about rigging in the 2020 presidential election:

Here’s how that conversation went:

Todd Blanche: Well, there’s a ton of evidence that the election was rigged. That’s not something the DOJ needs to tell you about. There’s been evidence about that for many, many years. What I can tell you is that we have multiple investigations going on in Arizona and in Georgia, in Fulton County, Georgia. And that’s exactly what we’re looking at. By the way, this is very difficult because they’re very good, they’re very good at hiding misconduct and hiding what they’re doing. And so that’s why we’re very focused on finding out whether the right people voted, whether they were supposed to vote voted, or if there was one cast per voter. That is what we are doing in multiple states, and I expect…

And again you’ll say to me: ‘How long has it taken? Why is this taking so long?’ The reality of the answer to that is it takes a lot of work to uncover what happened in 2020. A lot of good old-fashioned law enforcement police work, which is what we’re doing. And we have great prosecutors working on it as well. And I expect that, and I assure you, I assure the American people that as soon as we have something to say for it, whether it’s charges, whether it’s a report or results of an investigation, the American people will learn about what was uncovered.”

If there is, this will make Watergate look like a parking ticket. The GOP spent years in the political doghouse after Watergate, and this one, if the DOJ can establish that there was active interference in the conduct of an American presidential election, that could be earth-shattering. Depending on how high the conspiracy goes – and my personal opinion is that it likely goes pretty dang high – this could consign the Democratic Party to the political hinterlands for a decade or more, and they will have had it coming. We do live in interesting times. Stay tuned. This ain’t over; not by a long shot.

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“Washington DC is a narcissist’s playground.”

• Todd Blanche Discusses Conspiracy and 2020 Election Investigations (CTH)

Appearing with Maria Bartiromo, Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche answers questions about the ongoing conspiracy case against former government officials for targeting Donald Trump as well as investigations into the 2020 election outcome.


In this interview it appears Ms. Bartiromo realizes she needs to convey a sense of frustration on behalf of her viewership who followed the arc of the targeting of Donald Trump for the past nine years, through the Horowitz investigation(s), through the Mueller investigation, through the John Durham investigation and into the Jack Smith investigation, yet none of the preceding investigations ever focused on the real problem: the government officials who conducted the targeting. Corruption and unlawful conduct within Washington DC is a self-protecting enterprise. WATCH:

I can tell you from first-hand experience that one of the primary reasons we have not seen accountability is that most of the people with the authority to do something about it don’t know where to look to find the evidence, and when they do, they don’t know what it means in context.

Washington DC is a system of self-absorbed stakeholders who use isolating silos to preserve their interests. Within the game everything has a political currency, including leverage and information – and everyone wants proprietary credit for their inventory. Washington DC is a narcissist’s playground.

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That famed car industry sure went down fast.

• Mercedes Willing to Enter Military Production Sector (CTH)

Mercedes is willing to begin military and weapons production. Historically speaking, this did not work out so well for Europe the last time; however, as with all things German, the expanded backstory is a little more complicated. Due to a combination of terrible political decisions related to the German and EU energy sector, the German industrial economy is contracting rapidly. Germany is the heart of the EU economic engine. At the same time as the German economy is contracting, the economic footprint of China in the EU is growing. The core issue centers around a declining auto sector but extends to all ancillary manufacturing outputs.


By following the WEF’s “Build Back Better” program, Europe as a whole has ended up making itself energy-dependent and vulnerable. The Gulf oil and gas crisis, the looming 25% Trump tariffs on EU cars, and the withdrawal of U.S. troops from German NATO bases only add to their growing economic troubles. Around the same time as this economic convergence, Germany began ramping up its commitments, support, and spending for Ukraine in the conflict with Russia. Subsidy outflows rose just as GDP was falling, a clear example of an economic spiral that can easily spin out of control.

German Chancellor Freidrich Merz is trying to deal with the consequences of exceptionally short-sighted and damaging policy, but reversing the trend would require Germany to focus all policy operations inwardly away from Brussels and the demands of the collective European Union. This is now the core issue in German politics driving bold dividing lines between political power structures.nOne of the problems for Germany is the United States presence in the country historically meant they did not need to spend on their national defense. Instead, for decades they spent that money on subsidy programs and expanded German benefits. All was okay until President Trump started to pressure the German government to be self-sufficient. That means Germany had to change government policy.

President Trump has refused to put Tomahawk cruise missiles into U.S/NATO bases within Germany, and Germany has no medium to long-range missile systems. Now, they need to either purchase them or develop their own. At the same time President Trump is drawing down U.S. military troop levels in Germany, and Germany has changed their conscription laws while requiring all fighting age men to register any extended external travel.

SUMMARY: The economy within Germany is shrinking, revenues to the government are less, the energy crisis means German citizens need subsidies, the promised payments to Ukraine are more painful, and at the same time the “coalition of the willing” are more confrontational toward Russia yet they realize they can no longer hide behind America’s apron. A hot mess. Now, before getting to the point of this latest development, remind yourself that China owns a ten percent stake in Mercedes and the vehicles produced by the Chinese auto brand Geely are essentially the outcome of China extracting technology from that stakeholder share. This brand specific datapoint sits on the sidelines of Europe’s shrinking market share of automobiles as the Chinese share of the market grows.

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And it never would.

• Texas Never Surrendered Its Right to Defend Its Borders (Andy Hopper)

Texas stands at a rare and narrow window of opportunity. With an America-First administration still in the White House, Texas has a partner in the fight to secure our land from those who seek to invade, infiltrate, and corrupt her. For the first time in years, federal courts are receptive to originalist arguments, clawing back decades of liberal case law.


This is not the time for half-measures, polite requests, or waiting on federal permission slips. It is the moment for Texas to pass legislation that forever enshrines our sovereign right, rooted in the original understanding of the Constitution, to defend our borders and protect our people from hostile invaders. Whether they come waving cartel flags, smuggling death across the Rio Grande, or carrying ideologies that seek to replace Texas law with foreign doctrines, the threat is the same.

Cartels have long considered our border an open highway for crime, fentanyl, and human trafficking. Foreign terrorist organizations have exploited the same gaps that decades of federal policies have left wide open. And because of a half-century of extremely permissive immigration policies that have brought millions from anti-Western Muslim countries, there are now growing enclaves within our state working to impose Sharia law and parallel societies that directly contradict the Texas Constitution and the American way of life.

These are not benign “immigration” issues. They are invasions that undermine our security, our culture, our rule of law, and our constitutional republic. Texans who have followed the fight against political Islam and groups pushing for enclaves that reject American law understand exactly what is at stake. The Tenth Amendment was written precisely so states would not be forced to stand idle while their people and their way of life are undermined from within.

The Republic of Texas would never have tolerated this, and she never agreed to surrender the tools needed to stop it. From 1836 to 1845, Texas stood as a fully sovereign nation forged in blood. For nine years, we fought Mexico for our independence. We maintained our own army and navy. We controlled our own borders. We decided who could enter, who could settle, and who had to leave. The Republic’s 1836 Constitution and early laws reflected this reality: land grants went to settlers who swore loyalty to Texas; citizenship could be earned after six months’ residence and an oath. Border defense was not some abstract federal concern; it was daily survival against a hostile neighbor that refused to accept our independence.

Mexican forces hammered that lesson home with shocking regularity in 1842 alone. In March, General Rafael Vásquez marched 700 troops into San Antonio, raised the Mexican flag, and declared Mexican law in effect. Just six months later, General Adrián Woll struck again, capturing the city a second time and seizing the courthouse while the district court was in session. Among the prisoners marched to Mexico was Samuel A. Maverick, a signer of the Texas Declaration of Independence. These were not pinprick raids. San Antonio was occupied twice in one year. Every Texan understood that controlling who crossed the Rio Grande was a matter of life and death.

When statehood was on the table in 1845, Texans knew exactly what type of Union they were joining. The Joint Resolution of Annexation, passed by Congress on March 1, 1845, and approved by the Texas Convention on July 4, is crystal clear. Texas entered the Union “on an equal footing with the original States in all respects whatever.” We kept our public lands. We kept responsibility for our public debt. We retained the right to divide into as many as five states later if we chose. The United States agreed to settle boundary disputes with Mexico and to assume responsibility for external military threats. That was the deal: federal help against invading armies, not federal monopoly over who walks across our soil or settles in our communities.

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Blame AI?

• Sadiq Khan: Claims London Devolving Into A Sh*thole Is Just AI Driven (MN)

London Mayor Sadiq Khan has claimed that the decline of the city is a myth and that it’s all just lies being spread by MAGA supporters, Russia, and China through AI-generated content. In a fresh escalation of his war on inconvenient truths, Khan pointed to a surge in online posts highlighting anti-immigration realities, claiming foreign actors and Trump backers are behind it. He insists the dystopian image of lawless streets and cultural erosion is purely fabricated. “You’ve got state actors,” Khan said, pointing to supposed evidence of Russian and Chinese involvement (there is none) alongside Make America Great Again backers in the US. He warned that “decent people” might start believing these narratives of a dangerous city with no law and order.


“Secondly, we’ve seen individuals and companies trying to monetise and make profit from division,” Khan further claimed.

He appears to be referring to joke AI videos being circulated showing London strewn with rubbish and rats. Of course these videos are fake, everyone realises that. However, they’re being made as a response to the fact that London is strewn with rubbish and rats, public services are woefully underfunded, and mass migration is causing further social breakdown and an explosion in crime. Instead of taking responsibility and attempting to fix the problems, Khan is continuing his gaslighting campaign to dismiss London’s very real problems as foreign propaganda or American disinformation.

In April, Khan began a push for a government-backed social media “disinformation” unit, demanding Big Tech and the state crack down on criticism of his record, claiming an “outrage economy” is eroding trust. He told the Cambridge Disinformation Summit that platforms must do better—or regulators like Ofcom should hit them hard. Khan positioned London as the “canary in the coal mine” for global fights against online dissent. Critics note he often disables replies on his posts, shutting down Londoners who could share firsthand experiences.

While Khan obsesses over algorithms and foreign bots, official figures from his own tenure paint a grim picture. As highlighted in our April report on his disinformation unit push, Metropolitan Police data since Khan took office in 2016 shows:

Knife crime: +27%
Robbery: +57%
Theft from the person: +37%
Shoplifting: +109%
Sexual offences: +64%

Violence against the person: Significant rises in multiple categories. Recent reminders underscore the pattern: Every hour in London, a rape is reported. Every 34 minutes, knife crime. Every 4.5 minutes, a phone theft. Every 1.8 minutes, a theft overall. There has been a broad collapse in everyday safety, theft epidemics and gang violence is plaguing the city. In addition to completely ignoring reality and pretending London is a utopia, Khan is calling for more state tools to police speech, label AI content, and tweak algorithms against “poison and division.” Civil liberties voices like Big Brother Watch have warned this risks political exploitation—labeling criticism of crime, migration, and multiculturalism as “disinformation” to protect the narrative.

Instead of addressing root causes—open borders policies flooding the city with incompatible elements, straining resources, and importing crime—Khan prefers to shoot the messenger. nThe mayor’s record speaks louder than any conspiracy: a capital where shoplifting exploded over 100%, knives dominate headlines, and public trust erodes daily. Blaming MAGA, Putin, or Xi won’t fix failing multiculturalism or restore law and order. Londoners deserve accountability, not gaslighting and speech police. Britain’s elites continue importing problems then censoring the massive backlash.

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“The bloc must drop its unanimity principle and forge a new core group for decision making, Josep Borrell has said..”

• EU ‘Not Very Relevant’ On Global Stage – Borrell (RT)

Sloppy decision-making and an inability to agree on key issues have rendered the EU effectively irrelevant on the global stage, the bloc’s former foreign policy chief Josep Borrell has argued. The former top diplomat made the remarks in an interview with Belgian broadcaster RTBF on Friday, somewhat echoing the stance of European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen. The top official, who has been in power since 2019, has repeatedly urged the bloc to remove individual member states’ veto powers and move to qualified majority voting on foreign policy and defense issues. The bloc’s decision-making process has become inadequate in its ability to react to the ever-shifting global situation, Borrell has said, arguing the EU “was not designed for the world in which we live today” in the first place.


“The decision-making rules are not compatible with the acceleration of history. We continue to want to decide unanimously on events that are happening too fast and are very important, and we almost never reach an agreement,” he said, adding that the current system makes the bloc “not very relevant to international politics.” Unlike von der Leyen with her majority voting approach, Borrell called for the creation of a new core group within the bloc to advance the EU’s positions on the global stage. “We need to build a union within the union. A union within the union means that with 27 members, even with unanimity, we won’t go any further. We’re held back. With 27, we won’t accomplish much. So we need to find another core group. Not the 27,” he said.

The former top diplomat, however, did not outline the exact criteria for the potential members of said group, stating it should be composed of the “few who truly want to move forward with political, economic, and military integration” and those “who want to go further, faster.” Last week, the idea to abandon the EU’s unanimity principle was backed by Berlin, with German Foreign Minister Johann Wadephul arguing that a switch to a qualified majority voting would “make the EU capable of acting in areas where it currently has to remain at a standstill.” The initiative has already been backed by at least 12 EU member states, according to Wadephul.

Read more …

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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Home › Forums › Debt Rattle May 18 2026

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  • May 18, 2026 at 9:45 am #240877
    Raúl Ilargi Meijer
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    Carl Frederik Aagaard View to the Amalfi Coast c1860 (woodblock) • Trump Tells Iran ‘Clock Is Ticking, Move Fast’ After New Peace Proposal (ZH) • Uran
    [See the full post at: Debt Rattle May 18 2026]

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    Michael Reid
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    Iran’s ‘Finger on the Trigger’ as War Enters Most DANGEROUS Phase | Mohammad Marandi

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    chooch
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