Menu Icon

Debt Rattle May 25 2026

May 252026
 
 May 25, 2026  Posted by at 10:14 am Finance Tagged with: , , , , , ,  Add comments


Andy Warhol Shot Sage Blue Marilyn 1964 (must read article!)


• Scott Jennings Explains Trump’s Patient Iran Strategy (David Manney)
• President Trump Notes the Outlines of a Negotiated Deal with Iran (CTH)
• Trump Bats Down Critics As Iran Deal Gets Close (ZH)
• Free Speech Shouldn’t Be Just For the Party In the White House (Sauer)
• Is Prison the Best Place for Certain Prominent Democrats? (JB Shurk)
• Russia Uses Oreshnik Weapon To Strike Ukrainian Military Command Posts (TASS)
• Russia Hit Target ‘Worthy Of Oreshnik Strike’ – Scott Ritter (RT)
• Russia’s Oreshnik Response To Ukraine’s Dorm Strike Justified – Journalist (RT)
• The Slow American Retreat From Europe Has Already Begun (Poletaev)
• DNI Gabbard Presses To Declassify Secret But Critical Court Opinion (JTN)
• Tulsi Gabbard Teases Major Bombshells Before Leaving Trump Admin (Margolis)
• UK Net Migration Fall Masks True Demographic Replacement (RMX)
• One in Four Cars Sold Globally Is an Electric Vehicle (Gaudiaut)

 


 

 


 


There’s a few people, Graham, Cruz et al, who always want more bombs. Trump does not.

• Scott Jennings Explains Trump’s Patient Iran Strategy (David Manney)

Political commentator Scott Jennings gave the Iran debate a much-needed dose of plain English after he received a briefing from a senior Trump administration official. Jennings’ central point was simple: President Donald Trump used force when force became necessary, then paused further strikes when diplomacy had a chance to save lives. Trump’s critics have spent years calling him reckless, impulsive, and incapable of restraint. Now he’s showing patience, and many of those same voices still can’t bring themselves to admit what sits in front of them.


Trump has said talks with Iran remain active, but he has also warned his team not to rush into a weak agreement. The U.S. blockade tied to the Strait of Hormuz remains in place until an agreement gets reached, certified, and signed. The emerging framework centers on opening the strait, extending the ceasefire, addressing Iran’s enriched uranium, and keeping pressure on Tehran until final terms exist on paper. Secretary of State Marco Rubio said significant progress has been made, but final progress hasn’t arrived yet.

Jennings framed the moment around restraint, not weakness. Trump isn’t giving Iran a free pass, nor is he pretending Tehran suddenly became trustworthy; he’s testing whether Iran will accept terms that reduce the chance of a wider war while protecting American interests. The alternative comes from the old familiar crowd: keep bombing, escalating, and calling every pause surrender before anybody has seen the final language. Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) has pushed a harder line on Iran, including attacks on Iranian energy sites and the total elimination of Tehran’s enrichment program.

Sens. Ted Cruz (R-Texas), Roger Wicker (R-Miss.), and Thom Tillis (R-N.C.) have also warned against a deal they fear could empower Iran or repeat the failures of the Obama nuclear agreement. Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) has urged patience and defended the effort to pursue a peaceful outcome. Those divisions show exactly why Jennings’ update landed with force: Trump is getting hit from all sides while trying to avoid another long war. The criticism would make more sense if Trump had abandoned leverage. He hasn’t.

The blockade remains, U.S. forces remain positioned, and Iran still faces pressure over its nuclear program. Trump has repeatedly said that Iran can’t have a nuclear weapon, and Rubio has defended the administration’s stance against claims that Washington is drifting toward another bad deal. The president seems to be using pressure as a bridge to negotiation, not as a substitute for judgment. To give you an idea of how excitedly the left has jumped on a “catastrophic” Iranian situation, Simon Tisdale, writing at The Guardian, displays far too much projection.

“Having started something he cannot finish, the US president, egged on by Israel’s warmonger-in-chief, Benjamin Netanyahu, has boxed himself into a corner. Either he resumes the illegal bombing of Iran on an even bigger scale, brazenly threatening war crimes in hopes of forcing surrender; or else he accepts a negotiated compromise that falls embarrassingly short of his initial aims, including eliminating Iran’s nuclear programme, and leaves an angry, more hardline, strategically strengthened regime in power.

Neither choice is attractive – or tenable – for Trump. He and his fanatical sidekick, Pete Hegseth, should know by now that bombing cannot blow away Iran’s defiance and resilience. It is not even militarily effective: 70% of Iran’s missile stockpile reportedly remains intact. In any case, Trump’s threats to break the ceasefire, like his aborted Project Freedom in the strait of Hormuz, are opposed by Gulf states fearful of more retaliatory attacks, by Washington’s allies, Israel excepted – and by most US voters.

A peace deal, with add-ons, that is broadly in line with Barack Obama’s 2015 nuclear pact with Tehran, which Trump foolishly wrecked and is now the most Iran seems willing to offer, would rightly be counted an abject Trump failure. It would represent a landmark US strategic defeat with significant implications for the global contest with China and Russia. And any deal that left the regime charging transit fees in the strait of Hormuz would be utterly humiliating. No amount of spin could conceal such a presidency-defining calamity.”

Obviously, there’s a strongly worded memo for lefties to refer to because writing at MSN, Jackie Calmes lambastes Trump’s decision to abrogate President Barack Hussein Obama’s 2015 Iran nuclear agreement, the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action. Calmes doesn’t bother with anything resembling a reasonable description of the Trump administration.

“By his humiliating failure to bring Iran to heel, nearly three months after starting a war that he said would last weeks at most, Trump has brought new, more positive attention to what he again this week derided as “Barack Hussein Obama’s Iran nuclear deal.” (The emphasis on “Hussein” is Trump’s, always.)

The president, along with his Republican cheerleaders, counts his first-term abrogation of the 2015 Iran nuclear agreement, the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, as a signature achievement. This week, yet again, he falsely claimed that had he not done so, Iran would have a nuclear weapon. In fact, his action in 2018 taking the United States out of the multinational deal subsequently led to Iran’s rebuilding of its nuclear program, the emboldening of the Iranian hard-liners now in power and the Middle East morass in which the United States is now mired.

That quagmire has left Trump seeming desperate for a deal — almost certainly a worse deal than the one Obama struck. Call it JCPOA Lite. If he were able to get Iran’s sign-off on the sort of detailed, restrictive agreement that Obama and other world leaders won 11 years ago, he’d be trumpeting himself as the world’s greatest dealmaker. (He does that anyway, but his record proves otherwise.) Instead, by his own failure to date, Trump has invited reconsideration of the very agreement he decried as the “worst deal ever” on his march to election and reelection.”

Jennings’ point deserves attention because it cuts through the theater. Trump’s critics demanded maturity, patience, and caution. After he showed all three, they moved the goalposts and found new reasons to complain. Some wanted more bombs; others wanted to blame him before the ink dried. Meanwhile, the president appears focused on fewer dead Americans, fewer dead civilians, safer shipping, and an Iran policy that doesn’t begin with panic or end with another generation of U.S. troops stuck in the region.

Trump can’t win with people who made up their verdict before the evidence arrived. Jennings gave people a clearer read: the administration sees a chance to turn military leverage into a negotiated result, and Trump isn’t rushing simply to quiet critics. Sometimes, real leadership means striking hard, then refusing to let momentum become appetite. If the deal fails, Trump can tighten pressure again. If the deal works, lives get spared, shipping lanes reopen, and Iran faces limits without dragging America into another endless fight.

Read more …

Sundance: “I trust President Trump to find the optimal solution.”

• President Trump Notes the Outlines of a Negotiated Deal with Iran (CTH)

Delivering two messages today from his Truth Social account, President Trump notes the Pakistani and Arab negotiating teams are close to terms of an agreement. However, President Trump emphasizes that any negotiated end to the conflict must include the complete elimination of Iran’s nuclear ambitions.


PRESIDENT TRUMP – “If I make a deal with Iran, it will be a good and proper one, not like the one made by Obama, which gave Iran massive amounts of CASH, and a clear and open path to a Nuclear Weapon. Our deal is the exact opposite, but nobody has seen it, or knows what it is. It isn’t even fully negotiated yet. So don’t listen to the losers, who are critical about something they know nothing about. Unlike those before me who should have solved this problem many years ago, I don’t make bad deals!” ~ President DJT

EARLIER – “One of the worst deals ever made by our Country was the Iran Nuclear Deal, put forth and signed into existence by Barack Hussein Obama and the rank amateurs of the Obama Administration. It was a direct path to Iran developing a Nuclear Weapon. Not so with the transaction currently being negotiated with Iran by the Trump Administration – THE EXACT OPPOSITE, in fact! The negotiations are proceeding in an orderly and constructive manner, and I have informed my representatives not to rush into a deal in that time is on our side. The Blockade will remain in full force and effect until an agreement is reached, certified, and signed. Both sides must take their time and get it right. There can be no mistakes! Our relationship with Iran is becoming a much more professional and productive one. They must understand, however, that they cannot develop or procure a Nuclear Weapon or Bomb. I would like to thank, thus far, all of the countries of the Middle East for their support and cooperation, which will be further enhanced and strengthened by their joining the Nations of the historic Abraham Accords and, who knows, perhaps the Islamic Republic of Iran would like to join, as well! Thank you for your attention to this matter. ~ President DONALD J. TRUMP

It is doubtful the finalized terms will be released today. However, Scott Jennings is reporting on some of the outlines of the agreement after he had discussions with a “senior Trump official” directly involved in the negotiations. According to Jennings:

-USA IS NOT GIVING IRANIANS MONEY FOR NOTHING. All speculation and propaganda to the contrary is false. Some hardline elements of Iran’s govt (IRGC) have pushed fake stories & propaganda to try to kill this negotiation.

-Iran deal is NOT done (95%, but still haggling over some language). No deal being signed today. May be a few more days before this is done.

-Iran will NOT get any money or sanctions relief up front.

-Iran must turn over nuclear stockpile to get anything. USA position is that failure to meet deal commitments means Iran gets nothing.

-Long term USA objective is preventing Iran from having nuclear weapon.

-Initial deal point is to re-establish free flow of commerce by reopening Strait of Hormuz.

Deal should have 2 phases:
Step 1 – Open Strait of Hormuz. Give world economy breathing room. Iran agrees to give up enriched uranium.
Step 2 – Get the nuclear material turned over. Only then can Iran get sanctions relief.

Bottom line: goal is to make a deal that lowers costs for Americans, calms world energy markets, and guarantees that Iranians cannot have a nuclear weapon over the long term. We aren’t there yet. Iran takes forever to get you a response on even small things. But we are close although it still could be a few days. “If we get what we are demanding, this is going to be a historic deal,” SAO says.

SAO sounds prepared to do no deal at all if all Iran will do is a “bad deal.” SAO admits deal could fall apart yet. But if a deal is reached, SAO expects very senior USA admin officials to take part in a signing ceremony of some sort.

Iran has agreed in principle to the framework but there are still a couple points USA isn’t satisfied with. 95% done. But literally changing words sometimes requires days in Iran’s system. Haggling over language. But USA feels like we have a commitment on nuclear stockpile and on opening Strait of Hormuz. If IRAN doesn’t deliver on commitments, they get nothing.

“Iran’s ability to project power is a lot more limited than it was two months ago,” SAO says. “Their industrial base for building ballistic missiles has been substantially destroyed.” {source} Multiple key republican senators like Ted Cruz, Lindsey Graham are not happy with what they are hearing. Most of the Israel-First ‘influencers’ are also not happy. Mark Levin and Laura Loomer are particularly upset. However, as with all things that involve rumor and speculation, the best approach is to wait and see what the deal entails.

I trust President Trump to find the optimal solution.

Read more …

It’s starting to look better.

• Trump Bats Down Critics As Iran Deal Gets Close (ZH)

Update(1345ET): Both sides are continuing to be mostly tight-lipped in terms of offering confirmation of what precisely is in the deal, with President Trump having earlier said he’s in no hurry. But this weekend contains some of the most positive momentum towards an actual peace deal and extended ceasefire to date. Per some of the latest from NYT: Iran’s leaders or official state media have not publicly commented on what is in any potential agreement or what is being discussed. Over the last 24 hours, Iranian and U.S. officials have offered some conflicting depictions of what a deal might contain.

On Sunday, the U.S. official said a deal had not yet been signed and was still subject to final approval from President Trump and Iran’s supreme leader, which could take days. The senior U.S. official said the mechanism by which Iran would dispose of its highly enriched uranium was still being negotiated. Mr. Trump has insisted that the United States seize the material as part of his vow to curb Iran’s nuclear program. Mr. Trump said in a social media post earlier on Sunday that he had ordered his negotiators “not to rush into a deal,” after saying a day earlier that a preliminary agreement between the two countries was “largely negotiated.”

But Trump is catching some political heat both at home and in Israel, for potentially agreeing to a deal which cedes too much ground to Tehran – or at least that’s the growing criticism of the hawks. He issued the below Truth Social on Sunday, seeking to bat down this criticism, and once again asserting his deal will the the EXACT OPPOSITE of Obama’s JCPOA. But time will soon tell…

Trump also shared this statement from Fox’s correspondent. Tehran has remained insistent that it will never transport its enriched uranium outside it borders: Not quite yet at the goal line, per Reuters:

Read more …

Through Covid and Ukraine, the Automatic Earth barely survived the censorship. Free speech? Yeah, Elon. But nobody else.

• Free Speech Shouldn’t Be Just For the Party In the White House (Sauer)

One of the most important Executive Orders signed by President Trump on his first day in office was Restoring Freedom of Speech and Ending Federal Censorship. As the title suggests, the order forbids any U.S. Government employee from taking any actions that violate the First Amendment rights of any American citizen. The Executive Order is intended to protect against future encroachments on the right to free speech like those that occurred under the Biden Administration.


During the Biden years, government officials routinely pressured social media companies to silence Americans for questioning the official response to COVID-19. For example, Surgeon General Vivek Murthy said that, unless social media companies “voluntarily” removed posts containing “misinformation,” the Administration would apply “appropriate legal and regulatory measures.” Other members of the Administration sent messages to social media executives, addressing them as if they were poorly performing White House interns. At least one Biden staffer, Deputy Assistant to the President Rob Flaherty, even dropped an F-bomb in an email to Meta, parent company of Facebook and Instagram, inquiring why a post he “requested” be taken down was still up.

In March of this year, the Justice Department signed a consent decree with Louisiana and Mississippi settling a lawsuit brought by the states on behalf of their citizens whose First Amendment rights were violated by the Biden Administration’s censorship. The settlement forbids the Surgeon General, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Agency from threatening social media companies for refusing to remove or limit the viewership of “content containing protected free speech.” Unfortunately, some members of the Trump Administration seem to have not read this Executive Order.

For example, Federal Trade Commission Chair Andrew Ferguson, while a vast improvement over his predecessor Lina Khan, thinks the FTC should use its power to punish woke corporations for engaging in First Amendment-protected activity. The FTC recently settled a case, along with eight states, brought against major advertising companies. The suit alleged that the companies worked with progressive media watchdog groups, such as NewsGuard and the Global Disinformation Index, in order to limit the placement of ads on conservative sites. The ad agencies’ defense was to claim that they were protecting brand safety.

Brand safety refers to advertising placement agencies avoiding sites with controversial political opinions or objectionable content. One problem with the FTC’s case is that being concerned with brand safety makes valid business sense. A business whose customers largely come from a demographic that tends to support progressive politics will not want to advertise on pro-MAGA websites for fear of alienating its existing customers. Similarly, a brand whose customers are mostly conservative will not want to advertise on AOC 2028. The main problem with the FTC case is that organizing boycotts of a business because of the business’s political activities is a First Amendment-protected activity.

Boycotts have a long and distinguished history. They were instrumental in the civil rights, labor, and other progressive movements. Boycotts have been used by conservatives, most notably by social conservatives, to pressure advertisers to stop running ads on programs that offended them. Organizers of these boycotts worked with conservative media watchdogs like the Media Research Center. Now, thanks to the precedent set by Andrew Ferguson, the next Democrat FTC Chair could target the Media Research Center and their allies for conspiring to restrain trade by organizing boycotts.

Chair Ferguson also wrote to (then) Apple CEO Tim Cook warning him that Apple could face a federal investigation for “unfair or deceptive or practices.” The deception in question is the claim that Apple’s news aggregation site is ideologically neutral, when in fact it promotes stories from left-wing sources while ignoring stories from conservative sources. Even if this were true, Apple has a First Amendment right to choose what news sources to feature in its news aggregator. If consumers are dissatisfied with Apple’s selection, they are free to use one of the many conservative news outlets on the internet.

Chair Ferguson and government officials like Federal Communications Commission (FCC) Chair Brendon Carr are not just violating the First Amendment – they are violating President Trump’s executive order on free speech. Unfortunately, the President’s commitment to free speech is also less than consistent. President Trump and his appointees must stop violating the First Amendment – otherwise America will become a country in which free speech only exists for those who won the last election.

Read more …

What a poor headline! It’s like his editor hates him.

• Is Prison the Best Place for Certain Prominent Democrats? (JB Shurk)

Reports last week confirmed that former special counsel Jack Smith “secretly arranged” to preserve evidence in his criminal cases against President Trump in order to maintain the threat of future prosecution once the president leaves office. This is not a big surprise. Democrats have thrown every civic norm out the window in their ruthless efforts to target Trump’s businesses and send him to prison for life.


In his quest to imprison an American president, Jack Smith accused Trump of engaging in a conspiracy to “overthrow” the 2020 election, as well as retaining possession of classified documents after leaving the White House. Both allegations are ridiculous, and Smith’s own words make him sound like a lawfare hitman and anti-MAGA zealot. He told members of Congress in January, “Our investigation revealed that Donald Trump is the person who caused Jan. 6, it was foreseeable to him, and that he sought to exploit the violence.” Smith stated emphatically that Trump committed “serious crimes.”

Serious crimes? You mean like using the FBI to spy on all the Republican presidential primary candidates in 2015 and 2016? Oh right, that was President Obama. Or fabricating intelligence in order to justify a counterintelligence operation against candidate Trump? Oh, that was Obama’s corrupt CIA director, John Brennan. Or paying British Intelligence operatives to manufacture a fake “Russia collusion” dossier implicating Trump? Oh, that was Hillary Clinton. Or using the FBI and CIA to frame President Trump as a Russian spy? Oh, that was Obama and Clinton, too. Or sabotaging President Trump’s administration by using a Democrat spy on the National Intelligence Council to construct a false story about an innocuous phone call in order to trigger a bogus impeachment?

Oh, that was Intelligence Community Democrats attempting to hide Joe Biden’s corruption in Ukraine by, again, framing President Trump for a quid-pro-quo “crime” he never committed. Or submitting fraudulent documents to the FISA Court in order to maintain spying operations against President Trump? Oh, that was corrupt James Comey, corrupt Robert Mueller, corrupt Andrew Weissmann, corrupt Norm Eisen, corrupt Mary McCord, and their Democrat accomplices in the FBI and DOJ who covered up Obama’s illegal spying operations while framing President Trump as a criminal, spy, and traitor.

Listening to Jack Smith call President Trump a “serious” criminal sounds ridiculous when serious criminals Obama, Clinton, Brennan, Comey, and legions of their Democrat colleagues, subordinates, and co-conspirators in the DOJ, FBI, CIA, D.C. courts, and FISA Court (see Judge James Boasberg’s impeachable offenses) have never been properly investigated or punished for undermining President Trump’s election, sabotaging his administration, and framing him for treason. The most powerful Democrats in the country organized a coup d’état in broad daylight and dragged the country through a barbed-wire field of partisan propaganda for the last ten years, and Jack Smith wants Americans to be upset that President Trump retained documents that he was entitled to possess? It’s just such lunacy. The constant gaslighting from D.C. operatives is equally infuriating and exhausting.

Glossing over the Democrats’ monstrous Russia Collusion Hoax, their relentless efforts to subvert the Trump-led government, and their continuing obsession with tossing the president in prison for imaginary crimes is bad enough, but Jack Smith does what all Democrats do: He pretends that the January 6, 2021, protest for election integrity was an attempt by Trump and his supporters to overthrow the government. This lie is so brazen that it’s astonishing how Democrats can keep telling it with straight faces.

The people who showed up at the Capitol that day had one objective: to express their strong belief that mail-in-ballot fraud, violations of multiple states’ electoral statutes, and numerous voting discrepancies had tainted the 2020 election. Several senators intended to make these very arguments before the certification of the election’s results. The people who gathered outside the Capitol were exercising their First Amendment right to assemble peaceably. They were unarmed. Most had no criminal records. A large number had served their country in various capacities. Most who entered the Capitol walked around as tourists, took pictures, interacted in a friendly manner with Capitol Police, and posed no threat to anyone.

Only after law enforcement officers chose to fire flash-bang grenades on the assembled crowd did a section of the protest turn into something that could be described as a riot. Trump supporters — not police officers — died on January 6. Ordinary Americans exercising their constitutional rights were thrown into a state of fear of being hurt or killed.

Read more …

Ukraine hits a Russian students’ dormitory in Lugansk, killing God knnows howmany kids: crickets in the Wesst.

Russia retaliates on military command posts, European press goes berserk.

• Russia Uses Oreshnik Weapon To Strike Ukrainian Military Command Posts (TASS)

In response to terrorist attacks by the Ukrainian military against civilian facilities located on the territory of the Russian Federation, Russian forces launched a massive strike using Oreshnik, Iskander, Kinzhal and Zircon missiles at Ukrainian military command facilities, the Russian Defense Ministry reported on Sunday. “In response to the terrorist attacks by Ukraine on civilian targets in Russia, the Russian Armed Forces launched a massive strike using Oreshnik, Iskander, Kinzhal and Zircon missiles… as well as unmanned aerial vehicles to strike enemy’s military command posts, air bases and military-industrial production complexes in Ukraine,” the ministry stated. The ministry added that all designated targets were hit and objectives of the preliminary-set mission had been achieved.
Read more …

“Moscow is taking action in response to “atrocities” perpetrated by Kiev in Lugansk, the former UN weapons inspector has said ..”

• Russia Hit Target ‘Worthy Of Oreshnik Strike’ – Scott Ritter (RT)

Footage of the Russian strike near Ukrainian capital, Kiev, indicates that an Oreshnik missile was likely deployed by Moscow, former UN weapons inspector Scott Ritter has said. On Sunday night, Ukrainian media outlets and Telegram channels claimed that Russia fired its state-of-the-art intermediate-range hypersonic Oreshnik system at an unspecified target in the town of Belaya Tserkov in Kiev Region. They published footage showing clusters of bright objects rapidly descending from the skies. The Defense Ministry in Moscow has not officially confirmed the use of the munition.


The reported strike came after Russian President Vladimir Putin ordered the Defense Ministry to “submit proposals” for a response to a Ukrainian drone attack on a teacher training school dormitory in the Lugansk People’s Republic on Friday, which killed 21 people, mostly teenage girls, and left 42 others wounded. In his interview with RT, Ritter, who is a former US Marine Corps intelligence officer, said that “there’s at least one strike in the vicinity of Kiev that has the visual characteristics of an Oreshnik missile.”

“It’s precisely the same six separate deliveries of six submunitions, 36 in total, mimicking the previous confirmed Oreshnik use” in November 2024 in Dnepropetrovsk and in January 2026 in Lviv, he noted. Speaking about the possible target of the attack, the former UN inspector stressed that “there’s a reason to believe that the Oreshnik didn’t strike the center of Kiev, but rather hit a town outside of Kiev that has a military airfield that has been of some interest to the Russian forces in the past. Maybe there was something going on there that was worthy of an Oreshnik strike.”

“It’s clear… Russia is taking the promised action in response to the atrocities that happened in Lugansk,” he stressed. The attack on the school dormitory was “an act of terror,” which crossed the line and again showed “the nefarious character of the Ukrainian government,” Ritter insisted.The possible use of the Oreshnik is also a signal to the West as “an entire system… exists beyond Ukraine’s borders into Europe and perhaps… into the US that facilitates and empowers” Kiev’s drone attacks in Lugansk and elsewhere inside Russia, he added.

Read more …

Not sure why you would ask a journalist’s ‘opinion.

• Russia’s Oreshnik Response To Ukraine’s Dorm Strike Justified – Journalist (RT)

Russia’s reported retaliatory strikes on military targets in Ukraine are morally and legally justified following the “heinous terrorist attack” on a school dormitory in the Lugansk People’s Republic, American journalist John Varoli has told RT. Varoli described the Ukrainian drone strike on the Starobelsk teacher training college dormitory, which killed 21 people, mostly teenage girls, and injured dozens more, as “one of the worst committed by the NATO puppet regime in Kiev.”


Commenting on videos circulating online that purportedly show a Russian Oreshnik missile strike near Kiev early Sunday morning, Varoli said the footage appeared similar to previous uses of the system. “The video that I saw seems very similar to the two previous Oreshnik strikes that we’ve seen before,” he said. “So most likely, yes, it seems like it was an Oreshnik system.” Varoli described the weapon as “absolutely unstoppable” and capable of penetrating hardened underground targets, suggesting that the reported strike may have targeted a NATO-linked command facility outside Kiev.

He claimed that NATO officers are present at “sensitive military installations” in and around the Ukrainian capital. The journalist argued that the dormitory strike should be seen in the broader context of what he described as near-daily Ukrainian attacks on Russian civilians, including strikes on homes, cars, buses, and infrastructure in Lugansk, Donetsk, and Crimea, as well as increasingly deep inside Russia. NATO countries continue to support Kiev with weapons, battlefield intelligence, and advanced warfare systems, Varoli said, urging the US government to investigate whether American tech companies such as Palantir have helped facilitate Ukrainian “terrorist attacks” and should face prosecution.

Read more …

It’s been 80 years.

• The Slow American Retreat From Europe Has Already Begun (Poletaev)

Since the Trump team’s rise to power, US politics has undergone a profound, one is even tempted to say historic, shift: The US is moving away from its role as the ‘leader of the free world’ and seeking to focus on its own interests. While in the first half of 2025, it seemed that this was merely a whim of Trump’s, and that the US could not be diverted from its course of maintaining its hegemony, by the end of the year, it had become clear that the Trump administration was seeking to reset relations with all global players. We will not be discussing today the extent to which Trump has been successful; what matters to us is his motivation.


The reasons for such a radical shift in policy are clear: For decades, both left-liberal (Democratic) and neo-conservative (Republican) administrations refused to acknowledge reality and behaved as if it were still 1991, the world was celebrating the ‘end of history’, and all nations were looking with hope towards the City on the Hill, reverently acknowledging the leadership and authority of the US.This policy reached its peak, and inevitable collapse, following the start of Russia’s military operation in 2022. The attempt to isolate Moscow effectively divided the world into two camps: Those which, whether out of conviction or under duress, stood up for the ‘rules-based order’, and those which effectively refused to abide by those rules. The latter turned out to be in the majority, and something had to be done about it.

Trump proposed a solution: America will no longer impose its rules on anyone, nor will it pretend to act on behalf of all humanity (often forgetting about itself). The US has its own interests and sufficient strength to defend them. Thus, from being a key front in the struggle for world order, support for Ukraine has turned into a millstone around Washington’s neck. They cannot abandon it (too much has been invested, and opposition is too strong even among Trump’s closest allies, let alone the rest of the American establishment), but there is no point in dragging it along any further.

In effect, the US has offloaded the conflict onto Europe and let things take their course. This doesn’t mean that Trump wants Kiev to lose – it’s in his interests to preserve the current regime in Kiev, but he isn’t prepared to go to the mat for Ukraine, nor is he prepared to pour billions and political capital into the bottomless Ukrainian pit as his predecessor did.

The Beijing Triangle
In principle, Trump would prefer to freeze the Ukraine conflict and gain the opportunity to restore some of the relationship with Moscow. Like several of his predecessors, Trump understands that America’s main foreign policy rival is China, not Russia. However, Trump is the first to have attempted to do something about this, to have tried to at least somewhat slow down China’s expansion, which until last year seemed unstoppable.

First and foremost, the US is seeking to restore order in the New World by pushing China out of the region. The most notable step in this regard was the coup in Caracas, orchestrated with the involvement of the Pentagon, and the subsequent restoration of American control over Venezuelan oil exports. This has been a visible success. Next on the agenda was a ‘remake’ of the Venezuelan scenario in Iran. As in Venezuela, China is the main buyer of Iranian hydrocarbons, and bringing Iranian oil exports under control would deal a second blow to Beijing.

However, the key link in Trump’s strategy to isolate China is Russia. Trump himself has repeatedly cited Biden’s main foreign policy mistake as having allowed a strategic rapprochement between the two countries. Washington dreams of weakening the Moscow-Beijing axis, and this cannot be achieved without the carrot of restoring economic ties. Russia also needs to keep China in check. Of course, this doesn’t mean betraying its eastern neighbor (that is not the issue at all), but even a partial restoration of economic ties with America would give Russia greater room for maneuver in its relations with China. From the perspective of classical diplomacy, this is a sound, rational, and well-considered policy.

So far, however, attempts at a Russian-American rapprochement have come to nothing. First and foremost, this is due to the fierce domestic opposition to Trump, so without a formal end to the conflict, his hands are tied. In over a year, practically nothing has been achieved, not even what seemed a done deal last spring, such as the full reopening of the Russian and US embassies.Nevertheless, the attempts continue. Moscow’s aim with regard to Washington is to sever Russian-American relations from Ukrainian affairs. It seems a plan was devised in Anchorage: If Trump forces Zelensky to abandon Donbass, Putin will in response declare a ceasefire in exchange for the thawing of economic ties with the US. At the same time, no one is removing the fundamental claims against Ukraine, usually referred to as ‘Istanbul plus territories’, from the agenda.

Read more …

Tulsi has some things on the shelf.

• DNI Gabbard Presses To Declassify Secret But Critical Court Opinion (JTN)

Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard is pushing to declassify a secret Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court opinion expected to reveal major compliance failures in the government’s use of Section 702 surveillance powers, Just the News has learned. The effort comes as Congress is debating whether to renew Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, which permits the government to collect communications of foreign targets located abroad.


Civil liberties advocates and constitutional scholars have long argued the program also sweeps in large volumes of Americans’ communications without warrants, creating what critics describe as a loophole around Fourth Amendment protections. At the center of the controversy is the government’s ability to conduct so-called backdoor searches, in which analysts query databases containing incidentally collected American communications.

The pending court opinion is expected to detail concerns over how federal agencies have managed queries of Section 702 databases and whether internal guardrails designed to prevent abuse were circumvented, according to a senior intelligence official. The Justice Department reportedly discovered in 2024 that the FBI had used a filtering mechanism that enabled personnel to query Section 702 data without fully complying with oversight requirements established under the Reforming Intelligence and Securing America Act. Investigators reportedly found the system lacked adequate counting, tracking, and approval procedures that are required under the law.

Although officials said the specific tool was later shut down, the still-classified court opinion reportedly indicates that similar tools may continue to exist elsewhere within the intelligence community, including at the National Security Agency and the Central Intelligence Agency. Gabbard announced Friday she is stepping down June 30 to spend more time with her husband, Abraham, who was recently diagnosed with bone cancer.

Read more …

Let’s give a her a second article.

• Tulsi Gabbard Teases Major Bombshells Before Leaving Trump Admin (Margolis)

DNI Tulsi Gabbard is stepping down as director of national intelligence at the end of June, but the radical left had better be afraid of what will happen in her final weeks. As PJ Media previously reported, Gabbard announced her resignation after her husband, Abraham, was diagnosed with what she described as “an extremely rare form of bone cancer.” She said she must “step away from public service to be by his side and fully support him through this battle.”


In her letter, Gabbard described Abraham as “my rock throughout our eleven years of marriage — standing steadfast through my deployment to East Africa on a Joint Special Operations mission, multiple political campaigns, and now my service in this role.”Gabbard used her 15 months at ODNI to wage a full-scale war on the entrenched intelligence bureaucracy, and she’s done a fabulous job. In her letter to President Trump, Gabbard pledged a smooth transition. “I am fully committed to ensuring a smooth and thorough transition over the coming weeks so that you and your team experience no disruption in leadership or momentum,” she wrote. “It has been a profound honor to serve the American people as DNI.”

President Donald Trump praised Gabbard upon her resignation. “Unfortunately, after having done a great job, Tulsi Gabbard will be leaving the Administration on June 30th,” he said. He added that she “rightfully, wants to be with him, bringing him back to good health as they currently fight a tough battle together,” and expressed confidence that her husband would recover. “I have no doubt he will soon be better than ever,” Trump said. “We will miss her.”

Before she leaves, she plans to release investigative findings in weekly installments over the next month. The topics on the docket are not small: Havana Syndrome, the origins of the COVID-19 pandemic, the government’s weaponization of intelligence agencies, and the 2020 presidential election. If Democrats thought they could breathe a sigh of relief with her gone, they were sorely mistaken. Each of these has been a political flashpoint for years, and Gabbard is positioning her office to put official findings on the record while she still has the authority to do it.

As of May 2026, Gabbard has overseen the declassification of more than 500,000 pages of previously withheld government records. That includes long-suppressed files on the assassinations of President John F. Kennedy, Robert F. Kennedy, and Martin Luther King Jr. It includes documents on the disappearance of Amelia Earhart. And it includes Biden administration files detailing the federal government’s “Strategic Implementation Plan for Countering Domestic Terrorism.”

She also pushed hard on the Russian collusion hoax, using her office to expose how the Obama administration weaponized intelligence against Trump’s 2016 campaign, and later, his presidency. Democrats didn’t want her confirmed because she is a true transparency hawk, and trust me, what she plans to reveal on her way out (particularly about how Biden and Obama weaponized the government and the 2020 election) is definitely what Democrats don’t want revealed.

Read more …

As the muslims are entering, the Brits are leaving,

Don’t forget the UK, like all of Europe, has a terribly low birthrate. “The net figure for British nationals was the largest exodus since the 1960s.”

Replacement. It truly is.

• UK Net Migration Fall Masks True Demographic Replacement (RMX)

The left-wing U.K. government has claimed it is making real progress in tackling the ongoing migration crisis enveloping Britain after official statistics published on Thursday showed that net migration had decreased to 171,000 last year. However, that figure alone doesn’t tell the whole story “I promised to restore control to our borders. My government is delivering,” under-pressure Prime Minister Keir Starmer wrote on X in response to the latest publication by the Office for National Statistics.


“Net migration is now at 171,000, down from a high of 944,000 under the Conservatives,” added Home Secretary Shabana Mahmood, claiming the government had “restored order” after the unprecedented figures under the last Conservative administration. Yet, a glance at the broader figures shows the reported number isn’t as impressive as the government would have you believe. In the year ending December 2025, the total number of people immigrating to Britain stood at 813,000. For comparison, this figure is around two-thirds of the population of the U.K.’s second-largest city, Birmingham.

That figure comprises 110,000 British nationals returning to the U.K., and 76,000 EU citizens. By far the largest contingent of immigrants was from non-EU countries, accounting for 627,000 arrivals. The 171,000 figure is also largely offset by emigration — nearly a quarter of a million (246,000) British nationals left the country, while 118,000 EU nationals and 278,000 non-EU nationals also packed their bags. Total emigration of 642,000 was marginally down on the 680,000 recorded the previous year.

So, while the headline figure looks impressive, that is still a considerable decline in British nationals — down a net figure of 136,000 — effectively being replaced by largely non-EU immigrants. A total of 138,000 Indians, 56,000 Pakistanis, 54,000 Chinese, and 47,000 Nigerian nationals arrived. The figures suggest that Britain remains a major destination for long-term migrants, and the scale of departures has become an increasingly important factor when reflecting on the overall migration picture. The net figure for British nationals was the largest exodus since the 1960s.

Meanwhile, non-EU net migration to the U.K. still remains higher (by some margin) than in any other year preceding 2021.Migration monitoring groups released statements on Thursday contesting the Labour government’s assessment that it was successfully tackling the problem. “Our immigration system is dysfunctional,” wrote the Centre for Migration Control. “Three quarters of a million foreign nationals still arrive every year, and one in five people living in Britain was not born here.

“Rather than heed these warning signs, Labour ministers will insist they have ‘taken back control,’” it added. Other commentators noted that the Home Office no longer publishes the numbers of immigrants who entered the country on a visa that has since expired, and assumes they have left, leaving the figures contentious. “If people’s visas expire and ONS has no record of them leaving the country, they simply assume that they have left — one reason to treat emigration and ‘net’ migration figures with care,” noted Conservative MP Neil O’Brien.

Academic Matt Goodwin, who most recently stood for the right-wing Reform U.K. party in a by-election, warned, “The British people are being demographically replaced – there is no other term for it.” Migration Watch U.K. called the recent migration wave into Britain “one of the most rapid and drastic demographic changes, outside of war, in human history — no wonder the public are concerned!” It further questioned why the British public should be “thankful that net migration has ‘crashed’ from the city a size of Birmingham arriving in a single year, to a city the size of Norwich.” “Where is the infrastructure for this massive inflow of immigrants?” it asked.

Read more …

And Europe- and its famed car industry- have nevertheless managed to lose billions on EVs. A growth industry, for Christ sake.

• One in Four Cars Sold Globally Is an Electric Vehicle (Gaudiaut)

Electric vehicle adoption continues to accelerate worldwide, reaching new milestones in 2025. According to the IEA Global EV Outlook 2026, published on May 20, global sales of electric cars, including plug-in hybrids, surpassed 21 million units last year, more than doubling since 2022, when annual sales first exceeded 10 million. As our chart shows, EVs now account for roughly one in four passenger car sales globally, meaning their market share climbed to 25 percent in 2025, up from just 2 percent in 2018.


This rapid growth has been driven largely by China, which remains by far the largest market. With more than 13 million electric vehicles sold in 2025, the country alone accounted for around 60 percent of global sales. While adoption has also increased steadily in the rest of the world, with nearly 8 million units sold – largely in Europe and the United States – the data highlight China’s dominant role in shaping the global EV market.

Read more …

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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

 

 

 

 

 

Home › Forums › Debt Rattle May 25 2026

Viewing 1 post (of 1 total)
  • Author
    Posts
  • May 25, 2026 at 10:14 am #241309
    Raúl Ilargi Meijer
    Keymaster

    Andy Warhol Shot Sage Blue Marilyn 1964 (must read article!) • Scott Jennings Explains Trump’s Patient Iran Strategy (David Manney) • President Trump
    [See the full post at: Debt Rattle May 25 2026]

  • Author
    Posts
Viewing 1 post (of 1 total)
  • You must be logged in to reply to this topic.