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Debt Rattle July 16 2026

Jul 162026
 
 July 16, 2026  Posted by at 9:55 am Finance Tagged with: , , , , , , , ,  Add comments


Edgar Degas Dancers in Blue 1895


• US & Iran Exchange Heavy Strikes For 5th Day (ZH)
• Trump Claims ‘Other People’ Could Lead Ground Campaign In Iran (RT)
• Trump Warns Iran That Next Targets Will Be Power Plants And Bridges (JTN)
• DOJ Records Reveal Jack Smith Got Private Texts From 44 Lawmakers (JTN)
• Europe’s Position On Ukraine Is A ‘Dead End’ – Kremlin (RT)
• Zelensky To Remove Ukraine’s Reforming Young Defense Minister (ZH)
• Von der Leyen Promises Kiev Safe And Secure Production Sites For Drones (TASS)
• Coalition of the Willing Troops In Ukraine, Western Sanctions (TASS)
• Here’s What’s Riding on Thursday’s Starship Flight Test (Stephen Green)
• Joe Biden Slurs His Way Through Video Announcing New Memoir (Margolis)
• Of Marxists and Morons …. (Eric Utter)
• Pinocchio and the Information Society (Mikhail Afanasyev)
• Gallup: Higher Education Hits Another Low in Public Trust (Turley)

 


 

 


 


When this whole thing started, I wrote they would have to find the right words, to allow everyone to save face. They haven’t found those words -yet.

• US & Iran Exchange Heavy Strikes For 5th Day (ZH)

“At 6 a.m. ET today, U.S. Central Command forces began launching a wave of strikes against Iran,” Centcom announced. “The strikes are designed to further degrade military capabilities Iranian forces have used to attack commercial shipping in the Strait of Hormuz.”


The US military further indicated it launched a “seven-hour wave” of strikes overnight – and followed during the next day (Wednesday) by a 90-minute wave. Also the evening prior, the US reimposed a naval blockade on Iranian ports and alongside launching its fourth consecutive night of strikes on the country, also as President Trump freshly warned that if Iran does not return to the negotiating table, “next week it gets really bad for them, because next week comes the power plants.”

“You better make a deal, or you’re not going to have anything left,” Trump has warned. “Ultimately, we’ll hit energy targets in Iran. Next week comes the bridges. We’re going to knock out all of their power plants. We’ll knock out all of their bridges unless they get to the table and negotiate.” Iranian government spokesperson Fatemeh Mohajerani announced that at least 30 civilians have been killed across the country over 260 people wounded by American strikes of the last few days.

Airstrikes also reportedly took out an Iranian military barracks in southeastern Iran, leaving seven dead. The Associated Press details that “One strike targeted a barracks for Iran’s 388th Mechanized Infantry Brigade, which operates tanks and armored vehicles, in Sistan and Baluchestan province, Iranian state television reported.” “The report said the Americans fired at least 13 missiles in the attack and that the seven dead included conscripts and career soldiers,” AP continues. “A number of troops were wounded.”

Heavy bombardments have focused on the coastal areas, with US strikes reportedly having hit a civilian maritime control tower in Chabahar, southern Iran – location of country’s only deep-water port outside the Strait of Hormuz, which allows Iran direct access to the Indian Ocean without passing through the Gulf.

As expected, Iran’s IRGC has continued launching a wave of retaliatory strikes targeting critical US military infrastructure across the Gulf and even reaching into Jordan. The list of targets hit, according to an array of regional sources, include – Bahrain’s Sheikh Isa Air Base, the US Navy’s 5th Fleet support facility, Kuwait’s Ali Al-Salem and Camp Buehring, and Jordan’s Muwaffaq Salti Air Base. Also, Emirati sources have reported strikes on the critical Fujairah Port, while Kuwait confirms one of its navy vessels was struck, leaving four crew members injured.

Additionally, social media is awash with unverified footage showing Shahed kamikaze drones striking Kuwait, as well as massive plumes of black smoke rising from burning facilities in Kuwait. US 5th Fleet HQ locations in Bahrain also show signs of damage from inbound projectiles. The IRGC has insisted that the “export of oil and gas from the region will be either for everyone or for no one.” The Iranians have continued to tout their nationalist defiance and have at no point shown signs of backing down as is hoped by Trump:

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“The US president has vowed to escalate strikes against civilian infrastructure unless Tehran bows to his demands..”

• Trump Claims ‘Other People’ Could Lead Ground Campaign In Iran (RT)

US President Donald Trump has refused to rule out a ground campaign in Iran, claiming that unspecified allied forces could seize key strategic sites like Kharg Island without the involvement of American troops, while threatening to expand the bombing campaign to include power plants and bridges. In an interview with Fox News on Tuesday, Trump said he would consider a ground operation “if I thought it was appropriate.” “Sometimes you need a ground campaign, but we have other people who will do the ground campaign for us… But we have already hit Kharg Island twice, even three times. I said, ‘Hit everything but the oil!’” Trump said.


Located about 25km (15 miles) off Iran’s Gulf coast, Kharg Island handles roughly 90% of the country’s crude exports and serves as the primary outlet for its oil revenues. Ahead of the now-broken April ceasefire, Trump had already threatened to seize Kharg Island “to take the oil.” Asked directly whether he still intended to seize the island, Trump replied: “As far as taking it is concerned, if we degrade them far enough and deep enough, I would do that.” The president also vowed to intensify the air campaign, saying US strikes would continue until he personally decided “it’s enough.”

“They’ll continue until I say it’s enough. Next week comes the power plants. Next week comes the bridges. We’re going to knock out all their power plants. We’re going to knock out all their bridges, unless they get to the table and negotiate,” Trump said. Trump further warned that Iran “won’t have anybody left” unless it reached a deal with Washington, claiming US officials had relayed that message to Tehran during contacts held “about an hour ago.” “We’re being very careful with the civilian population,” said Trump, who has repeatedly threatened to bomb Iran into oblivion, once warning that “a whole civilization will die” if Tehran failed to comply with US and Israeli demands.

More than 1,500 civilians have been killed in Iran since the US-Israeli bombing campaign began on February 28, according to local authorities. One of the deadliest incidents was the strike on the Shajareh Tayyebeh girls’ elementary school in Minab, which killed 168 people, mostly children. Open-source investigations by multiple media outlets have concluded that the school was likely hit during a US strike on a nearby IRGC naval base. Trump repeatedly denied American responsibility but said last month that “mistakes are made” and “nobody did that on purpose.”

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“..and then next week it gets really bad for them because next week comes the power plants.”

Trump wants to be no part of this. But they won’t listen.

• Trump Warns Iran That Next Targets Will Be Power Plants And Bridges (JTN)

Trump warned Iran that the conflict will end when “I say it’s enough,” and that “energy targets” are next on his list. Iranian bridges and power plants will be struck next week if no deal is reached. President Donald Trump warned the Iranian regime Tuesday that the United States will target its bridges and power plants soon “unless they get to the table and negotiate.” The Middle Eastern conflict resumed last week after Iran struck three commercial vessels in the Strait of Hormuz and the United States has since launched its own strikes on Iran in response.


Trump warned Iran that the conflict will end when “I say it’s enough,” and that “energy targets” are next on his list. Iranian bridges and power plants will be struck next week if no deal is reached. “I’ll save the energy targets for last, but ultimately we’ll hit energy targets,” Trump told Fox News reporter Trey Yingst. “We’re going to hit them very hard tonight. We’re going to hit them very hard tomorrow night. We’re going to hit them very hard the night after, and then next week it gets really bad for them because next week comes the power plants.

“Next week comes the bridges. We’re going to knock out all their power plants,” he continued. “We’re going to knock out all their bridges unless they get to the table and negotiate.” Trump defended the U.S.’s recent airstrikes on Iran, likening the country’s regime to a boxer who needs to be beaten down before peace can be achieved. “The only way you can negotiate with these people is through strength, and the only strength is military strength, and that’s what we’ve done,” Trump told Yingst. “It’s like a great boxer. You think you have them beat, and then all of a sudden he comes back and he gives you a shot. They have some fight left, but they don’t have much.”

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“Constitutional alarm raised after…”

“Communications from Members of Congress pertaining to their official legislative duties are protected from criminal prosecution under the Constitution’s Speech or Debate Clause,”

“Everyone involved needs to be PROSECUTED.”

I don’t see how they can not. This is a free pass for Trump’s DOJ to do the same.

• DOJ Records Reveal Jack Smith Got Private Texts From 44 Lawmakers (JTN)

Newly released records reveal that Special Counsel Jack Smith’s team bypassed mandatory protocols to secretly access the private text messages of 44 members of Congress during the probe into President Donald Trump, the Justice Department confirmed Tuesday. The disclosure, confirmed by records released by the Senate Judiciary Committee, has become a major constitutional flashpoint. As lawmakers confront the reality that their private communications were accessed without following established filter protocols, the inquiry is igniting a broader debate over the separation of powers between the executive branch and the legislative body.


“Communications from Members of Congress pertaining to their official legislative duties are protected from criminal prosecution under the Constitution’s Speech or Debate Clause,” the Senate Judiciary’s press release said. The Speech or Debate Clause of the U.S. Constitution (Article I, Section 6) serves as a check on executive power and is designed to prevent members of Congress from being “questioned in any other Place,” ensuring they cannot be subjected to the scrutiny of the Justice Department or the judicial branch for their legislative acts.

Yet DOJ records released to Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, reveal that former Special Counsel Jack Smith’s team reviewed the texts of 44 members of Congress, including 40 Republicans and four Democrats, during the investigation into President Donald Trump. The investigation, led by Grassley and Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations Chairman Ron Johnson, R-Wis., uncovered these records after receiving legally protected whistleblower disclosures, after which they formally requested records from the DOJ.

“This is a blatant abuse of power, and exactly what our Founders warned about,” Senator Rand Paul, R-Ky., also wrote on X. Paul also called out Jack Smith, where, during a December 2025 congressional deposition when he was asked under oath whether his team had reviewed the content of text messages belonging to members of Congress, he answered, “No.”

Smith had been appointed by then-Attorney General Merrick Garland in November 2022 to oversee the Biden DOJ’s investigation into President Donald Trump after his announcement of this third presidential campaign. The records released by Senators Grassley and Johnson provide evidence that the Biden DOJ established a “Filter Team” to evaluate materials obtained in the course of Jack Smith’s investigations. These included a probe relating to January 6 codenamed “Project Coconut,” an investigation into Trump’s handling of classified documents at Mar-a-Lago, known as Project “Cranberry,” all part of “Arctic Frost,” a sweeping probe into efforts to challenge 2020 election results, the press release said.

While the Filter Team’s purpose was to prevent investigators from the Special Counsel’s Office and the FBI from accessing privileged materials among records obtained, evidence shows that investigators bypassed this, potentially infringing on constitutional guardrails, according to the release. Smith was ultimately unable to secure a conviction against Trump, bringing his efforts into further scrutiny. The Special Counsel’s Office had obtained the private text messages through a subpoena to the National Archives and Records Administration for phone records stored between October 2020 to January 20, 2022, which were handed over on August 21, 2023.

The phones were associated with a long list of officials serving in the White House during President Trump’s first term, including Trump himself, as well as Stephen Miller, Rudy Giuliani, Kellyanne Conway, Peter Navarro, the president’s daughter Ivanka Trump, former White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows and former Vice President Mike Pence. Smith’s investigative team downloaded and began reviewing the texts without waiting for the Filter Team’s evaluation.

“Based on the information that’s been produced to me and Senator Johnson, Biden, DOJ and FBI investigators apparently ignored their own routine investigative protocols to obtain and review work-related messages from me and dozens of my Republican and Democrat colleagues,” said Grassley in his statement, who was also targeted in these investigations. Meanwhile, the scope of this investigative overreach has been igniting sharp backlash on Capitol Hill.

“They’re sick and tired of Americans being spied on. And my message to the American people is: if they’ll do it to senators and congressmen, guess what? They’ll do it to you as well,” said Rep. Eli Crane, R-Ariz, a former U.S. Navy SEAL on the Just the News, No Noise show on Tuesday.Crane also said that he had “several friends” who had found out they had been spied on, including Rep. Andy Biggs, R-Ariz., saying that “these individuals who engaged in that type of behavior absolutely need to be held accountable.”

Missouri Senator Josh Hawley also slammed the findings of the DOJ records, writing on X, “Joe Biden’s DOJ not only tapped my phone; I just learned they ILLEGALLY obtained my texts with members of President Trump’s administration,” adding, “Everyone involved needs to be PROSECUTED.” Lawmakers are now calling for a full-scale investigation into the breach, decrying what Senator Ron Johnson described as the “Biden administration’s weaponization of the Justice Department.” At the core of their concerns is whether the government has prioritized its investigative reach over constitutional restraints.

Grassley has stated he intends to have former Special Counsel Jack Smith appear before the Senate Judiciary Committee to hold him accountable. “I hope my Democrat colleagues, several of whom had their own texts swept up, finally put partisanship aside and recognize the severity of these actions. Smith’s team ran roughshod over the Constitution even after repeated warnings,” Grassley said. Crane echoed these concerns. “You know what they say: if these folks aren’t held accountable, it’s going to happen again, and the American people are sick and tired of a two-tiered justice system,” he said.

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Russia has been preparing for this since at least 1991. Well before Ukraine became an issue.

Ukraine is the issue the West chose to start the fight with Russia.

Which has more nukes than we do, and said they will use them when threatened.

“A resolution of the conflict without Russia is impossible, presidential spokesman Dmitry Peskov has said.. “:

• Europe’s Position On Ukraine Is A ‘Dead End’ – Kremlin (RT)

Europe cannot play a meaningful role in resolving the Ukraine conflict while trying to exclude Russia from the process, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov has said, calling the bloc’s position a “dead end.” Peskov was responding to remarks by German Chancellor Friedrich Merz, who argued that any future “security guarantees” for Kiev should be determined by Ukraine and its Western backers without Russia’s participation. “Such statements demonstrate that the position taken by the Europeans is a dead end. If they insist on it, they will have no role in the settlement process,” Peskov told reporters on Tuesday.


Merz made the comments at a ‘Coalition of the Willing’ summit in Paris on Monday, where he pledged that Germany and Ukraine’s other Western supporters would continue supplying military aid to Kiev after any future ceasefire. The group brings together several EU nations, as well as the UK, Norway, Iceland, and Türkiye. It has been discussing post-conflict security arrangements for Ukraine, including proposals to deploy a multinational force, despite Russia’s repeated rejection of foreign troops near its borders.

At last week’s NATO summit in Ankara, member states agreed to provide Ukraine with more than €70 billion ($80 billion) in military assistance this year and next. Germany pledged the largest national contribution. Germany has been the EU’s biggest supporter of Ukraine since the escalation of the conflict in February 2022, providing around €55.5 billion in military aid, according to government data. German media have also reported that Berlin will finance the purchase of 50,000 attack drones for the Ukrainian military.

The latest pledges come as Ukraine has intensified drone strikes on Russian energy infrastructure and residential areas in recent months amid continued setbacks on the battlefield, launching several hundred UAVs a day on average. Moscow has also reported a growing number of FPV drone attacks, including AI-guided models, targeting passenger buses and private vehicles.

The Kremlin has repeatedly said that any lasting peace settlement must address the root causes of the conflict, including Ukraine’s neutrality, demilitarization, protection of Russian speakers, and recognition of the territorial realities on the ground. Russian officials have also argued that Britain, France, and Germany undermined previous peace efforts, including the 2014-2015 Minsk agreements and the 2022 Istanbul draft deal. Moscow has warned that any deployment of Western troops to Ukraine would be treated as foreign intervention.

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Ha ha. The guy does his work too well, so piano dickus fires him. And WE pay for that.

“..Fedorov had been a barrier to interests seeking to profit from Ukraine’s vast wartime defence budget..”

• Zelensky To Remove Ukraine’s Reforming Young Defense Minister (ZH)

The Ukrainian leader is “expected to remove defense minister Mykhailo Fedorov, the 35-year-old architect of Ukraine’s wartime defence technology drive, after just six months in the post as part of a major cabinet reshuffle,” FT writes Wednesday. “Several senior figures close to Zelensky said the president had held conversations about replacing the minister as he prepares to unveil his new government on Thursday,” the report adds. The FT report suggests that the young defense chief’s anti-corruption zeal is alienating powerful figures who wish for the wartime situation to be looser with less oversight:


“But defense industry officials, senior Ukrainian officials, MPs from Zelenskyy’s party and others familiar with the matter have said — some publicly — that Fedorov had been a barrier to interests seeking to profit from Ukraine’s vast wartime defence budget… Fedorov repeatedly blocked attempts to steer lucrative procurement contracts to favoured companies, which put him at odds with powerful figures inside Ukraine’s political and defence establishment, said people familiar with the situation.”

And yet interestingly President Trump has of late issued positive praise of Ukrainian forces’ accomplishments in the area of drone warfare against Russia.mKiev has further been boasting of its drone tech, and is even seeking to market it abroad, especially in the Middle East where Gulf countries are hungry for better defenses against smaller suicide drones. Fedorov has been widely seen as having rapidly implemented a transformative vision on this front. For example, earlier this week The Economist wrote:

“Tensions simmered barely below the surface at a war-council meeting in early July. Ukraine’s military leaders had mostly good news for their president. Middle- and long-range drone operations were seeing continued successes. A campaign to isolate Russian-occupied Crimea was running ahead of schedule. But as Power Point slides were shown to the testosterone-filled room, the generals griped about missile and ammunition procurement. The focus of their criticism, Mykhailo Fedorov, the 35-year-old tech-savvy defence minister who is known—and occasionally mocked—for his Silicon Valley style presentations, responded in kind.”

If it wasn’t for his emergency drone-purchasing decisions at the beginning of the year, which required borrowing money earmarked for salaries, there would be no Crimean operation to speak of. A witness to the proceedings describes “two different co-ordinate systems” in a clinch: “No common language, even if holding back from direct conflict.”

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“..to attack Russia..”

• Von der Leyen Promises Kiev Safe And Secure Production Sites For Drones (TASS)

European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen has promised the Kiev regime “safe and secure production sites” for drones on the territory of the European Union for strikes against Russia. On a visit to Kiev, she signed an agreement of intent with Vladimir Zelensky on the production of drones for Ukraine in the European Union, similar to the documents that Ukraine signed with various NATO countries at the bloc’s summit in Ankara. Von der Leyen also promised “huge technological and industrial capacity” in Europe.


In April, the Russian Defense Ministry released the names and addresses of enterprises in Europe that produce drones for strikes against Russia, warning that the European public should know where the real threats to their security come from. Von der Leyen was awarded the Ukrainian Order of Europe, which she called a “great privilege.”

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“The conflict in Ukraine can only be resolved if arms supplies to Kiev stop, Maria Zakharova said..”

• Coalition of the Willing Troops In Ukraine, Western Sanctions (TASS)

The deployment of any military contingents from the countries of the Coalition of the Willing to Ukraine is unacceptable, and they will become legitimate military targets if stationed there, Russian Foreign Ministry Spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said at a briefing. Sanctions against VK reflect the EU’s impotent anger and will not affect the development of the holding company, Zakharova said. She also noted that Moscow views Poland’s announced drills near the borders of Russia and Belarus as an inappropriate attempt by Warsaw to “flex its muscles.” TASS has compiled the key statements by the Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman.


Western support for Ukraine’s aggression
The conflict in Ukraine can only be resolved if arms supplies to Kiev stop: “Arms deliveries are one of the obstacles to a Ukrainian settlement.” The West should cease hiding behind talk of peace: “They should stop hiding behind talk of peace and openly say that they want only one thing – aggression.”

The deployment of any military contingents from the countries of the Coalition of the Willing to Ukraine is unacceptable, and they will become legitimate military targets if stationed there: “In this context, we would like to once again emphasize that our country considers the deployment of any military contingents from the countries of the so-called Coalition of the Willing to Ukraine unacceptable. I repeat once again: this will de facto mean foreign intervention and an increase in threats to Russia’s security. Such units will be regarded by us as legitimate military targets.”

Sanctions against VK
EU sanctions against Russian company VK reflect Brussels’ impotent anger: “This is a manifestation of absolutely impotent anger and chronic Russophobia.” The sanctions will not affect the development of the national messenger Max, designed by the holding company: “All these sanctions are unlikely to have any significant impact on the development of the national messenger, but for EU bureaucracy it is more important to try by any means to discredit a resource beyond its control and undermine trust in it.” Brussels has once again demonstrated its pathological desire to make life more difficult for Russian citizens by any means possible, and “this approach has nothing in common with genuine democracy.”

Prospects for restoring Russia-West dialogue
Dialogue between Russia and the collective West can only be restored if Europeans abandon “unfriendly and sometimes aggressive Russophobic actions” against the country,” their anti-Russian course, and interference in the nation’s internal affairs. There are currently no prerequisites for restoring dialogue: “As for prerequisites, do you see any? I have given examples today; in my opinion, they are absent.”

Nord Streams
The West must identify those who ordered the terrorist attack on the Nord Stream and Nord Stream 2 pipelines, not only those who carried it out: “The Russian side has insisted and will continue to insist that not only the perpetrators but also the masterminds behind this unprecedented terrorist attack must be identified and publicly named.”

US disregard for CTBT
A total of 179 countries have ratified the Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty (CTBT), but this “dynamic is being overshadowed by the opportunistic policy of the United States, which for many years has prevented the CTBT from entering into force by refusing to ratify it, although at one time [the US] advocated the development of this treaty.” The United States treats international agreements, including the CTBT, with arrogance and disregard: “Washington’s position is an obvious manifestation of arrogance and the US side’s dismissive attitude toward international law, including in the areas of arms control, disarmament and non-proliferation.”

Washington “does not want to tie its own hands” and seeks to act without regard for the CTBT: “In this matter [the possibility of resuming nuclear tests], Washington intends to act without regard for the treaty, covering up its confrontational course with unsubstantiated and false accusations against other countries.”

NATO in Arctic
NATO’s actions in the Arctic region significantly increase the risk of incidents “that could have the most negative consequences for the region”: “The region where the principle of ‘high latitudes, low tensions’ prevailed for many years is now, through NATO’s efforts, being steadily and rapidly transformed into an area of geopolitical confrontation with our country.” Due to NATO’s actions, the Arctic today “is not simply an apple of economic discord but, unfortunately, a zone of militarization.”

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V4.

• Here’s What’s Riding on Thursday’s Starship Flight Test (Stephen Green)

There is so much more riding on Starship Flight Test 13 than the first 20 functional Starlink V3 satellites, which are designed to deliver fiber-like internet speeds anywhere on land, air, or sea. People’s retirement portfolios, for example. SPCX shares have struggled since the company’s June initial public offering. Originally offered to the public at $135 on June 12, SPCX shares actually opened at $150 (an 11% pop) amid massive demand and hype. I bought exactly one on launch day, my “vanity share,” as I like to call it. Prices hit an intraday peak of $225.64 just four days later, but have since sagged to as low as $136.


For SpaceX, everything — not just the value of SPCX shares, but literally everything — rides on making Starship live up to Elon Musk’s promises. That’s why Thursday’s launch matters so much. The launch window for the next test of just that opens at 6:45 p.m. ET on Thursday, July 16, with some nice additions from FT12 in May. FT13 will follow the same flight path as FT12, with the booster sending Ship 40 (S40, making its first flight) on a suborbital trajectory before splashing down — with the usual 4K video provided by a buoy — about 65 minutes after liftoff. If this seems a little same-old same-old, nothing could be further from the truth.

For starters, FT12 suffered serious engine anomalies that are supposed to be corrected. Here’s Grok’s summary of what went wrong in May: Slight timing differences in Ship engine startup during hot-staging caused the booster to flip ~90° off-axis. This led to heat effects on propulsion components during ascent and erroneous engine alarm/abort settings. As a result, only a few of the 33 Raptors relit properly for the boostback burn, causing an early shutdown and a hard splashdown instead of a controlled one.

TL;DR? The boostback ignition partly failed, and that giant booster hit the Gulf of America like a brick. And about 40 seconds after separation, the upper Ship stage had one of its three vacuum-optimized engines fail. It still made its planned flight, proving an important “engine-out” capability, but SpaceX had to scrub a planned in-space engine relight. Since then, SpaceX has taken FAA-approved corrective actions, leading to the agency giving its blessing to FT13 earlier this week. Here’s how it should go.

Read more …

Who would buy that book?

• Joe Biden Slurs His Way Through Video Announcing New Memoir (Margolis)

We knew it was coming. Now, it’s finally been announced. In a video shared to social media, Joe Biden issued a statement about his forthcoming presidential memoir, Promise Me, America, and the rollout told you almost everything you need to know before you bother to crack the spine. Biden’s voice sounded muffled, as if he were talking with a mouthful of cotton balls. It was hard to watch, but I sat through it. “Since I left the presidency, I’ve had a lot of people ask me, ‘Joe, what have you been doing?'” Biden claimed in the video. “I’m dealing with a cancer diagnosis, and I’ve been getting treatment, and it’s been going really well,” he said. He thanked supporters for their prayers before pivoting to the actual sales pitch. “I’ve written a book about my time as president. It’s called Promise Me, America,” he said.


The book hits shelves on Nov. 17, and, says Amazon, it runs 448 pages and retails for $42. According to the description from publisher Little, Brown and Company, the memoir is a “candid and revealing” account of “the challenges, triumphs, sorrows, and accomplishments” of Biden’s administration. The publisher goes further, describing how Biden “took the oath of office on the steps of the U.S. Capitol, where — just two weeks earlier — rioters had stormed the halls and threatened the very foundation of our democracy.” Time for a collective eye roll.

The book also plans to present Biden as the hero who led the country through a pandemic and out of a recession. We’ve heard his talking points before, so that will be nothing new. I’m sure it will gloss over the record inflation his policies caused. Biden’s mandate, the description insists, was to “heal a divided country, restore the integrity of its frayed institutions, and prove to a skeptical public that the world’s greatest democracy could still deliver for its people.” Good lord, did Karine Jean-Pierre write this description?

There is exactly one section of this memoir that might actually be worth a read, and it is not because anyone expects honesty. The description teases that Biden will, “for the first time,” reveal “the deeply agonizing calculation behind his decision in the summer of 2024 to step aside from the presidential race and to put his party and the nation before his personal ambitions.”

Everyone remembers how that actually went down: a stumbling debate performance, a party in open revolt, and a candidate dragged out of the race by his own donors and colleagues while he insisted for weeks that he was staying put. Now he is going to spend a chapter reframing that humiliation as some noble act of sacrifice. The only real intrigue here is who gets thrown under the bus in the retelling, and how many former allies wake up in November to find themselves recast as villains in Joe’s origin story. Nancy Pelosi? Barack Obama?

The only question I have now is “Who actually wrote the book?”

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“Communism has never worked, but that doesn’t stop the left.”

• Of Marxists and Morons …. (Eric Utter)

Most of us have heard the horrific figures: Marxist communism was responsible for more than 100 million deaths in the 20th century alone. There are two preconditions necessary for people to accept or even welcome communism: one, frustration with current economic and/or political conditions, and two, a moral decay that generates a disdain for work and an excessive entitlement mentality, demonizing others’ success, accomplishments, and wealth. For far too many, this demonization of what others have leads not unto desire to make the right decisions and work hard enough to earn it yourself, but envy, greed, wrath and sloth, four of the Seven Deadly Sins.


And a demand that much of what others’ have be confiscated and handed over to one’s self and one’s demographic group … without one having to work for it.This, as history clearly shows, is an automatic death sentence for a society. Every time. In every case. Whether it be the erstwhile Soviet Union, its satellite in Cuba, Pol Pot’s Cambodia, or, more recently, previously wealthy Venezuela.

It could not possibly be otherwise. If I work hard, say, for 60-hour weeks, and I and my family are not going to be very appreciably better off than someone who is unemployed and able to sit on his couch all day because of my tax money, it would literally be immoral, as well as against human nature, for me to continue to do so. Why? Because I would not only be allowing the excessive and arbitrary taxation of my earned labor, while robbing myself of precious time with my family, but quite possibly, in the long term, degrading my health. And subjecting myself to various opportunity costs/losses.

Margaret Thatcher famously said, “The problem with socialism is that you eventually run out of other people’s money.” That in itself is spot-on, but there is far more to it than that.

Ayn Rand: “There is no difference between communism and socialism, except in the same ultimate end: Communism proposes to enslave men by force, Socialism by the vote. It is merely the difference between murder and suicide.”

When people address this issue, they almost always start by saying, “Capitalism with all its faults …”

I am not willing to do that. This is life. This is Earth, not heaven. In this sense, capitalism doesn’t have any faults. True capitalism does not discriminate on the basis of race, religion, color, sex … or anything else. The supply and demand curve determines what price any given product can bear. Charging less than that is not altruistic, but stupid and fraught with possible bias. Nothing can be truly worth other than what people will pay for it. That is why art is so subjective. One person looks at a painting and thinks, “I’d pay anything for that masterpiece,” another says to herself, “You couldn’t pay me to take this ridiculous piece of crap home.”

In command (communist/Marxist/socialist) economies, one or a very few people determine what the cost of any given item “should be.” Since there is no market feedback, their biases come into play. Lots of them. Shockingly, these biases always lead to a handful of leaders living well, and everyone else being paupers and puppets.

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“UNESCO data suggest a new global reversal: as gadget-raised children come of age, school participation is no longer rising”

• Pinocchio and the Information Society (Mikhail Afanasyev)

In many countries around the world, the number of children not attending school is rising. UNESCO has already recorded this alarming trend, and it demands an explanation. UNESCO regularly collects and publishes information on progress toward one of the key Sustainable Development Goals: the universal inclusion of school-age children in primary and secondary education. In recent years, negative developments in this sphere were often linked by experts to the Covid-19 pandemic and its aftermath. But the latest Global Education Monitoring Report 2026 allows the picture to be clarified significantly: it appears that we are dealing not with temporary difficulties, but with a change in the global trend – and the turning point seems to have occurred even before the pandemic.


While in the 1990s and 2000s most countries in the world recorded high growth rates in children’s participation in education, after 2015 those gains slowed almost everywhere. Moreover, in a number of countries, the number of children not attending school has increased. Since this primarily concerned countries in Sub-Saharan Africa, it might have seemed like just another example of ordinary African difficulties: tribal wars, corruption, and so on. Then the pandemic began, and everyone was sent home. But now ten years have passed, and it turns out that the share of children not going to school is not shrinking at all – on the contrary, it is growing, and already on a global scale.

The UNESCO report, of course, says nothing about this new global trend and, following the statistical reports of governments, paints a picture of the steady development of primary and secondary education systems worldwide. At the same time, the report notes that in “the four most populous regions of the world (Europe and North America, East and Southeast Asia, Latin America and the Caribbean, and Sub-Saharan Africa), growth in children’s participation in school education has stopped over the past ten years. And in a number of countries, the share of children not attending school has even increased somewhat after 2015.”

To understand what this means, we should first assess the scale and geography of the phenomenon. The best to do this way is to compare out-of-school rates for 2024 versus 2015, as reported by UNESCO, and looking at the countries where such growth was recorded. As we can see, in 148 countries – that is, almost all countries of the world with only a few exceptions – full upper secondary education is de facto not universal. Moreover, 131 countries do not ensure lower secondary education for all children. And in 128 countries, a noticeable share of children do not even attend primary school.

At the same time, in 66 countries, the share of children not attending school has risen over the past decade. So the “number of countries” mentioned in the UNESCO report turns out to be very large indeed. Let us now look at who they are. The authors of the report emphasize the difficult situation in Sub-Saharan Africa. Yet of the ‘black list’ of 66 countries, only 20 are in Africa. Incidentally, the situation south of the Maghreb is not so straightforward: for 20 countries with negative dynamics, there are 11 where the share of children not attending school has noticeably declined; in the remaining countries there is no clear trend.

So, the historically reversed, regressive increase in the share of children not attending school is far from being an African phenomenon alone. On closer inspection, it becomes clear that the trend is not limited to the ‘underdeveloped periphery.’ The example of Singapore is revealing – a beacon of globalization, a city-state with one of the highest standards of living and near-universal access to education. The idealized image of Singapore now needs revising, because over the past decade a sharply growing share of children there has appeared outside the school system: 5% of children do not attend primary school, 10% remain outside lower secondary education, and 14% are without upper secondary education.

Singapore is not the exception but the beginning of a list of developed countries where the share of children not attending school has risen. The list speaks for itself: the US, Canada, Britain, Germany, Italy, Spain, Finland, the Czech Republic, Hungary, and Estonia. Meanwhile, EU member states such as Romania and Bulgaria are, by this negative indicator, already comparable to African countries, including those south of the Maghreb.

The global share of children not attending school is also significantly increased by the new leaders of the global economy – India and China, home to around three billion people, the lion’s share of the world’s population. The growth of their vast economies is not accompanied by growing school participation in primary and secondary education. The same can be said of the third economy of North America – Mexico. In short, if anyone has not yet guessed, we are dealing with a global counter-trend: the inclusion of children in primary and secondary education has stopped growing and has begun to decline.

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“A Georgetown study recently found that only nine percent of law school professors identify as conservative at the top 50 law schools..”

• Gallup: Higher Education Hits Another Low in Public Trust (Turley)

According to the latest Gallup poll, only 38% of U.S. adults have a “great deal” or “quite a lot” of confidence in higher education. One of the Gallup experts told Fox News that one of the key reasons for the continued slide in public trust is “the perception that there’s a political agenda being taught.” That perception is well documented after most departments purged their ranks of any republican, conservative, or libertarian faculty members. At the same time, many faculty oppose the long-standing principle of institutional neutrality for universities, the subject of a recent debate that I had with the President of the American Association of University Professors.


Gallup’s expert added that there is also a view that we are “not teaching people the right kinds of things they need to succeed in the job once they finish.”As I have previously written, this generation of administrators and faculty has destroyed not just public trust in our institutions but their financial viability. Colleges are closing at an alarming rate as both tuition and revenue fall. Yet, faculty members would prefer to lose their jobs than their bias in hiring and teaching. According to Gallup, roughly a third of polled individuals cited partisan bias or indoctrination on college campuses. That is a large chunk of potential applicants and their families. Worse yet, they are not wrong.

Our campuses have been ideological echo chambers where collective orthodoxy is more prominent than academic inquiry. This group think has created an overtly hostile environment for more than half of this country that consider themselves conservatives or libertarians. As schools struggle to maintain financial stability, they are literally cutting away half of their potential applicant pool. Currently, only 37% of Americans report having “some” confidence in the institution. In any other industry or area, that record of alienation and mistrust would prompt massive changes in management. In higher education, however, colleges and universities remain captive to administrators and faculty members who replicate their views and values to the exclusion of many others.

The result is evident in multiple surveys which reveal widespread self-censorship among students, particularly conservative students. When I confronted a Harvard Law professor in a debate at Harvard Law School with those surveys, he responded by calling these students “conservative snowflakes.” It did not matter that only a third of Harvard students felt comfortable expressing their views in classes or on campus. Since Harvard has also shown the same bias in admissions, only roughly nine percent of the students identify as conservative. Thus, the vast majority of the students who are saying that they self-censor are liberals. This is the environment that the current generation of administrators and faculty have created.

As I have previously written, parents and students who value free speech must increasingly look to public universities where faculty are subject to constitutional guarantees. Public universities may be the final line of defense for free-speech advocates. We now largely have two systems of higher education for those seeking education with a diversity of opinions and viewpoints. Except for outliers like the University of Chicago and other private universities holding the line on free speech, the orthodoxy found at private universities remains a barrier to many conservative and independent thinkers.

If we are to protect these bastions of free speech, legislatures will need to play a more active role in addressing the exclusion of both faculty candidates and speakers on public campuses. Too many faculty members continue to take the view that citizens are a captive audience expected to continue funding their departments, while excluding conservative or dissenting views held by many, if not most, citizens in a given state. If faculty members want to continue maintaining echo chambers for their own viewpoints, they should have to seek private donors to sustain such intolerance and orthodoxy.

Legislatures can demand evidence that schools are maintaining intellectually diverse faculties in determining the level of continued support from citizens. When some of us have argued for such campaigns, academics hypocritically claim that we are calling for political litmus tests or hiring based on political parties. It is an absurd argument that I have previously addressed, including in my book “The Indispensable Right: Free Speech in an Age of Rage.”

The call is for donors and legislators to withhold funding until they see real reforms, including greater diversity on faculties. They are not directing the hiring but looking at the results. The faculty members objecting to such calls have watched passively (or actively supported) the purging of conservative or libertarian faculty from universities and colleges.When confronted by their own obvious ideological litmus tests, they shrug. Some acknowledge that their departments are overwhelmingly liberal, but insist that they just cannot find “competent” or “intellectually promising” conservatives. A few will admit that they do not believe that conservative views have a place in their departments.

It is impossible to deny the purging of faculties to create an academic echo chamber. If a large corporation effectively eliminated women or minorities while claiming no conscious discrimination, they would be trounced in court. For years, I have raised concerns about the intolerance in higher education and surveys showing that many departments no longer have a single Republican as faculty members replicate their own views and values. There is no evidence that any faculty members (including those acknowledging the loss of virtually all faculty from the right of center) are honestly willing to reform their schools.

That ideological echo chamber is hardly an enticement for many facing rising tuition costs and relatively little hope of being taught by faculty with opposing views. A Georgetown study recently found that only nine percent of law school professors identify as conservative at the top 50 law schools — almost identical to the percentage of Trump voters found in the new poll. We are watching the demise of American higher education by its own hand. It will be up to legislators and donors to save these institutions from themselves.

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Home › Forums › Debt Rattle July 16 2026

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  • July 16, 2026 at 9:55 am #244957
    Raúl Ilargi Meijer
    Keymaster

    Edgar Degas Dancers in Blue 1895 • US & Iran Exchange Heavy Strikes For 5th Day (ZH) • Trump Claims ‘Other People’ Could Lead Ground Campaign In Iran
    [See the full post at: Debt Rattle July 16 2026]

    July 16, 2026 at 9:59 am #244959
    Michael Reid
    Participant

    July 16, 2026 at 10:02 am #244960
    Dr. D
    Participant

    Posted yesterday’s just now.

    If you mean “Gulf States did literally nothing and continued to ask us to bring Iran to heel” then yes. That’s what “Losing” Gulf States means.

    Turkey has also moved against Iran, in small measure. Soooo…that’s literally everyone? Iran has no allies anywhere in the world except the Democratic Party?

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