René Magritte The Art of Conversation 1963
🚨 The U.S. Election System is Broken.
— The White House (@WhiteHouse) July 17, 2026
Here’s what the disclosures reveal:
– Hundreds of millions of American voter files in the hands of foreign govs
– Voting machines & ballot-counting systems exposed to hacking & manipulation
– China & other adversaries actively trying to… pic.twitter.com/M7rW3xF9W4
China Produced Fake US Driver’s Licenses to Manufacture Tens of Thousands of Biden Mail-In Votes in 2020
— Benny Johnson (@bennyjohnson) July 17, 2026
Now we know why they pushed to Vote By Mail and changed election law to allow mass Mail-In Ballots pic.twitter.com/qw08HicmcF
🚨 WOW! CNN just ADMITTED that "media executives" made a decision behind closed doors to censor President Trump's bombshell election integrity address, which exposes Chinese involvement in our elections
— Eric Daugherty (@EricLDaugh) July 17, 2026
PULL THEIR LICENSES
"Some network executives felt it would be dangerous to… pic.twitter.com/vxxZiYDyuS
Convoluted. Complicated.
• IRGC Targets US Command Center In Syria In Unprecedented Attack (ZH)
Iran’s large-scale ‘retaliation’ on US bases and Gulf states overnight included a rare first if confirmed. The Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) said it conducted a missile or drone attack on an American special operations command center at al-Tanf in Syria on Friday. The action came after the US bombed Iran for a sixth consecutive night, and while Iranian targets have on several occasions reached into Jordan, it is unprecedented that the Iranians take active aim at sites within Syria. The IRGC stated the attack was in retaliation for the killing of Iranian soldiers in Iranshahr, in southern Iran.Read more …
While the hit on Syria was reported in Reuters based on state media claims, the alleged Tanf strike hasn’t been independently verified: A Syrian military source told Reuters that Iran carried out an attack near al-Tanf, but it had not hit the base itself. There were no casualties or material damage, the source added. The episode is the first reported attack on Syria since the US-Israeli war on Iran began in late February. And more: “The IRGC statement claimed that a radar system, multiple helicopters, and several US personnel were destroyed in the strike. Reuters reported that it has not yet been able to independently verify these claims.”While it is unprecedented or at least unusual for US bases in Syria to come under direct attack by Iran, Tanf base has on multiple occasions come under attack from Iran-aligned Iraqi paramilitaries, and other hostile actors both within Syria and Iraq. US troops had long operated out of Tanf to pressure the Assad government as part of the long-running US-backed regime change project. The US primarily trained the Syrian Free Army (FSA) in that remote desert area – which was an umbrella group of various factions, likely among them jihadists, armed and funded by Washington.
But when Assad was finally ousted in December 2024, replaced by an Al-Qaeda group founder (Jolani/Sharaa), this also put Iranian forces in rapid retreat from the country after an over decade-long proxy war. Syria’s new AQ-linked government has been trying to impress its backers by claiming to bust up Iran-Hezbollah axis arms shipments:
🇸🇾🇮🇷🇱🇧 Here's footage of the massive weapons cache that was hidden inside an oil tanker by Iran and bound for Hezbollah in Lebanon.
— Mario Nawfal (@MarioNawfal) July 17, 2026
Until Syria intercepted it along the way.
Inside were hundreds of drones, missiles, and components…
Writer: Michaelpic.twitter.com/4uEykApWFW
Iran, alongside Russia, had been a close military supporter of the Syrian army, but the Syrian government’s collapse – along with the weaking of Hezbollah with the recent Israeli assassination of much of its leadership in Lebanon, caused most Russian and Iranian troops into a hasty and forced withdrawal.
“.. nearly 92% of respondents expressing dissatisfaction with the country’s current state.”
We don’t see nearly enough news coming from the inside Iran angle. That makes people speculate. Like “Iran is winning”.
• Leaked Document Exposes Iran’s Regime Now on Brink of Collapse (Ward Clark)
Iran is in the process of having its military teeth kicked in, which is presenting the remains of Iran’s civil government (and its military) with an existential problem. But it’s not the only existential problem facing the seventh-century barbarians running Iran right now. Their population has been growing more and more restive, more and more unhappy about living under the iron sandals of the mullahs. Now we can put some numbers to that discontent, in the form of a leaked survey of the Iranian people. Here’s the interesting bit: The survey was commissioned by the Iranian government.Read more …
“A leaked confidential survey by the Iranian Students Polling Agency (ISPA) has revealed a staggering level of public discontent inside Iran, with nearly 92% of respondents expressing dissatisfaction with the country’s current state. The report, first disclosed by Rouydad24 on November 12, shows an unprecedented collapse in public trust toward the ruling establishment. According to the outlet, the findings go far beyond criticism of Masoud Pezeshkian’s government—they reflect “the public’s broader perception of the ruling system.” The data underscores a growing crisis of legitimacy that has shaken the foundations of the clerical regime.Over the past year, Iran has been gripped by worsening economic collapse, systematic human rights abuses, brutal crackdowns, and deepening environmental disasters—from severe water shortages and power cuts to record air pollution. Together, these crises have fueled nationwide anger and resentment, leaving the regime more isolated than ever.”
One expert on the region had some thoughts for Fox News Digital: “Miad Maleki, a senior fellow at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, told Fox News Digital that the report should prompt a fresh assessment of the potential for political upheaval inside Iran. “If anything, this research understates the depth of Iranians’ rage,” Maleki said. “And that is what makes it remarkable: even a survey prepared for the regime’s own president, by its own pollsters, records anger levels above 63%, well beyond the highest rate Gallup has ever recorded anywhere in the world, alongside 81% struggling to put food on the table and a majority expressing hopelessness.”All of this begs the question: What can the Iranian people do about this? The answer remains, likely, “not much.” Iran’s government, or what’s left of it, seems determined to go down swinging, and there are indications they are looking to use their Houthi proxies to widen the scope of the war.
Still, the cause of the downtrodden Iranian people isn’t hopeless. Historically, peasant revolts have often succeeded simply because there are so many peasants, and if you have enough farmers with torches and pitchforks, you can overcome even the King’s knights. The Iranian population has one disadvantage, though, and it’s one that those of us who are Second Amendment advocates are continually pointing out, wherever a totalitarian government is in place: The people are disarmed.
But there’s something the United States could do to help with that, and there’s even a historical precedent in World War II. During that conflict, the USA produced around a million examples of what was called the FP-45 Liberator pistol, a cheap, stamped, single-shot .45 ACP derringer. Each one cost about $2 at the time, which would be about $42 in today’s dollars. The notion was that the French Underground (or anyone else) could use one of these to pop a German and take his weapon. In the end, only about 25,000 were dropped, and it’s unclear how many Germans met their end as a result, but the number’s greater than zero.
Maybe the United States should start mass-producing these again and air-dropping them into some Iranian neighborhoods. What downside is there for the USA, after all? If Iran is to see real, substantive change, it will have to be the Iranian people who do it – and this survey sure makes it look like they are ready to rock.
“NBC, ABC, and CNN, chose not to carry what may be the biggest story in a generation..”
• NBC, ABC, and CNN Blacked Out the President’s Speech (Victoria Taft)
President Donald Trump’s speech about how China and other bad actors compromised American elections in 2020 and 2024 might be the biggest speech this side of “a day which will live in infamy.” Unlike the respect accorded to Franklin Delano Roosevelt, however, the news media at NBC, ABC, and CNN decided in advance that President Trump could not be trusted to tell the truth about the Titanic hitting America’s election iceberg. So they refused to give the president the time he requested to tell Americans, in the middle of vacation season, that America’s elections have been screwed up for at least the last two major election cycles.Read more …
More’s the pity. For the media, I mean. Because you, NBC, ABC, and CNN, chose not to carry what may be the biggest story in a generation, you just lost Aunt Mary and Uncle John. Have you met my Uncle John and Aunt Mary? John and Mary are no simps. I’ve known my Uncle John for my whole life and my Aunt Mary for most of it, and the thing is, they saw the stories coming out over the last couple of years about election issues, including no voter ID, bums being paid to register to vote (how you doin’, Brenda?), and “China printed how many ballots?” stories this whole time, which were already UNDERreported by the mainstream media. But surely, they thought, Trump’s bringing the receipts. “This is gonna be big!”And he did bring those receipts… even though Google News pre-fact-checked the president of the United States for the pre-crime of lying.
Google News calls Trump a liar pic.twitter.com/NkfafRdHYe
— Dan Schneider (@Schneider_DC) July 17, 2026
Trump quoted intelligence documents he just declassified that will be available for the proletariat to read on document dump Fri-yay. They were found in an already announced “secret room” full of burn bags containing some of America’s biggest secrets that Presidents Barack Obama and Joe Biden thought were destroyed. That’s better than the 51 “intelligence professionals” telling us that Hunter Biden’s laptop was fake when it wasn’t, riiight? The president said the documents revealed “shocking vulnerabilities in our election infrastructure. This evidence shows that the election system we have dangerously exposes — and really exposes — like levels never thought possible to hacking, exploitation, and foreign interference.”Just for grins, remember with me the government cybersecurity guy from CISA who said the 2020 election was the most “secure” election in American history, or some such poppycock. Yeah, he was — what’s that word? — wrong. Maybe intentionally wrong. President Trump said that, in fact, that line was part of a “cover-up of this colossal security breach [that] is even more disturbing in light of the additional information showing that China engaged in other election related activities to undermine my first administration and our 2020 campaign.” But sure, no biggie, according to the blackout media. These malefactors, including the media, “fought like hell not to have a Donald Trump win, and for good reason.”
Even Aunt Mary and Uncle John knew this was a big freaking deal. The president went on to verify that, “U.S. spy agencies began learning about the compromise of voter registration files in 2020, when they discovered that tens of millions of voters’ data in 18 states had been bought, stolen, or hacked by China” but they didn’t tell the American people or Donald Trump. mIn fact, the president told the American people that this information about foreign breaching of American elections was intentionally kept from him and censored from his President’s Daily Brief (PDB). That used to mean something to the George-Bush-is-Hitler American left, but how far we’ve come.
Uncle John won’t forget. Indeed, the military veteran heard the president say “those responsible for sounding the alarm instead kept the information secret and hidden. They did not disclose to me as president or to anyone else, and to the best of our knowledge, they did not inform Congress.” And he thought, “Whose side are these spooks on, anyway? Uncle John and Aunt Mary missed the part about the CIA being in charge of U.S. elections. Is 278,000 voters illegally voting in key congressional districts not a big deal or something?
WATCH: President Trump denounces 278K non-citizens have illegally voted in elections per DHS. "This is worse than any Third World country." pic.twitter.com/HyQyMQ3gge
— Jorge Bonilla (@BonillaJL) July 17, 2026Mary and John really exist. And they are legion. Bad move, TV “news” elitists.
“They’re censoring the President of the United States. Somehow, I don’t recall them ever doing such a thing when Joe Biden occupied the White House and would tell a boatload of falsehoods.”
• CNN Tells on Itself, Reveals Why It Didn’t Air Trump’s Speech Live (Arama)
As we reported, President Donald Trump gave an important prime-time speech on Thursday evening that focused on the vulnerabilities in our election system and revealed newly declassified information, which he said showed how China had acquired U.S. voter files. Now you might think that this would be something the media would want to cover, given how much time they spent on the fake Russia collusion hoax. But as we reported, major liberal media outlets like ABC, NBC, and MS NOW passed on the president’s prime-time address, even though such speeches are routinely televised in full. But in some ways, CNN was the worst, revealing more than it probably intended when it explained why it didn’t air the speech.Read more …
🚨 WOW! CNN just ADMITTED that "media executives" made a decision behind closed doors to censor President Trump's bombshell election integrity address, which exposes Chinese involvement in our elections
— Eric Daugherty (@EricLDaugh) July 17, 2026
PULL THEIR LICENSES
"Some network executives felt it would be dangerous to… pic.twitter.com/vxxZiYDyuS
“Some network executives felt it would be dangerous to just air Trump’s speech live, in full, unedited without knowing what he was going to say ahead of time. That’s where we are in America.” Why is it dangerous? Why can’t they allow you to judge what he says on its own merit? “Trump’s election lies led to violence,” Stelter said. Even this is misleading, since Trump never incited violence, told people to act peacefully, and when they didn’t, encouraged people to stop on Jan. 6. It apparently wasn’t “dangerous” to falsely report on Russia collusion or any of the slew of other false reports CNN and other media have made about Trump, which greatly divided the country and still has people believing lies for years.What they’re telling you is that you’re only entitled to hear it through their filter and the way they report it. You can’t hear it without the spin from them. It’s apparently “dangerous” if you are allowed to come to your own conclusions about what is said. Why didn’t they want you to hear the details about vulnerabilities? Then they say it’s not a “plot” — as they all decide to shut you off from it. They’re censoring the President of the United States. Somehow, I don’t recall them ever doing such a thing when Joe Biden occupied the White House and would tell a boatload of falsehoods.
“That’s where we are in America,” Brian Stelter warned. Yes, that is very troubling — just not for any of the reasons he thinks.
‘Dangerous to air it live, unedited’ means dangerous to let people hear it without someone telling them what to think first. That’s the whole confession right there. https://t.co/GKPbjyqwAe
— Jewels Jones ® (@JewelsJonesLive) July 17, 2026
“I think the mistake was made by the networks not to show it in its entirety, so people could see him in full and understand just how far this man has gone down the road,”
• James Carville Blasts Major News Networks For Not Carrying Trump Speech (JTN)
Democratic strategist James Carville criticized several major news outlets Friday for not airing President Donald Trump’s primetime speech on Thursday, stating they missed an opportunity to show the president acting “loonier than a tune.”mThe strategist was referring to the president’s speech, in which he presented new evidence detailing multiple security breaches in elections he said were concealed by a self-proclaimed “shadow government” and the Biden administration. Mainstream media networks, ABC, CNN and NBC, all declined to show the speech on its news programs and opted to stream it online and show clips of it with commentary during their regular live programming. “I think the president of the United States acting loonier than a tune is newsworthy,” Carville told CNN host Wolf Blitzer. “I don’t think we should have hidden that from the American people.” Blitzer questioned whether Carville believed that the president should have received even more publicity, to which Carville confirmed. “I think the mistake was made by the networks not to show it in its entirety, so people could see him in full and understand just how far this man has gone down the road,” he said. “I would say there was nothing normal about [the speech],” he continued. “You can do it with clips, and you can get people on, but there’s nothing like people sitting there, watching the whole thing to tell them what’s really going on.” The comment comes after Trump called for ABC and NBC to have their broadcasting licenses revoked over their refusal to air the full speech, claiming they were covering up what he said was election fraud. “In a rare move, NBC and ABC fake news have both said that they would not cover this speech,” Trump said. “They knew what it was about. Fraud like this should mean a revocation of their licenses.”Read more …
“. . . the Democrat Party. . . are morally bankrupt nincompoops who have been beaten by the establishment like the rented mules they are. “ —Kurt Schlichter on X
• Acceleration (James Howard Kunstler)
Strange to relate, in last night’s speech to the nation on election chicanery, President Trump managed to both overwhelm and underwhelm public expectation. He touched on voting machine shenanigans, registration skullduggery, cyber-fuckery, labor union toolery, ballot fraud, and especially China meddling.Read more …
Internal CIA / FBI docs at the time said that China’s policy around the 2020 US election was to “leverage all domestic and foreign elements” opposed to the President to prevent his re-election. The Intel bunch never sent that memo to the White House. They were too busy pushing fake Russia meddling, fake impeachment, and a fake Covid-19 pandemic. Then they declared the 2020 was “the most secure election in history.” As of yesterday, the President de-classified many thousands of Intel agency documents for the public (and news media) to peruse. And naturally, the major cable news networks (except Fox) declined to broadcast the speech. As of Friday morning, The New York Times leads the offensive to disparage the actual news.
He’s Obsessed, that Trump! The actual news: China hacked over 220-million voter registrations, plus social security files; manufactured and shipped tens of thousands of fake US driver’s licenses to be used in motor-voter states; and paid favored US journalists to write negative articles about Mr. Trump. The Department of Homeland Security reported 278,000 non-citizens were registered to vote in federal elections. But that number was compiled only from states that complied with DOJ demands for voter rolls. California, New York, and Illinois and many other states refused, so the number is probably more than double the DHS figure.
The big take-away was that US Intel agencies withheld all this intel from the President of the US, Mr. Trump, in the lead-up to the 2020 vote. Yes, there really is Deep State, as seen starkly in a now-declassified memo from the then-chief of the FBI’s Counterintelligence Division, one Nikki Floris, who wrote “I’m basically running a shadow government at this point” by hiding information from POTUS. Ms. Floris is now employed as Microsoft’s Director of Insider Risk (former Deputy Attorney General under “Joe Biden,” Lisa Monaco, is President of Microsoft Global Affairs.)
According to the NY Post’s Miranda Devine, in August 2020, Nikki Floris also tried to hoodwink Senators Chuck Grassley and Rob Johnson, telling them the Hunter Biden laptop was a Russian op — a gag later ratified by fifty-one former intel officers (including five former CIA Directors) who signed the notorious October letter to the news media. All of this activity, Mr. Trump averred, amounted to a cover-up of a conspiracy by members of the permanent bureaucracy to overthrow the government. And that is exactly why more than one federal grand jury is convened in Fort Pierce, Florida, right now, to sort out who, exactly, is going to account for these rather grave crimes. The new document release is apt to accelerate the work of US Attorneys there, since declassification is the biggest routine holdup in the process.
On the “underwhelming” side of the president’s speech, there was little mention of the swing-state ballot fraud enabled and conducted by local election officials in Fulton County, Georgia, Maricopa County, Arizona, Milwaukee, Wisconsin, Antrim County, Michigan, Mesa County, Colorado, and Philadelphia, PA. But you know that the FBI raided Fulton County election headquarters months ago and seized around 700 boxes of evidence, and then reassigned 260 FBI agents to examine all the material. All that might still be to-come.
Then there is the question of the millions of dollars that Hunter Biden winkled out of China over the years before the 2020 election — records of which were stuffed in his infamous laptop, along with photos and video of his sexual exploits there — and whether Hunter’s father, Joe, was a blackmail captive of China leading up to that election. Stay tuned on that.
Altogether, Mr. Trump’s speech and document drops are obviously an effort to move election reform, the Save America Act, through Congress, where it has languished in a procedural miasma for months due to one man: Senate Majority Leader John Thune. The President’s emphasis last night on China’s election meddling is purposeful in ways not broadly apprehended, but I will tell you:
If Congress does not find a way to vote that bill out to Mr. Trump’s desk before they recess for the rest of the summer in late July, Mr. Trump will invoke an executive order under the National Emergencies Act (NEA) — Public Law 94-412; codified at 50 U.S.C. §§ 1601–1651 — requiring the fifty states to employ all the same provisions that are in the SAVE America Act for the 2026 midterm elections. Under the NEA, the federal courts cannot be used to fight or strike down the executive order; it can only be stopped by a two-thirds vote in both the House and the Senate.
You can’t have anyone but Americans judge … Americans. It makes no sense. Should Americans be judged under Chinese law?
• Why Washington Is Challenging The International Criminal Court (ET)
Secretary of State Marco Rubio’s recent announcement of a “whole-of-government” campaign to challenge the International Criminal Court (ICC) has generated predictable discourse worldwide.Read more …
The Trump administration is applying diplomatic pressure on allied governments to reconsider their support for the Court. Washington is calling for expanded sanctions against ICC officials, visa restrictions, and renewed insistence that the Court has no lawful authority over citizens of sovereign nations. For the usual globalist critics, this is just another example of Trumpian unilateralism. But for sensible Americans, it reflects the president’s determination to place “America First” ahead of international institutions.In fact, the issue deserves thoughtful examination that goes beyond ideological rhetoric. At its heart lies one of the oldest questions in constitutional government: Who has the ultimate authority to judge the citizens of a sovereign nation—its own national institutions, or an international tribunal whose judges are beyond the reach of that nation’s electorate? The answer explains why every American administration since the ICC’s creation has refused to recognize the Court’s jurisdiction over American servicemen and government officials.
The International Criminal Court was established under the Rome Statute in 1998 and formally began operations in 2002. It was created with an admirable purpose: to prosecute individuals responsible for genocide, crimes against humanity, war crimes, and, more recently, the crime of aggression when national courts either cannot or will not act. The horrors of Rwanda and the former Yugoslavia convinced many that the “international order” needed a permanent institution capable of bringing the world’s worst criminals to justice. Few people disputed that objective.
American governments have supported the prosecution of genuine war criminals. What Washington has never accepted is the proposition that an international court may exercise criminal jurisdiction over American citizens without the United States’ consent.
Global Overreach
Bill Clinton authorized the signing of the Rome Statute during the final days of his administration, but he deliberately declined to submit it to the Senate for ratification, acknowledging significant constitutional concerns. George W. Bush later informed the United Nations that the United States did not intend to become a party to the treaty. Congress reinforced that position through the American Service-Members’ Protection Act of 2002, declaring that American military personnel should never be surrendered to the ICC without U.S. consent.Subsequent administrations differed in tone but not in principle. Barack Obama cooperated with the Court in certain cases involving foreign atrocities while continuing to reject its jurisdiction over Americans. Joe Biden lifted some sanctions imposed during Donald Trump’s first term but tacitly maintained that the ICC possessed no lawful authority over U.S. personnel. The American constitutional objection has remained remarkably consistent across the partisan divide. The present controversy over the court’s power arose from the ICC’s contention that if an alleged offense occurs within the territory of a country that has ratified the Rome Statute, the Court may prosecute even citizens of countries that have never accepted its jurisdiction.
The Court’s reasoning formed the basis for investigations involving American personnel in Afghanistan and has also underpinned recent proceedings involving Israeli leaders. Sovereign nations are right to see this as global overreach. History offers good reasons for American concern. International organizations, such as the United Nations, are not immune from politicization. Their legitimacy depends not only upon noble aspirations but also upon public confidence that they exercise their authority impartially and within clearly defined legal limits.
Whenever global institutions expand their jurisdiction beyond what states originally contemplated, they inevitably invite resistance. This concern echoes an argument made 50 years ago by the late Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan. In his influential 1975 book “A Dangerous Place” and in articles and speeches during his tenure as U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, Moynihan argued that the United States had entered an era of permanent “opposition” within international institutions.
He believed that organizations originally established to foster cooperation had increasingly become grievance forums for a multinational majority of former European colonies that were determined to disparage the United States and its longstanding allies. Moynihan did not reject international cooperation; quite the opposite. He believed that international institutions were valuable—but only when they respected truth, legal restraint, and the sovereign equality of nations. When those institutions exceeded their proper authority or became instruments of political activism, he believed democratic governments had both the right and the obligation to resist.
Half a century later, Moynihan’s warning is remarkably relevant. The present dispute is not just about whether war crimes should be prosecuted. Every civilized nation supports bringing genuine perpetrators of genocide and crimes against humanity to justice.The real question is whether or not an international court has an independent right to define the limits of its own authority. American constitutional tradition holds that treaties bind only those nations that freely consent to them. The Senate never ratified the Rome Statute. Consequently, successive administrations have maintained that no international body can acquire criminal jurisdiction over Americans through the unilateral decisions of other governments.
This is not merely a legal technicality. It goes to the heart of democratic accountability. American judges answer to constitutional procedures established by the American people. Congress writes the laws. Presidents appoint judges under constitutional safeguards. Elections provide ultimate political accountability. The judges of the International Criminal Court answer to no American electorate. American citizens cannot vote them out of office, alter their mandate, or amend the Rome Statute under which they operate. This exempts the Court from democratic accountability and permits it to exercise extraordinary powers over individuals who never consented to its authority. Within this order of things, Americans are as inclined to trust the impartiality of international judges as they are to trust the neutrality of international soccer referees.
ICE agents have become very careful. But they do have a job to do.
• Why ICE Shootings Are Usually Justified (ZH)
It has been noted by many deportation advocates that the enforcement of basic immigration laws has always been a responsibility of government. It’s not a new, unique, bizarre or despotic policy – It’s simply common sense. However, in the past decade, the common sense enforcement of the law is being treated like a humanitarian crisis akin to slavery, ethnic cleansing and genocide. Why?Read more …
It’s not because the general public sees it that way. The citizenry did not suddenly change their views on mass immigration overnight. Most Americans are not particularly enthusiastic about “multiculturalism” or ethnic replacement and they never have been. The big change was the focus of the progressive spin machine. The multiculturalists turned up the heat on their propaganda from moderate to full-blown “we are the world” cult insanity, and they did this in the span of a few years. In other words, the pro-mass immigration movement is not a real movement; it’s astroturf largely created by an army of non-profit organizations with wealthy globalist backers.
Without these NGOs, “anti-ICE” protests and disruption groups would not exist. These people get compensated for the things they do. That’s how they’re able to spend most of their day tracking ICE agents without losing their jobs – because provocation is their job. You may have heard of the recent ICE related shooting in Maine this past week, in which a confrontation between agents and an illegal migrant from Columbia led to a deadly outcome. Maine activists took to the streets to protest the fatal shooting of the illegal by an ICE officer in Biddeford.
What they don’t mention is that 26-year-old Joan Guerrero reportedly attempted to run the agent over with his van and that’s why he was shot. DHS almost put a hold on traffic stops by ICE in response to the event, but Trump immediately brought the hammer down on that decision and traffic stops will continue unabated. Any capitulation, any sign of weakness in the face of left-wing disruption, only emboldens them further.
There is no training that can be conducted that will make ICE agents safer from migrants and leftists trying to kill them. Deadly force is the only response that makes a difference. The establishment media has tried desperately to make Guerrero into a martyr, much like they did with Renee Good and Alex Pretti, but with little success. The reason should be obvious and predictable: Americans are fed up with far-left activism and illegal immigration, and they’re tired of the disinformation surrounding these incidents.
Almost no one talks about Renee Good or Alex Pretti because the narratives around their deaths were debunked. When video footage was released showing Good attempting to run over an ICE agent and Pretti (armed with a pistol) attacking an ICE agent in the middle of an arrest, the outrage fizzled and the public realized they were being played. At bottom, the NGO’s want these shootings. They want the chaos and they want to sacrifice low-IQ activists to create martyrdom scenarios. Watch these groups in their post-killing demonstrations; they look almost happy or giddy. They believe that with each tragic sacrifice they are getting closer to a popular consensus against deportations.
Evidence suggests they are mistaken. The majority of Americans in polling still widely support deportations and strict controls on the southern border. What the NGOs didn’t take into consideration was the factor of fatigue. The American populace is tired. The public is growing increasingly acclimated to the idea that when activists and illegal migrants engage in violent encounters with ICE, those people are likely to be killed in the process.
It seems like common sense, but the past decade of propaganda has conditioned many Americans to the idea that immigration enforcement is supposed to be soft and unseen. This is naive. The truth is, most incidents would not have occurred if it weren’t for leftist disruption teams, and the public is starting to figure this out. They are also starting to figure out that much of the hysteria around deportations has been conjured from thin air by left-wing news outlets.
The goal is organized insanity – An engineered atmosphere of chaos. It is the attempt to overwhelm the brains of the citizenry and train them to associate all immigration enforcement with constant tension and random violence. They hope that the public will eventually beg for it all to stop, even if it means keeping borders open. But, as noted, there’s another potential outcome; the public stops caring completely. When activists and migrants engage in organized insanity and get killed, no one flinches. That’s what is happening today. Ultimately, the solution to ICE related deaths is simple: Just don’t interfere with or attack ICE agents.
“As their wealthy neighbors depart, those remaining will have to make up for their loss. Being among the last to leave New York will be a costly distinction.”
• New York Losing Billions as Millionaires Flee the Big Apple (Turley)
Below is my column in the New York Post on the sharp decline in millionaires in New York, costing the state billions as many flee. As Mayor Mamdani holds another press conference promising to end the “violence of evictions,” businesses are reading the writing on the wall. Rather than work to make the state more attractive to wealthy residents and businesses, Democrats are seeking to diminish the appeal of two-tax states. They want to tap into a long-barred area of taxation: the wealth rather than just the income of citizens. By passing a national wealth tax, Democrats will reduce the benefit of fleeing high-tax states like California and New York. Here is the column:Read more …
“Start spreadin’ the news, I’m leavin’ today” — that’s how the famous song “New York, New York” captures the Big Apple’s draw. Today, the line is becoming more ironic than iconic: Many people are indeed leaving … from New York, New York. Worse yet, those “vagabond shoes” that “are longing to stray” are on the feet of the wealthiest New Yorkers. And as they flee, according to a new study, they’re taking away billions in badly needed tax revenue. As Mayor Zohran Mamdani and others pledge massive social programs and free services by taxing the wealthy, the wealthy are just melting away.The reason is simple: if “you can make it there, you can make it anywhere.” In today’s economy, it’s no longer necessary or even particularly beneficial to be in New York to make money in financial and other areas. When any business meeting is a screen and a click away, you can go to a low-tax state like Florida or Texas and do as well as you can in the Big Apple. Not surprisingly, many are choosing the money over the mystique and the madness. This week the Citizens Budget Commission reported that New York’s share of millionaires fell from 12.7% in 2010 to 8.7% in 2022 — the largest drop of any state.
The exodus of wealthy citizens left New York short $10.7 billion in tax revenue. By denouncing the remaining wealthy as effectively freeloaders who are “not paying their fair share,” Mamdani is only spurring them on.It’s a demonstrably false claim that I discuss in my book Rage and the Republic — and part of a growing class-warfare theme the left is deliberately using to fuel political rage. Yet it’s easy to form a mob — and far more difficult to control it. That is particularly the case when your economic policies destroy your economy, and your ability to pay for all the free services that you’ve promised.
There’s a good-faith debate to be had over optimal tax levels, but the fact is that the top 10% of Americans pay more in taxes than the other 90% of the country. The top 1% pays roughly 40% of federal taxes. As rational actors flee the state, Mamdani and New York Democrats are forced to cull the shrinking herd of high-end taxpayers who remain, layering on special fees like a pied-à-terre tax to be imposed on NYC’s luxury property owners. And rather than change course to make New York a more attractive place to do business and live, national Democrats are moving to make other states no better — by nationalizing wealth taxes and by taxing fleeing citizens as if they still lived in the state.
Many are following Sen. Bernie Sanders’ and Rep. Ro Khanna’s call to impose a federal wealth tax they’ve dubbed the Billionaire Tax. The idea is to stem the exodus from California and New York by giving the highest earners no place to go . . . except out of the country. That’s the option many took when similar wealth taxes were attempted in countries like France, only to be rescinded after doing massive economic damage. Fleecing the wealthy is a revenue loser. New York is losing billions, and California has reportedly lost trillions due to top taxpayers’ departure.
Unwilling to adopt greater fiscal restraints and truly compete for businesses and residents, Democrats are looking for pockets of new areas to tax. The wealth tax is a virtual bonanza of untapped revenue — if it can make it through the courts. Our Constitution was amended in 1913 to allow for an income tax, not a wealth tax. Once you pay taxes on what you earn, you’re supposed to be able to use your hard-earned money to buy whatever you wish, from bikes to boats. Democrats now want to tax those possessions: “your Rembrandts, your stock portfolio, your diamonds and your yachts,” as Sen. Elizabeth Warren once dramatically warned. And Khanna recently confirmed what some of us have been saying for years: The Billionaire Tax isn’t only for billionaires.
“The tax should not stop at billionaires,” he said in a pitch to his party’s rising socialist movement; “it must reach centimillionaires. The tax has to reach all fortunes $50 million and up.” Khanna and others hope that, once taken nationally, a wealth tax would destroy the benefit of moving to low-tax states — and open up literally trillions in new potential revenue. In the meantime, New York will continue to burn billions as it taps its dwindling number of millionaires. As their wealthy neighbors depart, those remaining will have to make up for their loss. Being among the last to leave New York will be a costly distinction. They will indeed “wake up” — and find that they’re “king of the hill, top of the list” for wealth redistribution.
A portable energy company. That’s rare. And precious.
“New APR Energy owns and maintains a fleet of gas turbines with more than 1 gigawatt of power generation capacity ..”
• Musk Buys Florida-Based Energy Company (ET)
Elon Musk has acquired a power company based in Jacksonville, Fla., paying $1 billion for the mobile gas-turbine provider as a possible solution to data center energy needs. The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) lists Musk as the acquiring party, with New APR Energy, LLC listed as the acquired entity. Neither party issued public statements on the deal that closed May 14. Local business news outlet Jacksonville Daily Record first reported on the news in June before it gained national media attention in recent days. The potential cost of the deal was found in a separate filing with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) in which Technologies Group reported selling its 5 percent non-voting stake in New APR Energy in a May 28 SEC report.Read more …
Duos said its sale generated $50.4 million in net proceeds, which implies the Musk deal was worth at least $1 billion. Musk continues to invest in artificial intelligence (AI) development with the research company he founded, xAI, and its chatbot Grok. His xAI company runs the Colossus data center in Tennessee, a $20 billion facility near a power plant site, where he has had to rent turbine units as he waits for grid power to the site. New APR Energy owns and maintains a fleet of gas turbines with more than 1 gigawatt of power generation capacity, according to a statement from the company in January, when it expanded capacity.The company has been delivering power to clients for more than 20 years, deploying its fleets “in as little as 30 to 90 days,” the statement said. Musk’s purchase of the Florida company represents his second investment in the energy sector. In 2006, Musk helped fund SolarCity, a company founded by his cousins, Peter and Lyndon Rive, which grew to be the largest residential solar installer in the United States. Tesla bought SolarCity in an all-stock deal worth about $2.6 billion in 2016 and turned it into Tesla Energy. Tech expert and podcaster Aakash Gupta said Musk’s latest transaction exposed the AI industry’s current problems.
“What [Musk] bought tells you where the real bottleneck in AI is,” Gupta said in a July 16 post on X. New APR Energy operates a fleet of mobile gas and diesel turbines with over 1 gigawatt of generation capacity—enough to power 750,000 homes at once. The fleet, which was built for disaster response, arrives on trucks and can be delivered, installed, and commissioned in a month. The fast set-up time makes sense for Musk, who has already lived through delays with xAI’s first Memphis plant, Gupta said.
“Environmental groups sued. The [Justice Department] intervened to keep the turbines running. He was renting the most important input to his most important company,” Gupta said. “So he bought the landlord. … Every AI lab can buy the same chips. Only one of them now owns a power plant fleet that ships by truck.”
Russia has guardrails. Also financially.
• Oligarchs Just Snuck HOW MUCH Money Out of Russia? (Stephen Green)
Russia has a money problem, and while it isn’t unusual — the Kremlin wants to spend more than it takes in — increasing wartime pressures have the country’s richest moving their riches out of the country. Three hundred billion dollars worth of riches just in the first half of 2026, according to a report today from Bloomberg News. “Several billionaires moved some additional assets out of Russia recently, amid concerns about the banking sector, according to some of the people and documents including corporate filings and property purchase records” that were seen and reviewed by Bloomberg. Paywalled link, sorry.Read more …
For a little perspective, the entire Moscow Exchange had a total market cap of a little less than $300 billion in October 2021, before the war. So it’s a bit like the entire pre-war MOEX just got up and left the country. Perhaps more telling is that this year’s capital flight reverses a trend that began in 2022 with the full-scale invasion of Ukraine. Russian billionaires used to be welcome sights in the West, with their “reputations for major business deals, glamorous property purchases, and lavish parties.” When sanctions hit, they “forced many Russian tycoons to move assets back to Russia and re-register their companies there.” The Kremlin enjoyed a sugar rush of capital inflows.The problem with sugar rushes isn’t just that they wear off — it’s that they can leave you with a nasty headache. Former Ukrainian official Anton Gerashchenko reported earlier this week that “The fuel crisis in Russia has long ceased to be a problem solely for drivers and farmers,” and is now “gradually becoming a problem for the state budget.” According to Gerashchenko, Russian authorities originally projected that the deficit in 2026 would amount to 3.8 trillion rubles ($49 billion), or 1.6% of GDP. “However, in the first half of the year alone, it reached 5.731 trillion rubles ( $74 billion) (2.5% of GDP).” In the first half of the year, the Kremlin’s budget deficit was already 50% higher than the full-year projection.
“Ukrainian strikes on Russian oil refineries played a significant role in this.” Despite sanctions, Moscow currently sells record amounts of crude oil, but that’s nothing to brag about. Russia sells crude because the country isn’t producing enough refined products for export. It’s the equivalent of the Amish selling low-margin lumber because they forgot how to make furniture. Moscow has raised taxes left and right, including a 10% hike in the VAT to 22% from 20%, expanding the tax rolls, and higher excise taxes on alcohol, tobacco, and sodas. But it isn’t nearly enough.
“Last year,” Mario Seminerio reported, “the Russian judiciary carried out seizures and confiscations worth more than $50 billion” to try and fill the growing gap between the Kremlin’s increasing wartime needs and shrinking revenues. Now, Putin’s judiciary is going after higher-profile targets, including the Rusal Group for alleged “failure to comply with a warning regarding an aluminum price adjustment.” Here’s the catch. Rusal Group is run by Oleg Deripaska, who is sometimes referred to as “Putin’s favorite oligarch.” If the Kremlin is putting the squeeze even on Deripaska, then likely nobody is safe.
Is the US Senate like the Roman Senate?
• The Trump Caesarship (Paul Craig Roberts)
Zionist agenda of Greater Israel–from the Nile to Pakistan. The millions of displaced persons from Washington’s 21st century wars for Greater Israel resulting in the destruction of Iraq, Libya, Syria, and Palestine are changing the politics of Europe and America where these displaced persons have taken root and are entering politics and media.Read more …
Yesterday on July 16, the Washington Post reported that more than 100 House Democrats voted to cut off military aid to Israel for fiscal year 2027. That would mean a lack of US dollars for Israel to use to repurchase, as it annually does, the US Government with political campaign donations by which Israel uses our money to buy our government. The vote indicates that Israel’s rule of the United States is running into difficulties. The pressure is on the Israel-worshipping Republicans, bought and paid for with AIPAC political campaign contributions provided by Washington’s annual payments to Israel, to pass AIPAC’s bill that criminalizes any criticism of Israel, including the implied criticism of non-support of Israel.The Israel Lobby is desperate to create law that would lead to the arrest of Democrat elected officials who do not support Israel’s agendas and crimes. The Republicans have shown their determination to sacrifice American interests, money, lives, and the First Amendment for Israel. By renewing at Netanyahu’s insistence Washington’s war against opponents to Great Israel–principally Iran and the southern Lebanon militia Hezbollah, Trump is further endangering his administration. For example, when was the last time you saw anyone wearing a MAGA hat?
For years I have pointed out, to no avail, that the failure of American democracy was turning the head of the executive branch into a Caesar, as happened in Rome. When democracy fails, as the American one has, a Caesar becomes necessary. Trump is already adopting the posture of a Caesar. Rome under the Caesars had their portraits on the coinage. Trump has adopted this sign of Caesarship. The US Mint is to produce a one dollar coin with Trump’s image.
The Roman Caesars ruled by force, by violence, and this is Trump’s approach. In his latest outburst, Trump claimed that everything in Iran, not just the oil, belongs to America. He has annexed Venezuela’s oil and government. He claims Greenland which is part of Denmark a US and NATO ally. He claims Cuba, and perhaps Canada and Mexico. For a person of my generation, which is rapidly dying out, these are incomprehensible claims. This is nothing we have ever previously seen. And the youth know no better. It is what they are born into. To them it is normal. As the rising generations see this as normal, what is there to stop it?
From Corruption “R” Us.
• Ukrainian Parliament Picks New PM Linked To ‘Zelensky’s Wallet’ Mindich (RT)
Ukraine’s parliament on Thursday approved former Naftogaz CEO Sergey Koretsky as prime minister. Koretsky has been linked to disgraced businessman Timur Mindich, a close associate of Vladimir Zelensky who fled to Israel amid a major corruption scandal. Koretsky’s appointment comes as Zelensky presses ahead with a sweeping government reshuffle less than a year after the previous overhaul, while Ukrainian forces face mounting battlefield pressure and authorities continue to grapple with large-scale corruption in the energy sector.Read more …
The investigation centers on an alleged $100 million embezzlement scheme involving state nuclear operator Energoatom. Western-backed anti-corruption agencies have tied the affair to Mindich, who has long been regarded as one of Zelensky’s closest associates and dubbed “Zelensky’s wallet” by Ukrainian media. Koretsky was “100% Mindich’s man,” Ukrainian lawmaker Aleksey Goncharenko claimed last August, citing the so-called ‘Mindich tapes’ – leaked surveillance recordings from the corruption investigation published by the media.According to Goncharenko, Koretsky was placed in charge of Ukrnaftoburinnya, a private energy company previously owned by Zelensky’s former patron, oligarch Igor Kolomoysky, after it was seized by the state. “The idea: to take control of cash flows, withdraw billions, and install your own people. This plan was discussed and implemented right in Mindich’s apartment. Everything is recorded on the tapes,” Goncharenko said. “The main executor is Sergey Koretsky,” the lawmaker added, alleging that the executive coordinated all key decisions with Mindich and, by extension, with Zelensky.
The Energoatom affair has deepened tensions between Zelensky’s administration and the Western-backed National Anti-Corruption Bureau of Ukraine (NABU) and the Specialized Anti-Corruption Prosecutor’s Office (SAPO). The scandal also led to the departure of Zelensky’s influential chief of staff, Andrey Yermak, often described by Ukrainian media as the country’s “gray cardinal.” In May, NABU and SAPO named Yermak as a suspect in a separate money laundering investigation.
🚨 JUST IN: DHS Sec. Markwayne Mullin just CONFIRMED a bombshell US report found nearly 250,000 NON-CITIZENS registered to vote in 4 STATES…
— Eric Daugherty (@EricLDaugh) July 17, 2026
…he still has 46 OTHER STATES to comb through
California, New Jersey, Nevada and Pennsylvania.
SAVE AMERICA ACT NOW! pic.twitter.com/XNPXx7W7C3
Elon Musk just told the world his plan to own the one thing every AI on Earth depends on.
— Dustin (@r0ck3t23) July 16, 2026
The silicon.
The entire AI industry is fighting over the same layer. Models. Parameters. Data. Benchmarks.
All of it runs on chips none of them produce.
Every frontier lab on the planet… pic.twitter.com/hMeuysjkmz
Elon Musk is building a training cluster/ supercomputer so vast it’s visible from space.
— Nina Schick (@NinaDSchick) July 16, 2026
Colossus, in Memphis, Tennessee, is more than an AI experiment. It’s a statement of intent. A million GPUs wired together by the end of this year. A $40 to $60 billion physical bet that… pic.twitter.com/5761rIGF9n
Dear @elonmusk,
— MAGA Voice (@MAGAVoice) July 17, 2026
President Trump just proved why 𝕏 is so important
Trump just exposed ABC and NBC for not allowing people to hear one of his most important speeches
Thank you for buying 𝕏 ❤️
Sincerely,
77+ Million MAGA Patriots pic.twitter.com/imMZe3FMAn
JOHN SOLOMON: If Iran hacking just 100,000 voter files was election interference, and China stealing 40 million British voter files was a national crisis, why isn’t China stealing and compromising 220 million American voter files the biggest election scandal in America?
— Bannon’s WarRoom (@Bannons_WarRoom) July 17, 2026
The only… pic.twitter.com/O3sm3U2GcR
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