Johannes Vermeer Woman in Blue Reading a Letter 1662-3
https://twitter.com/TVNewsNow/status/2081870166606954953?s=20 https://twitter.com/VigilantFox/status/2081934073006522766?s=20 https://twitter.com/EricLDaugh/status/2081882207208063423?s=20
“Trump has on Tuesday reiterated to Fox News that Iran understands it will never have a nuclear, and reaffirmed that the two sides are talking.”
• War Pause Holds, Trump Vows To Destroy Pickaxe Mountain If No Deal (ZH)
US-Iran attacks have remained paused, and oil prices have extended their declines, as President Trump has claimed Tehran and Washington are now having “very friendly talks” while at the same time suggesting negotiations might not be prolonged. “We are in very deep talks with Iran. If they don’t work out, we will go back to very strong military action,” Trump told Axios, as we highlighted previously.Read more …
But possibly the most promising development in terms of an off-ramp is that Oman has presented Iran with a plan backed by Gulf states to manage the Strait of Hormuz.This would reportedly include including collecting voluntary fees for using it, according to sources who spoke to Reuters Tuesday. The report notes that “The plan could serve as a basis to end the disruption to trade through the strait caused by the U.S.-Israeli war on Iran.”
However, this also to some degree represents the stalemated situation going back to square one, given the United States has consistently and vehemently opposed any fees being collected that would go to Iran. An immediate response from Tehran on the proposal has not been forthcoming, and talks could drag on for days related to the Oman plan. Already Tehran is adding some strict conditions regarding frozen or seized Iranian assets abroad, per Bloomberg citing state media:
“Any company or country that receives funds from Iranian assets will not be allowed to pass through the strait,” semi-official Tasnim news agency cites a spokesman for Iran s central military command as saying in response to recent US proposal.
Reuters provides more detail in the following: “The system would be analogous to one in place on Asia’s Strait of Malacca, where Indonesia, Malaysia and Singapore ask ships to pay voluntary contributions to fund navigation, environmental protection and search-and-rescue operations.” “The Western diplomat compared it to a voluntary carbon tax for flights, where anyone buying a plane ticket can choose to tick a box if they want to pay to offset their emissions,” the report adds.
The Wall Street Journal has said this represents a “glimmer of hope” as fighting has halted since last Friday: A U.S. official and mediators said Iran and Oman were still far apart on some issues, including whether to charge fees for transit. But both sides said there was progress, marking the first glimmer of hope for diplomacy since President Trump ordered a new round of military strikes on Iran more than two weeks ago in response to Tehran firing on commercial vessels in the strait.
…The goal of the Iran-Oman talks is to agree on which route vessels can take through the 22-mile-wide strait. Conflict erupted earlier this month after the U.S. began guiding ships through the strait by hugging the Omani coast, while Iran wants vessels to cross through its territory.
In the meantime President Trump had laid out Monday while speaking to reporters aboard Air Force One his view that there’s “plenty of time” to deal with Iran and that “we are talking right now..” He laid out that while “there’s a good chance that something could happen,” it remains that If not, “we go back to doing what we were doing two days ago.” Trump has on Tuesday reiterated to Fox News that Iran understands it will never have a nuclear, and reaffirmed that the two sides are talking.
.@POTUS on Iran's Pickaxe Mountain: "We have the greatest cameras in the world focused on [it]… I know exactly what's going on at Pickaxe, it's not a big problem. We took out their nuclear sites, and we'll have to take out Pickaxe if we don't make a deal. If we don't make a… pic.twitter.com/PMdXaBkDvu
— Rapid Response 47 (@RapidResponse47) July 28, 2026
Feels like dancing. But not together. Not the same dance.
• Mediators Say US-Iran ‘Close’ To ‘Resurrecting’ Failed MoU Deal (ZH)
Update(11:35ET): Here we go again… despite no evident change in war posturing on either side, and despite shipping traffic still largely at a complete standstill in the Strait of Hormuz, Fox News is out with claims that the failed Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) could be ‘resurrected’… bringing us back to the ‘deal is close’ constant headlines of earlier this summer (though of course the sides were never in reality close – and simply returned to a wider bombing campaign)…Read more …
“Mediators of the ongoing conflict in the Middle East believe the U.S. and Iran are close to a deal that would resurrect the failed memorandum of understanding, according to The Times of Israel,” Fox writes, based on the earlier Israeli media article. Negotiators from Pakistan, Egypt and Qatar have been haggling over an Oman-proposed Strait of Hormuz management plan. It will involve fee-collection and is backed by the Gulf states, supposedly. The timing of all of this interesting given Trump is currently hosting Netanyahu at the White House. More from Fox:Iran and Oman — both of which are situated on the Strait of Hormuz — have reportedly signed off on the proposal advanced by the mediators.The two sources said the White House was waiting to make a decision until after President Donald Trump meets with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Tuesday. Meanwhile…
JMIC: DATA INDICATES ZERO TANKERS IN EITHER DIRECTION OF HORMUZ
Still, the return to deal ‘optimism’ has pushed oil prices down further – which is perhaps the entire point of US officials anonymously hyping that a deal is ‘close’ once again.
“Khamenei’s regime..”? We don’t even know if the guy is alive. Stop saying that.
• US Forces Block Attempted Iranian Surprise Attack (Catherine Salgado)
U.S. Central Command (CENTCOM) troops thwarted an attempted surprise attack from the terrorist Iranian regime as Tehran doubles down on “death to America.” CENTCOM posted an update on X Tuesday afternoon. “At 5:45 p.m. ET today, Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps forces launched multiple ballistic missiles from Iran in an attempted surprise attack on U.S. forces based in the Middle East. All Iranian missiles were successfully intercepted. U.S. forces remain vigilant and at a high state of readiness,” it apprised the public. Both American and Saudi forces are now conducting strikes on Iranian targets.Read more …
In fact, CENTCOM issued a press release on Tuesday about the U.S. and Saudi efforts to eliminate Tehran-tied terrorists in Iraq, where different factions and ethnic groups either enthusiastically support or bitterly resent the Iranian regime. The Iran-backed Iraqi jihadis were gunning for American troops and Saudi infrastructure. U.S. and Saudi fighter aircraft struck multiple terrorist logistics and weapons sites across eastern Iraq in a strong response to over 30 IRGC-directed aerial drone attacks in the last 72 hours. The unwarranted attacks against U.S. forces were not successful.From February through April 2026, there were more than 600 attempted attacks on U.S. citizens and facilities by Iran-aligned terrorist militias in Iraq. This is why the U.S. will eventually have to take out the Iranian regime altogether, or we’ll never have peace. The Iranian regime is the biggest state sponsor of terrorism in the world, with more reach and proxies even than the Qatari dictatorship.
President Donald Trump periodically threatens total destruction of the Iranian regime. If he really has that firepower, why not do it? It will save lives and a great many years of such ineffective back-and-forth as we’re still experiencing. Four Americans died as a result of Iranian strikes this month. We don’t want any more casualties.Iranian leadership continues to bribe potential assassins for Trump while threatening dire deeds. For example, on Sunday, we had the following message from the supreme leader of Iran (or whoever is running his account):
Today, as the nations of the world have grown weary of the tyranny and oppression of the US government and the criminal Zionists, who are the destroyers of lives and generations, there remains no path forward except jihad and resistance.
— Ayatollah Mojtaba Khamenei (@MKhamenei_ir) July 26, 2026And a few days before:
The Great Satan – the criminal US – has now realized that the continuation of its trouble-free, domineering presence in the region is nothing but a naive fantasy.
— Ayatollah Mojtaba Khamenei (@MKhamenei_ir) July 19, 2026Khamenei’s regime just executed several more freedom protesters.
BREAKING:
— Visegrád 24 (@visegrad24) July 28, 2026
The Islamic regime in Iran carried out a public execution by hanging today in Isfahan.
Amirhossein Safari, Abolfazl Sepahi and Alireza Sepahi were murdered by the regime for taking part in the massive street protests against the regime in January this year pic.twitter.com/4kQlTRO7GdThe Tehran terrorists are demonically vicious.
Yeah yeah, flatter Trump.
• New British Defense Secretary: Europe “Shaken Out Of Complacency” By Trump (ET)
New British Defence Secretary Wes Streeting Newly appointed British Defence Secretary Wes Streeting said on July 26 that Europe will one day thank U.S. President Donald Trump for “shaking us out of our complacency” on defense spending Speaking to British broadcaster Sky News, Streeting said that he genuinely believes when this period of history is written, Europe will thank President Trump for shaking us out of our complacency and forcing us to stand on our own two feet and end the period of overreliance on the United States for defense.Read more …
Former Health Secretary Streeting was appointed to the defense role on July 20 by the new British Prime Minister Andy Burnham after he reshuffled the Cabinet following the resignation of his predecessor Keir Starmer. What he’s said about Europe isn t unique to President Trump, the MAGA movement or the Republican Party. This has been a long-standing grain of U.S. frustration with Europe under Democratic and Republican presidents, Streeting said, adding that in the world we live in, it is right that we can act to secure ourselves.Trump has repeatedly called on the UK and other European countries to spend more on defense and become less reliant on the United States for the continent s security. The push for NATO allies to do more to secure their own defenses came as the United States reoriented its defense and security priorities. Asked if he trusts Trump, Streeting said, “I don’t know him, but I do trust the United States,” adding that in his first week in the role he has had “a unique insight into just how close and integral that relationship [between the UK and the United States] is when it comes to defense and security.”
Discussing his conversation with U.S. Secretary of War Pete Hegseth, Streeting said he was “clear that we’ve not supported offensive action in Iran and we won’t support offensive action [in] Iran,” but added that there are “plenty of things that we can and should do together when it comes to securing the Strait of Hormuz.” Streeting’s predecessor but one, John Healey, who now has the role of chancellor of the exchequer, the UK’s equivalent to treasury secretary, resigned his post last month in protest over the previous government’s reluctance to adequately fund defense spending, in a move that contributed to Starmer’s eventual downfall.
Healey announced his resignation in a highly critical public letter posted on X, in which he accused Starmer and the Treasury of being “unable” and “unwilling” to “commit the resources that the nation needs to defend the country at this time of rising threats.” Burnham, in one of his first interviews since becoming prime minister, told the BBC he was “absolutely committed” to what was promised to NATO partners. The UK has pledged to spend 3.5 percent of GDP on defense by 2035, in line with a new NATO target.
Burnham said that when he appointed Healey to be chancellor he was “very aware of what he had said about the critical importance of defense spending and the position that he had taken about that.” “The first challenge facing us both is to ensure that the defense investment plan is fully funded and that’s the thing that’s right in front of us and we need to work that through as we go towards the budget later this year.” Burnham also stated that he would be prepared to publicly disagree with Trump if British and American interests didn’t align but added that he had had a good first exchange with the president, finding him to be “really warm.”
Trump, discussing his phone call with Burnham in a July 20 post on Truth Social, said he had a “very good conversation” with the new British prime minister. “We discussed many subjects, including the outstanding relationship we have had with the UK. We will be meeting in the not too distant future for topics of mutual interest,” Trump said, adding that Burnham “has got a big job ahead of him, but he will be able to do it and, of course, the U.S.A. will be there to help!” He added that they discussed “North Sea Oil, Trade, the Military Alliance, Demining of the Hormuz Strait, and many other topics,” and said the call “went very well.”
In all they do, there is one purpose: bring Trump/US in to the war. They would love for Russia to bomb Portsmouth. How could Trump say no?
• Zelenskyy Says Ukraine Intends to Build Drone and Missile Factory in UK (CTH)
Watching carefully what Volodymyr Zelenskyy says, with an overlay of his contacts and travel itinerary, it appears the next phase in Ukraine weapon production will be to build missile and long-range drones outside Ukraine. That is to say outside the reach of proactive Russian attack. Zelenskyy travelled to Portsmouth, U.K., today for a meeting with newly installed Prime Minister Andy Burnham. Instead of meeting in London, the two met at a military base in Portsmouth, where 200 Ukrainian soldiers are currently completing maritime exercises.Read more …
In an interview with Sky News just before departing for the meeting, Zelenskyy noted the intention to use U.K. factories. In mentioning a joint U.K-Ukraine “drone deal,” Zelenskyy noted [15:32video] “I want to build a big factory in Britain, while offering new technologies and sharing with our partners.“I don’t think Zelenskyy was supposed to say that out loud.Zelenskyy noted the challenges for the U.K effort to support him essentially boils down to “money, intelligence and technology.”With the EU providing Zelenskyy with funds from the seized Russian sovereign fund; essentially loans with no payback provisions as forfeiture of the fund is intended to be wrapped into any peace negotiation with Russia; Zelenskyy is positioning Ukraine to spend the EU (Russian) funds in the U.K to manufacture authorized Patriot Missiles, U.K Storm Shadow missiles and drones to expand the conflict with Russia. One thing is abundantly clear from the action over the past few weeks, Ukraine and EU/NATO are fully intending to expand the conflict with Russia and, if possible, pull the Iran conflict into the European dynamic. That’s why Ukraine attacked the Iranian vessels recently.
(You may need to use a VPN to watch this interview as the content was suddenly limited after it was on YouTube for a few hours. I suspect the note I made above is directly related to this content control.)
“LONDON — Andy Burnham pledged a “close partnership” between the U.K. and Ukraine Monday after Volodymyr Zelenskyy became the first world leader to meet Britain’s new prime minister. In a show of support, the pair toured a military base in Portsmouth, where 200 Ukrainian soldiers are currently completing maritime exercises. Burnham said his meeting with the Ukrainian leader was “warm” and that he intends to visit the country soon. “We will build this and we will work through the different issues that President Zelenskyy has, many of which we’ve gone into today,” Burnham said.
The meeting came as Britain announced it would share intellectual property to help Kyiv’s war effort. The new prime minister announced that the U.K. will share its “Stone Cloak” electronic warfare system — devices attached to drones to help them evade detection — helping Ukraine to produce the technology on a mass scale. (read more)
Trump and Rubio won’t invade Cuba.
” You’re talking about a system that’s been in place since 1959. You talk about a country that’s suffered tremendously because of poor leadership and a bad economic model. You’re talking about a regime that’s survived all these years because they had a foreign sponsor, be it the Soviet Union or Hugo Chávez. They don’t have that anymore..”
• Cuba Falling: A Lot Happened Last Week. Let’s Talk About It (Sarah Anderson)
There’s been a lot going on with Cuba over the last week, and I promise you that every single day last week, I sat down to write about it, but my mind wandered onto the next shiny object — to Venezuela or El Salvador or Costa Rica or Nicaragua or the Georgia governor’s race. I’ve admitted in the past that I’m a little bored with all of it, and I feel like the way Iran has played out has distracted the Donald Trump administration from working toward liberating the Caribbean nation from the Castro regime and 67 years of communism.Read more …
The truth is it’s a complicated process. This isn’t Venezuela. We likely won’t have a clean and tidy(-ish) ending to the regime. You can’t just take out one guy, neutralize his cronies, cut off their revenue stream, and start over with Marco Rubio in charge. The Cuban regime is older, more decentralized, and designed to withstand such moves. The power lies within the Communist Party, the military’s economic empire (GAESA), and a deep security apparatus.There’s also the media problem. The number of MSM fake news stories from anonymous sources about Cuba is exhausting, and it drives me insane how many prominent people report on them or share them as if they are fact. For example, for a while, there was this idea that the Trump administration’s goal for liberating Cuba was the end of this year. It was fun to buy into, and I didn’t find it all that outlandish pre-Iran, but Rubio put a stop to that kind of talk last week when speaking to the press.
“No, look, guys, global affairs are not like – we’re not a miniseries, like, you get in three episodes and it’s over,” he said. “I mean, global affairs are difficult. You’re talking about a system that’s been in place since 1959. You talk about a country that’s suffered tremendously because of poor leadership and a bad economic model. You’re talking about a regime that’s survived all these years because they had a foreign sponsor, be it the Soviet Union or Hugo Chávez. They don’t have that anymore. So it’s – these are complex things that take time, and obviously we’re prepared to do what we can do to effectuate a positive change in Cuba because it directly impacts our national security.”
He added: “It’s a failed state. But I’ve never laid out any timeline as to what change would look like or when it would happen. I wish it was tomorrow because they deserve it; the people of Cuba deserve a better future.” One thing Rubio did confirm — and Trump has hinted at this in the past — is that this is his project. “I work on this issue more than anybody else,” he said, and I think that’s fairly obvious. That said, let’s get to the news. The actual, factual, verifiable news.
The Big State Department Report
The biggest Cuba-related news from last week was the 100-page report from the State Department called “Cuba: The Capital of 21st Century Communism.” I haven’t reported on it yet for two reasons. One, I wanted to read it myself. Two, I’d already reported on some of it over the last year, so I felt like it wasn’t quite the bombshell the State Department wanted it to be. However, I’ve come around to realizing that it’s a good report because it centralizes the information in one location, it helps build a case against the regime for whatever comes next from Trump and Rubio, and it supports the administration’s current anti-far-left terrorism stance and actions it plans to take against it.So I’m going to hit some highlights here. You can skim them or check out the entire report yourself. The report paints Cuba as what it is. Rather than calling it a failed dictatorship, it’s an ideological threat to the United States, as well as a threat to our national security. Rather than relying on military action against the U.S., it has used irregular warfare to infiltrate, including espionage, infiltration of U.S. institutions, recruitment of American activists, providing a safe haven for terrorists, and creating or supporting ideological networks designed to turn segments of American society against the U.S. government and system.
And not just in the United States, but in other Latin American countries as well — it’s trained groups that helped lead to the Sandinista victory in Nicaragua in 1979; supported Puerto Rican terror groups like FALN and Macheteros; and created alliances with Hugo Chávez. I’ve written about this in the past, but before he got into politics, Nicolás Maduro barely had a high school education. His only formal schooling was a year in Havana at Fidel Castro’s commie training camp.
Cuba essentially had spies within the U.S. government, like Ana Belén Montes, a senior Pentagon analyst, or Victor Manuel Rocha, a U.S. diplomat who was arrested in 2023 after working as an agent for Cuba for over 40 years. The regime especially liked to push black extremists, supported groups like the Black Panthers, and granted asylum to many black criminals, like Assata Shakur. It highlights the Venceremos Brigade, which has brought at least 10,000 U.S. citizens to Cuba since 1969 to identify potential activists, build relationships, and strengthen radical organizations.
It also highlights the Cuban Institute of Friendship with Peoples (ICAP), which has a presence in 150 countries and direct ties to Cuban intelligence, as well as the National Network on Cuba, which is connected to groups like the Democratic Socialists of America, Communist Party USA, Code Pink, and the National Lawyers Guild. It also says that Cuba is a meeting point for countries and groups hostile to the U.S., like Russia, China, Iran, Venezuela, Palestinian Marxist organizations, Hamas and Hezbollah-linked networks, and members of Iran’s Axis of Resistance.
“Taxpayers will subsidize Big Grocery to help put mom & pop bodegas out of business, and make the city’s poorest residents more dependent on Big Government than ever.”
• NYC: Begun, the Class War Has (Stephen Green)
Socialist New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani’s plan for city-owned grocery stores came into sharper focus on Monday after he announced the stores would have prices 30% “below typical retail prices” on a “core basket of goods.”“No exceptions, no gimmicks,” Mamdani promised Monday at a Campaign Against Hunger event in East New York. Spoiler: There’s no hunger to speak of in NYC. Poverty remains a leading indicator of obesity. Guess where Mamdani plans to build his first 30%-under-retail city-run grocery store.Read more …
Or I could just tell you. The first Bane Grocers (I made up the name) will open next year in The Peninsula in Hunts Point, in the South Bronx. The plan is to open four more, one in each borough’s poorest neighborhood.The really fun part is that bodegas are particularly dense in the city’s poorer neighborhoods, serving areas that big grocery stores would rather not. These are mom and pop operations getting by on razor-thin profit margins of about 2%. The solution to the city’s problem with its abundant and efficient grocery supply system (yes, you read that correctly) is to introduce city-run stores to undercut the abundant and efficient bodegas in the city’s poorest neighborhoods.Despite their small size, bodegas operate just like any other grocery or convenience store. They sell staples at maybe a breakeven price, hoping shoppers will splurge on higher-markup items like Chocolate Frosted Sugar Bombs cereal for the kids and a liter of Coke. They don’t make enough money to stay in business selling quarter gallons of milk. What happens to bodegas when customers start going to Bane’s because they can get that same quart of milk for $1.20 or so instead of $1.75? For starters, the bodegas can devote less precious fridge space to milk, or stop selling it altogether. Then maybe they watch those boxes of Chocolate Frosted Sugar Bombs gather dust.
“The only reason to shop at a city-run store — which, if they’re like anything else the city runs, will be poorly managed and with customer service moving at Glacier Speed — is if they undercut the competition with subsidized prices,” I predicted just three weeks ago. That’s when the New York Post talked to bodega owners who claimed that Julie Su, Mamdani’s deputy mayor for “economic justice,” was demanding to know what their best-selling items were, and what their markup was.
If selling staples at 30% under market price puts bodegas out of business, Mamdani may very well engineer an actual problem — a scarcity of small local grocers. Less selection, too, as South Bronx shoppers find themselves having to make the longer trip to city-run Bane’s.If you’ve ever been to a state-run liquor store, you don’t need me to tell you about state-run selections. You’ll be allowed to choose from what they think you should choose from. The New York Post interviewed locals who had “questions about how the discount would work, what few items they’d have to choose from, and how much it would cost taxpayers to subsidize the lefty mayor’s scheme.”
But this is maybe my favorite part of Monday’s sharp focus. While the city will own Bane Grocers, the city won’t run it. Instead, as the Post reported, Mamdani “put out a request for proposals to private grocery chains to run the stores, asking potential bidders to estimate the figure themselves through an annual ‘Affordability Payment’ to cover the losses from selling below retail prices.” Translation: Taxpayers will subsidize Big Grocery to help put mom & pop bodegas out of business, and make the city’s poorest residents more dependent on Big Government than ever. “In the end, it all costs more, and you get less,” Juan Carlos Santiago — a refugee from Communist Cuba — told the paper about the life he escaped. “Thank God, here you can go to another store. Thank God!” But for how much longer?
So far I’m not terribly impressed with articles about the future of artificial intelligence.
• The Future of Artificial Intelligence Is a Choice, Not an Inevitability (Dornik)
I have developed something of a reputation as the “anti-AI guy,” primarily because I refuse to join the technological priesthood in singing hymns to artificial intelligence while a handful of billionaires quietly purchase the printing press, the library, the factory, the surveillance camera, the public square, and eventually the human brain. In this new AI-dominated era, even simply asking who controls the machinery is considered an impolite interruption during the worship service.Read more …
I am not opposed to artificial intelligence as a technological tool. AI can help doctors identify disease, assist disabled people, accelerate scientific research, automate administrative work, strengthen cybersecurity, improve education, and dramatically expand the capabilities of entrepreneurs and creators. I use technology, I build technology, and I understand its extraordinary potential. My objection concerns the weaponization of AI, the centralization of its ownership, and the political and economic system that many of its most influential advocates openly describe as its destination.The inevitability argument has become Silicon Valley’s favorite method of avoiding accountability. We are told that AI will eliminate most jobs, replace human decision-making, connect our brains to computers, monitor our behavior, restructure capitalism, and require some form of universal government income. Then, after announcing this revolutionary demolition of human society, its architects shrug and tell us that none of it can be stopped. One must admire the efficiency of building the bulldozer, choosing the building, starting the engine, and then explaining that demolition is simply a force of nature.
Elon Musk told the VivaTech conference in 2024 that, in a “benign scenario,” probably none of us would have a job. He predicted a “universal high income,” an abundance of goods and services, and a world in which the central human question becomes whether life retains meaning when computers and robots can perform everything better than we can. This is an extraordinarily revealing admission because Musk recognizes the problem of meaning while continuing to promote the economic conditions that would produce it. His imagined future bears a remarkable resemblance to WALL-E, except the floating chairs with screens would be replaced by brain-chip implants.
Musk has described Neuralink’s long-term purpose as creating a high-bandwidth brain interface through which human beings could become “symbiotic with AI.” Neuralink’s immediate medical work, including helping people with paralysis control computers, is genuinely promising and deserves recognition. The broader transhumanist ambition raises an entirely different category of questions. Once human thought becomes technologically accessible, the issues of privacy, consent, ownership, manipulation, security, and government access are no longer theoretical. They become constitutional emergencies taking place inside the human skull.
Sam Altman has been equally explicit about the economic transformation he expects. In his essay “Moore’s Law for Everything,” Altman wrote that the technological revolution would be “unstoppable,” that power would shift further from labor toward capital, and that society would require drastic policies to distribute the wealth created by AI. His proposed American Equity Fund would tax companies and privately held land, then distribute annual payments to citizens. The language is dressed in entrepreneurial optimism, but the governing premise is unmistakable: the productive economy will belong to an increasingly concentrated class of capital owners while the public receives a politically administered dividend.
Bill Gates has expressed the inevitability argument with unusual clarity. Writing about the development of powerful technology, Gates said that if he possessed a magic button that could slow development for several decades, he might press it, but “that button doesn’t exist.” He concluded that these technologies will be created regardless of what any individual or company does, driven by competition among nations, corporations, and individuals seeking profit, power, glory, and leadership. Gates has also suggested that AI could reduce the workweek as machines produce more goods and services with less human labor.
Larry Ellison has offered perhaps the most honest preview of how AI centralization could affect civil liberty. During Oracle’s 2024 Financial Analyst Meeting, Ellison described AI systems processing information from police body cameras, vehicle cameras, doorbell cameras, drones, and other recording devices. He predicted that “citizens will be on their best behavior” because everything would be constantly recorded and reported. That sentence should be engraved above the entrance to every congressional hearing on artificial intelligence because it perfectly captures the managerial worldview behind the coming surveillance state. Freedom is apparently much safer once every citizen behaves as though an invisible parole officer is watching from the cloud.
Work carries moral meaning beyond the production of goods. Even before sin entered the world, God placed Adam in the garden “to work it and keep it” (Genesis 2:15). Work was part of human purpose before it became burdened by the Fall. The Bible never treats productive responsibility as an embarrassing defect that humanity must engineer out of existence. A society that strips millions of people of responsibility, discipline, contribution, and the dignity of providing for others will not automatically produce a nation of poets, philosophers, and volunteer gardeners. Human beings deprived of purpose frequently become anxious, addicted, isolated, and easily controlled.
“Fauci writes that the CIA had information from sources that the Chinese military had conducted unknown experiments in Wuhan, and that the CIA had information about a “super spreader” event in China in July 2020 in relation to “passage of a virus in a laboratory.”
• This Fauci Diary Entry Will Cause Your Blood to Boil (Matt Vespa)
Dr. Anthony Fauci was ‘America’s Doctor’ during the COVID pandemic. He’s now being exposed as an egotistical clown, which makes sense as the establishment press showered him with praise daily. When his science fiction was exposed, he said that people who attacked him were attacking science. That was the clue that something ugly was underneath, and now we have these diaries that paint this man as a psychopath. All bow before Lord God Fauci—nope.Read more …
The medical expert community should be ashamed for, among other things, engaging in this political effort to influence the 2020 election. And what a waste: Trump was elected again in 2024. With Fauci pardoned by brain-dead Joe Biden, his testimony tomorrow morning should be interesting since he can’t plead the Fifth so easily. Still, this journal entry, where he was briefed by the CIA about intercepted communications that might support the lab leak theory and then criticizes a CIA analyst for not understanding the science at his level, is truly disgusting. He’s a pretentious lefty in a lab coat, a Democrat with an MD, who spread nonsense while countless families suffered and many died alone. Bill Melugin has more:
NEW: Dr. Fauci writes in his diary that in June 2021, he received a (classified?) briefing from the CIA on the origins of COVID-19 while in a SCIF (Sensitive Compartmented Information Facility) at NIH, and reveals that the CIA told him they had intercepted Chinese communications… pic.twitter.com/YksypDt0cM
— Bill Melugin (@BillMelugin_) July 28, 2026Dr. Fauci writes in his diary that in June 2021, he received a (classified?) briefing from the CIA on the origins of COVID-19 while in a SCIF (Sensitive Compartmented Information Facility) at NIH, and reveals that the CIA told him they had intercepted Chinese communications in Wuhan, including indications that the Chinese had transferred pangolin viruses from Beijing to Wuhan.
Additionally, Fauci writes that the CIA had information from sources that the Chinese military had conducted unknown experiments in Wuhan, and that the CIA had information about a “super spreader” event in China in July 2020 in relation to “passage of a virus in a laboratory.” Fauci writes that the CIA briefer, who he names, was “almost pathetic in her naivety and obvious lack of appreciation of any of the science of what she was talking about.”
A trip down memory lane:
— Katie Pavlich (@KatiePavlich) July 27, 2026
Emails Show Dr. Fauci Bribed Scientists to Discredit the Lab Leak Theory:https://t.co/rtTEhQakKu
Dr. Fauci Suggested All Kinds of Limits on Churches, Refuses to Do the Same for Leftist Protests:https://t.co/hSVLhfFzGP
Fauci Demands Masking on…The fireworks begin at 8:30 AM on Wednesday morning. Also, remember this nonsense, where Fauci bashed Republicans over the vaccine, then spoke to some black families, and they told him to get his COVID juices out of their faces.
Fauci literally said it out loud: “They’re Republicans, they don’t like to be told what to do and we gotta break that.”
— Jack (@jackunheard) July 28, 2026
This demon openly admitted the vaccine mandates were just a power move to break the people who wouldn’t roll over and obey.
Same exact shot he forced on… pic.twitter.com/zeDYwHtk7SNever forget this brave American citizen that turned down getting a Covid vaccine and called out Fauci right to his face on camera.
— Gain of Fauci (@DschlopesIsBack) July 28, 2026
I still want to buy this man a beer! pic.twitter.com/SHiExaeIvo
“..,painting himself in somewhat of a god-like position and arbiter of all covid truth.”
• Rand Paul Releases Files of Serious Manipulation of COVID-19 Info (CTH)
Dr Anthony Fauci the White House Chief Medical Advisor during the SARS-CoV-2 outbreak under Biden, and head of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases from 1984 to 2022, has been subpoenaed to testify before the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee this Wednesday, July 29, about his role and activity during the outbreak. Senator Rand Paul has long argued that Dr Fauci misled the nation, and indeed the entire world, on the origin of the COVID-19 outbreak, and attempted to coverup the man-made components to the SARS-CoV-2 that created massive medical, social and economic turmoil.
Anticipating the testimony, Senator Rand Paul has released a massive dataset of records from Anthony Fauci that includes a personal diary written by Fauci during the timeframe in question. [FAUCI FILES HERE] The personal notes and records of Fauci indicate a serious intention to control all elements of what took place during the COVID-19 outbreak; painting himself in somewhat of a god-like position and arbiter of all covid truth.The records released by Senator Paul are exhaustive and paint a disturbing picture of a medical bureaucracy who believed they were more important than any elected official. Dr Fauci led that bureaucracy with visions of grandeur and an ego fed by a compliant media apparatus who consistently portrayed Fauci as the guardian of all medical truth.
The exact opposite of that altruistic narrative comes through in the details within the FAUCI FILES. “Fauci’s personal diary reveals that as early as January 31, 2020, he was told by top virologists that the virus’s furin cleavage site raised real doubts about a natural origin, with about half the scientists on that initial call believing it looked “constructed.” Despite this early private uncertainty, Fauci spent the following years publicly and confidently dismissing the lab leak theory while insisting the science was settled. The diary also documents his private frustration and defensiveness over gain-of-function funding questions tied to EcoHealth Alliance and the Wuhan Institute of Virology — even as he told Congress under oath that no such research had occurred.” ~ Rand Paul
It appears that Rand Paul gained much of the information for his release from ODNI documents previously, discovered, researched and released to congress by DNI Tulsi Gabbard. It also seems like Acting DNI Bill Pulte continued to declassify and release the files. President Trump realized on April 23, 2020, that he had been misled by the small group within the medical bureaucracy. Dr Fauci noted in his diary….
“[we] will be loved by the people we care about“… Who exactly was that?
The scale of the fraud orchestrated by Anthony Fauci is jaw-dropping. All those so-called scientists, perched up high in their ivory towers, flapping their mouths to lecture and mock anyone who dared have an opinion on that massive gain-of-function experiment they unleashed. They were not doing science at all; they were stroking their own egos the entire time. The hearing on Wednesday is likely to be very explosive; however, in accordance with the strategy of Democrats and Communists in both the House and Senate, there is a distinct possibility they may not attend the hearing in an effort to diminish the sunlight.
“Fauci “had a pulmonary infarction, which is one of the adverse events that NIH, CDC and FDA said are expected from the vaccine. He never told anybody,” Kennedy said.”
• RFK Jr. Reveals the COVID Vaccine Secret Fauci Hid From Americans (Margolis)
For years, Dr. Anthony Fauci assured Americans that the COVID-19 vaccines were safe and effective. What he never mentioned, according to Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., is that he may have suffered one of those “rare” adverse events himself, and he hid it from the country while publicly insisting such injuries weren’t happening. Kennedy appeared on Fox News’s The Ingraham Angle to discuss the newly released diary entries that Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) made public, entries that document Fauci’s day-to-day life during the pandemic, on top of his disturbing obsession with himself and the power he wielded during the pandemic.Read more …
When Laura Ingraham asked whether there would be any accountability for the trillions of dollars lost, the ruined education of America’s children, and the shattered reputation of the public health establishment, Kennedy didn’t hesitate. “Yeah, and millions of people injured,” Kennedy said. “So he lied about masks, he lied about social distancing, he lied about the transmission, he lied about natural immunity, he lied about the capacity, as you just said, of the vaccine to prevent infection.”Then came the bombshell. “He got vaccinated at a very, very public press conference in January of 2021,” Kennedy said, noting that five months later, the diary reveals, Fauci “had a pulmonary infarction, which is one of the adverse events that NIH, CDC and FDA said are expected from the vaccine.” “He never told anybody,” Kennedy said. “He got treated for it privately by the best doctors in America at the same time, he was telling everybody that was not an adverse event.”
RFK Jr. REVEALS Fauci Suffered the Exact Vaccine Injury He DENIED Was a Side Effect
— Benny Johnson (@bennyjohnson) July 28, 2026
After his very public COVID shot, Fauci suffered a pulmonary infarction — a known adverse event
He hid it, got elite private treatment, and told America it wasn’t a side effect.
Prosecute Fauci pic.twitter.com/44gOy2sNmGThink about that for a second. The man who badgered every American into taking the shot, insisting it was perfectly safe, appears to have experienced one of the exact injuries his own agencies flagged, then quietly got elite private care while assuring the public that such reactions weren’t real. Ordinary Americans who reported similar problems got dismissed and mocked. Fauci got the best doctors in America.
The diary entries also reveal a man drunk on his own celebrity. Fauci mused that he could call himself the most famous and talked-about person in America without exaggerating. Kennedy said Fauci’s “focus was on promoting himself, on getting on TV and not doing public health.” While hospitals overflowed and small businesses died, “America’s doctor” was cataloging his own fame.
Kennedy knows firsthand what happened to anyone who challenged the Fauci narrative. Instagram suspended his account, a million followers and all, for supposed misinformation, including saying that COVID came from the Wuhan Institute of Virology. That claim has since gone from forbidden conspiracy theory to the leading explanation. The same fate awaited everyone else who questioned Fauci’s edicts. They got smeared as cranks while his assertions, which have since collapsed, went unchallenged by a compliant press.
We know firsthand here at PJ Media the risks that were involved in questioning the official narrative. We risked being censored and demonetized by Big Tech, which was coordinating with the Biden administration to control what the public knew.And what did we get from Fauci’s narcissism and drunken power? Kennedy pointed out that the United States recorded the highest COVID-19 mortality rate of any country in the world, about 3,000 deaths per million people. Under Fauci’s leadership, the wealthiest nation on Earth did worse than every other country.
He destroyed public trust in health agencies, and Kennedy argues the damage may never be undone. Of course, the legacy media deserves its share of the blame here. Kennedy described the press’s protection of Fauci as corrupt collaboration, and he’s right. We may have asked the hard questions, but the legacy media ran interference instead, torching their own credibility to shield “America’s Doctor.”
Fauci testifies before Congress on Wednesday about his diary and his handling of the pandemic. As PJ Media previously reported, if Fauci repeats his falsehoods under oath, he could face perjury prosecution.
Dr. Fauci's own diary, in his own words, shows he knew the lab leak theory was credible from the very first weeks of the pandemic. 10 of 12 scientists on his call believed deliberate insertion was possible. He wrote that the wet market was never the real source. Then he spent the…
— Rand Paul (@RandPaul) July 27, 2026
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) July 27, 2026
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