Aug 122026
 
 August 12, 2026  Posted by at 9:50 am Finance Tagged with: , , , , , , ,  Add comments


Rene Magritte Memory 1948


Iran’s Military Command: US Must Meet All Demands For Hormuz Opening (ZH)
Iran Has One Last Chance Before Trump Hits Back (Victor Davis Hanson)
Biden Caused US Munitions Problems By Aiding Kiev — Trump (TASS)
I Liked the Dems Better When AOC Was Their Craziest Commie (Stephen Kruiser)
The Cunning Genius of AOC’s ‘Woke’ Reboot (Scott Pinsker)
Radical DSA Platform Grabs Spotlight As Candidates Surge In Primaries (JTN)
COVID-19 Vaccines, Scientific Theories, Medical Speculation (CTH)
Judge Allows Trump To Amend $10 Billion BBC Lawsuit (JTN)
Trump Weighs Federal Challenge to Mamdani’s New York Pied-à-Terre Tax (ZH)
Massachusetts Legalizes Abortion Up To Birth As Liberals Cheer (MN)
Wall Street Giants Hand Nvidia $500bn To Fund Boom In AI Projects (BBC)
Niceness as Whiteness: Professors Denounce Niceness as White Privilege (Turley)

 


 

https://twitter.com/seanhannity/status/2086990011816202702?s=20 https://twitter.com/CaseyKrol/status/2086837726943363530?s=20

 


 


Iran is overasking. They can’t help themelves.

Iran’s Military Command: US Must Meet All Demands For Hormuz Opening (ZH)

Pakistan started the day by floating optimistic reports of the warring sides reverting to ‘moving toward peace efforts’ – however that appears very short-lived, or really was probably never a reality, given soon on the heels of these claims a top Iranian official has reiterated that the Strait of Hormuz will remain closed until the US corrects its ‘behavior’. According to fresh reports out of state media sources:


Secretary of the Supreme National Security Council of Iran Rezaei says Strait of Hormuz will not open until the US changes its behavior and accepts Iran’s conditions. This comes amid widespread reports that Iran has just undergone a significant military shuffling of top command leadership, which points to the ascent of the ‘hardliner’ crowd – as in those who are against signing an MoU deal with Washington…


The Wall Street Journal and others are picking up on Tehran’s obvious shift away from negotiations, and toward a more permanent state of military resistance. It writes: “Now, the new supreme leader, Khamenei’s son Mojtaba, is putting his own stamp on the country’s national-security policy amid a confrontation with the U.S. that could last months or even years.” According to more of WSJ’s analysis:

“In a sweeping overhaul of the government’s top echelon on Sunday and Monday, Iran named seasoned hard-liners to run the country’s security policies and institutions of repression. It marked the most significant government reshuffle under Mojtaba Khamenei, who hasn’t been seen in public since the war began. U.S. intelligence agencies say he is alive but severely injured, and top Iranian cabinet members say they have never met him since he took office. Iranian officials say he was injured but in good health.

Analysts said the appointments signaled Khamenei’s determination to hold fast in a showdown with President Trump, who is seeking concessions on Iran’s nuclear program and the Strait of Hormuz. “The regime is preparing for a more confrontational posture at home and abroad,” said Kasra Aarabi, an expert on the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, a powerful paramilitary force, at United Against Nuclear Iran, a policy organization that opposes Iran’s government. For some – especially the non-interventionists, it was obvious the war would take this course from day one.

‘Return of Peace Efforts’ Headline Pushes Oil Down
Despite what are clearly ongoing attacks on international vessels in regional waters, suddenly mediators are feeling optimism again, and decided to float another apparent round of pre-US market open headlines suggesting peace could return. Though there’s as yet no evidence of this, the Pakistani Defense Minister has signaled that the US and Iran are close to some agreement and that the situation is moving towards peace. Oil prices promptly plummeted ahead of market open. Pakistan’s interior minister Mohsin Raza Naqvi, has also just arrived in Tehran for talks with Iranian officials amid going mediation efforts, according to Iran’s Mehr news agency.

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“I don’t think you can trust them. But the point is they got the message that now this was the last chance. So, if they break this, and I think they will, Trump will have no choice, if he is to have any credibility..”

Iran Has One Last Chance Before Trump Hits Back (Victor Davis Hanson)

Sami Winc: But there were leaks from the government that there was a depletion of our weaponry to fight Iran with. And then, if you have anything, [President Donald] Trump is talking about there’s a new deal with Iran in the works. I know your audience is thinking, “Yeah, that’s not gonna pan out.” But if you have anything on that, and then also tales of JD [Vance] and Bibi Netanyahu not getting along.


Victor Davis Hanson: Well, to go first very quickly, people have been leaking that there are not enough Patriot missiles, for example, or Harpoon missiles, older ones, Tomahawk missiles. We’ve heard there are not enough bunker busters. I don’t know if any of this is true, but it’s been leaking.

And the problem, why Trump is so angry, is we have enough, we have about 40% or 50%, likely, of our arsenal, which is too low. This has been going on for a long time. [Former President Barack] Obama cut the defense budget, [former President Joe] Biden did, and we don’t have enough stuff. But the problem that makes people angry is we have enough to handle Iran. We don’t have enough to handle Iran, give Ukraine enough to protect Kyiv, and then deter China from attacking Taiwan. So, the more you say that and leak it, the more likely China might believe it and want to try.

While we’re engaged with Ukraine and Iran, they might want to try to see if they could go into Taiwan, and we wouldn’t have enough missiles. That’s the worry. The second thing about Trump and the Iran war, we’ve had five or six of these where he says the negotiations are going great. And then they break down, and then he hits them once or twice, and then they beg him, beg him, beg him to get back, and then everything’s close to an agreement. But the Iranians don’t tell the truth, and then he gets frustrated.

And the problem with this is that on Feb. 28, you know, we had 250 days before the midterms. So, after 38 days of kinetic operations, we stopped. We stopped because about 80%, 90% of everything they had was destroyed. But we didn’t know that they had these little mosquito boats hidden everywhere, and we didn’t know to what degree they had drones and missiles hidden. And they had a lot.So, when we kept saying we’re destroying 90% of their air capacity as far as missiles and drones, we didn’t know what the denominator was. We didn’t know 90% of what. 10,000? 20,000? It could be a lot, 10%. And so, they started threatening the Gulf.

At that point, the Gulf freaked out. And they had wanted us to go in there and eliminate Iran. But now that they got hit, they didn’t want to commit with their 600 aircraft and join us because they thought we wouldn’t take them out completely. So, then people came to Trump, I guess, this week and said, you’re out of time. We’re only 90 days. If you’re going to solve this, you can’t keep saying this because—so, last week they dreamed up, we’re just going to unload the greatest military campaign in the air since World War II. And they were. And then that panicked Iran.

And they say now they’re going to open the Strait of Hormuz. I don’t think you can trust them. But the point is they got the message that now this was the last chance. So, if they break this, and I think they will, Trump will have no choice, if he is to have any credibility, unless he continues with that program. And your third part of the question?

Winc: JD was at odds with Bibi. That was the tale. He was on Laura and he denied it, but—

Hanson: Well, that’s a complicated question because Trump came out today and said that he supports JD as his successor as the Republican nominee in 2028. The reason he did that was JD was starting to be associated with these negotiations and not the kinetic part under [War Secretary Pete] Hegseth. And the negotiations hadn’t worked.

And he had said we were dealing with the moderates. There are no moderates in Iran. There’s people who pose as moderates, but even if they wanted to be moderate, they’d be murdered. It’s run by the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, everybody knows that, and the theocracy. And then he said that Israel couldn’t kill its way out. That sounds like Israel wanted to kill people. They didn’t want to kill people. If Hezbollah had stopped the missiles tomorrow, they wouldn’t have ever gone into Lebanon.

So, there was an impression that, on the international stage, he wasn’t as experienced, let’s say, as Rubio, and Rubio’s stock was starting to come up. And if that continued, there might be a destructive race in 2028. So, what Trump did was he said to JD, pretty much, I will back you, but you’ve got to stop the stuff about Netanyahu. So, he had him meet Netanyahu, and there was supposedly—on Laura Ingraham’s interview, he denied there was a bad.

But the problem is this, that Tucker’s son worked for JD, and he, whether it’s fair or not, is associated with that wing of the MAGA movement, the Tucker Carlson, the Candace Owens, the Steve Bannon, the Joe Kent, is that his name? Yeah. All of those guys, and maybe Megyn Kelly, I don’t know. And Marjorie Taylor Greene and Thomas Massie.

And the problem with that, if he is to be associated with them, they say some pretty crazy things about Israel and the Jews. And when Thomas Massie is at a loss, because of the decision that was made in Israel, you know. And so, there’s a lot of— And there’s two problems with that. Trump’s grandchildren are Jewish and his daughter has converted to Judaism. And more importantly, there’s a lot of powerful Jewish donors who are sick of the Democratic antisemitism. So, the Republican Party is trying to attract them.

But already you see, not just among Jews, but among other people, are worried that JD seems to be singling out Israel for criticism that’s not applicable to other, more deserving targets. So, this week he’s been rehabilitated, sort of, as he got in with, he had a talk with Netanyahu. He got on Fox and said it went well. Trump endorsed him, and you didn’t hear him taking—he’s more now looking at corruption than trying to solve the negotiations. And we’ll see what happens.

Winc: Yeah, we’ll see what happens. Well, let’s turn to some of the things going on at the federal level of our government. Rand Paul has gotten the votes to refer [Dr. Anthony] Fauci for contempt, given that he took the Fifth 111 times. And my question is not so much on that as this precedent set, and I don’t know if it’s worse now than it has been in the past, of having a government official execute the laws terribly against the people or to the people, and then just being able to get away with it because, at the end of a president’s term, they pardon them. And that’s a very bothersome pattern or precedent. And I’m not sure which one.

Hanson: Well, there’s two things that presidents do. They give pardons, so they’re exempt from prosecution, and they give clemencies, so that if they’ve been sentenced, their sentence can be stopped, they can get out of prison, for example. And they do both. And it’s controversial who does more of one or the other. But if you put them both together, which you should, out of our last 47 presidents, the top 10 were Democrats. And the most was Joe Biden at about 4,500 total. That’s pardons and clemencies and other things related to that.

And then there’s FDR. Then there’s Woodrow Wilson. I think Trump now is three or four in six years. But Eisenhower gave a lot too, by the way. But out of that 10, I think eight are Democrats. And that’s important to remember because they keep saying that Trump is the all-time pardoner. I think it’s been widely abused.

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”According to the US leader, Joe Biden gave Kiev munitions worth $300 billion to Ukraine.”

Biden Caused US Munitions Problems By Aiding Kiev — Trump (TASS)

US President Donald Trump said that any hypothetical shortage of munitions in the US armed forces stemmed from his predecessor Joe Biden’s decision to supply them to Ukraine, rather than the current military campaign in Iran. “They talk about munitions. We’re fine with munitions. <…> But the reason it could be lower <…> is because he [Biden] gave $300 billion worth to Ukraine,” Trump said in an interview with Real America’s Voice. Earlier, US media reported that US weapons stockpiles had fallen to record lows amid the conflict with Iran. The reports concerned Patriot air defense missiles, THAAD interceptors, ATACMS and PrSM long-range missiles. On August 5, The Washington Post reported, citing sources, that Trump had asked Pentagon chief Pete Hegseth to explain why the department had misled the president about a munitions shortage in the conflict with Iran. According to the report, the exchange demonstrated Trump’s “growing frustration” with Hegseth. Trump later denied that he was dissatisfied with Hegseth’s work.
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AOC’s career is carefully scripted. It has to be, because she’s not terribly bright. But this is the party that can’t find a face/leader.

I Liked the Dems Better When AOC Was Their Craziest Commie (Stephen Kruiser)

Democrats are big fans of election year chaos. It helps cover up the fact that they are bereft of any substantive ideas to offer the voters. This year, they’re flooding the zone with crazies and waiting to see what sticks. Thus far, it’s mostly the communism that’s sticking. I wrote in last Friday’s Briefing that the Dems will never believe their party is so broken that it needs to be fixed. Of course, the reality divide between us is so wide that what we think is broken they might think is perfectly fine.


The way that the Democrats used to go about playing the game of politics was impressive. Until President Trump came along, I maintained that they played the long game much better than the Republicans. That’s one of the many things that he flipped on its head. The Dems have been in pure rage mode since then, just seeking out opportunities to tell the world that they hate Trump. It seemed to me that they lost their mojo for long-term strategy. Because nothing is ever too weird anymore, I’m willing to reconsider my opinion.

Rather than back away from the issues that have turned their party into a coastal elitist insane asylum, the Dems and their flying monkeys in the mainstream media are now pointing to the commies of the Democratic Socialists of America as proof that the establishment isn’t so bonkers. No, really:

That’s right: Things are so topsy-turvy now that people can speak of Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez as a member of the Dem establishment. Squeaky is no longer the biggest thorn in the side of the elder Democrats, or so some would have us believe. She’s actually the Queen of the Thorns, which is the surest sign that the Dem elders aren’t that freaked out by this so-called DSA insurgency. Once more, with feeling: The DSA has been an accepted coalition in the Democratic Party proper all along. It’s not as if its members just emerged from the fog and surprised the geriatric Schumer wing of the party.

The only real thing that the Democrats have to sucker the voters is the promise of “free” stuff that isn’t really free, and the upstart honest commies in the party are even better at that than the more seasoned officials. The old way was to offer the voters fake freebies that were at least in the realm of possibility. With the DSA Stalinistas, it’s all unicorns and free housing in cities that run on cotton candy wishes. When you consider that, the internecine drama in the party looks a lot less genuine.

I’m all for them heading into November trying to sell a narrative that says Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez is whatever passes for a centrist over there. She’s not even “commie lite.” My RedState colleague Sister Toldjah wrote about Wisconsin Democratic gubernatorial candidate Francesca Hong, the next looming DSA “problem” for the Dems. Hong’s past is littered with campaign fodder for any eventual Republican opponent. The post mentions a recent interview with AOC and her attempt to cover for Hong. Put mildly, she’s not the best at being the grownup in the room.

As I also wrote on Friday, when November rolls around, every Democrat will be all-in on the DSA commie kids. It’ll be fun to see what kinds of faux tortured rationalizations they come up with to pretend that wasn’t the plan from the beginning.

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“She’s now a known entity — practically a comfort food. And because of the public’s familiarity with her, AOC doesn’t seem as scary — or as flippin’ weird — as the new kids on the DSA block.”:

The Cunning Genius of AOC’s ‘Woke’ Reboot (Scott Pinsker)

After meeting Zohran Mamdani, Graham Platner, Abdul El-Sayed, and Francesca Hong, AOC doesn’t seem so scary, does she? Why, she’s almost quaint, traditional, and (slightly) old-fashioned by comparison. Tread carefully, Republicans: Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) is still America’s most dangerous Democrat — and still the odds-on favorite to win her party’s 2028 presidential nomination.And if she captures the nomination, there’s (roughly) a 50%-50% shot she’ll win the White House. Don’t underestimate her: She’s media-savvy, camera-friendly, photogenic, and her PR instincts are as sharp as Sardinian swords.


Consider how deftly she just rebooted the “woke” narrative. Because woke is a joke in 2026: Woke is cringe, woke is dead, woke is done. Other than the fringiest of the fringe, nobody takes it seriously anymore. Just ask South Park: The excesses of wokeism are legion. A lesser politician would’ve tried to relitigate this or recalibrate that. But AOC knew better. Instead of polishing a turd and pretending it’s chocolate, she acknowledged overreaching, killed the old narrative, and set the stage for the “new and improved” version 2.0. Remarkably, she did it in a single sentence.

“I have a local city councilman that has this saying, ‘Woke One was crazy,'” says Ocasio-Cortez with a laugh. Lots of conservatives attacked her for it — and justifiably so.

All of the above are fair, legitimate criticisms. Yet consider what AOC just accomplished: She demonstrated humility by acknowledging her “woke” mistakes. (And a politician who admits mistakes isn’t something we see every day on Capitol Hill. She rebranded ALL the P.C. craziness as “Woke One,” which effectively closed its chapter. (Now, everything that follows is “Woke Two” — which, of course, is something TOTALLY different [eyeroll]. She signaled a willingness to learn, grow, adapt, and change. (OMG, AOC is maturing before our eyes!)

For her political purposes, #3 was most significant. AOC’s greatest vulnerability in a national election is being painted as a far-left extremist, but by showing a willingness to learn, grow, and change, she comes across as an open-minded pragmatist.And by definition, an open-minded pragmatist cannot be an ideological extremist. It was a subtle but effective PR rebuttal: One of the most radical, far-left politicians in federal history is mastering the art of cosplaying as a moderate!Naturally, her liberal allies are happy to help:

As are some conservatives:

AOC was elected to Congress in 2018. After she wins reelection in 2026 (she usually gets about 70% of the vote) and completes her fifth term, she’ll have served in the House for 10 years. And she was a celebrity from the very beginning.That’s 10 long years in the spotlight. She’s now a known entity — practically a comfort food. And because of the public’s familiarity with her, AOC doesn’t seem as scary — or as flippin’ weird — as the new kids on the DSA block. (Hey, at least she doesn’t want to ban Thanksgiving or get rid of July 4 fireworks, right? Why, by comparison, she’s borderline MAGA!)

Because politics is a comparison sport: Your goal isn’t perfection; it’s to outperform your opponent. And compared to the DSA newbies, AOC really, truly seems moderate, mature, and (gasp!) reasonable. They’re the ones who are extreme — not her! Rep. Ocasio-Cortez won’t be the only Democrat vying for the DSA lane in 2028. Rep. Ro Khanna (D-Calif.) is sprinting in that direction, too. But Khanna is ugly; Cortez is attractive. Khanna is boring; Cortez is charismatic. Khanna is a bandwagoner; Cortez a trailblazer. Sorry, but it ain’t a fair fight. Khanna is toast.

Assuming AOC inherits Bernie Sanders’ socialist network of donors and activists, the DSA lane is hers for the taking. Meanwhile, “establishment” candidates like Kamala Harris, Gavin Newsom, Josh Shapiro, Pete Buttigieg, Mark Kelly, JB Pritzker, Cory Booker, Wes Moore, Andy Beshear, and Rahm Emanuel are all locked into a fierce battle to be the darling of the DNC. But that’s a very crowded lane. Not much room. Only one establishment candidate will survive. (The rest will cancel each other out.) It’s like Highlander — there can be only one. And by then, it’ll probably be too late: AOC will already have won a plurality in multiple primaries — and all the momentum going forward. She’ll be unstoppable. The nomination will be hers.

In the good ol’ days, a politician like AOC would have to move miles to moderate her image (which would risk angering her base). Not anymore. With the rest of her party racing like Usain Bolt to the radical left, all AOC has to do is temper her rhetoric and acknowledge overreaching with the “woke agenda” — and presto, she’s a moderate. It might be a coincidence, but she’s doing EVERYTHING a 2028 presidential frontrunner needs to do. Either way, the 2026 election will be the last time AOC competes in a House race. She’s outgrown her seat. Two years from now, she’ll have bigger fish to fry.

Chuck Schumer’s Senate seat is within her grasp, too. If she’s too risk-averse to run for president, replacing Schumer would be the next best thing. Schumer is done; he’s the least popular man in Washington. But if you want to change the world, nothing equals the presidency. She’ll still be attacked as a left-wing loon because she is a left-wing loon. And rebrand or not, the sheer magnitude of cringeworthy “Woke One” content she disseminated on social media won’t be forgotten: And by her own standard, it shouldn’t be forgotten. After all, in woke’s heyday, AOC called for archiving all the X posts of “Trump sycophants” who may “deny their complicity in the future.” Lo siento, mi amiga: What’s good for the goose is also good for el ganso.

But she’s making all the right moves to moderate her image. (Notably, AOC declined to endorse Francesca Hong and Graham Platner.) She rebooted the woke narrative in a single borrowed sentence. And in a Democratic Party where everyone else is sprinting left, simply by staying in place and making pragmatic concessions, she comes across as a reasonable, middle-of-the-road, non-threatening politician. We’ve known her for 10 years: That’s our Sandy! She has more name recognition, DSA fundraising infrastructure, and a larger social media footprint than almost all her peers. And like it or not, she’s excellent at PR. She really is. Don’t sleep on her.

Think of AOC like this: A bag of bones like Bernie Sanders came within a whisker of winning the Democratic nomination not once, but TWICE! (And Sanders was an old man, turning 79 in 2020.) So what do you think will happen when a photogenic, charismatic, media-savvy, 30-something Latina — running as Sanders’ successor — throws her hat in the ring? Sanders did well with his “Bernie Bros” but struggled with minorities and women. Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) even claimed that Sanders told her point-blank that a woman isn’t electable, which Sanders hotly denied. Either way, he couldn’t connect with either group — struggling mightily with minority women.

AOC is positioning herself as the next Bernie Sanders — plus women and plus minorities. In today’s Democratic Party, that’s a passport to the presidential nomination. It was an under-the-radar move, but AOC just moved one step closer to the White House.

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Will they defeat the “old” Democrats?

Radical DSA Platform Grabs Spotlight As Candidates Surge In Primaries (JTN)

As they experience newfound success across the United States in Democratic primaries, the Democratic Socialists of America have gone on a media blitz to share their vision for America. That vision includes radical changes to the American political system, like abolishing the senate, heavily restricting private markets, and abolishing police and prisons. The Democratic Socialists of America (DSA) rode a wave of dissatisfaction with the status quo to unprecedented electoral success this year. DSA affiliated candidates and fellow travelers lead New York City and are poised to dominate its congressional delegation.


Dismantling the entire American system of government
In other areas of the country, DSA candidates are campaigning on a radical platform once unthinkable. Beyond New York, DSA candidates have won in Colorado, Michigan, and in down-ballot races in Oregon, California, Arizona, Georgia, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, Vermont, Utah and Maryland. On Tuesday, a DSA member is leading in the polls for the Democratic Party nomination for governor in Wisconsin, testing the viability of the far-left political and economic messaging in a state that President Donald Trump won in 2024. Controversy has followed Francesca Hong. Like many other DSA affiliates, her past social media posts, including arguing to defund the police and calling to cancel Thanksgiving, are at the center of it.

In an interview last month on Fox News, DSA’s national co-chair, Megan Romer, answered that, “yes,” the DSA’s platform includes “abolishing the Senate,” “[replacing] the presidency and Supreme Court as we now know them,” and “absolutely” abolishing immigration enforcement, defunding the military, and, eventually, abolishing police and prisons. “Yes,” “true,” and “yep,” said Romer in response to the host’s questions. The relentless media tour by senior DSA leaders focused scrutiny on the organization’s official platform. Republicans sensed an opening and traditional Democrats are worried the group’s radical proposals might sink the party’s midterm chances.

Indeed, many of the Democratic Socialist leaders are self-professed communists, Just the News previously reported. Many of the DSA’s leaders belong to internal party caucuses that explicitly define themselves as Marxist and advocate for achieving communism. This includes Romer, who is a member of the Red Star caucus of the DSA, which explicitly pronounces its ultimate aim: the overthrow of capitalism in the U.S. and, eventually, communism. Last month, the DSA released a new “program,” or platform, that outlined its priorities. Here are some of the most striking in the group’s own words:

‘End Mass Incarceration and Police Immunity’
The DSA’s platform includes radical proposals to defund, and eventually abolish, the “police and prison system,” which the organization argues is slanted for the benefit of the rich. Similar comments made by DSA-backed candidates have stirred controversy. “Demilitarize police departments, disempower police unions, and redirect funding to public services as steps towards fully abolishing the police and prison system which protects the rich and jails the poor,” the DSA’s program reads.

Francesca Hong, the DSA member vying for the gubernatorial nomination in Wisconsin, has worked to distance herself from prior social media posts from years ago in which she argued for abolishing police. “I support defunding the police as a first step towards abolishing the police,” Hong posted in 2020, echoing the modern DSA policy platform. Other DSA-tied candidates have come under fire for holding similar views. For example, Darializa Avila Chevalier in New York City faced scrutiny for a series of deleted posts to social media expressing support for abolishing police, prisons and borders, seizing private property, and nationalizing industries, Just the News previously reported.

‘Abolish ICE’ and ‘Amnesty for All’
“A world without borders—just like a world without prisons or police—is possible, necessary, and the only moral way forward,” Chevalier posted to Twitter, now X, in September 2021. The DSA’s program also calls for completely ending immigration enforcement, including ICE detentions and deportations. DSA organizers have been at the center of nationwide protests against the Trump administration’s immigration enforcement policies, cooperating with a coalition of left-wing organizations, some of which received funding from China-based billionaire Neville Roy Singham.

“End ICE detention and deportations and punish federal agents’ brutality. Legalize migration, grant amnesty for all immigrants regardless of status, provide a path to citizenship for all permanent residents, and end visa caps and quotas,” DSA’s program reads. New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani, who is a member of the DSA, has called repeatedly for Immigration and Customs Enforcement to be abolished. “As [New York’s] mayor, I firmly believe that ICE should be abolished,” Mamdani said. “I will not sit here beside you and proclaim the only way to respond to [immigration] is an agency that I’m older than.”

‘Abolish the Senate’ and ‘Replace the President and Supreme Court’
Hong, who will face Wisconsin Democratic voters on Tuesday, has also called for abolishing the agency. “Abolishing ICE isn’t radical — it’s good policy,” she posted to social media in January. The DSA’s proposals for reforming the United States government are also nothing short of radical. The organization envisions completely remaking the three separate branches of power in Washington and replacing the current system with a single legislature that directly appoints the other branches.

For example, rather than reform the Senate, as some Democratic politicians have argued for many years, the DSA wants to do away with the upper legislative chamber completely, vesting all congressional power in an expanded and more proportional House of Representatives. The organization’s leaders argue that doing so would make the country more democratic and representative. “The Senate is a very undemocratic institution,” DSA co-chairman Ashik Siddiqu said in an interview on C-SPAN. “I talked a bit about democracy, a ‘small d’ democracy, and that’s really important to us. We want democratic representation of all people who live in this country.”

“Public Ownership” of “Corporations”
The DSA calls for the “public ownership of the largest corporations and essential industries.” This program of nationalization would be “to ensure democratic control and accountability to the people.” To this end, the organization’s program calls for “the end of capitalism” as the system of economic organization. In some way, New York City Mayor Mamdani is piloting aspects of this broader plan in a place where the DSA actually holds levers of power. His city-run grocery store experiment intends to create a system of stores that will offer a 30% discount compared to private competitors. The plan has some in the city warning that the stores will cost taxpayers and may force private stores to close.

The platform also argues for replacing the presidency and the Supreme Court with an executive and judiciary panel “chosen by and subordinate to Congress.” All of these reforms would require major constitutional changes. Abolishing the Senate would likely require the approval of all the states because of the special constitutional provision requiring each state to have “equal Suffrage in the Senate.”

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The best queation is short:

“Why would Anthony Fauci need criminal immunity?”

COVID-19 Vaccines, Scientific Theories, Medical Speculation (CTH)

What is surfacing now, five years later, is a stronger understanding of just how the establishment medical complex determined the safety and efficacy protocols of the COVID-19 vaccination. They had theories, they had speculation, they had scientific discussion; but ultimately, they did not know to what extent the vaccine was safe – and statistically it wasn’t safe. Looking back on recent history, the COVID experience stands out. The lessons from observing the government’s response, and how people reacted to it, have influenced our perspective on many topics related to liberty and freedom.


I turn to faith, read the gospel and recognize in more than a few ways the COVID experience was a generational test. It is generally accepted that somewhere around 60 to 70% of Americans accepted the COVID vaccine, although a great many of those who took the vaccine did so under tremendous pressure, essentially under duress and without fully informed consent.

There really was no way to apply “informed consent” to the process because the ‘information’ that should have supported the consent was skewed, shaped and in many instances intentionally manipulated. Again, the pressure for compliance to the process was extreme; beyond extreme. I said at the time we had never seen such a pressure campaign on any topic or issue as aggressively oppressive as we endured during two-years of COVID vaccination compliance pressure.

I do not fault anyone who took the vaccine. In fact, I hold great empathy toward those who now live with the hindsight question of their life potentially being shortened. Everyone has been impacted by this medical experiment and the subsequent sociological implications in the aftermath. A few days ago, a person wanted to discuss Dr Anthony Fauci’s testimony with me. I never bring up the subject of the COVID vaccine; not ever in personal discussion. However, if it is brought up to me, I will engage carefully, honestly and with empathy. I was asked about Fauci taking the fifth amendment and his previous grant of immunity by Joe Biden.

My response was short, purposeful and direct. Why would Anthony Fauci need criminal immunity? A lengthy reframing of the question resulted from my friend, who essentially then repeated it. Again, I responded, “why would any agent of the United States govt even begin a thought process that immunity for criminal activity would be needed?” Silently, inside my mind I wonder if perhaps I’ve spent too much time learning about the way Russian people think. They are like American mid-westerners of old; the questions are much shorter and more direct; there is no pretense. Why did Fauci need immunity? Why indeed. Someone knew something, eh?

That sense, the one we all carry that alerts us when something just doesn’t add up, doesn’t sit right, doesn’t reconcile unless we pretend something else exists in the sentence to explain the stuff that doesn’t reconcile. The stuff inside the sentence we create in order to explain or justify is the nonexistent stuff, the pretending stuff. Take the pretending out of the thought, and suddenly you know the answer. [Again, now you are thinking like a Russian.] We are in an abusive relationship with government. The COVID-19 experience just created a shortcut to show us just how extensive and abusive that relationship is.

How many Americans have physically been harmed in this example, and how many millions more are suffering the downstream consequences of continued codependent denial. COVID-19 was the embodiment of the truism: “when push comes to shove.” How far are you willing to go -what pain are you willing to suffer through- to retain your definition of liberty, freedom and sovereign control. Is there a price? The COVID-19 experience gave us all the uncomfortable answers….. and now the discussion necessarily gets quiet in mixed company.

Many people are angry. Many people have every emotional right to be angry. The scale of vaccine compliance suffering runs the gambit from collapsed friendships to lost jobs, broken marriages, to painful isolation and yes, to death itself.

There is no way to measure cold anger at a scale not entirely visible. Several years ago, CTH said to gently avoid touching the sensitive nerve of those vaccinated, there is no way for them to retreat from the decision. Done is done. Genuine human empathy must be applied generously, while simultaneously a pragmatic perspective must be maintained. Each person can define and judge but choosing to express that judgement is a different matter entirely. Remember, for the vaccinated all discussion is zero-sum.

As the revelations about the vaccine administrators, their thoughts, their severely compromised and corrupt activity continues to surface, it is worthwhile reminding ourselves that some people need to retain cognitive denial in order to avoid seeing the vaccinated person in the mirror. The credibility of all U.S. government institutions has collapsed; all of them. Let me repeat. When you stop pretending you accept the credibility of all U.S. government institutions has collapsed in our lifetime. The only people left covering for this collapse are those who need to retain the illusion of institutional credibility.

The Food and Drug Administration permits toxic chemicals in food and is controlled by Big Rx. The United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) is controlled by Big Ag. The corporate media are controlled by their corporate advertisers. Manage your personal affairs accordingly. We may not live there, but we are all Russians now.

Read more …

The BBC should be bankrupted over this. At a minimum, those who took decisions should lose their jobs and pensions.

Judge Allows Trump To Amend $10 Billion BBC Lawsuit (JTN)

The president sued the network in December in his personal capacity for defamation over the BBC airing a program in 2024 that edited clips from his speech on January 6, 2021, to make it seem like he was inciting violence.A federal judge handed President Donald Trump a minor legal victory Monday by allowing him to amend his $10 billion lawsuit against the BBC in a move that is expected to help him dodge sharing financial information with the outlet. The president sued the network in December in his personal capacity for defamation over the BBC airing a program in 2024 that edited clips from his speech on January 6, 2021, to make it seem like he was inciting violence.


United States District Judge Roy K. Altman gave the president permission to file an amended complaint by next week, and dismissed the BBC’s request to dismiss the lawsuit as “moot.” The federal judge said the network can file a new motion to dismiss after the amended complaint is filed. “Today’s strong and thoughtful ruling is a major win for President Trump’s powerhouse lawsuit against the formerly respected and now disgraced BBC, which defamed President Trump by intentionally, maliciously and deceptively doctoring his speech in a brazen attempt to interfere in the 2024 Presidential Election,” a spokesman for Trump’s legal team told Fox News.

“President Trump is holding the leftist BBC, along with all of its comrades in the mainstream media, accountable for their peddling of Fake News through deception and maliciously defamatory conduct,” he added. The lawsuit comes after the British news corporation apologized for the editing, acknowledging that it failed to live up to the company’s standards by giving a false impression and promised to never show the segment again. But the network declined to say it was defamatory.

The segment edited Trump’s declaration at the White House that he and his supporters were “going to walk down to the Capitol, and we’re going to cheer on our brave senators and congressmen and women,” and his statement nearly an hour later that Republicans should “fight like hell.” The clip instead combined the comments to have the president state: “We’re going to walk down to the Capitol… and I’ll be there with you. And we fight. We fight like hell.”

Read more …

“.. for the millions of people who cherish New York and want to see it thrive, as opposed to becoming a filthy, crime-ridden, decrepit place of mockery and scorn.”

Trump Weighs Federal Challenge to Mamdani’s New York Pied-à-Terre Tax (ZH)

President Trump said in a Truth Social post around lunchtime that his administration is examining whether the federal government has the legal authority to block NYC Mayor Zohran Mamdani’s dangerous political “experiment” before it can “destroy what was once a great City and State.”


“It is pure Amateur Hour, and it’s hard, as President of the United States of America, to sit back and watch it happen, especially to a place I once loved. Financial, and then Social, RUIN, is a 100% certainty – And then the Radical Left Jihadists charge Congestion Pricing on top of everything else,” Trump said.

He continued, “This doesn’t work in America, and must be stopped, NOW! I am looking to see if the Federal Government has any legal right to avert this disaster, before it is too late, for the millions of people who cherish New York and want to see it thrive, as opposed to becoming a filthy, crime-ridden, decrepit place of mockery and scorn.”

“The City Screwed This Up”: Judge Temporarily Blocks Mamdani’s Pied-A-Terre Tax Scheme
A New York judge temporarily halted Mayor Zohran Mamdani’s socialist experiment to impose a new tax on luxury second homes, ordering far-left City Hall officials to remove a controversial list doxing more than 900,000 homeowners from the public domain

The publicly accessible database exposed names, addresses, and property values, effectively creating an easily accessible targeting list for radical activists, including Luigi-worshipping far-left activists, amid City Hall’s escalating war on property owners.

“I’ve Been Doxed”: Lefty Podcaster Scott Galloway Rips Mamdani After Landing On Socialist’s Rich Target List
Bloomberg reports that Justice Wayne Ozzi temporarily restrained City Hall from proceeding with the new pied-à-terre tax and required the city to remove the online list of properties that would be targeted by the tax and halt further action based on roughly 17,000 notices mailed to property owners. A hearing is scheduled for Aug. 31. “The city screwed this up… got it wrong… stop the train and make them do it over,” Randy Mastro, a former deputy mayor, told the court. Mastro is the one who brought the suit on behalf of three New York homeowners.

“The city screwed this up… got it wrong… stop the train and make them do it over,” Randy Mastro, a former deputy mayor, told the court. Mastro is the one who brought the suit on behalf of three New York homeowners. z”We are very gratified by the judge’s decision, which has vindicated the rights of hundreds of thousands of New York City homeowners who were subjected to a process they never should have been a part of in the first place,” Mastro said after the ruling. On Monday, Mamdani noted Mastro’s role in suits challenging his socialist housing policies. “You know, there are few things more certain in New York City than death, taxes and Randy Mastro filing a lawsuit against this administration,” the mayor said at a press conference.

He continued, “So we look forward to vigorously defending our city’s position in court as we have done so with the previous lawsuits that he has filed and I’m sure with the lawsuits that he will continue to file in the months and years to come.” Last month, Mastro also filed a separate complaint on behalf of a group of NYC landlords who sued to void a rent freeze approved in June, arguing that Mamdani improperly influenced the Rent Guidelines Board’s vote and ignored evidence of soaring operating costs for landlords. This plays into the broader socialist endgame: bankrupt landlords and create conditions for City Hall to seize distressed apartment buildings.

Mamdani has said the new pied-à-terre tax will help fund safer streets, safer schools, and “the city that New Yorkers deserve.” Yet we know socialists do not live in economic reality, and the fact that they had to dox homeowners suggests an alternative motive: they want to seize the means of production. Putting such a list out in the public domain for their radical left foot soldiers to access suggests that wealthy homeowners will be targeted. This is dangerous, especially given the rhetoric pushed by Mamdani’s friend Hasan Piker, who recently said, “Kill capitalists.”

Read more …

“At the very stage when premature babies are receiving lifesaving care in neonatal intensive care units, Massachusetts will permit abortionists to end the lives of children of the same age – and even older. That is not compassion, and it is not health care,”

Massachusetts Legalizes Abortion Up To Birth As Liberals Cheer (MN)

Massachusetts Democratic Governor Maura Healey has signed into law a measure that effectively permits abortion through all nine months of pregnancy, right up to the point of birth. Liberal women packed the room and gleefully cheered as she put pen to paper.The previous statute restricted abortions after 24 weeks to specific circumstances: preserving the life of the patient, physical or mental health, lethal fetal anomaly, or a grave diagnosis incompatible with sustained life outside the womb without extraordinary intervention. That framework is now gone.


The new law, deceptively titled the “Prioritizing Patient Access to Care Act” (H.5595), states that an abortion may be performed by a physician based solely upon the professional judgment of the physician. No medical review process can override that judgment and the patient’s decision. Healey framed the change around stories of “pain and anguish and heartache and a lot of trauma.” She declared: “We’re signing this law today so that new patients, people we won’t know or won’t meet, will be able to get the care that they need in Massachusetts.”

She added that health care decisions should be made “between women and families and their doctors, not politicians,” and promised abortion would remain “safe… legal, and… accessible here in Massachusetts.” The ceremony featured applause and smiles from advocates, doctors, and lawmakers. Massachusetts now joins Alaska, Colorado, Maryland, Michigan, Minnesota, New Jersey, New Mexico, Oregon, Vermont, and Washington, D.C., as jurisdictions with no statutory gestational limit. The law takes effect in 90 days.

https://twitter.com/EricLDaugh/status/2086974128565723606?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E2086974128565723606%7Ctwgr%5E19c5838c7a6769317dcca19cbcfb9d5ac8b965bd%7Ctwcon%5Es1_c10&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.zerohedge.com%2Fpolitical%2Fmassachusetts-legalizes-abortion-birth-liberals-cheer

Pro-life leaders did not share the celebratory mood. Carol Tobias, president of National Right to Life, stated: “Governor Healey and the Massachusetts Legislature have erased the final protections for unborn children who can feel pain and who could survive outside the womb.” “At the very stage when premature babies are receiving lifesaving care in neonatal intensive care units, Massachusetts will permit abortionists to end the lives of children of the same age – and even older. That is not compassion, and it is not health care,” Tobias further urged.

Myrna Maloney Flynn, president of Massachusetts Citizens for Life, was blunt: the measure “legalized elective abortion up to birth on healthy moms and healthy, pain-capable infants. She continued that it is “not about protecting the doctor-patient relationship. It is about abortionists normalizing the deaths of fully-developed infants and pressuring vulnerable women to permit their unborn children to die in heinous acts of violence.” These procedures, she noted, rank among the most severe human rights abuses permitted in only a handful of places worldwide.

Rep. Tim Burchett (R-TN) responded simply: “Jesus wept.” This movement fits a pattern of cultural celebration around the destruction of the unborn. Earlier this year a woman in Memphis took abortion pills at a gender-reveal party after learning she was having a girl while friends shouted “kill it.” Washed up Sex and the City actress Cynthia Nixon drew widespread criticism for posing in a red hat altered to read “Make Abortion Great Again,” once again providing an example of how weirdo celebrities with dysfunctional lives should not be taken seriously whenever they spout off about how society should function.

Across the Atlantic, the UK House of Lords advanced measures that also effectively open the door to abortion up to birth, despite polling showing only about 1 percent of Britons approve of such extremes and clear majorities favor gestational limits to protect viable life.

The Massachusetts law removes objective statutory guardrails and hands the decision entirely to the attending physician. Pro-life physicians emphasize that true medical emergencies requiring separation of mother and child are distinct from induced abortion intended to end the life of a viable unborn child. Late-term procedures often involve dismemberment or induction, with the latter risking live birth if fetal demise is not first induced. Supporters insist the change merely prevents families from traveling out of state for “complex medical circumstances.”

Critics counter that the prior exceptions already covered life-threatening situations and severe anomalies, and that the new open-ended standard invites elective procedures on healthy mothers carrying healthy, pain-capable infants. Data from the state’s own Department of Public Health already showed dozens of abortions at 24 weeks or later in recent years; the removal of limits is expected to increase that number.

Read more …

The money boys don’t understand AI. But they can’t afford to miss out on it. So they play it safe.

Wall Street Giants Hand Nvidia $500bn To Fund Boom In AI Projects (BBC)

Nvidia has teamed up with some of Wall Street’s largest banks and investors to raise $500bn (£370bn) in capital for artificial intelligence infrastructure. The chipmaker said it had struck deals with Apollo, BlackRock, Blackstone, Brookfield, Goldman Sachs and KKR, and that the investors were for the first time treating AI hardware and infrastructure, often referred to as “compute”, as an asset class. “In AI, compute is revenue,” Nvidia chief executive Jensen Huang said. “We are bringing the world’s leading long-term capital providers together to independently underwrite AI infrastructure.”


The financing will go towards Nvidia’s own projects and those being built by its partners. Infrastructure projects backed by this fund will likely include the construction of new data centres to house, operate, and cool miles of stacked computer chips that process AI data and actions. It will also back new factories to manufacture the AI chips needed to power these systems and increase their availability to buyers. “Compute has become a critical infrastructure asset,” Joe Bae and Scott Nuttall, co-chief executives of KKR, said in a joint statement. “As we’ve scaled our approach to digital infrastructure, we’ve learned that delivery, not ambition, is the hard part.”

Essentially every major technology and AI company uses Nvidia’s computer chips, or graphics processing units (GPUs), to power their services, AI platforms and AI chatbots. “Nvidia is absolutely enormous and produces these chips that everybody needs for AI and it needs to keep facilitating the growth of AI,” Jane Sydenham, senior investment manager at Rathbones, told the BBC. However, she added: “The worry is that more and more money is going into these projects. Are they all going to earn the right return for the future?” ‘

Mission critical’
Companies using Nvidia’s popular chips or GPUs include Google, Meta, Amazon, Microsoft, SpaceX, Tesla, OpenAI and Anthropic. Such companies have collectively spent over $1tn in just three years on AI projects and infrastructure, with much more spending expected. And their demand for Nvidia’s chips and services has driven the stock market value of the company up fivefold in three years. In a statement on Monday, Huang referred to Nvidia’s role as a chip-maker as the company’s beginning. “Today, we are helping create a new class of productive, investable infrastructure: AI factories,” he said.

With a new ability to tap some funding from the banks and investors partnering with Nvidia, they will be able to finance more of the AI boom. Jim Zelter, president of Apollo, a lender which manages more than $1tn in assets, said: “Modern compute has emerged as a scarce, mission-critical asset class.” It is also “positioned to drive significant long-term economic growth and productivity gains”, Zelter added. BlackRock last month entered into an individual deal with Meta to finance and take a majority ownership stake in one data centre in Texas.

Anthropic also recently entered into a deal with Macquarie Asset Management and GIC, a sovereign wealth fund in Singapore, for its own investment in AI infrastructure. The company did not specify the size of the deal, but said more financing was needed as its popular chatbot Claude had become so popular that the “demand requires significant new compute”.

Read more …

I must admit I don’t think I fully understand this. Can someone explain?

Niceness as Whiteness: Professors Denounce Niceness as White Privilege (Turley)

We have previously discussed how many professors seem to compete in finding new forms of racism in every facet of society and education. Astrophysics, math, runoffs, science, statistics, and meritocracy have all been denounced as racist. In this academic cottage industry, professors secure publications and speaking opportunities by identifying racism in expressions, images, or entire fields. Even time itself has been declared racist. Now, however, academics have found another undiscovered continent of white privilege: niceness.


When I saw a story in The College Fix on a study of “niceness as Whiteness,” I was skeptical and decided to take a look. The study by Vanderbilt Postdoctoral Research Fellow Abigail Beneke, Professors Benjamin Fisher (U. Wisconsin-Madison), F. Chris Curran (U. Florida), and Samantha Viano (George Mason) was first flagged by Dr. James Nuzzo. The paper “Niceness as Whiteness in School Police Officers’ Perceptions of Student Arrest” addresses the “perceptions of arrest” by school resource officers, or SROs) in two school districts.

The officers appear to be precisely what you are looking for in an SRO: empathetic and reluctant to make arrests. The researchers admit that they try to avoid arrests. However, according to the authors, hidden behind those sympathetic approaches was, of course, a boiling caldron of racism in terms of the racial disparity of those arrested. Indeed, the researchers realized that it was the niceness itself that was the evidence of oppressive “Whiteness.” Indeed, the officers may not want to be engines of racism and use “niceness” as a “coping mechanism,” but do so by deluding themselves and others that they are nice:

“Nice SROs did not want to arrest children. Nice police officers thought of themselves as well-meaning. Yet, they expressed being required to arrest children because of real or imagined mandates. They used niceness as a strategy for upholding a system of Whiteness that systematically privileges White people and excludes those who fall outside of Whiteness. Niceness hinders possibilities for the types of political, communal relationships central to authentic care.”

The paper makes it sound like everyone would be better off, or at least more honest, to return to hostile, racist-spewing officers. The reason is that niceness is an “enduring component of Whiteness” which “allows predominantly White people to elide how their own actions contribute to inequality by maintaining a sense of their own benevolence.” The evidence of niceness includes such findings as how officers work at “minimiz[ing] the negative impact of arrest by highlighting their own goodness.” (This includes saying things like “You want to listen to the radio? You want the window down? Is there a station you want to listen to?” after an arrest.)

Then there is the fact that these officers have good relationships and perspectives of the students. Again, it is just a shield of “whiteness” “SROs used niceness as Whiteness in their recounts of arrest … by highlighting the positive relationships they had with students they arrested…As with highlighting their own goodness, highlighting these positive relationships reframes violence (i.e., arrest) that contributes to racial inequality as a positive, since students still like the SROs. This strategy emphasizes the officer’s ability to retain his niceness—by virtue of the maintained interpersonal relationship—despite having arrested the student.”

The paper is an example of ideological screeds posing as academic research. Based on a few interviews, the researchers simply declare the empathy and relationships to be shields perpetuating “whiteness.” They cite other studies identifying niceness as a whiteness tactic:

“Prior research has demonstrated how primarily White women educators use niceness to uphold Whiteness in their work with children (Bissonnette 2016; Drake & Rodriguez 2022; Gardiner et al., 2023; Vlach et al., 2022; Wiborg, 2022). We found niceness was also present in the work of SROs, suggesting the potential for broader application of niceness to well-intentioned actors working in structurally violent systems. In addition to framing niceness as a means of excusing behavior that upholds Whiteness, we equally center the structural binds that delimit SROs’ capacity for providing care. In doing so, we identify niceness as a coping mechanism for arresting children.”

At these universities (Vanderbilt, Wisconsin, George Mason, and the University of Florida), these faculty members and their obvious agenda are viewed as ideal choices to teach their students. With four kids, I found the SROs at their schools to be extraordinary and popular figures. They would routinely intervene with kids to see if they were having trouble or try to direct them away from trouble. It turns out that everything that parents valued in their SROs was a perpetuation of privilege, according to these researchers.

While the researchers insist that “we do not intend to demonize individual SROs,” they reward the cooperating officers by twisting their every comment as revealing their deep white privilege. Presumably, they conveyed to the SROs that this would be a fair, unbiased study. It was neither, and, perhaps reaffirming their own triumph over racism, they were not a bit nice about it.

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https://twitter.com/mcafeenew/status/2086906681058025620?s=20 https://twitter.com/Teslaconomics/status/2086919130465411429?s=20 https://twitter.com/GuntherEagleman/status/2086895337545801994?s=20

 

 

 

 

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Home Forums Debt Rattle August 12 2026

Viewing 34 posts - 1 through 34 (of 34 total)
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  • #247174

    Rene Magritte Memory 1948 • Iran’s Military Command: US Must Meet All Demands For Hormuz Opening (ZH) • Iran Has One Last Chance Before Trump Hits Bac
    [See the full post at: Debt Rattle August 12 2026]

    #247198
    Michael Reid
    Participant

    #247199
    Michael Reid
    Participant

    Three Things We can Do Now as the US Empire Ends
    By Karen Kwiatkowski
    August 11, 2026

    It’s premature, but Trump may be following my advice on Iran. All I did was lay out a path of least resistance, and in my experience, this is the most likely path followed by man and state. The trick is to perceive how how the “state” views “least resistance,” and how it defines “easier.”

    DC consistently does the easy thing, choosing immediate pleasantries over its peasants, preferring to borrow for wars and nice drapes over building for the next generation. Your willing sacrifice to the state is a precious curiosity, because the state itself sacrifices nothing and has no concept of the greater good.

    NAD Supplement Extra S…
    Check Amazon for Pricing.

    As Kim Dotcom recently explained to Tucker Carlson, we have a government that spies, lies, propagandizes its population, constantly seeks to enrich itself, and is wasting its last breath fighting a losing battle to retain the label of global superpower while being crushed by $40 Trillion of unpayable debt. When that house of cards falls down, the whole world with be harmed, and what’s worse, the chance of the US using a nuclear weapon in lieu of paying back debt or preventing its collection is far higher than many people assume.

    How we might mitigate a sudden or violent collapse of the empire, preserve what we value, reshape a new government, and survive the state? Are these things even possible, given this state of imperial decline? Probably not. In the book Deep Survival, Laurence Gonzales examines real world survival situations and tries to make sense of who lives and who dies. A key factor for survival is recognizing early on that you are in a situation where you are not going to be rescued, and you are going to die. Accepting and understanding reality somehow quiets the panic and sets the stage for rational, as well as experimental, thinking. Responsibility is owned, blame is forgotten, and the survivor is able to strategize effectively and solve the problems at hand.

    Gonzales’ exploration of who lives, who dies and why is revealing and useful. However, if there is time or desire to reforge a republic from the ravages of empire, if we are graced with a controlled landing, given what we have to work with – here’s three things we might do now:

    Repeal the 17th Amendment. Why? Congressman Keith Self representing the Texas 3rd District offers a resolution to just that, to ensure Senators speak for their states, not the highest bidder in Washington, which is usually AIPAC, Big Pharma or the MIC. We’ve repealed one bad Constitutional Amendment before, when Prohibition ended. The state’s interest in more tax revenue as well as a sharp national sense of hypocrisy both played a part in prohibitions repeal. Ken Burns points out that the 18th Amendment prohibiting the alcohol trade was the only one that limited our liberty rather than expanded it. Not so fast, Ken! Given the outcome of the 17th Amendment – extreme federal debt borrowed on the various states’ assets and the enormous level of hypocrisy at the federal level – we could do worse than another repeal of a Progressive Era amendment. Today, Senators serve long past competency – and in the case of Senator McConnell, past death – finally expiring in office. This has impinged on our rights to representation. The 17th Amendment has limited our liberty to choose, and more than that, denied states their lawful Constitutional advocate and voice in Washington. We have only to look at the sudden death of South Carolina Senator Lindsey Graham, a war whore of the finest kind, and the quick Presidential phone call to the SC Governor requesting that Mr. McMaster appoint Lindsey’s sister to the Senate. There is no federalism where the legislative branch is castrated, severed from its natural source of testosterone and raw courage. Repeal the 17th – states may again choose their two Senate voices, and ensure that they serve 50 capitols, and 50 unique sets of interests rather than genuflect to the whims of Washington.

    Rarely Assemble the Congress. The Constitution requires the Congress assemble on the first Monday of December, once annually. While we the people have become accustomed to thinking that the US Congress “does the work of the people,” nothing could be further from the truth. Most of its constitutional duties relate to oversight of the executive branch in peace and war, and confirming treaties. The last time the Congress declared war was on 8 December 1941, when requested by FDR after the executive branch had done everything possible to invite a Japanese attack. That trick worked once, and the Congress has yet to declare another war, even as the US has engaged in nonstop war and military intervention ever since. The US habitually violates its agreements, and dishonors its treaties. What is left for the Senate, and the House to do, but rubber stamp executive pet programs, and those of major lobbies and funders? Instead of complaining that the Congress takes too many recesses and breaks, we should applaud them, and demand our Congressmen and women spend 90% of their time in their districts, and our Senators return to their state capitols – in both cases to get to know their real bosses. One consequence will be the development of regional – not party – alliances as neighboring states face similar challenges, and have similar opportunities. Another will be the difficulty for DC based lobbyists to effectively exercise our representatives, compromise them, or efficiently bribe them. Instead, we the people will find a more level playing field, and can more easily touch those we have elected, and assess their true value to us. Seeing closeup the sheer incompetence and fraud afflicting most of our elected class will inspire their betters to challenge them, directly on issues, and also via election.

    Become Part of the Decentralizing Universe. Catherine Austin Fitts has an interesting new post where she defines two types of people by where they are intellectually, morally and economically. The Centralizing Universe is the state, corrupting because it has to be to remain in control, to consume ever more resources. Most of us unfortunately have at least one foot in this “CU.” On the other hand, the Decentralizing Universe consists of those “embracing individual freedom and economic activities that are fundamentally productive. Ideally, they have found a way to support themselves independent of large corporations, governments, and foundations.” It sounds simple, and good, and positive and optimistic and it is all these things. It is also an alliance, an intellectual militia, a creative economic machine, and a deep well of courage from which all may drink. Let us all quietly stand apart from the government kudzu, and help slash the vines holding our friends and neighbors hostage and fearful. Lean into the DU in a thousand ways. We are not fleeing empire, but nimbly avoiding its fallout as we build new community.

    Three Things We can Do Now as the US Empire Ends

    #247202
    Dr. D
    Participant

    “The Trump Administration Has Revoked More Than 175,000 Visas. Here’s Who’s Included in the Crackdown” Time

    We have more than 200,000 visas operational at any one time? Many, many, many more? How many are there? For why? Wtf? TIME thinks this is a bad thing?

    Yesterday’s headline was Hunter Biden and Tucker Carlson came out in favor of each other? Tucker, who read, reported, then refused to continue with Hunter’s laptop back when, now trusts Hunter that it wasn’t his. It was a Jooooooish laptop. ‘Cause Hunter sez.

    What. The Literal.

    Yup, that Tucker, a Pro-Hunter Biden guy. Hunter was all innocent, got a bad rap. Presidential material!

    Nothing says “I’m Above the Fray, America First” like promoting Child Pedo (as point of official legal fact, in Thailand) human trafficker (as point of official legal fact, last month) Hunter Biden, and calling him and his father (“Pedo Pete”) innocent and personal friends and allies. Yup. People of America rejoice! your twin saviours are here. Backed by a woman who fled the country a day after she cashed her Congressional pension.

    She said yesterday not to vote for Republicans, so I guess MTG and Tucker are the Kamala Harris/Hunter Biden Party now. That should go over well.

    Also, if this is too obvious to be obvious, too dumb to be dumb, it’s something else. They are up to something else. Weasels are incapable of thinking in a straight line. They’re crooked as a dog’s hind leg.

    “Voters are sick of the 2-party system. A new poll shows they’re open to big changes” NPR

    60 seconds after Tucker starts a run. What are the odds??? And NPR is of course working for the same oligarchs. Always has. “Ford Foundation” “Bill and Melinda Gates”. “Carnegie”. So it’s all about how splitting the vote is a GOOD thing now. Wait! Didn’t they say Jill Stein, Jimmy Dore, Bernie Sanders, Ralph Nader, all split the vote and Were traitors to be shot? Huh. Well, I guess it’s a brand new day. All laws and physics true last week aren’t true now. Winston adjusted those records.

    “Trump Weighs Federal Challenge To Mamdani’s Socialist Tax “Experiment,” Warns It Will Doom NYC

    I don’t know about you, but I think this is a Beta. Like they Beta tested Argentina, which went Waaaaaaaaay better than anyone expected. El Salvador, Waaaaaaaay easier than anyone expected. But NYC gets a much needed re-set. And it’s all the DSA’s fault. All prices reset, property transfers, new laws are enacted, clean sweep for a pro-business New York on the other side, DNC unable to win for a generation. All Mamdani’s fault. Any losses: Democrat’s fault. And it is, sort of.
    You can’t clean sweep, clean up the problems without this “Crash”. But the Crash can’t be Republicans, Trump’s fault. Which is pretty easy, since in general it isn’t. I’d pay anything I I had just to keep the DSA talking and in the news every day. You don’t even have to trick them into anything, it’s magic. What they say and do naturally is crazier and more violent than anything I can make up.

    “Ex-DSA Member Blows Whistle Over “Mob Tactics” Used On Dissenters

    We all know that, they backstab and cancel each other harder than even us. “Democrats Shocked By The Cancel Culture They Built”

    “After Mass Migrant Invasion, 5 Girls Under 14 Reportedly Raped In Ceuta

    How many over 14? A: Who cares? They don’t care about the ones under 14 either. Socialism at work, or they’d be mad, wouldn’t they? They’re not mad about it, or the visitors. They’re happy.

    “Iran’s Military Command Reshuffle Digs in for ‘Hardline’ Confrontation: US Must Meet All Demands For Hormuz Opening” (Pic of a guy who isn’t alive, only pretending, with the flag of a nation now in 31 parts)

    Please never open it. Please, please, please.

    They can always snipe one ship and always will. But what good is that? What good does that do them unless they can make it pay? They are now Somalia, congratulations.

    “Now, the new supreme leader, Khamenei’s son Mojtaba” ...who is dead and doing nothing, more of a puppet than even Joe Biden was, and “Ruling” by AI autopen…

    “Iran’s Leader has appointed 6 top military commanders:”

    Why would I believe any of this? Why would they give the actual names? They’re also not appointed, since the leader that appointed them, didn’t. They just PRETEND they are appointed by a PRETEND leader. All this Signaling, Pretending, running into the 2,000lb bomb Reality of “Make Me”.

    “, people have been leaking that there are not enough Patriot missiles, for example, or Harpoon missiles, older ones, Tomahawk missiles. We’ve heard there are not enough bunker busters. I don’t know if any of this is true, but it’s been leaking.”

    Leaking on purpose, duh. And finding the moles. This is always going on, we’ve seen it a dozen times. Whoops, not this time! This time the Reporters iz Schmartz!

    “Why the Air Force LIED about the B-2’S MAX PAYLOAD” – Youtube.

    The military LIES about their capabilities? Instead of being honest to the enemy? So as to critically misguide them and CAUSE (i.e. Iran) to think they should keep going since our 6-gun is blank? Jesus Christ they’re stupid. Or maybe they’re not (see Marandi yesterday) but reporters sure are. There’s no SR71 Blackbird either and we have no space planes. VDH says we have 50% — who knows – but that means we can run another whole war on Iran again today. We also didn’t use the massive busters, so 95% of those. We also have new stuff we haven’t admitted we have, so 100% of that, whatever it is. Blue Space lasers that never run dry. Right? Or only Lahania have those?

    “why Trump is so angry, is we have enough, we have about 40% or 50%, likely, of our arsenal, …While we’re engaged with Ukraine and Iran, they might want to try to see if they could go into Taiwan, and we wouldn’t have enough missiles.”

    He is not angry, it’s a con, we are clearly NOT engaged in Ukraine OR Taiwan, so none of that is relevant. Also the “Leak” is up to something, I mean Duh, the WaPo hasn’t reported accurately in 20 years and is literally a direct merger with the CIA. They’re the Google of news.

    “”Warsh can talk tough, but the math indicates he has no choice but to keep the printing presses rolling”

    Warsh merely prints what Congress orders him to. That’s it. Nice of Congress to tell him not to and blame him for doing what is their job. …Or for us. We showed the waste, showed DOGE, showed dozens of others. About half the country would go mad if you cut a dollar. Nevermind why, or Congress: that’s US. I don’t do it, but everyone I know will. There are like 10% of us left who would even try. So be practical: what do you do then? Don’t bitch: solve it.

    The Left would “Burn it all down” and kill their next 160 Million people. For the Oligarchs. Is that your plan, or would you like something better?

    Today:
    “Karoline Leavitt says today’s Democratic Party is no longer the party of JFK or even Barack Obama, warning it has been taken over by a radical far-left”

    Always has been. This was the same natural outcome of their foundational premises with Woodrow Wilson, 1912. FDR’s Bureaucratic Statism, 1942. He was “Leader-for-life. Don’t know why it took 100 years to see the obvious. Their principles of “Helping” – that is, telling everyone what to do – don’t have any natural end point. The end point is Stalin.

    Elon Musk: “My essential philosophy is curiosity”

    There’s a difference here. That means you start with what DOESN’T work, where the pieces do NOT fit correctly. The Appeal to Authority, textbook people never look there and cite ONLY the things we DO know – but know wrongly. They attack YOU if you point out places their answers don’t fit. They are therefor violently Anti-Science and Anti-progress. You cannot progress by citing scripture. Worse, they don’t even understand the science of what they’re saying, nor examine their own contradictions.

    “• I Liked the Dems Better When AOC Was Their Craziest Commie (Stephen Kruiser)

    AOC say She no Woke. Woke is Cray-Cray! She was never Woke, what you talkin’ about? She als don’t know nothin’ ‘bout no DSA. …While she is STILL a member.

    If only there weren’t Tucker THAT would have been the craziest thing said all week.

    ““During lockdown, of course, rhetoric in that time is not rhetoric that we would use today.”

    You mean rhetoric like rounding everyone up and murdering them with lack of access to health care at a minimum? It’s not the “Signaling” we need you to refute. It’s the fact of you doing it.

    “Pledging to freeze rent prices and wants to borrow $70 billion for more affordable housing.”

    Yes, well Rents have spiked 10% in months. He’s going to go to BANKERS and borrow $70 Billion – for one CITY!!! — from OLIGARCHS. Socialism 101. What’s Florida’s standing debt, for comparison? ($25B)

    He’s going to add that in one MINUTE.

    “• Radical DSA Platform Grabs Spotlight As Candidates Surge In Primaries (JTN)

    One of the two has all the attention, and that means they win. …Exactly as I point out with Trump, where THEY are the ones who empower him and keep him both in office and with unlimited power to act. Not the Republicans, that’s for sure! The LEFT, Media.

    “CNN hunts down and confronts a doctor for spreading “misinformation” online”

    CNN, a Corporation run by Oligarchs, joins with another Corporation Run by Oligarchs, to MERGE WITH GOVERNMENT, and FORCE people to take live human experiments using their infinite Police State and Social campaign. So as they are all Billionaire Oligarchs, in a fascist merger with State, showing EVERY feature of Fascism, where CNN – Anchored by another BILLIONAIRE Oligarch (Vanderbilt) family, and aligned with ANOTHER Billionaire Oligarch family (Getty) and working closely with a THIRD Oligarch family (Cuomo) while literally having CIA agents both as guests and anchors —

    Well, That’s why I trust CNN today implicitly! Whatever they say about Trump and Iran must be true!

    So long as they are the mouthpiece of the CIA-Oligarch-Fascist merger, how could they lie? Most trusted name in news to me! After RussiaRussiaRussia I’d never doubt how many missiles they say we have! …While they continue to hunt down normal Americans at home and harm them. (Don Lemon)

    “• Massachusetts Legalizes Abortion Up To Birth As Liberals Cheer (MN)

    Yeah, but they’d never move forward from this into open Eugenics and murder. Oh they did in Canada? Starting almost the very day MAID was passed? And reduced the age to “sad children of any age”? Yup, 100% of the time, for people who applaud fascists in public, as both they, and the Democrats do.

    And look at all those happy women! They’re going to have abortions of healthy babies ONE DAY before birth, save themselves the trouble of stretch marks. WHACK! Crack that baby on the head, just as we said yesterday, our most unconscionable arch-enemies did, cracking that infant’s head against the cabin wall. Considered a war crime in all cultures over all time, ever. Women have never been happier, I think. MAID in the shade.

    Obviously no legal break, so “South Park did it first” your 37th trimester abortion. Why not? Life isn’t sacred, it’s just “A mass of cells”. Just like you are, comrade.

    ““Nice SROs did not want to arrest children. Nice police officers thought of themselves as well-meaning.”

    Argument rests on Telepathy. ONLY THEY are aware that all white people, and all policemen – even the black ones – are seething cauldrons of racism and hate. You can’t see it, even they themselves are unaware of it. But they’re Demonicly-driven Sinners! …Stop me if this sounds familiar. Like you saw this in Massachusetts, 1650. Only Father Sergio of the Inquisition knows! Only AWFULs know what’s inside your secret mind, Mom.

    Or put shortly: You are dangerously, criminally insane.

    “Three Things We can Do Now as the US Empire Ends”

    Yay! We’re winning! So “Karen” is happy! She says “Thank you sooooo much President Trump, how can we ever repay you?” Right? Or else she must love and want Empire to stay, right? She and I seem to disagree.

    She supports anarchy, in fact! We should have the structure and power of the Manhattan Indians, only that would be moral! And even that is almost too much power. Because that will work wonderfully to keep off our enemies worldwide including…hmmm…English man o’ war. Yes! She’s a genius.

    So she’s disbanding the CIA then, right? Scattering it to the winds? Leaving Bill Gates, ChatGPT and Elon Musk in control?
    I’m sure there is no downside to this, especially to Globalists and the Epstein Class. Recommend!

    #247203

    What happens when all the “compute” goes to a socialist regime?

    #247204
    Michael Reid
    Participant

    We can’t vote our way out of this matrix
    We can vote for politicians, but the bankers hold all the power and we’ve no way to overturn their policies at the ballot box. This will have to be fought, sooner or later.
    Alex Krainer
    Aug 12, 2026

    Western “liberal democracies” seem stuck on the road to nowhere. The most dismaying aspect of this is that voters seem entirely unable to effect any course correction of their nations’ ruinous trajectories. If anything, we are only hurling toward collapse faster and with greater conviction. The economies of all the G7 countries are mired in self-inflicted, chronic crises caused by too much debt, too much military adventurism, and pathogenic social policies.

    And yet, our elected officials seem determined to deliver more of the same. Even when the people vote for change, the candidates who propose changes are either disqualified from holding office, sabotaged in their work, or otherwise co-opted into perpetuating the same agendas that the voters rejected. The most obvious example was President Trump who won three elections on his MAGA platform, promising to end the forever wars, bring troops home and make the United States a global manufacturing superpower.

    The MAGA mirage
    Trump had a certain credibility. For one thing, he wasn’t a typical politician and in many ways, his rhetoric seemed like s a breath of fresh air. During his last electoral campaign he called on voters to join him in the battle against the global financier class, suggesting that he understood the ultimate source of our problems. Unlike his predecessors, he didn’t start any new wars during his first term, and tried to withdraw US troops from Afghanistan and Syria. He even talked about withdrawing them from Germany and made a serious attempt to reconcile the two Koreas.

    During the first year of his second term he re-established US diplomatic relations with Russia, pacified the Balkans (which were on the precipice of a major war, brokered a cessation of hostilities between India and Pakistan and between Azerbaijan and Armenia. He even pressured the Israeli government to stop their rampage in Gaza and allow humanitarian aid to the Palestinian people.

    Then, in February of this year, he shocked the world and many of his supporters by joining the Israeli attack against Iran which he clearly and explicitly promised to his voters that he would not do. It seems that when push comes to shove, our elected leaders can all somehow be coerced to implement policies that serve certain interests, regardless of what the voters demand.

    This is even more obvious in the case of Great Britain where for decades, cabinet after cabinet, whether conservative or labour, pursued the same ruinous policies without even pretending that there’s any other alternative on the menu. The will of the British people is hardly an afterthought for their supposed servants in the political class. The same can be said about France and Germany, none of which are ever shy about lecturing other nations about “our values,” freedom, prosperity, human rights, transparency, etc.

    What’s the explanation?
    If economic, social, and foreign policies are voter-proof, we must conclude that the policies must be formulated, not at the grassroots, but elsewhere. But that “elsewhere” is clearly concealed from view and anyone who begins to notice is dismissed as a communist, conspiracy theorist, transphobe, islamophobe, antisemite, antivaxxer, or some such label. We are also instructed never to ascribe to malice what can adequately be explained by incompetence. Stuff just happens because we somehow consistently elect the most incompetent losers to shape our future. So unlucky!

    However, even if they are incompetent losers, our politicians seem to be strangely consistent in their policies, and if we draw the line under their performance, it’s clear that we can never seem to get what we want (peace, prosperity, clean and safe streets, etc.), but keep getting more and more of what we don’t want (more taxes, more immigration, more surveillance, more censorship, more wars…). The system’s performance is clearly not random. It follows that there must be some driving force behind it all, and that driving force must have certain objectives in its sights.

    About this we have many clues almost as soon as we open our eyes and observe what’s presented around us. Perhaps the best clue was dropped by Mayer Amschel Rothschild, who said, “Permit me to issue and control the money of a nation, and I care not who makes its laws.” Another clue was dropped by the current Prime Minister of Canada, Mark Carney, a former Goldman Sachs banker and governor of the Bank of Canada and the Bank of England.

    In November 2020 Carney was the appointed global czar in charge of fighting climate change and at that time, he smugly explained how he planned to do that:

    “We need a whole economy transition… it’s really about looking for, and at the transition plans from all companies and backing those who are part of the solution and talking capital away from those who are part of the problem.”

    Carney’s statement revealed that the bankers have the power to fund their pet projects and kill the ones they don’t care for. If they can effect “a whole economy transition,” then they hold the power to shape the future of society. We might like freedom, but they prefer us under surveillance, so we get surveillance. We might like peace, but they need wars, so we get wars. We might like to feed our children healthy foods, but they prefer that we all eat fake meat and insect fodder, so they’re killing cows and building insect farms. That, by the way, is part of Carney’s fight against climate change, since science says that cows are destroying the planet.

    Another important clue came from Britain’s former Prime Minister Liz Truss. In February 2024 she appeared in Steve Bannon‘s War Room and said this:

    “What I found out when I got into No. 10 is, I thought that if I got to the top of the tree, I would be able to implement those conservative policies… And what I discovered was that I was not holding the levers. The levers were held by the Bank of England, by the Office of Budget Responsibility, they weren’t held by the Prime Minister or the Chancellor…”

    Truss then pointed out the obvious problem with this: you can sack the Prime Minister, but you can’t sack the BOE officials who hold the levers of power. This all dovetails with the quote that, “the issue which has swept down the centuries and which will have to be fought sooner or later is the people versus the bankers.”

    That quote has been widely, but mistakenly attributed to Lord Acton (including by yours, truly). Thanks to AI, I was able to check and find its real author, so I thought I’d set the record straight: apparently, it was Sir Alexander James Edmund Cockburn (also known as Alexander Cockburn), Lord Chief Justice of England from 1859 until his death in 1880.

    It’ll have to be fought, sooner or later…
    If we accept the premise that the bankers are in charge, and not our democratically elected officials, we can begin to analyze why bankers do what they do, and what incentives drive their conduct. Thankfully, that’s not as complicated as it seems. In a nutshell, Bankers are after quality collateral, wherever and in whatever form it can be found. Collateral enables bankers to issue loans, which become assets on their institutions’ balance sheets, and which all the rest of us get to repay with interest.

    If they can issue and control a nation’s money, and the rest of us are obliged to use that money (or else..), then all our debts become their assets. Effectively, we all become their serfs and our democracies provide no mechanism for us to overturn that arrangement at the ballot box, since our central banks are all “independent.” As Alan Greenspan famously told us, no institution of government can overturn the decisions made by the Fed. Therefore, it will have to be fought, sooner or later.

    Alex Krainer – @NakedHedgie is the creator of I-System Trend Following and publisher of daily TrendCompass investor reports which cover over 200 financial and commodities markets. One-month test drive is always free of charge, no jumping through hoops to cancel. To start your trial subscription, drop us an email at TrendCompass@ISystem-TF.com, or:

    NEW: Check out our daily TrendCompass on Substack, covering 19 key global markets, incl. gold and bitcoin at under $1/day
    For US investors, we propose a trend-driven inflation/recession resilient portfolio covering a basket of 30+ financial and commodities markets. Further information is at this link.

    https://alexkrainer.substack.com/p/we-cant-vote-our-way-out-of-this

    #247205
    Michael Reid
    Participant

    Democratic Socialists of America (DSA)

    D your present government is toxic to the well being of the citizens.

    Unfettered capitalism is toxic to the well being of the citizens.

    Russia and China seem to be figuring out more positive citizen governance and international relations but the U.S. and collective west have not and are being ruled by vampire bankers.

    #247206
    Michael Reid
    Participant

    #247207
    Michael Reid
    Participant

    #247208
    Michael Reid
    Participant

    #247209
    Michael Reid
    Participant

    #247210
    Michael Reid
    Participant

    Makkah Joint Defence Agreement is Not a Threat to India

    #247211
    Michael Reid
    Participant

    The war in Ukraine is not about Ukraine. It’s about meaning. Yes, it’s a proxy war, and yes, power is at the core of the military confrontation. Even thinking of it as a war of civilizations is not wrong, but it misses what the civilizations actually disagree on. Only the symbolic foundations of the war reveal what Moscow on the one hand and the Globalists on the other are actually fighting about.

    Russian political philosopher and Orthodox thinker Pavel Shchelin joins Pascal to discuss how worldviews, symbols, and desires shape political decisions. They examine sanctions, competing ideas of peace and security, Russia-West relations, NATO, and why shared political language can hide deep disagreement over Ukraine.

    #247219

    The war in Ukraine is not about Ukraine. It’s about ..,

    Russia. The age old desire to conquer Russia, and all of its resources.

    Europe has nothing left, no energy, no money. There is not one single EU company that means anything in the increasingly AI economy.

    All UK and France can come up with is the same old. Napoleon, Hitler and now Von der Leyen..

    This time, though, Russia has directed nukes at London, Paris and Brussels. Checkmate.

    #247221
    John Day
    Participant

    If I am rude and say “bitch” more am I less white, or am I damned if I do and damned if I don’t?
    Racism is like a diode, right? It only works in one direction?

    #247222
    Michael Reid
    Participant

    HORMUZ AND JAPAN TO CRASH U.S. ECONOMY – w/ David Lin

    #247223
    Dr. D
    Participant

    “Putin Threatens Seizures Of European Ships Over EU’s “Piracy & Banditry”
    Brussels approved a scheme where EU can sell off seized ‘shadow fleet’ oil or cargo…

    The EU is broke and just out there robbing, using military expansionism, like all other Fascist regimes before them. Pretty odd, considering they are Russia’s main customer of the self-same oil.

    Ritter: “Trump Turns the Screws”.

    But Trump already lost, 110 days ago, and handed the nation over to Iran. What gives? Now we’re back in the fight and a serious contender who can push Iran around again? Crickey, make up your mind. Lost/NotLost, Over/Not Over. Trump Surrendered but is still fighting without pause. Peace but War, Open but Shut, the “War has expanded out of control” while no one is bombing and it’s a standoff. See why I believe words should have meaning again?

    Logos: Try it, you might like it. Where things are things and reason exists again.

    “HORMUZ AND JAPAN TO CRASH U.S. ECONOMY – w/ David Lin

    Radically different things: Pick One. Yen blew up like a year before Iran existed? That movement is not a response at all. Not even a little. Hormuz is closed with oil at $77, so this very normal price causes undue stress how?

    D your present government is toxic to the well being of the citizens.
    Unfettered capitalism is toxic to the well being of the citizens.”

    No kidding to both. I’ve been fighting them almost since childhood on these exact terms. It’s only finally – and thanks to this President — that the level and manner of toxic is finally exposed to the Public, and to daylight. There’s no such thing as “Unfettered Capitalism” and never has been. “Capitalism” predicates a “Rule of Law”, because “Property” means, of Property Rights, and therefore a Government. People and corporations are obviously and always subservient to Government. So if Capitalism is “Unfettered” – which it can’t be – the system you’re describing is “Fascism”, the merger of Corporation and State, therefore a CORRUPT government. Yeah, corrupt governments are always bad, no kidding. Just say so, we don’t have to make up verbal diversions and distractions from it.

    Make them not corrupt and your “Unfettered”, your problem, goes away. That’s you, that’s us.

    That is, translated: Just Be Normal. That’s it. You work, and your property is not stolen. The government punishes violence against you instead of aiding it. If you have issues, you go to court and don’t self-serve. This can never happen under Socialism, as identically to National Socialists, they are the ultimate merger of Corporation and State. The very FACT of you voicing grievance will be mocks, attacked, and imprisoned, exactly as the Trucker Protest. That is to say, Your government is toxic to the well being of all Canadian citizens and getting worse fast. They have NOT been revealed to the public and exposed to daylight there at all, and appear to be acting faster and faster with no counterforce and no restraint.

    So good luck since you’re wildly worse off than we are and many years behind us, both in resistance and in restoration, and it’s a fair bet Canada may cease to exist as we know it in ten or more years, both by demographics and by law. I have faith in you, but I don’t thing the odds should be dropping as they are now to 50-50.

    #247224
    Michael Reid
    Participant

    USS Lincoln in FATAL Mutiny, Iran FORCES US Navy to TURN on Itself | Larry Johnson

    #247227
    Michael Reid
    Participant

    Putin Orders Retaliatory Seizures By Russian Navy Of EU Ships; Orekhov Crisis Kiev Brigade Trapped

    #247228
    Michael Reid
    Participant

    The ZAPPER – Trump’s Secret Wake-up Assistant

    #247229
    Michael Reid
    Participant

    The ‘Totalitarian Capitalism’ That Big Tech Is Building (w/ Whitney Webb)

    #247230
    Michael Reid
    Participant

    CALAMITY: Oil Blows out. So Does War. So Does Finance. So Will Food.
    Monday’s headlines collide into a major storm of troubles.
    David Haggith
    Aug 10, 2026

    So many big stories in the news today, it’s hard to know where to begin and end. Let’s start with the Strategic Petroleum Reserve (SPR). It fell below 300-million barrels, just reported for last week.

    The energy department claims today that the effective bottom (the level at which you start destroying the salt caverns by going any lower) is 70-million barrels. That’s nonsense. It’s what the government wants you to believe or what it wants to believe it can do if it has to, or what it wants Iran to believe, which is all just more denial of reality. Throughout the entire time of the war, the oil industry has been saying the effective bottom of the SPR is around 250-million barrels.

    The oil industry has generally accepted that the operational minimum for oil in the SPR, a point at which it would be more difficult to pump out the oil, is somewhere between 250 million and 300 million barrels. Meanwhile, sizing studies done on the SPR in the 1970s recommended an inventory minimum of 250 million barrels….

    That means we are there … or very close.

    “The SPR’s drawdown, distribution and fill capabilities are currently limited and are at risk going forward due to longstanding issues with aging infrastructure compounded with ongoing major construction intended to address them,” the GAO warned in the report.

    “When you do a drawdown, then you accelerate kind of the degradation of the wells themselves and some of the equipment,” Goldwyn said. “It’s like anything else — you use it a lot, you have to maintain it.” (Morningstar)

    The Government Accounting Office says that partial collapse has already been happening. Additionally, equipment failures have left us to where the government cannot pump as low as it claims, even if it decides it wants to.

    More than a quarter of that [remaining] oil is physically inaccessible, blocked by failing pumps, corroded pipes, and underground salt caverns that have deformed beyond their operational parameters, according to internal government documents. (Eastern Herald)

    Somewhere not far below the present level, you start to increase the risk of collapsing the salt caverns. (Because they pump water down into the caverns to float the oil up, and once they have to pump that much water in, the salt dissolves enough to collapse.)

    The mechanics of salt cavern geology mean that caverns left idle, or drawn down rapidly and then not refilled, can shift in ways that compromise the borehole integrity needed for reliable extraction. Repairing that kind of structural degradation requires engineering work that goes well beyond standard maintenance: remediation of the cavern walls, replacement or relining of wellbore casings, and in some cases the permanent abandonment of caverns that have deformed beyond recovery.

    So, we are now close to what we might call “cavern bottoms,” like the phrase “tank bottoms” where they really mean the effective bottom of oil tanks because the final 10-20% fills up with sludge composed of sand, water, paraffin, tars, etc. that you can’t get much fuel out of.

    Energy executives made their concern explicit to Congress in June. Oil company representatives warned Trump administration officials and lawmakers that the country’s energy price shock exposure had grown sharply with each successive drawdown, pressing the administration to prioritize refilling over other uses of the reserve

    Keep taking the caverns down below their present level, which now has a 200-handle, and we start significantly increasing the risk of severely damaging the caverns. In fact, they say we should begin refilling them now to avoid causing damage because just sitting at the present level will cause deformity over time due to lack of oil pressure against the sides of the salt and due to the water.

    For now, the United States is carrying the lightest emergency oil buffer it has held in more than four decades, and a significant portion of that buffer cannot be mobilized at the pace the reserve was designed to provide. What the Department of Energy decides next, whether to fund the repairs, begin purchases, or defer both while oil prices are relatively low, will determine whether the SPR exits this period as a functioning emergency instrument or continues to erode toward a level at which it cannot absorb a serious shock.

    That paragraph was written more than a month ago. The whole situation is only worse now.

    Spotty fuel shortages start to hit
    The shortages in fuels are starting to emerge. I covered this at greater length in my weekend Deeper Dive, but will add a little here from the latest headlines:

    First, let’s note that US oil (West Texas Intermediate) has broken back solidly above $80/bbl ($82.20 at the time of this writing), and Brent Crude is pushing back toward $90 ($87.89 at the moment).

    Airlines are now scrambling for jet fuel. I already reported on how Gatwick told all pilots flying into London at the start of last week to tank up before heading to London because Gatwick would be out of fuel before the end of last week. (Whether they got their hands on any additional fuel and/or staved off enough refueling to end the week with some jet fuel still in their tanks, I haven’t heard.)

    In July, several European airlines announced that they were at risk of running out of jet fuel. Europe has turned to the United States and Asia for alternative fuel imports in recent months but continues to feel the strain of the shortages. The United Kingdom, France, and Germany are extremely vulnerable due to their heavy reliance on the Middle East for their fuel supplies.

    Europe set itself up for this to happen if a situation like the present developed. It did that by dialing back its existing refining operations in preference for green energy, and not approving new refineries, making Europe more reliant on fuels refined in the ME. It has regulated itself into deep troubles. The US has done somewhat the same, but still refines enough to export fuels to Europe; however, doing so at such an accelerated rate raises fuel prices for Americans.

    On 18th June, the consultancy Energy Aspects forecast a jet fuel supply deficit across Europe of almost 600,000 bpd in the third quarter of the year, compared to surpluses of around 116,000 bpd in the United States and 425,000 bpd in Asia-Pacific. Europe’s inventories totalled around 38 million barrels at the beginning of June, equivalent to roughly 30 days of its fuel demand. The International Energy Agency (IEA) made a similar estimate.

    That situation, too, has only gotten worse in the month that has transpired since that report.

    EU Energy Commissioner Dan Jorgensen said that the region could face jet fuel shortages near the end of the summer season but that Brussels plans to coordinate releases of national reserves as required. Several European countries have also turned to alternative suppliers to fill the gap.

    Even if they step in with the remainder of their crude reserves, they are going to find they don’t have the refining capacity to utilize that crude, now that so much of their supplemental ME refining has been knocked out along with so much Russian refining. It won’t matter that they have the crude, if they don’t have available refining capacity—something I’ve always pointed to as a major chronic problem that would come out of both the war in Iran and the war in Ukraine.

    The U.S., Nigeria, Canada, India and South Korea have all stepped in to provide Europe with jet fuel. Meanwhile, in Italy, refiners boosted jet fuel production by around 10 per cent during the first four months of the year, helping to meet national demand….

    As jet fuel contributes around 20 to 25 per cent of an airline’s operating costs, keeping ticket prices down has been difficult. Some airlines have already been forced to cut flights….

    The low-cost Irish airline Ryanair said that 20 per cent of its unhedged fuel was hit hard by price spikes, leading operating costs to increase by 11 per cent.

    Californian government operates with the same kind of heat-damaged brains that Europe does, pushing for more green energy by tightening the noose on the energy they already have, so it is in the worst condition of any US state as we move now into the tighter phase of the energy crisis where physical fuel shortages are just starting to emerge in major parts of the world, putting more demand on US fuel, which will raise US fuel prices.

    More war, even with less war
    From there, let’s talk about the war because that will have something to say about how much worse the crisis gets (which is already going to be way worse than most people realize because we’ve been riding on buffers that are now pretty well wrung out). As I’ve said, when the buffers run out completely on their ability to deliver, then the fuel shortages will start showing up. In some countries that is already happening, but not noticeably yet in the US, though things have gotten really tight for airlines, and prices on Ag diesel have been through the roof compared to anything farmers have seen in years before.

    Trump has now caved in on his air strikes, as I said in my last Deeper Dive was looking much more likely now. Today he announced that, instead of relying on more bombing, he’s going to rely on the effectiveness of his own blockade at laying siege to Iran. That means Iran keeps its blockade in place, something it has announced in the headlines below that it will do, regardless, until the US meets several of its demands, which present a very high bar for Trump. So, that means no flow of oil as Iran will continue to enforce its blockade via its war on shipping.

    Those banking on the deal between Iran and Oman to open the Strait of Hormuz, have been breathing the carbon monoxide of burning oil wells, pipelines and refineries far too long. As I made clear in my Deeper Dive (“Oil Pressure on Prices Is Rising Dramatically and Has Just Entered the Danger Zone”), Iran has said several time in the last few days (officially) that the deal it is striking with Oman will NOT open the strait back up!

    The deal only determines how navigation through the strait will be controlled and profited off of by Iran and Oman after it finally does open up. As I noted in the Deeper Dive, some other Arab states have already signed their acquiescence to the new agreement, so Trump’s opinion on it no longer even matters. You can read in the headlines below about all the demands Iran has now added to Trump that must be met before it will reopen the strait.

    In fact, the war continues to rage on from Iran’s side as it attacked several more ships over the weekend, noted in that Deeper Dive and in the headlines below. This it does to continue to rigidly enforce its own blockade. So, no, there is no reprieve in site for the flow of oil out of the either of the bodies of water that line the Arabian Peninsula.

    To put a good face on it, President Trump now says he is only “semi-negotiating” with Iran. That is all he has been doing, according to Iran, for some time, because they kept telling him, “We don’t know who it is you think you are negotiating with, but it isn’t us!” When they announced weeks ago they would no longer negotiate with Donald Trump, they meant it; but he kept saying they were begging him for a deal and were deep in negotiations with the US. Their list of their demands that emerged over the weekend, which they say must be met before they will end their blockade on either major body of water, is certainly not what “begging for a deal” looks like. As I reported last Thursday, “Iran Has Trump Right Where it Wants him and Is Turning up the Heat!”

    As I also said over the weekend, Trump will do his best to spin his retreat into something that helps him avoid losing face, and that’s why he’s calling it “partial negotiations.” “Whatever,” says Iran. “Still not negotiating.”

    The perfect storm
    Another powerful story is told by Bob Moriarty in the the video I’ve posted below. He notes the same confluence of storms coming against the US and the world that I’ve been calling out this year and says they are going to merge at a catastrophic level this fall. (I’ve started the video at the part where it gets dangerous, but you can also take it back to the beginning to get a good overview of the precious metals market as it stands right now.)

    Just as I’ve been doing, Bob connects the dots of our many shortages with troubles in Japan and says the troubles being faced by the yen and supported by the US Treasury are going to become a lot worse than what we’ve heard so far. A financial typhoon has broken out in Japan, and it is on a path directly toward the US since Japan is the largest foreign bond holder of US debt right now.

    Bob also predicts a serious global famine due to the fuel shortages, fertilizer shortages, worker shortages (in the US) and the Super El Niño—risks I’ve been tracking here as well, though I haven’t been as strong on the famine prediction, aiming more along the line of food shortages. That is something I’ve never heard him predict this forcefully in the past either, but risks of the perfect storm in food and finance are certainly compounding, and some parts of the world are almost certain to face famine.

    There is also a lot of powerful stuff about the collapse of the labor market in the headlines today and how bad it really is. I’ve been saying all year that the labor situation is worse than the headline figures would let on—calling it a stealth recession—and now we are seeing, just like with the distortions that have already formed in those salt caverns, that, beneath the surface, the trouble is deeper than headline numbers like the unemployment rate let on. I may get to that in a Deeper Dive, but this is enough for today.

    https://www.thedailydoom.com/p/calamity-oil-blows-out-so-does-war

    #247231
    Michael Reid
    Participant

    Looks like you can learn about the yen carry trade and some history up to this point

    Financial Armageddon: The Day the Yen Stopped Being Money and Became a Weapon of Mass Destruction
    Milan Adams Alternative, Economy, Preppers August 9, 2026 11 Minutes

    Financial Armageddon: The Day the Yen Stopped Being Money and Became a Weapon of Mass Destruction

    #247232
    Michael Reid
    Participant
    #247233
    Michael Reid
    Participant

    We are now watching another supply-chain shock develop, except this time the source is not government lockdowns. It is WAR, and the Strait of Hormuz is rapidly becoming the choke point through which the economic consequences will spread.

    Strait of Hormuz Nearly Deserted

    #247234
    Michael Reid
    Participant
    #247235
    Michael Reid
    Participant
    #247236
    Michael Reid
    Participant
    #247237
    Michael Reid
    Participant

    Marty, your report “Is It Time to Nuke Kiev?” really brings things into focus. The U.S. ended World War II by using nuclear weapons on Hiroshima, and Russia might be driven down a similar path

    This is Far More Serious

    #247238
    Michael Reid
    Participant

    #247250
    Michael Reid
    Participant

    #247253
    Michael Reid
    Participant

    This collapse of the imperial system

    An Alternative to War and Looting in the Americas,

    projects that can cement such a new, just world order based on peace through development.

    https://eir.news/2026/08/news/upcoming-eir-roundtable-an-alternative-to-war-and-looting-in-the-americas/

    #247254
    Michael Reid
    Participant

    the National Security Strategy (NSS) document

    issued by the Trump administration in December 2025.

    That document calls for driving any and all Chinese economic development projects out of the Americas,
    and for sharply polarizing Ibero-America and the Caribbean
    along right-vs.-left lines to allow Wall Street
    to seize full control of the entire area of 33 sovereign nations
    and some 673 million people—with an option for
    direct U.S. military interventions to enforce the bankers’ policy, as needed.

    The associated anti-migrant policy of the Trump administration is little more than an updated version of Rockefeller agronomist William Paddock’s Malthusian dictum: cut Mexico’s population by half by “shutting the border and watch them scream.”

    #247255
    Michael Reid
    Participant

    Larry Johnson: “Outlast Trump” – Iran’s Move vs. Trump’s “Bankrupt Iran” Strategy

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