Menu Icon

Debt Rattle August 12 2026

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)

 


 

 


 


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.

Read more …

“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.

Read more …

”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.
Read more …

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.

Read more …

“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.

Read more …

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.”

Read more …

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.

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.

Read more …

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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

 

 

 

 

 

Home › Forums › Debt Rattle August 12 2026

Viewing 1 post (of 1 total)
  • Author
    Posts
  • August 12, 2026 at 9:50 am #247174
    Raúl Ilargi Meijer
    Keymaster

    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]

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