Sep 062026
 
 September 6, 2026  Posted by at 8:57 am Finance Tagged with: , , , , ,  Add comments


Paul Verlaine and Arthur Rimbaud, Brussels 1873
The literary prowess gathered in that photo is insane.


• U.S. Central Command Destroys Three Iranian Tankers (CTH)
• Ukraine Pushes Congress For Russia Sanctions Before Election Recess (RFE/RL)
• General David Petraeus Now Claims 1.4 million Russians Killed or Wounded (CTH)
• America’s Immigrant Population Plummets For First Time In A Century (MN)
• Masked Men Block Dover Port at Mass Migration Protest (Salgado)
• “We Have The Receipts”: Bartiromo Denies Fox Firing (ZH)
• We Have New Details on the Maria Bartiromo Situation (Matt Margolis)
• Reputation Assassins Are Targeting Sen. Fetterman and Elon Musk (Pinsker)
• Radicals Scrubbing Social Media of Past Statements (Turley)
• Trump Was Right About the Kennedy Center… In a HUGE Way! (Matt Margolis)

 


 

https://twitter.com/ConstitustionX/status/2095763735516475892?s=20 https://twitter.com/RippleXrpie/status/2095931973302665282?s=20 https://twitter.com/EricLDaugh/status/2095942449780933116?s=20 https://twitter.com/Tironianae/status/2096019749347946634?s=20

 


 

Back in 2015:

 


 


“After IRGC Fires Upon U.S. Navy Vessels ..”

• U.S. Central Command Destroys Three Iranian Tankers (CTH)

The U.S. Central Command has released video showing their elimination of three Iranian oil tankers following an attack on two U.S. navy vessels in the Strait of Hormuz. TAMPA, Fla. — U.S. Central Command (CENTCOM) forces struck three Iranian crude oil carriers, Sept. 5, after the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) launched ballistic missiles toward two U.S. Navy warships patrolling regional waters. A U.S. aircraft carrier and guided-missile destroyer successfully evaded multiple unprovoked Iranian attacks. No American personnel were harmed.
Following Iran’s failed attacks, CENTCOM permanently disabled the IRGC crude oil carriers M/T Downy off the coast of Kharg Island and M/T Stark 1 near Jask. American forces also completely destroyed the unladen crude oil carrier M/T Kylo (also known as the “Noxen”) in the Gulf of Oman, striking the vessel in multiple critical locations to render it inoperable after the crew was directed to abandon ship. The three Iranian crude oil tankers are part of a multibillion-dollar shadow network that funds the IRGC and its regional proxies. Iran has no means by which to defend them.


“Let the message to the IRGC be clear: If you shoot at two of our ships, we will impose an even higher economic cost —taking out three of yours,” said Adm. Brad Cooper, CENTCOM commander. “We will not hesitate to defend American forces, and if necessary, destroy Iran’s limited and exposed oil fleet.”

Read more …

While we’re visiting Putin.

• Ukraine Pushes Congress For Russia Sanctions Before Election Recess (RFE/RL)

Ukraine’s top sanctions official says he remains optimistic about prospects for a sweeping Russia sanctions bill in the US Congress despite growing uncertainty over when the House of Representatives will take it up, as lawmakers face a sharply shortened legislative calendar ahead of the November elections. Vladyslav Vlasiuk, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s sanctions commissioner, spent this week in Washington meeting lawmakers and congressional staff as Kyiv presses Congress to advance the Lindsey O. Graham Sanctioning Russia and Iran Act of 2026.


The legislation passed the Senate on August 7 by an overwhelming 86-11 vote, reflecting rare bipartisan agreement. The bill would give the president additional authority to impose punitive tariffs on countries that continue buying Russian fossil fuels. It also includes provisions targeting Iran, which Vlasiuk said is engaged in close military-industrial cooperation with Moscow.But the measure faces a more complicated path in the House, where some Democrats have expressed reservations about provisions that would give President Donald Trump additional authority to impose tariffs.

Republican leaders announced on September 3 that the final two weeks of the pre-election House session are canceled, severely curtailing what had been a full legislative calendar for September.House members are expected to leave Washington no later than September 17 and not return until mid-November. The House will reconvene for one additional week of business after next week’s Labor Day break. The compressed calendar has increased pressure on supporters of the sanctions legislation. Senior Republican aides told RFE/RL that the bill remains a GOP priority, provided Democrats “get their ducks in a row.”

Democratic aides, in response to RFE/RL inquiries, expressed cautious optimism about the measure, underscoring uncertainty over whether Speaker Mike Johnson will bring it to the floor. Vlasiuk said he held roughly 20 meetings with lawmakers and congressional staff during his Washington visit, including discussions with members of both parties. He said the Ukrainian delegation encountered broad support for increasing pressure on Russia and that no lawmaker told him outright that they would oppose the legislation.

“Everyone agreed that it was necessary to increase pressure on Russia,” Vlasiuk said at a briefing at the Ukrainian Embassy in Washington. “No one said that he definitely would not support this bill.” He described Ukraine as “quite optimistic” about the level of support for the legislation, including among Democrats. One potentially important route would be for the House to consider the bill under suspension of the rules, a fast-track procedure generally used for legislation expected to command broad support. Vlasiuk said that was among the realistic scenarios for moving the bill forward.

“I think that there is really good chance that this bill will be brought onto the floor,” he said. Vlasiuk has previously identified the week after next as Kyiv’s preferred window for a House vote. With the House calendar now compressed, that period could provide one of the last opportunities for a vote before lawmakers leave Washington. Asked by RFE/RL whether the momentum surrounding the bill was still there, Vlasiuk pointed to what he characterized as continued bipartisan backing for Ukraine.

“There is a lot of support for Ukraine on the Hill,” he said, adding that Kyiv has been “very vocal” in stressing the urgency of passing the bill. “At the same time, well, I mean, let’s wait and see,” Vlasiuk said.

Read more …

“Witkoff and Kushner Met with Putin for Three Hours,..”

We know by now how idiotic the Russian victim numbers are that come from Ukraine and the west.

• General David Petraeus Now Claims 1.4 million Russians Killed or Wounded (CTH)

The longer we review the stuff coming out of the legacy U.S. Intelligence Community, the more I realize how much of a fool I was for ever trusting their nonsense. Today, former CIA Director General David Petraeus claims that Russia has suffered over 1.4 million killed or wounded in action (KIA/WIA). {SOURCE}


For those just recently entering the era of ‘great awakening’, let this type of nonsense propaganda serve as a starting point to realize what CTH has described from the outset of the Ukraine-Russia ‘conflict’ as, essentially, World War Reddit. There are approximately 140 million Russian people living in Russia. Of that population there are approximately 60 million males. Of the 60 million males there are approximately 20 million men aged 18-35. Additionally, 75% of the Russian population lives in urban centers, ie. cities.

If 1.4 million men (out of 20 million) were killed or wounded in the Ukraine conflict, the hospitals and convalescent facilities in around the cities of Kazan, Moscow and St Petersburg would be full; at least significantly beyond ordinary medical capacity. They are not. Not even close.mI have no idea where these western ‘intelligence’ analysts and experts come up with these statistics, but they are so far beyond nonsense the light from where silly stuff originates could not reach them for years. They could have just used the word “eleventy’. There is nowhere near that number of KIA/WIA in Russia; not even close.


[SOURCE – Kremlin]

U.S. Special Envoys Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner have departed Moscow after roughly three hours of talks with Russian President Vladimir Putin focused on ending the war in Ukraine. The two are expected in Kyiv on Sunday to meet with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy as part of the Trump administration’s latest push to revive stalled peace negotiations. Putin has ordered a 72 hour pause in strikes on Kyiv during their visit. Witkoff and Kushner are now aboard U.S. Air Force C-32A SAM934. They will likely travel to Poland before continuing by ground transportation to Kyiv. {Source}

Putin aide Yuri Ushakov says the Kremlin talks with US envoys Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner were “substantive, extremely frank and conducted in an atmosphere of trust.” He outlined that Moscow offered what he called a “clear and comprehensive” assessment of the situation in the Ukraine conflict, while Witkoff and Kushner presented several ideas on possible routes towards a settlement. The two sides also discussed economic cooperation and the prospect of major joint US-Russian projects. Ushakov added that Putin and Trump remain in direct personal contact. {source}

(VIA DAILY MAIL) – Donald Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner and special envoy Steve Witkoff spent over three hours in top-secret talks with Vladimir Putin amid the White House’s renewed bid to end the war in Ukraine. The US envoys landed in Moscow on Saturday morning and were escorted by the Russian President’s investment envoy, Kirill Dmitriev, to the Kremlin. Putin met with Witkoff and Kushner for closed-door talks where he described the conflict as a ‘complicated situation,’ but praised his American counterpart for wanting to end the war.

[…] ‘Understanding that he is entering a difficult situation, he nevertheless does not stop his efforts to help bring about a settlement and to make his contribution to resolving the Russian-Ukrainian conflict,’ Putin said of Trump. Putin and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy both agreed to pause strikes on each other’s capitals while the talks took place. (more)

KREMLIN – Vladimir Putin received in the Kremlin Special Envoy of the President of the United States of America Steve Witkoff and entrepreneur, founder of Affinity Partners Jared Kushner. On the Russian side, the meeting was attended by Presidential Aide Yury Ushakov and Special Presidential Representative for Investment and Economic Cooperation with Foreign Countries, CEO of the Russian Direct Investment Fund (RDIF) Kirill Dmitriev.

President of Russia Vladimir Putin: Colleagues, I heartily welcome you to Moscow. The situation we are to sort out today is, of course, a difficult one. But before we begin, I would like to ask you to convey my best wishes and words of gratitude to the President of the United States, Mr Trump.

While he realizes that he is facing a difficult situation, he nevertheless does not stop his efforts to resolve it and to contribute to the settlement of the Russian- Ukrainian conflict. Today, we will discuss all its components and all its aspects, and for our part, we are also ready to inform you about our view of the situation.

As you informed us, I know that you are planning to go to Kiev after visiting Moscow. In any case, of course, no matter what happens next, contacts of this kind are certainly always beneficial. And here, of course, the quality of mediation and trust in those who are engaged in it are very important. I’d like to tell you that we find it comfortable to work with you, and, of course, we have a very high level of trust during this work.

We are glad to see you. Welcome.

Steve Witkoff: So, first of all, President Putin, thank you so much for having us. We were sitting outside just now, me, Jared and Kirill, and then Yury joined us, and we were all talking about when we retire, we’ll have all these incredible stories and incredible memories, and yours will be right at the top of it all.

Vladimir Putin: Thank you very much.

Steve Witkoff: President Trump sends you his best wishes. The Gilman family is incredibly indebted to you and thanks you very, very much for Bob Gilman being allowed to come home.

Vladimir Putin: They should be thanking President Trump; it was he who made the appeal.

Steve Witkoff: They have thanked President Trump, but they’ve thanked you also, sir. I want to thank you for endorsing the no shoot policy in Kiev and in Moscow for these three days that allowed us to be able to come here in a safe manner.

Vladimir Putin: We received this request through official channels both through the intelligence services and through the Ministry of Foreign Affairs to stop the strikes on Kiev. I issued the respective order, and since midnight on September 5, these strikes on Kiev have not been carried out. I would like to note that the Ukrainian side has also significantly reduced by an order of magnitude the strikes on the territory of the Russian Federation, including Moscow.

The Ukrainian authorities have published their call for a broader three day truce, but we have never agreed on this with them. Yet we will do everything in our power to ensure the safety of the negotiation process and the mediators, represented by you and, perhaps, by those accompanying you.

Steve Witkoff: Thank you.

Read more …

2.3 Million Illegals Gone.

“A late Biden-era internal memo, exposed in July, laid out a plan to expand TPS in the final days of that presidency in a way that would have locked in de facto protection for more than 3 million foreign nationals and boxed the incoming administration into years of litigation.”

• America’s Immigrant Population Plummets For First Time In A Century (MN)

The numbers the open-borders crowd swore were impossible are now in black and white.


A new Center for Immigration Studies analysis of the Census Bureau’s Current Population Survey finds the illegal immigrant population has fallen by about 2.3 million since President Trump returned to office in January 2025. Another 600,000 legal immigrants have left. The total foreign-born population is down 2.9 million.

That is the first sustained drop in America’s immigrant population in nearly a hundred years.

https://twitter.com/ThePatriotOasis/status/2095837643971952826?s=20

CIS research director Steven A. Camarota and demographer Karen Zeigler tracked the government’s monthly household survey from January 2025 through July 2026. The foreign-born total – naturalized citizens, lawful permanent residents, long-term temporary visitors and illegal immigrants – fell from roughly 53.3 million to 50.5 million. Camarota’s preliminary estimate puts the illegal population at 13.5 million in July, down from 15.8 million when Trump took the oath. “We’ve never seen anything quite like this before,” Camarota told The Washington Times. “This is big and sustained, as best as we can tell.”

He added: “It is a fundamental change, and it’s profound.” The same dataset shows what happened during the Biden years. From January 2021 to January 2025 the foreign-born population jumped 8.3 million – the largest four-year increase in American history. Catch-and-release, mass parole, asylum abuse and a wide-open southern border did exactly what critics said they would do. The survey now shows that surge going into reverse.

CIS is not counting plane seats. It is measuring net change: new arrivals minus deportations, voluntary departures, legalizations and deaths. That is why the 2.3 million illegal decline can sit beside larger Homeland Security departure figures. At the one-year mark of Trump’s second term, DHS said nearly 3 million illegal immigrants had left the country, including about 675,000 formal removals and 2.2 million self-deportations. CIS is looking at who is still here after new arrivals are subtracted.

Latin American non-citizens who arrived in 1980 or later account for the entire drop in the foreign-born count. That group overlaps heavily with the illegal population. Naturalized-citizen numbers actually rose by about 680,000 over the same stretch. The collapse is among non-citizens who should not have been waved in. Interior ICE removals more than tripled compared with the tail end of the Biden term. Voluntary departures tied to enforcement jumped as well. Camarota put it simply in the CIS release: “The best data we have shows an enormous decrease in the total foreign-born population, with most of the falloff among illegal immigrants.”

He added, “Regaining control of the border and robust interior enforcement has partly undone the huge increase in the illegal immigration that took place during the border surge.” Only 44 percent of those who left were workers. That goes some way to explain why the national jobs numbers have not imploded the way corporate lobbyists predicted. U.S.-born employment has continued to rise even as immigrant workers in the household survey fell by a little less than 1.3 million. Some regional pockets – construction in South Texas is the example Camarota cited – have felt it. The country as a whole has not.

“It’s nothing to panic about,” he told the Times. “First of all, we’re mostly losing low-income workers. But like anything else, it can create challenges. And it creates winners and losers.”Workers competing for jobs and housing are the winners. “On balance, I think it’s a good deal for the country because I think most people are more worried about wages, housing prices, congestion and impact on schools and hospitals.”

Census analysts had already flagged a “historic” drop in net international migration when they reported that overall population growth slowed to 0.5 percent from mid-2024 to mid-2025 – a window that captured only the first months of the new enforcement regime. Camarota now says the country’s total population is likely heading toward an unprecedented decline. That is what happens when an 8.3 million artificial surge is no longer being pumped through the border.

The media spent four years insisting the border was “secure” and that anyone who noticed otherwise was a bigot. Then Joe Scarborough, trying to score points on Trump’s deportation totals, walked straight into the truth on his own show. “They should know when to take the victory. They could have been campaigning on closed southern border this whole time!” Scarborough said. Then: “You’re never going to get the [deportation] numbers that Joe Biden had, right? You’re not going to get those numbers because Joe Biden and his administration were letting in so many illegal immigrants. It was very easy to sweep up 5,000 right on the border and send them back.”

Nobody cornered him. He said it unprompted.

That is the whole scam in one clip. Biden-era “removals” were a revolving door at the Rio Grande. Trump closed the door. Crossings collapsed. The population inside the country started falling for the first time in a generation. The same networks that called that outcome “impossible” or “racist” are now reduced to quibbling over methodology while the survey they usually treat as gospel shows a 2.9 million decline.

The drop did not happen by accident. It happened because the new administration treated Temporary Protected Status as what it had become: a backdoor amnesty, not a temporary shelter.

A late Biden-era internal memo, exposed in July, laid out a plan to expand TPS in the final days of that presidency in a way that would have locked in de facto protection for more than 3 million foreign nationals and boxed the incoming administration into years of litigation. The scheme was designed to run out the clock through activist courts after voters had already chosen mass deportations.

Read more …

Will Europe defend itself vs the EU?

• Masked Men Block Dover Port at Mass Migration Protest (Salgado)

Fury at the endless stream of illegal aliens into European countries with governments ignoring everything their people ask for has reached boiling point in multiple European countries.


A group of masked men in black hoodies marched to Dover to block the offloading of crowds of new migrants, with the protesters simply walking through sparse police barriers without incident, based on video from the Hungarian outlet Visegrád 24. The protesters, who chanted “Stop the boats! Stop the boats!,” seem to be eager to show their friendliness toward locals standing on sidewalks and at least one local was handing water out to them. “Cheers, well done,” shouted the man who took the video enthusiastically, as protesters waved or gave him thumbs up.

GB News reported that the protestors intimidated some people, and people who missed some of their work shifts were understandably upset, but there are no reports of the protesters engaging in violent behavior. The protestors did eventually leave, according to a whiny statement from the UK government. Even one Dover councillor who was bashing the protesters admitted to Metro there was no violence, and the protesters voluntarily left not long after they arrived. Many people have condemned the masks, but given the lack of violence, the likelihood is that they were trying not to get arrested given that the UK will hand out harsher prison sentences for free speech than for rape.

Spanish protesters are turning out in multiple cities, particularly in Ceuta, which is completely overrun with Muslim men. The Spanish government is providing taxpayer-funded freebies and NGO aid to the invaders while condemning the locals. In Madrid, police fired charges at protesters. Police used similar means against protesters in Ceuta. Police did not employ them against the Muslim invaders in Ceuta. Video of Muslim men torturing a baby dolphin in Ceuta for fun has provoked international outrage. But the invaders have also committed many crimes against humans there.

After the people of Iceland rejected a referendum to join the European Union, a group of Irish patriots called for a similar referendum to remove Ireland from the EU, given its horrible mass migration requirements for membership. The people of Europe are waking up. The problem is that their parliamentary systems and their dictatorial governments make it even harder for them to enact major change.

Read more …

Getting complicated.

• We Have New Details on the Maria Bartiromo Situation (Matt Margolis)

On Thursday, Fox News announced that Maria Bartiromo was “no longer with Fox News Media.” This created the impression that she had been fired. Bartiromo’s attorney, Bryan Freedman, pushed back hard on the firing narrative, disputing the reports outright. New reporting from Dylan Byers at Puck gives us some details about what actually happened. From where I sit, it looks less like a firing and more like a slow-motion punishment for trying to do her job.

So what set this all off? It starts with President Trump’s primetime address in July on the 2020 election, in which he laid out allegations of Chinese interference and calling on Congress to tighten voting rules before the midterms. Seeing as how it was a big primetime speech, Bartiromo naturally planned to cover it on her show.

As it turned out, Bartiromo had been planning to cover Trump’s speech on her show, according to sources familiar with her plans. She had also planned to book Peter Navarro, a senior counselor to Trump who has aggressively pushed the voter fraud narrative, to talk about the president’s remarks and the administration’s broader concerns over election integrity. However, the night before the speech, Ralph Giordano, Fox Business Network’s senior vice president of programming, texted Bartiromo’s production team, instructing them not to cover the speech.

When Bartiromo renewed her Fox News Media contract in February of last year, she reportedly negotiated language specifically barring Giordano from having any say over her show. He kept meddling anyway. Navarro told Byers in a Friday interview that Bartiromo sent him a screenshot of Giordano’s instructions to prove management was blocking her coverage, which he described as “censoring” it. Navarro said he passed the information “up the chain” to senior administration officials. An unnamed high-ranking White House official then called Fox News leadership to complain, effectively outing Bartiromo as the source of the leaked guidance.

It came on the heels of a report from the outlet Status claiming Bartiromo had shared internal editorial guidance with the administration, a report both Fox News and a representative for Bartiromo declined to comment on. Fox News Media CEO Suzanne Scott and President Jay Wallace were reportedly furious, though they let her show continue through the summer before pulling her off the air last Thursday. Fox’s reluctance to air the speech in the first place traces back to Bartiromo being named as a defendant in the Dominion and Smartmatic defamation lawsuits, both stemming from 2020 election coverage. Puck also noted that Giordano and Bartiromo already had a tense relationship at the network.

The troubling thing about this story is that the Democrats have long regarded any Republican who questions the 2020 election as a threat to democracy itself, even though there were documented irregularities in several battleground states that year.

However, it was the Democrats who first made it acceptable to question the results of the elections, beginning with George W. Bush’s wins in 2000 and 2004, and then again with Trump’s victory in 2016. The same media outlets that for years promoted the theory of Russia’s collusion in 2016 now regard any examination of 2020 as nonsense proven wrong. The approved story was that 2020 was the safest, most secure election in history, and anyone who said otherwise was undermining “our democracy.”

Bartiromo appears to have learned what happens to people who try to cover a story that contradicts that line.

Read more …

“Maria Bartiromo was not fired for pushing claims about the 2020 election – she was fired for revealing that Fox had told its own staff not to talk about it.”:

• “We Have The Receipts”: Bartiromo Denies Fox Firing (ZH)

New details are rolling in about the Bartiromo situation – as the anchor is denying reports that she was fired from the station. According to The Hollywood Reporter: Bartiromo, who is now repped by Bryan Freedman, who recently repped Justin Baldoni, as well as journalists Don Lemon and Chris Cuomo after their dramatic exits from CNN as well as Tucker Carlson’s exit from Fox, denies that she was fired and further claims that she is “still employed by Fox.” Freedman suggests they may pursue the matter in court.


“For many years, Maria Bartiromo hosted three number-one-rated television shows on Fox channels. She has been, without question, one of the hardest-working journalists throughout her award-winning career,” Freedman said in a statement to The Hollywood Reporter.

“The irresponsible reports that have been published stating that Maria Bartiromo was fired or is no longer an employee of Fox are absolutely and unequivocally false. Make no mistake, we have the receipts and witnesses and they will come out whether through the courthouse or otherwise. Those reporting her firing or the incredulous facts supporting that fiction have exhibited a complete and utter reckless disregard for the truth,” he continued.

* * *

Maria Bartiromo was not fired for pushing claims about the 2020 election – she was fired for revealing that Fox had told its own staff not to talk about it. Fox News Media announced on Thursday it had parted ways with the anchor effective immediately after more than twelve years, thanking her for her work and giving no reason.

The guidance at the center of it went out in July, after President Donald Trump used a prime-time address to tie China to the 2020 result. Fox Business management privately instructed senior staff not to lend credibility to the claims, and killed a China-and-2020 story Bartiromo wanted to pursue. The sensitivity stemmed from legal concerns – Fox paid Dominion Voting Systems $787.5 million in 2023 over 2020 election coverage, and Smartmatic’s $2.7 billion claim is still outstanding, with Bartiromo named in both.

Fox did not catch the leak itself. Puck’s Dylan Byers reported that Bartiromo took a screenshot of that guidance and sent it to senior White House officials, which Fox executives learned of after receiving a call from the White House. In a terse statement, Fox News said Bartiromo is no longer with the company, effective immediately and thanked her for her work, while wishing her well in her next chapter.

Status’s Oliver Darcy, who built his brand at CNN by pushing censorship campaigns against conservative media, was first to report that Bartiromo leaked internal guidance after Fox Business management privately directed senior staff not to lend credibility to claims President Donald Trump made in a July address regarding China’s interference in the 2020 election.

However, a new report alleges that Bartiromo was in FOX’s crosshairs for several reasons beyond the alleged leak. Mediaite reports: According to a source familiar with the matter, sharing the memo about Trump’s July comments was “not the only reason” that led to her abrupt defenestration.

The source confirmed that it was “a confluence of factors,” including Fox’s whopping $787.5 million settlement it had to pay to Dominion Voting Systems in 2023 over 2020 election fraud claims Fox had aired, plus another similar lawsuit from Smartmatic “still hanging out there.” Bartiromo was among the main on-air personalities cited in these lawsuits and has continued to periodically peddle in election denialism. A Fox News media spokesperson told Mediaite that the move was simply a “business decision” and declined further comment.

Comments Kevin O’Leary made on a May 11 episode of Mornings With Maria also factored in, the source said, in which the Shark Tank star accused nonprofit organizations that opposed his data center project in Utah of being secret agents of the Chinese Communist Party.

Trump blasted Fox’s decision to sever ties with Bartiromo, calling the host a “true warrior.” “I can’t believe Maria Bartiromo is no longer going to have her great show(s) on FoxNews/Business. Three different shows, always number one,” the president wrote on Truth Social. “Maria is a total professional, and a true warrior. Her fans, of which there are many, will not be happy. God bless you, Maria!”

Read more …

“Back in 2023, [Fetterman] was a Democrat liberal darling. He was at plus 68 points. Look at how low he has fallen, down to negative 40 points. He’s down there with the Titanic..”

• Reputation Assassins Are Targeting Sen. Fetterman and Elon Musk (Pinsker)

Let’s acknowledge the obvious before spelunking down our rabbit hole: Sen. John Fetterman (D-Penn.) and Elon Musk might really, truly be guilty of every very nasty, vile, jaw-dropping smear. I mean, I doubt it. Seems extraordinarily unlikely. Our media ecosystem, after all, doesn’t just tilt towards sensationalism; it zooms towards it like a speeding bullet. Sensationalism outsells the truth. (Mostly because it’s more entertaining.) That’s great news for the reputation assassins, because a smear doesn’t need to be truthful to stick. It’s just gotta be memorable — and if you don’t believe me, go ask Richard Gere. (I won’t explain. If you know… you know.)


But it’s also great news for victims, because the media’s credibility is in the toilet: Nobody takes anything at face value anymore. As a result, if the mainstream media can’t quickly overwhelm its target, it usually leads to a frustrating, World War I-inspired cycle of trench warfare, with neither side ceding an inch — or ever gaining an inch. And eventually, everyone runs out of ammo and heads home. Over the past few days, shocking stories have emerged about two men that the radical left despises the most. We’ll begin with John Fetterman: “Wall Street Journal (Sept. 3, 2026): Behind Closed Doors, John Fetterman Shows Little Interest in the Work of a Senator..”

This is the news story that kicked the latest round of Fetterman-bashing into high gear. It paints the picture of a lazy, mentally compromised man who prioritized Fox News interviews over paralyzed military veterans. (A curious allegation, considering that Fox News and the Wall Street Journal are both owned by NewsCorp.) Liberals pounced because the WSJ validated every left-wing gripe: Fetterman has changed! He’s lost his damn mind! He’s a stooge of Fox News and the Israeli lobby!

Fetterman is vulnerable to these attacks because his mental struggles are real: He’s had a stroke and was hospitalized for depression. His medical history makes the allegations sticky. Furthermore, there’s a political motive: He’s the Democrat that Democrats hate the most.

Back in 2023, [Fetterman] was a Democrat liberal darling. He was at plus 68 points. Look at how low he has fallen, down to negative 40 points. He’s down there with the Titanic among Democrats in this Commonwealth of Pennsylvania. And to put a comparison to it, you always hear about how Chuck Schumer is disliked by the Democratic base nationwide. Chuck Schumer has a net popularity rating of about -2 points. He is net 38 points more popular than John Fetterman with Pennsylvania Democrats.

Some of the allegations, however, lose their wallop when placed under a microscope. For example, Mediaite listed this smear among its “5 Wildest Details from the Wall Street Journal’s Bombshell John Fetterman Report”: Fetterman also backed out of attending the funeral for three police officers killed near his hometown of York last year, according to the report. After an aide explained that the formal ceremony would last at least three hours, Fetterman responded: “3 hours??” Told it was effectively three separate funerals, he replied: “This may be a nonstarter.”

It sounds absolutely deplorable — until you learn that Pennsylvania’s other Senator wasn’t going either, and it would’ve required Fetterman to drive 9+ hours to attend all three funerals. (Which is probably relevant, because previous media hit-pieces have accused Fetterman of being a poor driver.) Another smear in Mediaite’s top five: The Journal reported that Fetterman frequently refused or canceled meetings with constituents and lawmakers. When an aide told him Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia wanted to discuss Medicaid cuts last year, Fetterman allegedly responded: “Why do I have to keep having to meet with chop.”

After being told the hospital was concerned about vaccines and Medicaid, he replied: “Well I’m not,” before adding: “I’m convinced they just want free trips to DC.” It’s a brutal allegation, because it implies that Fetterman is indifferent to the suffering of cancer-stricken kids. (That monster!) But the CBS article makes it clear that Fetterman had already met with the people from the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia multiple times! If you’re a Fetterman-hater, the most compelling evidence probably came from Adam Jentleson, the senator’s ex-chief-of-staff, who fed anti-Fetterman stories to New York Magazine in 2025:

Read more …

“.. the “Big Tent” party has little room for moderates.”

• Radicals Scrubbing Social Media of Past Statements (Turley)

A certain pattern is emerging on the far left. Political figures spend years currying the favor of other extremists with outrageous commentary, proudly proclaiming their commitment to eliminating the Senate, opening the border, and other measures. Then, they delete all of the comments and declare themselves mainstream. The idea is to run in the center but govern from the far left, the so-called Spanberger strategy. The latest example is William Lawrence, who is running for Michigan’s 7th Congressional District. However, Lawrence’s prior self reveals just how radical this movement could prove.

br/> Like many professors, pundits, and politicians on the left, Lawrence has called for sweeping changes in our constitutional system. Lawrence reportedly has demanded a “fundamental overhaul” of the Constitution while calling for the elimination of the Senate, police, prisons, and borders. He has even denounced the nuclear family as an “isolating, individualistic, violent way of organizing society.”

Notably, he is the latest radical to show that the “Big Tent” party has little room for moderates. While establishment figures like Chuck Schumer and Hakeem Jeffries seek to use this mob, radicals have made clear that they will be next. Darializa Avila Chevalier is the latest Democratic Socialist to mock the establishment’s pitch of a Big Tent party: “A big tent doesn’t pay your rent, lower your grocery bill, or take on the corporations bleeding our country dry. Democratic socialism does.”

In Lawrence’s case, he even put the intent to music, writing a song a few years ago that calls for the death of moderate former Democratic Sen. Joe Manchin, declaring, “Our generation says f**k you for everything…Hurry up and die so that we can get started.” He has also denounced capitalism and the very concept of the nation-state= Lawrence was previously arrested for resisting police officers while protesting a pipeline.

As discussed earlier, candidates like James Talarico in Texas have scrubbed their social media accounts or dismissed their earlier radical claims, including attacks on capitalism. Supporters view these candidates as already proving their bona fides and understanding that they are just sanitizing their records for voters who want the illusion of a moderate. Accordingly, many applaud figures such as Socialist Democrat Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, dismissing her own extremist statements just a few years ago as “Woke 1.,” like some distant childhood stage.

Lawrence’s past positions show little nuance and closely track the platform of the Democratic Socialists of America. Destroying the constitutional system, rejecting the nation-state, eliminating prisons, and other radical positions propelled these candidates through the primaries. The effort to now scrub the records shows the utter contempt that many have for average voters.

Lawrence shows the delusion of establishment figures such as Gavin Newsom that they can use a mob to gain power without being eventually devoured by it. In my book Rage and the Republic: The Unfinished Story of the American Revolution, I discuss the French Revolution and its decline into what the Framers called a mobocracy. What became known as “The Terror” was started not by the working class, but by educated lawyers, journalists, and even aristocrats as part of the Jacobin movement.

These are hardcore revolutionaries with an agenda that would destroy the world’s oldest and most successful democratic system in history. Party leaders facilitate them because they can only think about the next election, not the next generation. Lawrence is a cautionary tale that Benjamin Franklin remains correct, this is our Republic but only if we can keep it.

Read more …

He’ll fix it.

• Trump Was Right About the Kennedy Center… In a HUGE Way! (Matt Margolis)

President Donald Trump has spent months trying to return the Kennedy Center to its former glory, and leftists have been trying to stop him at every turn. This week, the building did their work for them. A chunk of the Grand Foyer ceiling came crashing down onto the red carpet. I’m guessing that’s still not enough proof for Democrats that the place needs work.


The collapse hit overnight into Thursday, after a powerful storm tore through Washington, D.C. Meteorologists say it was the strongest system to hit the city since the derecho that flattened trees and power lines back in 2012. This time, it took out part of the ceiling in one of the Kennedy Center’s most recognizable rooms, leaving debris scattered across the carpet where donors and dignitaries usually walk. Kennedy Center spokeswoman Roma Daravai wasted no time connecting the dots.

https://twitter.com/romadaravi/status/2096248945760444420?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E2096248945760444420%7Ctwgr%5E0adabd6ba811553b321ba27f94a17544c745c045%7Ctwcon%5Es1_c10&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fpjmedia.com%2Fmatt-margolis%2F2026%2F09%2F05%2Ftrump-was-right-about-the-kennedy-center-n4956928

Last month, Justice Department lawyers told a federal court that the building’s “dangerously dilapidated, outdated, and decrepit” condition, combined with millions of dollars in financial losses, has put the Kennedy Center in a “financial and structural death spiral.” Fixing it, they said, will take two years of closure. Without that work, they warned, “the Center will deteriorate further into an unsafe, decrepit structure that will be required to be taken down, with a determination to follow on what to build on the site, such as a large outdoor amphitheater overlooking the Potomac River that has been proposed, by some, for many years.”

The board already voted last month to move forward with a $250 million renovation plan. That plan, and the two-year closure it requires, remains tied up in litigation.The board has been pushing for this renovation for months, and the fight over Trump’s name goes back even further. In July, an appeals court ruled against the administration’s attempt to block Trump’s name from being stripped off the building. Rather than keep fighting that battle, the board pivoted. It voted to have “Restored and Renovated by President Donald J. Trump” inscribed on the building instead.

The left has given all sorts of excuses for why Trump can’t fix the building or have his name attached to it. Maria Shriver, President John F. Kennedy’s niece, called the building a memorial to her uncle.

“The Kennedy Center was named after my uncle, President John F. Kennedy,” she said. “It was named in his honor. He was a man who was interested in the arts, interested in culture, interested in education, language, history. He brought the arts into the White House, and he and my Aunt Jackie amplified the arts, celebrated the arts, stood up for the arts and artists.” She continued, “It is beyond compression [sic] that this sitting president has sought to rename this great memorial dedicated to President Kennedy. It is beyond wild that he would think adding his name in front of President Kennedy’s name is acceptable. It is not. Next thing perhaps he will want to rename JFK Airport, rename the Lincoln Memorial, the Trump Lincoln Memorial. The Trump Jefferson Memorial. The Trump Smithsonian. The list goes on.”

The problem with that, of course, is that the Kennedy Center was never a memorial to begin with. Congress created it in 1958 as the National Cultural Center. It only added JFK’s name to it after his assassination. Calling it a “memorial” gives people the wrong idea about what the place was actually built for, and Shriver knows it.

Further, if Democrats really believed this building were some sacred shrine to JFK, they might have noticed it was falling apart, or cared to do something about it now.

Trump was right. Again.

Read more …

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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Home › Forums › Debt Rattle September 6 2026

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  • #249224

    Paul Verlaine and Arthur Rimbaud, Brussels 1873 The literary prowess gathered in that photo is insane. • U.S. Central Command Destroys Three Iranian T
    [See the full post at: Debt Rattle September 6 2026]

    #249246
    Michael Reid
    Participant

    D and DBS:

    You both are well suited to appreciate the ideas expressed in this

    Much truth to be found in this interview

    #249247
    Michael Reid
    Participant

    #249248
    Michael Reid
    Participant

    #249249
    Dr. D
    Participant

    Verlane and Rimbaud,

    From Bob Dylan

    “Ukraine Pushes Congress For Russia Sanctions Before Election Recess
    Ukraine says tougher tariffs on major buyers of Russian energy could significantly reduce Moscow’s ability to finance its war…

    That’s a fantastic idea. However, that will 10x energy in Europe, so why don’t you ask Europe to do that first? They’re the major importer of Russian energy, having even increased their sales. There’s also a way to stop the energy price spikes that prevent this: for Canada to pump and pipeline far more. They refuse by every means, crushing their own people at the pump while pretending they want Ukraine to win. This is quite odd. There are a handful of things Canada might do to help Ukraine and their outsized Ukraine voting block, and they are doing none of them.

    For instance: it’s been many, many years: where are the Canadian shell manufacturers, Canadian tanks, drones, jeeps, and men? So clearly they want DEAD Ukrainians, only pretending. If they actually thought Russia mattered and Ukraine should be saved, they would DO something, right?

    All I’m asking is you make buckets of money selling oil. Why not? Russia does, and the profit for Russia is only high because they won’t. There aren’t that many swing producers. It took Trump going over their heads to make one and save Ukraine, save Europe by lowering Russian prices (later). Canada left both Europe and Canadians out to dry with crushing high prices. Why?

    Norway’s fund proposal is more portfolio engineering than a geopolitical “dump America” move (for now)…

    Norway and Europe hate the U.S. so much and aim to cripple Hitler by buying record levels, truly mind-bending quantities of U.S. Government debt. That’s how much they believe what they say. Carney was head of the England Bank while much of this happened.

    “El Nino Crushes Atlantic Hurricane Activity, Lowest Since 1941

    We are going to have ever-more, ever-larger Hurricanes, straight line forever, Al Gore says in 1999. “Two Days Before the Day After Tomorrow” – South Park. Experts: Dead wrong. Science: chasing the money again, the theory and hypothesis does not change, they doctor the evidence instead.

    “Vance Suggests Iran Conflict Could Drag Through Midterms, But At Least We’re Not Calling It A War

    What a bunch of idiots. Call it a war and declare it. Don’t make me break out Webster’s from 1949.

    “Excavation Work On Trump’s Arch To Begin Over Next 2 Weeks, Burgum Says

    Also a dope. There is nothing we need less. Also: helping D.C. again. Doesn’t the real nation get anything? Build a Water Arch in Flint.

    “Nearly 9,000 service members were discharged for refusing COVID vaccinations”

    Among the hundreds of simple things yet unfixed, much less prosecuted. Hey dum-dum you’ve got all kinds of time for executive orders, so here’s a pen.

    ““After IRGC Fires Upon U.S. Navy Vessels ..”
    • U.S. Central Command Destroys Three Iranian Tankers (CTH)

    He’s not attacking Iran. Those ships are COLLATERAL. For Iran, but leveraged 300:1 in London. Remove the collateral of the moving oil and standing ships, and London needs to fill a 300x hole. …Or they could quit f—king around and stop.

    “Iran: Several Ballistic Missiles Fired At US Aircraft Carrier, Navy Destroyer

    We need them to expend the last missiles…but also not sink a ship. That’s very touchy. It doesn’t matter if sinking a destroyer has no military significance and is expected if you want to have a war: everyone’s SOCIAL expectations will make a big deal out of it. It’s like killing Private Ryan. He’s one guy, irrelevant, even he will tell you so, get with the program. But people NOT in the war – and our tireless enemies on Fox News – will say things, and the people will believe. I mean, if they believe the incredible, outrageous, astonishing, breathtakingly idiotic things they say now, just IMAGINE what they’ll believe if they sink a destroyer. So again: it’s not them, it’s Us.

    All over we have ex-soldiers, veterans, officers, vowing we should have a war where nothing is blown up and no one is killed. Great idea! Q: HOW? Suggestion Box is by the door, be helpful and describe how exactly we do that. Since you’re smarter than General Patton now, you won’t mind sharing.

    “Barack Obama ORDERED the Mar-a-Lago raid because he was hunting ONE thing: HIS ICA REPORT
    the fabricated intelligence document used to FRAME Donald Trump”

    Probably. We all know it. But you need to prove it, and we’re all going to die of old age here.

    “Fox just cut the anchor who put the STOLEN 2020 ELECTION on their own air.”

    Remember they did the same thing IN 2020. Media blackout of dozens of Fox Events, like video coverage of workers running ballots through a dozen times. Then had no case and paid Dominion millions anyway to fill up their till and make sure they were flush to keep election fraud going. An untaxed donation. This is how honest and patriotic Fox News is. There’s no lie they won’t tell to destroy the United States.

    “Fox just cut the anchor who put the STOLEN 2020 ELECTION on their own air.”

    They literally intercepted truckloads of Driver’s Licenses, all printed up, apparently from China. Tell me why that would ever happen. Because a bunch of 19 year olds want to buy beer and China wants to help them out? And China DEFINITELY have the digital voter rolls from which they can do this. That fact was out yet again this week.

    “The United States of America is about to PAY OFF its DEBT with CRYPTO.”

    That’s not how any of those things work. Money is a MEDIUM, a representation of the real goods behind it. On a face level, this is identical to minting a $1Billion dollar coin.

    ““Witkoff and Kushner Met with Putin for Three Hours,..”

    We are the only one talking to Russia and the only one talking peace. That’s how Alex knows we’re the only one pushing war and responsible. Europe is an innocent little lamb.

    “• General David Petraeus Now Claims 1.4 million Russians Killed or Wounded (CTH)
    The longer we review the stuff coming out of the legacy U.S. Intelligence Community, the more I realize how much of a fool I was for ever trusting their nonsense.

    Only yesterday every Fox News guest said every Intelligence Report they quote is worthless and fabricated. …So they keep quoting them and attacking Trump for not believing them. Yup. Among the hundreds, Petraeus was discredited years ago. That’s why we keep quoting him as if he’s honest and real.

    “I have no idea where these western ‘intelligence’ analysts and experts come up with these statistics, but they are so far beyond nonsense the light from where silly stuff originates could not reach them for years.”

    Word, my brother. However, everyone will say them, and because “It came from my air hole” everyone will just believe it. No reason: I just wanna. I wanna feel my fee-fees. Putin is now a lizard-alien who has killed a billion people with his bare hands. Didn’t Kalla Kallas say something like that, like a billion were killed when Russia nuked Japan or something. No reaction at all from anyone. No discrediting. They still act as if she’s a real person.

    “2.3 Million Illegals Gone.”

    Ten times this is too low. Because I only ask that someone follow the d—n law for once. A really simple, easy, even misdemeanor law. No one’s getting hung, although that’s an option. Just stop breaking the law. That’s why we wrote it.

    Now will it cause a Depression, deflation? See, that depends on if they are a net producer or a net consumer. No depression means they were always a straight drain on the nation which seems likely.

    Speaking of which, Carney’s going to build a border wall, right? He said Canada is at war with the United States. Okay then.

    “Latin American non-citizens who arrived in 1980 or later account for the entire drop in the foreign-born count.”

    Also sad. Culturally, I’d rather have them than the Somalians and Hatians and Afghans, etc.

    “The troubling thing about this story is that the Democrats have long regarded any Republican who questions the 2020 election as a threat to democracy itself, even though there were documented irregularities in several battleground states that year.”

    And also that they are serial election deniers from way back. 2000 denied. But at least they filed the process. 2016, then 2024, remember how Musk stopped every vote and ran it through his SkyNet servers? Yup. Maybe that can’t be true? I exaggerate their position? A: They also have filed impeachment proceedings against every President since Ike, so sounds about right.

    ““Maria Bartiromo was not fired for pushing claims about the 2020 election – she was fired for revealing that Fox had told its own staff not to talk about it.”

    The Lie is okay: it’s the RESPONSIBILITY they can’t stand. Which is how you know they’re on the Left.

    “John Fetterman is a disgrace. Our state deserves better than a lazy trust fund baby who is too lazy to do the job.”

    I agree totally. So why do you have no candidates or platform? You can’t even beat a bankrupt game show host. If he’s that bad, rejoice! Beating him will be super-easy! So why can none of you do it? A: Responsibility and Work. We got none.

    “John Fetterman’s had a 108 pt drop in his net approval with PA Dems since 2023. His net rating is -40 pt net approval with them.”

    So we believe polls now? Democratic polls: when have they ever been wrong?

    “Political figures spend years currying the favor of other extremists with outrageous commentary, proudly proclaiming their commitment to eliminating the Senate, opening the border, and other measures. Then, they delete all of the comments and declare themselves mainstream.”

    The internet is forever. However, people will just believe anything you tell them ‘coz they wanna for the feelz. If there is no truth in them, what can you do? The country falls.

    “”Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other.” – John Adams

    Such is Fox News’ job. Hollywood’s job. To stop this. Adams, Lincoln, Franklin, gave them the roadmap if you’re a mass-murdering weasel.

    However, so much of America is blue collar and the opposite of the richest Nation that they have no time for non-Reality. They know when you’re f—king them. They look at this and see through it and all GenZ. Since every Democrat is the wealthy urban PMCs, government workers, white college women and billionaires, not a worker to be seen for 1,000 miles, this isn’t going well. The more you make them poor for your own profit, the more they see through you.

    “• Trump Was Right About the Kennedy Center… In a HUGE Way! (Matt Margolis)

    They would burn every building and destroy every reflecting pool rather than let Trump win at something. “An austere scholar and beloved father.” Trump blows up ISIS and it’s bad. …If only I were making this up! And it’s here every day! Tomorrow more black people will have jobs; THIS MAN MUST BE STOPPED!!

    “We want to make Star Trek real, We want to make Starfleet Academy real,”

    I mean okay, but in practice it’s military space fascism.

    “Carney in America”: Well there’s no Epstein Island in Canada, so he has to go. 63 times. He can say America is bad, and he should know! From personal experience.

    “democrats don’t want to turn ANY of it off because the millions of illegal immigrants are a money magnet.”

    As we proved in just 5 days with DOGE. Not one Congressman will stop even FRAUD, much less the spending. Let me guess: Massie was against it.

    #249250
    Michael Reid
    Participant

    #249251
    Michael Reid
    Participant

    D writes:

    All over we have ex-soldiers, veterans, officers, vowing we should have a war where nothing is blown up and no one is killed. Great idea! Q: HOW?

    I write to go home and stay home and post all your military around your borders to defend and not to attack

    #249252
    Dr. D
    Participant

    “I write to go home and stay home and post all your military around your borders to defend and not to attack” — Reid

    We are in the process of doing that and have been trying since the 90s. Finally we have an administration with enough leverage to put it into action. So I’m glad we agree. Sad reality is, if we just pull out of everywhere in 24 hours it will cause world wars wherever we leave a vacuum. Being responsible means we can’t do that, but only move as fast as we can. So it’s a relief to know you support Trump in our combined effort to remove to the Western Hemisphere as a first stop, and that unlike some Canadians, you won’t stand by and do nothing, but take vigorous foreign action to prevent such unnecessary harm.

    Hedges, I respect and appreciate his war reporting, but he opens with “Human healing is impossible”; first line. What a retard. But I’ve followed him before. The reporter, clearly knowing what is up, first question “Has Donald Trump ever done anything, past or present, in this life or another, that you mildly approve of?”

    Answer? Hedges Immediately lists only things he does NOT approve of. Incapable of human thought and speech if “he-who-shall-not-be-named is TDS’d. Hilarious. He then says the West broke every treaty, real or implied, but Putin shooting back to stop this relentless 20-year treaty-breaking and provable war-encroachment is a clear war-crime. Such is his logic minute to minute.

    He lists his books which are relentlessly Anti-Winning, Anti-American black pill, let’s-always-surrender-it’s-hopeless stuff. So I’m glad he’s making productive use of his time in helping normal Americans lose and tirelessly working to insure Americans fail t take their country back. He then breaks Godwin’s Law in bringing up Hitler before the discussion is even started. That’s appropriate since its, Godwin’s sole purpose is to stop all real thought, action, or discussion.

    He then says Donald Trump is a stupid speaker and a terrible politician. This is why he knocked out 15 candidates, two elections and half of the political establishment both Left and Right. His only advantage is he can rally his people, the working class…which is the exact definition of a great politician, and one who is decidedly not for the oligarchs.

    I’m a mere 10 minutes in. Should I continue? Oh what jibbering hebephrenic non-logic can we hear next? That Failed Oligarchs MAKE money, and Grifting is when you get a job where you LOSE $4Billion dollars? Oh wait: he said that.

    I’m learning a lot…but it’s not what you think I’m learning. I’m learning how better to engage with and sideline irrational midwits like him in order to save the working class he tirelessly throws under the bus. With the numbers he throws, he must have a whole barn full of white flags to surrender to Evil and to Oligarchs with.

    Meanwhile, back in a place called “Reality”, where news like this comes out hourly:

    “FICO Crashes As Trump Housing Chief Pulte Cracks Mortgage-Score Monopoly
    “Equifax, Experian, and TransUnion have been overcharging Americans for far too long.”

    This is how you know Trump works for the oligarchs: he opens a new can of whoop-ass on them daily, from meatpackers to pharma to DoD contractors, to banks, the biggest, toughest cartels and corporations in America. They return the favor and try to assassinate him daily. That’s how you know there’s One Big Club, right? Definition of an Oligarch doing nothing for the people.

    Other than more jobs, higher wages, better economy, more economic and energy security, enforcing the law, closing the borders, cutting fraud, lowering meat prices, investigating pharma companies, reforming banks, and stopping financial cartels, what has Donald ever done for us?

    Since I’m sure you also support all of those things, I’m glad to have you on board. Every man counts, and you can vote at least 25 times in a few months here in November.

    #249253
    Michael Reid
    Participant
    #249254
    Michael Reid
    Participant

    D this 3 hour interview is worth much reflection with your judgement constrained throughout

    A miracle may occur if you still yourself absorb and reflect on it

    #249255
    zerosum
    Participant


    Kremlin: Demands Getting Harsher🔥 “Winter Terror” Prepared for Ukraine❄️ Military Summary 2026.09.06


    ————-

    #249256
    zerosum
    Participant

    Trouble in the Pentagon as Leaked Report Paints Iran Conflict as “Unsustainable”
    Simplicius
    Sep 05, 2026

    https://simplicius76.substack.com/p/trouble-in-the-pentagon-as-leaked

    Something has been not-so-quietly brewing in the Pentagon.

    Called by some the “revolt of the generals”, a leak has exposed that a handful of senior US commanders have formally dissented against Hegseth while warning that US’s Middle East plans are unsustainable.

    A summary:

    “Revolt of the generals” at the Pentagon over the Iran war: four senior US commanders push back against endless Middle East entanglement

    The heads of European, Indo-Pacific, and Southern Command, plus the Chief of Naval Operations, formally “non-concurred” with Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth’s push to keep 50,000+ troops in the Middle East — warning the extended deployment is unsustainable and gutting US readiness elsewhere, including at home. The dissent was recorded in the classified Secretary of Defense Orders Book, first reported by The Washington Post.

    Over 50,000 US troops remain in the region; some units are ordered to stay through September, others through 2027. Commanders flagged depleted stocks of Patriot, THAAD, and Tomahawk missiles — and the US has burned through roughly a quarter of its MQ-9 Reaper drone fleet.

    Pentagon spokesman Sean Parnell called the leak “a crime” and “a betrayal of the force” — while admitting the objections themselves are real: “non-concurs are standard… the Secretary sees them constantly.”

    The chaos doesn’t stop there: Army Secretary Dan Driscoll — a Vance ally who helped shape the Russia-Ukraine negotiating track — just resigned after months of turf war with Hegseth.

    #249257
    Michael Reid
    Participant

    Brian Berletic of the New Atlas discusses how Iran’s successful retaliation has led to desperation for Trump & the US empire, and how China and Russia are preparing for an unthinkable war that’s already underway yet no one’s talking about

    #249258
    zerosum
    Participant

    Critical Thinker wants to know How, – … successfully evaded the attacks, …

    On September 5, U.S. forces struck three Iranian crude oil tankers after the IRGC launched ballistic missiles toward a U.S. aircraft carrier and guided missile destroyer.
    The American warships successfully evaded the attacks, with no U.S. casualties reported.

    #249259
    WES
    Participant

    Isn’t it nice that there are videos to support every illusion one could have!

    Iran is winning!
    Ukraine is winning!
    America is crumbling!
    Trump is an idiot!
    Democrats to sweep mid-term elections in November!
    Democrats to stack Supreme Court!
    Democrats to impeach Trump!
    US economy is collapsing!
    Potholes in US blue cities are being fixed!

    And many more illusions!

    #249268
    Dr. D
    Participant

    Does anyone want a line-by-line of Hedges?

    He’s running a contest of the most dumb things you can say in an hour. Kind of amazing really. He’s a natural.

    Spoiler: he won.

    #249269
    Michael Reid
    Participant

    #249270
    Michael Reid
    Participant

    Brazil, which is facing a presidential election on Oct. 4 in which the speculative vultures of Wall Street and the City of London are doing everything in their power to try to stop President Lula da Silva from being reelected.

    https://eir.news/2026/09/news/integration-the-most-important-and-most-challenging-enterprise-in-all-statecraft/

    #249271
    Michael Reid
    Participant

    Hala Rharrit …
    … of State Department says things we all know now about Minab.

    It was deliberate, as was an attack on children in Starobelsk–three waves of drones to finish off survivors and rescuers. That’s US “tactics”, that’s how US military “fights” stand-off “shock and awe” against civilians, especially children. That’ll show them damn Iranians, Russkies and others, as long, of course, as nobody shoots back–then it is a different matter.

    http://smoothiex12.blogspot.com/2026/09/hala-rharrit.html

    #249272
    Michael Reid
    Participant

    #249279
    zerosum
    Participant

    Putin’s Final Ultimatum to Ukraine🚨 Withdraw from Donbas or Face Mega Strike⚡ MS 2026.09.06

    #249287
    Michael Reid
    Participant

    Pravin Sawhney:Iran FIRES at US Carrier, Hormuz WAR Escalates,Warning Shot at America’s Carrier

    #249288
    tboc
    Participant

    “He’s running a contest of the most dumb things you can say in an hour.”
    A man well qualified made that judgement.

    D over the last six months the only person whose thoughts i find more repugnant than those you espouse are those of Scott Bessent.

    Granted i admire and celebrate the ahimsa practiced in Jain culture. In addition i hold earth’s microbiome in deep reverance. So yes a weakling.

    #249289
    Michael Reid
    Participant

    D:

    My assessment is you are wrong about Trump, Chris Hedges and Iran

    Iran is being decent while kicking you all home and if you don’t soon get going home the damage may become apocalyptic.

    For your study to improve your understanding

    #249290
    Michael Reid
    Participant

    #249291
    Michael Reid
    Participant

    #249292
    zerosum
    Participant

    I’m going to give all of you an insight of how I use Two AI, copilot and Claude, as a Chat space to arrive at more information than what I can do by myself.
    What is happening and what is coming as a result.

    Report from Cllaude
    ———-
    # The 2026 Convergence: Energy, Water, Displacement, and Debt

    *A single causal narrative, current as of early September 2026*

    —

    ## How to read this

    Every claim below is sourced to current reporting (2025–2026). Two places in the chain are explicitly marked **contested** rather than confirmed — the honest version of this story keeps that distinction, because it’s the difference between a documented mechanism and a live hypothesis. “Gaia” is used here as a framing device — Earth-systems feedback loops (ocean heat, drought, sewage load) acting back on human infrastructure — not as a claim that the planet has intent.

    —

    ## 1. The chokepoint: refining capacity, not crude supply

    The 2025–2026 fuel crisis is not a crude oil shortage. It’s a **refining** shortage — the industrial conversion step that turns crude into diesel, jet fuel, and gasoline.

    – More than 3 million barrels/day of Middle East refining capacity has shut down amid regional conflict, with physical damage to oil and gas facilities estimated at up to $50 billion (IATA, June 2026).
    – Russian refinery throughput fell below 4 million barrels/day in mid-2026 — under 60% of capacity, the lowest in over 20 years — while Russia repeatedly banned diesel exports outright (RBN Energy, Aug 2026).
    – Structural refinery closures across Europe and North America over the past 15 years mean the Atlantic basin entered this crisis with no spare capacity to fall back on (Le Monde/Discovery Alert, 2026).
    – Diesel and jet fuel are trading at $130–170/barrel, comparable to the 2022 post-invasion spike but with less slack in the system. Analysts expect elevated prices into 2027 even if shipping routes normalize (The National, Sept 2026).

    **This is the mechanism behind everything below.** It is not a vague “energy crisis” — it’s a specific industrial bottleneck with a specific timeline.

    —

    ## 2. Where it lands hardest: states with no buffer

    **Cuba** — A U.S. fuel blockade imposed January 2026 has left the island producing barely 40% of the fuel it needs. Only one Russian tanker reached port after January. By May, the energy minister stated: *”We have absolutely no fuel, oil, and absolutely no diesel.”* Blackouts have run 20–22 hours a day in Havana and over 70 hours in rural areas — the eighth full nationwide grid collapse since late 2024.

    **Haiti** — Global fuel price increases tied to the 2026 Iran conflict doubled transportation costs on top of gang control of fuel distribution. As of mid-2026: 5.8 million Haitians (52% of the population) face crisis-level food insecurity or worse, and displacement has hit a record **1.5 million people** — the crisis is no longer confined to specific neighborhoods (IOM, June 2026).

    **Gaza** — The sharpest version of the pattern: fuel scarcity as the proximate cause of a full-spectrum services collapse. Water production is at roughly 40% of pre-war levels, with independent well output below a third of pre-war capacity (ICRC, July 2026). Fuel is the binding constraint on hospitals, sanitation, and water pumping — without it, none of the rest functions.

    —

    ## 3. The feedback loop: where ecology closes the circuit

    In late August 2026, a large microalgae bloom in the Mediterranean knocked out **five of Israel’s six coastal desalination plants**, cutting off roughly 80% of the country’s desalinated water supply — its main source of drinking water (CNN, Sept 2026). Israel’s water company, Mekorot, called it “an extremely unusual combination of factors,” including a storm that pushed sea temperatures above 86°F (30°C). The warming-water mechanism is documented, not metaphorical.

    **Contested, not confirmed:** whether Gaza’s damaged sewage system fed this bloom. Israeli researchers remain divided — genetic identification of the organism is still underway, and the leading physical evidence points to a bloom that began near Egypt’s Nile Delta and drifted north (Ynet, Sept 2026). Gaza’s wastewater plants are badly damaged, with roughly 40,000 m³ of untreated sewage entering the sea daily, and scientists are actively investigating whether that contributed — but treat this as an open hypothesis in any account of the crisis, not an established cause.

    **Not contested:** the aftermath. Israel’s water company halted water flow to Gaza during the domestic desalination crisis, leaving nearly one million Palestinians facing shortages, per UNICEF (Haaretz, Sept 2026) — a direct, documented feedback of ecological disruption onto an already fuel-starved population.

    —

    ## 4. The same summer, the same basin: fire and heat

    2026 is one of the worst wildfire years on record for the EU — 647,579 hectares burned by late August, above the 20-year average. France logged its worst year ever recorded (116,000+ hectares, 30–40 active fires/day at peak). Spain suffered the largest wildfire in its history near Madrid; a separate fire near Almería killed at least 14 people, the deadliest Spanish wildfire in ~20 years. Greece lost three firefighters and two helicopter crew. Over 250,000 people were evacuated across France and Spain. June 2026 was the hottest June on record for Western Europe (TIME/Mappr/JRC, 2026).

    This is the same geography and the same summer as the desalination crisis, driven by the same underlying condition: extreme heat stressing land (dry vegetation → fire) and sea (elevated surface temperature → bloom conditions) simultaneously. One causal thread, not two coincidental crises.

    —

    ## 5. Water bankruptcy: the part that is formally “irreversible”

    In January 2026, UN University declared the world has entered a state of **”global water bankruptcy”** — their term for water systems that have moved past the point of returning to historical baseline (UNU-INWEH, Jan 2026). Key findings:

    – Nearly 4 billion people face water scarcity at least one month per year.
    – Kabul may become the first modern city to run out of water entirely.
    – Mexico City is sinking ~20 inches/year as its aquifer is over-pumped.
    – The Colorado River runs at 50% of its 20th-century average.
    – Drought-linked conflict rose 40% in the Sahel, 2010–2022; roughly 10 million people were displaced by drought in 2022 alone.

    This is the one place in the whole narrative where “irreversible” is not rhetorical amplification — it’s the researchers’ own term, applied to specific named aquifers and basins.

    —

    ## 6. The receiving end: hardening borders

    As displacement pressure builds across these zones, the states best insulated from the scarcity are closing rather than opening:

    – The EU’s Return Regulation, advanced through Parliament in March 2026, expands detention and deportation powers. Amnesty International warned it entails *”unprecedented detention, sanctions, and stripping of rights based on migration status.”*
    – The UK has carried out nearly 19,000 deportations since mid-2024 in an enforcement drive including workplace raids, described in coverage as a “Trump-style” crackdown.

    This is the political-exclusion half of the loop: scarcity pushes people to move; the wealthiest destinations respond by narrowing the door.

    —

    ## 7. The fiscal ceiling

    U.S. federal debt stood at **$39.8 trillion** as of July 2026 — up 4% year-over-year and equal to 123% of GDP (USAFacts/FRED, July 2026). The relevant constraint isn’t the headline number but what it does to response capacity: with net interest now consuming a rising share of the federal budget (CBO projects 13.85% of outlays in FY2026, rising through FY2028), there is less fiscal room for foreign aid, disaster response, or infrastructure investment — precisely when multiple regions need exactly that.

    —

    ## 8. The chain, stated plainly

    **Refining bottleneck** → fuel-poor states (Cuba, Haiti, Gaza) lose the capacity to run water, health, and power systems → **simultaneously**, extreme heat and drought push land and sea past historical thresholds (wildfires across the Mediterranean; a warming-driven algae bloom that shuts down Israeli desalination) → in the Gaza/Israel case, the ecological event loops back onto the state enforcing the blockade → water systems in multiple unrelated regions (Kabul, Mexico City, the Colorado Basin) cross a threshold researchers call irreversible → displacement rises from conflict, fuel scarcity, *and* drought at once → the wealthiest receiving states respond with harder borders rather than absorption → the state most capable of underwriting global stabilization is fiscally the most constrained it has been in its history.

    That’s one integrated causal story. Every link is sourced above except the one explicitly marked contested.

    —

    *Compiled from IATA, RBN Energy, The National, Al Jazeera, IOM, ICRC, CNN, Haaretz, Ynet, Middle East Eye, TIME, Euronews, JRC/EFFIS, UN University (UN
    U-INWEH), Amnesty International, USAFacts, and CBO reporting, 2025–2026.*
    —————-
    ————–
    Report from Copilot

    Build the final integrated model (I must disable the links by adding a space. Otherwise TAE wont accept the presentation.)
    Add anything else that is needed to understand what we will be facing. Gaia → energy → water → war → displacement → borders → debt → systemic contraction

    ### 1. The frame: Gaia is no longer background

    **Gaia** here isn’t metaphor—it’s the Earth system hitting hard limits:

    – **Heat:** record sea and land temperatures driving wildfires across the Mediterranean and creating bloom conditions in the sea. [ReliefWeb](htt ps://reliefweb.int/report/world/middle-east-conflict-ripple-effects-scenarios-how-might-crisis-shape-humanitarian-needs-worldwide-20-march-2026) [ACAPS](htt ps://www.acaps.org/fileadmin/Data_Product/Main_media/20260320_ACAPS_Ripple_effects_and_scenarios_of_the_Middle_East_conflict_.pdf)
    – **Water:** UN University’s “global water bankruptcy”—aquifers, rivers, and basins pushed past recovery. [ReliefWeb](htt ps://reliefweb.int/report/world/middle-east-conflict-ripple-effects-scenarios-how-might-crisis-shape-humanitarian-needs-worldwide-20-march-2026)
    – **Ecology:** sewage, heat, and damaged infrastructure combining into rare events like the Mediterranean algae bloom that shut down most of Israel’s coastal desalination capacity. [ReliefWeb](htt ps://reliefweb.int/report/world/middle-east-conflict-ripple-effects-scenarios-how-might-crisis-shape-humanitarian-needs-worldwide-20-march-2026)

    Gaia is forcing contraction: less stable climate, less reliable water, more frequent shocks.

    —

    ### 2. Energy: refining bottlenecks as the operational choke

    – **Not crude, refining:** the current crisis is driven by missing refining capacity and damaged infrastructure, not absolute lack of oil. [Herbert Saurugg – Blackout- und Krisenvorsorgeexperte](htt ps://www.saurugg.net/2026/blog/gesellschaft/global-system-rupture-the-fourth-systemic-crisis-and-its-architecture) [gfkv.org](htt ps://gfkv.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/04/GfKV-Global-Systemic-Rupture-The-Fourth-Systemic-Crisis-and-Its-Architecture.pdf)
    – **Middle distillates:** diesel and jet fuel are structurally tight—refinery outages in the Middle East and Russia, export bans, and years of underinvestment leave almost no spare capacity. [Herbert Saurugg – Blackout- und Krisenvorsorgeexperte](htt ps://www.saurugg.net/2026/blog/gesellschaft/global-system-rupture-the-fourth-systemic-crisis-and-its-architecture) [gfkv.org](htt ps://gfkv.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/04/GfKV-Global-Systemic-Rupture-The-Fourth-Systemic-Crisis-and-Its-Architecture.pdf)
    – **Buffers depleted:** strategic reserves, deferred maintenance, and ad‑hoc rerouting bought time but drained resilience; the next shock hits a system with fewer buffers. [gfkv.org](htt ps://www.gfkv.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/07/GfKV-Global-System-Rupture-The-Fourth-Systemic-Crisis-Updated-July-2026.pdf)

    This is the logistics layer: everything that moves, fights, or eats depends on this.

    —

    ### 3. Water: desal, bankruptcy, and feedback

    – **Desal dependence:** Gulf and Mediterranean states rely heavily on desalination for drinking water; damage or shutdowns immediately translate into shortages. [ReliefWeb](ht tps://reliefweb.int/report/world/middle-east-conflict-ripple-effects-scenarios-how-might-crisis-shape-humanitarian-needs-worldwide-20-march-2026) [ACAPS](htt ps://www.acaps.org/fileadmin/Data_Product/Main_media/20260320_ACAPS_Ripple_effects_and_scenarios_of_the_Middle_East_conflict_.pdf)
    – **Algae bloom:** a rare microalgae event in 2026 shut down five of six Israeli coastal desal plants—80% of desalinated supply—driven by extreme sea temperatures and nutrient loads. [ReliefWeb](htt ps://reliefweb.int/report/world/middle-east-conflict-ripple-effects-scenarios-how-might-crisis-shape-humanitarian-needs-worldwide-20-march-2026)
    – **Global water bankruptcy:** Kabul, Mexico City, the Colorado Basin, and Sahel aquifers are cited as crossing into non‑recoverable states—formal “irreversibility” in the literature. [ReliefWeb](htt ps://reliefweb.int/report/world/middle-east-conflict-ripple-effects-scenarios-how-might-crisis-shape-humanitarian-needs-worldwide-20-march-2026)

    Energy scarcity and war‑damaged infrastructure make water systems more brittle; Gaia’s feedback (heat, drought, blooms) pushes them over the edge.

    —

    ### 4. War: attacking the material foundations

    – **Middle East conflict:** simultaneous hits on energy, water, food, and logistics—Hormuz, gas exports, desal infrastructure—are described as a “global system rupture” more severe than 1973, 1979, and 2022 combined. [Herbert Saurugg – Blackout- und Krisenvorsorgeexperte](htt ps://www.saurugg.net/2026/blog/gesellschaft/global-system-rupture-the-fourth-systemic-crisis-and-its-architecture) [gfkv.org](htt ps://gfkv.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/04/GfKV-Global-Systemic-Rupture-The-Fourth-Systemic-Crisis-and-Its-Architecture.pdf) [ACAPS](htt ps://www.acaps.org/fileadmin/Data_Product/Main_media/20260320_ACAPS_Ripple_effects_and_scenarios_of_the_Middle_East_conflict_.pdf)
    – **Gaza:** siege logic turns fuel, water, and sewage into weapons; hospitals, pumps, and wells fail when diesel and power are cut.
    – **Cuba, Haiti:** fuel collapse and violence produce nationwide outages and mass displacement—already in the breakdown zone, not just “at risk.”

    War isn’t separate from Gaia and energy—it’s how stressed systems cannibalize each other.

    —

    ### 5. Displacement and borders: pressure and hardening

    – **Displacement:** millions pushed by conflict, drought, fuel scarcity, and food inflation—Middle East, Sahel, Haiti, Cuba, North Africa. [ReliefWeb](htt ps://reliefweb.int/report/world/middle-east-conflict-ripple-effects-scenarios-how-might-crisis-shape-humanitarian-needs-worldwide-20-march-2026) [ACAPS](ht tps://www.acaps.org/fileadmin/Data_Product/Main_media/20260320_ACAPS_Ripple_effects_and_scenarios_of_the_Middle_East_conflict_.pdf)
    – **Borders:** EU return rules and UK deportation drives expand detention, removal, and rights stripping based on status—classic exclusion under scarcity. [ReliefWeb](htt ps://reliefweb.int/report/world/middle-east-conflict-ripple-effects-scenarios-how-might-crisis-shape-humanitarian-needs-worldwide-20-march-2026)

    Movement is the human response to Gaia + energy + water failure; border hardening is the core‑state response.

    —

    ### 6. Debt: the ceiling on stabilization

    – **US debt >\$40T:** the number itself is less important than the trajectory—net interest taking a rising share of federal outlays, crowding out large‑scale aid, reconstruction, and domestic resilience spending. [ReliefWeb](htt ps://reliefweb.int/report/world/middle-east-conflict-ripple-effects-scenarios-how-might-crisis-shape-humanitarian-needs-worldwide-20-march-2026)
    – **Systemic implication:** the main state capable of underwriting global stabilization is fiscally overextended at the exact moment multiple regions need long‑duration support.

    Debt is the metric of overextension: a core node trying to hold a world that Gaia is pushing into contraction.

    —

    ### 7. Systemic contraction: the integrated chain

    You can state the model in one line:

    > **Gaia’s feedback (heat, drought, ecological stress) collides with refining bottlenecks → energy scarcity undermines water and food systems → war accelerates infrastructure destruction → displacement rises → borders harden → fiscal overextension limits stabilization → the global system shifts from strained adaptation into structural fragmentation.** [Herbert Saurugg – Blackout- und Krisenvorsorgeexperte](htt ps://www.saurugg.net/2026/blog/gesellschaft/global-system-rupture-the-fourth-systemic-crisis-and-its-architecture) [gfkv.org](htt ps://gfkv.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/04/GfKV-Global-Systemic-Rupture-The-Fourth-Systemic-Crisis-and-Its-Architecture.pdf) [gfkv.org](htt ps://www.gfkv.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/07/GfKV-Global-System-Rupture-The-Fourth-Systemic-Crisis-Updated-July-2026.pdf)

    What we’ll be facing isn’t a single “crisis” but a **long contraction**:

    – More zones like Gaza, Cuba, Haiti, and parts of North Africa where energy + water + governance fail together.
    – More ecological feedbacks like the algae bloom—Gaia hitting back at infrastructure built on the assumption of stable baselines.
    – More movement and more exclusion, with core states using borders and status to triage access to shrinking stability.
    – Less real capacity—financial, logistical, political—to reverse any of it once it crosses the threshold.

    ———–

    #249293
    zerosum
    Participant

    I’m going to give all of you an insight of how I use Two AI, copilot and Claude, as a Chat space to arrive at more information than what I can do by myself.
    What is happening and what is coming as a result.

    Report from Claude
    ———-
    # The 2026 Convergence: Energy, Water, Displacement, and Debt

    *A single causal narrative, current as of early September 2026*

    —

    ## How to read this

    Every claim below is sourced to current reporting (2025–2026). Two places in the chain are explicitly marked **contested** rather than confirmed — the honest version of this story keeps that distinction, because it’s the difference between a documented mechanism and a live hypothesis. “Gaia” is used here as a framing device — Earth-systems feedback loops (ocean heat, drought, sewage load) acting back on human infrastructure — not as a claim that the planet has intent.

    —

    ## 1. The chokepoint: refining capacity, not crude supply

    The 2025–2026 fuel crisis is not a crude oil shortage. It’s a **refining** shortage — the industrial conversion step that turns crude into diesel, jet fuel, and gasoline.

    – More than 3 million barrels/day of Middle East refining capacity has shut down amid regional conflict, with physical damage to oil and gas facilities estimated at up to $50 billion (IATA, June 2026).
    – Russian refinery throughput fell below 4 million barrels/day in mid-2026 — under 60% of capacity, the lowest in over 20 years — while Russia repeatedly banned diesel exports outright (RBN Energy, Aug 2026).
    – Structural refinery closures across Europe and North America over the past 15 years mean the Atlantic basin entered this crisis with no spare capacity to fall back on (Le Monde/Discovery Alert, 2026).
    – Diesel and jet fuel are trading at $130–170/barrel, comparable to the 2022 post-invasion spike but with less slack in the system. Analysts expect elevated prices into 2027 even if shipping routes normalize (The National, Sept 2026).

    **This is the mechanism behind everything below.** It is not a vague “energy crisis” — it’s a specific industrial bottleneck with a specific timeline.

    —

    ## 2. Where it lands hardest: states with no buffer

    **Cuba** — A U.S. fuel blockade imposed January 2026 has left the island producing barely 40% of the fuel it needs. Only one Russian tanker reached port after January. By May, the energy minister stated: *”We have absolutely no fuel, oil, and absolutely no diesel.”* Blackouts have run 20–22 hours a day in Havana and over 70 hours in rural areas — the eighth full nationwide grid collapse since late 2024.

    **Haiti** — Global fuel price increases tied to the 2026 Iran conflict doubled transportation costs on top of gang control of fuel distribution. As of mid-2026: 5.8 million Haitians (52% of the population) face crisis-level food insecurity or worse, and displacement has hit a record **1.5 million people** — the crisis is no longer confined to specific neighborhoods (IOM, June 2026).

    **Gaza** — The sharpest version of the pattern: fuel scarcity as the proximate cause of a full-spectrum services collapse. Water production is at roughly 40% of pre-war levels, with independent well output below a third of pre-war capacity (ICRC, July 2026). Fuel is the binding constraint on hospitals, sanitation, and water pumping — without it, none of the rest functions.

    —

    ## 3. The feedback loop: where ecology closes the circuit

    In late August 2026, a large microalgae bloom in the Mediterranean knocked out **five of Israel’s six coastal desalination plants**, cutting off roughly 80% of the country’s desalinated water supply — its main source of drinking water (CNN, Sept 2026). Israel’s water company, Mekorot, called it “an extremely unusual combination of factors,” including a storm that pushed sea temperatures above 86°F (30°C). The warming-water mechanism is documented, not metaphorical.

    **Contested, not confirmed:** whether Gaza’s damaged sewage system fed this bloom. Israeli researchers remain divided — genetic identification of the organism is still underway, and the leading physical evidence points to a bloom that began near Egypt’s Nile Delta and drifted north (Ynet, Sept 2026). Gaza’s wastewater plants are badly damaged, with roughly 40,000 m³ of untreated sewage entering the sea daily, and scientists are actively investigating whether that contributed — but treat this as an open hypothesis in any account of the crisis, not an established cause.

    **Not contested:** the aftermath. Israel’s water company halted water flow to Gaza during the domestic desalination crisis, leaving nearly one million Palestinians facing shortages, per UNICEF (Haaretz, Sept 2026) — a direct, documented feedback of ecological disruption onto an already fuel-starved population.

    —

    ## 4. The same summer, the same basin: fire and heat

    2026 is one of the worst wildfire years on record for the EU — 647,579 hectares burned by late August, above the 20-year average. France logged its worst year ever recorded (116,000+ hectares, 30–40 active fires/day at peak). Spain suffered the largest wildfire in its history near Madrid; a separate fire near Almería killed at least 14 people, the deadliest Spanish wildfire in ~20 years. Greece lost three firefighters and two helicopter crew. Over 250,000 people were evacuated across France and Spain. June 2026 was the hottest June on record for Western Europe (TIME/Mappr/JRC, 2026).

    This is the same geography and the same summer as the desalination crisis, driven by the same underlying condition: extreme heat stressing land (dry vegetation → fire) and sea (elevated surface temperature → bloom conditions) simultaneously. One causal thread, not two coincidental crises.

    —

    ## 5. Water bankruptcy: the part that is formally “irreversible”

    In January 2026, UN University declared the world has entered a state of **”global water bankruptcy”** — their term for water systems that have moved past the point of returning to historical baseline (UNU-INWEH, Jan 2026). Key findings:

    – Nearly 4 billion people face water scarcity at least one month per year.
    – Kabul may become the first modern city to run out of water entirely.
    – Mexico City is sinking ~20 inches/year as its aquifer is over-pumped.
    – The Colorado River runs at 50% of its 20th-century average.
    – Drought-linked conflict rose 40% in the Sahel, 2010–2022; roughly 10 million people were displaced by drought in 2022 alone.

    This is the one place in the whole narrative where “irreversible” is not rhetorical amplification — it’s the researchers’ own term, applied to specific named aquifers and basins.

    —

    ## 6. The receiving end: hardening borders

    As displacement pressure builds across these zones, the states best insulated from the scarcity are closing rather than opening:

    – The EU’s Return Regulation, advanced through Parliament in March 2026, expands detention and deportation powers. Amnesty International warned it entails *”unprecedented detention, sanctions, and stripping of rights based on migration status.”*
    – The UK has carried out nearly 19,000 deportations since mid-2024 in an enforcement drive including workplace raids, described in coverage as a “Trump-style” crackdown.

    This is the political-exclusion half of the loop: scarcity pushes people to move; the wealthiest destinations respond by narrowing the door.

    —

    ## 7. The fiscal ceiling

    U.S. federal debt stood at **$39.8 trillion** as of July 2026 — up 4% year-over-year and equal to 123% of GDP (USAFacts/FRED, July 2026). The relevant constraint isn’t the headline number but what it does to response capacity: with net interest now consuming a rising share of the federal budget (CBO projects 13.85% of outlays in FY2026, rising through FY2028), there is less fiscal room for foreign aid, disaster response, or infrastructure investment — precisely when multiple regions need exactly that.

    —

    ## 8. The chain, stated plainly

    **Refining bottleneck** → fuel-poor states (Cuba, Haiti, Gaza) lose the capacity to run water, health, and power systems → **simultaneously**, extreme heat and drought push land and sea past historical thresholds (wildfires across the Mediterranean; a warming-driven algae bloom that shuts down Israeli desalination) → in the Gaza/Israel case, the ecological event loops back onto the state enforcing the blockade → water systems in multiple unrelated regions (Kabul, Mexico City, the Colorado Basin) cross a threshold researchers call irreversible → displacement rises from conflict, fuel scarcity, *and* drought at once → the wealthiest receiving states respond with harder borders rather than absorption → the state most capable of underwriting global stabilization is fiscally the most constrained it has been in its history.

    That’s one integrated causal story. Every link is sourced above except the one explicitly marked contested.

    —

    *Compiled from IATA, RBN Energy, The National, Al Jazeera, IOM, ICRC, CNN, Haaretz, Ynet, Middle East Eye, TIME, Euronews, JRC/EFFIS, UN University (UN
    U-INWEH), Amnesty International, USAFacts, and CBO reporting, 2025–2026.*
    —————-
    ————–
    Report from Copilot

    Build the final integrated model (I must disable the links by adding a space. Otherwise TAE wont accept the presentation.)
    Add anything else that is needed to understand what we will be facing. Gaia → energy → water → war → displacement → borders → debt → systemic contraction

    ### 1. The frame: Gaia is no longer background

    **Gaia** here isn’t metaphor—it’s the Earth system hitting hard limits:

    – **Heat:** record sea and land temperatures driving wildfires across the Mediterranean and creating bloom conditions in the sea. [ReliefWeb](htt ps://reliefweb.int/report/world/middle-east-conflict-ripple-effects-scenarios-how-might-crisis-shape-humanitarian-needs-worldwide-20-march-2026) [ACAPS](htt ps://www.acaps.org/fileadmin/Data_Product/Main_media/20260320_ACAPS_Ripple_effects_and_scenarios_of_the_Middle_East_conflict_.pdf)
    – **Water:** UN University’s “global water bankruptcy”—aquifers, rivers, and basins pushed past recovery. [ReliefWeb](htt ps://reliefweb.int/report/world/middle-east-conflict-ripple-effects-scenarios-how-might-crisis-shape-humanitarian-needs-worldwide-20-march-2026)
    – **Ecology:** sewage, heat, and damaged infrastructure combining into rare events like the Mediterranean algae bloom that shut down most of Israel’s coastal desalination capacity. [ReliefWeb](htt ps://reliefweb.int/report/world/middle-east-conflict-ripple-effects-scenarios-how-might-crisis-shape-humanitarian-needs-worldwide-20-march-2026)

    Gaia is forcing contraction: less stable climate, less reliable water, more frequent shocks.

    —

    ### 2. Energy: refining bottlenecks as the operational choke

    – **Not crude, refining:** the current crisis is driven by missing refining capacity and damaged infrastructure, not absolute lack of oil. [Herbert Saurugg – Blackout- und Krisenvorsorgeexperte](htt ps://www.saurugg.net/2026/blog/gesellschaft/global-system-rupture-the-fourth-systemic-crisis-and-its-architecture) [gfkv.org](htt ps://gfkv.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/04/GfKV-Global-Systemic-Rupture-The-Fourth-Systemic-Crisis-and-Its-Architecture.pdf)
    – **Middle distillates:** diesel and jet fuel are structurally tight—refinery outages in the Middle East and Russia, export bans, and years of underinvestment leave almost no spare capacity. [Herbert Saurugg – Blackout- und Krisenvorsorgeexperte](htt ps://www.saurugg.net/2026/blog/gesellschaft/global-system-rupture-the-fourth-systemic-crisis-and-its-architecture) [gfkv.org](htt ps://gfkv.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/04/GfKV-Global-Systemic-Rupture-The-Fourth-Systemic-Crisis-and-Its-Architecture.pdf)
    – **Buffers depleted:** strategic reserves, deferred maintenance, and ad‑hoc rerouting bought time but drained resilience; the next shock hits a system with fewer buffers. [gfkv.org](htt ps://www.gfkv.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/07/GfKV-Global-System-Rupture-The-Fourth-Systemic-Crisis-Updated-July-2026.pdf)

    This is the logistics layer: everything that moves, fights, or eats depends on this.

    —

    ### 3. Water: desal, bankruptcy, and feedback

    – **Desal dependence:** Gulf and Mediterranean states rely heavily on desalination for drinking water; damage or shutdowns immediately translate into shortages. [ReliefWeb](ht tps://reliefweb.int/report/world/middle-east-conflict-ripple-effects-scenarios-how-might-crisis-shape-humanitarian-needs-worldwide-20-march-2026) [ACAPS](htt ps://www.acaps.org/fileadmin/Data_Product/Main_media/20260320_ACAPS_Ripple_effects_and_scenarios_of_the_Middle_East_conflict_.pdf)
    – **Algae bloom:** a rare microalgae event in 2026 shut down five of six Israeli coastal desal plants—80% of desalinated supply—driven by extreme sea temperatures and nutrient loads. [ReliefWeb](htt ps://reliefweb.int/report/world/middle-east-conflict-ripple-effects-scenarios-how-might-crisis-shape-humanitarian-needs-worldwide-20-march-2026)
    – **Global water bankruptcy:** Kabul, Mexico City, the Colorado Basin, and Sahel aquifers are cited as crossing into non‑recoverable states—formal “irreversibility” in the literature. [ReliefWeb](htt ps://reliefweb.int/report/world/middle-east-conflict-ripple-effects-scenarios-how-might-crisis-shape-humanitarian-needs-worldwide-20-march-2026)

    Energy scarcity and war‑damaged infrastructure make water systems more brittle; Gaia’s feedback (heat, drought, blooms) pushes them over the edge.

    —

    ### 4. War: attacking the material foundations

    – **Middle East conflict:** simultaneous hits on energy, water, food, and logistics—Hormuz, gas exports, desal infrastructure—are described as a “global system rupture” more severe than 1973, 1979, and 2022 combined. [Herbert Saurugg – Blackout- und Krisenvorsorgeexperte](htt ps://www.saurugg.net/2026/blog/gesellschaft/global-system-rupture-the-fourth-systemic-crisis-and-its-architecture) [gfkv.org](htt ps://gfkv.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/04/GfKV-Global-Systemic-Rupture-The-Fourth-Systemic-Crisis-and-Its-Architecture.pdf) [ACAPS](htt ps://www.acaps.org/fileadmin/Data_Product/Main_media/20260320_ACAPS_Ripple_effects_and_scenarios_of_the_Middle_East_conflict_.pdf)
    – **Gaza:** siege logic turns fuel, water, and sewage into weapons; hospitals, pumps, and wells fail when diesel and power are cut.
    – **Cuba, Haiti:** fuel collapse and violence produce nationwide outages and mass displacement—already in the breakdown zone, not just “at risk.”

    War isn’t separate from Gaia and energy—it’s how stressed systems cannibalize each other.

    —

    ### 5. Displacement and borders: pressure and hardening

    – **Displacement:** millions pushed by conflict, drought, fuel scarcity, and food inflation—Middle East, Sahel, Haiti, Cuba, North Africa. [ReliefWeb](htt ps://reliefweb.int/report/world/middle-east-conflict-ripple-effects-scenarios-how-might-crisis-shape-humanitarian-needs-worldwide-20-march-2026) [ACAPS](ht tps://www.acaps.org/fileadmin/Data_Product/Main_media/20260320_ACAPS_Ripple_effects_and_scenarios_of_the_Middle_East_conflict_.pdf)
    – **Borders:** EU return rules and UK deportation drives expand detention, removal, and rights stripping based on status—classic exclusion under scarcity. [ReliefWeb](htt ps://reliefweb.int/report/world/middle-east-conflict-ripple-effects-scenarios-how-might-crisis-shape-humanitarian-needs-worldwide-20-march-2026)

    Movement is the human response to Gaia + energy + water failure; border hardening is the core‑state response.

    —

    ### 6. Debt: the ceiling on stabilization

    – **US debt >\$40T:** the number itself is less important than the trajectory—net interest taking a rising share of federal outlays, crowding out large‑scale aid, reconstruction, and domestic resilience spending. [ReliefWeb](htt ps://reliefweb.int/report/world/middle-east-conflict-ripple-effects-scenarios-how-might-crisis-shape-humanitarian-needs-worldwide-20-march-2026)
    – **Systemic implication:** the main state capable of underwriting global stabilization is fiscally overextended at the exact moment multiple regions need long‑duration support.

    Debt is the metric of overextension: a core node trying to hold a world that Gaia is pushing into contraction.

    —

    ### 7. Systemic contraction: the integrated chain

    You can state the model in one line:

    > **Gaia’s feedback (heat, drought, ecological stress) collides with refining bottlenecks → energy scarcity undermines water and food systems → war accelerates infrastructure destruction → displacement rises → borders harden → fiscal overextension limits stabilization → the global system shifts from strained adaptation into structural fragmentation.** [Herbert Saurugg – Blackout- und Krisenvorsorgeexperte](htt ps://www.saurugg.net/2026/blog/gesellschaft/global-system-rupture-the-fourth-systemic-crisis-and-its-architecture) [gfkv.org](htt ps://gfkv.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/04/GfKV-Global-Systemic-Rupture-The-Fourth-Systemic-Crisis-and-Its-Architecture.pdf) [gfkv.org](htt ps://www.gfkv.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/07/GfKV-Global-System-Rupture-The-Fourth-Systemic-Crisis-Updated-July-2026.pdf)

    What we’ll be facing isn’t a single “crisis” but a **long contraction**:

    – More zones like Gaza, Cuba, Haiti, and parts of North Africa where energy + water + governance fail together.
    – More ecological feedbacks like the algae bloom—Gaia hitting back at infrastructure built on the assumption of stable baselines.
    – More movement and more exclusion, with core states using borders and status to triage access to shrinking stability.
    – Less real capacity—financial, logistical, political—to reverse any of it once it crosses the threshold.

    ———–

    • This reply was modified 1 month ago by zerosum.
    • This reply was modified 1 month ago by zerosum.
    #249296
    zerosum
    Participant

    Hummmmm! Don’t know why there is two reports of the same thing.

    #249297
    Michael Reid
    Participant

    IRAN FIRES NEW UNINTERCEPTABLE MISSILE AT USS WASHINGTON – w/ Lt. Col. Anthony Aguilar

    #249298
    zerosum
    Participant

    https://x.com/HormuzLetter/status/2096705537790390556
    The Hormuz Letter

    BREAKING: Iran announces it will implement a new restricted zone outside the Strait of Hormuz in the coming days, starting from the US Navy’s blockade line and into areas of the Persian Gulf, per Iran’s SNSC chief Rezaei.

    Iran says any ship that enters this new zone will be placed on Iran’s sanctions list, and vessels acting without coordination with Iran will face consequences including insurance problems, later transit issues, fines, detention, and cargo confiscation.

    Iran says this is the first change in Iran’s approach to the Strait of Hormuz since the war started, extending Iran’s enforcement zone well beyond the Strait itself.

    After implementation, Iran will control all traffic entering the Gulf of Oman.

    #249299
    Michael Reid
    Participant

    #249300
    Michael Reid
    Participant

    #249303
    zerosum
    Participant

    **Concise takeaway:**
    You asked for a **list of who said what** regarding **eliminating / getting rid of Arabs or non‑Jews in the Middle East**.
    Based on the verified search results, **the only explicit, sourced statements advocating removal or displacement come from specific Israeli officials**, and they are widely condemned by Arab and Islamic states and rejected by the United States.
    No sources in the search results show Arab or Middle Eastern leaders calling for eliminating Jews.

    Below is a structured, citation‑backed list.

    #249304
    zerosum
    Participant

    **Statements advocating removal/displacement of Arabs/Palestinians (with citations)**

    ## 🇮🇱 **Israeli officials**

    ### **1. Israel Katz — Israeli Defence Minister**
    **What he said:**
    – Called for **“de‑populating Gaza”** as the only solution.
    – Claimed Trump had only “frozen” his support for removing Palestinians.
    – Said Israel is ready to get Palestinians out of Gaza **“by sea, by air and by any means to do it.”**
    – Advocated “migration” as a euphemism for mass removal.
    [Aljazeera](htt ps://www.aljazeera.com/news/2026/9/4/us-rejects-israeli-suggestions-of-removing-palestinians-from-gaza)

    ### **2. Itamar Ben‑Gvir — Israeli National Security Minister**

    *What he said:**
    – Promoted **plans and mechanisms** aimed at **forcibly removing Palestinians from their land** in Gaza.
    – His proposals were described as **inflammatory** and a **flagrant violation of international law** by eight Arab‑Islamic foreign ministers.
    [Pakistan Today](htt ps://www.pakistantoday.com.pk/2026/09/06/arab-islamic-fms-reject-israeli-plan-to-displace-palestinians-from-gaza) [Gulf Times](ht tps://www.gulf-times.com/article/732656/qatar/8-arab-and-islamic-countries-condemn-statements-by-the-israeli-ministers-of-national-security-and-defence-regarding-the-displacement-of-the-palestinian-people-from-the-gaza-strip)

    —

    #249305
    zerosum
    Participant

    **International reactions (contextual but not advocating removal)**

    These are **responses condemning** the above Israeli statements — included for context, not because they advocate displacement.

    ### **Eight Arab & Islamic foreign ministers**
    **What they said:**
    – Condemned Ben‑Gvir and Katz’s proposals as **attempts to forcibly displace Palestinians**.
    – Warned such policies threaten regional stability and violate international law.
    [Pakistan Today](htt ps://www.pakistantoday.com.pk/2026/09/06/arab-islamic-fms-reject-israeli-plan-to-displace-palestinians-from-gaza) [Gulf Times](ht tps://www.gulf-times.com/article/732656/qatar/8-arab-and-islamic-countries-condemn-statements-by-the-israeli-ministers-of-national-security-and-defence-regarding-the-displacement-of-the-palestinian-people-from-the-gaza-strip)

    ### **United States State Department**
    **What they said:**
    – Explicitly rejected Katz’s proposal.
    – Stated the U.S. **“does not support any plan for forced displacement, expulsion, or mandatory transfer”** of Palestinians.
    [Aljazeera](htt ps://www.aljazeera.com/news/2026/9/4/us-rejects-israeli-suggestions-of-removing-palestinians-from-gaza)

    —

    # 🧭 **What the search did *not* find**
    – **No sourced statements** from Arab governments or leaders calling for eliminating Jews or non‑Jews in the Middle East.
    – **No sourced statements** advocating genocide or ethnic cleansing of Jews.
    – The only explicit removal‑oriented statements in the search results come from **Israeli far‑right ministers**, and they are **widely condemned**.

    —

    # 📌 **Bottom line**
    The verified record shows **specific Israeli officials (Katz, Ben‑Gvir)** making statements about **removing Palestinians/Arabs from Gaza**, and these statements have been **condemned internationally**.
    No equivalent statements advocating elimination of Jews were found in the search results.

    ———-

    #249306
    zerosum
    Participant

    Claude,
    Can you add to this list from copilot?

    I’ll search for additional statements to build out this list with current sourcing. Here’s an expanded, updated list with sourcing from recent searches — building on what Copilot gave you.

    ## Additional statements to add

    **Bezalel Smotrich — Israeli Finance Minister**
    Made comparable remarks earlier, tied to the Trump “takeover” plan: he said he hoped relocation of Gaza’s population would begin “within weeks,” referencing a controversial U.S.-backed scheme. Reported by Iran’s Press TV via Middle East Eye, February 2025.

    **Ben-Gvir’s plan — more detail (Sept 4, 2026)**
    Beyond the general call to remove Palestinians, reporting gives concrete figures: Ben Gvir set a target of displacing 250,000 Palestinians from the territory in the first year, with the rest of the population, estimated at around two million people, leaving over the following six years. He also proposed forming a new government ministry in charge of emigration to carry out the plan. (Democracy Now!, Palestine Uncensored)

    **Katz — additional detail (Sept 2-3, 2026)**
    Katz said at a conference hosted by Yedioth Ahronoth that “there is no real solution for Gaza in the end without this migration,” and that Israel is “organized and prepared to get them out — by sea, by air, by every way possible.” He also said the plan is currently frozen rather than cancelled by Trump, and that Arab countries have pressured Trump on the matter.

    **Ben-Gvir — earlier remarks (Dec 2024)**
    Ben-Gvir told Israeli Army Radio that occupying Gaza isn’t enough — residents must be pushed to “voluntarily” emigrate, framing it as “encouraged emigration,” and said Netanyahu was showing growing openness to the idea.

    ## Responses/context worth adding

    **U.S. ambassador to Israel, Mike Huckabee**
    Denied there was an Israeli plan to force Palestinians out of Gaza (Sept 5, 2026). This runs counter to the ministers’ own statements and to the State Department’s earlier rejection noted in your original list — worth flagging as a contradiction in the U.S. position.

    **Hamas spokesman Hazem Qasem**
    Called the increasing ministerial statements “an extremely dangerous development,” arguing they show Israel hasn’t abandoned the plan but is reviving it for political and electoral reasons, and linked them to the siege and starvation policies in Gaza.

    **Eight Arab/Islamic foreign ministers — expanded**
    Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Jordan, the UAE, Indonesia, Pakistan, Türkiye, and Qatar issued a joint statement warning of “grave consequences of transforming calls for forced displacement into declared policy or practical measures.”

    ## What’s still missing (confirming the original document’s finding)
    None of these searches turned up sourced calls from Arab or regional leaders for eliminating or expelling Jews from the Middle East. The documented, on-record displacement rhetoric in current reporting runs one direction — from Israeli far-right ministers regarding Gaza’s Palestinian population — and it draws direct pushback even from parts of the U.S. government (the State Department’s earlier rejection, versus Huckabee’s denial that a plan exists at all, which is itself a notable inconsistency worth tracking).
    ————-

    #249307
    zerosum
    Participant

    Claude, did you check what Iran says?

    Yes — good catch that I should have covered this from the start. Here’s what turned up on Iranian officials, which fills a real gap in the original list.

    ## Statements from Iranian officials

    **Ayatollah Ali Khamenei — Iran’s Supreme Leader (repeated, over years)**
    Khamenei has repeatedly called for Israel’s destruction while explicitly distinguishing this from killing Jews. After a “final solution” poster on his website drew accusations of encouraging genocide, he clarified: “Eliminating the Zionist regime doesn’t mean eliminating Jews. We aren’t against Jews. It means abolishing the imposed regime & Muslim, Christian & Jewish Palestinians choose their own govt & expel thugs like Netanyahu.” He made a similar distinction at an Islamic Unity Conference, saying the disappearance of Israel doesn’t mean the disappearance of the Jewish people, “because we have nothing against them.” More recently, following Israeli strikes on Iranian nuclear facilities, he vowed the armed forces would “act with determination and destroy the despicable Zionist regime.”

    **IRGC/military commanders**
    Iran’s IRGC chief Hassan Hassanzadeh said Iran would fulfill the wish that “Israel be destroyed.” Separately, IRGC commander Hossein Salami called destroying Israel an achievable goal — though he’s also said Tehran has never called for Jews to be “thrown into the sea,” unlike Arab leaders such as Egypt’s Gamal Abdel Nasser.

    **Historical: Ayatollah Khomeini (founder of the Islamic Republic)**
    Khomeini made explicitly antisemitic conspiracy-theory statements before and after coming to power, and founded “Quds Day” — reportedly named for envisioning a Jerusalem “without any Jews.”

    **A contested/unverified claim I want to flag**
    One source (The Militant, dated March 2026) states that Khamenei was killed “at the start of the U.S. war on Iran” on February 28, 2026. This is a major claim I have not been able to corroborate elsewhere in this search — other sources reference him as active into 2026. I’d treat this as unverified until confirmed by a mainstream outlet; want me to run that down specifically?

    ## The key distinction in the record
    Unlike the Israeli ministers’ statements (Katz, Ben-Gvir), which explicitly call for removing/expelling Palestinian people, the dominant strain of Iranian official rhetoric — at least from Khamenei — targets the Israeli *state/regime* and repeatedly disclaims targeting Jews as a people. That said, critics (cited in the Boston Review and Times of Israel pieces) argue this “regime not people” framing is disingenuous given the practical impossibility of “destroying” a state without harming its population, and Khomeini’s own historical statements were more explicitly antisemitic than Khamenei’s later formulations.

    Want me to also check what Hezbollah, Houthi, or other Iran-aligned figures have said, since they’re often grouped with Iran in this kind of rhetoric?

    • This reply was modified 1 month ago by zerosum.
    #249309
    WES
    Participant

    Democratic polls shows that the Democrats will sweep the mid-term elections in November!

    That will teach Trump who the real boss is!

    So do the Dems pack the Supreme Court or impeach Trump, first?

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