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Debt Rattle October 13 2026

Oct 132026
 
 October 13, 2026  Posted by at 7:56 am Finance Tagged with: , , , , , , ,  Add comments


Mark Rothko Slow Swirl at the Edge of the Sea 1944


• Trump Hits His Campaign Stride in Youngstown, Ohio (Tim O’Brien)
• Federal Agents Raid Ilhan Omar’s D.C. Home (Matt Margolis)
• Genocide Hypocrites (Victor Davis Hanson)
• Sen. Chuck Grassley, 93, Files for Reelection (Margolis)
• Jack Smith: A Former Special Counsel Joins the “No Kings” Movement (Turley)
• Elon Musk Becomes Largest Donor, To Rescue Senate Republican Majority (JTN)
• Judge Orders White House to Stop Airing Taxpayer-Funded Ads (ET)
• So, Where Was Waldo? (James Howard Kunstler)
• UK PM Consoles Zelensky After Trump Calls For His Ouster (RT)
• Trump ‘Really Mad’ With Zelensky – Media (RT)
• Ukraine’s Worst Diplomatic Nightmare Just Got Closer (Poletaev)
• Montana AG Asks Supreme Court to Revive Case Against DEI Training (O’Neil)

 

 

 

 


“Big Rally Energy Is Picking Up..”

• Trump Hits His Campaign Stride in Youngstown, Ohio (Tim O’Brien)

President Donald Trump continued his barnstorming tour around the country on Columbus Day by rallying the base in Youngstown, Ohio, leading the charge to get U.S. Sen. John Husted (R-Ohio) reelected and Vivek Ramaswamy (R) elected as governor. Husted is in a tight race against former U.S. Sen. Sherrod Brown (D), while Ramaswamy is trailing in the polls behind Amy Acton, one of the more radical leftist gubernatorial candidates in the country this election cycle.


In Trump’s remarks, he praised the local candidates and paid homage to Christopher Columbus on his namesake holiday. Then he launched into the Democrats, pointing out that when they were in charge of the federal government, they gave America the worst inflation in its history, the worst trade deficit in history, and they allowed violent illegal aliens to flood across the southern border into the country.

He tied all of this to Brown and his role in the Senate during the decline of American standing under Democrat “leadership.” Trump said that Brown wants to allow men in women’s sports. He repeatedly reminded the crowd that Brown supports the transgender movement in full, and more specifically the mutilation of children.

In a nod to the day’s holiday, Trump said, “To be a Democrat like Sherrod Brown, you have to believe Christopher Columbus should not be in Columbus, Ohio.” Using Minnesota as a cautionary case study, Trump pointed to the way in which the Somali-American community has taken over that state’s political and governing infrastructure, characterized by massive amounts of fraud and corruption.

He specifically mentioned Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-Minn.), whose house was raided by the feds earlier in the day as part of a federal criminal investigation. He said that Omar “comes from one of the worst countries on the planet.”


He pointed out that Somali corruption in Minnesota was responsible for the theft of tens of millions of dollars from Minnesota welfare programs. He mentioned the arrest of Sheikhdoon Abdullahi Mohamud, 18, of Richfield, Minn., who was charged with receiving a firearm and ammo as part of a terrorist plot.

And he mentioned the October 2 Eden Prairie shooting at a high school football game, a shooting in which the suspect is Adam Abdihakeem Adam, a Somali who allegedly fired a gun at what police are calling a rival gang. Four others were arrested on rioting charges. After all of this, Trump said, “They come here and tell us how to run our country.” He then added, “They cheat on everything… We’re not going to stand for it.”

He then turned his attention to Abdul El-Sayed, who is running for the Senate in Michigan. “Look at the guy running in Michigan,” Trump said. “He’s a jihadist. And the media gives him so much publicity.” After riffing on El-Sayed for a few minutes, Trump turned his attention to Springfield, Ohio, where he said 32,000 people had lived peacefully in small town America. That was before, Trump said, Democrat administrations “dumped” 35,000 Haitian illegal aliens on the town, some of them with criminal backgrounds.

Trump reported that his administration is working to keep his 2024 campaign promise to correct that situation. “They’re getting their town back,” Trump said. While the president ticked off a long list of accomplishments on the part of his administration in this second term, he highlighted that poverty in the black, Hispanic, and American Indian communities has dropped significantly, along with crime rates nationwide.=nHe dropped a now familiar statistic, but an impressive one, that “zero illegal aliens have been admitted into the U.S. through our southern border” over the past 17 months.

His administration has eliminated critical race theory curricula from schools, along with increasing success against the movement that promotes gender mutilation in kids. In addition, he highlighted the White House’s progress towards banning men from competing against women in women’s sports. Because the president repeated these themes throughout his speech, it’s clear that their research is indicating that Democrats remain very vulnerable on social issues.

Can you imagine 15 years ago saying, ‘We will not allow men to play in women’s sports?’ They’d have thought you were crazy,” Trump said. He reminded the crowd that Republicans are defending women — that they are the only ones defending women in these cases. “What they’re doing to women is demeaning,” he commented.

Trump spent a little time talking about Ramaswamy’s opponent, Acton, who, the president said, wants to restore the inheritance tax, the estate tax, taxes on tips, and taxes on overtime, and who wants the elimination of tax cuts the Republicans already passed. He said she wants to “double your state income tax.” He added that Acton wants to “take away your guns,” and that she’s against the Second Amendment.

He warned that if the Democrats win majorities in the midterms, they will work to add Puerto Rico and the District of Columbia as states, increasing the number of Democratic senators by four and the number of Democratic representatives by 10, and expand the Supreme Court to 13 justices (possibly up to 23). He painted a grim picture of Democrats if they get the chance to rig the system so badly that he may well be America’s last Republican president.

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She’s an opportunist.

• Federal Agents Raid Ilhan Omar’s D.C. Home (Matt Margolis)

Federal agents executed a search warrant at Rep. Ilhan Omar’s (D-Minn.) Washington, D.C., home early Monday morning as part of a criminal fraud investigation into her immigration paperwork, according to an exclusive report from Fox News Digital.


The search began at around 6 a.m. Two sources close to the investigation told the outlet that the probe focuses on immigration documents the Somali-born congresswoman’s late father filled out on her behalf when she was a child. Homeland Security Investigations and the Department of Homeland Security are leading the operation, and the Justice Department is also involved. Multiple agents wearing HSI jackets were seen outside the residence.

“Today in the Washington, D.C., area, Homeland Security Investigations executed a judicially authorized search warrant secured by the Department of Justice,” a DOJ spokesperson told Fox News Digital. “This enforcement action is part of an ongoing federal investigation.”HSI serves as DHS’s primary investigative arm, handling cases involving cross-border crime, human trafficking, child exploitation, drug smuggling, cybercrime, and counterterrorism.

The search follows months of public signals from senior administration officials. In May, Vice President JD Vance said the Justice Department was examining whether Omar had committed immigration fraud. “It certainly seems like something fishy is there, but everybody’s entitled to equal justice under the law,” Vance said.

Omar has faced allegations for years that she married her brother as part of an immigration scheme. She has repeatedly denied the claim. DHS Secretary Markwayne Mullin addressed the matter last month. “Something’s going to happen. … We know that she married her brother to try to bring him to the United States. We know he now lives in London,” Mullin said.

He suggested the investigation could reach further back. “There may be more to this, the whole family migration and possibly some illegal activity for them to come to the United States to begin with,” the secretary continued. “… If we can prove it, that you shouldn’t have been here in the first place, we will deport you.”

In mid-September, White House border czar Tom Homan confirmed on Fox News’ The Sunday Briefing that federal immigration authorities were conducting an “ongoing criminal investigation” connected to Omar. Asked whether the government had evidence that she committed immigration or naturalization fraud, he declined to say. “I know things are going on, but I can’t give specifics of what’s happening,” Homan said.

Pressed on whether he was confirming an investigation, Homan answered directly. “I’m confirming that ICE is, yeah — look, I said months ago that there’s something that’s been reported and needs to be looked at,” he said. Homan added that he would allow HSI to continue its work. “If someone committed an immigration violation, if someone committed marriage fraud or anything like that, regardless if they’re a congressman or not, no one’s above the law,” the border czar noted.

He also described denaturalization in proven fraud cases as “very serious.” “If someone lies through that process to becoming a citizen, and we can prove they, in fact, lied or misrepresented themselves, we can absolutely denaturalize them,” Homan said. “We’ve done it before many times over the last 40 years I’ve been around.”

Read more …

“Omar is the daughter of a well-known colonel in the truly genocidal army of Somali dictator Siad Barre.”

• Genocide Hypocrites (Victor Davis Hanson)

On Oct. 7, 2023, Hamas killers slaughtered 1,200 people, more than two-thirds of them civilians, inside Israel. For the ensuing three weeks, they refused Israel’s demands to turn over the 251 hostages and to surrender the architects of the massacre. No matter—within a day of the attacks, when Hamas gunmen were still fighting Israeli troops on Israeli soil, the American Left was already screaming “genocide!”


They did not mean Hamas’s intended genocide of Jews, a foretaste of which was seen when it launched a surprise invasion force of more than 4,000 terrorists some 15 miles into Israel. The killers were accompanied by some 2,000 “innocent” Gazan “civilians.” All were bent on looting, murder, rape, torture, and hostage-taking of the defenseless.

Nor did the “genocide” chorus refer to the more than 13,000 rockets, missiles, and drones launched from Gaza after Oct. 7 that predominantly targeted Israeli civilian neighborhoods.

What was most surreal about the charges of “genocide” against Israel—along with all the other slurs of “settler-colonialism,” “apartheid,” “occupation,” “war crimes”—was that they so often came from elite first- and second-generation Middle Eastern immigrants to America. Yet these prominent American accusers have remained silent about whether their lurid accusations might far better reflect the sordid histories of their own homelands.

Take the Turkish-American anchor baby Hasan Piker, the millionaire podcaster who has dual citizenship and grew up in Turkey. Piker has gained celebrity as the socialist heartthrob who is the brain of the new Democratic/Socialist/Islamist alliance. Besides his antisemitic rants, he has declared that “America deserved 9/11” and “Oh God, I f-ing hate America so much.”

Yet the outspoken Piker has only once in passing mentioned Turkey’s 1974 invasion and the half-century-long occupation of nearly 40 percent of Cyprus. Nor did Piker, who damns the creation of Israel in 1948, ever say a word about the Turkish torching of the historic Greek-majority Ionian city of Smyrna in 1922, in which tens of thousands of civilians were incinerated.

Given Piker’s supposedly vast historical recall and outspoken human rights advocacy, one would at least expect him to be sensitive to the horror of Turkey’s Armenian genocide, in which Turkish troops slaughtered more than one million civilians, and for which the Turkish government still denies any culpability. But when once challenged by Armenian-Americans, he dismissed them, saying flippantly, “It’s more fun to enrage you.”

And the pattern goes beyond mere podcasters.

Rep. Ilhan Omar, a first-generation immigrant from Somalia, also brays loudly about supposed Israeli war crimes. Omar spouts “genocide” and “apartheid” in her frequently antisemitic rants. She has also labeled her adopted nation as “one of the worst countries” in the world.

But Omar is the daughter of a well-known colonel in the truly genocidal army of Somali dictator Siad Barre. The latter waged a decade-long war of extermination against the rival Isaaq clan that opposed Barre’s 21-year-long dictatorship. Estimates of the Barre regime’s murderous toll range from 50,000 to 200,000 killed, mostly civilians. Few in Omar’s politically active Somali immigrant community ever concede that many fled Somalia to America only when Barre’s two-decade reign of terror was finally overthrown, and they feared retaliation from his victims.

Of course, the nation’s biggest elected leftist rising star has also joined in.

Zohran Mamdani, mayor of New York City, employs the same tired anti-Israeli and anti-American verbiage. Yet he went further than other antisemites when he launched grandstanding threats to jail Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu any time the latter visited New York to address the United Nations.

For America’s 250th birthday, Mamdani’s July 3 “commemorative” address blasted American “monopolies that dominate every industry,” federal agents supposedly “terrorizing our streets,” and a country where we “sell our elections to the highest bidder.” The calumny was odd coming from a dual citizen of the police state of Uganda, where there are no real elections but lots of Indian “monopolies.”

Indeed, Mamdani himself better fits his own charges of “settler-colonist” and “apartheid.” His Indian community in Uganda comprises less than 0.1% of the population. But somehow it still accounts for over 60% of Uganda’s GDP. It was implanted there by 19th-century British imperialists as a “settler-colonial” community to help control the indigenous black population.

In short, we should remind these privileged ingrates—regardless of what corner of the world they hail from–to look inward before they blast their adopted country and not to project the sins of their own homelands upon either Israel or America.

Read more …

“His eighth term runs through Jan. 3, 2029, and if he were to win a ninth, he’d be in office until he’s 101.”

• Sen. Chuck Grassley, 93, Files for Reelection (Margolis)

Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) is 93 and has filed to run for another six-year term in 2028.


Grassley has held elected office since 1959 and has sat in the Senate since 1981. He’s the longest-serving Republican in the history of Congress and one of the longest-serving senators of all time. As Senate president pro tempore, he’s also third in line for the presidency. His eighth term runs through Jan. 3, 2029, and if he were to win a ninth, he’d be in office until he’s 101.

I’m honestly not sure whether this means he’s definitely going to run again or is just filing paperwork. But if he does run, it’s a bad idea. A really, really bad idea. Grassley made that case himself just last month. Speaking at an Iowa GOP event in West Des Moines on September 25, he urged Republicans to turn out for the party’s nominee for governor in November, and explained what was weighing on him.

“At 93 years of age, I don’t know how many more groups of Republicans like this I’m going to have a chance to talk to, but one of the reasons I’m worried about who’s going to be elected governor — I don’t plan on dying in office, but if I did, I don’t want a Democratic governor choosing my successor,” Grassley said. His concern has a legal basis.

Under Iowa law, the governor picks a temporary replacement when a Senate seat opens up, and that appointee serves until voters choose a permanent successor at the next general election. Currently, polls suggest that Democrat Rob Sand is favored over Republican Zach Lahn, as Sand has a +8.4 lead in the RealClearPolitics average.

Grassley issued a similar warning in October 2018, when he was 85 and Gov. Kim Reynolds (R-Iowa) was fighting for a full term in a close race. Reynolds survived and cruised to reelection in 2022. No Iowa governor has had to fill a Senate vacancy since 1936, after Sen. Richard Murphy of Dubuque died in a car accident.

In fairness, Grassley, to the best that I can tell, is healthy, though I haven’t seen a recent clip of him. But who cares if he is? His advanced age makes seeking reelection problematic, and his comments last month make it clear that even he acknowledges that. At the time, he hadn’t said whether he’d run again. That question appears to have been answered, and the answer is the wrong one.

Republicans already know how this goes. Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) disappeared from the Senate over the summer, and the lack of transparency around it was troubling. His staff dodged basic questions about his condition. Considering McConnell’s other well-documented health problems, their silence was entirely unacceptable.

Grassley needs to let it go and retire.Let’s be honest here. Throughout Joe Biden’s so-called presidency, Republicans demanded transparency about his health, and for good reason. Democrats and the White House were obviously lying to us. McConnell’s office spent the summer doing the same thing.

And McConnell’s absence had consequences. Senate Agriculture Committee Chairman John Boozman (R-Ark.) needed McConnell’s vote to move his farm bill out of committee. Without it, and with every Democrat on the panel opposed, the bill stalled. When McConnell returned, he still didn’t look healthy enough to serve. At least he’s leaving office in January.

Democrats have their own cautionary tale — and I’m not talking about Ruth Bader Ginsburg. Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) clung to her seat when she clearly couldn’t perform her duties anymore, and it became a huge problem for her party.

So if Grassley does follow through and ultimately seeks reelection, I hope a Republican challenges him in a primary. Make no mistake about it, a Senate seat is a job, and the people who hold one owe voters the ability to do it for the full term. Conservatives spent years calling out a party that put pride and ambition ahead of the country’s interests and lied about it to everyone’s face. After what Democrats did with Joe Biden, Republicans should be better than this.

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Totally non-partial.

• Jack Smith: A Former Special Counsel Joins the “No Kings” Movement (Turley)

After his recent congressional testimony, former Special Counsel Jack Smith appeared at a “Power to the People Fest” sporting a “No Kings” T-shirt. Aside from a midlife crisis, the most likely explanation is that Smih( wanted to send a message, reaffirming his bona fides as an anti-Trump warrior. It was a Comey moment, but without the seashells.


The Power to the People Fest featured many whom Smith has long cultivated in the “Democracy-is-Ending” crowd. The organizers billed the event as “working to restore and strengthen democracy” and featured some of Trump’s loudest critics. The top billing went to Bruce Springsteen, who has lately turned his concerts into anti-Trump rave sessions, including comparing Trump officials to “Gestapo” and calling the administration “treasonous.” He continued those attacks at the concert with Smith, denouncing Trump as “lawless” and his administration as murderers.

For his part, Tom Morello, the chief organizer of the rally, has called Trump and his administration “fascists” and leading crowds in chants of “F— Trump.” And there was Smith in his own “No Kings” tee shirt. b It was a particularly inopportune time, as new evidence on Capitol Hill showed how Smith not only seized phone records of Republican members of Congress, but tracked communications with Trump’s attorney.

Smith has always been undone by his excessive appetite and his habitual failure to respect the limits on his authority. He has a history of losing major cases by advancing excessive and abusive legal claims. This included his stinging defeat in a unanimous Supreme Court decision dismantling his case against former Virginia Gov. Bob McDonnell (R).

During the Trump investigation, Smith showed that he had learned nothing from his losses. Indeed, former Attorney General Merrick Garland appointed Smith with full knowledge of his past disregard for constitutional limits. Smith richly deserves to be criticized for his unrelenting attack on free speech protections as well as his decision to file a second case focusing on the 2020 election.

And the unfolding details of how Smith seized the telephone records of Republican members of Congress, including those investigating his own conduct, only confirm suspicions that Smith wanted to bag Trump at any cost. That included seeking to curtail appeals and rush prosecutions before the 2024 election. Smith failed when Trump chose to run despite the lawfare, and he failed again when Trump handily won the election. But Smith’s obsession was so consuming that he was willing to try Trump right up to Inauguration Day.

The new details of Smith’s investigation should outrage members of both parties. The use of pen registers (to identify the destination of outbound calls and messages) and of trap and trace orders (for incoming) entirely disregarded longstanding rules protecting the legislative branch from such encroachments. And what is particularly alarming is that these searches were obvious fishing expeditions — these were not focused searches on specific wrongdoing, like the searches involving the corruption case against Rep. William Jefferson (D-La.) 20 years ago.

In addition to members of Congress, Smith and his team monitored the activities of Trump’s legal defense team, journalists and campaign advisers. That includes now-White House chief of staff Susie Wiles’ phone. At the same time, Smith secured a non-disclosure order from the court that prevented mobile carriers from notifying the affected lawmakers that they were being spied on. Thus, as members were looking into Smith’s excesses, they were not told that he was receiving and poring over their telephone records.

The White House Government Transparency Task Force released material this week showing that Smith’s team used an investigation codenamed “Plasmic Echo” to engage in an untethered fishing expedition. Notably, Attorney General Merrick Garland and Deputy Attorney General Lisa Monaco signed off on the sweeping seizure with no apparent effort to address obvious constitutional concerns over the right to counsel and Article I powers. Once again, Garland was entirely passive and simply endorsed the recommendations of those around him.

FBI Director Christopher Wray sent a March 2022 memo to Garland and Monaco seeking the attorney general’s approval to launch Plasmic Echo. Monaco added her endorsement before Garland signed off.FBI investigators traced “Wiles’ phone calls and text messages with at least 21 lawyers affiliated with Trump, numerous campaign staff, political advisors, and at least five journalists from at least February to May 2023.”

This investigation also involved gathering intelligence on Trump’s political action committee, including its donors and campaign expenses. Smith and the FBI continued the aggressive posture even as agents were balking at some of these means, including those who felt that the raid on Mar-a-Lago was unnecessary to resolve the concerns over the classified material.

Smith has continued to portray himself as unbiased and not motivated in any way by the election: “Anybody who has worked with me and knows me during the course of my career knows that I would not let politics play a role,” he has said. But shortly afterward, he appeared in his No Kings tee shirt at the Power to the People fest. It was vintage Smith — an almost mocking arrogance in the face of growing criticism over his methods and partisanship.

The irony is that Smith was a better fit as a member of this profanity-spewing anti-Trump crowd than he ever was as special counsel. The pretense was gone, and he was finally in his element. In that sense, he might view this as his coming-out party, but Smith actually came out years ago.

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$276 million.

• Elon Musk Becomes Largest Donor, Aims To Rescue Senate GOP Majority (JTN)

Tech mogul Elon Musk has emerged as the Republican Party’s most important midterm donor, funneling more than $276 million into Republican campaigns and political action committees since July. The enormous sum makes Musk the largest known midterm donor, according to campaign finance records Musk’s team shared with The New York Times on Monday.


Musk has poured $158 million, nearly 60% of his contributions this summer, into the Senate Leadership Fund, the super PAC backing the Republican Party’s Senate candidates across the country. Musk has also donated over $76 million to his own America PAC, which he founded in 2024. The group is operating in seven key Senate battleground states.

Musk’s spending has given the Republican Party a boost across the country, further cementing the party’s financial advantage over the Democrats, who continue to face money issues heading into the midterm elections.

Musk, who oversees a technology empire composed of companies like X and SpaceX, is the world’s richest man. At the beginning of the Trump administration, Musk led efforts to streamline the federal government and cut waste as the head of the Department of Government Efficiency, or DOGE.

Musk departed the administration after a public spat with President Trump, a dramatic about-face from his strong backing of the candidate in the 2024 election. However, the pair have since reconciled, though Musk’s support of Republicans has remained quieter since he departed the government.

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Trump fooling around.

• Judge Orders White House to Stop Airing Taxpayer-Funded Ads (ET)

A federal judge on Oct. 11 issued a temporary restraining order barring the White House from airing the remaining slots of taxpayer-funded television ads featuring President Donald Trump and his administration’s policies and achievements. U.S. District Judge Jennifer L. Rochon said the motion filed by watchdog group Common Cause, candidate for the Alabama state House Robert Hunter, and Service Employees International Union 32BJ and its political action committee had the legal standing to challenge the White House ads.


In a four-page ruling, Rochon said the plaintiffs have shown that they were likely to succeed on the merits of their arguments and that issuing a block would serve the public interest. The judge also found that the plaintiffs would suffer irreparable harm if the restraining order was not granted.Rochon barred the administration from “using, disbursing, or transferring funds appropriated to the Department of Homeland Security to develop, create, disseminate, place, distribute, publish, or air the challenged advertisements.”

The judge also ordered the administration to cancel ads scheduled for broadcast on Oct. 11. The order named the Department of Homeland Security and its chief, Markwayne Mullin, Office of Management and Budget Director Russell Vought, and White House chief of staff Susie Wiles as defendants.

In a statement, the plaintiffs praised the judge’s decision, saying it would help to prevent the use of taxpayer money on what it called “unlawful political propaganda.” “There is no legal justification—and no precedent—for the president to use the machinery of the government and funds set aside by Congress for other uses to influence electoral outcomes that further his own agenda,” they said.

The Epoch Times reached out to the White House and the Department of Homeland Security for comment but did not receive a response by publication time. The White House has previously stated that the ads were not campaign ads, noting that Trump is not on the ballot in the November election.

“These public service announcements are unapologetically American, clearly disclosed, and aimed at the country—not a line on the ballot,” it said in a Sept. 25 statement.The White House also cited examples of past administrations from both parties using such ads to explain their policies and promote their visions for the nation.

In an Oct. 7 lawsuit, the plaintiffs alleged that the Department of Homeland Security had signed a $20 million contract for the national broadcast of the ads. The Democratic National Committee (DNC) filed a separate suit on Oct. 7, accusing the White House of violating federal budget rules by using taxpayer money to fund the ads.

Trump defended the ads on Oct. 5, saying that it was “a rather standard thing to do” for an elected president and their administration. “The Radical Left is upset with the fact that I am taking Ads, which I consider to be a positive promotion for our Great U.S.A., and paying for them with U.S.A. money,” he said in a Truth Social post.

Trump said he would pay for the ads using his own money and the funds he raised for his MAGA Inc. political action committee.

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“Wait a second. I assumed Democrats were getting ALL their candidates from mental institutions.” —Margot Cleveland

• So, Where Was Waldo? (James Howard Kunstler)

Let’s just say you were running for a US Senate seat in one of our country’s biggest states. . . and it was roughly one month to election day. . . and, goshdarnit, you caught the flu. According to the CDC, a normal course of the illness in an otherwise healthy, non-elderly adult goes like this: days 1-3, abrupt onset of chills, fever, body aches, sore throat; days 4-7, symptoms fade; afterward, symptoms go away, reduced energy may linger another week.


Senate candidate James Talarico in Texas came down with the flu around September 26, vanished from the campaign scene altogether Sept. 30, and reappeared ten days later at an Austin City Limits music fair. Ten days is a long time to be off the campaign circuit in a supposedly super-tight race in the climactic month of the contest, don’tcha think?

And wouldn’t you suppose that by day 4 or 5 the candidate could bestir himself to pick up a phone and record something like, “Hi voters. JT here. I’ve been down with an awful case of the flu. Please bear with me. Will return ASAP.” Could have done it in a bathrobe, dignified enough, propped up in bed or in a comfortable chair, maybe not looking his best, but. . . .

But, no, he did no such thing. By day 7 or 8, feeling better, he might have been doing Zoom calls from his home office with news media, donors, reminding voters why it was important to vote for him. No, that didn’t happen, either. During the period of his illness, his Twitter feed put up a few posts that could have been written by anyone, and probably were, taunting his opponent, AG Ken Paxton. He did not post anything about being sick or returning to the public arena, and then on Friday, October 9, he popped up at the ACL Fest with no prior notice, “meeting with voters,” his campaign said — 75,000 attendees in 95-degree heat — for about fifteen minutes before he left. Okay. . . .

On Saturday, Oct. 10, the candidate held a meeting with his campaign workers by day and that evening he was seen at a Kacey Musgraves concert at the American Airlines Center in Dallas, just kicking back, enjoying himself. On Sunday, Oct. 11, he did a brief interview with NBC 5 Dallas-Fort Worth and MS NOW to dismiss “conspiracy theories” about his absence from the scene (more on that anon). That evening, he was supposed to show up at a Dallas fundraiser, but there is no record in the news media that he actually appeared.

Let’s step back to late September and recap. James Talarico’s last public event in Texas that month was at the Texas State Fair in Dallas, Sept. 26. He did not mention feeling ill then. On Monday, Sept. 28, he flew to New York for a joint fundraiser for himself and for Sen. Sherrod Brown of Ohio, hosted by actor Robert DeNiro. It was held at Capitale, an event venue at 130 Bowery, in a magnificent old bank building. Tickets ranged from $500 to $27,000 a seat. Earlier, he’d stopped at a much smaller fundraiser thrown by former DNC finance director Maureen White.

The following evening, Tue, Sept. 29, he attended a fundraiser in Greenwich Village put on by the Human Rights Campaign. Sometime after that, he flew back to Texas. On Wednesday, Sept. 30, Talarico did a “virtual appearance” with the US Hispanic Business Council in which he was coughing and blowing his nose, and told the group, “I was starting to feel kind of under the weather a few days ago [that is, while he was in New York], and last night it got so bad that I went to the urgent care here in Dallas, and I was diagnosed with the flu.” Yet after he reappeared in public, on Sunday, Oct 11, he told NBC 5 Dallas-Fort Worth reporter Phil Prazan, “I just went to my primary care physician.” There was no mention of his drop-in at an urgent care facility.

The reason we entertain all these details is because a rumor erupted over the weekend that candidate James Talarico actually spent a week or so at a mental health clinic called the Lindner Center of Hope in Mason, Ohio, recovering from some sort of “stress” event — the “conspiracy theory” he averred to with News-5 and MSNOW. Independent Reporter Nick Sorter posted a phone call supposedly with an employee of the Lindner Center who said that James Talarico had been “discharged” the previous evening.


The Lindner Center later issued a flat denial that Talarico had ever been a patient there, and Talarico himself issued a denial on his “X” account, saying, “I’ve never even been to Ohio.” We’ll see if he files any libel suit against Nick Sorter and others who reported on the mystery of his whereabouts. Or, if he files a case against the Lindner Center for violation of his HIPAA rights for disclosing information about his discharge.

Anyway, there is a registry for private jets and we’ll know soon enough whether James Talarico was on a Cessna Citation X (Serial No. 750-0271) owned by the Austin Aviation Group out of Wimberly, Texas, that departed from Butler County Regional Airport near Cincinnati on Oct 9 at 9:19 a.m. landing in Austin, TX, at 10:24 a.m.

It’s beginning to look like maybe James Talarico was not the best candidate the party could come up with. But then, look at who he beat in the primary election: Jasmine Crockett.

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War with Russia is the no. 1 thing they want.

• UK PM Consoles Zelensky After Trump Calls For His Ouster (RT)

UK Prime Minister Andy Burnham has rushed to reassure Ukraine’s Vladimir Zelensky after US President Donald Trump publicly called for his replacement. The American leader accused Zelensky of refusing to reach a peace deal with Moscow and worsening the global fuel crisis through continued Ukrainian strikes on Russian energy infrastructure.


Burnham called Zelensky on Saturday, the same day Trump suggested that the Ukrainian leader should be replaced for refusing to reach a settlement with Moscow. The British prime minister described the previous 24 hours as having been “difficult for Ukraine” and “reiterated his complete solidarity,” according to Downing Street.

Burnham and Zelensky also discussed “the importance of maintaining pressure on Russia,” with London vowing to slap Moscow with additional sanctions. Earlier on Saturday, Trump accused Zelensky of seeking to “make problems for the world” through the continued attacks on the Russian energy infrastructure, including refineries. “I suggest they get a new leader who can make a deal,” he said.

Trump’s remarks “shocked” Kiev, according to German reporter Paul Ronzheimer. “We never expected this,” a close adviser to Zelensky told the journalist, adding that Kiev feared Washington could suspend intelligence-sharing with it.

On Friday, Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin reached an agreement aimed at reining in skyrocketing global fuel prices. Washington temporarily waived sanctions on Russian diesel, while Moscow agreed to release 300,000 metric tons of diesel immediately and another 500,000 in November. Zelensky blasted Trump’s decision as “weak.” Kiev’s European backers have repeatedly rushed to Zelensky’s defense following public criticism from Trump.

In February 2025, after Trump branded Zelensky a “dictator without elections” and slammed him for unwillingness to reach a deal with Moscow, then-British Prime Minister Keir Starmer and several European leaders, including German Chancellor Olaf Scholz and French President Emmanuel Macron, publicly defended the Ukrainian leader and criticized Trump’s choice of words.

Later that month, a White House meeting between Trump and Zelensky descended into a scandal, with the US president accusing his guest of gambling with millions of lives and risking World War III. European leaders, including European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, EU foreign policy chief Kaja Kallas, Macron and Starmer, quickly rallied behind Zelensky, reaffirming their support for Kiev.

Despite the repeated vows of solidarity, the bloc is increasingly struggling to satisfy Kiev’s continued demands for financial assistance. In late September, the EU rejected Kiev’s request for a €220 million ($250 million) farmer subsidy to offset the fallout from the Ukrainian Black Sea maritime trade disruptions linked to Russian strikes on the Ukrainian logistics in response to Zelensky’s 40-day PR pressure campaign of strikes on Russian territory.

In early October, the bloc similarly rejected Ukraine’s plea to accelerate financial support needed to cover an unexpected $27 billion defense gap, prompting Zelensky to lash out at Kiev’s backers by accusing them of not doing enough for Ukraine.

Russia has previously repeatedly named the position of Kiev’s European backers as one of the main obstacles to settling the conflict. The EU is still clinging to the idea of “strategically defeating Russia,” Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said last month.

Commenting on the situation last week, Peskov also said that neither Ukraine nor its European backers had moved any closer towards talks, with European nations still “obstructing” the peace process.

Read more …

Zelensky’s in the way.

• Trump ‘Really Mad’ With Zelensky – Media (RT)

US President Donald Trump is furious with Vladimir Zelensky over Kiev’s continued attacks on Russian oil refineries, with Washington reportedly threatening to cut off weapons supplies and intelligence sharing unless Ukraine stops the strikes, according to Axios and the Financial Times.


The confrontation comes after Trump struck a diesel deal with Russian President Vladimir Putin to ease a global fuel shortage that has sent American energy prices soaring. Kiev has continued targeting Russian refining facilities despite repeated warnings from Washington, with Trump accusing Zelensky of deliberately hurting American consumers and farmers while refusing opportunities to end the conflict.

“Trump is really mad. He feels Zelensky is taking the US for granted,” a White House official told Axios on Sunday. The source argued that Kiev’s attacks on Russian refineries were doing more damage to its relationship with Washington than to Moscow.

American officials contacted Kiev and several European capitals over the weekend, threatening to suspend intelligence sharing and the NATO-backed Prioritised Ukraine Requirements List (PURL) mechanism, through which European countries purchase American weapons for Ukraine, according to the Financial Times, which cited officials familiar with the discussions.

Trump’s envoys Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner also allegedly warned Ukrainian representatives during talks in Miami on Friday that Washington could stop sharing intelligence if Kiev continued to ignore the president’s demands, according to a Ukrainian official cited by Axios.

A US official, however, denied making direct threats, saying the negotiators had instead reminded Kiev of Washington’s extensive military and intelligence support and urged it to stop taking actions that hurt American consumers.

The confrontation has threatened to derail broader negotiations aimed at ending the Ukraine conflict. Witkoff and Kushner have reportedly put their planned trip to Moscow on hold until Kiev and its leading European backers clarify whether they are prepared to support a unified peace proposal.

Trump reached a diesel deal with Putin on Friday after Zelensky ignored at least half a dozen requests from Washington to stop striking Russian refineries, according to earlier Axios reporting. The US Treasury subsequently eased sanctions on Russian diesel exports until April 2027, while Moscow pledged substantial fuel deliveries to help alleviate global shortages.

Zelensky condemned the move as a “weak decision,” arguing that the agreement would provide Russia with additional revenue. Trump hit back by accusing the Ukrainian leader of creating problems for the world and suggesting it was time for Ukraine to elect a new leader capable of reaching a deal.

On Sunday, Trump unexpectedly announced that Moscow and Kiev had agreed to an immediate ceasefire covering attacks on energy infrastructure. “Effective immediately, there is an ENERGY CEASEFIRE in the War between Russia and Ukraine. Both parties have agreed. Do not break it!” he wrote on Truth Social.

The announcement caught Kiev by surprise, with Zelensky saying it “was news for me.” Moscow has also yet to confirm any agreement.

A White House official described the proposed agreement as a “refinery for refinery” arrangement, under which both sides would stop attacking oil refineries, but not necessarily other energy infrastructure, according to Axios. Kiev has objected that such a deal would disproportionately benefit Moscow, since Ukraine has only one largely nonfunctional refinery and relies heavily on imported fuel.

Read more …

The fuel deal’s real significance lies in diplomacy: Trump and Putin found a way to work together without making Ukraine part of the bargain

• Ukraine’s Worst Diplomatic Nightmare Just Got Closer (Poletaev)

On the evening of October 9, the presidents of the United States and Russia spoke by phone. The announcement that followed was straightforward: Russia would sell the US 1.8 million metric tons of diesel over the next three months, followed by a million tons a month, and the US would issue temporary licenses authorizing the shipments.


The news drew a furious, bordering on hysterical, response from Kiev and stunned silence from Europe. Let’s look at why this deal matters, what it has to do with Ukraine, and what might come next.

The tug-of-war championship
Ever since US President Donald Trump returned to office, the central aim of Russian diplomacy has been to separate relations with the US from the Ukraine issue. The White House is open to the idea, too: The US needs Russia as a counterweight to China, and there are substantial economic opportunities. But as we explored in an earlier piece, until recently, neither side managed to pull it off.

Ukraine and its supporters in Europe and the US, meanwhile, have pursued the opposite goal: keeping US-Russia relations tied to the Ukraine conflict.

In February and March 2025, Trump relieved America of responsibility for Ukraine’s fate and handed the job of financing it squarely to Europe. The US retained just three commitments: the relatively modest military supply programs already approved under former President Joe Biden, intelligence sharing, and weapons sales for cash, with Ukraine waiting in line like any other customer.

This maneuver cemented a status quo that neither Europe and Ukraine on one side nor Russia on the other would allow to change, with their respective allies in the US also weighing in. Everyone tried to bring Trump over to their side on Ukraine. Nobody succeeded. This is why the understandings reached in Anchorage went nowhere: Ukraine’s supporters torpedoed them. It is also why those supporters failed to use Trump to escalate the conflict. Russia prevented deliveries of Tomahawk missiles, the expansion of Starlink coverage over Russian territory, and so on.

Despite the apparent stalemate, Russian officials kept talking to Witkoff and Kushner. The aim was to maintain a channel to Trump and deny Ukraine’s supporters an opening to drag the US back into the war on their side or steer him back onto Biden’s course. This is why Russian officials at every level distinguish between US and European actions, often explicitly contrasting the two.

A few numbers on oil
Russia is one of the world’s largest diesel exporters, supplying just under 40 million metric tons to the global market in 2025. On July 8, 2026, Ukrainian attacks on Russian refineries prompted a temporary ban on diesel and gasoline exports. Since then, Russia’s refining situation has improved considerably. Gasoline remains in short supply, but a domestic diesel surplus has emerged, and the export ban has begun to loosen in practice. According to Reuters, diesel deliveries to Central Asian countries were already up 19% in September.

Rising diesel production was only part of the story. The end of the harvest season also reduced demand. And as the seasons change, Russia switches to winter-grade fuel, traditionally selling off its remaining summer-grade stocks to countries with warmer climates. One way or another, seaborne diesel exports were heading toward a restart. Trump had also raised that possibility, publicly linking it to Ukrainian attacks on Russian refineries.

The Krivoy Rog school of diplomacy
Back to geopolitics. Until yesterday, Russia had been unable to separate its relationship with the US from the Ukraine issue. Even the war with Iran failed to do the trick, despite keeping oil and petroleum product shipments from the Persian Gulf blocked for more than six months. Help came from an unexpected quarter. Hoping to bring US diesel prices down at least a little before the congressional elections, Trump asked Zelensky to stop attacking Russian refineries.

Zelensky responded by demanding a sweeping energy truce. We’ll stop hitting refineries, he effectively said, if Russia stops attacking our energy infrastructure and blockading our ports. And you, Trump, have to supply us with missiles for our Patriot systems, and so on. Getting nowhere with Zelensky, Trump struck a deal directly with Russian President Vladimir Putin, who offered to supply diesel in exchange for a suspension of sanctions, without any preconditions.

The transaction itself is not particularly consequential. Yes, it could cool speculative trading ahead of the elections and push prices down somewhat. But the 1.8 million metric tons due to arrive over three months will cover just three or four days of American consumption.

For Russia, the US is an ordinary customer in purely commercial terms. Moscow will make some money selling to America, but it could just as easily have sold these volumes elsewhere. Petroleum products are in short supply worldwide, while Russia has a diesel surplus.

Yet the deal gave both sides what they had been seeking since February 2025: a bilateral relationship detached from Ukraine. So far, that applies to just one specific issue, but getting started is the hard part. Zelensky tried to twist Trump’s arm, pushing him to make Putin stop bombing Kiev, and overplayed his hand. Now Kiev can be bombed relentlessly, and Trump has no reason to care. He got what he wanted.

This does not mean sanctions are finished or that the two powers are entering an era of warm friendship. Oil sanctions are probably here to stay, and as soon as global market conditions change, Washington will turn them back up to full blast. But the sanctions wall can now be taken apart brick by brick, restoring ties wherever both sides stand to gain: launching new energy projects in the Arctic, for example, jointly taking over the surviving Nord Stream 2 pipeline, or resolving the sale of Lukoil’s overseas assets. Ukraine no longer has anything to do with that process or any influence over it.

The art of the backroom deal
Cynics insist that the Trump administration is a complete mess, with the right hand oblivious to what the left is doing. The way this agreement came together suggests otherwise. After the campaign of long-range strikes against Russia went badly off script, Zelensky once again tried to secure a ceasefire through Trump. He has been trying since early 2025, with no success, but he still held out hope.

Trump could have publicly given Zelensky the boot again. But on Ukraine, he faces opposition not only from Congress but also from parts of his own administration. And an election is just around the corner.

Instead of staging a public showdown, Trump’s team spent more than two months visibly engaged in intensive talks with Ukraine about an energy truce. His envoys, Witkoff and Kushner, traveled to Kiev, and Trump himself showered Zelensky with compliments. In reality, all of it proved to be a screen for a quiet, swift, informal deal with Moscow.

It has since emerged that the first tanker carrying diesel to the US left St. Petersburg on September 22 and is expected to reach the US any day now. In other words, the deal was already well advanced three weeks ago, and both sides were confident it would go through. That takes some skill. This episode shows that Trump keeps a firm grip on his team and can prevent leaks when he needs to. Even Rubio, prone to breaking ranks, played his part exactly as the boss wanted.

And once the deal was done, there was no longer any need to smile at Zelensky in public. The masks came off. For the first time, Trump publicly declared that Ukraine needs a new president and must hold elections. The liberal media will inevitably say that Trump is repeating Russian propaganda narratives. In fact, he was saying what he thinks.

***

The diesel deal does not mean Moscow and Washington will now live in perfect harmony. The differences between them are deep and fundamental, and the recently enacted ‘Graham law’ makes lifting any sanctions impossible for at least the next five years.

But this Friday, Putin and Trump finally managed to get past Ukraine and leave it behind. US-Russia relations now depend on Russia and the US alone.

Read more …

“.. That Allegedly Declared ‘All Caucasians’ Racist..”

“DEI training actively undermines workplace harmony, and it causes hostility, distrust, and division,”

• Montana AG Asks Supreme Court to Revive Case Against DEI Training (O’Neil)


Montana AG Austin Knudsen on stage with South Carolina Senator Tim Scott

Montana Attorney General Austin Knudsen is leading 20 states in urging the Supreme Court to take up the case of Joshua Young, a former Colorado prison guard who sued the Department of Corrections over a diversity, equity, and inclusion training.


“DEI training actively undermines workplace harmony, and it causes hostility, distrust, and division,” the amicus brief, exclusively obtained by the Daily Signal, states. Young’s “complaint identifies myriad examples of how the [Department of Corrections’] training program endorsed treating and viewing Caucasians worse than other races,” the amicus brief notes.

According to Young’s lawsuit, “the training insisted, among other things, that all Caucasians are racist, that they perpetuate white supremacy, that the very notion of race was invented by white people to justify the oppression of people of color, that white supremacy is an ever-present feature of daily life in the United States, and that Caucasians who deny their own racism are merely ‘fragile’ racists who cannot accept their own prejudice.”

However, Young claimed the training’s effects reverberated afterward, shaping how the prison operated and leading him to conclude that he could not advance in the department. Young’s supervisors told him they would evaluate whether he incorporated its principles into his work. According to his filings, the training increased distrust within the prison, discouraged him from seeking a promotion, and caused him to second-guess otherwise justified use-of-force decisions due to potential race-based implications.

“Given CDOC’s instruction that employees analyze workplace decisions through a racial-equity framework, Young understood that his superiors would be more likely to credit accusations of racism against him—making his assigned job significantly harder,” the filing states.Lower courts rejected Young’s lawsuit, ruling that his allegations did not establish a sufficiently severe or pervasive hostile work environment under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964.

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the 10th Circuit found the training “troubling on many levels” and said its race-based rhetoric was “well on the way to arriving at objectively and subjectively harassing messaging,” but concluded that Young fell short of proving a violation, because the training happened only once and was not followed by additional harassment.

Young’s petition argues that the 10th Circuit’s approach conflicts with rulings from other federal appeals courts that have recognized a single sufficiently severe incident may create a hostile work environment. Title VII forbids employers from fostering a hostile work environment through “severe or pervasive” workplace harassment. Knudsen’s brief accuses the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 10th Circuit of only evaluating the case “under a pervasiveness standard” in noting that the training occurred only once.

“This sort of top-down discrimination is worlds away from most hostile work environment claims, which usually involve employees harassing other employees,” Knudsen’s brief argues. “A training program that instructs employees to treat others differently based solely on race creates a work environment ‘permeated with abuse.’” “The answer to racism is not more racism,” Knudsen declares.

Young filed an internal discrimination complaint with the Colorado department, but the inspector general declined to investigate because it found insufficient cause. Colorado has argued that the department did not require employees to change their personal beliefs.

Knudsen’s brief asks the Supreme Court to grant Young’s petition, reverse the dismissal of his case, and allow his hostile-work-environment claim to proceed. The justices would not be deciding whether Young ultimately proved discrimination. The brief goes further than simply urging Supreme Court review. It condemns this form of DEI training in general, suggesting that employers may engage in discrimination by requiring it.

“Employer training sets the tone for the entire workplace,” Knudsen warns. “When an employer officially sanctions racial scapegoating and treating individuals differently depending on their race in the workplace, that employer per se creates a hostile work environment. Even infrequent training can create a pervasive race-based hostility for the races singled out for negativity.”

Read more …

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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Home › Forums › Debt Rattle October 13 2026

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  • October 13, 2026 at 7:56 am #252886
    Raúl Ilargi Meijer
    Keymaster

    Mark Rothko Slow Swirl at the Edge of the Sea 1944 • Trump Hits His Campaign Stride in Youngstown, Ohio (Tim O’Brien) • Federal Agents Raid Ilhan Omar
    [See the full post at: Debt Rattle October 13 2026]

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