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Debt Rattle October 23 2026

Oct 232026
 
 October 23, 2026  Posted by at 8:04 am Finance Tagged with: , , , , , , , , ,  Add comments


Paul Cézanne Curtains 1885


• US Evacuating Middle East Bases As Trump Weighs New Iran Strikes – NBC (RT)
• Ilhan Omar Can’t Quite Rule Out Marrying Her Brother In Wild Interview (ZH)
• The Cost of an Ordinary Life: (Chris Queen)
• The Polls Are Full of Crap — and Black Voters Just Might Save America (Pinsker)
• Trump Will Stop the Steal in Midterm Elections – Dr. Jerome Corsi (USAW)
• Secretary Rubio Delivers Remarks from Mumbai, India (CTH)
• Putin, Xi and Trump Could Hold ‘Historic Summit’ – Kremlin (RT)
• French Police Identify Antifa as the Group Behind the Riots (Turley)
• European Regimes Renew Their Attacks on Free Speech (Ryan McMaken)
• EU Won’t Try To Steal Russian Assets Again – Belgium (RT)
• Disaster Is a Possibility (Paul Craig Roberts)
• Trump Still Serves Israel at the Expense of Republicans (Paul Craig Roberts)
• Kamala Just Revealed That She’s Running for President in 2028 (Margolis)
• Would Dostoevsky Have Appeared on RT? (RT)

 

 

“That’s America. Denial is America’s way of handling complexity.”

 

 


“The Pentagon and State Department reportedly made similar preparations before launching the war against Iran in February..”

• US Evacuating Middle East Bases As Trump Weighs New Iran Strikes – NBC (RT)


A Boeing C-17 Globemaster III military transport aircraft

The US military has quietly begun withdrawing troops from bases across the Middle East, while Washington is ordering diplomatic personnel to leave several missions in the region, NBC News has reported.


The moves come as President Donald Trump considers launching a new wave of attacks on Iran, and the withdrawals resemble preparations made by the Pentagon and State Department ahead of the initial US-Israeli strikes in February, NBC reported on Wednesday, citing two American officials and two people familiar with the matter.

American troops stationed in Jordan, Qatar and Kuwait are among those being relocated, according to the report. Washington reportedly intends to maintain a limited presence at its regional bases, including personnel responsible for air defenses and security.

Ahead of the February 28 attack, the Pentagon withdrew large numbers of troops from potentially vulnerable bases to shield them from expected Iranian retaliation. Tehran accused Washington of using Gulf residents as “human shields” after thousands of American service members took shelter in civilian hotels and office buildings.

US Central Command spokesman Timothy Hawkins declined to discuss the reported troop movements, saying American forces were regularly repositioned to “optimize mission readiness” and remained prepared to defend US personnel and interests.

The State Department has also ordered non-essential personnel and their families to leave Saudi Arabia, citing escalating attacks by Yemen’s Houthi movement against civilian airports and other critical infrastructure.

Reuters reported that Washington was preparing additional diplomatic withdrawals across the Gulf, citing US officials, but State Department spokesman Tommy Pigott described reports of further withdrawals as “inaccurate.”

The developments come amid reports that senior US military officials have presented Trump with options for renewed strikes against Iran. According to NBC, the proposals include attacks on Iranian nuclear facilities, underground installations and strategic islands, including Kharg Island, a critical oil export hub, and Qeshm in the Strait of Hormuz.

Some of Trump’s advisers, including Secretary of War Pete Hegseth, have reportedly advocated resuming military operations to increase pressure on Tehran. Others have warned against launching another major campaign without a clearly defined objective.

Hegseth made an unannounced visit to Israel on Monday, holding closed-door talks with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu just days before Israel’s October 27 parliamentary elections. Netanyahu is seeking another term amid mounting criticism of his handling of the wars in Gaza and Iran, while Trump has publicly endorsed his reelection bid.

Trump pledged earlier this month that the US would not attack Iran before the November 3 midterm elections, while maintaining that military force remains an option if diplomatic efforts fail. Netanyahu has also ruled out launching new strikes before Israel’s election but declared on Sunday that Israel was prepared to attack Tehran even without American participation.

The US-Israeli war on Iran, launched on February 28, has entered its eighth month, disrupting global energy markets and shipping through the Strait of Hormuz. Tehran has offered to restore normal navigation through the vital waterway within seven days if Washington lifts its naval blockade, eases oil sanctions and agrees to a broader cessation of hostilities.

Trump has rejected the Iranian proposal as “unacceptable,” while his administration continues to consider whether additional military pressure could force Tehran to accept Washington’s terms.

Read more …

Still more of her..

• Ilhan Omar Can’t Quite Rule Out Marrying Her Brother In Wild Interview (ZH)

As the investigation into whether Ilhan Omar married her brother to scam US immigration, the Minnesota Democrat just stepped in it, big time.


In her first interview since Homeland Security Investigations agents searched her Washington home last week, the Minnesota Democrat sat down with MS NOW’s Chris Hayes, about as friendly a venue as exists on cable. She called the decade-old claim that her ex-husband Ahmed Nur Said Elmi is her brother “insane.” Then Hayes gave her the layup, asking whether there was some “weird kernel of truth” to it. Her answer was “Not to my knowledge.”

Regular readers will recall that earlier this week we flagged a report that federal investigators are using DNA to probe the “married her brother” claim. So the timing could have been better. The clip went everywhere within the hour:


In other words, the one question her own side’s friendliest interviewer was guaranteed to ask is the one she didn’t answer with a “no.” Below we walk through what she actually said, how fast the White House pounced, and why “not to my knowledge” is a strange hill to stand on with a federal grand jury in the background.

“Which Is Insane”
Omar claims the allegation started on a Somali blog and was picked up by “right-wing conspiracy theorists in Minneapolis”: “…they just kind of went and found random people who were like, ‘She introduced us. She introduced him to us and said he was her brother.’ Which is insane.”

HAYES: “He was not – you were not related to him at all? Not that there’s not some weird kernel of truth that through some-”

OMAR: “Not to my knowledge.”

The generous reading is that Hayes’s question was oddly phrased (a “kernel of truth” through “some” mechanism) and Omar was hedging against a hypothetical rather than admitting anything. The less generous reading is that when the stakes are denaturalization, people tend to choose their words very carefully. Make of that what you will. ”

That’s An Answer A Lot Of Us Assume”
It took the president about an hour and a half. After his South Carolina rally, Trump was asked about the clip, according to Townhall:


That’s an answer that a lot of us assume.” The rest of the online right was less restrained, and we will spare readers most of it.

Omar’s brother hasn’t made it easy on her. In a 2012 Instagram post after Ilhan’s daughter was born, her brother/husband posted “Nieces, fresh out of the vagina!”

About That Raid

The brother line overshadowed the rest of a fairly revealing interview. According to the New York Post, Omar said:
• Agents “went room by room” and “took 17 items,” including cellphones, her daughter’s old phone, her husband’s notebooks, a Somali phrase book and a camera.
• She disputed reports that investigators got her DNA in the search: “I would have seen if they did take anything that had contained DNA.”
• She called the search “intrusive but polite,” adding that agents “even folded some of my clothing that were not folded.” Service with a smile.
• Asked about the financial disclosure that once put her household’s net worth at about $30 million (later revised), she described herself as “working class” and living “paycheck to paycheck,” with a 2016 Toyota Camry and two rented homes.

She also said the people who searched her home “literally have” her late father’s naturalization papers, which is the crux of the case, since she says she became a citizen at 17 through him. That line got its own viral moment:


What The Feds Are Actually Probing
Per the Post, the immigration case is run out of the Minnesota US Attorney’s Office and may involve possible false statements about her birth date on immigration documents. A separate probe into her and her husband’s finances is being run out of the DC US Attorney’s Office. The Wall Street Journal reported more than a dozen grand jury subpoenas, including to relatives. A source told the Post that if her citizenship was obtained through concealment or misrepresentation, by her or by her father, the administration will seek to denaturalize and deport her. Omar denies any wrongdoing: “I’m confident in my truth.”

Put differently, the “brother” question isn’t just tabloid fodder: if the 2009 marriage was a sham for immigration purposes, it goes to the heart of a fraud case, which is why “no” would have been the obvious answer to give.

Read more …

“Your Paycheck Should Buy More Than an Economic Lecture”

” If they had their way, the Democrats would hand the average family of four a $1,700 tax increase. That’s on top of the cost of everything that families need to live their lives.”

• The Cost of an Ordinary Life (Chris Queen)

I bought a truck in January. It’s a beautiful Ford Ranger XLT that’s fun and remarkably smooth to drive and has more bells and whistles than any vehicle I’ve ever had — honestly, it’s tech-heavy, almost to a fault.


But after a decade of driving a plug-in electric hybrid that averaged 51 miles per gallon, 22 miles per gallon was quite an adjustment. Then gas prices went up. Obviously, we can lay the blame for the current high gas prices on trouble with Iran, but we’re still reeling from four years of Biden-era policies that built their foundation on higher prices for not just gas but also for everything else.

“The 2021-2022 inflation spike, the worst in four decades, was the price level adjusting to a $5 trillion flood of deficit spending that investors did not believe future fiscal surpluses would cover,” columnist Veronique de Rugy reminds us. A 2022 report by Michael Faulkender that the America First Policy Institute published serves as a painful reminder today of the havoc Joe Biden and the Democrats wreaked upon this nation — and what awaits us if Democrats take the reins again:

As discussed in my recent testimony to the Senate Budget Committee, “When the economy reopened, prices started rising with inflation from June 2020 to February 2021, averaging 32 basis points per month. The $1.9 trillion American Rescue Plan Act was signed into law in March of 2021. Since then (through February 2022), monthly inflation has doubled to 64 basis points per month.” Inflation doubled following the enactment of the president’s socialist spending plan a full 10 months after the economy started reopening; that was not from COVID.

Putin’s invasion of Ukraine occurred at the end of February 2022, but prices had already risen 7.9 percent in the twelve months ending in February 2022. Democrats want to undo the 2017 tax cuts that President Donald Trump ushered in during his first term and solidified with the One Big Beautiful Bill last year. If they had their way, the Democrats would hand the average family of four a $1,700 tax increase. That’s on top of the cost of everything that families need to live their lives.

The American people know what’s up. Recent polling shows that 88% of Americans surveyed favor the federal government letting them keep more of their money through increased domestic energy production and increased competition. Eighty-four percent believe that the federal government should cut spending, while 78% favor cutting taxes.

Energy prices, taxes, general inflation, overregulation, and government spending all show up in our household budgets. Our paychecks should buy more than an economic lecture, as high taxes, burdensome regulation, bloated government, and a lack of competition in the marketplace take more and more of our hard-earned money.

Affordability is a huge issue for millions of Americans, and in this midterm election, we need to choose legislators who will do what we need them to do to reverse this trend. We can’t afford to let Democrats put the cost of an ordinary life even further out of reach. That’s why this election matters, so don’t sit this one out.

Read more …

Is the Blue Wave a figment of your imagination?

• The Polls Are Full of Crap — and Black Voters Just Might Save America (Pinsker)

When you’re a two-ply man on a one-ply budget, life gets messy. You empathize with Lady Macbeth’s hands. Sure, you’re extra-careful. Maybe even methodical. (Everyone has their own technique.) But, alas, most of the time you still get [expletive] results.


Which is a perfect analogy for modern-day polling, because that entire industry is one-ply, too. Pollsters lack the budget to poll tens of thousands of people in million-plus communities, so they use guesswork, statistical projections, and sweeping assumptions about strangers.

Thirty years ago, when the internet was a novelty and everyone answered their landlines, cold calls had a very high success rate. Voters were willing (and often excited) to talk. A decade later, it took three calls to reach one respondent. And today? Check out this 2024 article from the Washington Post:

“[N]obody answers their phone anymore. Pew Research Center’s Courtney Kennedy is one of the nation’s most-cited polling methods experts. When she started in this business two decades ago, you had to call about three random numbers to get one to answer, a low response rate that already was sending tremors through the polling industry. By last year, Pew had to hit up about 140 random numbers to get that one response.”

Garbage in, garbage out. When only one out of 140 people is willing to participate, there’s just no way it’ll produce reliable results. Because you’ve filtered out the normies.

And instead, your data is top-heavy with lonely weirdos with nothing better to do than respond to political polls — often because they’re WAY more ideologically driven than the Average Joe. It’s probably why so many polls greatly exaggerated the strength of DSA candidates, projecting that Abdul El-Sayed would win the Democratic primary by 10 points (he won in a one-point squeaker) and Francesca Hong would win by 22 (she lost by half a point).

Assuming, of course, that the polls are real. Which isn’t always true. But the weirdest, strangest, most utterly inexplicable question of the 2026 midterm polling is this: Why are the Democrats overperforming in red states — and BADLY underperforming in blue states?

This is supposed to be a blue wave election. Donald Trump is supposed to be the most unpopular president since Harry Truman. There have been countless news stories about the Democrats pulling jaw-dropping upsets in ruby-red states like Texas, Mississippi, Iowa, South Carolina, Montana, Kansas, and more.

Yet in blue states like Michigan, Minnesota, Maine, and New Hampshire, the Republican Senate candidates are all within striking distance — which is more consistent with a RED WAVE election! Possible explanations: Candidate quality (or lack thereof) is the real story. Maybe the Democrats are overperforming in South Carolina because the Republican Senate candidate is unusually weak — and maybe the Republicans are overperforming in Michigan for a similar reason.

I’m sure it’s a factor. Quality matters. When voters can choose between sane and Cypress Hill, they usually side with sane. And it’s also true that each state is unique. Maine voters are more concerned about the Canadian border; Texans care more about Mexico’s. Somali fraud is a huge issue in Minnesota; less so in Kansas. What plays in Peoria might bomb in Biloxi.

Perhaps drawing national conclusions from state-specific elections is a fool’s errand. But I doubt it. Because millions of Americans will be voting in every state. (More than 14 million already have.) The two national political parties are battling for control of Capitol Hill — and the contrast between the two has never been more glaring.

To paraphrase Barry Goldwater, this isn’t an “echo” election. It’s a “choice” election. And it’s a helluva choice: MAGA versus the DSA. The battle lines are crystal clear. Furthermore, the biggest issues of the 2026 midterms are all national issues: affordability, inflation, gas prices, AI/data centers, immigration, the Iran War, Israel/Gaza, trans, and (of course) President Trump. Because the sitting president is ALWAYS on the ballot in midterm elections.

If this isn’t a national election, I don’t know what is! We all know about the historic headwinds: The party in power almost always takes it on the chin. That should be twice as true for a president with the lowest approval ratings since Harry Truman. So if these numbers are right, the Democrats ought to be dominating.

Yet that’s simply not happening in blue states. DSA-aligned candidates are struggling. There’s a very real risk the Dems will LOSE Senate seats in Michigan, Minnesota, and New Hampshire! And even though Kamala Harris won Maine by seven points, Republican incumbent Susan Collins is still within the margin of error against her left-wing opponent. Something is undermining their coalition.

It’s a group that was once loyal, but is now wandering in the wilderness. A group that’s bleeding Democratic support — because the party is no longer their home. Which is making mincemeat of polling predictions and predictive models: These voters aren’t behaving like WE think they’re supposed to!

I’m talking about black voters. Sixteen years ago, black people voted 95% Democrat. By 2020, 77% of black adults identified as Democrats. And in 2023, the number fell to just 66%. From Axios: “A generational and structural shift is decoupling Black identity from Democratic Party loyalty, transforming a once-reliable voting bloc into a cohort of “political free agents” that the GOP is uniquely positioned to exploit.”

[…]

By the numbers: Republican identification among Black Americans climbed into the mid-to-high teens in recent Gallup data. Trump surged to an average near 20% approval among Black voters in the first quarter of 2025, nearly double his approval at the same point in his first term, according to Gallup. That was driven largely by Black men and those moving toward Republican affiliation.

Also relevant is religious affiliation: 73% of black people are Christian, compared to 62% of white people. Black people are also more likely than white people to attend church and engage in “religious practices.” Just 39% of white people called the Bible “very important” — compared to 70% of black people. Black Americans are (roughly) twice as likely to read the Bible daily and pray daily.

Which might be why black voters are rejecting the anti-Christian, pro-Islam positioning of the DSA. If Abdul El-Sayed had 2008-level black support, he’d win Michigan’s Senate seat in a cakewalk. The Republicans wouldn’t have a chance. This election would already be over. But in the Michigan primary, black voters rejected El-Sayed, voting en masse for his (white) opponent, Haley Stevens.

From The Hill:
[Haley Stevens] led El-Sayed by 8 percentage points in districts where more than 15 percent of the population is Black. Polling in July showed that just 21 percent of Black voters backed El-Sayed while 67 percent supported the House Democrat. A Michigan Education Survey also showed El-Sayed struggling with Black voters. Stevens notched 69 percent from the bloc; El-Sayed garnered 37 percent support. Stevens made no secret of her support for Israel. That’s probably one of the reasons why she did so well with black voters.

From Fox News:
[A]ccording to the Fox News poll, African Americans were the racial group most likely to say the U.S. isn’t supportive enough of Israel when asked the question along with White and Hispanic voters. That number was 25% compared with 19% for Hispanic voters and 15% for White voters. African American voters were also the least likely of the three groups to agree that America was too supportive of Israel, with 40% disagreeing as compared to White voters at 44% and Hispanic voters at 56%.

Read more …

Lrt’s see if he can.

• Trump Will Stop the Steal in Midterm Elections – Dr. Jerome Corsi (USAW)

With less than two weeks away from the midterm elections, President Trump is making plans to stop Democrat voter fraud. Dr. Jerome Corsi, who has a Harvard PhD in political science, has been on the cutting edge of enforcing election integrity for at least two years. It all comes down to presidential power to stop the cheating. Dr. Corsi says, “President Trump certainly has the power to do it, and he’s well aware of it. So, I think the Department of Homeland Security, the Department of Justice and President Trump are monitoring the situation very carefully.


They will have plans to handle various contingencies, I am sure. I cannot imagine President Trump is going to allow the election to be stolen. What is at stake is extremely important. It looks to me like the Democrats are not gaining favor with the American people. This is the whole purpose of my new book called ‘Dumb-O-Crats.’ It’s free this and free that and free everything else . . .. There is no way for a society to have everything to be free. The lies seduce people into thinking this is going to be a utopia, and it’s just the cloak behind the totalitarianism that comes.”

Dr. Corsi says to expect some violence coming from the left before and after the midterms. This recent headline says it all, and reads: “Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison Suggests Trump Will Try to Steal Midterms, Tells Leftists to be Ready to ‘Take the Streets.’” Dr. Corsi says, “In regards to what Ellison said, there is a lot of signaling coming out that the Democrat Socialists of America, the Marxist leftists and jihadists that have taken over the Democrat Party are planning a ‘colour revolution’ after the election. In other words, they want to get out in the streets, and they want to cause chaos. They think they can have the insurrection we are seeing in France. This is being signaled pretty strongly right now.”

Dr Corsi says, “We now have a data base that can track every registered voter in the United States and every mail-in ballot in the United States. . .. We can run this by 25 different indices such as tax records, post office moving records to really know who these people are. The data base even permits you to click through to Google maps to see property from which the person registered. We know the cheating has been going on. . .. There are. . . millions of illegal votes being cast.”

Another wild card is traditional Democrats who are not going along with the Marxists and Muslims who have taken over the Democrat Party. There are indications they may not show up on election day or vote Republican as one story recently reported in Michigan. No matter what, expect a wild ride unlike any other midterm election ever. Dr. Corsi warns, “This is not going to end on election day. The steal is going to be attempted. The consequences remain, and the data is available. So, we are just getting into this, and this is just the beginning to a great awakening to the threat to our election integrity. We do need to take exceptional measures to make sure the problem does not continue.”


Read more …

Did Musk and Trump discuss Kiev’s Starlink?

I’m sure they did.

It puts the US inside the war. It shouldn’t be.

How can you talk peace with Putin if you support Kiev?

• Secretary Rubio Delivers Remarks from Mumbai, India (CTH)

Secretary of State Marco Rubio delivers remarks to the media from Mumbai, India. During the remarks Secretary Rubio answers questions about Starlink, Starshield, Elon Musk, Steve Witkoff, Ukraine negotiations, Russia, Iran, India and current geopolitical events. The video and transcript are below:



QUESTION: Sir, The Wall Street Journal reported that Elon Musk is the one who made the decision to throttle Starshield and catch Ukraine off-guard. Is this something you were aware of? Can you —

SECRETARY RUBIO: Starlink.

QUESTION: Starlink and Starshield.

SECRETARY RUBIO: Okay, again, there’s this – all this confusion. These are two separate programs, okay? Starlink is a commercial – Starlink is the receivers you put on the roof of your house and you use for – it’s used for commercial purposes. It’s not a military system, although it could be used in order to guide drones and things of this nature and so forth. And then Starshield is different. It’s a unique defense product that is sold and operated through the Department of War, as an example. It’s two different items and it’s important to distinguish one from the other.

I have not seen The Wall Street Journal reporting because I have not read it. I know that what – so I’m not familiar with the story that you’re referring to. But Starlink is a private company. They have a contract. They have contractual terms upon how that technology can be used. The important point is we cannot direct a private company as to the decisions they make or not make. What I can tell you with certainty is the President of the United States nor anyone in our system ever requested that any changes to that system be made, and that’s what we said repeatedly. I don’t know what the story reflects, but that is the case.

QUESTION: Isn’t – even if it’s a private company, I mean, this obviously is vital national security infrastructure for Ukraine. Isn’t this something that the U.S. – you as National Security Advisor – should have been given a heads-up on before?

SECRETARY RUBIO: Well, again, I’m not going to comment on what we knew that they might or might not do. Suffice it to say that the reporting out there was that somehow the United States Government was denying them something they needed in order to defend their country. That’s not true. That’s not accurate. And for leaders in Ukraine to continue to represent that is also not accurate.

I would also say – and again, I hark back on this statement that was made a few days ago. I don’t know who this official was in the Ukrainian Government that went around saying that a bunch of people had died as a result of what America was denying them. Not only are we not denying them and it’s not true, how many millions of people have been saved because of what America has already provided? No country in the world has done more to help Ukraine over the last four and a half years than the United States, including under the Trump Administration, and that continues to be the case. But ultimately, what the President wants here is an end to this war. That’s what he’s focused on.

QUESTION: Mr. Secretary, regarding the system in question, you said it’s inaccurate to say that the administration told SpaceX to throttle this service, but you’re not ruling out that the U.S. Government, if I understand correctly, knew about this decision.

SECRETARY RUBIO: Well, we’ve seen the public reporting on it. We’ve seen the Ukrainians reporting that they were no longer able to use basically the internet.

QUESTION: Knew about this decision beforehand.

SECRETARY RUBIO: Yeah, I’m not aware that we knew about this decision beforehand. I certainly – but it’s irrelevant. The bottom line is that that is – that is governed by a private commercial contract as to the – how their stuff can be used and what speeds they allow it to be used at. And so we’ll continue to engage on the matter, but the reporting initially was that somehow this was part of a directive from the United States Government, and I’m just here to tell you, as I’ve said repeatedly from the very beginning and the President has made clear, at no point did he say deny them the use of this system because I’m trying to punish them or teach them a lesson. That’s just not accurate, and that’s what I’ve been addressing repeatedly.

QUESTION: But it doesn’t mean there was no foreknowledge.

SECRETARY RUBIO: What do you mean, it doesn’t mean there’s no foreknowledge? I don’t understand your question.

QUESTION: Well, just because – just because the President – you’re not – just because the President doesn’t tell Musk do this doesn’t mean it wasn’t discussed.

SECRETARY RUBIO: Well, I – again, I don’t – the President has nothing to do with the decisions that are made by Starlink and Starshield and by Mr. Musk. That’s a private company. The President doesn’t run that company and can’t direct that company to do anything. I’m not aware of any foreknowledge, nor anyone – but again, the reporting was not about foreknowledge. I’m telling you there was no foreknowledge, but beyond it, even if there was, we don’t control what a private company – how they decide their product can be used.

Now, if they’re in a contract with the United States military, like Starshield, that’s a different matter, because that’s something we are purchasing and using for our use. But in the case of Starlink – we’re arguing something that’s just – it just makes no sense, the argument that people continue to make that somehow we had foreknowledge or directed it. It’s not accurate that we somehow knew about this ahead of time or directed it in any way. [..]

Read more …

“The three leaders could meet next month at APEC summit in China, Russian presidential aide Yury Ushakov has said..”

• Putin, Xi and Trump Could Hold ‘Historic Summit’ – Kremlin (RT)


Kremlin aide Yury Ushakov

Russian President Vladimir Putin, Chinese President Xi Jinping and US President Donald Trump could hold a “historic” three-way meeting at the APEC summit in China, Kremlin aide Yury Ushakov has said. The Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) summit is scheduled to take place in Shenzhen, China, on November 18-19.


Speaking to the Russian outlet Vesti on Wednesday, Ushakov said Beijing had already begun preparations for the potential talks. “Everyone is ready for this, but much, if not everything, depends on the Chinese hosts of the summit,” he said. The possibility of three-way talks was also discussed during Putin’s meeting with US special envoy Steve Witkoff in St. Petersburg on Wednesday, according to the Kremlin.

Ushakov described the proposed gathering as potentially “historic,” noting that it would be the first meeting of the three leaders in this format. Putin and Trump last met in person at a summit in Anchorage, Alaska, in August 2025, and have remained in contact by phone, most recently on October 9.

Putin and Xi have also held regular talks, including on the sidelines of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization summit in Bishkek in August. The two previously met in Beijing in May during Putin’s state visit. Trump and Xi have met twice so far this year, first in Beijing in May and then at the White House last month.Trump has previously expressed openness to three-way talks, suggesting that nuclear disarmament could be among the issues discussed.

Asked whether the talks could also contribute to peace efforts in the Ukraine conflict, Ushakov said a single meeting would not be enough. “Even if the meeting lasts one, two or five hours, it still won’t be possible to resolve all the problems,” he said.

Commenting on whether the summit could amount to a “new Yalta,” Ushakov said: “I think that if the meeting takes place, there will be a storm of comments and assessments.” The 1945 Yalta Conference brought together Soviet leader Joseph Stalin, US President Franklin D. Roosevelt and British Prime Minister Winston Churchill to discuss the final stages of World War II and the postwar international order.

Read more …

“Despite Democratic Denials..”

The Dems still deny Antifa exists. It’s easier that way.

• French Police Identify Antifa as the Group Behind the Riots (Turley)

Years ago, I called Antifa the Keyser Söze of the left, after the character in “The Usual Suspects.” In the film, the character Virgil explains how Söze stayed in the shadows: he became “a myth, a spook story that criminals tell their kids at night.” The strategy was too simple: “the greatest trick the devil ever pulled was convincing the world he did not exist.”


Democratic leaders have long fostered the myth around Antifa, the largest and most violent group on the political left. For years, they have denied the existence of the group even as members were charged with crimes (including terrorism). Now, the French authorities have found that the nonexistent group is the largest of three “ideologically distinct groups” responsible for the violence in France. It appears that either the entire French security system is delusional or the trick is up for the American left.

I have testified before Congress about Antifa, run columns on the organization for over a decade, and written a book discussing Antifa. Yet, Democratic members continued to insist that there is no such group, while other leading Democrats have praised Antifa for instilling fear in MAGA. It was a curious claim even then, when other Democratic leaders were actively pandering to the violent group.

Former Democratic National Committee deputy chair Keith Ellison — now the Minnesota attorney general — proclaimed that Antifa would “strike fear in the heart” of Trump. His own son, Minneapolis City Council member Jeremiah Ellison, declared his allegiance to Antifa in the heat of the protests this summer. However, Democratic leaders and pundits have repeated the mantra that there is no such group despite political violence on the left spreading across the country.

Rep. Dan Goldman (D., N.Y.) dared anyone to name a single member of Antifa despite the charging of Antifa members with various serious crimes. Former House Judiciary Chair Jerrold Nadler (D-N.Y.) was widely ridiculed for denying the existence of Antifa. Others on the left have joined Goldman in this absurd claim. Late-night host Jimmy Kimmel devoted part of his monologue to assuring viewers that Antifa is no more than a mythical “chupacabra.” “You understand there is no Antifa,” he said. “This is an entirely made-up organization.”

The denials continued even as FBI Director Christopher Wray debunked deniers like Goldman. “Antifa is a real thing.” European countries have banned Antifa Internet sites due to their criminal conduct while Antifa candidates have been elected to office as members of the group.

Now, French authorities identified Antifa as the largest of three “ideologically distinct groups” responsible for the violence in France. The French Justice Minister also banned far-left politicians for fueling the rage. A previously banned Antifa group has been linked to one murder in France. Antifa and communist flags have been prominent in the protests. A Belgian minister also blamed Antifa for the spread of the violence.

It appears that Keyser Söze is in the open, but Democrats maintain the FBI, Justice Department, and various countries are simply delusional. The problem is when the myth becomes reality. Left-wing pundits and politicians are caught in this denial web where they have to maintain the absurd idea that Antifa is just an idea.

Some of us have been writing about Antifa for years after watching them intimidate and threaten faculty and students on campuses. One such student came from my campus and proclaimed that Antifa was winning after his arrest for property destruction. When another radical was arrested after taking an axe to a congressional office, he self-identified as a member of Antifa.

Before Kyle Benjamin Douglas Calvert, 26, implanted an IED device outside of Alabama Attorney General Steve Marshall’s office in downtown Montgomery, he put up stickers reading “support your local Antifa.” Numerous Antifa members have been arrested, including some who claimed to be journalists. Many protesters belong to Antifa groups that have names like “Rose City Antifa” and offshoots like Love and Rage and Mexico’s Amor Y Rabia. Antifa members have been elected to the French and European parliaments.

Rutgers Professor Mark Bray’s “Antifa: The Anti-Fascist Handbook,” called by some the “Antifa bible,” explains that the group is united in its opposition to free speech. “Most Americans in Antifa have been anarchists or antiauthoritarian communists,” he writes. “From that standpoint, ‘free speech’ as such is merely a bourgeois fantasy unworthy of consideration.” Yet, Democratic leaders seemed to be adopting the 1967 ‘Guide for the Married Man’ when caught with Antifa allies or associations:

Read more …

”Don’t anyone come to me with free speech!“

“Both see a grave danger to the ruling class posed by the ability of unvetted or anonymous users to post opinions freely.”

• European Regimes Renew Their Attacks on Free Speech (Ryan McMaken)

In recent weeks, German and French politicians have denounced free speech, and especially the concept of “freedom of speech” as long envisioned in the libertarian tradition of natural rights. French President Emmanuel Macron on September 29 stated that ”The so-called American ‘free speech’ today, which some people have promoted, is the opposite of free speech.” Macron compared speaking freely as comparable to walking down the street assaulting other people.


A week earlier, German Chancellor Friedrich Merz declared, ”Don’t anyone come to me with free speech!“ He asserted we must “still be able to protect citizens from false information.” Both were speaking on issues related to online speech through social media and similar platforms. Both see a grave danger to the ruling class posed by the ability of unvetted or anonymous users to post opinions freely. In both cases, these attacks on freedom have been in the context of European regimes’ repeated efforts to impose new regulations on social media platforms to limit speech.

This has been going on for several years. For example, back in February, Macron stated that “free speech is pure bullshit.” In Europe, the anonymity issue is no minor affair. In Germany, there are literal speech police who will arrest ordinary citizens merely for saying things online or reposting memes. It’s easy to see why anonymity could be an essential tool in posting ideas and facts the regime doesn’t like.

A European regime insisting on abolishing online anonymity is essentially tantamount to announcing that these regimes want the ability to make more arrests for wrongspeech.This is a growing problem across Europe, and a 2025 study concluded that British police were making 30 arrests per day for non-violent “offensive online messages.” Under British law, one can be prosecuted for hurting someone else’s feelings. That’s not how British apologists describe it, of course, but that is the essential reality.

Euphemisms for Censorship
Whether we’re talking about France, the UK, or Germany—all places where the despotic enemies of free expression have seemingly free rein—the regimes’ forces do not, of course, come right out and say that they support censorship. They couch their censorship in the soft language of Leftwing ideology. The claim is that speech must be regulated in order to combat “hate speech” or to reflect the “common good” or to combat “disinformation.”

To wit, in recent years, European politicians have insisted that speech be made to fit into “a common framework”—to use Macron’s phrasing—and to be subject to some standard determining what is “false information.” But here is the rub: Who is to determine what falls within this common framework? Who is to determine what constitutes “false information”? It is the ruling oligarchy and its political allies, of course, that will determine if some proposed fact or idea is to be allowed to be spoken freely.

The ruling elites will decide if some sentiment or phrase is to be defined as “hate speech” and thus will be punished by state police and regime jailers. The ruling elites will determine what is “science,” and therefore what constitutes “disinformation.” This was on full display in the United States during the Covid Panic, when the government bureaucrat Anthony Fauci effectively declared “I am the science.” It is through these state-created and reasonable-sounding “exceptions” to free speech that the regime smuggles in its despotism.

For example, this has been the case for many years with defamation laws. Those who defend legal sanctions for “defamation” essentially advocate for government censorship to combat hurt feelings. Moreover, for centuries, governments have used defamation laws as a means of punishing criticism of the regime. Laws against “seditious libel”—employed by absolutist kings of old—have always essentially been laws against free speech.

An Assault on Truth Itself
The individuals who are directly punished will not be the only victims of this censorship. Truth and critical thinking themselves will be the victims as the regime’s subjects will no longer be allowed to fully and publicly examine the veracity of claims made by the ruling elites. It means that “truth” will be whatever the regime says it is.

This problem of using free speech to hide and distort reality itself was well described more than 100 years ago by the radical free-market libertarian Vilfredo Pareto. Pareto was no naive democrat who thought that freedom could necessarily be protected by elections or written constitutions. But he did understand that freedom of speech is at the very foundation of a free society, regardless of the type of regime or whatever other freedoms might be protected in writing.

Even as Pareto was facing the rise of violent radical socialists in Italy—and thoroughly doubted the ability of the liberal state to deal with it—he never wavered on the key importance of free speech. That is, Pareto remained a dogmatic hardliner on free speech, and in this was like nearly all libertarians before him, from the anarcho-capitalist Molinari to the American Revolutionaries.

Not surprisingly, then, Pareto concludes there were no “mitigating factors” that could legitimately limit speech in the name of some common good. Writing in 1916 he stated:

“[B]efore a theory can be considered true, it is virtually indispensable that there be perfect freedom to impugn it. Any limitation, even indirect and however remote, imposed on anyone choosing to contradict it is enough to cast suspicion upon it.” Hence freedom to express one’s thought, even counter to the opinion of the majority or of all, even when it offends the sentiments of the few or of the many, even when it is generally reputed absurd or criminal, always proves favourable to the discovery of objective truth (accord of theory with fact). …

Pareto goes on to insist that there can be no exceptions, even for the sake of protecting “truths” long held to be precious. Not even those assertions said to be essential to humanitarianism can be considered protected from the scrutiny of free speech. He continues:

“Nor can an exception be made for humanitarian dogmas, nor for the dogmas of the sex religion so dear to Senator Berenger and other geniuses of the same magnitude.1 Let us keep the point strictly before us: There is no scientific liberty unless everything is open to doubt — even Euclid’s geometry and three-dimensional space. It is ridiculous to say that one is disposed to grant liberty for “truth” but not liberty for “error”; for the point at issue is none other than to discover where the “truth” lies and where the “error”; and it cannot be settled if “error” cannot be defended by every possible reason that can be advanced in its favour.2 Only after such reasons have been validly refuted is judgment of error affirmed — pending further investigation. Many people fail to understand that, because in judging of truth or error they substitute a criterion of sentiment for the logico-experimental criterion.”

Clearly, the fact that free speech is now so under siege in Europe is simply the latest evidence of how far out of favor old historical liberalism has become in Europe. Every year, Europe more enthusiastically embraces its worst tendencies in which human rights are repeatedly jettisoned to protect the “rights” of those who rule over the continent. Yet, the antipathy toward free speech also demonstrates the weakness of the European regimes and their political programs. Were the German, French, and British states not so hampered by political division, economic decline, and public dissatisfaction, they would not be so fearful.

Americans have no yet traveled so far down this road. But the foundation is already being built. Republicans support laws deeming all criticism of a certain foreign government to be “anti-semitism” and therefore “hate speech.” Covid laid bare the American Left’s enthusiasm for anti-speech tyranny. All that is necessary for the First Amendment to be wiped away is for a handful of federal judges to agree with the enemies of freedom. There is no guarantee.

Read more …

“Belgian Prime Minister Bart De Wever has blocked an EU proposal to confiscate Russian sovereign assets to fund Ukraine.”

They finally listen to the lawyers.

• EU Won’t Try To Steal Russian Assets Again – Belgium (RT)

The European Commission will not revive a proposal to seize Russian sovereign assets immobilized at the Belgium-based clearing house Euroclear to finance Ukraine, Belgian Prime Minister Bart De Wever has said.


Approximately €210 billion ($236 billion) in Russian central bank assets have been frozen in the EU, most of them held at Euroclear. Brussels has been using profits generated by the funds to support Ukraine through a so-called “windfall tax,” but has stopped short of confiscating the principal over concerns about the legal consequences. De Wever has repeatedly raised those risks at meetings of EU leaders.

“One colleague came to tell me in the hallway that it was as if I had run a flamethrower over that debate,” the prime minister told Belgian lawmakers on Wednesday, according to local media, referring to discussions last year. De Wever was briefing the Belgian parliament on the meeting. De Wever said he was certain the European Commission would not reopen the debate, although he could not guarantee that individual member states would refrain from doing so.

“Not everyone experienced the discussion,” he said. “New leaders have emerged who are developing a discourse that I was able to nip in the bud last year.” The proposal that De Wever considers a nonstarter nevertheless received support in various forms from Dutch Prime Minister Rob Jetten, Danish Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen and EU foreign policy chief Kaja Kallas, among others, during last week’s European Council summit.

EU leaders previously considered using approximately €185 billion ($208 billion) in Russian sovereign assets held in Belgium to finance Kiev. After De Wever demanded collective guarantees against potential financial and legal consequences, they instead agreed last December to raise €90 billion ($101 billion) through EU borrowing. European officials claim that the Russian assets could be used to repay the loan. Moscow has denounced both the windfall tax and the proposed confiscation of Russian money as theft.

Kiev has deemed the foreign financing available for 2026-2027 insufficient, with Ukrainian leader Vladimir Zelensky requesting an additional €70 billion ($79 billion) last week. The EU has made no new funding commitment and reportedly plans to seek further contributions from other potential donors, particularly the UK and Canada.

Read more …

PCR won’t budge.

• Disaster Is a Possibility (Paul Craig Roberts)

In 13 days Americans will vote on the midterm Congressional elections. The outcome will determine whether the Democrats control Congress, or enough of it, that Trump’s presidency is at an end.


Even some MAGA Americans are indifferent, because Trump, rather than end money-draining wars, expanded them by attacking “at Israel’s request,” Iran, which has proven to be a strategic disaster for the United States, with its bases in the Persian Gulf destroyed and oil flows restricted by victorious Iran.

As I previously reported, Trump, misguided by his ego and Zionist neoconservative advisers, refused Iran’s offer on a silver platter to reelect a Republican Congress by opening the Strait in exchange for Trump disassociating from Israel’s war against Iran and accepting Iran’s right to control its own waterways.

Trump’s strategic error is perhaps unique in human history, but he has surrounded himself with Zionists, so little else could be expected than Trump’s erroneous decision.

Trump and his incompetent regime have tried to control the narrative with false claims that the United States Navy controls the Strait of Hormuz and 20,000,000 barrels of oil are moving through the Strait each day. Trump’s Secretary of the Treasury actually told this lie with a straight face to the prostitute media. And so did the US Central Commend.

The effect of this narrative, as Wall Street always responds to the optimistic note, has been to hold down the future price of oil based on expectations that the situation is being resolved. But it is not. It seems that there is also false optimism on the Russian/Ukrainian front. John Helmer reports a poll of Russian voters taken at the end of September and made available on October 6. The poll found that 81% of Russians would support a Putin decision to stop the war with Ukraine.

If stopping the war required returning Donbas and Crimea to Ukraine, 35% would support that. The poll found that this percentage has increased by 7 percentage points over the past 18 months whereas the 51% who would oppose ending the war if it meant returning the Russian territories to Ukraine has fallen by 13 percentage points since he beginning of last year.

It appears that the drone and missile attacks on Russia have divided Russians and goes against the military and Russian nationalists, thereby offering a wedge for Zelensky and the Europeans to exploit. My conclusion: Putin has created a problem for himself by refusing to win an easy war.

Difficulties arise when false narratives are created in order to avoid dealing with real problems. Disaster is a likely consequence.

Read more …

“.. Trump Continues to Serve Israel at the Expense of Republicans in the Midterm Elections..”

At least ever since the Holocaust, there is a strong connection between US and Israel. Whoever is president.

Claiming that Trump is now Bibi’s running boy must be seen in the light of that.

• Trump Still Serves Israel at the Expense of Republicans (Paul Craig Roberts)

“We must complete the elimination of the Iranian regime – that is the main thing. I have discussed this with President Trump more than once, including the day before yesterday.” — Netanyahu


The Zionist agenda of Greater Israel marches on. Netanyahu says Hezbollah’s fall will follow Iran’s as the Middle East is cleared of Muslims. The Lebanese government is negotiating with Israel the sellout of the Hezbollah militia while Muslims continue to war against one another with Egypt offering to help Saudi Arabia with the fight against the Houthis in Yemen.

Iran calls for Muslim unity, something last seen under Saladin in the 12th century. Until the world understands and deals with the Zionist neoconservative US doctrine of hegemony and the Zionist Israeli hegemonic doctrine of Greater Israel, there can be no peace.

Read more …

They have no-one. And they face a man with a very loyal following.

• Kamala Just Revealed That She’s Running for President in 2028 (Margolis)

Kamala Harris insists she hasn’t decided whether she’s running for president in 2028, but she accidentally gave the game away.


Obviously, nobody in the Democrat Party is exactly begging her to jump in. The establishment has been pushing back hard on the idea of a third Kamala campaign. Former allies and donors grumble that she squandered her first year out of office, and they can’t come up with a single reason voters should take another look at her. Even her husband, Doug Emhoff, reportedly isn’t thrilled about her running again.

You’d think all that would give her pause. Instead, Kamala keeps dropping hints, and her latest one came at an event in Las Vegas, where she debuted a slower, lower-pitched speaking style. It’s the newest entry in her long record of changing her voice and speech cadence depending on who’s sitting in the audience.

“That era of feeling powerless — like what can we do, this just keeps happening — that era is over because we are now 13 days away from doing something about it to stop the pain,” Kamala said, speaking slowly and in a lower register, as if to a room of sleepy kindergarteners. She kept up the same condescending tone while urging Nevada voters to back Democrats in the state’s governor’s race and for Congress.

“So that’s where we are right now, and that’s kind of exciting,” she continued. “Right? This is some good stuff. Like, we’re taking our power, we’re using it, to determine who will hold offices like being the governor of Nevada. Which is so important for the people everyday on the most basic issues that affect our lives. Who will continue to walk those halls of Congress, being an extraordinary fighter.”


This new tone she’s adopting fits how Democrats see voters: as children they need to control. You don’t talk to grown adults that way unless you think they need a nap and a juice box before they can handle a ballot.

Let’s be fair: Kamala didn’t invent the fake accent. Hillary Clinton infamously slipped into a Southern drawl while campaigning in the South during the 2008 presidential primaries. Barack Obama was known for adjusting his dialect for different crowds during that same campaign. And Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) has been pulling the same trick for years. It’s phony and desperate, every single time.

The motive here isn’t complicated. Politicians who put on fake accents want voters to feel they share something with them. When a Democrat suddenly picks up a Southern drawl, leans into black vernacular, or shifts her cadence to match the crowd, it’s not random or subconscious; it’s a calculated move. The candidate is trying to manufacture cultural familiarity, hoping voters will see her as one of their own. It’s just shameless pandering from a candidate who wants to convey “I’m just like you” without saying the words.

And Kamala wouldn’t bother with any of this if she weren’t planning to run for president. Nobody road-tests a new voice for a midterm rally out of civic duty. You do it because you’re auditioning for something bigger. So she can keep saying she hasn’t made up her mind. Kamala just told us she’s running for president.

Read more …

Dostoevsky is the level of Shakespeare.

“A British literary editor has suggested that the Russian novelist would appear on RT today. We imagined what he might have to say about the modern West ..”

• Would Dostoevsky Have Appeared on RT? (RT)

Fyodor Dostoevsky, the great 19th century Russian author of ‘Crime and Punishment’, the ‘Idiot’, and ‘The Brothers Karamazov’, was a counterintuitive thinker who could have appeared on RT. That’s the opinion of Times literary supplement editor Martin Ivens who, in a piece for Bloomberg arguing against censorship of Irish author Sally Rooney in the UK, mentioned the Russian great.


The suggestion is not without merit. Dostoevsky knew persecution, famously spending ten years in Siberia, four of which were in captivity and another five in military exile having completed his initial present sentence in February 1854.

Rooney is a best-selling author who has publicly taken a stand to back Palestine Action, a group whom it is illegal to support, and about whom it is illegal to make public gestures of support in the UK. British police have made hundreds of bizarre arrests of elderly protesters holding signs supporting the group. Her books have been banned in Britain.

Ivens has used his platform in the Times Literary Supplement to highlight how Russian writers often assume the status of prophets. In his Bloomberg piece he reaffirmed that censoring literature is counter-productive and only serves to feed resentment against the mainstream already in the body politic.


Fyodor Dostoevsky (1821-1881)

However, his suggestion that Dostoevsky could appear on RT inspired us to inquire as to what topics the great man might hold forth on in 2026.

On Europe
Like many since, Dostoevsky viewed Western Europe with a complex mix of cultural admiration and affinity, moral revulsion, and spiritual anxiety. His experience in captivity – where he was subject to a mock execution – is said to have destroyed his faith in secular humanism. He argued that discarding God led to a moral chaos where “everything is permitted.”

“Conscience without God is a terrible thing; it can stray into the depths of immorality” He also predicted that attempts to build a so-called paradise on earth through rationalism and secularism alone would inevitably lead to political tyranny.

On the EU’s crisis
Dostoevsky would likely and emphatically make the case that Western European leaders have by now displayed a total political bankruptcy and that Western Europeans should renounce materialism and seek meaningful social relations. The riots engulfing major European capitals, and the unfettered profiteering and immigration that have given rise to such tensions, are a symptom of the malaise of the Western European mind. Forcing humanity into rationalist conformity will only lead to extreme bloodshed, he claimed.

“Starting from unlimited freedom, I arrive at unlimited despotism”

On liberalism
Dostoevsky, would have undoubtedly lamented the emergence of the European Union as a bureaucratic bearer of so-called liberal values. He would have highlighted how his book ‘Demons’ predicted the so-called democratic deficit that characterizes the EU – a tiny, largely unelected bureaucratic elite unreachable to the regular population who are stripped of freedoms. He would have called the Covid-19 pandemic a brutal event in the restriction of human experience.

Abandoning God and zealously attempting to replace spiritual authority with a moral relativism where everything is permitted will only lead to social and spiritual collapse, Dostoevsky believed. He would have stoutly defended the emphasis and respect for traditional values in popular Russian culture. “The Westernizers have placed themselves above the people as a paternalistic intelligentsia, rejecting the people”

He also enjoyed the mess, and this is where he probably would’ve got into trouble with Brussels. The EU notoriously wishes to regulate everything, where Dostoevsky emphasized the irrational and fundamentally spiritual nature of human beings.

On techno-fetishism
He foresaw the loss of grace in the world and its replacement by either authoritarian Catholicism, rational individualistic Protestantism, or indeed technological fetishism. Artificial intelligence in this respect may have represented the apotheosis of his foreboding.

Similarly, Dostoevsky rejected the idea that humans could be rendered calculable and rational beings in their entirety and in that sense would undoubtedly have been horrified at the creeping legislation and legalization of everyday life.

“Human nature acts as a whole, with everything it possesses, consciously and unconsciously”

The European Union’s Digital Services Act, which allows the behemoth to interfere in the local elections of member countries, would represent such a bureaucratic and legalistic invasion. He would’ve taken a strong stand against the nullification of anti-systemic narratives but would also have emphasized that such political and authority and overreach was inevitable given the collapse of religion and morality.

Dostoevsky would have been as much energized as he would have been horrified by developments in 2026. Were he to be with us today it’s highly likely his voice would contribute to the choir of outspoken and brave commentators who make the channel what it is.

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Home › Forums › Debt Rattle October 23 2026

Viewing 16 posts - 1 through 16 (of 16 total)
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  • October 23, 2026 at 8:04 am #253871
    Raúl Ilargi Meijer
    Keymaster

    Paul Cézanne Curtains 1885 • US Evacuating Middle East Bases As Trump Weighs New Iran Strikes – NBC (RT) • Ilhan Omar Can’t Quite Rule Out Marrying He
    [See the full post at: Debt Rattle October 23 2026]

    October 23, 2026 at 9:18 am #253886
    Dr. D
    Participant

    “French Police Identify Antifa As The “Ideologically Distinct Group” Behind The Riots Despite Democratic Denials

    But “There’s no such thing as Antifa tho” although they have meetings, organizers, bank accounts, phone lists…billionaire oligarchic funders…

    Pic

    Wow. That’s tough to take…. Hahaha.

    Since we knew this whole thing was a setup — they have no trouble stopping any riots, being a national sport, and stopped the Right or the Gilet Jaunes daily for years — it’s WHY are they doing it? Well, to collapse the government and change the rules, so Tiny Jupiter needs to buy an excuse. Which will outlaw any remaining French rights. Right. But it’s never one thing. Why THIS one. School funding? Because it’s not. CLEARLY.

    He needs to steal the Pensions. It’s always to steal the pensions, that’s the only thing governments think about from dawn to dusk is screwing the people, and getting that big pot of money they haven’t stolen yet, called the Pensions. Just last week her highness DerLyin’ said “That EU People’s money is doing nothing” (this is a lie, all ‘money’ is already doing something) so she needed to steal it. A week later, Macron has to “Calm down the students” and the “Young people” by…..you guessed it! Giving them stuff. They already said a free education, promising lower standards than ever, so the degree with also be worthless! But we take FROM the Olds, and TO the Youngs, right? Where 99% of it ends up with Macron, the EU, and Ukraine.

    Tah-dah! You’re welcome. European budget collapse averted, Millions of olds killed achieved.

    Ilhan Omar: “Maybe I married my brother. IDK. May delete later.”

    “”Gotten Too Old Not To Be Greedy”: Virginia State Sen. Arrested, Accused Of Masterminding $4.5 Million Criminal Drug Enterprise

    Aaaaaaand guess which party. Another fine Amish fellow. Nobody knewd nuffin’ before now.

    “New Migrant Caravan Heads North Through Mexico Hoping For Democratic Midterm Victory

    Surely the GOP pays for this. There is no better advertising for the midterms.

    “Top Trump Envoy Declares Kinetic Action In Yemen Would Be ‘Fruitless’
    “These kinetic reactions have never worked. It doesn’t work.”

    War doesn’t work to change behavior. Wow, first I’ve heard of it: I guess all violence over all time was counterproductive: no one was conquered, actually.

    Quick: someone tell France.

    USDX almost 103. Looks like to go to previous high, 115. What would that make Canada? 60c? Btw, CAD is being bulwarked at .70. Breaking that was intraday. I wonder how much they’ve lost so far rigging it to 70c.

    Remains to be seen, there are a LOT of moving parts. Highest is: Europe collapses completely and hits the world with a financial contagion. But every hour we re-industrialize makes that less likely.

    “”High Likelihood Of Error”: Judge Halts DHS Voter-Fraud Door-Knocks In Nine States

    Judge says the government can’t knock on your door. So everyone on the planet EXCEPT law enforcement, to ask normal questions (Which you can also refuse). Will he rule ICE can no longer breathe air? Stay tuned…. They can use Flock Cameras worldwide with no warrant, but can’t knock on your door because: Privacy, warrants.

    “California Officials Blame ‘Vendor Error’ For Sending Thousands Of Duplicate Ballots

    That thing that never happens happened a few thousand more times again. The judges aren’t bothered by this at all and make no rulings to desist.

    “Florida Mayor Charged With Grand Theft From COVID Relief Program She Helped Create

    Guess which party? And so guess which newspapers neglected to add her party affiliation on every news story, which is considered standard form? (A: All of them. Of course. Lookin’ at you, NYTimes) Suddenly can’t remember the thing we remembered yesterday! …I actually looked it up hoping it would be Republicans arresting Republicans, too bad.

    October 23, 2026 at 10:42 am #253887
    Dr. D
    Participant

    “”THE WALL STREET JOURNAL: ‘More Oil Is Now Coming Out of the Persian Gulf Than Before the Iran War.'”

    Is it really though? Well, close enough.

    “Neil Oliver argues that war gives governments the PERFECT EXCUSE to print money, expand their powers, declare states of emergency,” — Nawfal

    THE WAR WILL START THIS WEEKEND — Nawfal Okay, you’ll pay me $500 if it doesn’t. You’ll leave the internet? Take a retraction and walk of shame?

    “• US Evacuating Middle East Bases As Trump Weighs New Iran Strikes – NBC (RT)

    Do we HAVE any bases left?

    “” If they had their way, the Democrats would hand the average family of four a $1,700 tax increase. That’s on top of the cost of everything that families need to live their lives.”

    C’mon, that’s ridiculous! They’re the Party of the Working Class. (Checks every Blue location on earth, Baltimore, Chicago, Massachusetts, California, Canada, Europe…) Oh. Right. Gas prices $10 in “Worker’s Paradise CA” and $5 elsewhere. Helpin’ the little guy. With RELENTLESSLY higher prices and taxes.

    “ Sixteen years ago, black people voted 95% Democrat. By 2020, 77% of black adults identified as Democrats. And in 2023, the number fell to just 66%.”

    Why do Democrats hate Black people so much? Or vice-versa?

    “ Dr. Jerome Corsi, who has a Harvard PhD in political science,” uh-oh.

    “ “We now have a data base that can track every registered voter in the United States and every mail-in ballot in the United States. . .. We can run this by 25 different indices such as tax records, post office moving records to really know who these people are. The data base even permits you to click through to Google maps to see property from which the person registered.”

    However, every Federal Judge says the government can’t use the government’s own records, but the private world can. Government people must never use government records to do government work. Hmmmm…

    “No country in the world has done more to help Ukraine over the last four and a half years than the United States, including under the Trump Administration, and that continues to be the case.”

    Fill me in here Marco…

    Shocking haranguing, Rubio answers the question very clearly, far clearer than the reporter asked it, and the reporter keeps trying to re-phrase in a way he can get a false quote. You’re fired. Why? One, you’re pissing everyone off, and we need people we interview to be on good terms and think well of the Paper, second, We’ll have to RETRACT it when you’re wrong, you dope, and make the Paper look stupid. That’s not good for circulation. And you wasted everyone’s time like a child.

    Time is money. Column inches are money. So STFU.

    “The Dems still deny Antifa exists. It’s easier that way.”

    See, normal people don’t act this way. They say, if a Bank is robbed, then a bank robber exists. Who DOES say that, then? A: The Bank Robber. That’s the only one. And you can go to his meetings and he’ll tell you anyway, so…

    “Now, French authorities identified Antifa as the largest of three “ideologically distinct groups” responsible for the violence in France.”

    That’s super-odd, because I’ve been made to understand that Antifa is on the LEFT. I know they’re probably centrists in France, but still…

    So it appears the Far-LEFT is the source of most political (and criminal) violence. (Check crime rates of every Blue State, City, zip code, and voter)

    But it does make sense that all of them are hyper-authoritarians and anti Free speech. That’s not “Anarchism”, because then you couldn’t enforce your dislike for speech. They’re just using it as a ruse, which you see almost ceaselessly with this crew, and we’re supposed to not notice. I did notice you’re a pack of liars, actually. Surprise.

    “Republicans support laws deeming all criticism of a certain foreign government to be “anti-semitism” and therefore “hate speech.”

    Yes. They do. And we need to fight them into a graveyard on this.

    ““Belgian Prime Minister Bart De Wever has blocked an EU proposal to confiscate Russian sovereign assets to fund Ukraine.”

    What if they weren’t allowed to discuss this and say no because no free speech?

    “The outcome will determine whether t…Trump’s presidency is at an end.” –PCR

    Apparently Paul lives under a different Constitution than I do? That’s okay, he’s still young. After reading a few Wikipedia articles he’ll learn what a President is and how he’s elected.

    He also disagrees that any oil is moving. Paul, if the oil isn’t moving for 230 days, why hasn’t someone run out? Instead we have adequate oil which is only stopped by firebombing refineries. …Which ALSO isn’t enough to cause shortages. Explain? Because that combo makes it sure seem like there’s a LOT of oil out there. How often can you bomb 5 Fri-to-Lay factories and not have a shortage of chips? This means nothing because Paul has feels.

    “The outcome will determine whether the Democrats control Congress, or enough of it, that Trump’s presidency is at an end.” –PCR

    And this “helping” is causing Israel to cease to exist. Especially their lobby here. Odd: that seems somewhat counterproductive. Sign me up. Also Israel is an ally of the U.S. but ALSO a key ally of the most hardened Muslim state on planet earth: Saudi Arabia? Owner of Mecca and Medina? Discuss? Whichever way you want to resolve this is fine with me, but certainly something needs to be wildly re-defined here. I mean, do you want to say Israel is a hyper PRO-Islamic state? Or that Saudi Arabia is a Jewish National state? Or what?

    “her husband, Doug Emhoff, reportedly isn’t thrilled about her running again.”

    He just said she wasn’t. Again, I think the Republicans are paying her to do this, and paying caravans to march to the border. Any paying Mamdani and Sayed. There’s nothing better than this.

    “He argued that discarding God led to a moral chaos where “everything is permitted.”
    “Conscience without God is a terrible thing; it can stray into the depths of immorality”

    Men need a yardstick outside themselves or they cannot be moral at all. That’s not even a failing, that’s just how logic and the human mind work. And so with Dot here, the John Adams quote “Suited to a moral people and would fail for all others.” He was already pointing out that Western Europe, without God, can’t be Humanists. They’d be mass-murderers and monsters. That’s not the strange part. The part I’m annoyed with is, they did this for 150 years in a row and no one seems able to learn. When I say it again and point to 150 years in a row of history, I’m the idiot.

    “Employs 150,000+ people
    Has made tens of thousands of people Millionaires
    Has saved FREE SPEECH
    Helped Bankrupt and abolish USAID
    Exposed how corrupt the system really is
    That’s why Democrats hate him

    Note what else: We on the Right still constantly criticize him, as we do Trump. He’s not exempt, and not a cult. It’s far more common to say “Yes, but” than to just say his good things.

    Jimmy Dore: Yes we said any nightclub comedian high at 9am already knew the outcome of the Ukraine war when only 10k people were dead. But Congress is way, way dumber than even that. Or about 1,999,000 murders more evil.

    Btw, Ze can give the 25%, but they’ll put NATO in Kiev, so no. Russia will veto that. And Europe will financially collapse.

    October 23, 2026 at 11:20 am #253888
    Dr. D
    Participant

    As usual, I agree with most of what Krainer says, and also including his thing on Socialism – a bit tangled here, but he’s often said Socialism in Yugoslavia was as well-working a system as all the rest, and he’s right. Strangely no one takes that line on debate, but all the other lines that don’t work. He’s saying any unit that 1) Can vote OR 2) can print, will do so, and there’s no exception in history, basically. Yup. Bankers know it, and used it since the Middle Ages, but let’s say since 1600.

    “Network topology doesn’t fit neatly into a news segment. The finding also cuts against the story we tell ourselves about free markets and fair competition.”

    Who says this? I can’t swing a cat without hearing criticisms of (Fake) Capitalism. I don’t even think you could read only the WSJ or something. There is no subset of any nation on earth where you’d hear “We have Free Markets and fair competition.” …Perhaps because the speaker would choke laughing.

    People have been complaining this was false since before FDR was a child.

    This study has come out many, many times – remember Carter’s study that the People have zero influence on policy because Corporations have it? However, it hasn’t been internalized so I guess it needs to keep coming out. BTW that Hydra they point at is “The Globalists” I speak of, they are the Nazi organization, I personally believe originally seeded with Nazi money/gold post WWII, or at least this iteration of it. Prove me wrong.

    Pic

    So THAT’S what happened!

    October 23, 2026 at 11:39 am #253889
    tboc
    Participant

    Ilhan Omar is forty four years of age, has been in Congress for seven years.
    Naturalized at seventeen that equates to twenty seven years in the US.
    I am being led to believe that an armed forces officer from Somalia immigrated into the United States as the ten year horror of the Somali Civil war had reached peak atrocity without protection of The US State Department. Walked through customs with a non expiring visa and settled comfortably in Minnesota. No mention of Federal Income tax records or Social Security status? Record of employment?
    You can lead a horse to water but you cannot make him drink.

    ” Did Musk and Trump discuss Kiev’s Starlink?
    I’m sure they did.
    It puts the US inside the war. It shouldn’t be.
    How can you talk peace with Putin if you support Kiev?”
    You cannot, and you are not.

    “It puts the US inside the war. It shouldn’t be.”
    The Eighth Circle of Hell is reserved for Fraud. Is the hand on the pen that produced the sentence immediately above headed for the 6th bolgia or the 8th?

    “ELON MUSK: “What I’ve learned is that legacy media propaganda is very effective at making you believe things that aren’t true.”
    The man speaks with the voice of experience.
    Two can play at irony.

    How about some Gerald Celente clips to round out the discussion?

    October 23, 2026 at 11:49 am #253890
    Michael Reid
    Participant

    A Republic Has to See
    A republic rests on one rule: the people can see who holds the power. That’s why we make our laws in public and try our cases in open court. Yet faceless entities are taking over the economy one merger and one acquisition at a time, and the law lets them stay unseen. Nobody voted for it. Nobody was asked. Each deal leaves fewer hands on the controls, and the owners behind those hands get harder to find. Choice is the first freedom to go. When the same few names sit behind rival firms, a worker or a customer has nowhere else to turn, and the decisions that shape a life get made in rooms no citizen can enter. Bring back charters that end on a set date. Make every large owner put its real owners on the public record. Our children will inherit whatever we allow now, and a country can’t govern what it isn’t allowed to see. The map exists. Now the owners behind it have to step into view.

    ***

    Eric Daniel Buesing is an independent researcher and the author of The Hidden Hand: Wealth, Power, and Control from Pharaohs to Corporations(TrineDay, 2026) and The Illusion Architects: How Elites Shape Culture, Consciousness, and Reality (TrineDay, 2027). For 22 years he has studied elite power structures, mapping the architectures of influence that govern societies, economies, and global institutions, work that builds on the foundations laid by Carroll Quigley and Antony Sutton. A former licensed private investigator and expert witness with an MBA and specialized expertise in voice stress analysis, he brings an investigator’s discipline to the historical record. His work challenges mainstream narratives and invites readers to look more closely at the systems that shape their world.

    October 23, 2026 at 12:36 pm #253892
    Michael Reid
    Participant

    Why the US Can Never Match Chinese Shipbuilding
    Brian Berletic, October 17, 2026
    America’s $66 billion plan to “beat China’s shipbuilding empire” is not a strategy but an admission of systemic deadlock: unable to compete directly, the US is turning to asymmetric sabotage.

    In a recent Business Insider article and accompanying video regarding the US’ $66 billion plan to “beat China’s shipbuilding empire,” it is revealed that US plans ultimately amount to unlikely solutions to what are deep, systemic problems with little political appetite to face, let alone address — a microcosm of the US’ wider terminal decline relative to the emerging multipolar world.
    In the video, an American shipyard worker is seen wearing a helmet with a sticker saying, “Go Navy, Beat China,” China — a nation that has never attacked the United States — and instead has been subject to US encroachment, occupation, and war both before and after the World Wars — exemplifying the delusional belligerence US interests encourage among the American public and specifically those among the US military and across its military industrial base.

    Detached even further from reality is the notion of the US “beating China” in the realm of shipbuilding where China is reported to build between 1,000 to 1,700 ships a year while the US builds ships in single digit numbers.

    The fact the US continues seeking the means to reassert its primacy worldwide, especially against China, is not evidence necessarily that the US can succeed — but that through its efforts to attempt to do so — the US continues to pose the greatest danger to peace, stability, prosperity, and human progress on Earth today
    While the video discusses plans by the US to invest in shipbuilding through expanding the workforce with training programs, improve worker retention, and through the use of new technology to produce more with less, and even plans to have US proxies build ships for the US — no plans were announced to address the systemic problems creating this disparity in shipbuilding capacity in the first place.

    The problems stymying US shipbuilding (and all other productive industries in the US) are problems no amount of investment or technology can solve until the root causes themselves are addressed.

    US-China Shipbuilding Gap is a Symptom of Bigger Problems

    The atrophy of US shipbuilding has not taken place in a vacuum or overnight.

    It has been in decline alongside all other major productive American industries and for generally the same reasons. The US has spent decades prioritizing shareholder primacy (the pursuit of perpetually expanding profits) at the expense of all other considerations — including industrial capacity, national infrastructure, American education, and the workforce the US educational system is tasked with creating.

    The US — in pursuit of perpetual profits — has reorganized its economy from a global industrial leader, to a financialized Ponzi-economy building wealth across ledgers rather than upon factory floors.

    The US educational system reflects this reprioritization — not only in redirecting students from productive vocations to better serve the Ponzi-economy — but also in the form of maximizing profits to access the education system itself. This has been done through expanding privatization across primary and secondary education, and across all forms of higher education. Young adults find themselves faced with tens of thousands of US dollars in debt before starting their first step in any chosen career.

    This has created not only a critical shortage of workers for the US industrial base, it has created a systemic obstacle that must be removed before that critical shortage of workers can even be addressed. Reforming US education alone, is a process that could take a generation to solve.

    An atrophied workforce is only one of several systemic problems the US faces. The other takes the shape of national infrastructure, including transportation, energy production and distribution, and the very facilities at which shipbuilding and other forms of industrial activity take place.

    Because the US functions as a for-profit system where the “private sector” is responsible for all of the above — and because profits are always easier to make through financialization and/or legacy industrial processes (making money by doing or selling the same thing over and over again) — the chances of the “private sector” investing in the infrastructure and facilities required to even expand US shipbuilding significantly, let alone meaningfully close the gap with China, are next to non-existent.

    Shortcuts have been proposed, including private and government-funded training programs to rapidly expand the pool of qualified workers for jobs across the US military industrial complex, and specifically in the realm of shipbuilding.

    But even with the proposed training programs to expand the US workforce — another systemic problem exists preventing the efficient use of this workforce. The cost of training and retaining American workers will always be astronomically more expensive than in China precisely because of the for-profit financialized nature of the US Ponzi-economy in all aspects beyond (including directly upstream from) shipbuilding.

    In the United States, any particular American labourer requires a wage capable of paying for the exorbitant cost-of-living in the US, including not only their own education/training, but also their rent, food, utilities, transportation, and healthcare. Even with healthcare provided by the shipbuilding industry — the corporations themselves must pay astronomically higher costs for that healthcare than in China.

    This is because — in addition to the shipbuilding sector itself attempting to maximize profit in exchange for minimal effort or purpose — the US workforce is preyed upon by similar profit-maximization across all other sectors of US economic activity. The pharmaceutical industry alone uses US tax-funded research and development to produce medication — then charges many times its production costs for access to it.

    China’s government does vastly better in subordinating pharmaceutical production to national interests — rather than the other way around as it functions in the US. This means that regardless of whether a company, an insurance policy, or an individual patient in China is paying the costs for healthcare, it will always be cheaper overall than in the United States.

    This example applied across other costs of living — whether it is food, electricity, Internet access, or rent — plays out in a similar way. Chinese workers consistently enjoy cheaper prices, accessible services, and better infrastructure because the Chinese government places the purpose of production and the livelihood of those involved above the maximization of profits. This means China’s private sector, state-owned enterprises, and combinations of the two are free to pursue profit maximization as long as it doesn’t undermine collective national interests including the welfare of the Chinese population.

    The US system, when compared to China’s, could be best equated to a troop of chimpanzees stripping bare fruit trees across the forest they live in (and taking that of other nearby troops) versus farmland carefully and sustainably cultivated by a family of farmers. Both approaches ultimately satisfy hunger. Only one approach does so reliably and sustainably by emphasizing long-term planning over short-sighted and immediate satisfaction.

    Beyond a more humane economic and political system, China’s is also a more efficient system. The maximization of profits not only comes at the cost of the vast majority of any population within a system doing so — it also comes at the cost of any other objective besides maximizing profits — including the quality of and accessibility to services, and the quality and quantities of manufactured goods — in this case — ships.

    The Chinese government’s overall approach to economics and governance ensures sound fundamentals in terms of infrastructure and workforce, but also ensures that the shipbuilding process in China itself serves the purpose of actually making ships to serve specific national priorities — both in the realm of commercial commerce and national defense — in addition to simply making money (which they also do).

    In order for the United States to even meaningfully close the gap with China — it would need to address all of these systemic problems plaguing its shipbuilding industry and all the upstream economic activity that makes shipbuilding possible — including cost of living for workers, supply chains, and the infrastructure facilitating both.

    If the US Cannot Compete, it Will Try to Delete

    Even if the US were to shift over to an entirely purpose-driven socioeconomic model — it would still fall far short of matching Chinese shipbuilding solely because of the disparity in scale between the US and China. China’s population is vastly larger, as is its overall industrial base, education system, and its national infrastructure.

    Because of the US’ inability to outcompete directly with China and other productive nations around the globe — it will increasingly seek the use of asymmetric methods of undermining and disrupting productive forces.

    This includes the US’ current regional war in West Asia — targeting Iran and its allies — Hezbollah in Lebanon and Ansarallah in Yemen, but also the targeting of supposed US “allies” like Saudi Arabia, the UAE, Qatar, and Kuwait whose energy production and exports have been likewise targeted and disrupted amid the ongoing US aggression.

    The disruption of energy exports from West Asia to the rest of Asia — including China — is meant to undermine and roll back Chinese industrial production and economic prosperity as a substitute for the US’ inability to compete with China directly.

    The US has recently begun striking at data centers across Russia — the opening shots in a planned global asymmetric strategy to stop multipolar artificial intelligence development from permanently surpassing the US in the same manner production, military, and other technological capabilities have begun to do.

    The US is also increasingly threatening waterways worldwide — both directly and by proxy — through a combination of outright wars and associated blockades, the seizure of ships “sanctioned” by the US and its European proxies, and the use of maritime drones (attributed to US proxies like Ukraine) to physically strike at and attempt to destroy the shipping of targeted nations. While it is primarily Russian shipping being targeted now — Chinese shipping has been affected with the likelihood of wider and more deliberate targeting expanding in the near future.

    Together with the US effectively banning Chinese-built ships from US ports through targeted fees and the likelihood the US will force its proxies worldwide to follow suit — the US is attempting to target Chinese industry, including shipbuilding, from a multitude of economic, political, administrative, and military vectors.

    Beyond these methods — the US continues political interference worldwide, in attempt to both disrupt global peace and stability and thus economic progress among the multipolar world, but also to politically capture targeted nations and transform them into proxies the US can use as armed and dangerous geopolitical “battering rams” against nations like China as the US has done with Ukraine and Georgia (from 2003-2008) vis-à-vis Russia, and the Philippines and the island province of Taiwan the US is using against the rest of China.

    The combination of these approaches constitutes a multidomain war on multipolarism — which is both an admission of the failure of US power and primacy, but still an existential threat to global peace, stability, prosperity, and human progress.

    In the realm of shipbuilding in particular, the US seeks to use the industrial capacity of nations like South Korea and Japan to compensate for its own failing industrial base, attempting to both boost America’s ability to put to sea additional warships, but also maintain and repair those already at sea. Unfortunately, for the US — the combined shipbuilding capacity of itself and its proxies fails to amount to even half of China’s shipbuilding capacity alone.

    The notion the US will leverage “new technologies” to more efficiently build, maintain, and repair ships fails to acknowledge the fact that China will just as easily use these “new technologies” to further enhance its current advantages over the US.

    The only real means by which the US could close the gap in terms of shipbuilding vis-à-vis China would be to cripple or undermine China’s industrial base, and by doing so, its shipbuilding capacity — precisely through targeting the energy empowering China’s industry as well as the economic prosperity underpinning China’s national policies including continued improvement of and investment in its industrial base (including shipyards).

    In other words, if the US cannot outcompete China, nor attack China’s industrial base directly, it seeks to asymmetrically target the global factors China’s growing economic might be being built on — energy and trade — both of which require peace and stability to thrive.

    Only through asymmetrically sabotaging China’s ability to outproduce the US can the US ever hope to narrow the gap in shipbuilding or any other of a vast and growing number of metrics in which China matches or has far surpassed the US in.

    The fear in Washington continues to be that even if the collective remaining power of the US is fully and radically leveraged toward this asymmetrical aggression — it might not only not be enough — it could supercharge China’s efforts to both overcome this asymmetrical aggression — and also collectively unite an increasingly multipolar world in purpose against the US’ pursuit of unwarranted global power.

    Shipbuilding is only one of several metrics in which China has seemingly irreversibly surpassed the US. The fact the US continues seeking the means to reassert its primacy worldwide, especially against China, is not evidence necessarily that the US can succeed — but that through its efforts to attempt to do so — the US continues to pose the greatest danger to peace, stability, prosperity, and human progress on Earth today.

    Not only does China and other productive forces on Earth today need to prevent the US from successfully reasserting unipolar primacy over the planet, it must also successfully prevent the US from destroying the planet in a failed effort to do so.

    Brian Berletic is a Bangkok-based geopolitical researcher and writer.

    https://journal-neo.su/2026/10/17/why-the-us-can-never-match-chinese-shipbuilding/

    October 23, 2026 at 1:25 pm #253893
    Michael Reid
    Participant

    unite an increasingly multipolar world in purpose against the US’ pursuit of unwarranted global power

    October 23, 2026 at 1:27 pm #253894
    tboc
    Participant

    “Twas brillig, and the slithy toves Did gyre and gimble in the wabe: All mimsy were the borogoves, And the mome raths outgrabe.” ~ Lewis Carroll

    “Sometimes I’ve believed as many as six impossible things before breakfast.” ~ Lewis Carroll

    October 23, 2026 at 1:30 pm #253895
    John Day
    Participant

    @Dr. D: Sorry, Bro. Globalists are Trotskyists, not Nazis.
    Carry on… ;-/

    October 23, 2026 at 1:37 pm #253896
    John Day
    Participant

    @Michael Reid: Chinese troops did directly attack American troops during the Korean war. I was not yet born, but my Dad was a USMC Lieutenant at a forward artillery base which could have been overrun, in which case I would not be typing this.
    Yeah, it was a horrible mess and the US should not have been there, and so on…

    October 23, 2026 at 1:44 pm #253897
    John Day
    Participant

    And yes, absolutely, neoliberalism parasitized the productive US economy as a global Ponzi scheme since Paul Volcker ;-(

    October 23, 2026 at 1:47 pm #253898
    John Day
    Participant

    @TBOC: I had a week to memorize a 2 minute poem for Englich class in 5th grade. I didn’t do it. 30 min before class I memorized Jabberwocky, which was almost 2 minutes, but I recited it with some enthusiasm and got full points.
    I still mostly remember it, like the theme song to Gilligan’s Island…

    October 23, 2026 at 1:54 pm #253899
    Michael Reid
    Participant

    Trump is setting in motion a series of events to invalidate and coerce the outcome of the midterms. If he succeeds, the iron doors of fascism will slam shut.

    October 23, 2026 at 3:10 pm #253900
    Michael Reid
    Participant

    From France to Albania, and Oslo to Moscow: a New Architecture Is Required
    Stewart Battle
    By Stewart Battle

    Published Oct 22, 2026

    Updated Oct 23, 2026 · 3 min read

    From France to Albania, and Oslo to Moscow: a New Architecture Is Required
    In opposition to a New Architecture, dozens of Israeli fighter jets flew over 800 miles to the Iranian border on Oct. 19 in an overt provocation clearly aimed at restarting the war. Credit: Israeli Defence Forces Spokesperson’s Unit

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    From France to Albania, and Oslo to Moscow: a New Architecture Is Required

    3 min read
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    When Berlin youth protested the proposed military conscription in Germany earlier this month, one prominent banner had the message: “The rich want war; the youth want a future!” As of January 2026, all German 18-year-olds began receiving questionnaires in the mail about joining the armed forces—to which all males are required to respond. The Chancellor from BlackRock—Friedrich Merz—wants to make Germany home to the largest army in Europe, even as his country suffers from unprecedented price inflation, corporate shutdowns, and economic depression. In a case like this, when reality pushes dogma and opportunism against the wall, what is possible begins to change.

    Similarly, in France, despite efforts to dilute the massive protests with agitators and violent provocateurs, the largely peaceful demonstrations are pointing out the collapsing standards of living and emphasizing the same point: Youth want a future. Now, as France’s bond yields rise and international investors label the country as “risky,” financial gurus in the City of London are demanding that France impose harsh austerity on its population. It has now come out that French Minister of Economics Roland Lescure traveled to London earlier this month “to reassure City investors about France’s financial trajectory,” according to Le Monde. To appease London, the government has proposed a belt-tightening budget for 2027 that aims to cut back on social spending, even though it, too, is engaged in a massive rearmament campaign to allegedly confront Russia. The problem is that, not only will social austerity not work to address the real economic problems of France, but it is exactly the reason why youth protests are currently sweeping the continent!

    Meanwhile, more and larger protests continue to spread across Europe. The political, moral, and literal bankruptcy of its ruling elites could not be more apparent.

    A similar bankruptcy is taking place with regard to the war policies in the West. It has been widely reported that the U.S. and Israel are preparing a new military campaign against Iran, with reports in the Financial Times and New York Times over the recent days warning of such plans. In addition, Axios and Israel’s Channel 12 reported that dozens of Israeli fighter jets flew over 800 miles to the Iranian border on Oct. 19 in an overt provocation clearly aimed at restarting the war. President Trump himself has repeatedly warned that he will restart hostilities against Iran after the midterm elections next month, despite how disastrous the war has already been for the global economy and the U.S.’ international reputation. Rather than create peace, if this policy is continued, it will have disastrous consequences for this region and the whole world.

    In moments such as this, where the absurdity of ruling opinion is so atrocious, don’t be desperate or discouraged—be a force for the truth. It is at periods where the reigning assumptions are failing the most miserably that society is most receptive to new, more truthful ones, and the urgent necessity of a new security and development architecture becomes obvious.

    U.S. independent presidential candidate Diane Sare displayed an example of this type of moral courage in a statement released Oct. 22 on the topic of the upcoming Brazilian elections. “It was never the intention of George Washington, Benjamin Franklin, Alexander Hamilton, or John Quincy Adams that the United States would become a global hegemon,” Sare writes. “Our mission as a republic is to demonstrate through the goodness of our deeds, and the happiness and prosperity of our people, the wisdom of a government founded on the principle of ‘the consent of the governed.’”

    In this context, Sare points out the importance of electing President Lula da Silva in this weekend’s election. “President Lula da Silva was one of the founding members of the Brazil, Russia, India, China partnership (later BRICS) during his earlier presidency in 2006 and 2009, so it is clear that he is dedicated to the principle that nations with very different histories can collaborate for the mutual benefit of mankind, without sacrificing their sovereignty. Brazil, under the leadership of Lula da Silva, would be a natural partner of a United States in seeking to resolve conflicts and work together toward projects of mutual benefit for the human race.”

    Creating these types of “projects of mutual benefit for the human race” is central in the creation of a new architecture to replace today’s dying neocolonial paradigm, and will be taken up in the Friday meeting of the International Peace Coalition. Tune in and be a part of the effort.

    https://eir.news/2026/10/news/from-france-to-albania-and-oslo-to-moscow-a-new-architecture-is-required/

    October 23, 2026 at 3:12 pm #253901
    zerosum
    Participant

    I had to try to find an update of who is running the world

    The Super-Entity That Owns the World
    By Eric Buesing
    Global Research, October 22, 2026
    51 Notes, References
    https://www.globalresearch.ca/super-entity-owns-world/5944273
    ———–
    Eric Daniel Buesing is an independent researcher and the author of
    The Hidden Hand: Wealth, Power, and Control from Pharaohs to Corporations(TrineDay, 2026)
    and
    The Illusion Architects: How Elites Shape Culture, Consciousness, and Reality (TrineDay, 2027).
    For 22 years he has studied elite power structures, mapping the architectures of influence that govern societies, economies, and global institutions, work that builds on the foundations laid by Carroll Quigley and Antony Sutton.
    ———-

    Copilot Search
    Research from the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology (ETH Zurich) shows that a tightly connected “super‑entity” of 147 multinational corporations—mostly financial institutions such as Barclays, JPMorgan Chase, and Goldman Sachs—collectively controls about 40% of global corporate wealth, with a broader group of 737 firms controlling up to 80%.
    Overview
    The idea of a “super‑entity that owns the world” comes from a 2011 network analysis by ETH Zurich researchers. They examined ownership links among 43,060 transnational corporations and found an unusually dense core of interconnected firms dominating global corporate control.
    ————–
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michel_Chossudovsky

    Michel Chossudovsky
    Michel Chossudovsky (born September 8[1] 1946) is a Canadian economist and author. He is professor emeritus of economics at the University of Ottawa[2][3] and the president and director of the Centre for Research on Globalization (CRG), which runs the website globalresearch.ca, founded in 2001, which publishes falsehoods and conspiracy theories.[4][5][6] Chossudovsky has promoted conspiracy theories about 9/11.[7][8][11][12]

    In 2017, the Centre for Research on Globalization was accused by information warfare specialists at NATO’s Strategic Communications Centre of Excellence (STRATCOM) of playing a key role in the spread of pro-Russian propaganda.[13] A report by the U.S. State Department in August 2020 accused the website of being a proxy for a Russian disinformation campaign.[14]

    By the estimation of report’s authors, it has accumulated 12.4 million page views, with around 351,247 readers for each article.

    33 References
    ————-
    Michel Chossudovsky
    https://michelchossudovsky.substack.com/p/super-entity-owns-world
    The Super-Entity That Owns the World
    An analysis by Eric Buesing
    Michel Chossudovsky
    17 hours ago

    —————-
    Claude prepared a report

    Updates to the 2011 ETH Zurich “Super-Entity” Study
    Prepared October 23, 2026, in response to Eric Buesing’s article “The Super-Entity That Owns the World” (Global Research, October 22, 2026)

    Summary
    The original paper (Vitali, Glattfelder & Battiston, PLoS ONE 2011) used Orbis 2007 data. I found no official update or revision of it by the original authors, and I did not see a correction notice, though I did not search specifically for one. The same question has since been asked with newer data by other research groups. The 2011 paper’s central finding still holds: control is concentrated in a small, tightly linked core. The follow-ups suggest the core now looks different, with passive asset managers and states in place of 2007’s banks. They also treat the claim that the core actually coordinates or exercises control as unproven.

    Peer-reviewed follow-ups
    1. Mizuno, Doi & Kurizaki (PLoS ONE 2020 and 2023)
    The closest thing to a direct successor. The 2023 paper uses Orbis data from December 2020, covering about 7 million ultimate owners and 16 million shareholders.
    • 2023 paper: htt ps://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0290229
    • 2020 companion paper: htt ps://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0237862
    Findings that both support and complicate the super-entity story:
    • BlackRock and Vanguard rank at the top among financial institutions. Setting aside the Chinese state entities, they are effectively the second-largest players in the global ownership network.
    • Governments rank higher still. The Chinese government’s aggregate influence score is more than double BlackRock’s, and Norway and Russia also appear among the top 15.
    • The authors say earlier claims about financial institutions’ dominance look overstated once governments are counted.
    • Having the capacity for control does not mean it is used. The authors note that holding power does not necessarily imply shareholders can or do exercise it.

    2. Fichtner, Heemskerk & Garcia-Bernardo, “Hidden Power of the Big Three?” (Business and Politics, 2017)
    Documents the rise of passive index funds and the re-concentration of corporate ownership: htt ps://doi.org/10.1017/bap.2017.6
    Note: I know this paper only through its citation in the 2023 paper above, not by reading it.

    3. Garcia-Bernardo et al., “Uncovering Offshore Financial Centers” (Scientific Reports, 2017)
    Uses Orbis data from 2015 covering about 98 million companies and 71 million ownership relationships. It reuses the Vitali method and finds that offshore financial centers act as conduits and sinks in the global network. Preprint: htt ps://arxiv.org/pdf/1703.03016
    4. Krause, Peixoto & Bornholdt, “Spontaneous centralization of control in a network of company ownerships” (arXiv)
    Shows that a simple model can reproduce the core-periphery structure. The authors say this suggests deliberate strategizing may not be the dominant driver of centralization. I did not confirm journal publication. Preprint: htt ps://arxiv.org/pdf/1306.3422
    What changed since 2007
    • The list of top holders has shifted. The 2007 financial firms (Barclays, Merrill Lynch, Lehman) have been merged away or collapsed. BlackRock and Vanguard now lead.
    • Governments, especially China’s, matter more than the 2011 study could show.
    • Data quality is still a problem. Orbis coverage is incomplete, and the 2023 authors flag this as a key limit. The 2011 study has the same weakness.
    • Definitions of “control” differ between studies, so exact figures such as 147 firms and 40% are not directly comparable across papers.
    Caveats from the original coverage
    • Yaneer Bar-Yam (NECSI) warned in New Scientist that the analysis assumes ownership equates to control, which is not always true.
    • The authors did not claim a conspiracy. They noted there is no example of the core intentionally acting as a bloc, though top holders are positioned to exert considerable control. Glattfelder said global antitrust rules may be needed.
    • The 40% figure refers to control over the operating revenue of the 43,060 transnational corporations in the sample, not 40% of all global wealth.
    Related 2026 developments covered earlier
    • Corporate Transparency Act: FinCEN’s final rule (issued August 11, 2026, effective August 14) permanently exempts domestic companies from beneficial ownership reporting. Customer Due Diligence duties on financial institutions remain, and state laws such as New York’s LLC Transparency Act are not preempted.
    • GAO-26-107967 (May 29, 2026): found the exemption covers over 99 percent of previously covered entities and may perpetuate illicit-finance risks. https://www.gao.gov/products/GAO-26-107967
    • Pass-through voting: Vanguard is adding its flagship 500 Index Fund and S&P 500 ETF to its Investor Choice program in 2026, and BlackRock runs a Voting Choice program.
    Core sources
    • Vitali, Glattfelder & Battiston (2011): htt ps://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0025995
    • Preprint with supporting tables: htt ps://arxiv.org/pdf/1107.5728
    • New Scientist feature (Oct 19, 2011): htt ps://www.newscientist.com/article/mg21228354-500-revealed-the-capitalist-network-that-runs-the-world/
    • Bebchuk & Hirst, “The Specter of the Giant Three”: htt ps://www.ecgi.global/publications/working-papers/the-specter-of-the-giant-three
    • Gilens & Page (2014): htt ps://doi.org/10.1017/S1537592714001595
    • Findley, Nielson & Sharman, “Global Shell Games”: htt ps://thefactcoalition.org/report/global-shell-games-testing-money-launderers-terrorist-financiers-access-shell-companies/
    • Buesing article (Substack copy): htt ps://michelchossudovsky.substack.com/p/super-entity-owns-world
    Suggested next step

    Look for research testing whether index-fund voting actually changes company decisions. That bears directly on the article’s claim about hidden power.
    ———–

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