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Raúl Ilargi Meijer

Debt Rattle April 1 2025

Apr 012025
 
 April 1, 2025  Posted by at 9:59 am Finance Tagged with: , , , , , , , , , , , ,  49 Responses »


Pablo Picasso The sculptor and his statue 1933

 

• Paris Court Finds Le Pen Guilty of Embezzlement of EU Funds (Sp.)
• France’s Le Pen Sentenced To Four Years In Jail (RT)
• Le Pen Conviction ‘A Very Big Deal’ – Trump (RT)
• Le Pen Sentence a ‘Declaration of War by Brussels’ – Salvini (RT)
• Putin Will ‘Follow Through’ On Ukraine Deal – Trump (RT)
• Kiev Looking To Further Delay Elections – Ukrainian Official (RT)
• Convergence Calling (James Howard Kunstler)
• Current Status: FBI Deputy Director Dan Bongino (CTH)
• Transactional Weakness Tips The Balance of Power (Alastair Crooke)
• Deep State Uses NY Times to Announce Its Withdrawal from Ukraine (PCR)
• Trump’s Auto Tariffs Just Got a Huge Endorsement (Margolis)
• Trump Says ‘Couldn’t Care Less’ If Foreign Auto Makers Raise Prices (ET)
• Musk Demolishes Media’s Trump-Dictator Fantasy (Margolis)
• Gold in Hyperdrive in Hyper-Levered House of Cards – Bill Holter (USAW)
• NPR’s CEO Just Made the Best Case Yet for Defunding NPR (Turley)
• Vaccine Stocks Tank, Moderna Craters As FDA Top Regulator Steps Down (ZH)
• Repeat COVID Vaccines Provoke Two Kinds Of Inferior Antibodies (JTN)

 

 

 

 

Elon NGOs

Elon votes

Clients

Jennings

RFK

NYT

 

 

 

 

It’s taking a lot of reading to get an even halfway satisfactory idea of what goes on with Marine Le Pen, who was sentenced to 4 years in jail for embezzlemennt of EU funds yesterday. 2 of the four years are probation, 2 are house arrest. And she can’t run for office for 5 years, with presidential elections coming in 2027.

The penalties cover the period from 2004-2016, when her National Rally (Rassemblement National – RN) had representatives seated in the Euopean Parliament. Which pays parties in that position to cover salaries etc. for assistants. Now a French court determines they did not handle these EU funds properly, 20-odd years ago, they need to pay it back with fines, and she must go to jail.

But RN doesn’t appear to be the only party with similar issues, not even the only French one. So why is this happening, and why now? Every answer provides 5 new questions.

There are strong similarities with Donald Trump’s case in the US (including judges grasping political power), and of course Le Pen is not the only EU politician who is declared ineligible for an election.

We get to choose from pre-selected candidates. That’s not democracy.

She will appeal the decision. That can take a year or more, so a bunch of judges will decide if she will be in time to run, even if she wins the appeal.

• Paris Court Finds Le Pen Guilty of Embezzlement of EU Funds (Sp.)

A court in Paris found Marine Le Pen, the leader of the National Rally faction in the French parliament, guilty of embezzlement of European Parliament funds by hiring fictitious assistants to party members, the judge announced on Monday. “Madame Le Pen has been found guilty of embezzlement of public funds,” the judge said. Another eight other party lawmakers were found guilty, while some 12 party members were found guilty of “hiding information.” According to the court, the damage to the European Parliament is estimated at 2.9 million euros ($3.1 million). The court sentenced Le Pen to four years in prison, including two years on probation.

“The court decided to impose a 4-year prison sentence against Madame Le Pen, two of which are on probation, and two can be commuted. She will also not be able to be elected to public authorities for a term of five years,” the judge said. Le Pen will not go to prison, and will serve her sentence with an electronic bracelet at home, the judge said. Le Pen was also ordered to pay a fine of 100,000 euros ($108,200).

Le Pen and 24 of her party members are accused of allegedly laundering the funds of the European Parliament by allegedly fictitiously hiring assistants to lawmakers. The politicians are accused of “misuse of public funds” of the European Union in the period from 2004 to 2016, and Le Pen is accused of creating a “centralized system” of laundering European Parliament’s money. According to the prosecution, the European Parliament allocated funds to pay for the work of parliamentary assistants to European Parliament lawmakers from Le Pen’s party, although in fact the assistants worked only for the National Rally faction.

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“.. she has accused the EU of mishandling illegal immigration and has criticized its support for Ukraine in the conflict with Russia..”

• France’s Le Pen Sentenced To Four Years In Jail (RT)

A Paris court has sentenced French right-wing politician Marine Le Pen to a four-year jail term, half of which is without parole, in a case involving the embezzlement of EU funds for her National Rally (RN) party. Le Pen has also been barred from running for president in 2027. The verdict on Monday is the culmination of an extended case, in which RN and several of its senior figures were accused of diverting money meant for the offices of European Parliament members towards the national party structure. Le Pen and eight MEPs were found guilty of running the scheme between 2004 and 2016. The five-year ban on participating in elections, which was requested by the prosecution, comes into effect immediately regardless of any appeal process.

The top French constitutional court ruled last week in an unrelated case that such a punishment was legal under the basic law. The court has reportedly allowed Le Pen to serve half of her jail time under home arrest monitored by an ankle bracelet. Others found guilty in the case on Monday were sentenced to serve time in prison, with punishments varying between 12 months and three years. RN president Jordan Bardella denounced the sentence on his X account, calling it “unjust” and amounting to an execution of French democracy. Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban has expressed support for Le Pen, posting “I am Marine” in French and tagging her account on X.

Le Pen stepped down from the RN party leadership in favor of Bardella in 2022, but remains the head of its faction in the National Assembly. Described as “far-right” by her detractors, she has accused the EU of mishandling illegal immigration and has criticized its support for Ukraine in the conflict with Russia, among other policies. As part of the court’s decision, RN was sentenced to seizure of already-confiscated funds and a fine totalling €2 million ($2.2mn).

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“..the prosecution of Le Pen was “particularly concerning, given the aggressive and corrupt lawfare waged against President Trump here in the United States.”

• Le Pen Conviction ‘A Very Big Deal’ – Trump (RT)

US President Donald Trump has said that the criminal prosecution of French opposition leader Marine Le Pen reminds him of his own legal battles under the Biden administration. On Monday, Le Pen, the ex-leader of the conservative National Rally (RN) party, was sentenced to four years in prison, two of which will be suspended, and was barred from holding public office for five years. The embezzlement conviction effectively bars her from the 2027 presidential race. When asked by reporters in the Oval Office about the verdict, Trump replied, “That’s a very big deal.” “I know all about it, and a lot of people thought she wasn’t going to be convicted of anything,” Trump said.

“But she was banned [from] running for five years, and she’s the leading candidate. That sounds very much like this country,” he added. Trump has often claimed that the court cases and investigations into his activities were part of a politically motivated “witch hunt” led by the Biden administration and the Democrats. US State Department spokeswoman Tammy Bruce said earlier that the prosecution of Le Pen was “particularly concerning, given the aggressive and corrupt lawfare waged against President Trump here in the United States.”

According to the prosecutors, Le Pen siphoned off the EU funds intended for covering her staff’s work in the European Parliament to fund the activities of her party in France. She had denied any wrongdoing and dismissed the verdict as “a fatal day for our democracy.” Le Pen’s party holds the highest number of seats in the National Assembly. According to the Ifop poll published in Le Journal du Dimanche on Sunday, between 34% and 37% of those surveyed said they planned to vote for Le Pen in 2027, which is more than 10 points ahead of her nearest rival, former Prime Minister Edouard Philippe. Le Pen ran for president three times, placing second in 2017 and 2022.

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“Le Pen has been a prominent critic of NATO’s policies in Eastern Europe and has opposed Ukraine’s accession to the military bloc. She has also advocated against the EU’s anti-Russia policies.”

• Le Pen Sentence a ‘Declaration of War by Brussels’ – Salvini (RT)

Italian Deputy Prime Minister Matteo Salvini has condemned the verdict against French presidential hopeful Marine Le Pen as “a declaration of war by Brussels.” Le Pen has been sentenced to four years in prison on embezzlement charges and barred from running for public office for five years, including an upcoming presidential election in 2027.In a post on X on Monday, Salvini compared the outcome of the trial in Paris to the recent barring of independent candidate Calin Georgescu in Romania.”Those who fear the judgment of the voters often find reassurance in the judgment of the courts,” Salvini said. “A bad film that we are also seeing in other countries such as Romania.”

Georgescu, a critic of NATO, the EU, and aid to Ukraine, won an unexpected first-round victory in last year’s election. The results were promptly annulled by Romania’s Constitutional Court, citing funding irregularities. Georgescu was subsequently barred from running in the election rerun scheduled for May 2025.Salvini called the ruling against Le Pen “a declaration of war by Brussels, at a time when the warlike impulses of Von der Leyen and Macron are frightening.” He was apparently referring to the push by European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen to militarize the EU and proposals by French President Emmanuel Macron to deploy troops to Ukraine. Le Pen, the leader of the National Rally party (RN), was convicted of embezzling over €4 million from the European Parliament from 2004 to 2016. She received a four-year prison sentence, with two years suspended, and a five-year ban from holding public office, effectively disqualifying her from the 2027 presidential election.

Le Pen has been a prominent critic of NATO’s policies in Eastern Europe and has opposed Ukraine’s accession to the military bloc. She has also advocated against the EU’s anti-Russia policies. In the 2022 presidential election, she advanced to a runoff against Macron, securing around 41.5% of the vote. Earlier this year, polls suggested that Le Pen would secure 61% of the vote against her main rival in the upcoming presidential election. The conviction of Le Pen and the disqualification of Georgescu occur amid an emergence of political movements across the EU opposed to the bloc’s policies. A number of French and foreign politicians have condemned the court’s ruling as undemocratic.

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Got to get a deal first.

• Putin Will ‘Follow Through’ On Ukraine Deal – Trump (RT)

US President Donald Trump has said his Russian counterpart, Vladimir Putin, would honor his part of a potential peace agreement on the Ukraine conflict. At the same time, Trump warned Kiev against backing out of a rare-earth minerals deal with the US. Speaking to reporters on Monday, the US leader repeated that he aims to end the conflict between Russia and Ukraine as soon as possible, adding that he “want[s] to make sure that he [Putin] follows through” on any peace deal. “I think he will. I don’t want to go secondary tariffs on his oil, but I think it’s something I would do if I thought he wasn’t doing the job,” Trump stated. He expressed hope that Ukraine’s Vladimir Zelensky would also uphold his end of the bargain, but rebuked him for apparent attempts to renegotiate the rare-earths deal which would grant the US access to Ukraine’s mineral deposits.

While Trump has portrayed the deal as a way for Ukraine to pay back past US assistance, Zelensky has insisted that Kiev owes Washington nothing. “We made a deal for rare earths. It was all done. They’re now saying, ‘Well, I’ll only do that deal if we get into NATO or something to that effect,’” Trump said. He insisted that NATO membership for Ukraine was “never… discussed,” suggesting that the issue was the likely reason for the escalation of hostilities between Moscow and Kiev in 2022.Trump earlier threatened Zelensky with “big problems” if he rejects the rare-earths deal. The Ukrainian leader, however, has said that “the framework [of the agreement] has been changed” from what he was willing to sign during a meeting with Trump in late February.

On that occasion, the pair’s White House meeting turned into a heated clash, with Trump accusing Zelensky of ingratitude and “playing with World War III” over what he perceived as reluctance to make a deal with Russia. At the same time, Trump said on Sunday that he was “very angry” with Putin’s proposal to place Ukraine under a temporary UN-led administration to organize new elections. Russia has long insisted that Zelensky is an “illegitimate” leader, given that his presidential term expired in May 2024. Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov has said Moscow and Washington are exploring several ideas aimed at resolving the Ukraine conflict, adding that Putin is open to any contact with Trump. Russia maintains that the conflict could be settled if Ukraine commits to bloc neutrality and demilitarization, and recognizes the territorial reality on the ground.

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“Ukraine needs changes to legislation governing election procedures before it can choose its next president and parliament..”

• Kiev Looking To Further Delay Elections – Ukrainian Official (RT)

Ukraine needs changes to legislation governing election procedures before it can choose its next president and parliament, Central Election Commission Chair Oleg Didenko has said. In an interview with the news outlet Ukrainskaya Pravda published on Monday, Didenko argued that it would be impossible to hold elections immediately after martial law is lifted, despite constitutional requirements. Ukrainian leader Vladimir Zelensky’s presidential term expired in May 2024, yet he has remained in office and refused to hold elections, citing the martial law introduced in 2022 due to the conflict with Russia. Parliamentary elections, also due last year, have been indefinitely postponed for the same reason. Under current legislation, voting must be announced within a month of martial law ending, with parliamentary elections held within 60 days and presidential elections within 90.

“Is this [time] enough to prepare for the elections? If we are talking about voting that will be democratic and will meet the standards, then probably not… We need much more time to prepare for the post-war elections,” Didenko argued. “We need to adopt a law on the specifics of holding post-war elections,” he stated. Didenko declined to give a timeline, citing multiple challenges: the state of the budget, territorial realities, voter registration for millions displaced or living abroad, election sequencing, and infrastructure. The official noted that the CEC plans to propose an additional voting day and more polling stations abroad. He also floated the idea of electronic or mail voting but said both face cybersecurity risks.

The CEC is drafting a proposal for post-war election legislation to present to parliament, Didenko stated. He did not give a timeframe but said any new voting mechanism must first be approved by lawmakers. Kiev’s delay in holding elections has drawn criticism from both Moscow and Washington. US President Donald Trump last month called Zelensky “a dictator without elections.” Moscow considers the absence of elections in Ukraine a barrier to peace talks, as there is no clear way to sign any agreements, including a potential peace deal to end the conflict, with Kiev, because its current leadership lacks legitimacy. Russian President Vladimir Putin recently proposed that the UN establish a temporary external administration in Ukraine to facilitate elections and enable legitimate negotiations.

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“The current conflict between Europe and America is not reducible towards contrasting approaches towards Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.” —Frank Furedi on Substack

• Convergence Calling (James Howard Kunstler)

You’re going to see what a truly consequential span of weeks, looks like, as Western Civ goes into full churn on April’s doorstep. Remember, TS Eliot called it the “cruelest month.” Too many uncomfortable things are converging, too many ongoing operations are unwinding, too many tensions are breaking. The conclusion of “Joe Biden’s” Ukraine War fiasco looms. You can tell because The New York Times published a gigantic piece Sunday detailing how the Pentagon and the CIA actually ran all of Ukraine’s tactical operations out of a base in Wiesbaden, Germany — after building a colossal Ukraine war machine post our 2014 color revolution in Kiev. Since the very start of the hot war in 2022, we did all the targeting for the weapons we gave them and planned their every move. What a surprise! (Not.)

The motive behind all that, as conceived by US neo-cons and NATO neo-morons, was to “weaken” Russia, bust it up, and seize its resources. All the sanctions piled on only induced Russia into an import-replacement campaign that actually strengthened its economy, while the war led to a revolution in Russian war-fighting tactics and advanced weaponry. Now, the whole thing is ending in Ukraine’s defeat and the West’s humiliation. The Times could have published this in 2023-24, but it would have been a major embarrassment for “Joe Biden” and his shadow managers moving into the election. They put it out just now because the jig is up and the paper desperately needs to pretend that it’s ahead of events to preserve the last shreds of its credibility. Mr. Trump, the uber-realist, knows that the Russians are going to roll up in Ukraine this spring and there is increasingly not much that can be done about that, except to try to put the best face on it — which is, that it wasn’t his war.

As long as the coke freak Zelensky remains in charge, Ukraine will be negotiation-unworthy, as the Russian phrase goes. So, US-Russia peace talks were largely diplomatic showbiz. Both Putin and Mr. Trump were painfully aware of this, and hence, Mr. Trump’s latest performative bluster about “more sanctions” will probably not amount to anything. And also hence, the synchronized idiocy on display in France, Germany, and the UK. They were all-in on the neo-con scheme that is now falling apart and its failure has driven them plumb crazy. As the US drops out of the stupid proxy war, they declare their intention to take it from here and go beat-up Russia. Their war-drums are teaspoons beating on so many quiches.

Soon-to-be chancellor Friedrich Merz proposes an 800-billion-Euro debt spree to finance the re-arming of Germany, which, just now, is utterly incapable of war. He is insane. German industry is collapsing from a lack of affordable natural gas (as arranged by “Joe Biden” blowing up the Nord Stream pipelines, danke schön). Turning Volkswagen factories to missile production will not help the German people one bit. It probably will remind them about the Weimar hyper-inflation, though. Mr. Trump, the uber-realist, knows that the Russians are going to roll up in Ukraine this spring and there is increasingly not much that can be done about that, except to try to put the best face on it — which is, that it wasn’t his war. As long as the coke freak Zelensky remains in charge, Ukraine will be negotiation-unworthy, as the Russian phrase goes.

So, US-Russia peace talks were largely diplomatic showbiz. Both Putin and Mr. Trump were painfully aware of this, and hence, Mr. Trump’s latest performative bluster about “more sanctions” will probably not amount to anything. And also hence, the synchronized idiocy on display in France, Germany, and the UK. They were all-in on the neo-con scheme that is now falling apart and its failure has driven them plumb crazy. As the US drops out of the stupid proxy war, they declare their intention to take it from here and go beat-up Russia. Their war-drums are teaspoons beating on so many quiches.

Soon-to-be chancellor Friedrich Merz proposes an 800-billion-Euro debt spree to finance the re-arming of Germany, which, just now, is utterly incapable of war. He is insane. German industry is collapsing from a lack of affordable natural gas (as arranged by “Joe Biden” blowing up the Nord Stream pipelines, danke schön). Turning Volkswagen factories to missile production will not help the German people one bit. It probably will remind them about the Weimar hyper-inflation, though. Macron pledges to put French boots on the ground in Ukraine. Ain’t gonna happen. Today, his stooge judiciary found political rival Marine LePen guilty of a Mickey Mouse offense in order to bar her from running against him in the next election. Ain’t gonna work. He will provoke the biggest national uprising since the Bastille.

His government will be too busy putting down French Revolution 2.0 to play war games in history’s graveyard of armies. Maybe he’ll try nukes. I’m sure that’ll work — if you’re eager to see Russian hypersonic “hazelnuts” rain down on the Île-de-France. And then, there is the amazing idiot PM Keir Starmer in the UK, calling on his “coalition of the willing” to step up and intervene in the lost cause that is Ukraine. How many hands went up on that call? For practical purposes, the Brits have no war-fighting capacity whatsoever, and no resources for generating such capacity. And, anyway, they are facing some dreadful combo of a civil war / internal jihad against their own indigenous population, plus an economic collapse cherry-on-top.

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Lawyer “sundance” doesn’t think Patel and Bongino have what it takes.

• Current Status: FBI Deputy Director Dan Bongino (CTH)

Kash Patel and Dan Bongino both fail to understand the severity of the compromise underneath them. Hence the “95% honorable” quote by Patel recently. The core issue is that institutional corruption is the status of the FBI. That is challenging to deal with and simply cannot be addressed (in any reasonable timeframe, or effect) from the top of the leadership pyramid. The various downstream field offices of the same institution (there are hundreds) will keep Patel/Bongino flush with busy work and positive investigative outcomes for them to announce on television. [see VA recently] That approach purposefully satiates a reviewing audience yet leaves the process under them without oversight.

Corrupt FBI officials continue operations as needed (influence selling, evidence burying, pay-to-play investigative outcomes, DC monitoring, money laundering, trafficking, drugs and generally willful blindness to their outside group partners) and simultaneously push specific attention-grabbing info up the ladder toward leadership offices in DC. [As decades of top-down corruption took over, it slowly permeated the field offices. Most of the really good FBI officials; those who did not want to follow a path paved with the need to join the internal corruption; took up FBI positions in foreign countries. The good guys, the SMEs are overseas now, having long left the domestic rank and vile behind them.] Kash Patel and Dan Bongino would likely make excellent FBI special operation compliance officers and internal auditors. That’s where the real impact can be delivered [think Elliot Ness approach].

However, as leaders of the institution, the function of their role – as outwardly prestigious as it might seem, essentially isolates them with busy work. They must assign the role of compliance and audit review below them, to the same internal silo operators who have previously been identified as working within a corrupted institution. You might note that Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent noticed this need very quickly, because he was/is a subject matter expert in large institutional leadership. Bessent has experience, Patel and Bongino do not. Secretary Bessent hired/promoted/moved the IRS whistleblowers into strategic position; to become the heads of an internal compliance and audit team, reporting almost exclusively to Bessent himself. Bongino and Patel would have been good in similar roles within the FBI organization. However, as heads of the agency they can affect very little operational change.

Yes, they can steer the ship, but it is the chief engineer who determines the speed of the vessel. The mechanics within the FBI will simply control the speed and wait out the leadership. Kash and Dan will then play a long game of whac-a-mole, removing each identified agent stalling as they are discovered. This will take more years than they have. Contrast that FBI approach (Patel, saying everyone is awesome) with Treasury (Bessent, saying there’s an institutional problem here), and you will understand the visible absence of accountability. So far, the duo has not publicly admitted the severity of the corruption they sit atop; let alone announce a plan to deal with it. Ergo the intellectually honest person who understand the silo operations, only expect soundbites and pretenses.

Or, think of the problem like President Trump and Elon Musk (DOGE) to the total executive branch. President Trump is the tip-top of the silo. Elon Musk and DOGE are the compliance/audit officers, reviewing each agency – taking action and reporting back to the principal, President Trump. Both President Trump and Elon Musk are familiar leading massive organizations (high competence, high motivation). However, even with their incredible large institutional skillset, both Trump and Musk need to break down the responsibilities using DOGE. Musk hires highly competent highly motivated DOGE members to do the actual compliance and audits. Again, Kash Patel and Dan Bongino do not possess the same executive leadership skills (they are low competence, high motivation). The pair of FBI directors need high-direction and high-support to overcome their competency challenge.

If the institutional corruption within the FBI was being addressed, we would not need to be told the institutional corruption within the FBI was being addressed. We would be able to visibly see it. Ex. If Treasury was saying 95% of IRS employees were honorable and good, Secretary Bessent would not be removing tens-of-thousands of IRS agents. The FBI reportedly has around 48,000 agents/employees. Step one begins as President Trump, Elon Musk and Scott Bessent each noted. First, admitting there’s an institutional problem. Patel and Bongino are denying they have an institutional problem. I/We want to see Kash Patel and Dan Bongino succeed. However, it takes large system executive leadership skills to execute any effective reform strategy. Patel and Bongino would be excellent compliance officers, unfortunately that’s not the role they have been assigned to. That’s the problem.

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“Hold to no illusions: There is nothing beyond this reality …”.

““Sanctions are neither temporary nor targeted measures; they constitute a mechanism of systemic, strategic pressure against our nation.”

• Transactional Weakness Tips The Balance of Power (Alastair Crooke)

The post-WWII geo-political outcome effectively determined the post-war global economic structure. Both are now undergoing huge change. What remains stuck fast however, is the general (Western) weltanschauung that everything must ‘change’ only for it to stay the same. Things financial will continue as before; do not disturb the slumber. The assumption is that the oligarch/donor class will see to it that things remain the same. However, the power distribution of the post-war era was unique. There is nothing ‘forever’ about it; nothing inherently permanent. At a recent conference of Russian industrialists and entrepreneurs, President Putin highlighted both the global fracture, and set out an alternate vision which is likely to be adopted by BRICS and many beyond. His address was, metaphorically speaking, the financial counterpart to his 2007 Munich Security Forum speech, at which he accepted the military défie posed by ‘collective NATO’.

Putin is now hinting that Russia has accepted the challenge posed by the post-war financial order. Russia has persevered against the financial war, and is prevailing in that too. Putin’s address last week was, in one sense, nothing really new: It reflected the classic doctrine of the former premier, Yevgeny Primakov. No romantic about the West, Primakov understood its hegemonic world order would always treat Russia as a subordinate. So he proposed a different model – the multipolar order – where Moscow balances power blocs, but does not join them. At its heart, the Primakov Doctrine was the avoidance of binary alignments; the preservation of sovereignty; the cultivation of ties with other great powers, and the rejection of ideology in favour of a Russian nationalist vision.

Today’s negotiations with Washington (now narrowly centred on Ukraine) reflect this logic. Russia isn’t begging for sanctions relief or threatening anything specific. It is conducting strategic procrastination: waiting out electoral cycles, testing Western unity, and keeping all doors ajar. Yet Putin is not adverse either to exerting a little pressure of his own – the window for accepting Russian sovereignty of the four eastern oblasts is not forever: “This point can also move”, he said. It is not Russia racing ahead with the negotiations; quite the reverse – it is Trump who is racing ahead. Why? It appears to hark back to the American attachment to Kissinger-esque triangulation strategy: Subordinate Russia; peel away Iran; and then peel Russia from China. Offer carrots and threaten to ‘stick’ to Russia, and once subordinated in this way, Russia might then be detached from Iran – thus removing any Russian impediments to an Israel-Washington Axis attack on Iran.

Primakov, were he here, likely would be warning that Trump’s ‘Big Strategy’ is to tie Russia into subordinate status quickly, so that Trump can continue the Israel normalisation of the entire Middle East. Witkoff has made Trump’s strategy very plain: “The next thing is: we need to deal with Iran … they’re a benefactor of proxy armies … but if we can get these terrorist organisations eliminated as risks … Then we’ll normalise everywhere. I think Lebanon could normalise with Israel …That’s really possible … Syria, too: So maybe Jolani in Syria [now] is a different guy. They’ve driven Iran out … ImagineImagine if Lebanon … Syria … and the Saudis sign a normalisation treaty with Israel … I mean that would be epic!” U.S. officials say the deadline for an Iran ‘decision’ is in the spring … And with Russia reduced to supplicant status and Iran dealt with (in such fantastical thinking), Team Trump can turn to the main adversary – China.

Putin, of course, understands this well, and duly debunked all such illusions: “Set illusions aside”, he told delegates last week: “Sanctions and restrictions are today’s reality – together with a new spiral of economic rivalry already unleashed …”. “Hold to no illusions: There is nothing beyond this reality …”. “Sanctions are neither temporary nor targeted measures; they constitute a mechanism of systemic, strategic pressure against our nation. Regardless of global developments or shifts in the international order, our competitors will perpetually seek to constrain Russia and diminish its economic and technological capacities …”. “You should not hope for complete freedom of trade, payments and capital transfers. You should not count on Western mechanisms to protect the rights of investors and entrepreneurs … I’m not talking about any legal systems – they just don’t exist! They exist there only for themselves! That’s the trick. Do you understand?!”.

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“Trump can end the conflict by ceasing to participate. There is no reason for bureaucrats and emissaries to hold endless negotiations.”

• Deep State Uses NY Times to Announce Its Withdrawal from Ukraine (PCR)

Last Saturday the New York Times completely abandoned the official narrative of the Ukraine Conflict, thus overturning the apple cart full of lies. Jeff Childers gives us the gist of the New York Times abandonment of the ruling lie. https://www.coffeeandcovid.com/p/narrative-whiplash-sunday-march-30. What is the explanation? My guess is that the Deep State has decided to abandon the conflict and is most likely the author of the Times’ article. The purpose of the article is to set up Zelensky as the scapegoat who caused the war to be lost and to get rid of him so that the conflict can be brought to an end.

These paragraphs show the purpose: It was going according to plan, the Times sadly said, “until it wasn’t.” The problem wasn’t the Russians, the Americans, or even the slowly draining numbers of trained Ukrainian military forces. No, the problem was one spotlight-hogging Vladimir Zelenskyy. With two y’s, for you’ve got to be kidding me, squared. “Zelensky was hoping to attend the United Nations General Assembly,” the Times reported. “A showing of progress on the battlefield would bolster his case for additional military support. So the Ukrainians upended the plan at the last minute — a preview of a fundamental disconnect that would increasingly shape the arc of the war.”

Childers’ translation: Zelensky started making his own decisions —ones not approved by the Americans— and the war began unraveling. A few of us have known from day one that the Ukraine conflict was Washington’s war run out of Wiesbaden. The questions are: Why didn’t Putin know, and if he did know why didn’t he do anything? Now that the New York Times has admitted that the conflict in Ukraine was America’s war with Russia disguised as Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, a war that, as I have often said, Trump has no stake in, Trump can end the conflict by ceasing to participate. There is no reason for bureaucrats and emissaries to hold endless negotiations. Trump simply declares the war is over. Let’s hope Trump and Putin have the wits to see this.

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United Auto Workers (UAW).

• Trump’s Auto Tariffs Just Got a Huge Endorsement (Margolis)

United Auto Workers (UAW) President Shawn Fain, who backed Kamala Harris in last year’s election, just delivered the most significant endorsement yet of President Donald Trump’s tariffs on foreign-made automobiles. Defying the left’s narrative, Fain called the tariffs a necessary tool to bring manufacturing jobs back to the United States. Speaking on CBS’s “Face the Nation,” Fain agreed with Trump trade adviser Peter Navarro’s assessment that American auto plants are operating at only 60% capacity, which leaves plenty of room to ramp up production domestically. “He’s spot on,” Fain said, citing the example of Stellantis, which recently laid off 2,000 workers in Warren, Mich., after shifting Ram truck production to Mexico. “They could shift that work back in very short order and be producing Ram trucks right back there and put those people back to work.”

Fain also pointed to Volkswagen, which he called “the biggest violator of all” for its reliance on Mexican production. “Seventy-five percent of their production for the North American market is made in Mexico, so they can shift product there overnight,” he said, emphasizing that American plants can absorb that production. Recalling World War II, Fain argued that America has successfully repurposed its manufacturing base before. “The way that we formed the Arsenal of Democracy that won the war was, they took the excess capacity of all the automotive manufacturing plants in the country and produced tanks and planes and bombs and engines and all those things,” he said. “And it’s no different right now.”

“And Shawn, for people who are listening to you, how do tariffs make that happen?’ asked Major Garrett. “What is the relationship between a 20 or 25% tariff and getting that capacity back up to where you’d like to see it?” When asked how tariffs would help restore domestic auto production, Fain said they would serve as a deterrent against offshoring. “Well, because, like everything, the companies abuse the process,” he said. “They’re in the pursuit of driving a race to the bottom.” He referenced Ross Perot’s warning in 1992 about the “giant sucking sound” of jobs leaving under NAFTA, adding, “He was spot on.”

Fain noted that 90,000 manufacturing plants have closed in the past 30 years, including 65 facilities belonging to the Big Three automakers. He cited ongoing threats to move production from Wisconsin’s John Deere plant and Pennsylvania’s Mack Truck facility to Mexico. “Tariffs are a tool in the toolbox,” Fain said. “They’re not the end-all solution. We have to fix the broken trade system. But the way tariffs work, I mean, it’s a motivator, because there’s going to be a penalty for everything the companies ship in here, and I’ve had companies tell us, point blank, that they’re going to have to bring product back here if those tariffs are implemented.”

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“..I hope they raise their prices, because if they do, people are going to buy American-made cars. We have plenty.”

• Trump Says ‘Couldn’t Care Less’ If Foreign Auto Makers Raise Prices (ET)

President Donald Trump said on March 29 that he did not ask automotive CEOs to avoid raising prices in response to sweeping tariffs and that he “couldn’t care less” if they do so on foreign-made cars. The Trump administration is poised to levy 25 percent tariffs on all foreign-made automobiles and components on April 2, with temporary exceptions given to companies that import vehicles or parts under the United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement (USMCA) until the government creates a process for applying those duties, according to the White House. Trump made the comments in a Saturday phone interview with NBC News. He was asked about his recent message to automotive industry executives and whether he warned them against raising prices. “The message is congratulations, if you make your car in the United States, you’re going to make a lot of money. If you don’t, you’re going to have to probably come to the United States, because if you make your car in the United States, there is no tariff,” Trump said, adding that he never told them not to raise prices.

“No, I never said that. I couldn’t care less if they raise prices, because people are going to start buying American-made cars,” he said. “I couldn’t care less. I hope they raise their prices, because if they do, people are going to buy American-made cars. We have plenty.” The president emphasized that he wasn’t concerned about car prices increasing. “No, I couldn’t care less, because if the prices on foreign cars go up, they’re going to buy American cars,” Trump said. Following the interview, one of the president’s aides clarified to NBC that Trump was specifically talking about an increase in foreign car prices. The Epoch Times has requested a full transcript of the call from NBC. Trump also said the 25 percent tariffs on foreign cars and components would be permanent.

“Absolutely, they’re permanent, sure. The world has been ripping off the United States for the last 40 years and more. And all we’re doing is being fair, and frankly, I’m being very generous,” he said. Set to take effect on April 2, which he has referred to as “Liberation Day,” the tariffs will also hit a variety of other consumer goods. Trump said on Saturday that he prefers to not further delay the implementation of those tariffs, but he would consider negotiations “only if people are willing to give us something of great value. Because countries have things of great value, otherwise, there’s no room for negotiation.” The Trump administration has said its goal with the tariffs is to promote American manufacturing and equalize the nation’s trade deficit worldwide.

Read more …

“Maybe we need to add some more history lessons back in schools,” Musk said. “Do they know what Hitler, Mussolini, and Stalin did? It seems they don’t.”

• Musk Demolishes Media’s Trump-Dictator Fantasy (Margolis)

Elon Musk headlined a town hall in Green Bay, Wisc., on Sunday evening, just days before Wisconsin voters decide a pivotal state Supreme Court race. During the event, Musk underscored his opposition to activist judges by signing two $1 million checks to supporters of an online petition against judicial overreach. Wearing a Wisconsin cheesehead, which he later autographed and tossed into the crowd, Musk used the event to highlight the stakes in the election between conservative candidate Brad Schimel and Democrat-backed Susan Crawford. During his speech, he also sharply criticized the media’s treatment of President Trump, calling out the absurdity of comparisons between Trump and some of history’s most notorious dictators. Musk argued that such hyperbole reveals both a political agenda and a fundamental failure in historical education.

“They’ve called President Trump every name in the book,” Musk said. “I think there was one article that called the president worse than Hitler, Mussolini, and Stalin combined.” Musk dismissed such comparisons as not only ridiculous but also factually indefensible. “Uh, actually, President Trump has not killed anyone,” he said. “In fact, he’s very good at stopping wars — not starting them.” Musk’s comments reflect a growing frustration with the left-wing media’s efforts to demonize Trump, often with exaggerated and unfounded claims. The idea that leftists could equate Trump with mass-murdering dictators, Musk suggested, exposes a serious lack of historical knowledge among those making these arguments. “Maybe we need to add some more history lessons back in schools,” Musk said. “Do they know what Hitler, Mussolini, and Stalin did? It seems they don’t.”

Musk argued that this ignorance is not accidental but rather a consequence of a broken education system that fails to properly teach history. He placed much of the blame on the Department of Education and accused it of pushing a politicized curriculum that leaves students with a skewed understanding of world events. “It’s just indicative of the poor quality of education pushed by the National Department of Education,” Musk said. He went on to call for a return to state control over education, arguing that bureaucrats in Washington have hijacked the system to promote ideological agendas rather than genuine learning. “That’s why we want to restore freedom to the states — let the states decide on the educational agenda and not have something pushed by a bunch of neo-Marxists in D.C.,” Musk said.

Conservatives have long sought to decentralize education and empower parents and local governments to have a greater say in what children are taught. Trump signed an executive order earlier this month to begin dismantling the Department of Education. “After 45 years, the United States spends more money on education by far than any other country and spends, likewise, by far, more money per pupil than any country,” Trump said. “And it’s not even close. But yet we rank near the bottom of the list in terms of success.”Trump added, “Seventy percent of eighth graders are not proficient in either reading or in math.” Even more troubling, “Forty percent of fourth graders lack even basic reading skills, can’t read.” He noted that public school students today perform worse in reading than when the Department of Education was created.

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“DOGE is basically exposing that the United States is corrupt and a shitty place to do business.”

• Gold in Hyperdrive in Hyper-Levered House of Cards – Bill Holter (USAW)

Precious metals expert and financial writer Bill Holter has long said there is a long list of financial trouble coming to America. DOGE (Department of Government Accountability)has put the financial reckoning for massive debt and fraud into hyperdrive. Gold smells big trouble with another new record high just last week. Gold is in hyperdrive in an economic hyper-levered house of cards. Holter explains, “Gold is now considered a Tier 1 asset, but more importantly, gold cannot bankrupt. I think big money is looking at the financial system and understanding that it is a hyper-levered house of cards or Ponzi scheme. Sovereign Treasuries from across the world can and, highly likely, will default in some cases.

Gold and silver cannot default. Gold and silver are money. This fiat experiment started off with dollars, European currencies, the yen, etcetera. They were derivatives of gold. . . . They have had several suppression schemes to keep the price down, and they desperately have to keep the price of silver down because if silver runs, gold is going to follow. High and rising gold process are basically a vote of no confidence by the international community.” Don’t underestimate how disruptive DOGE cutting fraud and waste will be on the economy. Holter points out, “The last time we interviewed, we talked about DOGE and all of this slush money being paid out. Look at the 14 magic money machines that Elon Musk has found. All this money being spewed into the economy registers as GDP.

So, if you shut those spigots off, you are shutting off the money, and the real economy slows down. There is less cash flow from that. The real danger, and I am not so sure it is by accident, is this Trump’s idea of pulling the plug? I have to believe he understands that by cutting the spending or cutting the capital that is going into the system, with the system as leveraged as it is right now, it’s going to take everything down. What you are doing is cutting off new money to the Ponzi scheme, and no Ponzi scheme can survive without continually getting new money coming into it.” Holter also says, “The United States was considered for years and years the safe haven because of its pristine rule of law. When you pull the curtain back and everything is rotten, confidence breaks.

You are not going to have money moving into the US for safe haven status. You are going to have money leaving the United States. It’s not just the money that is not going to hit the streets because of DOGE, but mentally because of the corruption they are exposing. DOGE is basically exposing that the United States is corrupt and a shitty place to do business.” In closing, Holter says, “DOGE revealing that they just pay money out of thin air is a huge problem. You can’t do the math if you don’t have good numbers. . . . If we can glean that they are going to cut $500 billion or $1 trillion or $2 trillion and we can figure out that is a problem for the real economy and the financial markets, don’t you think the people running the show know that? That tells me they are purposely pulling the rug out from under the system. It’s game over.”

Read more …

“Ironically, Fox News is more diverse than NPR and has more Democratic viewers than CNN or MSNBC..”

• NPR’s CEO Just Made the Best Case Yet for Defunding NPR (Turley)

“This is NPR.” Unfortunately for National Public Radio, that proved all too true this week. In one of the most cringeworthy appearances in Congress, Katherine Maher imploded in a House hearing on the public funding of the liberal radio outlet. By the end of her series of contradictions and admissions, Maher had made the definitive case for ending public funding for NPR and state-subsidized media. Many of us have written for years about the biased reporting at NPR. Not all of this criticism was made out of hostility toward the outlet — many honestly wanted NPR to reverse course and adopt more balanced coverage. That is why, when NPR was searching for a new CEO, I encouraged the board to hire a moderate figure without a history of political advocacy or controversy.

Instead, the board selected Katherine Maher, a former Wikipedia CEO widely criticized for her highly partisan and controversial public statements. She was the personification of advocacy journalism, even declaring that the First Amendment is the “number one challenge” that makes it “tricky” to censor or “modify” content as she would like. Maher has supported “deplatforming” anyone she deems to be “facsists” and even suggested that she might support “punching Nazis.” She also declared that “our reverence for the truth might be a distraction [in] getting things done.” As expected, the bias at NPR only got worse. The leadership even changed a longstanding rule barring journalists from joining political protests.

One editor had had enough. Uri Berliner had watched NPR become an echo chamber for the far left with a virtual purging of all conservatives and Republicans from the newsroom. Berliner noted that NPR’s Washington headquarters has 87 registered Democrats among its editors and zero Republicans. Maher and NPR remained dismissive of such complaints. Maher attacked the award-winning Berliner for causing an “affront to the individual journalists who work incredibly hard.” She called his criticism “profoundly disrespectful, hurtful, and demeaning.” Berliner resigned, after noting how Maher’s “divisive views confirm the very problems at NPR” that he had been pointing out. For years, NPR continued along this path, but then came an election in which Republicans won both houses of Congress and the White House. The bill came due this week.

Much of NPR’s time to testify was exhausted with Maher’s struggle to deny or defend her own past comments. When asked about her past public statements that Trump is a “deranged, racist sociopath,” she said that she would not post such views today. She similarly brushed off her statements that America is “addicted to White supremacy” and her view that the use of the words “boy and girl” constitute “erasing language” for non-binary people. When asked about her past assertion that the U.S. was founded on “black plunder and white democracy,” Maher said she no longer believed what she had said. When asked about her support for the book “The Case for Reparations,” Maher denied any memory of ever having read the book. She was then read back her own public statements about how she took a day to read the book in a virtue-signaling post.

She then denied calling for reparations, but was read back her own declaration: “Yes, the North, yes all of us, yes America. Yes, our original collective sin and unpaid debt. Yes, reparations. Yes, on this day.” She then bizarrely claimed she had not meant giving Black people actual money, or “fiscal reparations.” When given statistics on the bias in NPR’s hiring and coverage, Maher seemed to shrug as she said she finds such facts “concerning.” The one moment of clarity came when Maher was asked about NPR’s refusal to cover the Hunter Biden laptop story. When first disclosed, with evidence of millions in alleged influence-peddling by the Biden family, NPR’s then-managing editor Terence Samuels made a strident and even mocking statement: “We don’t want to waste our time on stories that are not really stories, and we don’t want to waste the listeners’ and readers’ time on stories that are just pure distractions.”

Now Maher wants Congress to know that “NPR acknowledges we were mistaken in failing to cover the Hunter Biden laptop story more aggressively and sooner.” All it took was the threat of a complete cutoff of federal funding. In the end, NPR’s bias and contempt for the public over the years is well-documented. But this should not be the reason for cutting off such funding. Rather, the cutoff should be based on the principle that democracies do not selectively subsidize media outlets. We have long rejected the model of state media, and it is time we reaffirmed that principle. (I also believe there is ample reason to terminate funding for Voice of America, although that is a different conversation.) Many defenders of NPR would be apoplectic if the government were to fund such competitors as Fox News. Indeed, Democratic members previously sought to pressure cable carriers to drop Fox, the most popular cable news channel. (For full disclosure, I am a Fox News legal analyst.)

Ironically, Fox News is more diverse than NPR and has more Democratic viewers than CNN or MSNBC. Berliner revealed that according to NPR’s demographic research, only 6 percent of its audience is Black and only 7 percent Hispanic. According to Berliner, only 11 percent of NPR listeners describe themselves as very or somewhat conservative. He further stated that NPR’s audience is mostly liberal white Democrats in coastal cities and college towns. NPR’s audience declined from 60 million weekly listeners in 2020 to just 42 million in 2024 — a drop of nearly 33 percent. This means Democrats are fighting to force taxpayers to support a biased left-wing news outlet with a declining audience of mainly affluent white liberal listeners.

Compounding this issue is the fact that this country is now $36.22 trillion in debt, and core federal programs are now being cut back. To ask citizens (including the half of voters who just voted for Trump) to continue to subsidize one liberal news outlet is embarrassing. It is time for NPR to compete equally in the media market without the help of federal subsidies. If there was any doubt about that conclusion, it was surely dispatched by Maher’s appearance. After years of objections over its biases, the NPR board hired a CEO notorious for her activism and far-left viewpoints. Now, Maher is the face of NPR as it tries to convince the public that it can be trusted to reform itself. Her denials and deflections convinced no one. Indeed, Maher may have been the worst possible figure to offer such assurances. That is the price of hubris and “this is NPR.”

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“Peter Marks—a top FDA regulator and pro-vaxxer..”

• Vaccine Stocks Tank, Moderna Craters As FDA Top Regulator Steps Down (ZH)

Vaccine stocks tumbled in the early U.S. cash session after Peter Marks—a top FDA regulator and pro-vaxxer—abruptly resigned on Friday. Wall Street analysts view Marks’ departure as a bearish signal for vaccine stocks, such as Moderna, Novavax, BioNTech, and others, which already face mounting headwinds, including a wave of layoffs expected at the Department of Health and Human Services. Moderna puked at the open, down 12% in early trading, while the SPDR S&P Biotech ETF sank 2%. Other makers of vaccine stocks plunged, including Novavax -10% and BioNTech -5.8%. Moderna shares are also down 95% from peak Covid highs.

Bloomberg provided color on Marks’ role and how his departure is bearish for the industry: As the leader of the FDA’s Center for Biologics Evaluation and Research, Marks was a key figure in the quick approvals of Covid vaccines during the pandemic. Along with shots, he was responsible for the agency’s evaluation of cutting-edge treatments such as cell and gene therapies. In his resignation letter, Marks cited friction with the views of Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., a longtime vaccine critic. “I was willing to work to address the Secretary’s concerns regarding vaccine safety and transparency,” he said. “However it has become clear that truth and transparency are not desired by the Secretary, but rather he wishes subservient confirmation of his misinformation and lies.”

Analysts—including BMO Capital Markets’ Evan David Seigerman—view the departure as a “significant negative” for the biotech and biopharma sectors. “It’s no secret that Biotech has been under immense pressure recently given broader macro issues, this unfortunate update does nothing to reassure investors or provide relief,” Seigerman told clients, adding that gene and cell therapy companies are under pressure given Marks’ relationship with many of them. Here’s further analyst insight into the change of guard at the FDA in the era of Robert F. Kennedy Jr. running the Department of Health and Human Services (courtesy of Bloomberg):

William Blair, Matt Larew: “Expects in the space could weaken further given that Marks “was a cheerleader for innovation in biotech and strong supporter of new modalities”. Says Marks’s departure and the recently announced HHS cuts stack on top of “an unsettlingly large pile of news flow in the space year-to-date that creates uncertainty for funding, regulatory and approval processes, and supply chains”. Adds that the steady stream of negative news flow “has simply been too much for stocks in the space to overcome

RBC Capital Markets, Brian Abrahams: Says the news is not good for the biotech industry even beyond vaccines, as Marks had been a key advocate for more flexible, efficient approval processes for drugs particularly those for orphan diseases such as gene therapies. “We expect some weakness for biotech as uncertainty continues to be perpetuated”. Truist, Joon Lee: Says news of the resignation could put some pressure on companies whose drugs are currently, or planned to be, under review by the FDA’s Center for Biologics Evaluation and Researc Last week, Bloomberg reported that leaked documents reveal the Trump administration plans to slash $28 billion in global health initiatives—including funding cuts to Bill Gates’ vaccine alliance, Gavi.

https://twitter.com/liz_churchill10/status/1906368113592893525?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1906368113592893525%7Ctwgr%5E312b7553902375ec8d728fda6389ba2d59746f7b%7Ctwcon%5Es1_c10&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.zerohedge.com%2Fmarkets%2Fvaccine-stocks-tank-after-fda-biologics-head-abruptly-steps-down-era-rfk-jr

Read more …

We could have known this years ago.

• Repeat COVID Vaccines Provoke Two Kinds Of Inferior Antibodies (JTN)

As the Trump administration winds down the National Institutes of Health’s devotion to increasing COVID-19 vaccine uptake, expanding mRNA technology and policing purported wrongthink, its incoming director – dubbed a “fringe epidemiologist” by a predecessor – will have no shortage of supportive research to call upon. Spanish scientists documented a second so-called class switch in people with “repeated” mRNA COVID jabs, meaning their bodies start churning out two kinds of antibodies that learn to live with infection rather than destroy it, not just the IgG4 antibodies observed in prior studies. “IgG4 is primarily involved in regulatory functions, and is associated with immune tolerance and chronic antigen exposure,” while IgG2 targets “polysaccharide antigens” and “has received less attention” in the context of weakening immune response to COVID, they wrote this month in the British Infection Association’s Journal of Infection.

“Here, we show that higher levels of IgG4 and IgG2, as well as higher proportions of non-cytophilic [nonbinding] to cytophilic antibodies, following booster vaccination, are associated with a heightened risk of SARS-CoV-2 breakthrough infection.” IgG1 and IgG3 antibodies, by contrast, are better at activating immune system reactions to neutralize COVID, though the researchers caution that IgG2 and IgG4 “may also help prevent severe COVID-19 by mitigating inflammation-driven pathology.” German scientists also took a glass-is-half-full approach in a study published earlier this week in the European Molecular Biology Organization’s Molecular Systems Biology. The University of Cologne researchers found that at least two consecutive mRNA jabs “induce a highly dynamic and persistent training of innate immune cells enabling a sustained pro-inflammatory [neutralizing] immune response,” but cautioned it’s unknown whether they lead to “long-term alterations of innate immune cells with corresponding epigenetic alterations.”

Even before Stanford medical professor Jay Bhattacharya’s Senate confirmation as director this week, NIH’s attitude toward mRNA technology had reportedly turned. Unnamed researchers told Kaiser Family Foundation Health News mid-month that NIH officials were urging them to remove mRNA references from grant applications.

A National Cancer Institute senior official said acting Director Matthew Memoli asked staff to report mRNA grants, contracts or collaborations to the White House and Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy’s office – the same thing Memoli did before NIH canceled vaccine hesitancy studies, KFF Health News said. The morning Bhattacharya was confirmed – he hadn’t been sworn in as of late Friday – NIH told staff in an email titled “URGENT” to compile grants and contracts related to “fighting misinformation or disinformation … any form of censorship at all or directing people to believe one idea over another related to health outcomes,” STAT News reported. The email, which asked for responses by noon Wednesday, gave examples such as contracts to promote vaccine uptake and public health messages about the “dangers of Covid or not wearing masks,” STAT said, though the medical news organization falsely claimed it was Bhattacharya’s “first day” until investigative journalist Paul Thacker fact-checked it.

The Kennedy-founded Children’s Health Defense said Thursday its Freedom of Information Act requests revealed which grants and contracts were likely on the chopping block, some of which concerned pushing HPV vaccines on adolescents with resistant parents. Prompted by NewsNation host Chris Cuomo, Kennedy said Thursday that NIH would continue a Biden administration-created division “devoted to studying long COVID,” but also that HHS was “incorporating an agency within” the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention “that is going to specialize in vaccine injuries,” which is Kennedy’s long-term concern. The CDC’s Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices is meeting in mid-April to review data and vote on recommendations, following an unexplained February postponement. The agency recently added a page to its website on advisers’ conflicts of interest.

Read more …

 

 

 

 

Soon Shiong – Clear the virus

 

 

Dive

 

 

Reunite

 

 

Rain

 

 

Donkey

 

 

Owl

 

 

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

 

 

 

 

 

Debt Rattle March 31 2025

Mar 312025
 
 March 31, 2025  Posted by at 10:01 am Finance Tagged with: , , , , , , , , , ,  29 Responses »


Keith Haring Untitled 1984

 

• Trump and Putin Could Bring Peace to the World (Paul Craig Roberts)
• Trump Teases New Putin Call – NBC (RT)
• Trump ‘Very Angry’ & ‘Pissed Off’ At Putin, Threatens New Tariffs (ZH)
• Kremlin Blasts EU For ‘Not Wanting Peace’ As It Refuses To Ease Sanctions (ZH)
• Baltic States Fear Ukraine Ceasefire – FT (RT)
• Zelensky Has Plan To Take Out Election Rivals – Economist (RT)
• Diplomat Explains Putin’s Proposal For Temporary Ukraine Administration (RT)
• Inside President Trump’s Ambitious Policy Strategy (Devlin)
• Trump Inks $100 Million Deal With Skadden Law Firm (ET)
• ‘100%’ US Gets Greenland – Trump (RT)
• Trump Says He Is ‘Not Joking’ About Running for 3rd Presidential Term (ET)
• Interest Costs On US Debt To Exceed Economic Growth By 2045 (JTN)
• Biden Admin Accused of Burying Conflicting Climate Change Report (Turley)
• The Party That Woke Broke (Suzanne Bowdey)
• What Made America Great In The Gilded Age (Loyola)

 

 

 

 

Elon Ukr

40 years

Big election in Wisconsin tomorrow

DOGE SS

Leavitt

Tesla

 

 

 

 

“..we could enter a golden era of peace. Of course, the military-security complex would assassinate both Trump and Putin. Nevertheless, I believe both would risk it if only they could think of it.”

• Trump and Putin Could Bring Peace to the World (Paul Craig Roberts)

England and France, American puppet states for decades until the advent of Trump 2, are visibly at work disrupting Trump’s effort to reach a deal with Putin that ends the conflict in Ukraine. The Russian Defense Ministry said that the second strike on the Sudzha pipeline infrastructure in Russia’s Kursk Region last Friday, which completed the destruction of the facility, was the work of Britain and France. According to the Russian Defense Ministry, the targeting and navigation of the American HIMARS missiles (missiles Biden said he would not give to Zelensky but did) was provided by France. British specialists input the target coordinates and the launching command came from London.

What explains two American puppet states working against the United States government? Is it another CIA operation against Trump? Is it the US military-security complex paying the British and French governments to keep the profitable (for the US military-security complex) conflict going? Is it the Israeli-backed US Zionist neoconservatives continuing their efforts to diminish Russia’s influence in world affairs? Whatever is the answer, the Russian Foreign Ministry has no better idea than I do. The spokeswoman, Zakharova, blames Zelensky for failing to observe the negotiated agreement that both sides cease attacking the other’s energy infrastructure. Russia agreed to Trump’s proposal as a way of protecting nuclear power plants, the destruction which could be deadly for large numbers of civilians in Russia, Ukraine, and Europe.

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov blamed the Ukrainian military for not following Zelensky’s orders. It is a mystery how Zakharova and Peskov can continue to describe the situation as a Ukrainian issue when the two nuclear-armed (armed by Washington) NATO countries, Britain and France, are at work undermining the Trump-Putin peace negotiations. If Trump and Putin were in the league with the great strategists in history, what would they do to bring this clown act to an end? They would announce a military alliance. Putin can have Ukraine, the Baltics and as much of Europe as he wants. Trump will take Canada, Greenland, and Panama. No one on earth could do anything about this.

Putin does not want Ukraine, the Baltics, or Europe. He only wants Russia to be left alone and to engage freely with the countries that comprise the world. What Trump really wants, we don’t yet know. But a Trump-Putin alliance would establish dominion over the rule of earth, Israel included. Israel’s agenda of Greater Israel could easily be deep-sixed, Israel’s nuclear weapons destroyed, and justice given to the Palestinians. Israel would be reduced, instead of expanded, in boundary, and the Jews could use their talent for business to make the Middle East a prosperous area of the world.

President Trump seems to have the idea that the pursuit of mutual interests in business is far superior to the pursuit of war. Putin has shown himself to be the least combative of leaders of powerful countries. If only Trump and Putin could realize that a US-Russia military alliance would establish peace in the world, no more NATO, no more CIA overthrowing governments, no more propaganda about false news threats, we could enter a golden era of peace. Of course, the military-security complex would assassinate both Trump and Putin. Nevertheless, I believe both would risk it if only they could think of it.

Read more …

“..he was “very angry” and “pissed off” about Putin’s statements about the legitimacy of Ukraine’s Vladimir Zelensky..”

• Trump Teases New Putin Call – NBC (RT)

US President Donald Trump has said he may have another phone call with Russian President Vladimir Putin in the coming days, NBC News reported on Sunday. Trump and Putin last spoke over the telephone on March 18 and agreed to work toward a peaceful end to the Ukraine conflict. Following the call, Russia and Ukraine carried out a prisoner swap and agreed to a partial ceasefire, although Moscow claims that Kiev has repeatedly broken it since. In an interview with NBC news on Sunday, Trump said the two presidents plan to speak again this week. The US president also stated he will sanction Russia if he considers that it is to blame in the event a ceasefire in the Ukraine conflict fails.

“If Russia and I are unable to make a deal on stopping the bloodshed in Ukraine, and if I think it was Russia’s fault – which it might not be – but if I think it was Russia’s fault, I am going to put secondary tariffs on oil, on all oil coming out of Russia,” he was quoted as saying. He added that he was “very angry” and “pissed off” about Putin’s statements about the legitimacy of Ukraine’s Vladimir Zelensky. In a speech on Thursday, Putin said that because Zelensky has not held elections, both he and the officials he has appointed have no legitimacy. The Ukrainian leader’s presidential term expired last May. Neo-Nazi units such as the notorious Azov are now effectively beginning to run Ukraine, empowered by continued Western military support, he emphasized.

The repeated Ukrainian ceasefire violations show that officials in Kiev no longer have control over the country’s military, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said on Friday. Putin and Trump had their first call on February 12 in what was the first time that the leaders of Russia and the US had spoken in years. This was followed by two rounds of high-level talks between Russian and American delegations in Saudi Arabia. Additional discussions have also been held in Istanbul, focusing on diplomatic funding and a proposal from Moscow to reinstate direct flights between the two countries. Peskov said on Thursday that the next conversation between Trump and Putin had not yet been planned.

Read more …

“Trump’s attacking Putin for denouncing Zelensky as illegitimate will surely not be taken as a very serious critique by the Kremlin, given the irony of Trump himself not too long ago having himself blasted Zelensky as a “dictator without elections”.”

• Trump ‘Very Angry’ & ‘Pissed Off’ At Putin, Threatens New Tariffs (ZH)

Why should Russia’s refusal to make big concessions come as any surprise to either the White House or mainstream media, given Russian forces are clearly steadily gaining on the battlefield? In a phone interview with NBC on Sunday, President Donald Trump said, “if Russia and I are unable to make a deal on stopping the bloodshed in Ukraine, and if I think it was Russia’s fault — which it might not be — but if I think it was Russia’s fault, I am going to put secondary tariffs on oil, on all oil coming out of Russia.” Trump went on to say he’s “very angry” and “pissed off” particularly at President Vladimir Putin’s attacking the legitimacy of Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky’s and his leadership:

“I was very angry, pissed off” when Putin “started getting into [Ukrainian President Volodymyr] Zelensky’s credibility” and “started talking about new leadership” in Ukraine, Trump told NBC’s Kristen Welker in a phone call. Trump said that Putin’s comments on Zelensky are “not going in the right location.” This was in reference to a Friday plan pitched by Putin for a “transitional administration” for Ukraine under the auspices of the UN. The immediate aim would be ceasefire leading toward “democratic” election, followed by the negotiation of a peace agreement with the new authorities.

“We could, of course, discuss with the United States, even with European countries, and of course with our partners and friends, under the auspices of the UN, the possibility of establishing a transitional administration in Ukraine,” Putin said while visiting the northwestern Russian city of Murmansk. He laid out that “we could discuss the possibility of introduction of temporary governance in Ukraine,” while Ukraine holds “democratic elections, to bring to power a capable government that enjoys the trust of the people.” After this, he explained, the two warring sides would “start talks with them about a peace treaty.” Putin has in the recent past complained that Zelensky is ‘illegitimate’ and thus can’t legally be negotiated with, since he has canceled democratic elections on an indefinite basis.

So Trump has clearly brushed this aside in the new Sunday comments… However, Trump’s attacking Putin for denouncing Zelensky as illegitimate will surely not be taken as a very serious critique by the Kremlin, given the irony of Trump himself not too long ago having himself blasted Zelensky as a “dictator without elections”. Trump confirmed to NBC that he will speak again with his Russian counterpart this week. Russia has indicated that the question of the Black Sea ceasefire is still being negotiated, and is awaiting the removal of sanctions on agricultural exports which necessitates specific banks being reconnected to the Swift payment system. But Europe has that no, it won’t go along with any plan which results in easing sanctions.

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War gives Brussels access to unlimited funds. That they themselves vote for. Re-armament, threat of Putin conquering all of Europe.

In case of peace, no such money flows.

• Kremlin Blasts EU For ‘Not Wanting Peace’ As It Refuses To Ease Sanctions (ZH)

Moscow has blasted the European Union’s declaration that it will not lift sanctions on Russia in the context of the US-backed Black Sea ceasefire deal. The Russian side has made clear that for the deal to be implemented the West must remove sanctions from the state-owned Rosselkhozbank as a precondition. “An integral part of the Black Sea deal is the lifting of sanctions on a Russian bank,” Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters in reference to the primary financial entity overseeing Russian agricultural products. “If European countries don’t want to go down this path, it means they don’t want to go down the path of peace in unison with the efforts shown in Moscow and Washington,” he added. Rosselkhozbank has remained cut off from the SWIFT financial messaging network due to EU sanctions, and Russia is seeking immediate reconnect if peace is to be secured in the Black Sea.

European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen explained at the end this week, “The sanctions are very significant; they are painful; they have an impact on the Russian economy, and they represent a powerful lever.” So clearly Europe is not ready to let go of this ‘power lever’. Von der Leyen made clear that the sanctions “will remain in effect until a just and lasting peace is established in Ukraine.” But she did also say that “when the war is over, the sanctions might be removed.” Other European leaders have echoed this viewpoint, for example with German Chancellor Olaf Scholz calling sanctions relief a “grave mistake” which “makes no sense” without a ceasefire first. The Zelensky government too stands against the easting of anti-Russia sanctions.

The Kremlin has further described that Europe is actively blocking Trump’s good-faith efforts to establish peace, and that this is ultimately behind the EU’s refusal to lift sanctions. Russian sources have meanwhile pointed out that Russia is still thriving despite the West’s record number of sanctions on the country. Trump admin is increasingly openly clashing with the EU on the Black Sea deal…

https://twitter.com/FiorellaIsabelM/status/1905033950084370863?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1905033950084370863%7Ctwgr%5E551bca574affbef7d0775d8124338bc30c8af20c%7Ctwcon%5Es1_c10&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.zerohedge.com%2Fgeopolitical%2Fkremlin-blasts-eu-not-wanting-peace-it-refuses-ease-sanctions

“Earlier this week, President Vladimir Putin asserted that the Russian economy has become the fourth largest in the world in purchasing power parity terms after those of China, the US and India, despite a record 28,595 sanctions being placed on it by Washington, Brussels and their allies,” wrote RT. “According to the Russian government’s data, the country’s economy grew 4.1% in 2024, surpassing the official forecast of 3.9%,” the same report said.

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Another way of saying the same thing; peace is a bigger threat than war.

• Baltic States Fear Ukraine Ceasefire – FT (RT)

The Baltic nations believe a ceasefire in the Ukraine conflict would increase the security threat they face, the Financial Times has reported, citing the defense ministers of the countries. In recent weeks, a 30-day pause on strikes against energy infrastructure by Moscow and Kiev has been agreed upon, while there have been moves toward reviving the Black Sea grain deal as part of efforts to find a diplomatic solution to the conflict. The FT said in an article on Sunday that “a full ceasefire is still seen as far off,” but officials in Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania, who have been among the most vocal backers of Ukraine in the EU and NATO since the escalation between Moscow and Kiev in February 2022, are already concerned that it might be achieved at some point.

“We all understand that when the war in Ukraine will be stopped, Russia will redistribute its forces very quickly. That means also the threat level will increase significantly very quickly,” Estonian Defense Minister Hanno Pevkur told the outlet. Pevkur claimed that Moscow could redeploy 300,000 troops from the contact line with Ukraine to Russia’s western borders once a ceasefire takes effect. Meanwhile, the Estonian defense minister rejected a plan by the UK and France to send a so-called “reassurance force” made up of Western European soldiers to Ukraine after the fighting stops. “We cannot jeopardize the security of the eastern flank of NATO. We cannot fall into the trap that our forces are somehow fixed in Ukraine. Then we will have risks at our border,” he explained.

The article also cited Lithuanian Defense Minister Dovile Sakaliene, who said earlier this week that “Russia will use this time following a ceasefire to speed up its military capabilities. They already have a huge, battlefield-trained army, which is going to get even bigger.” “Let us not have any illusions. Let us not lie to ourselves that Russia is going to be done after Ukraine,” she said. Russian President Vladimir Putin has repeatedly dismissed claims that Moscow has any aggressive plans towards NATO as “nonsense” that is meant to scare the European population and justify increases in military spending. US President Donald Trump’s special envoy, Steve Witkoff, who met with Putin at the Kremlin earlier this month, told American journalist Tucker Carlson last week that Russia is “100% not” interested in invading NATO countries. Suggesting that Moscow harbors such plans is “preposterous,” according to Witkoff.

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How to say Azov without saying Azov. Problem is, Zelensky will not be accepted as winner.

• Zelensky Has Plan To Take Out Election Rivals – Economist (RT)

Vladimir Zelensky and his team have begun laying the groundwork for a summer presidential election in Ukraine in order to “catch rivals off guard” and be reelected before the fragmented opposition has a chance to regroup, The Economist reported, citing senior government sources. Zelensky’s five-year presidential term expired in May 2024, but he refused to call new elections, citing martial law. Russian President Vladimir Putin has repeatedly questioned Zelensky’s legitimacy, arguing that his status prevents him from signing legally binding documents, including a peace deal with Moscow. US President Donald Trump once referred to Zelensky as a “dictator without elections.” According to the Economist article published on Sunday, Zelensky “called a meeting last week to task his team with organising a vote after a full ceasefire, which the Americans believe they could impose by late April.”

A senior government source claimed that Zelensky intends to move quickly to reduce electoral competition by giving potential rivals little time to prepare and virtually “run unopposed.” The source justified the move by saying, “a long campaign would tear the country apart.” Zelensky claimed in an interview last month that the “population is against elections,” arguing that holding a vote would undermine the country’s defense posture. “If we suspend martial law, we will lose the army,” he said. The Ukrainian parliament is set to vote on whether to extend martial law for another 90 days before it expires on May 8. Most sources cited by The Economist expect Zelensky to push for a summer election, with early July cited as the earliest possible date under Ukraine’s 60-day minimum campaign law.

Former Ukrainian President Pyotr Poroshenko, described by the outlet as “a sworn foe” of Zelensky, predicted that elections could take place “any time from August to October.” Poroshenko claimed the campaign had already de facto begun in February, when Zelensky placed him under sanctions in an attempt to write off his candidacy and dissuade former commander-in-chief Valery Zaluzhny from challenging him.Zelensky’s sanctions also targeted exiled Ukrainian opposition leader Viktor Medvedchuk. Medvedchuk led the Opposition Platform – For Life party, formerly the second-largest faction in the Ukrainian parliament, until his arrest in April 2022. The party was later banned, and Medvedchuk was transferred to Russia in a prisoner exchange in September 2022.

Putin has claimed that Zelensky has “absolutely no chance” of winning a fair election due to his low approval ratings, “unless something is grossly rigged.” An internal poll last month suggested that Zelensky would be defeated by Zaluzhny 30% to 65%, as many Ukrainians are “clearly frustrated with their war leader.” Critics also say that a fair election would require dismantling censorship and ending government control over media coverage. In 2022, Kiev introduced what it called the United News TV telemarathon – a 24/7 joint information program produced by the country’s major media outlets – while cracking down on alternative narratives viewed as pro-Russia propaganda.

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Medvedev: “The nit is illegitimate. There’s nothing to respect him for. He failed, his people are dying, and his country is disappearing.”

• Diplomat Explains Putin’s Proposal For Temporary Ukraine Administration (RT)

Russian President Vladimir Putin’s proposal to establish a temporary international administration in Ukraine under UN supervision is based on historical precedents, according to Kirill Logvinov, who heads the Foreign Ministry’s Department of International Organizations. He told TASS on Sunday that the UN already has experience with this process. Moscow has repeatedly stated that it is not possible to sign a peace agreement with Kiev because the current Ukrainian leadership lacks legitimacy. Vladimir Zelensky’s presidential term expired in May 2024, though he has remained in office without holding elections, citing martial law.

Putin suggested earlier this week that creating “external management or temporary administration” under the UN could facilitate elections in Ukraine and provide a legitimate foundation for negotiations. A peace deal signed with a newly elected leader, he said, “would be recognized around the world” and could not be overturned later. There is no formal mechanism for creating such administrations in the UN,” Logvinov acknowledged. However, he noted that the UN has established transitional authorities in several post-conflict areas, including Cambodia, East Timor, and Eastern Slavonia, setting a precedent for this type of arrangement. “In all cases, the first step was reaching an agreement between the parties to the conflict – directly or through intermediaries – on the appropriate transfer of powers to the UN,” he explained.

Once an agreement is reached, the parties or their mediators would then submit a formal appeal to the UN. The Security Council would instruct the secretary-general to prepare a framework for the temporary administration, including a timeline and budget. Logvinov stressed that the final decision rests with the UN Security Council following a report by the secretary-general outlining the form and functions of the proposed administration. Officials in Kiev have rejected the idea. Andrey Kovalenko, the head of Ukraine’s Center for Countering Disinformation, claimed on Telegram that the plan is an attempt by Moscow to delay peace talks.

Washington has not formally commented on the proposal. However, Reuters quoted an unnamed White House national security spokesperson who said Ukraine’s governance should be determined by its constitution and people. UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres dismissed the proposal on Friday, insisting that “Ukraine has a legitimate government, and so obviously that must be respected.” Former Russian President Dmitry Medvedev, currently the deputy chair of the Russian Security Council, criticized Guterres’ remarks, calling them a “double lie.” Referring to Zelensky in a post on X, he said: “The nit is illegitimate. There’s nothing to respect him for. He failed, his people are dying, and his country is disappearing.”

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“It is catastrophic for [Congress] to not act and to let individual judges nullify laws nationwide in a preliminary postur..,”

• Inside President Trump’s Ambitious Policy Strategy (Devlin)

President Donald Trump’s pace since returning to the White House has surprised the president’s friends, perhaps even more than his enemies. On the 66th day of his administration, Trump signed the 100th executive order of his second term, breaking FDR’s record of 99 executive orders in the first 100 days. While Trump plows ahead, the leftist lawfare complex that once sought to imprison the president is attempting to handcuff his second term by filing more than 130 lawsuits against the administration. As a deputy assistant to the president and Trump senior policy strategist, May Mailman is one of those administration staffers tasked with executing President Trump’s game plan. She sat down for a special episode of “The Signal Sitdown” filmed at the White House. “I think actually the president’s speed has always been this fast,” Mailman said of the offensive posture of the administration. It has always been, ‘I need this, I need this, let’s go, let’s go, let’s go.’”

Mailman said this strategy emerged during the transition to ensure that on Day One, President Trump was keeping his promises. “Everything that he said he was going to do on Day One, we’re going to do on Day One. So there was just that capturing of promises and making sure that that was executed.” The added advantage to the strategy? The president’s opponents are caught off guard: “They can’t keep up if you just keep executing,” Mailman said. The second Trump administration’s personnel, she suggested, are reflecting the dynamism coming from the Oval Office. “I think what you’re seeing with personnel this time is people who are oriented toward action. And so a lot of people are oriented towards process, they’re oriented toward contemplation, they’re oriented toward a lot of other things. But these people? They want to get things done.”

In this administration, “a staffer recognizes that we are here to execute the president’s agenda,” Mailman said. “That is your job, and you should do it smart, and you should do it right, and you should ask questions, and you should do it in a way that’s not idiotic, but your job is to execute.” But, as a four-year veteran of the first Trump White House, Mailman didn’t anticipate coming back to the White House in 2025. “I wasn’t going to do it, but then I worked on the transition and there was so much momentum,” Mailman told The Daily Signal. “So how could you not? And so here we are.”Nevertheless, the administration’s opponents would like nothing more than to kill the president’s momentum. That much has been made clear by the more than 130 lawsuits, an overwhelming majority of them filed by leftist groups, against the administration. Some activist judges are granting these leftist groups injunctions blocking Trump policies.

“The lawfare has been alarming,” Mailman said. “The number, I think, is probably to be expected [because] everybody loves to fundraise off of this,” Mailman explained. “The problem is what happens next… If the Supreme Court continues to allow nationwide injunctions, which is before any trial, before any evidence, before any final legal determination… I think it will forever harm the standing of the judiciary in the minds of the American public.” Part of solving the problem of rogue judges lies with Congress. It’s not only the executive branch being challenged by the judiciary, either. Mailman argued, “the Legislature [is] seeing their laws just get totally shredded by the judiciary,” as well.

Now, Republicans on Capitol Hill are currently weighing impeachment, investigations, and legislation, among other potential solutions. “It is catastrophic for [Congress] to not act and to let individual judges nullify laws nationwide in a preliminary posture,” Mailman said. “And they need to carve back this power if they care at all about their own power.” “The Legislature kind of needs to think about that as an institution,” she told The Daily Signal. “Do we care about the people? Because … when judges take over, who loses? The people.”

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“$100 million in pro bono legal services..”

• Trump Inks $100 Million Deal With Skadden Law Firm (ET)

A prominent Wall Street law firm has struck a deal with the White House to provide $100 million in pro bono legal services. Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom LLP will dedicate the services to causes supported by both the firm and the Trump administration, including assisting veterans and other public servants, ensuring fairness in the U.S. justice system, and combating anti-Semitism. The firm also committed to funding at least five law graduates under a fellowship dedicated to supporting the causes each year and employing merit-based hiring practices, vowing not to deny representation to members of politically disenfranchised groups. This deal comes as President Donald Trump has, in recent weeks, issued executive orders targeting multiple major legal firms, directing government agencies to revoke their security clearances and terminate contracts.

While Trump has not issued one against Skadden, the deal seems to be a way to prevent that from happening. “This was essentially a settlement,” President Donald Trump said in announcing the deal at a White House event. “We appreciate Skadden’s coming to the table. As you know, other law firms have likewise settled the case. And … what’s gone on is a shame.” A White House statement explained that Skadden had approached Trump about its “strong commitment to ending the weaponization of the justice system and the legal profession.” Jeremy London, the firm’s executive partner, said the two parties worked “constructively” to reach an agreement. “The firm looks forward to continuing our productive relationship with President Trump and his administration. We firmly believe that this outcome is in the best interests of our clients, our people, and our firm,” London said.

News of the agreement came just hours after two other law firms, WilmerHale and Jenner & Block, sued the president for ordering the retraction of their security clearances and the termination of their government contracts.
In WilmerHale’s case, Trump cited the firm’s employment of former special counsel Robert Mueller and his aides as one of the top reasons for the move. Mueller “wielded the power of the Federal Government to lead one of the most partisan investigations in American history,” Trump wrote in the executive order, referring to Mueller’s investigation of claims Trump colluded with Russia to influence the 2016 presidential election. Those claims proved to be unfounded.

Jenner, on the other hand, hired Andrew Weissmann, Mueller’s top prosecutor. In separate legal actions filed in the District of Columbia, the two firms accused the administration of punishing its political opposition and asked the court to find Trump’s orders unconstitutional. Paul Weiss, another Wall Street law firm, brokered a deal with the White House last week to provide $40 million in free legal services for mutually supported causes. In return, the administration revoked an order similar to those targeting Jenner and WilmerHale.

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The art of the deal incoming. Patience.

• ‘100%’ US Gets Greenland – Trump (RT)

US President Donald Trump has said he is sure that Washington will take over Greenland and that he has already had “absolutely” real conversations about annexing the Danish autonomous territory. “We’ll get Greenland. Yeah, 100%,” Trump told the US broadcaster NBC in a phone interview on Saturday. There is a “good possibility that we could do it without military force,” he stated, adding that he would not “take anything off the table.” According to the American president, the annexation of Greenland is an issue of “international peace” and “international security and strength.” When asked what message the move would send to the rest of the world, Trump stated: “I don’t really think about that. I don’t really care.”

A video shared by Trump earlier this week claimed that the island was threatened by “Russian aggression” and “Chinese expansion.” The clip stated that the partnership between Greenland and the US “is not just history. It is destiny.” Russian President Vladimir Putin said on Thursday that “Russia has never threatened anyone in the Arctic.” The interview came just a day after US Vice President J.D. Vance visited the resource-rich Arctic territory. During his stay, he accused Denmark of doing a poor job for the people of Greenland. “I think that you’d be a lot better coming under the United States’ security umbrella than you have been under Denmark’s,” he said while visiting a US base on the island.

Trump initially proposed buying the Danish autonomous territory during his first term in 2019 and has reignited the discussion after returning to office. He has since repeatedly promised to make the island a part of the US, arguing that it is needed for security purposes. The American president’s statements have drawn an angry reaction from Copenhagen. Danish Defense Minister Troels Lund Poulsen stated this week that such actions were not appropriate for a close ally and were only “escalating tensions.” He also accused Trump of going “too far.” Danish MP and Defense Committee Chairman Rasmus Jarlov warned in mid-March that the US’ aspirations to annex the island could lead to a war between NATO nations. Greenland’s prime minister, Mute B. Egede, also denounced what he called “aggressive pressure” by the US.

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“..Trump was asked about why he wants to continue to be president, which Welker described is “the toughest job in the country.” “Well, I like working,” replied Trump, who would be 82..”

• Trump Says He Is ‘Not Joking’ About Running for 3rd Presidential Term (ET)

President Donald Trump on Sunday said that he is “not joking” about recent talk of him potentially seeking a third term in office, although such a move would likely face significant legal hurdles. “A lot of people want me to do it,” Trump told NBC News on Sunday morning. “But, I mean, I basically tell them we have a long way to go, you know, it’s very early in the administration.” When asked about whether he is serious or joking about the third term comments, Trump said, “I’m not joking.” “It is far too early to think about it,” he said, adding elsewhere in the interview that he is “focused on the current” term in office.

Since taking office, Trump has, on multiple occasions, suggested that he wants to run for a third term, which could pose a legal challenge, because the 22nd Amendment of the U.S. Constitution states “no person shall be elected to the office of the President more than twice.” That amendment was ratified in 1951 after President Franklin D. Roosevelt was elected four consecutive times. Roosevelt was the only president in U.S. history to be elected to either a third or fourth term.

Days after Trump took office in January, Rep. Andy Ogles (R-Tenn.) proposed an amendment to the Constitution that could allow presidents to be elected for three terms. However, amending the Constitution would require two-thirds of Congress members to vote for its approval, which would then have to be ratified by three-fourths of state Legislatures. Explaining why he would want to seek a third term, Trump said that, “You have to start by saying, I have the highest poll numbers of any Republican for the last 100 years.” “We’re in the high 70s in many polls, in the real polls, and you see that. And, and you know, we’re very popular,” Trump said. When asked about how he could be elected to a third term, Trump told NBC News there might be ways to do so.

NBC’s Kristen Welker then provided him with a hypothetical situation: “Well, let me throw out one where President Vance would run for office and then would, basically … if he won, at the top of the ticket, would then pass the baton to you.” In response, Trump said, “Well, that’s one. But there are others, too. There are others.” “Can you tell me another?” Welker asked Trump. “No,” he said. The 12th Amendment, which was ratified in 1804, says that “no person constitutionally ineligible to the office of President shall be eligible to that of Vice-President of the United States.” Also in the interview, Trump was asked about why he wants to continue to be president, which Welker described is “the toughest job in the country.” “Well, I like working,” replied Trump, who would be 82 at the end of his current term.

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DOGE addresses real problems.

“The Social Security Old-Age and Survivors Insurance Trust Fund will run out of reserves by 2033 – when today’s youngest retirees turn 70 – leading to an immediate 24 percent benefit cut under the law..”

• Interest Costs On US Debt To Exceed Economic Growth By 2045 (JTN)

The U.S. is on track to hit a dangerous milestone by 2045, according to an analysis of the new Congressional Budget Office’s long term budget outlook. The average interest rate on debt will exceed the economic growth rate by 2045, sparking the beginning of a debt spiral. “Interest costs will reach a record 3.2 percent of GDP this year – exceeding the cost of defense and Medicare – and further grow to 5.4 percent of GDP by 2055,” according to the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget’s review of the latest CBO data that was released on Thursday. “The average interest rate on debt will exceed the economic growth rate by 2045, sparking the beginning of a debt spiral,” the CRFB added. The watchdog group said that “high and rising debt and deficits would have many negative consequences for the budget and the economy including slower income growth, higher interest rates and interest payments on the national debt, increased geopolitical risks, undue burden on future generations, reduced fiscal space to respond to emergencies, and an increased risk of a fiscal crisis.”

The U.S. national debt is on pace to set new concerning records between now and 2055. “Federal debt held by the public will rise from 100 percent of Gross Domestic Product (GDP) in Fiscal Year (FY) 2025 to 156 percent of GDP by 2055 – 50 percentage points above the prior record,” according to the CRFB analysis. “Annual deficits will grow from 6.2 percent of GDP in 2025 – already twice as high as they were as recently as 2016 – to 7.3 percent of GDP by 2055. This is the highest they’ve ever been outside of a crisis.” The CBO is warning that Social Security is just 8 years from insolvency. “The Social Security Old-Age and Survivors Insurance Trust Fund will run out of reserves by 2033 – when today’s youngest retirees turn 70 – leading to an immediate 24 percent benefit cut under the law,” read the CRFB analysis of CBO data. “If combined with the disability insurance trust fund, the combined trust fund would be insolvent by 2034.”

The CRFB said policymakers will need to make tough decisions this year with respect to the debt and deficit. “CBO’s latest long-term budget outlook reminds us that the federal budget is on an unsustainable long-term path, and policymakers will be faced with decisions this year that will have major implications for the trajectory of our debt over the next 30 years,” read the analysis. The group said extending the 2017 Tax Cuts and Jobs Act without ways to fully cover the cost would drive debt to higher than 200% of GDP. The CRFB has encouraged lawmakers to find enough offsets to fully cover the cost of tax reform. “Even without this additional borrowing, the annual budget deficit will reach 7.3 percent of GDP in FY 2055 – higher than at any point outside of World War II, the Great Recession, and the COVID-19 pandemic,” they said.

Scott Hodge, former president of the Tax Foundation, shared his reaction to the CBO’s latest report with Just the News. “CBO’s latest long-term budget forecast should be a wakeup call to the White House and Congress that they must do more to get spending under control or the federal debt will rise to unsustainable levels,” said Hodge, a tax and fiscal policy fellow at Arnold Ventures in Washington, D.C. Arnold Ventures describes itself as a philanthropy “dedicated to improving the lives of all Americans through evidence-based policy solutions that maximize opportunity and minimize injustice.” Hodge noted that the CBO assumes that the 2017 Tax Cuts and Jobs Act, which expires at the end of this year, would “potentially raise more than $4 trillion in new taxes over a decade” if it is extended, but this new tax revenue still falls short of closing the deficit gap since spending is rising faster than taxes.

“We should also note that CBO is forecasting sluggish economic growth for the next decade, which puts a premium on the need to renew the 2017 tax cuts to boost economic growth. Lawmakers will have to find responsible ways to offset the cost of these tax cuts so as to not add to the mounting debt. It will take leadership to meet this twin challenge,” he said.

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“..they buried the report while allegedly making claims directly refuted by their own experts.”

• Biden Admin Accused of Burying Conflicting Climate Change Report (Turley)

There is a major story developing on Capitol Hill after House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform Chairman James Comer, R-Ky, revealed that a long-withheld report from the Biden Administration directly contradicted the claims of climate change used to limit increased U.S. liquefied natural gas (LNG) exports. The suggestion is that this was an knowing effort to cap carbon admissions rather than carbon emissions. The impact that new U.S. LNG exports have on the environment and the economy was reviewed by U.S. Energy Department scientists and completed by September 2023. It appears that neither President Biden nor Secretary Jennifer Granholm liked the science or the conclusions. Rather than “follow the science,” they buried the report while allegedly making claims directly refuted by their own experts.

The report was finished while Biden was still running for reelection and would have likely enraged environmentalists. The draft study, “Energy, Economic, and Environmental Assessment of U.S. LNG Exports,” found that, under all modeled scenarios, an increase in U.S. LNG exports and natural gas production would not change global or U.S. greenhouse gas emissions. It further found that it would not increase energy prices for consumers. Biden and Granholm reportedly buried the report and then announced a pause on all new U.S. LNG export terminals in January 2024, citing the danger to environmental and economic impacts. Comer’s office told Fox News Digital that DOE repeatedly declined to provide this study to the House Oversight Committee or comply with other requests for information.

What is most concerning is that our LNG exports help reduce the dependence on Russia and would have decreased the revenues to that country to support its war in Ukraine. However, critics charge that Biden ignored the national security and economic benefits. Supporters note that we still exported a massive amount of LNG. When the U.S. ramped up exports to Europe, progressive Democrats like Sen. Jeff Merkley, D-Ore., went ballistic. This appears to have worked in shelving the study while slowing demands for further increases. The Biden Administration later released data in December 2024 suggesting that a rise in exports could cause consumer prices to rise by as much as 30%. There are obviously two sides to this debate. The problem is that it seems that only one side was allowed to be publicly presented by the delay in the release of the study.

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“Rep. Seth Moulton, D-Mass., dared to say he didn’t want his daughters to play sports against biological boys—like 80% of his country—only to turn around and vote against his girls three months later.”

• The Party That Woke Broke (Suzanne Bowdey)

Democrats have been wallowing in the despair of last November’s elections for months, unable—or maybe unwilling—to crawl out of the pit of public opinion they find themselves in. “It’s hard to win if you don’t know why you lost,” Axios’ Alex Thompson observed. But it’s even harder, some would say, if you know and do nothing about it. To most people, the solution to the party’s problems is simple. After a year of losing ground with virtually every demographic—men, black Americans, Hispanic Americans, Asian Americans, young people, Independents, suburban moms—the polling all points to Democrats being completely out of step with everyday voters. So why not just abandon the extremism Americans rejected? For the party of Barack Obama and Joe Biden, the answer is much more complicated.

The crisis facing Democrats isn’t about their identity; they have one. The crisis is that they can’t moderate their ideology—or embrace it—without severe consequences. As National Review’s Rich Lowry put it, “The reason Joe Biden won in 2020 is he didn’t seem like a progressive, and one reason that his party lost in 2024 is that he governed like one.” For Democrats, ideological extremism is their kryptonite and their lifeblood. It’s what excites the base and repels the populace. In other words, it’s a recipe for long-term political disaster. And yet, in several instances, the Democrats who’ve tried to soften their positions or build a temporary bridge to sanity have been beaten back into conformity. After the election, Rep. Seth Moulton, D-Mass., dared to say he didn’t want his daughters to play sports against biological boys—like 80% of his country—only to turn around and vote against his girls three months later. “I was just speaking authentically as a dad about one of many issues where I think we’re just out of touch with the majority of voters,” he explained to the angry mob in November. “ … I stand by my position.”

Or at least he stood by it until the time came to act on it, Americans learned. But lately, even the barest hints of compromise are punished. Look at the hysteria over Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., who needs increased security simply for voting with Republicans to stop a government shutdown—something his own party argued would be a disaster for hard-working families a month earlier. For sticking to that position, there’ve been furious calls for his ouster and a leadership mutiny in party ranks. Then, there’s California Gov. Gavin Newsom, a Democrat, who tested the waters earlier this month with his whiplash comments on Title IX. Sitting down with Turning Point USA’s Charlie Kirk on his podcast, the governor was asked about the issue of trans-identifying athletes in girls’ sports. To most people’s surprise, the progressive replied, “I think it’s an issue of fairness. I completely agree with you on that.” He emphasized his point by adding, “It’s deeply unfair.”

Newsom, who, by his own admission, has been a “leader” in the “LGBTQ” movement, encouraged his party to admit that a lopsided playing field is cause for concern. He said, “We’ve got to own that. We’ve got to acknowledge it.” His sudden openness to a broader discussion was met with horror on the Left and deep skepticism on the Right—a perfect illustration of the conundrum facing Democrats. As California Family Council President Jonathan Keller pointed out on a recent episode of the “Outstanding” podcast, “He’s trying to set it up in such a way that … he’s going to look like he’s a moderate.” But frankly, Keller said, “I’m not positive that’s actually going to be an effective strategy from him. I think what it may be effective in doing is getting him destroyed in the primaries,” he said, referring to the root problem for Democrats, which is that what wins primaries is the same thing that loses general elections.

In Newsom’s case, even an insincere shift to the middle is next-to-impossible to pull off, thanks to years of activist baggage. As Kirk wrote after the interview, “I’m under no illusions about why I was invited: Gavin Newsom wants to run for president in three years, and he thinks that talking [to] conservative figures like me increase his recognition, help him present as a centrist, and cast him as a champion of the Left in a time when the [L]eft has no real leaders. … We shouldn’t fall for this … ” he warned. “[A]nd fortunately, swerving to the center won’t be that simple for Gavin. … He knows his current record can’t win him the White House, and so he’s trying to rewrite what that record is.” Polling proved the governor’s flirtation with rationality didn’t help his case. Of 1,000 California voters, only 24% said the podcast helped them see Newsom as more moderate, while 17% insisted it made them less likely to see him as a moderate. A majority, 59%, said it made no difference. Americans are not so easily fooled. A few soundbites does not a record make.

“Like the national Democrat[ic] Party and the legacy media,” John Nolte stressed, “Newsom has painted himself into a corner where the only way to survive is through the fealty to the 20% of hard leftists that make up the Left’s base of activist and financial support. … With all their lies and lunacy in support of things like open borders and this transsexual nonsense, Newsom, Democrats, and the corporate media have alienated all the normal people, probably forever. So that 20% is all they’ve got.” The foot soldiers of the Democratic Party grasp the paradox. They’ve tried, unsuccessfully, for the last nine years to turn the heads of leadership to mainstream positions on things like gender, immigration, education, and energy. “I don’t want to be the freak show party like they have branded us,” one DNC member from Florida complained after the election when it was obvious the Left’s social radicalism had cost them every lever of power in Washington.

“When you’re a mom with three kids,” she pointed out, “and you live in middle America, and you’re just not really into politics, and you see these ads that scare the bejesus out of you, you’re like, ‘I know Trump’s weird or whatever, but I would rather his weirdness that doesn’t affect my kids.’” Others echoed her alarm. “The progressive wing of the party has to recognize—we all have to recognize—the country’s not progressive, and not to the far left or the far right. They’re in the middle,” said Joseph Paolino, a DNC committeeman for Rhode Island. It felt like, at least from those comments, that the party was finally going to pivot. “This is basically a rebuild job from the bottom up,” former DNC Chair Donna Brazile emphasized. But what happened when push came to shove?

Against the pleas of their non-elite base, the far-left won even greater control of the party—electing woke, anti-gun, pro-trans, defund-the-police, ICE-abolishing, climate change-pimping DNC leaders in Chairman Ken Martin and Vice Chair David Hogg. To the everyday Democrats, who’d been “begging the party to ditch the radical Left,” it was an astonishing betrayal. “The weaknesses of Democrats among non-white voters, particularly Hispanic and black working-class voters, is pretty significant,” authors of a new book, “Where Have All the Democrats Gone?” insist. “They’re sort of realizing this is a problem. On the other hand, they’re so invested in this whole vector of cultural issues. They’re worried about the blowback on social media and from the college-educated ‘liberalish’ voters who are increasingly a loyal base of the Democratic Party. Trump understood that and he played upon it. He continues to play upon it. He continues to get votes upon it. And the Democrats are oblivious to it.”

Not all Democrats, it seems. A growing chorus of disillusioned officials are starting to speak up about the continued reckoning that awaits the party in future elections. During snippets of his interview with NPR Monday, Rep. Tom Suozzi, D-N.Y., sounded outright logical in his assessment. “We can’t just resist. It can’t just be why we’re against Trump and what’s wrong with Trump. … The Democratic brand has been damaged.”

“When you ask people … ‘What do the Republicans stand for?’ They say, ‘Well, Make America Great Again. They want to cut the size of government, they want to give tax cuts, stuff like [that].’” Then, Suozzi said, when you ask, “‘What do the Democrats stand for?’ And I think the people are kind of scratching their head a little bit, they believe in, like, [abortion] and LGBT rights—which I believe in those things too—but I don’t know that you can build a whole party around that.” He talked about running on the border issue in 2024, and his consultants protested, arguing, “‘Well, Tom, that’s a Republican issue. I don’t know if you should be talking [about that].’ I said, ‘No, this is what the people of my district are talking about. We can’t ignore what the people are talking about.’”

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“States competed for capital and labor by keeping their taxes and regulations light and efficient. As a result, America became the world’s most competitive economy, attracting a flood of foreign capital and workers.”

• What Made America Great In The Gilded Age (Loyola)

“We were at our richest from 1870 to 1913. That’s when we were a tariff country,” said President Donald Trump recently, and he’s not wrong. But tariffs aren’t the whole story. The genius of the Gilded Age was interstate regulatory and tax competition. That economy boomed. From 1870 to 1913, America’s gross domestic product grew at nearly 5% per year. Even though America’s population nearly tripled during that time, with 30 million immigrants, per capita GDP doubled. Steel production boomed, surpassing Britain, France, and Germany combined. Railway miles quadrupled. A period that began amid the ruins of civil war ended with America in first place among the world’s great economic powers. Washington collected lots of tariffs then, but little else.

Before the 16th Amendment paved the way for federal income taxes in 1913, Congress was spending barely 1% of GDP—compared with nearly 25% today. Meanwhile, the federal power to regulate commerce was limited to transactions that actually crossed state lines, leaving the vast majority of regulation to the states. States competed for capital and labor by keeping their taxes and regulations light and efficient. As a result, America became the world’s most competitive economy, attracting a flood of foreign capital and workers. It’s no surprise that the booming economy of the Gilded Age was able to sustain tariffs. Of course, that period had its dark sides—political corruption, “Robber Barons,” child labor, and environmental degradation. These excesses sparked the progressive movement.

The sprawling administrative state created by President Woodrow Wilson was soon dictating prices for nearly every major commodity and service, leading to massive economic distortions. By the stock market crash of 1929, the economy was no longer competitive. A new round of tariffs—the Smoot-Hawley Tariff Act of 1930—devastated the economy, deepening the Great Depression. Franklin D. Roosevelt’s New Deal doubled down on progressivism, dramatically expanding the reach of the federal government. His court-packing scheme coerced the Supreme Court into dismantling the crucial constitutional limits on the federal power to regulate commerce, and the federal leviathan was born.

Progressives viewed interstate competition as a “race to the bottom” and held that it was the federal government’s role to stop it. What this meant in practice was protections from competition for every special-interest group that could hire lobbyists in Washington. Government became a system for wealth redistribution through subsidies, unfunded mandates, and government-created cartels—from the farm program to the National Labor Relations Act to socialized medicine. America’s private sector remains the world’s most innovative and productive, but a century of progressive policy has driven companies and jobs offshore. Such policies have proven particularly toxic in areas of low-skill labor, as attested by today’s Rust Belt towns, Appalachian communities, and inner cities.

Investment flows where taxes and regulations are low and production factors like labor and electricity are reliable and affordable. In all those metrics the U.S. is falling further and further behind much of the world. In the energy sector, heavily subsidized renewable energy is pushing America’s electricity rates toward European levels. America could soon be facing the same deindustrialization that Germany and Great Britain are facing today. Even in America’s most innovative sectors—like high technology—warning signs are everywhere. The entire supply chain for semiconductor manufacturing has moved offshore, with only high-end engineering remaining in the U.S. China is already making inroads into these areas, and if America doesn’t act fast, it could soon start falling behind even in the high-tech race.

Today, both parties are trapped in the maze of progressive government, a system that subordinates the public interest to special-interest groups seeking protection from competition—from the Jones Act to the sugar program. That is the real swamp, and escaping it will require thinking outside the box, with ideas such as Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency. As President Donald Trump recognizes, the U.S. must become once again the world’s most attractive place to do business. Tariffs alone will not get us there. We must free America’s economy from the stifling burdens of progressive government and tax policy, and return to the interstate competition that made America great in the Gilded Age.

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Midwives

 

 

Soon Shiong

 

 

Vietnam

 

 

Bittern

 

 

Caracal

 

 

Zoetrope

 

 

Small world

 

 

Emanuel

 

 

Bell

 

 

Whale

 

 

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Debt Rattle March 30 2025

Mar 302025
 
 March 30, 2025  Posted by at 10:00 am Finance Tagged with: , , , , , , , , , , , ,  33 Responses »


David Hockney A Bigger Splash 1967

 

• How Donald Trump Is Reshaping America in Just 7 Weeks (Victor Davis Hanson)
• It Wasn’t a Leak, It Was a Devious “Charlie Foxtrot” (Larry Johnson)
• Vance Asked Trump To Fire Waltz – Politico (RT)
• Why Did Jeffrey Goldberg Leave The ‘Bomb Yemen’ Signal Chat? (Max Blumenthal)
• Trump Puts the System on Trial (RCW)
• The Best Response For Developing Countries To US Tariffs: Sell US Debt (Proud)
• xAI & X Merger Defuses Musk’s Tesla Share Liquidation Risk (ZH)
• Iran ‘Doesn’t Care’ About Trump’s ‘Threats’ – Senior Commander (RT)
• Federal Judge Halts Shutdown of Voice of America (ET)
• Ex-Italian PM Reveals ‘Secret Mission’ For Zelensky (RT)
• Zelensky Is a ‘Demon’ – Ukrainian MP (RT)
• EU To Reject Russia-US Black Sea Deal – von der Leyen (RT)
• The EU Wants to Use War as an Excuse for More Debt (Andreen)
• Joe Rogan Guest Completely Shatters the Vaccine Narrative (VF)

 

 

 

 

1994

Birth rate

Painful homework

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https://twitter.com/Sassafrass_84/status/1905679457160925611

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“.. it’s a revolutionary achievement. There’s nobody going across the border illegally, or at least, it’s statistically insignificant.”

• How Donald Trump Is Reshaping America in Just 7 Weeks (Victor Davis Hanson)

Hello, this is Victor Davis Hanson for The Daily Signal. How should we characterize the first seven weeks of the Trump administration because we get so much information and misinformation? Almost a day doesn’t go by where The Wall Street Journal is predicting that we are headed for a recession, that our allies are furious at us, that the economy is on the brink. So, what are we gonna make of all this? I think it’s time to take a deep breath and envision the first seven weeks is something like the following: President Donald Trump is in a race. He’s in a race to enact fundamental, disruptive change, a counterrevolution, and it’s going to be rough for a while, as he pointed out. But the things that he has already done are going to have, shortly or maybe even midterm, fundamental advantages for the United States. The question is, can he message and can he explicate and explain what he’s doing so people hang on? Because the eventual reward will be great.

Now, what do I mean? We’re talking about tariffs, tariffs, tariffs, but even the mere mention of tariffs for all of these countries that have not been reciprocal and have imposed tariffs on us in a way that we would never think of imposing on them, that idea that we might return to parity, it’s had an enormous effect. Some $4 trillion of announced investment from the Europeans, from the Saudis, from the Chinese, from the Mexican government, from the Canadians even. That will create hundreds of thousands of jobs. And that is in the process of working out. When Donald Trump entered office in 2017, we were only pumping about 9 million barrels. When he left, we were pumping 12 million. The Biden administration immediately cut back. And then it decided, before the midterms, “Hey, Americans like affordable oil.” So then they continued the Trump plan and got up to 12, almost 13 million barrels.

Already in just seven weeks, we have increased the amount of oil produced per day in the United States by about a third of a million barrels. And we’re on schedule to get up to about 14 million barrels by the beginning of the year. And that is coordinated with an increase in Middle East production as well. So, we’re going to see a moderation of energy prices, which may explain, already, why the inflation rate was not nearly as high as was predicted. If we look at the border, it’s amazing. We were told that the border problem was unsolvable without comprehensive immigration reform. And there were 10,000 people swarming up per day. We don’t even—nonchalantly, nobody talks about it anymore. But it’s a revolutionary achievement. There’s nobody going across the border illegally, or at least, it’s statistically insignificant.

The big issue right now is the Left is cherry-picking judges to prevent, not the deportation of somebody who’s working, who’s never been arrested, who’s been here for five or six years, but criminals and people who already have been ordered out of the country or pro-Hamas, pro-terrorist supporters. But the point I’m making is, what we’re doing now is Phase Two. The border is essentially solved, as far as security, and in seven weeks. Now, we’re having a difficult task of trying to find out who these 12 million people were that former President Joe Biden deliberately and with intent—malicious intent—allowed to come into the country. But the point I’m making is this is an incredible success.

There’s a final point that I want to make. We hear about Elon Musk is not authentically American. He is a nepo baby. And we hear Rep. Jasmine Crockett, D-Texas, threatening his person, along with threatening Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas. All of this chaos and nihilism coming about Elon Musk and what he’s doing, but what he’s finding out, almost every day, in the Treasury, in the IRS, in the Department of Energy, in the intelligence communities, is a vast unreported siphoning off of hundreds of millions of dollars, if not billions, to favorable and mostly left-wing entities, both abroad and here in the United States.

And already, he has cited areas where the Cabinet officers can cut $200 billion. That’s a fifth, only after seven weeks. He’s got a fifth of the way to go. He thinks he can cut a trillion dollars without touching entitlements. I don’t know if he can. But let me just sum up. If Donald Trump is able to fulfill this promise of commitment by foreign entities of $4 trillion in investment—$4 trillion—if he is able to cut a trillion dollars within a year or two, if he’s able to solve the Ukraine war, and if he is able to have a general peace in the Middle East, that will be the most substantial presidency—if he does nothing else—that we’ve seen in 50 years. Final word, everybody, keep calm. There’s events in process that if they are brought to fulfillment and fruition, this country will be a radically different and radically better place.

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They come off as a platoon of newbie nitwits. Run by Israel. Not pretty.

• It Wasn’t a Leak, It Was a Devious “Charlie Foxtrot” (Larry Johnson)

Charlie Foxtrot is a polite euphemism for a crude military term — Clusterfuck. That describes the first scandal of the Trump Administration. Somehow, whether deliberate or accidentally, a Zionist journalist by the name of Jeffrey Goldberg was added to a Signal chat by Trump’s National Security Advisor, Michael Waltz, or by someone who worked for Waltz. Goldberg suddenly found himself part of a group chat of Trump’s top defense, diplomatic and intelligence officials. The group included CIA Director Ratcliffe, DNI’s Tulsi Gabbard, and Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth, among other luminaries.

If you are not familiar with Signal, you create a group chat by naming a group and then adding members from your list of contacts. This tells us that Goldberg was part of Waltz’s list of contacts. Goldberg is a particularly slimy character, not because he published portions of the chat, but because he behaved as a political hack instead of a journalist. A journalist with that unexpected access, would have written an immediate story announcing that the US was going to start bombing Yemen just to make an example of it. What did Goldberg do? He waited till the bombing happened and then hoisted the Trump gang on its own petard. He made the story about Charlie Foxtrot, which he published on Monday in The Atlantic magazine.

This was not a leak. This was a gift to Goldberg. While the contents of the chat are not officially classified, the information being discussed was operationally sensitive. The chat exposed most of the Trump team as shallow and dismissive of the military and diplomatic implications of the decision to start bombing Yemen. If Waltz and company wanted to discuss the pros and cons of bombing Yemen, he should have convened a Secure Video Conference, aka SVTC (pronounced, CIVITS). Pete Hegseth’s remarks to the press, responding to the Goldberg article, makes a solid case that he is not qualified to serve as Secretary of Defense. Instead of admitting that this was a fuckup on the part of Waltz, he decided to attack Goldberg. Moreover, he pretends that the US was hitting hardened, military targets. That is a lie:

While I agree with Hegseth that Goldberg is a partisan hack, Goldberg did not insinuate himself into the chat or steal the material. Waltz, or one of his staff, did that. We will have to wait and see if the Trump team has learned anything from this debacle. I suspect Signal will no longer be used for sensitive topics. The portion of the chat that Goldberg published shows that JD Vance is not a Zionist crazy. He at least had reservations about the plan to bomb Yemen. The same cannot be said for the others — Pete Hegseth in particular. The following snippets from Goldberg’s article makes it clear that the decision to bomb was not based on some actual provocation or attack by Yemen. Nope, it was a malevolent symbolic gesture:

“The account labeled “JD Vance” responded at 8:16: “Team, I am out for the day doing an economic event in Michigan. But I think we are making a mistake.” (Vance was indeed in Michigan that day.) The Vance account goes on to state, “3 percent of US trade runs through the suez. 40 percent of European trade does. There is a real risk that the public doesn’t understand this or why it’s necessary. The strongest reason to do this is, as POTUS said, to send a message.” The Vance account then goes on to make a noteworthy statement, considering that the vice president has not deviated publicly from Trump’s position on virtually any issue. “I am not sure the president is aware how inconsistent this is with his message on Europe right now. There’s a further risk that we see a moderate to severe spike in oil prices. I am willing to support the consensus of the team and keep these concerns to myself. But there is a strong argument for delaying this a month, doing the messaging work on why this matters, seeing where the economy is, etc.”

The account identified as “JD Vance” addressed a message at 8:45 to @Pete Hegseth: “if you think we should do it let’s go. I just hate bailing Europe out again.” “I will say a prayer for victory,” Vance wrote. . . . Hegseth’s counter to Vance’s concern that the American public won’t understand why were bombing the shit out of another faraway country is this: “Nobody [in America] knows who the Houthis are, so [we can just say] Biden failed and Iran funded them.” Well, guess what, boys and girls? Trump failed, just like Biden. The bombings over the last nine days have not deterred the Houthis from renewing their attacks on ships and Israel. And it has put US naval vessels in harm’s way without a good reason. Hegseth gives the game away… this is about blaming Iran.

It is incumbent on Goldberg to release the entire electronic conversation. Maybe I am being too harsh. Maybe Tulsi Gabbard or John Ratcliffe or the Director of the Defense Intelligence Agency raised some objections. But it appears that everyone was supportive of the proposed operation. Shameful.

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“Like hell he’d give the liberal media and pearl-clutching Democrats a win..”

Trump’s no. 1 task right now is to stand up for his team. Loyalty.

• Vance Asked Trump To Fire Waltz – Politico (RT)

Vice President J.D. Vance and other senior officials “gently offered” President Donald Trump to fire National Security Adviser Mike Waltz during a private discussion about the blunder in which Waltz accidentally included a reporter in a confidential chat about US military strikes in Yemen, according to anonymous insider sources cited by Politico. Two individuals allegedly familiar with the closed-door meeting at the White House on Wednesday night told Politico that Vance, Chief of Staff Susie Wiles, and personnel chief Sergio Gor advised Trump that it might be time to cut Waltz loose. The president reportedly agreed that Waltz had “messed up,” but ultimately decided against a dismissal.

“Like hell he’d give the liberal media and pearl-clutching Democrats a win,” Politico wrote on Friday, citing one insider as saying the administration “don’t want to give the press a scalp.” The leak, first reported by The Atlantic on Monday, revealed that Waltz had inadvertently invited editor-in-chief Jeffrey Goldberg to a confidential Signal chat where senior administration officials were discussing upcoming airstrikes on Houthi militants in Yemen. Waltz has taken “full responsibility” for the incident, calling it “embarrassing” in a Fox News interview and attributing the inclusion to a technical “glitch.”

President Trump has largely downplayed the controversy, dismissing the media response as a “witch hunt” and questioning the reliability of Signal. He also emphasized that no classified information was compromised and praised the military operation as “unbelievably successful.” White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt voiced the administration’s stance, stating on Monday that “President Trump continues to have the utmost confidence in his national security team, including National Security Advisor Mike Waltz.” Vance, for his part, has publicly aligned himself with the president’s decision. On Friday, he brought Waltz along for a high-profile trip to Greenland, where he dismissed media speculation and defended the national security team.

“If you think you’re going to force the president of the United States to fire anybody, you’ve got another thing coming,” Vance told reporters. Yet Politico claimed that Waltz’s position remains tenuous, citing one Trump ally who said, “They’ll stick by him for now, but he’ll be gone in a couple of weeks.” Other unnamed sources described longstanding personal and political tensions, alleging that Waltz has alienated colleagues by overstepping boundaries and acting more like a principal than a staffer. A spokesman for Waltz, Brian Hughes, pushed back against the narrative, calling the reports “gossip from people lacking the integrity to attach their names.” He emphasized that Waltz “serves at the pleasure of President Trump” and continues to have the president’s support.

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“..a gargantuan empire bombarding a poor, besieged country because it is controlled by a popular movement that is currently the only force on the planet taking up arms to stop Israel’s genocide in Gaza..”

• Why Did Jeffrey Goldberg Leave The ‘Bomb Yemen’ Signal Chat? (Max Blumenthal)

Atlantic Magazine editor-in-chief Jeffrey Goldberg has won the admiration of his Beltway peers for the conduct he displayed after being accidentally invited into a smoke-filled “bomb Yemen” Signal chat with Trump’s national security honchos and top advisors. “Props to Jeffrey Goldberg for his high standards as a professional journalist,” declared Ian Bremmer, the trans-Atlanticist foreign policy pundit on his Bank of America-sponsored GZero podcast. “When he realized the conversation was authentic he immediately left, informed the relevant senior official, and made the public aware without disclosing intelligence that could damage the United States.” But what exactly did Goldberg do to deserve such high praise?

With a once in a lifetime opportunity to view and report on high level discussions on the US launching an illegal war on Yemen, Goldberg chose to avert his gaze and leave the scene as soon as he could, apparently because maintaining such unparalleled access would have compelled him to report on discussions that might have complicated a war being waged on behalf of the Israeli apartheid state to which he emigrated as a young man. Instead of exploiting his front row seat to the Trump admin’s war planning – a vantage point that would have yielded countless scoops and a bestselling book for any adversarial journalist – Goldberg bolted and dutifully informed the White House about the unfortunate situation.

From there, the story became a palace intrigue over an embarrassing failure of “opsec,” or operational security, and not one about the policy itself, which entails a gargantuan empire bombarding a poor, besieged country because it is controlled by a popular movement that is currently the only force on the planet taking up arms to stop Israel’s genocide in Gaza. In the fourth paragraph of Goldberg’s Atlantic article about the principals’ Signal group, he strongly implied that he supports the war’s objectives, describing Ansar Allah, or the Houthis, as an “Iran-backed terrorist organization” which upholds a belief system that is (what else?) antisemitic. Given Goldberg’s admission that Waltz first reached out to him at least two days prior to mistakenly adding him to the Signal group, it appears the NSC director had been leaking to the Atlantic editor on behalf of the neocon faction in the Trump White House. And it seems clear why Waltz would have sought to cultivate Goldberg.

During the run-up to to the Iraq war, then-Vice President Dick Cheney cited Goldberg’s bunk reporting alleging deep ties between Saddam Hussein and Al Qaeda during multiple media appearances hyping up the coming invasion. Under Obama, Goldberg served as Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu’s errand boy, churning out tall tales about Tel Aviv’s imminent plan to attack Iran’s nuclear sites – unless the US did it first. Since the October 7, 2023 attack on Israel, the once-failing Atlantic has suddenly turned a profit, as Goldberg unleashed a firehose of propaganda against the keffiyeh-clad enemies of the magazine’s Upper East Side donor base. This month, with momentum for a strike on Iran building within the Trump White House, Goldberg was summoned once again move to the neocon message, and wound up with more access than he bargained for.

When asked in a March 24 interview with CNN’s Kaitlan Collins why he left the Trump principals’ Signal group voluntarily, Goldberg ducked the question. But as Ian Bremmer suggested, he did so out of deference to power and an abiding belief in a US empire hellbent on protecting Israel. And in the culture of Beltway access journalism, that’s considered a laudable trait.

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“..the judges’ resistance is expected—they’re bound up in and rewarded by the system Trump seeks to reform.”

• Trump Puts the System on Trial (RCW)

President Trump’s supporters have denounced the federal judges seeking to stall or stop this administration’s government overhaul. But there is at least one person who, despite a show of outrage and condemnation, is neither surprised nor intimidated: Trump himself. The politically appointed judges have ordered, among other actions, that federal agencies reinstate thousands of fired probationary employees; that billions of taxpayer dollars be paid to questionable USAID projects and contractors; and that foreign-born criminals deported to their native countries be returned and granted due process. Regardless of the legal merits, the American people recognize these orders as obstructions to what Trump said he would do if elected, and what voters elected him to do. Yet the judges’ resistance is expected—they’re bound up in and rewarded by the system Trump seeks to reform.

Two-thirds of Americans believe the “system” is broken, but for years progressive politicians and their mouthpieces posited that the system couldn’t be fixed. Intellectuals on the Left, including New York Times columnist David Brooks, said America’s flaws were “systemic” in nature: systemic racism, systemic sexism, and systemic injustice. They whined and preached but offered no solutions for the millions of Americans of all races and both genders struggling and failing to unlock their potential to succeed. When Trump announced his candidacy for president in 2015, he too claimed the system was broken, but not because we are racist or sexist by nature, but because the system itself is old, soft, and corrupt, with leaders grown unresponsive to the people they are supposed to serve. That core belief guided his first term and remains unchanged at the start of his second.

For decades, politicians failed to respond to real problems because their agendas, even their identities, were phony, crafted by consultants and pollsters who aimed not for the truth, but for whichever lies or provocations were most efficacious in winning the next election. But one need not resort to craven and conspiratorial explanations of this sort, which hint that elected officials deliberately ignore the public will. The truth is simpler. They have to ignore voters, if only because they have no idea how to fix the problems we face. In one sense, the elites’ ineptitude is understandable: we have a highly complex society that has undergone a recent, rapid, destabilization brought on by technological advance. But to admit that they simply don’t know how to address any contemporary issue would be to concede that it is only their mere status as “elites” that qualifies them to rule.

Thus, to conceal their befuddlement, they explain their inaction by a vague demand that we address the “root causes” of every issue – which further justifies them in doing nothing. The bad faith inherent to the “root causes” strategy was nowhere more obvious than at the border. For years, establishment voices told us that border security measures would fail without addressing the “root causes” of the problem: central American poverty and climate change. These appeals allowed the political class to avoid doing what they didn’t want to do (securing the border) and to manufacture a duty to do the things they did want to do (diverting American revenue to foreign aid “relief programs” and enacting more restrictive environmental policies). Aside from those interventions, they assured us, there was nothing we could do about the illegal immigration crisis.

Speaking about politicians in 2015, Trump said: “I hear their speeches. They don’t talk jobs. [They] have no competence. [They] don’t know what’s happening.” His message of “America First” was clear and authentic, and it implied real action and solid outcomes: protect jobs, livelihoods, and futures of Americans. The hapless politicians had nothing to counter. “The Resistance” to the first Trump administration was advanced by the machinations of bureaucrats in the vast regulatory state. But with the president rapidly dismantling that apparatus, a new strategy was needed. For the Resistance 2.0, it seems the establishment will depend on the courts to thwart the democratically-expressed will of the people. But there is a higher court in this land, where American voters serve as judge, jury, and executor.

Earlier this month at the Department of Justice, Trump warned of the “violent, vicious lawyers” who persecute the president and bully the American public to get their way. Expect these lawyers to “play the ref,” Trump said, weaving in a story about former Indiana University basketball coach Bobby Knight, who once threw a chair across the court and screamed like a madman at the referees for a call to be overturned. The referee wasn’t going to change the first call, Trump said of Knight’s rationale for throwing the tantrum. “But he’s going to change for the next play. And sure as hell, he did.” Trump understands that activist lawyers and progressive pundits will put heat on the judiciary, and that, on occasion, they’ll get their way.

For 10 years, Trump has confronted the political class, calling out their incompetence and dishonesty, and the voters continue to reward him. Federal judges, egged on by the politically-motivated legal establishment, may try to frustrate the president in his pursuit of long-held promises to build a better country. But Trump is building his case outside the courts – and he’s betting on a sympathetic hearing with the American people, who will note the overt evidence of bias, corruption, and incompetence, whether it occurs in the media, executive branch, or the judiciary. Judges will rule on procedure and technicalities, but the people will evaluate the legitimacy of our institutions and credibility of our leaders.

In 2028, the jury will render its verdict.

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In theory perhaps. But how much US debt do you have to spare?

• The Best Response For Developing Countries To US Tariffs: Sell US Debt (Proud)

As President Trump threatens the world with sweeping tariffs, he is trying to change the fundamental laws of economics through force of will. He won’t succeed. Rather than fighting back with reciprocal tariffs, developing countries should sell off U.S. debt. The Austrian American economist Ludwig von Mises once said that ‘the balance of payments theory forgets that the volume of trade is completely dependent on prices.’ The United States has such a gigantic trade deficit, at over $1 trillion each year, because it can buy foreign goods more cheaply than it can produce them domestically. Some countries may subsidise production to lower prices, others might export goods that are further down the value chain compared to what American producers will make.

But, stepping back, the U.S. dollar is so powerful, that it renders American exports more expensive, irrespective of any distortions created by its trading partners. This is part of the exorbitant privilege in which the U.S. dollar acts the world’s leading reserve currency, amounting to 58% of total reserves. Foreign countries put their capital into the U.S. because it is a stable and safe, increasing the price of the dollar on foreign exchange markets because demand is always high. A strong exchange rate makes foreign imports cheaper and that helps to manage inflation in America.

President Trump clearly wants to boost his support in the blue collar heartlands of America, driving job creation in traditional American industry that has been undercut by foreign imports over many years. But he can’t have two cakes and eat them both. He can’t simultaneously slash the huge U.S. balance of payments deficit – helping blue collar workers – while at the same time maintaining the U.S. as the destination of choice for foreign capital. That would be to defy the logic of economics. To oversimplify slightly, America has built its bloated Federal apparatus on the back of cheap imports. The huge current account surpluses that exporting powerhouses like China, India, European and ASEAN countries have built up has produced a torrent of easy capital to prop up the U.S. state.

The U.S. has a debt mountain of around $35 trillion which is roughly the equivalent sum of debt held by foreign investors. Of that debt, around $8.5 trillion is in the form of U.S. Treasuries, literally loans to the U.S. government, with a similar amount invested in corporate debt and the rest largely in equity. That’s why Trump is going in so hard with Elon Musk’s DOGE initiative. He’s desperate to reduce the size of the U.S. state apparatus because he knows that the Federal house of cards is built on fiscal quicksand. He also probably figures that there’s a greater propensity among federal workers – who are facing massive job cuts – to lean democrat, than among factory workers.

That’s why the idea of a BRICS currency is so terrifying to Trump, because BRICS now accounts for 41% of the global economy by purchasing power parity. A BRICS currency poses a longer-term risk of making the dollar less appealing and, therefore, weaker, driving up inflation. Because the real challenge to the U.S. is not the federal debt itself but its ability to service its debt. The exorbitant privilege, coupled with the massively disinflationary tidal wave of the global financial crisis, ushered in a period of historically low inflation and low interest rates.

That era has ended, as ratings agency Moody’s pointed out this week. U.S. interest rates are now higher, at 4.25-4.5% driving up the costs of servicing the country’s enormous debt mountain. The threat to the U.S. right now is inflation and what that means for its debt servicing bill, if interest rates are held or, even, forced higher. There are parallels here for the 1970s, when rampant inflation, triggered by a number of factors including the oil crisis and America’s move to a fiat currency, led U.S. interest rates to soar at one point to 20%. During this period, foreign countries withdrew their investments, and the dollar slumped to 45% of total global foreign exchange reserves. And herein Trump’s challenge. He can’t export more without a weak dollar, and a weak dollar will make U.S. debt harder to service.

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“The combination values xAI at $80 billion and X at $33 billion..” Is that $80 billion together or $133 billion?

• xAI & X Merger Defuses Musk’s Tesla Share Liquidation Risk (ZH)

Elon Musk secured a multibillion-dollar margin loan using Tesla stock as collateral to finance his acquisition of Twitter (now rebranded as X). In recent months, Tesla’s share price has been cut in half due to a confluence of factors—slowing EV demand amid high interest rates, shifting electric vehicle policies under the Trump administration, market volatility driven by trade tensions, and pressure from a coordinated NGO-driven color revolution known as “Tesla Takedown,” aimed at crashing the stock to trigger loan repayment obligations tied to Musk’s pledged equity. In short, volatility in Tesla shares left Musk heavily exposed to potential loan repayment thresholds being triggered – which was set to occur at or below $114 according to reports – until now.

On Friday evening, Musk announced the merger of X with his AI startup, xAI, in an all-stock transaction that strengthens his financial position, protects Tesla shareholders, and renders the Tesla Takedown color revolution largely ineffective in achieving its intended goal. Musk outlined xAI’s acquisition of X: “xAI has acquired X in an all-stock transaction. The combination values xAI at $80 billion and X at $33 billion ($45B less $12B debt). Since its founding two years ago, xAI has rapidly become one of the leading AI labs in the world, building models and data centers at unprecedented speed and scale. X is the digital town square where more than 600M active users go to find the real-time source of ground truth and, in the last two years, has been transformed into one of the most efficient companies in the world, positioning it to deliver scalable future growth.

xAI and X’s futures are intertwined. Today, we officially take the step to combine the data, models, compute, distribution and talent. This combination will unlock immense potential by blending xAI’s advanced AI capability and expertise with X’s massive reach. The combined company will deliver smarter, more meaningful experiences to billions of people while staying true to our core mission of seeking truth and advancing knowledge. This will allow us to build a platform that doesn’t just reflect the world but actively accelerates human progress. I would like to recognize the hardcore dedication of everyone at xAI and X that has brought us to this point. This is just the beginning.”

Musk privately owns and controls both xAI and X. The transaction is structured as a stock swap, with X investors receiving xAI shares in return. Both companies share overlapping investors, including Fidelity Management, Saudi Arabia’s Kingdom Holding Co, Andreessen Horowitz, Sequoia Capital, and Vy Capital. Musk, also the CEO of Tesla and SpaceX, purchased Twitter in a $44 billion deal in 2022. X CEO Linda Yaccarino wrote on X last night: “The future could not be brighter.” Musk’s X post announcing the acquisition stated that the deal was about “blending” the AI startup and social media platform to create “a platform that doesn’t just reflect the world but actively accelerates human progress.” However, the move also eliminates the risk of Musk undergoing a forced liquidation of the $12.5 billion margin loan backed by his Tesla shares.

As we previously described at the beginning of the note, Tesla shares were halved for a number of reasons: Goldman Trading Desk Views “Trump As Bearish For US EV Market”. “Weak Demand”: Goldman Lowers Tesla Vehicle Delivery Estimate For Quarter. And this…”Tesla Takedown Revolutionaries Prepare Mobilization Nationwide, Tesla Takedown Organizers Plan Color Revolution To “Kill” Brand & “Death Spiral” For Investors. Last week, the Democratic Party and their Communist revolutionaries spelled out their sinister plans… “If we kill the Tesla brand” and “drive down the stock price low enough. We can force him to sell his stock to pay back the billions of dollars of debt he took on to buy Twitter.

“This will drive Tesla into a death spiral,” Micah Lee, The Intercept’s former Director of Information Security, explained on a recent Tesla Takedown teleconference with other far-left revolutionaries. Musk’s indebtedness from leveraging Tesla shares to fund the X deal is no longer a concern for Tesla shareholders. This strategic move also renders the Tesla Takedown color revolution funded by rogue Democrats less likely to force a liquidation.

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Irann Doesn’t think the US would be stupid enough. But Israel?!

• Iran ‘Doesn’t Care’ About Trump’s ‘Threats’ – Senior Commander (RT)

Iran will not bow to US pressure to resume talks over its nuclear program, a top naval commander has said, stressing that Tehran is ready to strike back in the event of an American attack. In an interview with al-Mayadeen TV channel on Saturday, Alireza Tangsiri, commander of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) Navy, pushed back against US President Donald Trump’s recent ultimatum urging the country to enter new nuclear talks. “I have no knowledge of Trump’s message, nor do I care to analyze it,” Tangsiri said. “I hear his threats, I observe his actions, and I prepare myself to counter them. We have the capability to strike all enemy bases, wherever they may be… No one can strike us and escape. Even if we have to chase them to the Gulf of Mexico, we would.”

Tangsiri also rejected any negotiations over Tehran’s missile arsenal or its backing of groups in the region. “Iran will never negotiate over its missiles or the capabilities of the Resistance Front,” he said. He also emphasized that the Islamic Republic seeks peaceful relations with its neighbors: “We always extend a hand of friendship to the countries in the region. As Muslims, we do not pose any threat to our neighboring countries.” The remarks came in response to Trump’s comments on Friday, in which he confirmed sending a letter to Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, seeking to negotiate a nuclear deal. “You’re gonna have to make a decision one way or the other,” Trump said. “We’re gonna either have to talk and talk it out, or very bad things are gonna happen to Iran. And I don’t want that to happen.” He added that if the US has “to go in militarily, it’s going to be a terrible thing.”

Iran’s Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi has said that while the letter seemed threatening, it still contained “some opportunities” for Tehran. The standoff follows years of tension over Tehran’s nuclear program. In 2015, Iran signed a deal with the US, the EU, Russia, and other world powers in which it agreed to limit its nuclear activities in exchange for sanctions relief. However, in 2018, Trump unilaterally withdrew America from the landmark agreement, calling it “a horrible one-sided deal” that had failed to achieve its goals. Iran has not ruled out indirect talks on the matter but has refused to do so under duress. It also maintains that its nuclear program is for peaceful purposes only.

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$1 billion a year for a woke relic.

• Federal Judge Halts Shutdown of Voice of America (ET)

A federal judge has temporarily blocked the Trump administration from dismantling Voice of America (VOA), the government-funded international news service whose 1,200 reporters and employees were placed on paid leave earlier this month. The judge, J. Paul Oetken of the Southern District of New York, on Friday issued a temporary restraining order in favor of VOA employees and their unions. The order prevents the U.S. Agency for Global Media (USAGM), which oversees VOA, from shutting down the broadcasting network and its associated radio programs. VOA employees filed the lawsuit against USAGM, its acting Director Victor Morales, and special adviser Kari Lake on March 21.

The complaint accused the agency of failing to fulfill its legally mandated missions and violating both press freedom and the separation-of-powers doctrine when it took a “chainsaw” to the outlet, ordering the entire staff not to report to work, turning off the service, and locking the agency’s doors. In his ruling, Oetken stated that VOA was likely to succeed on its claims, noting that USAGM’s actions appeared unconstitutional. He said that Lake lacked legal authority to withhold congressionally appropriated funds or terminate USAGM staff, programming, or contracts. “By withholding the funds statutorily appropriated to fully administer USAGM, VOA, and its affiliates … the executive is usurping Congress’s power of the purse and its legislative supremacy,” he wrote.

The judge did not require VOA to resume broadcasts, but made it clear that employees must not be terminated while the court determines whether the shutdown violates the Constitution or other federal administrative laws. Friday’s order echoed a similar ruling by another district judge earlier in the week, which granted a temporary restraining order to Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, blocking its funding freeze. The Trump administration has since stated in court filings that it has resumed funding for these outlets. President Donald Trump and his supporters have been critical of VOA for years over alleged bias against conservative Americans and in favor of America’s adversaries.

In 2020, the White House sent an email accusing VOA of spending taxpayers’ money to “speak for authoritarian regimes.” It took issue with, among other things, a VOA social media post featuring a video of a light show celebrating the end of the lockdown in Wuhan, the Chinese megapolis where the COVID-19 virus first emerged; as well as the agency’s characterization of China’s effort to control the outbreak as a “model” for other nations. “VOA too often speaks for America’s adversaries—not its citizens,” The White House said. “Journalists should report the facts, but VOA has instead amplified Beijing’s propaganda.”

The VOA first began broadcasting in 1942 in German-occupied territories as part of the Allies’ effort to engage Axis propaganda broadcasts with counterpropaganda. In the following decades, it became a staple in the propaganda war against the Soviet Union and other communist regimes. Over time, it evolved into a global news organization, now operating in more than 40 languages. Elon Musk, a tech billionaire and Trump’s top adviser for downsizing the federal government’s spending and workforce, has echoed calls to shut down VOA and its sister networks, arguing that they have outlived their purpose. “Yes, shut them down. Europe is free now (not counting stifling bureaucracy). Nobody listens to them anymore,” he wrote on X, accusing the outlets of being “radical left” and “torching $1B/year of US taxpayer money.”

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“You know, you are the first European who came to talk to us about this. The others are just asking us not to support Russia.”

• Ex-Italian PM Reveals ‘Secret Mission’ For Zelensky (RT)

Former Italian Prime Minister Massimo D’Alema has claimed that he undertook a secret diplomatic mission to Brazil and China on behalf of Ukrainian leader Vladimir Zelensky to garner international support, amid fears that Kiev would be abandoned by its Western backers. The revelation was made during a conversation with Italian politician Gianfranco Fini published by La Repubblica on Thursday. According to D’Alema, Zelensky approached him sometime in 2024, expressing fears of a potential catastrophe as Western support waned. “I happened to speak with Zelensky on the sidelines of an initiative on the Balkans. And he told me clearly that his country was at risk of disaster because ‘the Americans will withdraw sooner or later, and the Europeans are not reliable,’” the former prime minister told Fini.

“He asked me to go to Brazil and Beijing to find out if Lula and Xi Jinping could do something,” D’Alema claimed. Neither Brazil nor China has publicly confirmed any visits by the former Italian official. In Brasilia, President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva reportedly dismissed the initiative outright, insisting that Ukraine is an “American problem.” “I went there, but Lula almost showed me the door, telling me that Ukraine was a problem for the Americans and that, according to him, I should be interested in Palestine instead,” D’Alema said. In China, D’Alema reportedly met with one of the Communist Party’s top foreign policy officials, and discussed the idea of an international peacekeeping force for Ukraine. At the end of the meeting, the Chinese official is said to have remarked: “You know, you are the first European who came to talk to us about this. The others are just asking us not to support Russia.”

The former prime minister also criticized the EU for fueling what he described as unrealistic expectations about the conflict. “Europe has done nothing but repeat that Russia could be defeated, when it was clear to everyone that the war could not be won by anyone,” he said.

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“They want to inspect the holy relics of our saints. They plan to carve them up, to open them up, to break them into pieces. To perform this sacrilege over them. It’s a huge tragedy for the entire Orthodox world..”

• Zelensky Is a ‘Demon’ – Ukrainian MP (RT)

Ukraine’s Vladimir Zelensky is waging a campaign of terror against his own people by signing off on a crackdown targeting the canonical Ukrainian Orthodox Church (UOC), particularly the iconic Kiev Pechersk Lavra monastery, lawmaker Artyom Dmitruk has said. In an interview with RT on Friday, Dmitruk responded to reports that Ukrainian officials and police have entered the catacombs of the Kiev Pechersk Lavra, the nation’s most significant monastery and the final resting place of several Christian saints. During the raid, authorities unlocked doors, broke into the caves, and changed locks. Dmitruk described their actions as sacrilegious and suggested that Zelensky was directly complicit.

“Zelensky is perpetrating genocide of the Ukrainian people. What we are seeing now and what we are witnessing now is the continuation of terror policies of Zelensky’s against [the] Ukrainian people. Zelensky is a demon in the body of a human being. You can call him whatever you want, a godless person, a terrorist, and so on and so forth. The gist of his actions is the same. Zelensky is following a demon’s will,” he asserted. According to the legislator, who claims to have fled the country over the persecution of the UOC, the stated goal of the “inventarization” of the monastery’s possessions is nothing more than a pretext. “They want to inspect the holy relics of our saints. They plan to carve them up, to open them up, to break them into pieces. To perform this sacrilege over them. It’s a huge tragedy for the entire Orthodox world,” he said, recalling that the results of the review would be classified.

“They are raiding the Lavra. They are trying to seize the property of the Lavra… If we speak from a legal point of view, it’s a crime,” Dmitruk stressed. The Ukrainian government has been cracking down on the UOC for months, which it views as having ties to Russia. This effort has included attempts to take over the Lavra, as well as church raids and arrests of clergy. The UOC, the largest religious institution in the country, severed ties with the Moscow Patriarchate following the start of the conflict. Zelensky has defended the move, insisting on the need to protect Ukraine’s “spiritual independence” from Russia. Moscow has condemned the measures, accusing Kiev of suppressing the canonical Orthodox faith and alleging that the West is encouraging these efforts.

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Nobody cares.

• EU To Reject Russia-US Black Sea Deal – von der Leyen (RT)

The EU will not lift its sanctions against Russia for as long as the Ukraine conflict continues, European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen has said. During talks in Saudi Arabia on Monday, Russia and the US agreed to move towards reviving the Black Sea Grain Initiative, which, according to the Kremlin, should include the removal of Western restrictions against Russian Agricultural Bank and other financial institutions involved in the international sale of food and fertilizers. In her interview with French broadcaster LCI on Friday, von der Leyen made it clear that Brussels will not support the idea of a maritime truce between Moscow and Kiev put forward by the administration of US President Donald Trump.

“The sanctions are very significant; they are painful; they have an impact on the Russian economy, and they represent a powerful lever,” she said when asked about the possibility of the EU fulfilling Russian demands to lift some of the curbs. According to the head of the European Commission, the restrictions “will remain in effect until a just and lasting peace is established in Ukraine.” However, she noted that “when the war is over, the sanctions might be removed.” Von der Leyen also said that for the conflict to end, “security guarantees for Ukraine” are needed as well as “a solid defense industrial base and a deterrent force” in the EU. The Black Sea Grain Initiative, originally brokered in July 2022 by the UN and Türkiye, envisioned the safe passage of Ukrainian agricultural products in exchange for the West lifting its restrictions on Russian grain and fertilizer exports.

Moscow withdrew from the deal a year later, citing the West’s failure to uphold its obligations. The Americans and Russians now see its revival as a step towards settling the Ukraine conflict altogether. Earlier this week, President Vladimir Putin asserted that the Russian economy has become the fourth largest in the world in purchasing power parity terms after those of China, the US and India, despite a record 28,595 sanctions being placed on it by Washington, Brussels and their allies. According to the Russian government’s data, the country’s economy grew 4.1% in 2024, surpassing the official forecast of 3.9%. Putin previously urged the Russian business circles against expecting the sanctions to be fully lifted, describing them as a mechanism of strategic systemic pressure on the country that the West intends to keep using.

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Eurobonds are a huge threat to every European: “The EU Debt Plan is About Centralizing Financial Control.”

• The EU Wants to Use War as an Excuse for More Debt (Andreen)

The European political and financial elite knows that the war in Ukraine is lost but wants to use it as an opportunity to reach strategic independence from the United States. As the future chancellor of Germany Friedrich Merz said right after his electoral win on Feb 23: “It will be an absolute priority for me to strengthen Europe as soon as possible so much that it gradually really achieves independence from the United States.” Such strategic independence needs money and investment—a lot of it—not only to boost defense but much else, like energy and innovation; areas in which Europe is lagging behind the US and China. In order to have the pretext to implement this spending plan, the idea among the EU elite is to make sure that the war in Ukraine does not end too quickly. That way the conflict can be used to justify artificially injecting much needed money into the moribund EU economies.

First, there was a question of providing €20 billion euros of additional military support for Ukraine and that the EU self-imposed fiscal rules to be loosened using the existing “escape clause” in the event of “exceptional” circumstances, such as the bogus “defense of Ukraine” excuse. As Bloomberg stated, “under this plan, EU nations would be exempt from debt and deficit limits when financing military expenditures. This marks a fundamental shift in EU financial policy, as such exemptions have previously been impossible under EU rules.” Indeed, the EU elite does not want to follow the arbitrary EU fiscal rules: for Paris, the 3 percent limit of budget deficit to GDP is politically painful, and for Berlin, the limit of max 60 percent of GDP in terms of federal public borrowing seems like an artificial constraint.

Then there was a talk of a €700 billion euro defense package. Newsweek stated that: “Baerbock said the package could be worth some 700 billion euros ($732 billion).” French President Emmanuel Macron also confirmed this on March 2, 2025. “We will give a mandate to the European Commission to define our capacity needs for a common defense,” Macron said in an interview published in several French newspapers. “This massive funding will probably reach hundreds of billions of euros.” The official slogan of “help Ukraine defend itself” will give the EU political and financial elite an excuse to turn on the spigots of the European Central Bank at full thrust again; to shower the entire European economy with “free” money, and shore up its fragile economies, like it did after the euro crisis of 2011, with the enormous covid recovery fund in 2021, as well as with the Green New Deal.

This time, the idea seems to be to use joint EU bonds. Reuters writes: “The bigger amounts will have to come from some type of centralized funding, because most budgets in Europe are relatively stretched, particularly in Italy and France.” As was stated in the infamous Draghi Report from Sept 2024: “the EU should move towards regular issuance of common safe assets to enable joint investment projects among Member States and to help integrate capital markets.” Therefore, “common issuance should over time produce a deeper and more liquid market in EU bonds.”

Joint EU bonds are essentially bond issuances against the whole euro economy and would thus entail a low risk and a lower interest rate than country level EU bonds. This is perceived as necessary in order for the EU to hold its own in competition with the US and China that already have unified capital markets, as a speech Draghi gave to the EU Commission last year made clear. There are three main sources of war financing: printing money, increasing taxes, and borrowing. Making available “hundreds of billions” for the EU would likely be based on debt issued from joint EU bonds. Bloomberg noted that, if the spending were funded with tax increases, or cuts in other areas, that could wipe out any positive impact—or worse. Any immediate spending on the military would not help Europe because it would be mostly spent buying US weapons.

Therefore, what the EU elite has in mind now is likely to put in place what F. Merz said; a strategic independence from the US through a huge investment by joint EU bonds, released and used over the long term in order to slowly build up Europe’s industry, not only in the defense sector but also in other sectors. In a sense, this would-be debt plan is just the European Union emulating the United States playbook of using war for crony capitalist benefits, finally “understanding” how to cynically exploit the Ukraine war, just as the US has been doing since 2022 by feeding its military-industrial complex. But, in order for this to happen, the war must not end too soon for the European elite, which is why efforts are made in order to—outrageously—spoil any US peace plans and get the war to continue for now.

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All of a sudden, everybody knows Dr. Suzanne Humphries. Her X followers went from a few hundred to 62,000 overnight.

• Joe Rogan Guest Completely Shatters the Vaccine Narrative (VF)

Everything you’ve been told is a lie—especially when it comes to polio. Dr. Suzanne Humphries reveals what really made all those polio cases disappear after the vaccine was introduced. Dr. Suzanne Humphries, former board-certified nephrologist and co-author of Dissolving Illusions: Disease, Vaccines, and the Forgotten History, just made a bombshell appearance on The Joe Rogan Experience and what she shared will completely change how you think about vaccines. Most people are told vaccines are “safe and effective” with no real downside. But Dr. Humphries pulled back the curtain on decades of deception, starting with a major turning point in 1986—when President Reagan signed the National Childhood Vaccine Injury Act into law.

Before that, vaccine manufacturers were getting hammered with lawsuits. Humphries explained that after the 1976 swine flu vaccine disaster, Guillain-Barré cases were piling up. It got so bad that the companies couldn’t even get insurance. They ran to the government and basically said: “Bail us out, or we’re done making vaccines.” So the government stepped in. First, it agreed to cover the lawsuits. Then came the 1986 law—sold to the public as a way to help injured families get compensation faster, but in reality, it became a kangaroo court system that rarely paid families deserving of vaccine injury claims. Companies like Wyeth (now Pfizer) admitted their vaccines were “unavoidably unsafe,” yet instead of making them safer, they were handed blanket immunity.

Humphries explained that this opened the floodgates for “creativity” by the vaccine makers. They could now play with adjuvants without fear of being sued. Profits soared, and the childhood vaccine schedule expanded rapidly. That freedom also meant cutting corners in safety testing. Most people assume vaccines are tested like other drugs—with placebo controls. But that’s not the case. Instead, vaccines are actually tested against other vaccines, which obscures negative outcomes. “The few studies that exist with saline placebos show how bad the vaccine actually is and how it makes you not only not respond to the disease when it comes around, but more susceptible to it in many cases,” Dr. Humphries explained.

When the conversation turned to polio, Dr. Humphries blew just about everyone’s mind on the internet. She challenged one of the most sacred beliefs in modern medicine: that vaccines eradicated polio. The truth is that polio wasn’t actually eradicated. “Polio is still here. Polio is still alive and well,” Dr. Humphries declared. It’s just that a few sleights of hand made the world believe otherwise. The real change that happened, according to Humphries, wasn’t the vaccine’s impact—it was the definition. “Polio is called different things today,” Humphries explained. “Whereas back in the 1940s, 1950s, the criteria for diagnosing polio were completely different to the year that the vaccine was introduced. The playing field, the goalposts—everything was changed… they were able to show a complete cascading drop of paralytic polio simply because of the way they changed the definitions of what polio is and what could cause it. After the vaccine rollout, cases that would’ve been diagnosed as polio were now labeled as Guillain-Barré syndrome, coxsackievirus, echovirus, or chalked up to lead or mercury poisoning.

She also pointed to another key factor: environmental toxins. The rise in polio diagnoses, she said, mirrored the use of toxic chemicals like DDT. When the conversation turned to polio, Dr. Humphries blew just about everyone’s mind on the internet. She challenged one of the most sacred beliefs in modern medicine: that vaccines eradicated polio. The truth is that polio wasn’t actually eradicated. “Polio is still here. Polio is still alive and well,” Dr. Humphries declared. It’s just that a few sleights of hand made the world believe otherwise. The real change that happened, according to Humphries, wasn’t the vaccine’s impact—it was the definition. “Polio is called different things today,” Humphries explained. “Whereas back in the 1940s, 1950s, the criteria for diagnosing polio were completely different to the year that the vaccine was introduced. The playing field, the goalposts—everything was changed… they were able to show a complete cascading drop of paralytic polio simply because of the way they changed the definitions of what polio is and what could cause it.”

After the vaccine rollout, cases that would’ve been diagnosed as polio were now labeled as Guillain-Barré syndrome, coxsackievirus, echovirus, or chalked up to lead or mercury poisoning. She also pointed to another key factor: environmental toxins. The rise in polio diagnoses, she said, mirrored the use of toxic chemicals like DDT. As use of neurotoxic pesticides like DDT, arsenic, and lead declined, so did toxic exposures that mimicked polio symptoms. Fewer kids were bathing in poisons that caused spinal nerve damage, so naturally, paralysis decreased. “The tonnage of production of DDT absolutely mirrored the diagnosis for polio,” Dr. Humphries explained. Even today, she added, “The countries that still make DDT… are where we’re still seeing this paralytic polio situation happen.”

And when it comes to the poliovirus itself? It’s not quite as harmful as people think. Humphries explained that polio is actually a “commensal”—a virus that lives in most people without causing harm. “95 to 99% of all polio is asymptomatic.” Dr. Humphries described a study of the Javante Indians, where “98 to 99% of every person they tested… had evidence of immunity to all three strains of polio,” yet none of the children were crippled. “They were like, ‘We don’t have any of that problem,’” she recalled. Dr. Humphries also cited a chilling story in history. In 1916, a Rockefeller lab in Manhattan set out with “the specific stated goal… to try to create the most pathological, neuropathological strain of polio possible.” Researchers injected monkey brains and human spinal fluid into monkeys.

And that experimentation came with devastating consequences. “There was a big problem with that, which was [polio] released into the public by accident,” Dr. Humphries explained. “And the world experienced the worst polio epidemic on record. 25% mortality.” In short, Humphries argued that polio didn’t vanish because of vaccines. It disappeared under a mountain of redefinitions, environmental triggers, manmade disasters, and a lot of propaganda. Dr. Humphries also raised concerns about a link between vaccines and food allergies. “It’s very well known that the vaccines that have aluminum in them skew the immune system,” she said. Aluminum is added to many vaccines to make the immune system react more strongly. But when that reaction happens, the immune system can mistakenly target other things in the body, like food proteins.

For example, if a baby is exposed to something like peanuts or eggs around the time of vaccination, the immune system might mistakenly tag those foods as threats, potentially leading to a long-term food allergy. “So that’s kind of the paradox there [with vaccines],” Dr. Humphries explained. And then there’s mercury. Did you know that if a mercury-containing vaccine drops on the floor, “the HAZMAT people have to come and take that away”? Yet we inject it into 3-month-old babies.

Read more …

 

 

 

 

RFK vaccines

 

 

Bhakdi

 

 

Cows

 

 

Maruay

 

 

Lovebird

 

 

Ninja

 

 

Coral forest
https://twitter.com/buitengebieden/status/1905674058189975930

 

 

Tartaria

 

 

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

 

 

 

 

 

Debt Rattle March 29 2025

Mar 292025
 
 March 29, 2025  Posted by at 10:35 am Finance Tagged with: , , , , , , , , , ,  54 Responses »


Arnold Böcklin Mermaids at play 1886

 

• Macron and Starmer’s Coalition of The Killing (SCF)
• The EU Is Desperate To Sell Its People More Ukraine War (Marsden)
• EU ‘Preparing For War’ – Hungary FM (RT)
• Trump ‘Contemptuous’ of Zelensky – The Times (RT)
• EU Waves White Flag, Prepares “Term Sheet Of Concessions” For Trade War (ZH)
• Vance Delivers Trump’s ‘Message’ To US Troops In Greenland (RT)
• Meloni Backs Vance’s Attack On EU (RT)
• Bedlam, Pending (James Howard Kunstler)
• Trump Asks SCOTUS To Allow Deportations To Proceed During Legal Challenge (ZH)
• Judge Extends Injunction Against Trump’s Alien Enemies Act Invocation (ET)
• USAID Officially Shuttered After Court Victory (ZH)
• Donald Trump Taps Journalist Sara Carter As Next ‘Drug Czar’ (JTN)
• FBI Whistleblowers Want Bureau To Review Their Cases (JTN)
• California High Speed Rail Asks for $7 Billion More (Moran)
• Global Firms Lining Up To Return To Russia – Putin Aide (RT)
• Senator Cruz Files Companion Bill To Prohibit The Fed From Issuing a CBDC (CT)
• EU Official Denies Anti-Free Speech Policies in Bizarre Letter to US Congress (Turley)
• Stefanik Nomination Pulled to Protect Passage of Reconciliation (DS)

 

 

 

 

Excellent on everything about USA-CAN tariffs

 

 

Barron

Putin

HHS

Nap Mears
https://twitter.com/zei_squirrel/status/1905646698153869398

Jordan Belfort – Not a word

 

 

 

 

“European citizens – 500 million of them – are being subjected to non-stop messaging about the “need” to militarize their societies to “defend” against “Russian expansionism”.

• Macron and Starmer’s Coalition of The Killing (SCF)

If there were a prize for Orwellian-named conferences, then the one held this week in Paris would surely be a top contender. Over the past month, there has been a slew of such gatherings in London, Brussels, and Paris. They have been conducted in a frenzy to thwart peace and prolong war – under the guise of “seeking security” against Russia. Some 30 nations attended the latest Paris summit, convened by France’s Emmanuel Macron, and entitled “Building a Robust Peace for Ukraine and Europe”. Europe is being gaslighted to view war as peace and accept that all economic resources must be dedicated to militarism. It is an insane war footing that is beyond any democratic or moral rationale. European Union member states participated as well as NATO and non-EU nations Britain, Norway, and Canada.

We should clarify that it was the elitist leaders of these countries who were present. Their lack of democratic mandate and authority is all too obvious to the people of Europe. Some EU nations, such as Hungary and Slovakia, have protested commendably about the unwavering belligerence and obscene waste of public resources for fueling a proxy war in Ukraine. Notably, too, the United States was not represented at the Paris summit. Coincidentally, this week, a leaked private group conversation between senior members of the Trump administration revealed their contempt for “loathsome” European leaders. One can understand why. In the grandeur of Élysée Palace, Macron hailed the non-entity gathering as the “Coalition of the Willing”. With this self-appointed virtue, the French leader was referring to countries that are willing to deploy military forces to Ukraine or maintain the supply of weapons.

Macron has been assiduously supported in this military venture by Britain’s Prime Minister Kier Starmer. The French and British leaders have intensified their efforts to directly insinuate Europe and NATO militarily in the three-year conflict between Ukraine and Russia. Their efforts are a result of American President Donald Trump engaging with Russian President Vladimir Putin to end the proxy war between the U.S.-led NATO alliance and Russia. Trump’s diplomatic overtures with Moscow have sidelined the European states and have left them with an acute political problem of how to justify continuing military support for a failing Ukraine Project. The French, British and other European Russophobes do not want the war to end. That’s because they are wedded to the false narrative about defending Ukraine from “Russian aggression”. They are also committed to strategically defeating Russia using Ukraine as a proxy.

In Orwellian fashion, the European and NATO warmongers cannot openly state their nefarious objective. That would be politically fatal. Hence, they are cynically dressing up their motives with virtuous-sounding schemes, such as deploying “peacekeeping troops” in the event of any ceasefire deal that the Americans and Russians might negotiate. The relentless demonizing of Russia as a threat to Europe is amplified by a near-constant drumbeat of war. European citizens – 500 million of them – are being subjected to non-stop messaging about the “need” to militarize their societies to “defend” against “Russian expansionism”.

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“..the official name for this giant spending spree: SAFE – as in, “Security Action For Europe.”

• The EU Is Desperate To Sell Its People More Ukraine War (Marsden)

I guess calling Ursula von der Leyen’s €800 billion defence spending plan, “ReArm Europe,” as she did initially, didn’t test well – probably because Europeans are too busy wondering why there’s no money for literally anything else that isn’t a weapons buying bonanza. So, what’s with this new name, Readiness 2030, that they’ve suddenly started using as a replacement term? And why 2030? Turns out that’s the magic number that European intelligence agencies, notably Germany’s, have cooked up for when Russia will supposedly be all set to roll into Europe. You know, the same intelligence outfits that just now decided that the EU is a sitting duck and could really use desperate measures now that its economy is circling the drain.

Like, for example, the new proposal for French citizens to invest their personal savings of a minimum €500 euros, for at least 5 years, to help mitigate the dwindling public support for military over social spending, as the French economy minister just announced. That 2030 date definitely has nothing to do with the fact that politicians need a solid five years of blank checks from taxpayers to funnel cash into the defense industry, conveniently boosting GDP after tanking their own economies with their self-inflicted crises. To really hammer home the “readiness” vibe while European leaders like French President Emmanuel Macron riff nonstop about war with Russia, the EU is now mass-marketing a self-assembled emergency kit to all member state citizens.

“Today, the EU launches its new #Preparedness Strategy. ‘Ready for anything’ — this must be our new European way of life. Our motto and #hashtag,” wrote EU Crisis Management commissioner Hadja Lahbib on social media. She also posted a video that she called a “what’s in my bag — survival edition” and started pulling out of her purse things like a Swiss Army Knife, something that looked like a can of tuna, playing cards “for distraction”, and a radio. “Everything you need to survive the first 72 hours of a crisis,” she said. After that? Well, maybe the Russian soldiers who have invaded Europe will have just gotten their fill of selfies with the locals (courtesy of the go bag’s backup phone charger) – #TanksForTheMemories – and their travel chess set matches – and will be on their way. Because it’s not like the EU is going to get anything under control in 72 hours. As if that was the point anyway.

Oh, and Queen Ursula’s EU Commission isn’t stopping at just one dumb rebrand. The bloc is also giving a fresh coat of paint to what was once known as “fiscal responsibility.” EU rules used to cap member states’ deficits at 3% of GDP – now, that little restriction is being rebranded as a “National Escape Clause”. As in, congratulations! You’re finally free from the oppressive burden of not bankrupting your country. Not long ago, a stunt like yanking off national debt brakes would have just gotten member states a spanking from her. Now? It’s “spend whatever you want – as long as it’s on weapons.”

And let’s talk about the official name for this giant spending spree: SAFE – as in, “Security Action For Europe.” Because nothing screams “SAFE” like blowing your savings together, like a group of teenagers maxing out their credit cards at the mall. Except instead of Sephora lip gloss or Louis Vuitton bags, it’s missiles and drones. And speaking of drones – all this rebranding of the defense spending spree was sparked by objections from some folks like Spain’s Prime Minister, Pedro Sánchez, who was like, hey, we should at least pretend this is about dual use – you know, the drones we’re cranking out for Putin’s completely hypothetical invasion could also fight wildfires.

Italy’s Prime Minister Georgia Meloni also brought up the fact that if this is all supposed to be about security, then why is the focus on just making weapons and not also on improving essential service that are also kind of important if this is really about an emergency. Well, because that won’t make defense shares go up, will it, silly?

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“..as long as the war continues, pro-war European politicians can avoid taking responsibility for three years of failure, and avoid answering an extremely uncomfortable question: where is the money that was sent to Ukraine?

• EU ‘Preparing For War’ – Hungary FM (RT)

Hungarian Foreign Minister Peter Szijjarto has accused Brussels bureaucrats of clinging to a “failed pro-war policy” in a desperate attempt to delay the moment when European taxpayers begin asking where the money spent on bankrolling Kiev has gone. The European Union recently advised its 450 million inhabitants to stockpile essential supplies for at least 72 hours, with EU Commissioner for Crisis Management Hadja Lahbib warning on Wednesday that the Ukraine conflict threatens the bloc’s overall security. Szijjarto said he initially thought the warning was some kind of joke or “trolling,” after Lahbib posted a bizarre video showing Europeans what to pack in a 72-hour survival kit. “But why, in the 21st century, should EU citizens prepare a survival kit? There’s only one explanation: Brussels is preparing for war,“ Szijjarto wrote in a post on X on Friday.

“At a time when there’s finally a real chance for a ceasefire and meaningful peace talks with [President Donald Trump’s] return to office, Brussels is going in the opposite direction, clinging to a failed pro-war policy.” Why? Because as long as the war continues, pro-war European politicians can avoid taking responsibility for three years of failure, and avoid answering an extremely uncomfortable question: where is the money that was sent to Ukraine? EU institutions in Brussels and individual member states have spent over €132 billion over the past three years supporting Kiev, and have pledged an additional €115 billion that has yet to be allocated, according to data from Germany’s Kiel Institute.

Since taking office, US President Donald Trump has pushed for a diplomatic resolution and sought to recoup what he estimates to be over $300 billion in US taxpayer money that his predecessor “gifted” to Kiev. Washington recently brokered a limited ceasefire between Ukraine and Russia, placing a moratorium on attacks on energy infrastructure. Kiev, however, has repeatedly breached the ceasefire terms, according to Moscow. Despite the ongoing peace process, the EU has continued to push a hawkish agenda. European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen recently unveiled an €800 billion plan to ramp up military spending through loans.

IMeanwhile, France and the UK continue to advocate for the deployment of a military contingent to Ukraine. Speaking after a summit in Paris on Thursday, French President Emmanuel Macron announced that a so-called “coalition of the willing” will seek to deploy a “reassurance force” to Ukraine after a peace deal with Russia is reached. The proposal to send troops has already been rejected by several EU members. The “coalition of the willing” – a phrase originally coined by the US in 2003 to describe countries backing the invasion of Iraq – now mostly refers to states that have pledged to continue supporting Kiev militarily, without necessarily committing to troop deployments.

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“US negotiators have apparently been working to extract even greater concessions from Kiev.”

• Trump ‘Contemptuous’ of Zelensky – The Times (RT)

US President Donald Trump is both contemptuous of Ukraine’s Vladimir Zelensky and assured of Kiev’s weakness in its conflict with Moscow, The Times’ Washington reporter Hugh Tomlinson suggested in an op-ed published on Friday. In light of this, Trump aims to get back all the funds the US has spent on the Ukraine conflict during his predecessor Joe Biden’s term, Tomlinson wrote. “Convinced of Ukraine’s weakness, contemptuous of Zelensky, and enraged by the billions of dollars in aid given to Kiev by Joe Biden’s administration, Trump has set out to get it all back, and more,” he said. Last month, Trump demanded that Kiev reimburse what he claimed was hundreds of billions of dollars in US aid via Ukraine’s mineral wealth, originally focusing on “rare earths.”

An earlier iteration of the deal was reportedly set to be signed in early March, only to be derailed by Zelensky’s public shouting match with the US president and vice president in the Oval Office. Following the altercation, Trump temporarily froze all military aid and intelligence sharing with Kiev. However, Washington reversed the decision after Kiev agreed to a 30-day partial ceasefire following US-Ukrainian talks in Jeddah earlier this month. Moscow has since accused Ukraine of multiple strikes on its energy sites, which are off-limits under the truce. After Monday’s separate talks with the US in Saudi Arabia, both Russia and Ukraine have said they’re willing to broaden the partial ceasefire to encompass a naval truce on the Black Sea. “For days, White House officials have insisted that an agreement on the minerals deal was close. Now a possible reason for the delay and the price of a ceasefire may be becoming clearer,” Tomlinson wrote, adding that “US negotiators have apparently been working to extract even greater concessions from Kiev.”

The latest version of the minerals deal proposed by the Trump administration is far harsher than earlier iterations, Reuters wrote on Thursday, citing a draft of the agreement. Under the newest terms, the US will recoup all aid money given to Ukraine since the escalation of its conflict with Russia in 2022 and charge a 4% annual interest rate on the sum before Kiev can access the fund’s profits. Zelensky has confirmed that he has received a fresh proposal from the US but insisted that the funding Kiev has received from Washington was a donation and not a loan. The US has allocated more than $123 billion to Ukraine in military and financial aid since 2022, according to data from Germany’s Kiel Institute. Trump maintains that Washington has spent more than $300 billion on supporting Kiev.

Read more …

Just write down all tariffs there are. Multi-dimensional puzzle, but do-able. Maybe DOGE can help.

• EU Waves White Flag, Prepares “Term Sheet Of Concessions” For Trade War (ZH)

In what may be the first clear confirmation Trump’s plan to realign the global trader system is working, moments ago Bloomberg reported that the European Union is identifying concessions it’s willing to make to Donald Trump’s administration to secure the partial removal of the US tariffs that have already started hitting the bloc’s exports and that are set to increase after April 2. According to Bloomberg, EU officials were told at meetings this week in Washington that there was no way to avoid new auto and so-called reciprocal tariffs that Trump is launching next week. Discussions also began on what the contours of a potential deal to reduce them should eventually look like.

That prompted the European Commission (which handles trade matters for the EU) to start working on a “term sheet” for a potential concession agreement, which would set out areas for negotiations on the punitive trade measures, including lowering its own duties, mutual investments with the US as well as easing certain regulations and standards. In short, Europe – led these days by France’s Macron – did what Europe always does when led by the French: it surrendered.

The reciprocal tariffs which will be unveiled on April 2 are meant to strike out against what Trump considers to be unfair levies on US goods as well as non-tariff barriers, such as domestic regulations and how countries collect taxes, including the bloc’s value-added tax, digital taxes and regulations. The EU says its VAT is a fair, non-discriminatory tax that applies equally to domestic and imported goods (for more on the framework for Trump’s reciprocal tariffs, see this). The news, which is actually rather bad for Europe as it confirms the continent will be unable to retaliate fully and instead will be on the receiving end of Trump’s trade war, sparked a brief rally in the Euro…

Read more …

Watched bits on CNN. From the coverage, you’d swear Vance had arrived in Greenland with a squadron of hostile fighter jets.

But it’s simple. The entire Arctic will be contested. Greenland can’t defend itself. Denmark can’t defend it either, other than with NATO aka US assistance. Greenland doesn’t need the Denmark middleman.

Don’t be surprised if Trump DOES offer them $1 million per person.

• Vance Delivers Trump’s ‘Message’ To US Troops In Greenland (RT)

US Vice President J.D. Vance delivered a forceful address to American service members at Pituffik Space Base in northwest Greenland on Friday, emphasizing the Trump administration’s determination to expand its permanent foothold on the Arctic island. The vice president’s visit came a day after Russian President Vladimir Putin outlined Moscow’s Arctic policy and warned that US annexation plans – dating back to the 1860s – should be taken seriously and not dismissed as “extravagant talk.” “I want to bring a message from President Trump,” Vance told the assembled airmen and guardians. “He’s grateful for your service, grateful for what you do up here… because the mission that you guys do is so important for the United States.”

While insisting that there are no “immediate plans” to expand the US military presence with new bases, Vance announced that Washington would “absolutely” increase investment – including “investing in additional military icebreakers, investing in additional naval ships that will have a greater presence in Greenland.” The vice president stressed that the US supports Greenlandic “self-determination,” but made it clear that Washington envisions a future in which the island ultimately aligns with America. “I think that you’d be a lot better coming under the United States security umbrella than you have been under Denmark’s,” he said. Vance accused the Danish government of failing the people of Greenland, claiming the island is “extremely vulnerable right now.”

Vance justified the administration’s increasingly assertive approach by pointing to rising Chinese and Russian activity in the region, describing Greenland as a geopolitical flashpoint in a new era of strategic competition. “We know that Russia and China and other nations are taking an extraordinary interest in Arctic passageways, in Arctic naval routes, and indeed in the minerals of the Arctic territories. We need to ensure that America is leading in the Arctic – because we know that if America doesn’t, other nations will fill the gap where we fall behind,” he said. He also highlighted Greenland’s critical role in US missile early warning systems, describing the base’s function as a vital shield “if a missile was fired from an enemy country.”

In his Thursday speech, President Vladimir Putin countered the US narrative, stressing that “Russia has never threatened anyone in the Arctic,” and emphasizing the region’s “enormous potential” for joint economic development, resource extraction, infrastructure projects and transport. “But at the same time, of course, we are concerned about the fact that NATO countries are increasingly often designating the Far North as a springboard for possible conflicts,” Putin added, noting that Moscow is “closely monitoring developments in the region” and “modernizing military infrastructure facilities.”

Read more …

Meloni also suggests sneaking Ukraine into NATO sans Article 5, but at least she’s not a warmonger. She’s just isolated.

• Meloni Backs Vance’s Attack On EU (RT)

Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni has thrown her weight behind US Vice President J.D. Vance and his scathing criticism of Washington’s European allies last month. In a keynote address at the annual Munich Security Conference, Vance charged that the UK and several EU nations are failing to uphold free speech and democratic principles. “I have to say I agree,” Meloni told Financial Times. “I’ve been saying this for years… Europe has a bit lost itself.” She added that the believed the vice president’s ire was directed at a “ruling class,” that imposes its ideology on ordinary citizens.

The article in the British newspaper on Friday underscored Meloni’s ideological parallels with Trump and her lack of alignment with other European leaders on crucial matters. French President Emmanuel Macron and British Prime Minister Keir Starmer have marked out a position apart from US President Donald Trump, in particular on the Ukraine conflict, where the White House is pushing hard for a truce. The duo is spearheading efforts to bolster the Ukrainian military, and has proposed that a “reassurance force” be stationed in the country. Russia has warned against any NATO military presence in Ukraine, regardless of the form it takes.

Meloni said that in contrast to Macron and Starmer, she is not keen to position herself as a “protagonist” on the global stage. While she did not directly contest claims that Russia poses a threat warranting Europe-wide military expansion, she emphasized that Rome recognizes “threats can come from 360 degrees.” She was referring to illegal migration across the Mediterranean, which is a pressing issue in Italy. ”If you simply think that you can defend yourself, taking care of the eastern flank, and you don’t consider for example what happens in the southern flank, you will have a problem,” the prime minister explained. Russian officials deny any aggressive intentions toward NATO, viewing the Ukraine conflict as a proxy war instigated by the bloc. Moscow has accused European leaders of undermining Trump’s mediation efforts and preferring the continuation of hostilities.

Meloni

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“The current organized action in the federal judiciary against the executive is a grave sickness induced by the Deep State that must be corrected by the SCOTUS..”

• Bedlam, Pending (James Howard Kunstler)

You understand, all these lawsuit shenanigans with select federal judges from Woke-crazed districts like Boston, San Francisco, Rhode Island, and the DC Beltway are aimed at provoking a second civil war. The objective is to burden Mr. Trump with so many restrictions on the executive that the country can’t be governed without declaring a national emergency. This is the Democratic Party’s desperate strategy to stay alive: to preserve the flow of taxpayer money to its minions stuffed into the organs of government like cancer cells, and the vast network of NGOs that employ its agents and spread its sickness. The Democratic Party is a malignancy within the republic and the money is the blood-flow that feeds it. DOGE is the chemotherapy that has starved some of the worst tumors, such as USAID.

Chemotherapy is always hard on the patient. Cancer is a very tough and resourceful enemy of a healthy body, and fights back by any means available. Ultimately, it seeks to kill the body it has come to inhabit — in this case, the body-politic of the USA. We are fighting for the life of our republic against a demonic enemy. The Democratic Party displays exactly the characteristics that human beings traditionally associate with pure evil. Above all, it lies about everything that it does. It lies, of course, in order to deceive you, so that you won’t understand how it is working to vanquish you and your posterity (your kids and their future). RussiaGate, Covid-19, the Ukraine War, all were marinated in lies. The lies operate through the perversion of language, so you won’t understand what is being said.

For instance: that the Democratic Party is working to save our democracy. That howler persists in their every public performance. The Democratic Party controls the major organs of information: The New York Times, CNN, Hollywood. They are the conveyers of lies, bamboozling the body politic to divide and conquer it. The Democratic party is a bad faith legion enlisted to defend the Father-of-Lies, America’s Deep State (a.k.a. the blob). That information regime is failing now along with the Democratic Party. The Deep State is failing with them. They are the parasites that kills its host. They intend to kill the republic as they go down. The Supreme Court of the United States (SCOTUS) is supposed to function like an immune system for the body politic, defending it against political sickness.

The current organized action in the federal judiciary against the executive is a grave sickness induced by the Deep State that must be corrected by the SCOTUS. We await that corrective action — a sweeping decision in reply to 100-plus lawsuits — that the chief executive is in-charge of the executive department and that his prerogatives to manage the staffing and actions of the executive agencies can’t be arrogated by federal judges. So far, obviously, the SCOTUS has not yet come to issue that decision. Many of you worry that they will fail to, because Chief Justice John Roberts appears to be somehow under the influence of the Deep State. Let’s have a look. Sheldon Snook is Special Assistant to Chief Justice Roberts, and is deeply involved in the day-to-day management of the SCOTUS. Sheldon Snook is married to Mary McCord. Ms. McCord has been a leading actor, via her various roles in the Deep State, in the seditious operations against President Trump since 2017.

As Acting Attorney General for National Security in 2017, Mary McCord, turned James Comey’s FBI jihad against National Security advisor Mike Flynn into a malicious and ultimately unsuccessful prosecution. (The DOJ dropped the charges, which Judge Emmet G. Sullivan refused to execute, thus necessitating a pardon from Mr. Trump.) Mary McCord was instrumental in the DOJ’s dishonest FISA application to surveil Carter Page (when Judge James Boasberg sat on the FISA Court). Ms. McCord quit the DOJ to become a counsel to the committee in the first impeachment of Donald Trump. In that role, she assisted Norm Eisen, the Chief Counsel to committee Chairman, Rep. Jerrold Nadler. Norm Eisen has gone on since that time to become the chief coordinator of lawfare operations against Mr. Trump. Mary McCord remains a senior fellow of the Atlantic Council, sponsored by George and Alex Soros. Sheldon Snook remains at John Roberts’ right hand.

Do you find these connections disturbing? Do they suggest where Justice John Roberts may stand in the war between the Deep State and President Donald Trump? I suppose we are going to find out. So, if the SCOTUS upholds the arrogation of executive powers and prerogatives by federal district judges, don’t expect Mr. Trump to roll over for that decision. It may come to pass, as per all the above, that he will be constrained to declare a national emergency to vacate the Deep State actors who are trying to make it impossible for him to govern, establishing special tribunals to disarm them. This, of course, will be seen by the Deep State and the Democratic Party as cassus belli, an excuse to declare war against the president. We seem to be headed in that direction. There will be friction, heat, and light.

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“..the DOJ argued that federal courts should not be allowed to interfere with diplomatic matters [..] The Constitution supplies a clear answer: the President,” [..] “The republic cannot afford a different choice.”

• Trump Asks SCOTUS To Allow Deportations To Proceed During Legal Challenge (ZH)

The Trump administration on Friday asked the Supreme Court to step in and allow the deportation of Venezuelan migrants to El Salvador while a legal battle plays out in lower courts. The move comes two days after an appeals court upheld a temporary block on the Trump administration’s ability to deport illegal migrants under the Alien Enemies Act. In their request, the DOJ argued that federal courts should not be allowed to interfere with diplomatic matters, the Associated Press reports. “The Constitution supplies a clear answer: the President,” Acting Solicitor General Sarah Harris wrote in the request. “The republic cannot afford a different choice.” Earlier this month US District Judge James Boasberg paused the flights by ruling that alleged members of the Venezuelan gang Tren de Aragua deserve a hearing to deny they belong to the gang. Boasberg also demanded details on two flights on March 15 to determine whether the administration defied his oral and written orders to block them.

The Trump administration also asked the Supreme Court to overturn Boasberg’s order pausing flights, and to put that order on hold while they consider that request. “Those orders – which are likely to extend additional weeks – now jeopardize sensitive diplomatic negotiations and delicate national-security operations, which were designed to extirpate TdA’s presence in our country before it gains a greater foothold,” wrote Harris. The Supreme Court has asked lawyers for some of the deported Venezuelans to respond by 10am Tuesday to the Trump admin request. The DOJ has argued that Trump had the authority to declare TdA a foreign terrorist organization and deport them without hearings.

Government lawyers also refused to release flight information on the deportations, arguing that it would reveal sources and methods behind the deportations.”Once that secondary disclosure occurred, any opportunity for appellate review would be moot; the damage would be done, and the effect on United States foreign policy could be catastrophic,” the DOJ wrote. The DOJ insists that the government obeyed Boasberg’s written order blocking the flights, but says that his earlier oral order while the flights were in the air weren’t enforceable. Government lawyers also contend that Trump had the authority to conduct the flights as commander-in-chief of the US military and the country’s head of foreign affairs. Trump, meanwhile, has called for Boasberg’s impeachment – saying that the lifetime Obama-appointee is “a troublemaker and agitator.”

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“..court lacks jurisdiction over the allegations, “which challenge matters within the President’s unreviewable authority..”

• Judge Extends Injunction Against Trump’s Alien Enemies Act Invocation (ET)

U.S. District Judge James Boasberg on March 28 extended a temporary restraining order that prevents U.S. officials from deporting illegal immigrants from the United States solely on the basis of President Donald Trump’s invocation of a wartime law. Boasberg said in a 3-page ruling there is good cause to extend the order because Venezuelan nationals who sued over the invocation are entitled to relief preventing their removal “at least until they have had a chance to challenge that they are covered by the Proclamation.” “That is so because they are likely to succeed on the merits of their claim that they are entitled to such an opportunity; that they will suffer irreparable harm in the absence of emergency relief; and that the balance of equities and the public interest tilt in their favor,” the judge said, citing his previous rulings in the case.

No developments have taken place since the entry of the order and a similar narrower order that call those decisions into question, according to the ruling. The injunctions had been due to expire on March 29. They are now in place until April 12, or until further order from the court. Lawyers for the illegal immigrants had asked Boasberg to extend the orders, which were entered on March 15, just hours after Trump’s proclamation was made public. If the orders were allowed to expire, officials would resume deportation flights to El Salvador, the lawyers warned. U.S. Department of Justice attorneys had opposed the motion for an extension. They wrote in a filing that the court lacks jurisdiction over the allegations, “which challenge matters within the President’s unreviewable authority and, nonetheless, sound in habeas and must therefore be brought as habeas claims in district of confinement.”

The extension came on the same day the Trump administration asked the U.S. Supreme Court to intervene in the case, claiming that the block on utilizing the Alien Enemies Act to deport members of the Tren de Aragua terrorist gang “is forcing the United States to harbor individuals whom national-security officials have identified as members of a foreign terrorist organization bent upon grievously harming Americans.” Chief Justice John Roberts soon after set a deadline of 10 a.m. on April 1 for lawyers for the illegal immigrants to respond. The Alien Enemies Act states in part that whenever “a declared war between the United States and any foreign nation or government, or any invasion or predatory incursion shall be perpetrated, attempted, or threatened against the territory of the United States, by any foreign nation or government,” the president shall proclaim that nationals from that hostile nation shall be deported.

Trump said in a proclamation that Tren de Aragua, working with the Venezuelan government, has been “undertaking hostile actions and conducting irregular warfare against the territory of the United States.” A divided federal appeals court on March 26 upheld the temporary restraining orders from Boasberg. U.S. Circuit Judge Karen LeCraft Henderson, in the majority, said in a concurring opinion that the U.S. District Court in Washington had jurisdiction to hear the case, even though the illegal immigrants have been detained in Texas. U.S. Circuit Judge Patricia Miller, also in the majority, said in a concurring opinion that the government does not face irreparable harm absent a stay, in part because officials can still deport the illegal immigrants through the typical deportation process outlined in the Immigration and Nationality Act.

U.S. Circuit Judge Justin Walker, in a dissent, said that the legal claims should have been filed in Texas. He also said the government has shown that the restraining orders “threaten irreparable harm to delicate negotiations with foreign powers on matters concerning national security.”

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“As to Musk, the evidence before us creates a strong likelihood that he functioned as an advisor to the President, carrying out the President’s policies of shrinking government and reducing spending, not as an Officer who required constitutional appointment..”

• USAID Officially Shuttered After Court Victory (ZH)

The US Agency for International Development (USAID) has been officially shuttered after a federal appeals court Friday determined that the Trump administration could continue dismantling it. The ruling nullifies a lower court ruling that found that Elon Musk and DOGE were exercising enough independent authority to require Senate confirmation under the Constitution’s Appointments Clause. “While defendants’ role and actions related to USAID are not conventional, unconventional does not necessarily equal unconstitutional,” wrote US Circuit Judge Marvin Quattlebaum, a Trump appointee. “And none of this is to say that plaintiffs will not be able to develop evidence of unconstitutional conduct as the case progresses. Time will tell,” he continued.

USAID was one of DOGE’s first targets. In addition to finding all sorts of waste, fraud and abuse, America First Legal found last week that USAID was behind an online censorship scheme. A week before that, a senior USAID official ordered the agency’s remaining staff to report to their now-former headquarters in Washington DC for an “all day” group effort to destroy documents, many of which contain sensitive information. After DOGE cleaned house, 26 current and former USAID employees sued – arguing that Elon Musk and DOGE have no actual independent authority. Earlier this month, US District Judge Theodore Chuang, an Obama appointee, indefinitely blocked Musk and DOGE personnel from shutting down the agency. In response, the 4th Circuit panel unanimously agreed that Chuang’s ruling should be nullified as the administration’s appeal proceeds – though just two of the judges on Friday found that Musk was likely acting constitutionally.

“As to Musk, the evidence before us creates a strong likelihood that he functioned as an advisor to the President, carrying out the President’s policies of shrinking government and reducing spending, not as an Officer who required constitutional appointment,” wrote Quattlebaum, who was joined by US Circuit Judge Paul Niemeyer, a George HW Bush appointee. US Circuit Judge Roger Gregory said he only voted with his colleagues because the USAID workers sued the wrong defendants – and if they’d sued USAID itself, he would have sided with them. “We may never know how many lives will be lost or cut short by the Defendants’ decision to abruptly cancel billions of dollars in congressionally appropriated foreign aid,” Gregory wrote. “We may never know the lasting effect of Defendants’ actions on our national aspirations and goals. But those are not the questions before the Court today.”

Meanwhile, the US State Department on Friday announced that it is officially closing down USAID – with the formal last day set to take place before July 1, the NY Post reports. According to ABC News, ex-DOGE official Jeremy Lewin announced USAID’s shuttering in an internal memo earlier Friday. “Foreign assistance done right can advance our national interests, protect our borders, and strengthen our partnerships with key allies,” Secretary of State Marco Rubio posted to X. “Unfortunately, USAID strayed from its original mission long ago. As a result, the gains were too few and the costs were too high. Thanks to President [Donald] Trump, this misguided and fiscally irresponsible era is now over.” According to Rubio, the department is “reorienting” the agency’s foreign assistance programs, and will continue its “essential lifesaving programs.”

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Through her focus as a journalist, she knows more than anyone else on the topic. Still, must have been a big surprise to her.

• Donald Trump Taps Journalist Sara Carter As Next ‘Drug Czar’ (JTN)

President Donald Trump on Friday announced that he has selected award-winning journalist Sara Carter to be his new “drug czar,” who will help with the administration’s efforts to curb the fentanyl crisis in the country. Carter, an investigative journalist who has covered the fentanyl crisis and border security, will officially serve as the director of the Office of National Drug Control Policy. “Sara is an Award Winning Journalist, who has been on the front lines of this International Fight for decades,” Trump wrote in a post on Truth Social. “From Afghanistan to our Border, Sara’s relentless pursuit of Justice, especially in tackling the Fentanyl and Opioid Crisis, has exposed terrorists, drug lords, and sex traffickers. “As our next Drug Czar, Sara will lead the charge to protect our Nation, and save our children from the scourge of drugs,” he added. “Congratulations Sara!”

Carter has received multiple national awards for her coverage of national security issues, including the Society of Professional Journalists’ Sigma Delta Chi award for her coverage of the brutality of the Gulf and Sinaloa Cartel wars along the U.S.-Mexico border. “It is truly an honor to serve President Donald J. Trump and be part of an administration committed to putting America first,” Carter wrote in a post on X. “I pledge to work tirelessly every day to identify the challenges we face and find the solutions that will Make America Safe Again, freeing us from the grip of deadly substances like fentanyl, heroin, opioids, and other dangerous drugs. “My greatest desire is to ensure this nation remains secure and safe—for my children, and for yours,” she continued. “I promise you I will never stop fighting.”

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Quite a few of them. All suppressed by Petere Strzok?!

• FBI Whistleblowers Want Bureau To Review Their Cases (JTN)

FBI agents who blew the whistle on “wrongdoing” within the bureau — including one agent saying he wants to share further information about working under disgraced FBI official Peter Strzok — are calling upon the bureau, now led by Kash Patel, to review and resolve their claims of retaliation by Biden’s FBI. Empower Oversight sent an early March letter to FBI general counsel Samuel Ramer, asking the bureau for help related to the improper treatment of FBI agents and employees Garret O’Boyle, Marcus Allen, Stephen Friend, Zach Schofftsall, Monica Shillingburg, and Michael Zummer. The letter also includes new details on four clients whose names were redacted, at least one one of whom wants to share FBI abuses from his time working under Strzok, the fired FBI supervisory special agent deeply involved in Crossfire Hurricane.

At least some of the FBI whistleblowers have been locked in a legal battle with the bureau for years, alleging that their security clearances were stripped and their livelihoods threatened by the FBI. But now, with a new FBI chief in charge, the whistleblowers and their lawyers are asking the bureau to give the concerns of their clients a renewed look. FBI staff operations specialist Marcus Allen had his security clearance suspended “for questioning whether Director Wray had testified truthfully to Congress and other allegations based on SOS Allen’s political beliefs and concerns about the COVID-19 vaccine,” his lawyers said. Allen, who had been assigned to the FBI’s Charlotte Division, “was suspended indefinitely without pay” as a result of this and other disclosures.

Empower Oversight said that the FBI reached a settlement with Allen, but asserts that it has only mostly — but not fully — lived up to the terms of the agreement. His legal team says the FBI still needs to fix their client’s W2 tax forms and still needs to pay him the proper amount of leave owed. “While I feel vindicated now in getting back my security clearance, it is sad that in the country I fought for as a Marine, the FBI was allowed to lie about my loyalty to the U.S. for two years,” Allen said. “Unless there is accountability, it will keep happening to others. Better oversight and changes to security clearance laws are key to stop abuses suffered by whistleblowers like me.” “The actions taken against our clients were in reprisal for protected whistleblowing and/or improper targeting because of their political beliefs,” Jason Foster, the chair and founder of Empower Oversight, argued in the letter to the bureau.

“The common theme among most of our clients who had their security clearances suspended and or revoked is the FBI’s ability to indefinitely delay the process and financially pressure FBI employees by suspending their pay and blocking their ability to earn a living any other way. Most facing that dilemma simply resign with no prospect of a fair process to challenge it, which allows the pattern to repeat without remedy.” The lawyers for the FBI agents asked for a fresh review of the cases of their clients, saying that “if the review by your office alone does not lead to direct managerial action to remedy the harms and resolve our clients’ pending matters, we would be willing to propose to our clients that they enter into mediation facilitated by a neutral mediator — assuming an acceptable senior official with no animus toward our clients is delegated settlement authority to represent the FBI in the mediation.”

Empower Oversight added in the early March letter that “while we appreciate your review of these cases to explore ways to amicably resolve and remedy the harms the FBI has inflicted on our clients, we are also willing to engage in other good faith efforts to reach the same goals.” “A lot of our work has to remain confidential because some clients do not wish to become public figures. Sometimes though, it takes public scrutiny to move the needle,” Foster told Just the News. “These FBI clients have waited a very long time on a system that, as of today, is still failing to keep its promises to protect whistleblowers from retaliation. It’s past time to make good on those promises and give them real meaning in these cases.”

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“Not one more cent of federal money should be given to this turkey.”

• California High Speed Rail Asks for $7 Billion More (Moran)

Helen Kerstein, a representative from the California Legislative Analyst Office, had the unenviable task of appearing before California lawmakers and giving them the bad news about the high-speed rail system currently under construction somewhere north of Los Angeles. Kerstein admitted to lawmakers that the project needs another $7 billion by June 2026 or work will grind to a halt.She said there was “no specific plan to meet that roughly $7 billion gap” and added that there is “some risk that that gap could grow.””Some risk” = drop-dead certainty. “This isn’t a way out in the future funding gap. This is a pretty immediate funding gap,” she said.

Phase 1 of the project was originally estimated to cost $33 billion. Current estimates are north of $128 billion, and with this latest ask, projected costs are useless in any realistic sense.The first phase will be from Merced to Bakersfield. That initial construction was chosen because it is the easiest to build topographically. It’s relatively flat, and some existing tracks can be used.About $23 billion has been spent to date, with the total cost of the Merced-Bakersfield stretch to hit $35 billion and be completed in 2033. Since nothing relating to this project has ever come in on time or under budget, you have to wonder why they even bother guessing.

New York Sun: “Besides the bleak news of the funding gap, KCRA reported that the High Speed Rail Authority further frustrated lawmakers when it only submitted an “incomplete project update” in time for the budget hearing and said it would submit a more complete update on the plan for the project sometime in the summer. A Democratic Assemblyman, Steven Bennett, told KCRA, “We have no plan, we have a good likelihood it’s going to get worse, and we have a short time to solve the problem.” The hearing came shortly after Mr. Newsom released an episode of his new podcast during which he touted work on the 171-mile Merced-Bakersfield segment. “We did the rail head. We’re starting to lay track. This thing is starting to get very, very real,” he said. “Now the hard work is behind us.” Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy was in rare form after the announcement of the additional funding request.


“We did the rail head. We’re starting to lay track,” California Gov. Gavin Newsom said on his podcast. “This thing is starting to get very, very real,” he added. “Now, the hard work is behind us.”

They’ve been trying to build this thing for a decade and have constructed just 22 miles of the 171-mile Merced-to-Bakersfield segment, the first phase of the 800-mile L.A. to San Francisco project. On what planet is “the hard work behind us”? It’s not like these big public works projects can’t be done. While California’s high-speed rail project has struggled, other states have seen similar undertakings completed in far less time. Florida’s Brightline, a privately owned passenger train that reaches speeds of up to 125 mph, was first proposed in 2012. By 2018, Brightline was operating between Miami and West Palm Beach. In 2023, it began running trains from Miami to Orlando, a distance of 235 miles, in 3.5 hours.

The company is also in the process of constructing a 218-mile system from Southern California to Las Vegas that will feature electric trains that can reach speeds of up to 200 miles per hour. It expects that line will be open in December 2028, missing its original goal of being functional in time for the 2028 Summer Olympics. The unstated goal that Newsom is banking on is making high-speed rail “too big to fail.” A few tens of billions of dollars more, and pulling the plug on it will be almost as expensive as building it. That’s why Duffy has to give the entire project the ax now. Not one more cent of federal money should be given to this turkey.

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“.. the group must make a decision on restarting production at the facility before the end of 2025..”

• Global Firms Lining Up To Return To Russia – Putin Aide (RT)

Foreign firms that exited Russia due to sanctions linked to the Ukraine conflict are now seeking to return, according to President Vladimir Putin’s special economic representative, Kirill Dmitriev. Dmitriev, who is also the CEO of the Russian Direct Investment Fund (RDIF), was responding to Korea Times report on Friday that South Korean companies are looking to resume operations in Russia, given US-led ceasefire talks between Moscow and Kiev. “Global companies are lining up to return to Russia, signaling renewed confidence and fresh opportunities in one of the world’s largest markets,” Dmitriev wrote on X on Friday.

More than 1,000 Western firms – from well-known retail firms to car giants – have exited the Russian market in the past three years. But as Ukraine conflict ceasefire talks gain momentum, major South Korean companies are reportedly stepping up feasibility studies on resuming operations in Russia. The push reflects Russia’s strategic importance for the country as a market, particularly in light of mounting tariff pressure from the US, the outlet said. LG Electronics is reportedly among the first, and recently partially resumed operations at its home appliance plant in Moscow, which produced washing machines and refrigerators, the outlet said citing industry sources. “The move is aimed at preventing deterioration of production facilities that have been idle,” an LG official told the Korea Times.

Hyundai Motor Group, which along with Kia held the top two spots among car brands in Russia in 2021, is also closely assessing the prospect of re-entering the Russian market. The group sold its St. Petersburg plant for just 10,000 rubles ($120) with a two-year buyback option 2023. It means the group must make a decision on restarting production at the facility before the end of 2025. Earlier this week, Italian household equipment manufacturer Ariston announced its return to Russia after exiting the market in 2022. The development seems to reflect an emerging trend of potential comebacks and buybacks by major foreign brands amid a US pivot on relations with Russia.

Russian Prime Minister Mikhail Mishustin stated on Wednesday that each company’s case will be evaluated on an individual basis. Foreign firms that exited Russia “under government pressure” but maintained “jobs, contacts, and technologies,” along with a buy-back option, could be permitted to return, he said. Mishustin added that companies possessing unique expertise would also be welcomed— so long as they adhere to localization and investment conditions.

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You can bet the EU will love them.

• Senator Cruz Files Companion Bill To Prohibit The Fed From Issuing a CBDC (CT)

US Senator Ted Cruz introduced a bill on March 26 to prohibit the Federal Reserve from issuing a central bank digital currency (CBDC). The “Anti-CBDC Surveillance State Act,” would prohibit the Fed from offering certain products or services directly to American individuals, a key component of any CBDC. The Texas Republican’s bill can be considered a companion bill to Minnesota Republican Representative Tom Emmer’s anti-CBDC legislation, which was reintroduced on March 6. A companion bill is a piece of legislation that is similarly or identically worded to another bill, and introduced in the other chamber of Congress. Both bills state that the prohibition should not include any dollar-denominated currency that is open, permissionless, and private and “preserves the privacy protections of United States coins and physical currency.”

Since 2020, the Federal Reserve has been exploring a digital version of the US dollar. According to the CBDC Tracker, at least four research projects are currently underway by various Federal Reserve entities. Cruz has been a vocal opponent of CBDCs since at least 2022, when he introduced legislation that would ban the Fed from introducing a direct-to-consumer CBDC. He followed it up with similar legislation in 2023, and in 2024 sought to block the attempt by then-President Joe Biden’s administration to create a CBDC. Emmer said at a congressional hearing that “CBDC technology is inherently un-American” and warned that allowing unelected bureaucrats to issue a CBDC “could upend the American way of life.” While CBDCs have some purported benefits, critics of the technology have long said that digital currency issued directly to citizens could pose privacy infringement and government overreach.

However, some nations and regional governments are still exploring this technology. While European consumers show little interest in CBDCs, lawmakers in the region are pushing to create a digital Euro. Israel has released a preliminary design to create a digital shekel, and Iran will reportedly launch a CBDC in the near future. In the US, the creation of a CBDC has been met with more resistance. President Donald Trump has vowed to “never allow” a CBDC in the country, and Jerome Powell, the chair of the Federal Reserve, has said that the Fed will not issue a CBDC while he is in charge. Though CBDCs could modernize legacy financial systems and make them more efficient, they would also centralize the money supply.

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“..Jordan correctly raised the concern that the [EU’s] DSA could “limit or restrict Americans” constitutionally protected speech in the United States..”

• EU Official Denies Anti-Free Speech Policies in Bizarre Letter to US Congress (Turley)

After returning recently from speaking at the World Forum in Berlin, I testified in the Senate Judiciary Committee and warned about the building threat to free speech from the use of the European Union’s Digital Services Act (DSA). House Judiciary Committee Chair Jim Jordan has taken up the issue and received a letter from the EU’s Vice-President for Tech Sovereignty, Henna Virkkunen. The letter is both evasive and deceptive. In my book, The Indispensable Right, I detail how the DSA has been used to allow for sweeping speech investigations and prosecutions. In direct contradiction to past statements by the EU, Virkkunen denied any effort to regulate speech or enforce the DSA outside of Europe. What is particularly maddening is the false claim that the EU remains “deeply committed to protecting and promoting free speech.” Many in the free speech community view the EU and the DSA as the greatest threats to free speech in the West.

In his letter, Jordan correctly raised the concern that the DSA could “limit or restrict Americans” constitutionally protected speech in the United States by compelling platforms to crack down on what the EU considers “misleading or deceptive” speech. In her response, Virkkunen bizarrely describes the DSA as “content-agnostic” while insisting that the DSA “applies exclusively within the European Union.” That is not what EU officials previously said or what the law itself allows. Articles 34 and 35 of the DSA require all sites to identify, assess, and mitigate “systemic risks” posed by content, including any threats to “civic discourse”, “electoral processes,” and “public health.” It is up to the EU to define and judge such categories in terms of compliance.

The act bars speech that is viewed as “disinformation” or “incitement.” European Commission Executive Vice President Margrethe Vestager celebrated its passage by declaring that it is “not a slogan anymore, that what is illegal offline should also be seen and dealt with as illegal online. Now it is a real thing. Democracy’s back.” Some in this country have turned to the EU to force the censorship of their fellow citizens. After Elon Musk bought Twitter and dismantled most of the company’s censorship program, many on the left went bonkers. That fury only increased when Musk released the “Twitter files,” confirming the long-denied coordination and support by the government in targeting and suppressing speech.

In response, Hillary Clinton and other Democratic figures turned to Europe and called upon them to use their Digital Services Act to force censorship against Americans. (Clinton spoke at the World Forum and lashed out at the failure to control disinformation). The EU immediately responded by threatening Musk with confiscatory penalties against not just his company but himself. He would have to resume massive censorship or else face ruin. This campaign recently came to a head when Musk had the audacity to interview former president Donald Trump. In anticipation of the interview, one of the world’s most notorious anti-free speech figures went ballistic.

Former European Commissioner for Internal Markets and Services Thierry Breton issued a threatening message to Musk, “We are monitoring the potential risks in the EU associated with the dissemination of content that may incite violence, hate and racism in conjunction with major political — or societal — events around the world, including debates and interviews in the context of elections.” The EU has long been one of the most aggressively anti-free speech bodies in the world. It has actively supported the evisceration of free speech among its 27 member states. The EU is not “agnostic” when it comes to free speech; it has long championed a type of free-speech atheism. We have faced EU officials engaging in Orwellian doublespeak for years. Nevertheless, Virkkunen’s letter to Jordan stands out for its sheer mendacity.

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They need her vote in the House over the next year.

• Stefanik Nomination Pulled to Protect Passage of Reconciliation (DS)

President Donald Trump on Thursday withdrew Elise Stefanik’s nomination to be United Nations ambassador because Republicans in the House will likely need the New York congresswoman’s vote to help ensure passage of the budget reconciliation bill, a senior White House official told The Daily Signal. Passing the debt ceiling and reconciliation packages are going to be difficult due to Democrats’ opposition and Republicans’ razor-thin majority in the House of Representatives no matter what, and Republicans can’t spare Stefanik’s vote. The American people need every Republican vote in the House to enact Trump’s agenda, the official said. Had Stefanik been confirmed by the Senate to be the United Nations envoy, her House seat would have been vacant for most of the year, and Republicans don’t have time to waste, according to the official.

The budget reconciliation process stands as Trump’s and congressional Republicans’ best—and likely only—hope to pass their agenda through Congress. Reconciliation is a process exempt from the filibuster 60-vote threshold required to end debate in the Senate. Through reconciliation, Congress decides which areas should get more money and which should get less based on the majority’s priorities. The Congressional Budget Office on Wednesday released a stark forecast of when the government’s borrowing limit would be reached—increasing the urgency of congressional Republicans’ budget negotiations. The forecast warns that if the government doesn’t raise the debt limit, then it will no longer be able to borrow money and pay its obligations. House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., has previously said he hopes to pass a budget reconciliation bill by Memorial Day, which this year falls on May 26.

While Stefanik would likely have had no trouble getting the necessary Senate votes for confirmation, Republicans hold a narrow majority in the House with 218 seats, while Democrats hold 213 seats. There are currently four vacant seats. Special elections for two of those seats, both in Florida, will be held on April 1. Trump won the 6th Congressional District of Florida, formerly held by national security adviser Mike Waltz, by 30 points in November, but polls show Democrats might have a chance at flipping the seat in the special election there, threatening Republicans’ already narrow majority. Republican state Sen. Randy Fine holds a small lead, receiving support of 48.3% of the vote, compared with 44.2% of respondents who said they plan to vote for Democrat Josh Weil, according to a new St. Pete Poll.

Nonetheless, the National Republican Congressional Committee is confident that Waltz’s former seat will not flip blue. “Randy Fine will be a member of Congress,” Mike Marinella, an NRCC spokesman, told The Daily Signal. “Everything else is just noise.” Johnson has poured significant amounts of time, money, and effort into Fine’s campaign and is confident Fine will win, Greg Steele, his political communications director, told The Daily Signal. The speaker was highly concerned about New York Gov. Kathy Hochul, a Democrat, slow-walking the special election to replace Stefanik. Stefanik’s U.N. nomination was expected to move forward on April 2, the day after the Florida special elections, Axios reported last week. She would have been the last member of Trump’s Cabinet to get confirmed. Trump said on Truth Social he would find another place for Stefanik in his administration when possible.

Read more …

 

 

 

 

Olivia

 

 

Goats

 

 

Quokka

 

 

Babies

 

 

Tiny egg

 

 

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

 

 

 

 

 

Debt Rattle March 28 2025

Mar 282025
 
 March 28, 2025  Posted by at 10:33 am Finance Tagged with: , , , , , , , ,  57 Responses »


Georges Seurat Bathers at Asnières 1884

 

• Putin Proposess Temporary Governance of Ukraine Under UN Auspices (Sp.)
• Key Points of Putin’s Idea To Place Ukraine Under UN Control (RT)
• EU Leaders Fear Peace in Ukraine – French Army Veteran (Sp.)
• US Planning To Annex Greenland Since 1860s – Putin (RT)
• Zelensky Lashes Out At Trump Envoy Witkoff (RT)
• Zelensky Speaks Of ‘Hatred Of Russians’ (RT)
• Rep. Goldman: FBI Probe of Tesla Attacks “Political Weaponization” (Turley)
• Signal Leak A ‘Witch Hunt’ – Trump (RT)
• Trump Says ‘Disgraceful’ That Boasberg To Preside Over Signal Lawsuit (JTN)
• Judge Declines Trump Admin Request T0 Recuse Herself From Perkins Coie Case (ET)
• Appeals Court Halts Judge’s Order Requiring Musk to Hand Over DOGE Records (ET)
• Auto Workers Union Applauds Trump’s New Tariffs (JTN)
• Auto Tariffs: German Carmakers Face Billions in Losses (CTH)
• Liberalism Is Dead, This Is What Comes After (Trenin)
• Will This Scandal Be The End Of ‘Unsinkable’ Netanyahu? (Sadygzade)

 

 

 

 

Kash hoax

Nap Sachs

Elon Signal
https://twitter.com/nicksortor/status/1904951618162118853

HHS
https://twitter.com/EricLDaugh/status/1905246820282081292

Tucker votes

Doge team

 

 

 

 

Losing patience? “I said not long ago that we would push them out, but there is reason to believe that we will finish them off,”

• Putin Proposess Temporary Governance of Ukraine Under UN Auspices (Sp.)

The possibility of introducing temporary governance in Ukraine could be discussed under the auspices of the United Nations together with the United States, European countries and Russian partners, Russian President Vladimir Putin said. The introduction of temporary governance in Ukraine would allow democratic elections to be held in the country, Putin added. “And for what? To hold democratic elections, to bring to power a viable government that enjoys the people’s trust. And then begin negotiations with them on a peace treaty, sign legitimate documents that will be recognized throughout the world and will be reliable and stable. This is only one option, I am not saying that there are no others,” the president noted.

The Russian President made other statements regarding foreign policy and the conflict in Ukraine while talking to sailors of the nuclear-powered submarine cruiser Arkhangelsk. Russia has a strategic initiative along the entire front line, the President stressed. Russia controls 99% of the territory of the Lugansk People’s Republic and more than 70% of the territory of the DPR, Kherson and Zaporozhye regions, Putin noted. “I said not long ago that we would push them out, but there is reason to believe that we will finish them off,” he added. Russia is ready to cooperate with all countries that want to eliminate the causes of the Ukrainian conflict for a peaceful settlement. Moscow is ready to collaborate with Europe on Ukraine, but the EU behaves inconsistently and constantly tries to “lead Russia by the nose,” he added.

“The curators from Europe have convinced Kiev to continue the war to the last Ukrainian in order to inflict a strategic defeat on Russia,” the Russian president said. Russia will no longer make mistakes based on excessive trust in its so-called partners, Putin stressed. The Russian President mentioned the BRICS countries and the DPRK among the partners Russia is ready to work with for a peaceful settlement of the conflict in Ukraine.

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“.. the notorious Azov battalion – which receive Western weapons and actively recruit followers – could increasingly exert de facto control in Ukraine..”

• Key Points of Putin’s Idea To Place Ukraine Under UN Control (RT)

Russian President Vladimir Putin has proposed placing Ukraine under a temporary international administration as one possible way of resolving the ongoing conflict. The idea, he said, draws on international precedent and would aim to restore legitimate governance before any peace deal could be finalized. During his meeting with Russian nuclear submarine officers on Thursday, President Putin described a possible international mechanism for stabilizing Ukraine – placing it under temporary external administration coordinated by the United Nations. Here are the key takeaways from Putin’s proposal:

1) Problem: Collapse of legitimacy in Kiev

Putin argued that Ukraine’s constitutional legitimacy has broken down due to the expiration of Vladimir Zelensky’s presidential powers last year and the lack of elections since – rendering all of his government’s claims to authority invalid.
“Presidential elections weren’t held… under the constitution, all officials are appointed by the president. If he himself is illegitimate, then so is everyone else.”

2) Consequence: Power vacuum filled by radicals

Putin has warned that groups with neo-Nazi views, such as the notorious Azov battalion – which receive Western weapons and actively recruit followers – could increasingly exert de facto control in Ukraine, potentially replacing formal civilian authorities. “Amid the de facto illegitimacy… Neo-Nazi formations are receiving more weapons,” and could take “the actual power in their hands.” Putin argued that this makes negotiating with Ukraine’s current government even more unreliable and unstable: “It’s unclear who you’re even signing any documents with – tomorrow new people could come and say, ‘We don’t know who signed this – goodbye.’”

3) Suggestion: UN-led temporary external administration

Putin proposed the use of a UN-led transitional authority, referencing prior international missions such as in East Timor, Papua New Guinea, and parts of former Yugoslavia. “In such cases, international practice often follows a known path – under UN peacekeeping, through what is called external governance, a temporary administration.”

4) Purpose: Restoring constitutional order and setting legal framework for stable peace

The main goal, according to Putin, would be to organize democratic elections and install a functioning, legitimate government trusted by citizens and recognized globally. He stated that only such leaders could sign peace agreements that would be recognized worldwide and upheld over time. “Why do this? In order to hold democratic elections, in order to bring to power a government that is capable and enjoys the trust of the people, and then begin negotiations with them on a peace treaty, sign legitimate documents that will be recognized worldwide and will be reliable and stable.”

5) Not the only option – but a viable one

Putin emphasized that this idea is not the only possibility, but an example drawn from historical precedent. “This is just one option… I’m not saying other options do not exist, but it is hard right now, or maybe even impossible, to lay everything out clearly because the situation is changing so fast,” he said.

6) Multilateral cooperation beyond the West

Putin said such an initiative should involve not just the UN or the US, but a broader coalition, including BRICS nations and others Russia considers reliable. “We will work with any partners – the US, China, India, Brazil, South Africa, BRICS countries… and, for example, North Korea.” He also stressed that Russia remains open to working with the EU, even though Moscow’s trust in the Western European countries has been fundamentally undermined by their manipulation of peace efforts as a tactic to buy time and rearm Ukraine.

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“They have made a bargain on the war in Ukraine, and they have lost the war. They cannot accept peace imposed by Russia and America.”

“..it will be a strategic agreement between Russia and America. Then in this framework, in this kind of agreement, Europe has nothing to do and nothing to suggest..”

• EU Leaders Fear Peace in Ukraine – French Army Veteran (Sp.)

US President Donald Trump’s efforts to secure peace in Ukraine have caused panic among European leaders like Emmanuel Macron, Keir Starmer and Friedrich Merz, who desperately want to “escape from their political death,” retired French Army Colonel Alain Corvez tells Sputnik. “They have made a bargain on the war in Ukraine, and they have lost the war. They cannot accept peace imposed by Russia and America. So they are doing things that are completely unrealistic and illogical,” says Corvez, an international strategy consultant and former international relations consultant for France’s Defense and Interior Ministries. Macron and the likes of him do not care about Ukraine – all they care about is “their own fate” amid the prospects of the European Union’s dissolution.

Macron’s decision to oppose the Black Sea ceasefire deal conditions is a “stupid decision,” Corvez notes, as France and other European powers hold no sway in the Ukrainian conflict peace process. “They are not able to do anything unless they want to declare war on Russia, which is the first nuclear power in the world, which is completely stupid,” he observes. “But unless they declare war to Russia, they have no option. They have nothing that they are able to do.” France’s plans to establish some kind of buffer zone in Ukraine is “absolutely impossible” as well, since “peace will be established by Russia and America with an agreement, a strategic agreement, which will officialize the necessity of security for Russia and that Ukraine would be neutral and not in NATO.”

“And then it will be a strategic agreement between Russia and America. Then in this framework, in this kind of agreement, Europe has nothing to do and nothing to suggest, and it’s impossible to send troops to control a buffer zone along the Dnepr or along any other rivers or lines,” Corvez adds.

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Imagine the talk at birthday parties in Denmark.

• US Planning To Annex Greenland Since 1860s – Putin (RT)

Washington has long harbored plans to get its hands on Greenland, and the ongoing tensions around it should be taken seriously, Russian President Vladimir Putin has warned. Speaking at the International Arctic Forum in Murmansk on Thursday, Putin touched upon the ongoing tensions around Greenland, a Danish semi-autonomous territory, and US President Donald Trump’s repeated promises to annex it. Trump invoked the topic of Greenland once again on Wednesday, claiming the US ownership of the island is needed to “properly defend a large section of this Earth” and would be universally beneficial – including for Denmark. “We have to have the land because it’s not possible to properly defend a large section of this Earth – not just the US – without it. So we have to have it, and I think we will have it,” he said.

The statements of the US president should be taken seriously, Putin warned, pointing out the US has been harboring plans to annex Greenland for over a century and a half already. “Everyone knows about the US plans to annex Greenland. You know, this may surprise someone only at first glance. And it is a deep mistake to believe that this is some kind of extravagant talk of the new American administration,” Putin warned. The American plans to seize Greenland date back to 1860, but at the time they did not get supported by the Congress, the Russian president pointed out. “Let me remind you that by 1868, the Alaska purchase was being ridiculed in American newspapers. It was called madness, an ‘ice box,’ and ‘the polar bear garden’ of Andrew Johnson, then-US president. And his Greenland proposals failed,” Putin said.

The US, Germany, and Denmark also neared a land-swap deal in 1910, with the proposed agreement ceding Greenland to America, Putin noted. However, the deal ultimately fell through. From the early 19th century to the 1950s, Greenland was a territory under the full control of Denmark. During World War Two, it was occupied by the US after Denmark proper was captured by Nazi Germany. Currently, the island hosts a US military base and the infrastructure for an early warning system for ballistic missiles. In recent decades, the island has grown increasingly autonomous and was granted home rule in 1979, ultimately receiving the right in 2009 to declare independence if a referendum passes.

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“I understand Steve Witkoff. He is a clever and energetic person who thinks that everyone should be aware of the things he regards as obvious. Judging by the statements he made during his conversation with Tucker Carlson, the essence of this conflict is clear to him,” Lavrov said..”

• Zelensky Lashes Out At Trump Envoy Witkoff (RT)

Ukraine’s Vladimir Zelensky has reproached US President Donald Trump’s special envoy to the Middle East, Steve Witkoff, accusing him of disseminating “Kremlin narratives.” Zelensky made the remarks on Wednesday in an interview with European broadcasters, including France 2. He accused Witkoff, a key official in opening negotiations on resolving the Ukraine conflict, of taking Moscow’s side and “helping” Russian President Vladimir Putin. “I believe that Witkoff really does quote Kremlin narratives very often. I believe that this will not bring us closer to peace. And I believe that, unfortunately, this will weaken the American pressure on Russia. We can only fix this information backdrop through our actions. We’re trying to do that,” Zelensky stated.

“Witkoff’s statements are very much a hindrance to us, because we are fighting Putin and we really do not want him to have many helpers,” he added. Zelensky was apparently referring to remarks made by Witkoff in a recent interview with American journalist Tucker Carlson, during which the special envoy spoke about the status of former Ukrainian territories that have joined Russia, describing the issue as “an elephant in the room” that “no one wants to talk about.” “They’re Russian-speaking. There have been referendums where the overwhelming majority of the people have indicated that they want to be under Russian rule,” Witkoff said. “The Russians are de facto in control of these territories. The question is: Will the world acknowledge that those are Russian territories? Can Zelensky survive politically if he acknowledges this? This is the central issue in the conflict,” he added.

The remarks outraged Kiev, with the head of Ukraine’s Foreign Affairs Committee, Aleksandr Merezhko, condemning what he called “disgraceful, shocking statements” and urging Washington to dismiss “completely unprofessional” Witkoff from his role. Witkoff’s statements were welcomed by Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov, however, who suggested that, judging by his remarks, the special envoy had understood the very “essence” of the hostilities between Moscow and Kiev. “I understand Steve Witkoff. He is a clever and energetic person who thinks that everyone should be aware of the things he regards as obvious. Judging by the statements he made during his conversation with Tucker Carlson, the essence of this conflict is clear to him,” Lavrov said in an interview with Russia’s Channel 1 this week.

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He is Russian by birth.

• Zelensky Speaks Of ‘Hatred Of Russians’ (RT)

Ukraine’s Vladimir Zelensky has admitted that his “hatred” of Russians is one of the driving forces propelling him to “keep going” in the conflict against Moscow. In an interview with the French daily Le Figaro published on Wednesday, Zelensky identified the emotion as one of his three key psychological drivers since the escalation of the conflict in February 2022. Zelensky said he hated “Russians who killed so many Ukrainian citizens,” adding that he considered such an attitude appropriate in wartime. His other motivations included a sense of national dignity and the desire for his descendants to live “in the free world.” Ukrainian officials have accused Russia of being a historic oppressor while Zelensky has previously touted Ukrainians’ “love of freedom” as a trait that distinguishes them from Russians.

Zelensky, whose presidential term expired last year, was elected in 2019 on a platform of defusing tensions with Moscow and reconciling ethnic Russian Ukrainians in Donbass, many of whom opposed the 2014 Western-backed coup in Kiev. However, his initial diplomatic efforts were thwarted by radical Ukrainian nationalists in the body politic.Since the coup, Kiev has enacted various policies undermining the rights of ethnic minorities, with Russians as the primary target. Moscow has accused Zelensky of intensifying the crackdown, particularly by attacking the Ukrainian Orthodox Church, the country’s largest religious denomination, which now faces potential prohibition for having historic links with Russia.

In a recent interview, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov asserted that Zelensky caters to “the segment of the population that holds radical, ultra-right, revanchist, Banderite views,” as his image as a national leader increasingly deteriorates. “Zelensky does not want to display weakness, as he realizes that his days are numbered,” the Russian official claimed.

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“..the FBI investigating attacks on Tesla cars and facilities is nothing but “lawfare” and “political weaponization.”

• Rep. Goldman: FBI Probe of Tesla Attacks “Political Weaponization” (Turley)

For many of us who were long active in Democratic politics, it is becoming increasingly difficult to recognize the party as a new generation of foul-mouthed, censorship-supporting, mob-enabling leaders take over. That sense returned this week when Rep. Daniel Goldman (D-NY) claimed that the FBI investigating attacks on Tesla cars and facilities is nothing but “lawfare” and “political weaponization.” Goldman’s latest controversy captures how Democrats have now entirely cut the cords of decency and moderation that once tethered their party to the mainstream of our society. Democratic leaders have been fueling the attacks on Musk and his companies, even putting national security interests aside to seek to punish him. Goldman (and other Democrats) have previously pushed back on criticism of Antifa and left-wing attacks.

However, Goldman’s criticism of the FBI task force on these widespread attacks is otherworldly. Goldman this week declared: “This is the political weaponization of the DOJ. Trump uses his official authority to defend his benefactor Elon Musk. The FBI then creates a task force to use our law enforcement to ‘crack down’ [sic] on adversaries of Musk’s [sic]. Where are the Republicans so opposed to ‘lawfare’?” There are have widespread attacks on Tesla charging stations, vehicles, and dealerships, including multiple arson attacks. It is clearly political violence orchestrated against an American company and American property owners, including individual citizens, to push consumers away from buying Musk products and associations.

That sounds a lot like the definition of terrorism. The Justice Department defines domestic terrorism as “Violent, criminal acts committed by individuals and/or groups to further ideological goals stemming from domestic influences, such as those of a political, religious, social, racial, or environmental nature.” I have long criticized the expansion of terrorism definitions. However, this fits even the narrowest definitions. It is political violence designed to intimidate and harm those with opposing political views. The fact that they are lone wolves like Daniel Clarke-Pounder, 24, who set himself on fire after throwing Molotov cocktails, does not change that criminal intent. The Democrats have long been accused of belittling or dismissing the seriousness of such crimes. That was the case with Molotov-cocktail throwing lawyers in New York who were given relatively light sentences under the Biden Administration.

It is also evident in the reaction to the recent attack on a conservative in the New York subway. There is a sense of license among some on the left in carrying out attacks on those on the right. This is how rage rhetoric of leaders like Goldman can fuel violent rage in the most unhinged elements of their party. As I previously wrote: “What few today want to admit is that they like it. They like the freedom that it affords, the ability to hate and harass without a sense of responsibility. It is evident all around us as people engage in language and conduct that they repudiate in others. We have become a nation of rage addicts; flailing against anyone or anything that stands in opposition to our own truths.” Once released by the rage from the confines of reason and civility, it is easy to dismiss the investigation of political violence as “political weaponization.” In attacking the FBI investigation, Goldman is the very voice of an age of rage.

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“Goldberg said he gained access to a Signal group chat from a user identified as “Mike Waltz.”

Why on earth would Waltz do that? Up to him to explain/ Or deny.

• Signal Leak A ‘Witch Hunt’ – Trump (RT)

US President Donald Trump has cast doubt on the Signal messaging platform following the leak of a private conversation among senior members of his administration about military strikes in Yemen. He has dismissed the media response to the episode as a “witch hunt.” The Trump administration confirmed this week that a journalist had been mistakenly added to a private chat on Signal discussing a planned attack on Houthi militants. The US launched large-scale airstrikes on March 15 in the Yemeni capital Sanaa and the northern province Saada, reportedly killing dozens, in response to Houthi attacks on Red Sea shipping. Asked by reporters on Wednesday about the leak, Trump said he was not concerned, insisting that “there was no harm done, because the attack was unbelievably successful.”

He dismissed the media’s interest as “a witch hunt,” accusing journalists of exaggerating the situation after a question about whether the administration was downplaying the scandal. “I think Signal could be defective, to be honest with you,” Trump said. “We use Signal, and everybody uses Signal, but it could be a defective platform, and we’re gonna have to find that out,” he added.On Monday, The Atlantic magazine published a report by editor-in-chief Jeffrey Goldberg revealing a discussion among senior administration officials about military strategy for targeting the Houthis. Goldberg said he gained access to a Signal group chat from a user identified as “Mike Waltz.” The chat, titled “Houthi PC small group,” reportedly included Vice President J.D. Vance, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard, and other cabinet officials. The group had been engaged in what The Atlantic described as a “fascinating policy discussion” in the days leading up to Trump’s order for the strikes.

Following the White House’s denial that any classified information was leaked, The Atlantic released additional screenshots on Wednesday. Hegseth has insisted that “nobody was texting war plans.” Asked whether the leaked material was classified, Trump replied: “Well, that’s what I’ve heard. I don’t know[.]” National Security Adviser Mike Waltz has taken “full responsibility” for the incident, calling it “embarrassing” in a Fox News interview on Tuesday. Trump defended Waltz amid calls for his resignation, telling reporters “I guess he said he claimed responsibility.” He also rejected speculation about Hegseth’s future, stating the defense secretary “had nothing to do with this” and that he is doing an “excellent job.” Signal dismissed media reports of possible “vulnerabilities” on Tuesday, calling its software “the gold standard for private, secure communications.”

Tulsi Signal
https://twitter.com/PapiTrumpo/status/1904938349883797850

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677 district judges, and Trump gets the same one all the time.

• Trump Says ‘Disgraceful’ That Boasberg To Preside Over Signal Lawsuit (JTN)

President Donald Trump on Thursday criticized Judge James Boasberg for having been assigned another important case regarding him and his administration – this one for a lawsuit brought against top officials over a journalist accidentally being included in their group chat about a planned Houthi air strike. Boasberg, who serves on the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia and was appointed to the bench by President Barack Obama, and is also presiding over a case on whether the administration has the authority to deport illegal migrants under the Alien Enemies Act. (An appeals court on Wednesday denied a request to overturn his ruling early this month to temporarily halt the deport effort.)

“How disgraceful is it that “Judge” James Boasberg has just been given a fourth “Trump Case,” something which is, statistically, IMPOSSIBLE,” he wrote on TRUTH Social. “There is no way for a Republican, especially a TRUMP REPUBLICAN, to win before him.” He said Boasberg had massive “Trump derangement syndrome.” The watchdog group American Oversight filed a group chat lawsuit against Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth, Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard, CIA Director John Ratcliffe, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, Secretary of State Marco Rubio and the National Archives and Records Administration.

“Plaintiff American Oversight brings this action … to prevent the unlawful destruction of federal records and to compel Defendants to fulfill their legal obligations to preserve and recover federal records created through unauthorized use of Signal for sensitive national security decision-making,” the lawsuit reads. Trump’s senior national security officials accidentally shared sensitive details about strike plans on the Houthi group in Yemen with editor-in-chief Jeffrey Goldberg through the encrypted messaging app Signal.

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Russiagate ain’t dead. This line is peculiar: “..he said that Howell found “reason to believe that the former President would ‘flee from prosecution.’” How would a President do that? Put on a wig?

• Judge Declines Trump Admin Request T0 Recuse Herself From Perkins Coie Case (ET)

A federal judge has declined a request by the Trump administration that she remove herself from overseeing a lawsuit challenging an executive action targeting Perkins Coie LLP, accusing the Justice Department of attacking her character in an effort to undermine the integrity of the judicial system. U.S. District Judge Beryl Howell wrote in a March 26 ruling that a Trump administration filing seeking her recusal was “rife with innuendo” and that none of the claims it put forward “come close to meeting the standard for disqualification.” “Though this adage is commonplace, and the tactic overused, it is called to mind by defendants’ pending motion to disqualify this Court: ‘When you can’t attack the message, attack the messenger,’” U.S. District Judge Beryl Howell wrote in a March 26 ruling.

President Donald Trump’s action issued on March 6 prevents law firm Perkins Coie from doing business with federal contractors and blocks its lawyers from accessing government officials. Additionally, it suspends any active security clearances held by individuals at the firm, pending a review of whether such clearances are consistent with the national interest. Perkins Coie was hired by Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign and the Democratic National Committee in 2016. According to the presidential action issued by Trump, the law firm has engaged in “dishonest and dangerous activity” that has affected the United States “for decades.” The firm sued the administration over the order in federal court in Washington on March 11, alleging Trump’s actions violated its rights under the U.S. Constitution.

Roughly a week after Trump’s executive action was first issued, Howell temporarily blocked the administration from enforcing much of it, finding the law firm was likely to win its lawsuit. Last week, the Department of Justice (DOJ) asked for the case to be moved to another judge in Washington’s federal court, citing Howell’s public comments about the president and her connection with key aspects of the case. “This Court has not kept its disdain for President Trump secret,” Chad Mizelle, acting associate attorney general at the DOJ, wrote in a motion seeking her disqualification. “It has voiced its thoughts loudly—both inside and outside the courtroom.”

Speaking inside the court, Mizelle also pointed to now-former special counsel Jack Smith’s prosecution of Trump, during which he said that Howell found “reason to believe that the former President would ‘flee from prosecution.’” The judge also “pierced attorney-client privilege, ordering President Trump’s attorney to testify before a D.C. grand jury” investigating his alleged retention of classified documents in the South Florida case, he said. Mizelle added that Howell also previously rejected Trump’s view that the indictments against individuals involved in the Jan. 6, 2021, breach of the U.S. Capitol were a “national injustice” and called his supporters “sore losers.” In her 21-page ruling, Howell wrote that when the DOJ “engages in this rhetorical strategy of ad hominem attack, the stakes become much larger than only the reputation of the targeted federal judge.”

“This strategy is designed to impugn the integrity of the federal judicial system and blame any loss on the decision-maker rather than fallacies in the substantive legal arguments presented,” she added. The judge said she welcomed the Trump administration’s opportunity “to set the record straight, because facts matter.” “Every litigating party deserves a fair and impartial hearing to determine both what the material facts are and how the law best applies to those facts,” she wrote. “That fundamental promise, however, does not entitle any party—not even those with the power and prestige of the President of the United States or a federal agency—to demand adherence to their own version of the facts and preferred legal outcome.”

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U.S. District Judge Tanya Chutkan. It’s a small world.

• Appeals Court Halts Judge’s Order Requiring Musk to Hand Over DOGE Records (ET)

A federal appeals court has temporarily blocked a discovery order from U.S. District Judge Tanya Chutkan that would have required Elon Musk and the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) to turn over documents and respond to written questions about their role in advising cuts in certain parts of the federal government. In a ruling issued on March 26, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit granted an emergency stay of Chutkan’s March 12 order, which had largely granted limited, expedited discovery to a coalition of 13 Democratic-led states, requiring Musk and DOGE to produce documents and respond to questions within 21 days. The appeals court ruled that Musk and DOGE had “satisfied the stringent requirements for a stay” and showed that they are likely to prevail in their claim that the lower court must resolve their motion to dismiss before allowing discovery to proceed.

“In particular, petitioners have shown a likelihood of success on their argument that the district court was required to decide their motion to dismiss before allowing discovery,” the three-judge panel wrote in its ruling. Following the appellate court ruling, Chutkan entered a minute order acknowledging the decision. She canceled a status hearing previously scheduled for March 27. The case, brought by New Mexico and a coalition of 12 Democratic-led states, challenges the legality of DOGE’s sweeping cost-cutting efforts, which have included the cancellation of federal grants and mass terminations of government employees from jobs identified by DOGE as unneeded. The plaintiffs argued in their original complaint that Musk is effectively running DOGE without Senate confirmation, allegedly in violation of the Constitution’s Appointments Clause.

“Oblivious to the threat this poses to the nation, President Trump has delegated virtually unchecked authority to Mr. Musk without proper legal authorization from Congress and without meaningful supervision of his activities,” the plaintiffs allege. “As a result, he has transformed a minor position that was formerly responsible for managing government websites into a designated agent of chaos without limitation and in violation of the separation of powers.” In a subsequent motion for a temporary restraining order against Musk and DOGE, the states further accused Musk of unlawfully exercising sweeping executive power without Senate confirmation by directing federal agencies to fire employees, cancel contracts, dismantle programs, and access sensitive government data.

In response, government lawyers urged the court to reject the emergency motion. They argued that the states had failed to show any imminent or irreparable harm, and said the restraining order sought was overly broad, legally unsupported, and disconnected from core constitutional claims made by the plaintiffs. Even if Musk were improperly appointed, they argue, sharing data with him or others at DOGE does not, by itself, constitute an illegal exercise of government power. Musk also is not empowered to act without the president’s approval, they said.

Chutkan partially sided with the Democrat-led states on March 12, ordering Musk, DOGE, and related entities to turn over documents related to firing federal workers and altering government databases. She also required DOGE to identify everyone who has led or worked at the agency since President Donald Trump took office, and list all agencies where DOGE or Musk canceled contracts, cut grants, or terminated employees. Trump and Musk have both said that DOGE has been assisting various agencies that have fired or offered buyouts to tens of thousands of federal workers since Trump returned to office on Jan. 20, 2025.

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“..it is now on the automakers, from the Big Three to Volkswagen and beyond, to bring back good union jobs to the U.S.,”

• Auto Workers Union Applauds Trump’s New Tariffs (JTN)

The United Auto Workers Union (UAW) on Wednesday applauded President Donald Trump’s new tariffs on cars and autoparts coming into the United States from other countries.The president announced the new 25% tariffs at the White House earlier Wednesday, stating that he expects all car companies to expand operations in the U.S. or relocate their businesses to the U.S. if they are not already in the country. The UAW said in a news release that the move marks the “beginning of the end of a thirty-plus year ‘free trade’ disaster,” which “devastated the working class” in the U.S. Ending the race to the bottom in the auto industry starts with fixing our broken trade deals, and the Trump administration has made history with today’s actions, UAW President Shawn Fain said in a statement.

“The UAW/ and the working class in general couldn’t care less about party politics; working people expect leaders to work together to deliver results. “These tariffs are a major step in the right direction for autoworkers and blue-collar communities across the country, and it is now on the automakers, from the Big Three to Volkswagen and beyond, to bring back good union jobs to the U.S.,” he added. The announcement comes ahead of next week’s “liberation day,” where Trump is expected to impose large scale tariffs on U.S. allies and trading partners, including Canada and Mexico. Those tariffs are expected to go into effect on April 2.

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Spreading far and wide: “..German automakers currently have 330 automotive suppliers in Mexico..”

• Auto Tariffs: German Carmakers Face Billions in Losses (CTH)

The atomic sledgehammer that President Trump just delivered to the German auto industry simply cannot be overemphasized. A 25% tariff on imported cars and car parts completely negates hundreds of billions in pre-positioned investment dollars by German auto companies in Mexico. To give scale to the impact on Germany, consider that German automakers currently have 330 automotive suppliers in Mexico according to information from VDA. Audi (a subsidiary of Volkswagen) has no U.S. production sites; every Audi sold in America will be subject to a 25% tariff. The Audi brand access to the U.S. market was/is 100% dependent on Mexico, including for manufacturing the Q5 SUV, its top-selling U.S. model. According to prior reporting from Politico, “Volkswagen’s most popular model for American consumers is the Tiguan, an SUV that is entirely manufactured in Mexico.

The German automaker sold over 30,000 of the vehicles in the final quarter of last year, a nearly 50 percent year-over-year increase.” But wait, it gets worse…. French-Italian-American automaker Stellantis is the most exposed of Europe’s automakers as it makes Jeep and RAM models in Mexico. The tariffs will make European automakers’ Mexican factories completely redundant. They could make them in Germany for the same tariff impact. Making them in Mexico is now useless. They were only being made/assembled in Mexico to gain access to the U.S. market without tariffs. This reality will push all EU automakers to shift production to the U.S. There could also be an explosion in UAW membership depending on where in the USA the EU car companies end up manufacturing.

The auto industry is only one industry, but it is a huge economic driver for multiple countries, especially those countries who depend on access to the U.S. market in order to sell their cars and trucks. German automakers will need three things, quickly: (1) Subsidies from German govt to help offset the impact of tariffs [Short term 2-5 years]. (2) Shift production of autos for U.S market into USA [Make in USA]. (3) Interim access to new markets to help offset the anticipated drop in demand [think Russia without sanctions]. Each of these facets plays into current geopolitics. That’s mainly just the German impact. Then overlay Canada and Mexico (big impact), along with South Korea and Japan (lesser impact due to pre-positioned manufacturing/assembly in the USA). The auto-tariffs carry a huge economic outcome around the globe.

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“The new US president has shelved the rainbow banners of BLM and the alphabet soup of Western liberalism..”

• Liberalism Is Dead, This Is What Comes After (Trenin)

The phrase “changing world order” has become a familiar refrain in international affairs. But what’s often missed is how rapidly that change is now unfolding – and who is accelerating it. Regime changes in international relations are usually the result of crises: wars between great powers or upheavals within them. This was the case in 1939-1945 and again in 1989-1991. Usually, the problems accumulate over years and decades, and the resolution comes unexpectedly: the slow movement of tectonic plates suddenly accelerates dramatically, an avalanche begins that rapidly changes the landscape. We have had the opportunity to observe something similar in recent weeks. The most striking thing is that the main factor in the changes has been the leadership of the state which until now has defended the remnants of the old world order most stubbornly, even fiercely.

The fall of unipolarity, once long predicted and cautiously awaited, has arrived ahead of schedule. The United States, long the enforcer of liberal internationalism, is no longer trying to stop the shift toward a multipolar world. Under Donald Trump, it has joined it. This pivot is not a mere campaign promise or rhetorical shift. It is a structural break. In the space of weeks, the US has gone from resisting the multipolar order to attempting to dominate it on new terms – less moralism, more realism. In doing so, Washington may inadvertently help deliver the very outcome that previous administrations worked so hard to prevent. Trump’s turn has broad and lasting implications. The world’s most powerful actor has abandoned the guardianship of liberal globalism and embraced something far more pragmatic: great power rivalry.

The language of human rights and democracy promotion has been replaced with “America First,” not just domestically, but in foreign relations as well. The new US president has shelved the rainbow banners of BLM and the alphabet soup of Western liberalism. Instead, he waves the American flag with confidence, signaling to allies and adversaries alike: US foreign policy is now about interests, not ideologies. This is not theoretical. It is a geopolitical earthquake. Firstly, multipolarity is no longer hypothetical. Trump has shifted the US from an enforcer of unipolarity to a player in multipolarity. His doctrine – “great power competition” – aligns more with the realist tradition than with the post-Cold War liberalism that dominated Washington for decades.

In this view, the world is made up of sovereign poles: the US, China, Russia, India – each pursuing its own interests, sometimes in conflict, sometimes overlapping. Cooperation arises not from shared values, but from shared necessities. This is a world Russia knows well – and one in which it thrives. Secondly, Washington’s pivot to realism means a fundamental shift in how it engages with the world. The era of liberal crusades is over. Trump has defunded USAID, slashed “democracy promotion” budgets, and shown a willingness to work with regimes of all types – so long as they serve American interests. This is a departure from the binary moral frameworks of the past. And ironically, it aligns more closely with Moscow’s own worldview. Under Trump, the White House no longer seeks to export liberalism, but to negotiate power.

Thirdly, the West, as we knew it, is gone. The liberal “collective West” – defined by shared ideology and transatlantic solidarity – no longer exists in its previous form. The US has effectively withdrawn from it, prioritizing national interest over globalist commitments. What remains is a fractured West, split between nationalist-led governments like Trump’s and more traditional liberal strongholds in Brussels, Paris, and Berlin. The internal clash between these two visions – nationalism versus globalism – is now the defining political struggle across the West.

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“..leaking classified documents to foreign media and orchestrating leaks from high-level government offices, allegedly with Netanyahu’s own approval..”

• Will This Scandal Be The End Of ‘Unsinkable’ Netanyahu? (Sadygzade)

A major scandal known as “Qatargate” has erupted in Israel, involving alleged Qatari interference in Israeli politics. At the center of the investigation is Eliezer Feldstein, former chief aide to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. He was arrested in November 2024 on charges of leaking classified documents to foreign media and orchestrating leaks from high-level government offices, allegedly with Netanyahu’s own approval, under the pretext of combating disinformation.

The investigation revealed Feldstein’s connections with Qatari authorities. While serving as an employee of the press office in Netanyahu’s administration, Feldstein had for several years combined his government work with private practice, offering political consulting and branding services. One of his clients was Qatar. Specifically, on behalf of Doha, Feldstein and his team of Israeli consultants developed a reputation protection strategy during preparations for the 2022 FIFA World Cup. Later, they helped Qatari brands regain their positions in Gulf markets that had been lost during the 2017-2021 diplomatic crisis.

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Chemo

 

 

Hee haw
https://twitter.com/AMAZlNGNATURE/status/1904910177347772736

 

 

Chewey

 

 

Ketchup
https://twitter.com/Rainmaker1973/status/1905211149940830537

 

 

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Debt Rattle March 27 2025

Mar 272025
 
 March 27, 2025  Posted by at 10:57 am Finance Tagged with: , , , , , , , , ,  41 Responses »


Henri Matisse Woman with a hat 1905

 

• Trump Admin Hit by Record Number of Injunctions From Partisan Courts (McCarthy)
• When Judges Violate the Constitution (Joecks)
• President Trump Unleashes 25% Tariffs On Foreign-Made Auto Imports (ZH)
• Japanese Carmakers Face Catastrophic Profit Hit From Trump’s Auto Tariffs (ZH)
• Goldberg Accidentally Proved His ‘Signalgate’ Narrative Is a Hoax (Margolis)
• “Those Are Some Really Sh*tty War Plans”: Hegseth Ridicules ‘Bombshell’ (ZH)
• White House Selects Elon Musk To Investigate SignalGate Controversy (JTN)
• Distinguishing the Signal From the Noise (Victoria Taft)
• Might of the Living Feds: 1,500+ Cash-Sucking ‘Zombies’ (RCW)
• “Sometimes a Little Brain Damage Can Help.” (Pinsker)
• Trump Declassifies FBI Crossfire Hurricane Files (RT)
• US Government is a Big Money Laundering Operation – John Rubino (USAW)
• RFK Jr. is Pushing Big Pharma Ad Ban – And Corporate Media is Panicking (Becker)
• EU Officials Unhappy With Kallas – Politico (RT)
• Moscow Backs Ceasefire Despite Kiev’s Breaches – Kremlin (RT)
• Russia Winning In Ukraine, Continually Gaining Leverage: US Intel (ZH)
• Ukraine Never Had Nuclear Weapons – Grenell (RT)
• US Looking For ‘Proper Way’ To Reconnect Russia to SWIFT – Bessent (RT)
• Moody’s Issues Warning On US Finances (RT)

 

 

 

 

Elon why

XO

 

 

Russian steel

2016
https://twitter.com/JackPosobiec/status/1904948216447008882

 

 

 

 

 

 

“..69 District Court judges presiding over cases involving the Trump administration..”

• Trump Admin Hit by Record Number of Injunctions From Partisan Courts (McCarthy)

Since returning to the White House on Jan. 20, President Donald Trump has unleashed a storm of executive orders, a great many of which have been halted or blocked—not by the now-Republican-controlled Congress, but by federal District Courts. According to numbers compiled by the Harvard Law Review, U.S. District Courts have issued more sweeping injunctions against Trump in the past two months than they have against three former presidents over their entire terms. Since Jan. 20, lower courts have imposed 15 nationwide injunctions against the Trump administration, compared to what the Harvard Law Review recounts as six over the course of George W. Bush’s eight-year presidency, 12 over the course of Barack Obama’s eight years in the White House, and 14 during Joe Biden’s single four-year term.

During his first term, Trump was subjected to 64 nationwide injunctions. If inferior courts continue issuing nationwide injunctions against the Trump administration at the current rate (15 for every two months in office), then the second Trump administration will have accumulated 360 nationwide injunctions by the time the president leaves office—and a grand total of 424 over the course of both of Trump’s terms. However, there have been a total of over 45 rulings or more targeted injunctions leveled against the second Trump administration overall, according to The New York Times.

The Harvard Law Review’s tally (published in 2024) also noted the increased partisanship of the federal judiciary. Of the six injunctions imposed against Republican Bush, half came from judges appointed by Democrats and half from judges appointed by Republicans. Of the 12 injunctions imposed against Democrat Obama, seven (less than 60%) were issued by judges appointed by Republicans. Of the 64 injunctions Trump’s first Republican administration was slapped with, 92.2% were issued by judges appointed by Democrats. All—100%—of the 14 injunctions issued against Democrat Biden came from Republican-appointed judges.

Almost a year before Trump’s return to the White House, the Harvard Law Review also warned against the practice of “judge shopping,” essentially looking at the partisan leanings of various federal judges and bringing a complaint in a given district based on a judge’s presumed political leanings. During the first Trump administration, more injunctions were issued against the president by federal District Court judges in deep-blue California than by judges in any other state.

The second Trump term is seemingly witnessing a repeat of this effect. The Washington Stand conducted an analysis of all the lawsuits either already heard or pending a ruling or injunction at the District Court level against the second Trump administration, disregarding the handful of cases being overseen by federal magistrate judges. Of the 69 District Court judges presiding over cases involving the Trump administration, 21 were appointed by Republican presidents: two by Ronald Reagan, one by George H.W. Bush, eight by George W. Bush, and 10 by Trump himself. Already, several of those Republican-appointed judges have issued injunctions or rulings against Trump’s executive orders and actions. The other 48 District Court judges overseeing complaints against the Trump administration were appointed by Democrats: seven by Bill Clinton, 20 by Obama, and 21 by Biden.

In its analysis, The Harvard Law Review observed that “the extreme use of nationwide injunctions during the Trump Administration could reflect judicial responsiveness to the unprecedented degree to which President Trump tested the limits of presidential power.” However, the legal journal added that “in the Biden years, judges appear to be ordering vacatur in cases where plaintiffs requested an injunction.” An order of vacatur is binding only on the agency to which it is directed—as opposed to nationwide injunctions, which are, as the name suggests, binding nationwide and enforceable by holding violators in contempt—and simply vacates a rule, declaring that it shall have no legal effect.

The Harvard Law Review continued, “Whether the falling rate of injunctions from the Trump to the Biden Administration reflects a decrease in abuses of executive power, judicial responsiveness to growing criticism of the nationwide injunction, or the replacement of some injunctions with the ‘lesser remedy’ of vacatur, the decrease should not mislead: district court judges appear to be striking down executive policies of opposing administrations with unprecedented frequency.”

The growing use of nationwide injunctions by inferior courts, the prestigious legal journal warned, necessarily has a chilling effect on the development of law and precedent. When several inferior courts of different jurisdictions issue conflicting rulings, the matter often winds up at the U.S. Supreme Court, where a definitive standard is set for addressing similar issues going forward. However, nationwide injunctions halt the continued challenging of executive orders, executive actions, or laws, since, as the Harvard Law Review pointed out, various other inferior courts simply refuse to take up related cases, determining that there can be no demonstration of injury in fact while the nationwide injunctions are in place.

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“..Constitution. Article II gives “executive power” to the president, who is also commander in chief of the military. Yet, according to some federal judges, the judiciary is in charge of the executive branch’s military policy, hiring, spending decisions and deportation flights. The Trump administration can’t even take down a website.”

• When Judges Violate the Constitution (Joecks)

Leftist judges want to turn President Donald Trump into a president in name only. Look at all the ways that individual judges have hamstrung the Trump administration. A district court judge recently blocked Trump’s executive order removing transgender individuals from the military. Another judge ordered the Trump administration to send two men who are pretending to be women into a women’s prison. One federal judge ordered the administration to restore government webpages that promote the Left’s transgender narrative. A different district court judge stopped the Trump administration from disbanding the wasteful United States Agency for International Development. Secretary of State Marco Rubio appointed Jeremy Lewin to a high-level position in USAID. The judge later ruled that Lewin wasn’t allowed to serve in that role.

Last weekend, another federal judge blocked the Trump administration from deporting illegal immigrant gang members. He even unsuccessfully attempted to force them to turn around flights that were already in the air. These examples are only the tip of the judicial overreach iceberg. Now, all presidential administrations face lawsuits, but what’s happening here is well beyond historical norms. In his four years in office, former President Joe Biden’s administration received 14 federal injunctions. In less than two months, judges have already hit the Trump administration with more than that. These rulings are an affront to the Constitution. Article II gives “executive power” to the president, who is also commander in chief of the military. Yet, according to some federal judges, the judiciary is in charge of the executive branch’s military policy, hiring, spending decisions and deportation flights. The Trump administration can’t even take down a website.

Contrast that judicial activism with what Alexander Hamilton laid out in Federalist 78. “The judiciary is beyond comparison the weakest of the three departments of power,” he wrote. And “it can never attack with success either of the other two.” But, Hamilton warned, while “liberty can have nothing to fear from the judiciary alone,” it “would have everything to fear from its union with either of the other departments.” That’s what some district court judges are attempting to do. These unelected, unaccountable judges are attempting to upend the constitutional order. Most people take it for granted that the executive and legislative branches will abide by judicial decisions. And despite Trump’s social media bluster, his administration has been remarkably deferential to the judicial process in its actions.

That’s likely in part due to a belief that higher courts, including the Supreme Court, will largely overrule these individual judges. That’s already happened in one case involving Trump’s push to eliminate diversity, equity, and inclusion. Republicans in Congress are also working on potential solutions, such as requiring a three-judge panel to rule on injunctive relief. The judiciary is more vulnerable than many activist judges seem to realize. As Hamilton wrote, the judiciary “may truly be said to have neither force nor will, but merely judgment; and must ultimately depend upon the aid of the executive arm even for the efficacy of its judgments.” In other words, if Trump tells the court to enforce its own rulings, the court can’t. It can only hope there would be a political price to pay for openly defying a court order.

Public support for the judiciary, however, could collapse quickly. The Left has been attacking it for years. Biden openly disregarded a Supreme Court decision on student loan forgiveness. Some Democrats pushed to pack the Supreme Court, while others have wrongly smeared conservative justices as corrupt. Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts needs to stop rogue district court judges from violating the Constitution–and quickly. If he doesn’t, support from the right could evaporate quickly. A diminished court isn’t ideal, but neither is one that flagrantly violates the Constitution.

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There are hardly any American cars in Europe. But the US is full of Mercs and Beamers. The issue is quite obvious.

• President Trump Unleashes 25% Tariffs On Foreign-Made Auto Imports (ZH)

Update (1600ET): President Trump has announced a 25% tariff on all cars not made in the US. “This will continue to spur growth,” Trump told reporters. Trump confirmed that these new tariffs are in addition to existing tariffs and are expected to result in $100 billion in revenues. To underscore his seriousness, Trump said, “This is permanent.” In addition to the tariffs, Trump discussed his plan to allow Americans to deduct interest payments on cars that are made in America. If the car is built in the US, there will be no tariffs. “We are going to charge countries for doing business in our country and taking our jobs, taking our wealth, taking a lot of things that they have been taking over the years.” GM and Ford shares are tumbling further on the news…

European and Canadian officials have already thrown their teddy-bears out of the stroller. Ontario Premier Doug Ford (who folded like broken deckchair on his last threat to hike electricity costs to Americans), warned that: “…he’ll “encourage Carney to target US automobiles… and will inflict as much trade pain as possible.” Canadian PM Mark Carney commented that US tariffs are a “direct attack” on Canadian auto workers, adding that the Trump tariffs “will hurt us.” “We will defend our workers, our companies, and our country.” European Commission Chief Ursula von der Leyen immediately posted her disappointment on X:

“I deeply regret the US decision to impose tariffs on European automotive exports. The automotive industry is a driver of innovation, competitiveness, and high quality jobs, through deeply integrated supply chains on both sides of the Atlantic. As I have said before, tariffs are taxes – bad for businesses, worse for consumers equally in the US and the European Union. We will now assess this announcement, together with other measures the US is envisaging in the next days. The EU will continue to seek negotiated solutions, while safeguarding its economic interests. As a major trading power and a strong community of 27 Member States, we will jointly protect our workers, businesses and consumers across our European Union.”

“Our automobile industry will flourish like it’s never flourished before,” Trump commented, seemingly unflapped by the possibility of retaliation.

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“..about 46% of all new cars sold in the US are imported.”

• Japanese Carmakers Face Catastrophic Profit Hit From Trump’s Auto Tariffs (ZH)

As the fallout from Trump’s tariff plans comes into relief, a harsh truth is emerging for the automotive industry: there are lots of losers and not many winners. But foreign automakers, those without US facilities, will be hit especially hard. As Bloomberg notes, from South Korea’s Hyundai to Germany’s Volkswagen, and to a lesser extent America’s own General Motors, many of the world’s most prominent carmakers will soon face higher costs from Trump’s new levies on auto imports and key components. That’s because about 46% of all new cars sold in the US are imported.

“There are very few winners,” Sam Fiorani, vice president of global vehicle forecasting for AutoForecast Solutions, said in a phone interview. “Consumers will be losers because they will have reduced choice and higher prices.” One notable winner in the tariff chaos is Elon Musk. His Tesla, which has large factories in California and Texas, churns out all the electric vehicles it sells in the US, although as Elon noted late on Wednesday, the company will also not remain unscathed.

Ford could also face a less-severe impact than some rivals, with about 80% of the cars it sells in the US being built domestically. Others will be less lucky: starting April 2, the new 25% tariffs will apply to all imported passenger vehicles and light trucks, as well as key parts like engines, transmissions. Not surprisingly, the tariffs give automakers that heavily source parts in the US an edge, and Trump also allowed an exemption: the new levies will only apply to the non-US share of vehicles and parts imported under a free-trade agreement with Canada and Mexico. That may soften the blow for vehicles whose supply lines zig-zag across the continent. Tariffs on parts from Canada and Mexico that comply with the trade deal also won’t take effect until the US sets up a process to collect those levies. The US neighbors could use that window to try to stave off full implementation, even if it’s a long shot.

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There are whole lists of Goldberg’s anti-Trump articles.

• Goldberg Accidentally Proved His ‘Signalgate’ Narrative Is a Hoax (Margolis)

The Democrats’ latest effort to manufacture a Trump administration scandal blew up in their faces this week after Jeffrey Goldberg, editor-in-chief of The Atlantic, reported that he was somehow included in an encrypted Signal chat group with top administration officials discussing a planned attack on Houthi rebels in Yemen. According to Goldberg, officials discussed classified and/or top-secret war plans. No one disputes that Goldberg was erroneously included in the chat, but the real issue is whether classified or top-secret war plans were actually discussed. CIA Director John Ratcliffe and DNI Director Tulsi Gabbard testified that nothing classified or top secret was discussed in the chat. Others in the administration have said the same thing. Goldberg had been given the opening to release the chats in their entirety to prove them wrong. But he insisted that he wouldn’t.

During an interview on The Bulwark Podcast with Tim Miller, Goldberg repeatedly evaded calls to produce evidence, raising serious questions about the credibility of his claims. Miller directly challenged Goldberg, pointing out that top Trump administration officials had accused him of lying. “Now, the Secretary of Defense and the White House Press Secretary have said you’re lying, have said there are no war plans there, have said there’s no classified information,” Miller stated. “So the obvious question is, shouldn’t you now demonstrate it? Shouldn’t you publish the text?” Goldberg flatly refused. “No, because they’re wrong. They’re wrong,” he insisted, offering no proof to back up his claims.

Here’s the problem with that claim: In the encrypted chat, National Security Advisor Michael Waltz explicitly mentioned the participants’ “high side” inboxes, a reference to the classified system. This made it clear they knew certain topics couldn’t be discussed on the Signal platform. Miller pressed Goldberg further in the interview, asking whether he would at least provide the alleged messages to congressional intelligence committees. Instead of responding substantively, Goldberg deflected with sarcasm. “Wow. What? You wanna become my lawyer?” he quipped with an annoyed tone. He clearly wasn’t comfortable with the line of questioning, and I got the sense he was hiding something.

As the conversation continued, Goldberg struggled to justify his refusal to produce evidence, resorting to vague justifications. “Just because they’re irresponsible with material doesn’t mean that I’m gonna be irresponsible with this material,” he said. He further attempted to cast doubt on the administration’s credibility, suggesting officials were merely trying to “get out of a jam.” In a final attempt to defend his decision, Goldberg framed it as a matter of principle. “I have a pretty clear standard in my own behavior of what I consider… information that I consider to be in the public interest, even if it’s technically classified or not,” he said, adding that he was “sticking to my principles.”

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“No names. No targets. No locations. No units. No routes. No sources. No methods. And no classified information.” ..”some really shitty war plans.”

• “Those Are Some Really Sh*tty War Plans”: Hegseth Ridicules ‘Bombshell’ (ZH)

Update(1326ET): Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth has responded to the growing calls among Dems for him to step down. This is hours after The Atlantic published the fuller chat logs, alleging that he’s discussing ‘war plans’ in an unsecure and unclassified setting – also with a journalist inadvertently added to the group chat. Hegseth emphasized on X that there were No names. No targets. No locations. No units. No routes. No sources. No methods. And no classified information.” And he said sarcastically these these make for “some really shitty war plans.”

Still, this is unlikely to appease the Trump White House’s enemies, who are also now claiming that national security officials ‘lied’ before the Senate yesterday.

* * *
The Atlantic has published the fuller chat thread from the Signal group that journalist Jeffrey Goldberg was ‘inadvertently’ included in. This comes after the top Trump officials involved denied that they shared secret “attack plans” in an unsecure, unclassified setting. The President has downplayed it, defending both national security adviser Mike Walz and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth. Senator Mark Warner of Virginia, the top Democrat on the Senate Intelligence Committee, has called for both Hegseth Waltz to either resign or be fired from their top national security posts. “When the stakes are this high, incompetence is not an option,” Warner wrote on social media Tuesday. “Pete Hegseth should resign. Mike Waltz should resign.”And in a a letter to President Trump, House minority leader Hakeem Jeffries has urged Hegseth’s termination, calling him “unqualified” and a national security risk.

“The so-called secretary of defense recklessly and casually disclosed highly sensitive war plans — including the timing of a pending attack, possible strike targets and the weapons to be used — during an unclassified national security group chat that inexplicably included a reporter,” Jeffries wrote. “His behavior shocks the conscience, risked American lives and likely violated the law.” The newly published messages were sent on March 15 and purport to be from an account identified as Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth. Amid the ongoing controversy, Golberg and The Atlantic are seeking to present a ‘smoking gun’ of sorts. The messages include times of strikes and the types of aircraft being used in attacks on Yemen’s Houthis, who have for many months been sending drone and missiles against Red Sea shipping, including American warships and even at times a carrier.

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The “chat” group is invite only. It should be simple to see who invited, and then added, the journalist.

• White House Selects Elon Musk To Investigate SignalGate Controversy (JTN)

The White House on Wednesday asked Tesla CEO Elon Musk to lead a probe into the so-called SignalGate scandal, which refers to the accidental addition of a journalist to a national security chat on the encrypted messaging app Signal. Jeffrey Goldberg, The Atlantic’s editor-in-chief, reported on Monday that he was added to a chain last week containing messages from Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, National Security Adviser Michael Waltz, Vice President JD Vance, and 15 other senior national security officials. The discussion regarded the Defense Department’s strike plans on the Houthis. White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt confirmed to reporters that Musk had been asked to help lead the investigation, along with his team at the Department of Government Efficiency, per The Hill.

“Elon Musk has offered to put his technical experts on this to figure out how this number was inadvertently added to the chat, again to take responsibility and ensure this can never happen again,” she said. The White House Counsel’s office and the National Security Council are also helping with the investigation. President Donald Trump said a staffer on Waltz’s team was responsible for Goldberg’s inclusion, and Waltz has denied ever meeting or talking to Goldberg. The journalist’s invitation allegedly came from Waltz’s account. Waltz has accepted “full responsibility” for the scandal.

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“I won’t make excuses for the security breach, for that’s what you call it when Jeffrey Goldberg is on the text chain hiding under the name “Jeffrey Goldberg.”

• Distinguishing the Signal From the Noise (Victoria Taft)

After the hypersonic quickness and near-flawlessness of the first few weeks of the Trump 47 presidency, the mediacrats have seized upon a Signal chat between 17 high-level administration officials and Atlantic editor Jeffrey Goldberg. They’ve attempted to turn a discussion about attacking Houthis into the theft of the Manhattan Project. It won’t work, but it doesn’t mean that between applauding the Tesla showroom fire bombings and threatening the drivers of those cars, the left won’t keep trying to make this fetch happen. The Morning Joe gadflies, endless CNN panels, even Hillary Clinton and everyone at the Trump White House agree on one thing: Jeffrey Goldberg shouldn’t have been on that Signal text chain because no one can trust him.

Financier, Shark Tank’s Kevin O’Leary, often says, “To be effective you must be able to distinguish the signal from the noise.” The way this issue has been discussed by mediacrats, it’s been all noise. Endless noise. First, Goldberg hates Trump. His wife works for Hillary Clinton, for goodness’ sake. Goldberg is “The Atlantic’s” Bob Woodward: the guy that comes up with all kinds of uncorroborated stories that no one has ever heard of, much less seen evidence for. If it’s true, why is it only stated in front of Bob or Jeffrey and never reported or even alluded to by anyone before or since? Even actor Bill Murray worked out that puzzle. Goldberg put the words “suckers and losers” into Donald Trump’s mouth at the same time he allegedly petulantly refused to go to a World War II cemetery in Normandy. Yeah, that’s totally on brand for Trump. Not.

Of course, it had nothing to do with the weather making it impossible to fly over the French countryside and near the cliffs of Pointe du Hoc to get to the cemetery. I mean, there are never weather problems there. Take the Normandy invasion as an example, the reason why Trump was there. That whole Normandy invasion thing wasn’t beset by weather problems. Dwight Eisenhower had no problems with the weather. He parked those Higgins Boats without an issue, and everyone got to Omaha without a scratch — in Jeffrey Goldberg’s imagination, anyway. Also, do you think a president, especially one who owned his own aircraft, might take the word of a helo pilot when things are too dangerous? Naw. Never happen. The whole thing’s absurd. Matt’s got a nice round-up of the rest of the boneheaded things Goldberg has said about Trump over here.

This isn’t a bash Jeffrey Goldberg session; there are plenty of pieces around here doing that because he makes it so deliciously easy. I must mention, however, that “The Atlantic” editor reported that they discussed war plans on the Signal text chain. Or maybe that’s what he thought this discussion was. Let’s ask Jeffrey. Jeffrey, how did this compare to the last time you were privy to “military plans”? Did you get all the troop movements, LZs, and weapons packages the last time? Were you included in further communications when members of the national security team said on the Signal chat, “we need to move to the high side” to continue the discussion on a more secure apparatus? I won’t make excuses for the security breach, for that’s what you call it when Jeffrey Goldberg is on the text chain hiding under the name “Jeffrey Goldberg.” But who had Goldberg in their contacts, anyway? What the actual hell?

The noise continued with the hilarious and beside-the-point reactions by former Obama and Biden officials. They are pure irony. Honestly, who thought it was a good idea to get Hillary Clinton and Susan Rice’s reactions? That is comedy gold. What, no Tony Blinken to discuss his expertly executed Afghanistan pullout that included an agreement not to kill the terrorists killing innocents in front of American soldiers? Or was it the bug-out at Bagram, giving China a home base? The woman who destroyed documents, emails, phones under preservation orders, and also had her own server, which even Mike Morrell, one of the 51 spies who lied, said was certainly spied on by the ChiComs and Russians, and worse, weighed in. Goldberg’s wife’s boss, Hillary Clinton, said:

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1,500+ organizations that haven’t been (re-) authorized by Congress for 45 years, but should have been. And have kept functioning, and received funding, as if they have been.

• Might of the Living Feds: 1,500+ Cash-Sucking ‘Zombies’ (RCW)

In 1974, Congress created the Legal Services Corporation to connect lower-income Americans involved in civil disputes with free legal help. The law that established the agency stipulated that authorization for its funding would expire in 1980, when lawmakers were required to vote on whether to keep it alive. They never did. Still, Congress has funded LSC every year since. In fiscal 2025, its 51st year, LSC’s 135 employees will spend 95% of its now $560 million annual budget paying legal groups to represent Americans in cases such as eviction, domestic violence, and disputes over government benefits, according to Ron Flagg, the agency’s president since 2020. “LSC would welcome reauthorization,” Flagg said. “We haven’t hidden from it. Every budget cycle, we go through an exhaustive process before Congress appropriates funds — dozens of meetings with leaders of both parties. We demonstrate our return on investment, how we help 2 million Americans get life-saving legal help.”

The Legal Services Corp. now stands as America’s oldest “Zombie” program, but it’s far from unique. At a time when the Trump administration is moving aggressively to scale back government, including eliminating the entire Education Department, it’s sobering to note that 1,503 agencies or programs live on despite expired authorizations, according to the Congressional Budget Office. Another 155 will expire on Sept. 30. The Zombies, nearly half of which have been officially dead for more than a decade, persist in a budgetary netherworld. In a deep dive last year, CBO analysts were able to find dollar amounts for 491 of the programs, with total expenditures of $516 billion. They don’t know how much funding the other programs received.

The total federal budget in 2024 was $6.8 trillion, meaning expired Zombie programs take up at least 8% of the budget, and likely much more. “A lot of programs don’t get reauthorized because Congress is okay with how they’re operating,” said Josh Huder, former congressional staffer now at the Georgetown University Government Affairs Institute. “They continue to get annual appropriations because most members think they’re worthwhile.” Many Zombie programs now soak up far more funding than lawmakers originally envisioned. The Federal Election Commission, for example, was expected to spend $9.4 million per year before its authorization expired in 1981. Yet the agency continued to receive funding and spent $95 million in 2024, auditors at government watchdog Open The Books found. The Federal Communications Commission was originally allocated $339.6 million per year. Its funding authorization expired in 2020, yet it spent $28.4 billion last year.

Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency hasn’t addressed the Zombies that are prowling the federal spreadsheets. Given DOGE’s headlong push to first root out alleged waste, fraud, and abuse and ask questions later, experts say, Zombies may offer a ripe target. “One could imagine that if DOGE is clued into the notion of expired authorizations, they’ll think a program is defunct,” said Sarah Binder, senior fellow at Brookings and professor of political science at George Washington University. She said this would be a mistake. “If Congress is still appropriating money to the programs, they’re not Zombies. They’re living, breathing agencies.” Binder says the fault lies not with the agencies, some of which have become important enough to be household names, but Congress. Lawmakers have made it so difficult to accomplish their most fundamental tasks, such as funding the government for another year, that they hardly ever get around to doing other important things, such as reauthorizing existing programs.

The Foreign Relations Authorization Act, for example, expired in 2003. Yet in 2024, Congress spent $38.4 billion on 24 of the law’s programs, allowing legislators to influence the White House’s foreign policy and security assistance to other nations. The House Committee on Energy and Commerce, now led by Rep. Brett Guthrie (R-KY), supported the funding of 346 expired programs, more than any other committee, the CBO found. The Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions, now chaired by Sen. Bill Cassidy (R-LA), spent more identifiable money than any other group: $153.5 billion. “Congress’ job doesn’t stop when they allocate the money,” said Casey Burgat, professor at George Washington University’s Graduate School of Political Management.

“They have to oversee it. And when they fail to do that they open themselves up to somebody else doing that. In this case, an aggressive executive branch in the form of DOGE.” Of the 1,503 agencies or programs, 22 remain alive that required a reauthorization vote as long ago as the 1980s, according to the CBO. In addition to the Legal Services Corp., whose authorization expired in 1980, and the FEC (a 1981 reauthorization deadline), the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, or FERC, which oversees the country’s power grids (1984) and the Energy Information Administration, or EIA, whose data informs U.S. policymaking (1984), are among the Zombies pushing middle age.

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Fetterman.

• “Sometimes a Little Brain Damage Can Help.” (Pinsker)

He might be dead, but George Carlin is having a career year on social media. Seems the 20-something liberal crowd has discovered his standup material, and short clips of him lambasting the establishment are still going viral. Of course, Carlin was also waaaay to the left: In one of his books, he wrote, “Property is theft. Nobody ‘owns’ anything. When you die, it all stays here.” Liberals love that. (Interestingly, clips of his 1990 “Doin’ It Again” HBO concert, where he condemns euphemistic language, censorship, PC gibberish, and even defends the use of the N-word, are seldom shared online. Can’t imagine why.) Whenever Carlin’s clips are uploaded, the youngsters all seem to have the same reaction: “Wow, this guy was REALLY ahead of his time!” And in some ways, he absolutely was. But perhaps he was most notably ahead of his time with his 1984 book, “Sometimes a Little Brain Damage Can Help.”

Because, 40 years later — which sounds almost biblical, an irony Carlin would probably appreciate — an enormously large, brain-damaged Pennsylvania senator named John Fetterman is having a career year, too. I mentioned his size because it’s striking: At six foot eight, he’s the only man left in D.C. who can look Barron Trump in the eye. With his shaved head and “gym bro” sweats, he’s one of a handful of Democrats who wouldn’t be out of place on the set of the “Joe Rogan Experience.” In fact, he’s already recorded one episode with Rogan and will probably be taping more. (Over two million views on YouTube and Spotify.) Meanwhile, the Democratic Party is just beginning to realize that it’s lost an entire generation of young male voters. As we discussed two days ago, “75-year-old white men supported Kamala Harris at a significantly higher rate than 20-year-old white men.”

As Newsweek described it: “This is the thing I am the most shocked by in the last four years—that young people have gone from being the most progressive generation since the Baby Boomers… to becoming potentially the most conservative generation that we’ve experienced maybe in 50 to 60 years,” Shor [the head of data science at the pro-Democratic polling firm Blue Rose Research] stated. It’s quickly becoming an existential problem for the Democratic Party. This is still a closely divided country; neither party can afford to lose key members of their constituencies. It’s all hands on deck! As professor David B. Cohen told Newsweek: Young voters compose a crucial part of the Democratic base, and if that is eroding, where do they make up for that? Going forward, Democrats will have to figure out how to bring young voters back to the fold — particularly young men — if they want to be competitive nationally.

Enter John Fetterman. He’s been candid about his mental health struggles — something which disproportionately afflicts young men, by the way. When pro-Hamas hoodlums protested outside of his home, he took to the roof and waved the Israeli flag. And he’s had it with the wackjobs in his own party: “I was really the first Democrat to refuse to shut our government down, and my party was so desperate to pander to shut the government down,” Fetterman said. “Absurd, absolutely absurd. Six months ago, we were lecturing the Republicans, ‘You can’t shut the government down.’ Now it’s, ‘Well, yeah, let’s do these things.’” He added, “It’s like that’s part of the problem, to pander, and they want to pander to the extreme parts of our party, to shut the government down. I said I will never burn the village down and claim that I’m saving it.”

Fetterman also pointed to Michigan as an example of political “pandering” that failed, claiming the Democratic Party tried to appeal to the left-wing Arab-American population only to lose the state to President Donald Trump anyway. He specifically called out Rep. Rashida Tlaib, D-Mich., for refusing to support President Joe Biden and later Vice President Kamala Harris during the 2024 election because of their support for Israel. Fetterman claimed that she and other far-left Democrats ultimately helped to elect Trump. [Emphasis added] But his stance came at a cost: It put him in the crosshairs of the Alexandra Ocasio-Cortez/Bernie Sanders wing of the party. They hate him! But Big John isn’t backing down:

It’s a power struggle. And it’s one that Fetterman won’t win: He might be big, but his “wing” of the party is puny. The Democratic Party is essentially a coalition party, where the common denominator is that everyone agrees that they’ll work together. For most of the last 50 years, the coalition has been comprised of women, minorities, liberals, young voters, and “left-leaning libertarians” — folks like Bill Maher, who generally lean to the left but mostly want to be left alone. And you could probably include John Fetterman in that group, too.

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After JFK and MLK, people will be sleptical.

• Trump Declassifies FBI Crossfire Hurricane Files (RT)

US President Donald Trump has ordered the declassification of all FBI files related to the agency’s investigation into his first election campaign’s alleged contacts with Russia. The FBI launched the ‘Crossfire Hurricane’ investigation in July 2016 to examine whether Trump – then a presidential candidate – or members of his campaign were colluding or coordinating with Moscow to influence the election. In a memorandum released on Tuesday by the White House, Trump directed the Attorney General to make the materials available to the public “immediately.” Crossfire Hurricane was prompted by the ‘Steele Dossier’ – a compilation of unverified rumors about Trump and his alleged links to Russia. The dossier was compiled by former British intelligence officer Christopher Steele, and reportedly funded by the Hillary Clinton campaign.

Crossfire Hurricane preceded the appointment of Special Counsel Robert Mueller, whose subsequent ‘Russiagate’ investigation found no evidence of collusion between the Trump campaign and the Russian government. In 2023, the US Justice Department’s (DOJ) special counsel John Durham – appointed to review the origins of the Crossfire Hurricane probe – concluded that the FBI and DOJ had “failed to uphold their mission” by relying on biased information to surveil Trump. Durham criticized the FBI for showing a “serious lack of analytical rigor,” particularly when handling information from politically-affiliated sources. It was also revealed that the Steele Dossier had been used by the FBI to obtain court permission to spy on Trump’s campaign. In 2019, Justice Department Inspector General Michael Horowitz reported that the FBI had made “basic, fundamental, and serious errors” in its warrant application.

Mike Davis
https://twitter.com/liz_churchill10/status/1904725820863578255

‘Crossfire Hurricane’ and Mueller’s Russiagate investigation cast a long shadow over Trump’s presidency, with allegations of “Russian collusion” persisting in the media even after Mueller’s report found no evidence to back them up. In a video posted on Tuesday on Truth Social, Trump said after signing the order: “This was total weaponization. It’s a disgrace…but now you’ll be able to see for yourselves.” Addressing journalists, he added: “You probably won’t bother because you’re not going to like what you see.” Trump had previously ordered a full declassification of Crossfire Hurricane during the final days of his first term, but the documents were never released. According to a 2023 CNN report, a binder containing highly classified information later went missing.

Read more …

“There is a decent chance of instead of having this gigantic collapse because the dollar is basically evaporating, that this government will be smart enough to do the monetary reset. Go back to a gold standard . . . go back to some sort of commodity base standard..”

• US Government is a Big Money Laundering Operation – John Rubino (USAW)

Analyst and financial writer John Rubino warned last October that “Chaos is Coming.” With exploding Tesla dealerships, mass deportations of violent gangs, DOGE uncovering massive fraud and waste, and an out-of-control Leftist judiciary trying to stop President Trump at every turn, you could say chaos is here. Rubino contends it’s not going away anytime soon as government grifters are going to try to keep the cash flowing. Now, AG Pam Bondi says her office is going after the fraudsters ripping off America. Rubino explains, “We are finding out that the federal government is a big money laundering operation. There are so many different ways and so many different avenues that take cash from taxpayers or newly created cash . . . and it basically funnels it to political operatives, political class and the ‘expert’ class all around the world. . . . We have created this class of people who are effectively grifters . . . because they don’t do anything worthwhile at all. Do you think that think-tanks produce anything of value, or lobbyists or Washington law firms or regulators? The regulator is basically on a long job interview for the company you are regulating. You prove you are a team player and then Pfizer hires you for 10 times your FDA salary. So, everywhere you look it’s a form of money laundering.”

So, now interest payments are spiraling to infinity with massive amounts of debt and currency creation. Rubino says, “We have hit the death spiral point for the dollar and the other big fiat currencies, which means the cost to maintain this debt starts to spiral out of control and people lose faith in the currency or the currency collapses or you have a currency reset. What is really interesting about the Trump Administration is it contains a lot of gold bugs. . . . There is a decent chance of instead of having this gigantic collapse because the dollar is basically evaporating, that this government will be smart enough to do the monetary reset. Go back to a gold standard . . . go back to some sort of commodity base standard where we peg the dollar to something that is real and cannot be created in infinite quantities on a printing press. It could be we do that without insane amounts of pain and stress, but it would still be painful. Anybody who has dollars will watch those dollars be devalued dramatically.”

In this scenario, the dollar sinks in value. What happens to gold? Rubino says, “Everybody who runs the numbers says gold has to be $10,000 per ounce at a minimum and maybe much higher. Gold has to go way up in price in a currency reset. . . . So, your gold becomes much more valuable, and your silver gets pulled along by gold and goes up by some multiple of gold’s percentage gains. If gold goes up three times, silver will go up five to ten times.” Rubino thinks Europe is headed for war with Russia or civil war. Either way, the Euro will not survive. Rubino says the domestic violence will continue here in America but thinks the Deep State won’t stop President Trump’s agenda. Rubino also says everybody should concentrate on owning real things such as farm land, gold, silver and a good vehicle. Rubino also says some emergency food and a garden are good ideas too.

Read more …

“Nearly 31% of ad minutes on major nightly news broadcasts in 2024 came from pharmaceutical brands.”

• RFK Jr. is Pushing Big Pharma Ad Ban – And Corporate Media is Panicking (Becker)

Robert F. Kennedy Jr., Donald Trump’s Health and Human Services Secretary, is pushing a plan to ban pharmaceutical ads from television. He’s right to push for it—and not just because the U.S. is one of only two countries on earth that allows such advertising (the other being New Zealand). America’s health system isn’t just flawed; it’s harming public health, distorting journalism, and fueling Big Pharma’s malignant influence over our daily lives. Let’s start with the obvious: TV drug ads aren’t designed to inform—they’re designed to manipulate. The formula is always the same. Cue soft lighting and sappy piano music. A sad, listless person pops a pill and suddenly life is vibrant again. They’re running through fields, laughing with family, walking dogs across idyllic bridges. Then, in a breathless voiceover, the side effects come tumbling out like a legal disclaimer roulette wheel—stroke, heart failure, suicidal thoughts. The goal? Make viewers want a drug before they even talk to their doctor. It’s emotional coercion dressed up as health education.

This completely inverts how medicine is supposed to work. Health care decisions should be made inside the exam room, not in a 60-second marketing spot. Patients should go to their doctors with symptoms, and those doctors—armed with clinical training and knowledge of the patient’s full health profile—should decide whether a drug is even necessary. Many issues could be better addressed through lifestyle changes, diet, supplements, or preventative care. But instead, America has normalized a pill-for-everything culture, supercharged by the fact that doctors are often nudged by patients demanding whatever drug they saw advertised last night during a commercial break. This isn’t just bad medicine—it’s dangerous. And it’s no accident.

Big Pharma isn’t spending billions on advertising because it cares about your health. It’s doing it because the return on investment is enormous. Studies estimate the ROI on direct-to-consumer (DTC) drug ads ranges from 100% to 500%, depending on the drug. In 2025 alone, pharmaceutical companies are projected to spend over $5 billion on national linear TV ads, according to iSpot.tv. That number balloons even higher when you include digital and streaming. Just a handful of blockbuster drugs—like Skyrizi, Jardiance, and Ozempic—are burning through tens of millions in TV ads every month. This revenue isn’t just padding Big Pharma’s pockets—it’s quietly buying influence in the media. Nearly 31% of ad minutes on major nightly news broadcasts in 2024 came from pharmaceutical brands.

That means a huge portion of media budgets depend on the very companies they should be holding accountable. And surprise, surprise: when Big Pharma misleads the public, many news outlets are either silent or hesitant to report critically. The financial conflict of interest is baked in. We saw the worst-case version of this during the COVID-19 pandemic. The novel mRNA shots—rushed to market under emergency use—were sold to the public as miracle solutions. Government officials and media outlets claimed these vaccines would “stop infection,” “prevent death entirely,” and “end the pandemic.” Younger, healthy individuals were told they needed them for everyone’s safety, despite already low statistical risk. None of these claims held up. As the data evolved, we learned the vaccines offered some reduction in severe disease, but not sterilizing immunity. Yet the media rarely corrected course.

Why would they? Pharma ads were paying the bills. Meanwhile, federal workers were mandated—and many private sector employees coerced—into getting injections under false pretenses. Billions of dollars flowed to Big Pharma. The American public was misled. This pattern of deception is not new. Pfizer alone has paid billions in legal penalties over the years for unethical marketing, off-label promotion, and other violations. The most infamous: a $2.3 billion settlement in 2009—the largest health care fraud settlement in U.S. history at the time. Yet companies like Pfizer, AbbVie, and Johnson & Johnson still enjoy a polished image on TV, thanks in part to relentless ad spending and regulatory leniency.

Read more …

They hired her for her Russophobia. What did they think they would get?

• EU Officials Unhappy With Kallas – Politico (RT)

EU foreign policy chief Kaja Kallas has been criticized by nearly a dozen EU officials over her hawkish stance on Russia and leadership style, Politico has reported, citing unnamed sources. According to the outlet, Kallas’ challenges began on her first day in office in December, following her tweet stating, “The European Union wants Ukraine to win this war” against Russia. Several EU officials reportedly felt uneasy that the former Estonian prime minister, within a day of assuming her new role, “felt at liberty to go beyond” established language norms. ”If you listen to her, it seems we are at war with Russia, which is not the EU line,” Politico cited one EU official as complaining on Wednesday.

Kallas has been a vocal critic of Russia and an advocate for increased military support to Ukraine. Her initiative to increase EU military aid to Kiev to up to €40 billion ($43.1 million) this year faced opposition from member states like Italy and Spain, who do not perceive Moscow as an immediate threat to the EU. Kallas, however, still has her defenders among the EU’s northern and eastern states, noted Politico. Russia has openly criticized the top diplomat, labeling her statements “rabidly Russophobic,” and “undiplomatic,” and accusing her of pushing for militarization amid ongoing US-brokered peace talks on Ukraine. She’s also reportedly been criticized for continuing to act like a prime minister by failing to consult diplomats from member countries before making sensitive proposals.

Kallas’ relationship with the United States has been questioned by some officials. After the sudden cancellation of her February meeting in Washington with US Secretary of State Marco Rubio, attributed to “scheduling issues,” Politico sources suggested that Kallas had not adequately prepared by providing a clear agenda to US counterparts. After a contentious February Oval Office exchange involving US President Donald Trump, Vice President J.D. Vance, and Ukraine’s Vladimir Zelensky, Kallas tweeted, “The free world needs a new leader.” The apparent jab at Trump reportedly unsettled nations eager to maintain strong ties with the US administration.

Read more …

” Moscow suspects that Kiev is attempting to derail Washington’s efforts to mediate a comprehensive truce by continuing its attacks on energy infrastructure.”

• Moscow Backs Ceasefire Despite Kiev’s Breaches – Kremlin (RT)

Ukraine’s ongoing attacks on energy infrastructure are in breach of a US-mediated ceasefire but will not dissuade Russia from maintaining its commitment to the pause, Dmitry Peskov stated on Wednesday. The agreement to refrain from attacking such sites was brokered by US President Donald Trump and his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin during a phone conversation last week. Ukraine launched three separate assaults over two days, aimed at a natural gas reservoir and two segments of the national power grid, the Russian military reported on Wednesday; the latter two resulted in supply disruptions. At a press briefing, Peskov acknowledged Kiev’s “inability to adhere to agreements,” citing the incidents as evidence. Nevertheless, the Russian military is adhering to the suspension of strikes.

Peskov expressed the Kremlin’s commitment to the moratorium, saying it signifies progress in the improvement of US-Russia bilateral relations. He reminded journalists that Moscow has specified the types of targets protected under the partial ceasefire, which were discussed during consultations in Saudi Arabia earlier this week. Moscow suspects that Kiev is attempting to derail Washington’s efforts to mediate a comprehensive truce by continuing its attacks on energy infrastructure. The Foreign Ministry had previously warned that Russia could withdraw from the agreement in response to Ukrainian “provocations.”

Discussions in Riyadh reportedly focused on reviving the Black Sea Grain Initiative, a defunct security framework under which Moscow guaranteed the safety of civilian transportation to and from Ukrainian ports. Russia turned down the renewal of the agreement in 2023, citing Kiev’s misuse of the arrangement for military goals and the West’s failure to ease sanctions in order to facilitate food and fertilizer exports. Peskov assured that if past commitments made to Russia are finally honored, the initiative would be “reactivated.”

Read more …

“..a gradual but steady erosion of Kyiv’s position on the battlefield, regardless of any U.S. or allied attempts to impose new and greater costs on Moscow..”

• Russia Winning In Ukraine, Continually Gaining Leverage: US Intel (ZH)

The US government in its 2025 Annual Threat Assessment of the U.S. Intelligence Community – which was just released by the Office of the Director of National Intelligence in conjunction with top officials’ testimony at a Senate Intelligence Committee hearing Tuesday – has admitted that Ukraine’s battlefield prospects are fading amid the onslaught of superior Russian forces. Currently, Moscow has “seized the upper hand” in the war over the past year, the fresh assessment warns, and “is on a path to accrue greater leverage” as peace talks with Washington are underway. “Even though Russian President [Vladimir] Putin will be unable to achieve the total victory he envisioned when initiating the large-scale invasion in February 2022, Russia retains momentum as a grinding war of attrition plays to Russia’s military advantages,” the report states.

“This grinding war of attrition will lead to a gradual but steady erosion of Kyiv’s position on the battlefield, regardless of any U.S. or allied attempts to impose new and greater costs on Moscow,” it continues. This should come as no surprise to any objective observer; however, what is surprising is the huge amount of Russian losses estimated by US intelligence. While there’s no way of verifying such information, the report claims that there are over 750,000 dead and wounded on the Russian side. Still, the intel community emphasizes the Russian military machine’s ability to quickly replenish personnel while growing its industrial capacity to continually support the war.

On the prospect for achieving a quick peace settlement, the report notes that both Russian and Ukrainian leadership “probably still see the risks of a longer war as less than those of an unsatisfying settlement.” “For Russia, positive battlefield trends allow for some strategic patience, and for Ukraine, conceding territory or neutrality to Russia without substantial security guarantees from the West could prompt domestic backlash and future insecurity.” “Regardless of how and when the war in Ukraine ends, Russia’s current geopolitical, economic, military, and domestic political trends underscore its resilience and enduring potential threat to U.S. power, presence, and global interests,” it adds.

https://twiter.com/yarotrof/status/1904857430925648010?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1904857430925648010%7Ctwgr%5E23ccd6fdd0351c2bcd235f92faf7645aa404b476%7Ctwcon%5Es1_c10&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.zerohedge.com%2Fgeopolitical%2Frussia-winning-ukraine-continually-gaining-leverage-us-intel-community

* * *
A note from UBS … US Intelligence On Russia Nuclear Capacity, China And Taiwan . The US annual threat assessment from the Director of National Intelligence carries warnings about Russia and China. The 2025 edition warned that Russia is developing a satellite capable of carrying a nuclear weapon. It said that China was making aggressive efforts to assert its sovereignty in the south and east China seas, and seems likely to increase its economic pressure on Taiwan. Indeed the report warned that China represented the most comprehensive and robust military threat to US security. The report claimed that both Russia and China are eyeing up Greenland for natural resources.

Read more …

“..the weapons remained under Russian operational control and Kiev lacked the technical capability to launch them..”

• Ukraine Never Had Nuclear Weapons – Grenell (RT)

The nuclear weapons that Ukraine transferred to Russia under the terms of the Budapest Memorandum in the 1990s were never under Kiev’s control, US Presidential Envoy for Special Assignments Richard Grenell has said. Following the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991, Ukraine inherited a significant portion of the USSR’s nuclear arsenal, temporarily making it the third-largest nuclear power at the time. However, the weapons remained under Russian operational control and Kiev lacked the technical capability to launch them. In 1994, Ukraine signed the Budapest Memorandum along with the US, Russia and the UK, under which Kiev agreed to transfer all of its nuclear weapons to Russia in exchange for security assurances.

In a post on X on Tuesday, Grenell wrote: “Let’s clarify the Budapest Memorandum situation: the nuclear weapons belonged to Russia and were leftovers. Ukraine returned the nuclear weapons back to Russia. They did not belong to Ukraine. That’s an inconvenient fact.” Grenell’s comments come amid renewed statements by Ukrainian officials criticizing the country’s disarmament in the 1990s. Ukraine’s Vladimir Zelensky recently told British journalist Piers Morgan that Ukraine was “forced” to give up its nuclear weapons and described the Budapest Memorandum as “stupid, illogical, and very irresponsible.” He argued that Kiev should now either be fast-tracked into NATO or given nuclear weapons and missile systems to counter Russia.

Retired US General Keith Kellogg, who serves as Trump’s envoy to Ukraine and Russia, dismissed the proposal. Speaking to Fox News Digital last month, Kellogg said, “The chance of them getting their nuclear weapons back is somewhere between slim and none. Let’s be honest about it, we both know that’s not going to happen.”

Russia has repeatedly stated that Ukraine never possessed any nuclear weapons of its own, as the assets belonged to Moscow as the sole legal successor of the Soviet Union. Russian officials also maintain that the Budapest Memorandum envisioned Ukraine’s neutral status, which has since been undermined by NATO’s eastward expansion and Kiev’s aspirations to join the bloc. Moscow has cited Ukraine’s ambition to join NATO and its threat to obtain nuclear weapons as root causes for the Ukraine conflict. In November, Russian President Vladimir Putin warned that if Ukraine were to obtain nuclear weapons, Moscow would use “all the means of destruction at Russia’s disposal.”

Read more …

Major step.

• US Looking For ‘Proper Way’ To Reconnect Russia to SWIFT – Bessent (RT)

US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent has confirmed that all options remain on the table as Washington considers lifting certain sanctions against Moscow, including the possible reconnection of Russian banks to the Belgium-based SWIFT network. The US and EU cut off major Russian banks from the SWIFT messaging system as part of a decade-long sanctions campaign, which was significantly expanded following the escalation of the Ukraine conflict in 2022. As part of the Black Sea ceasefire initiative discussed in Saudi Arabia earlier this week, Moscow requested that its Agricultural Bank (Rosselkhozbank) and other institutions involved in food and fertilizer sales be reconnected to the international payment system. “There would be a long discussion about many things in terms of the proper way to bring Russia back into the international system,” Bessent told Fox News on Wednesday, emphasizing that it was “premature to discuss the terms of a deal before we have a deal.”

“I think everything is on the table,” he added, noting that “it will be determined by the Russian leadership’s next moves whether the sanctions go up or down, and President Trump, I think, would not hesitate to raise the sanctions if it gives him a negotiating advantage.” Reconnecting Rosselkhozbank to SWIFT was part of the original Black Sea Grain Initiative, brokered in July 2022 by the UN and Türkiye. A Western failure to deliver on that commitment, along with Kiev’s alleged misuse of the arrangement for military purposes, prompted Moscow to reject the renewal of the agreement in 2023. The US and Russia agreed to revive the defunct Black Sea deal following 12 hours of talks in Saudi Arabia on Monday. President Donald Trump confirmed on Tuesday that his administration is considering lifting some sanctions on Moscow. “There are about five or six conditions. We’re looking at all of them,” he said.

The Brussels-based SWIFT system is incorporated under Belgian law and must comply with EU regulations and restrictions. European Commission spokeswoman Anitta Hipper stated on Wednesday that the bloc will not amend or lift its sanctions until Russia “unconditionally” withdraws all forces from the “entire territory of Ukraine.” Russian President Vladimir Putin said last week that Western sanctions are not a temporary measure but a long-term tool used to apply strategic pressure on Moscow, and that Russia’s rivals will always seek out ways to weaken the country. According to Putin, a total of 28,595 sanctions have been imposed on Russian individuals and entities in recent years – more than the total number imposed on all other countries combined – which have only strengthened the national economy by encouraging self-reliance.

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“..without effective policy interventions, America’s debt-to-GDP ratio could rise from the current 124% to approximately 130% by 2035, with interest payments consuming about 30% of federal revenue.”

• Moody’s Issues Warning On US Finances (RT)

Ratings agency Moody’s has sounded the alarm on the United States fiscal health, warning of a continued decline due to widening budget deficits and increasing concerns over debt affordability. The warning comes as the national debt surpasses $36 trillion and annual deficits exceed $1.7 trillion, raising concerns about the government’s ability to manage its financial obligations. ”[US] fiscal strength is on course for a continued multiyear decline”, having already “deteriorated further” since Moody’s assigned a negative outlook to America’s top-notch AAA credit rating in November 2023, the agency said in a report on Tuesday, as cited by Financial Times.

US President Donald Trump has advocated measures aimed at stabilizing the nation’s finances, including implementing significant tariffs and proposing tax cuts intended to stimulate economic growth. However, Moody’s has cautioned that extending substantial tax cuts without implementing significant spending reductions could exacerbate the country’s fiscal challenges. ”We see diminished prospects that these strengths will continue to offset widening fiscal deficits and declining debt affordability,” it said, according to Reuters.

Republicans are pushing for a $4.5 trillion extension of tax cuts, which would in turn require significant spending reductions, something that may conflict with Trump’s commitment to protect social programs, the agency noted. The Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), led by Elon Musk, tasked with reducing wasteful spending, claims to have achieved $115 billion in savings nationwide. However, according to Moody’s, such cuts are relatively minor compared to mandatory spending obligations. The agency projects that, without effective policy interventions, America’s debt-to-GDP ratio could rise from the current 124% to approximately 130% by 2035, with interest payments consuming about 30% of federal revenue.

Read more …

 

 

 

 

Tucker cancer

 

 

Change

 

 

IVM

 

 

Water

 

 

Bike
https://twitter.com/buitengebieden/status/1904655016427741277

 

 

Best friend
https://twitter.com/Yoda4ever/status/1904589189267808471

 

 

PB

 

 

Family
https://twitter.com/buitengebieden/status/1904965543695663410

 

 

Herds

 

 

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

 

 

 

 

 

Debt Rattle March 26 2025

Mar 262025
 
 March 26, 2025  Posted by at 11:03 am Finance Tagged with: , , , , , , , , ,  45 Responses »


Georges Seurat A Sunday Afternoon on the Island of La Grande Jatte 1884

 

• Trump’s Appeals Are Piling Up For The Supreme Court (Whedon)
• Ted Cruz On Judicial Overreach From District Judges (Downs)
• Nationwide Injunctions Pit Executive Versus Judicial Authority (ET)
• Even Bill Barr Thinks the Judges are Out of Line (Spencer)
• Trump Eyes Two-Stage Tariffs On April 2 To ‘Strengthen Legal Framework’ (ZH)
• The Atlantic’s Signal Story Is Quickly Falling Apart (Vespa)
• Disdain For Europe In US Signal Chat Horrifies EU (BBC)
• Europe Backs Off Tariffs, But … (Lyman)
• EU Could Slap Meta With €1 Billion Fine, Trump Vows To Retaliate (RMX)
• EU ‘Contradicting’ US On Ukraine – Lavrov (RT)
• White House Reveals Details Of US-Russia Talks In Riyadh (RT)
• Zelensky Announces Push To Enlist Younger Men (RT)
• US ‘Thinking About’ Easing Russia Sanctions – Trump (RT)
• Trump Hails ‘Progress’ On Ukraine (RT)

 

 

 

 

Manufacturing

Elon

Alina

DOGE

DeSantis
https://twitter.com/EricLDaugh/status/1904201240843604212

Signal

Bondi

 

 

I have argued this for the past two years: Failure to make peace now and threats of expanding NATO after the war will result in Russia seizing its historical territories from Kharkov to Odessa.
– If Ukraine had not been robbed of its neutrality in 2014, then there would not have been any territorial claims. Even in 2022, the Istanbul peace agreement was solely focused on neutrality. We need to end this war now and end NATO expansionism

 

 

 

 

“District courts have issued more universal injunctions and TROs [Temporary Restraining Orders] during February 2025 alone than through the first three years of the Biden Administration..”

• Trump’s Appeals Are Piling Up For The Supreme Court (Whedon)

The Trump administration’s latest legal showdown with James Boasberg, chief judge of the federal district court for the District of Columbia, over the deportation of Venezuelan gang members threatens to dump yet another judicial injunction on the plate of the Supreme Court. It adds yet more pressure on the justices to rule on the scope of lower court authority and interaction with the Executive Branch. Nationwide injunctions have become increasingly common in recent years. An April 2024 Harvard Law Review study found that 96 were issued from the presidency of George W. Bush to the date of publication. Overall, 86.5% of those were issued by judges appointed by members of the opposing party. Trump’s first term saw 64 injunctions while Biden only faced 14. Less than 65 days into this term, judges have imposed at least 15 such injunctions on the Trump administration in its first two months alone.

The administration has so far faced dozens of lawsuits, mostly over Trump’s executive orders and the activities of the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE). Most of the injunctions so far have come from judges on either the Maryland or District of Columbia courts, although the injunctions purport to be in effect nationwide. The breadth of such injunctions is sure to be raised to the Supreme Court at some point in the near future. Trump is currently fighting to freeze federal funding, deport foreign gang members, fire thousands of federal workers, reinterpret birthright citizenship and to achieve a host of other objectives. Boasberg’s case involves Trump’s invocation of the 1798 Alien Enemies Act to deport members of the Venezuelan gang Tren de Aragua and has led to heated exchanges in the courtroom over the administration’s responsiveness to the judge’s orders. The administration on Tuesday invoked state secrets privilege when declining to provide further information on the deportation of the gang members requested by Boasberg.

“This is a case about the President’s plenary authority, derived from Article II and the mandate of the electorate, and reinforced by longstanding statute, to remove from the homeland designated terrorists participating in a state-sponsored invasion of, and predatory incursion into, the United States,” the government wrote to the court. “The Court has all of the facts it needs to address the compliance issues before it. Further intrusions on the Executive Branch would present dangerous and wholly unwarranted separation-of-powers harms with respect to diplomatic and national security concerns that the Court lacks competence to address.” The appeals process is ongoing at the Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit, which held oral arguments on Monday. That body has yet to issue a decision, but an unfavorable one is sure to result in an appeal by the administration to the Supreme Court.

When urging the Supreme Court to intervene, the Trump administration has highlighted the potential burdens on the top bench should nationwide injunctions become normalized and the court faces an influx of emergency appeals. The Supreme Court traditionally hears roughly 100-150 cases per year of the more than 7,000 cases seeking their intervention. The Supreme Court hears cases on a system of “certiorari,” under which a case cannot, as a matter of right, be appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court. Any party seeking to appeal to the Supreme Court from a lower court decision must file a writ of certiorari.

“District courts have issued more universal injunctions and TROs [Temporary Restraining Orders] during February 2025 alone than through the first three years of the Biden Administration,” acting Solicitor General Sarah Harris wrote while asking the court to address injunctions against Trump’s birthright citizenship order. “That sharp rise in universal injunctions stops the Executive Branch from performing its constitutional functions before any courts fully examine the merits of those actions, and threatens to swamp this Court’s emergency docket.”

Read more …

“..Cruz did speak to examples he’s more hopeful about, which provide hope for the future. Such remedies include, as the senator sees it, “sunshine, drawing attention to it.”

• Ted Cruz On Judicial Overreach From District Judges (Downs)

The judicial overreach from district judges constantly ruling against the Trump administration and whether or not the U.S. Supreme Court will get involved has certainly been in the news lately, as Townhall. It’s gotten to such a level that Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) weighed in with his Monday episode of “The Verdict,” the podcast co-hosted with Ben Ferguson. In discussing the newsworthy topic, Cruz issued several key reminders about these judges, as Ferguson asked for a “remedy” and a “strategy to fight back,” reminding that “it’s very frustrating,” especially those who voted for President Donald Trump’s agenda, which a majority of Americans support,

As Cruz reminded in response, “to be clear,” the judges “were in every single case, elected by no one.” For every one of these judges, they were appointed by the president and then confirmed by the U.S. Senate, with Cruz stressing that “no federal judge is elected.” For unelected judges, there is a few examples of checks and balances. There’s impeachment, with Republican congressmen bringing forth plans to do just that, though Cruz was not optimistic about such an option. “Impeachment, unfortunately, is not going to be effective against this abuse of power,” Cruz shared, explaining how it’s the similar process as impeaching an executive officer. While it only takes a majority in the House to impeach a judge, which could happen, “impeaching, however, it is not removing the judge,” Cruz reminded. “It is the equivalent of bringing charges. It is the equivalent of indicting, like a grand jury indicts, which is to bring criminal charges against someone, impeaching is the same thing.”

Even if Republicans in the House were to unify, however, “the chances that any of these judges would be removed for issuing these nationwide injunctions are 0.00 percent,” Cruz made clear. In the Senate, Cruz reminded, you need two-thirds to convict and remove the person in office, in this case a federal judge. “Now, we do not have 67 Republicans in the Senate. We only have 53 that means we would need at least 14 Democrats, and that’s assuming every Republican stood together. The chances of 14 Democrats voting to convict any of these radical left-wing judges for issuing nationwide injunctions against Trump are zero; and understand why. The Democrats in the Senate hate Trump,” he said, going on to add how these Democrats, so full of hatred against Trump, reacted to his address before a joint session of Congress earlier this month.

“These are the same people that sat there and refused to applaud for the president, refused to applaud for the mothers of women raped and murdered by illegal immigrant criminals. These are the same Democrats that refused to applaud for a 13-year-old kid fighting to overcome brain cancer.”Further, Democrats are actually quite supportive of these judges and what they’re doing. Arguably the most prominent example was Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) with his comments last week. Democrats, Cruz reminded, are “cheering on these injunctions,” as “they want more lawlessness, and so impeachment is not going to be effective.” Cruz also spoke further about the power of Congress beyond impeaching judges, which has no chance of resulting in removal. “Now, secondly, another remedy is that Congress can restrict the jurisdiction of the federal courts, and Congress has broad authority to restrict the jurisdiction of the federal courts,” the senator added.

“Actually, Congress could abolish the district courts. There’s nothing in the Constitution that creates district courts. The only court created in the Constitution is the Supreme Court of the United States, and Congress created the lower courts, the district courts and the courts of appeals to process the volume of cases. But Congress has broad authority to limit the jurisdiction of the federal courts, but again, to exercise that authority in the Senate, you would have to overcome the filibuster, which means you would need 60 votes. We have 53 Republicans. The chances of any Senate Democrats voting to limit the jurisdiction of federal judges issued a nationwide injunction? If it’s not zero, it’s damn close to zero. So those remedies are quite limited,” the senator highlighted, speaking of that example.However, Cruz did speak to examples he’s more hopeful about, which provide hope for the future. Such remedies include, as the senator sees it, “sunshine, drawing attention to it.”

Read more …

“..“only this court’s intervention can prevent universal injunctions from becoming universally acceptable.”

• Nationwide Injunctions Pit Executive Versus Judicial Authority (ET)

President Donald Trump’s agenda has been slowed by a long list of orders issued by federal judges against his policies. Those orders include many that are nationwide in scope. Dubbed nationwide or universal injunctions, they are considered extraordinary because they allow a single judge to block national policies. Nationwide orders have increasingly been used by judges in recent years, prompting pushback from presidential administrations. Trump recently denounced their use and asked the Supreme Court to intervene. “Unlawful Nationwide Injunctions by Radical Left Judges could very well lead to the destruction of our Country!” the president said in a March 20 post on Truth Social. “These people are Lunatics, who do not care, even a little bit, about the repercussions from their very dangerous and incorrect Decisions and Rulings.”

Judges have defended the broad scope of the injunctions, saying they’re necessary to avoid purported harms resulting from executive action. Critics, meanwhile, argue that courts are exceeding their authority, even as lawyers “shop” for favorable judges who are likely to agree with their policy preferences. While the Supreme Court has yet to address this issue, it could have the final say, as challenges to Trump’s actions make their way up the appeals process. According to a study by the Harvard Law Review, the number of universal orders has increased in recent years. Most come from judges appointed by a president from the opposing party to the one in the White House. The trend, the study said, has been fueled by “judge shopping,” where plaintiffs strategically file lawsuits before judges they view as more favorable to their case.

Presidents George W. Bush and Barack Obama saw six and 12 universal injunctions, respectively, during their terms. That number increased to 64 during Trump’s first term—59 of which came from a judge appointed by a president of the opposing party. President Joe Biden, meanwhile, saw a slightly higher number than Obama with 14—all of them coming from judges appointed by a president of the opposing party. Judges have defended the nationwide scope of their rulings. “The reason the Executive Orders are unconstitutional—namely that, at minimum, they violate the separation of powers—are applicable to jurisdictions throughout the country,” U.S. District Judge Brendan Hurson said in February while blocking Trump’s order on so-called gender-affirming care.

“The necessity of a nationwide injunction is underscored by the fact that hospitals all over the country could lose access to all federal funding if they continue to provide gender-affirming medical care.” In issuing a preliminary injunction on Trump’s birthright citizenship order, U.S. District Judge John Coughenour said in February that a geographically limited injunction would be “ineffective” as plaintiff states would have to pay for the children of illegal immigrants who travel from other states. Trump attempted to combat what he said to be “abuses of the legal system and the federal court” with an order on March 22 that directed the attorney general to “seek sanctions against attorneys and law firms who engage in frivolous, unreasonable, and vexatious litigation against the United States or in matters before executive departments and agencies of the United States.”

Experts have pointed to Trump’s order restricting birthright citizenship as one that’s likely to reach the Supreme Court. Given a recent filing by the Trump administration, it could prompt a broader ruling about nationwide injunctions. Acting Solicitor General Sarah Harris has asked the Supreme Court to say “enough is enough.” She filed a petition asking the court to review three nationwide preliminary injunctions against Trump’s birthright citizenship order.
“Universal injunctions have reached epidemic proportions since the start of the current Administration,” Harris said. She noted that the number of universal injunctions and temporary restraining orders issued against the current administration has already outpaced the first three years of the Biden administration. She argued that “only this court’s intervention can prevent universal injunctions from becoming universally acceptable.”

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“..we have this phenomena of nation-wide injunctions where the lowest level judge, district judges, try to bind the entire nation and bind the president in their initial decision. That is not what we have meant by the judicial power under our Constitution.”

• Even Bill Barr Thinks the Judges are Out of Line (Spencer)

When you’ve lost Bill Barr, you really don’t have a case. Even Bill Barr, who was Donald Trump’s attorney general from Feb. 2019 to Dec. 2020 but had a bitter falling-out with him, thinks that the activist far-left judges who are blocking Trump’s efforts to deport criminal migrants are going too far. This is significant because Barr is not only no friend of Trump; he is, indeed, a pillar of the old Republican establishment that hates everything about Orange Man Bad. And the way he has spoken about Trump would make you think that he was having cocktails with Nancy Pelosi and Adam Schiff every evening.

Trump, Barr said in June 2023, is like a “defiant 9-year-old kid who is always pushing the glass toward the edge of the table defying his parents to stop him from doing it. He’s a very petty individual who will always put his interests ahead of the country’s. But our country can’t be a therapy session for a troubled man like this.” Yes, the guy who said that thinks that the judges are going too far. Trump and Barr first fell out over Barr’s claim that the 2020 presidential election was entirely on the up-and-up. Then Barr backed Jack Smith’s bogus legal persecution of Trump over supposedly mishandling classified documents. Affecting a pompous, above-it-all, more-in-sadness-than-in-anger pose,

Barr wrote: “For the sake of the country, our party, and a basic respect for the truth, it is time that Republicans come to grips with the hard truths about President Trump’s conduct and its implications.” And just as he somehow missed all the evidence that something was very much amiss with the 2020 election, Barr also missed the unmistakable indications that the Biden regime had weaponized the justice system to discredit and destroy its principal opponent. Barr insisted that “Trump’s indictment is not the result of unfair government persecution. This is a situation entirely of his own making. The effort to present Trump as a victim in the Mar-a-Lago document affair is cynical political propaganda.”

Barr based his claim, however, upon his negative assessment of Trump’s character more than on the facts of the case: “This is not a circumstance where he’s the victim or this is government overreach. He provoked this whole problem himself. Yes, he’s been the victim of unfair witch hunts in the past, but that doesn’t obviate the fact that he’s also a fundamentally flawed person who engages in reckless conduct that leads to situations, calamitous situations, like this, which are very disruptive and hurt any political cause he’s associated with.”

Since he has this low an opinion of Trump, Barr would not have surprised anyone if he started touting the wisdom and courage of the leftist judges for blocking the whims of this “defiant 9-year-old kid.” Instead, however, Barr said: “There’s a pattern whereby these district court judges are trying to usurp the responsibility of the president in the national security area. The president is absolutely right to be frustrated and concerned about the way the courts are handling this.” Well, blow me down. This is Bill Barr talking?

Barr went even farther, saying: “The Constitution gives the president the power to make the judgments about how we deal with foreign nationals when we are animated by national security concerns. It’s his call, not a district court judge’s call.” Barr even explained how the judges are abusing the power of the judiciary: “Even where it’s appropriate for the court to play its traditional role of safeguarding the liberties of American citizens, we have this phenomena of nation-wide injunctions where the lowest level judge, district judges, try to bind the entire nation and bind the president in their initial decision. That is not what we have meant by the judicial power under our Constitution.”

Indeed. Or as Supreme Court Justice Elena Kagan put it in 2022: “It can’t be right that one district judge can stop a nationwide policy in its tracks and leave it stopped for the years it takes to go through normal process.” It will be interesting to see if Kagan votes that way once this comes to the Supreme Court. Said Barr: “If they [the U.S. Supreme Court] finally stand up and decide a case instead of hanging back from these decisions, I think it’ll come out the right way. I think most of the justices appreciate how absurd this is.”

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Trump wants to hear from countries what they think is fair. They won’t tell him. He wants to make a deal. They don’t know how that works.

• Trump Eyes Two-Stage Tariffs On April 2 To ‘Strengthen Legal Framework’ (ZH)

As April 2nd approaches – the day President Donald Trump is set to roll out a global tariff regime, the Financial Times reports that Trump is now considering ‘a two-step approach,’ which would split tariffs into two stages; targeted emergency tariffs now to raise money for planned tax cuts, and more after his administration has completed probes into trading partners to provide a more robust legal framework to deploy “reciprocal” tariffs (we charge them the same percentage they’re charging us). Basically while Trump and Lutnick want to go full bore now, US trade representative Jamieson Greer (a lawyer who worked for Trump’s first trade chief Robert Lighthizer), insisted they pump the brakes in order to legally justify sweeping tariffs. The dual-track strategy is poised for a high-profile unveiling on April 2, a date Trump has branded “Liberation Day,” spurring a flurry of diplomatic activity as allies seek exemptions.

Among proposals his team has been discussing is a plan to launch so-called Section 301 investigations into trading partners, while simultaneously using rarely invoked emergency powers to apply immediate tariffs in the interim. -FT Speaking Monday, Trump vowed “substantial” tariffs on U.S. trading partners, though he also suggested the possibility of selective leniency. “They’ve charged us so much that I’m embarrassed to charge them what they’ve charged us,” Trump said – hours after announcing new tariffs on buyers of Venezuelan oil, including China. “But it’ll be substantial.” According to the Financial Times, officials close to the matter say the administration is eyeing an immediate deployment of tariffs using emergency authorities such as the International Emergency Economic Powers Act (IEEPA), or Section 338 of the Tariff Act of 1930 – a provision that permits duties of up to 50% on foreign goods on trading partners.

One more obscure route, now considered a long shot, involves Section 122 of the 1974 Act, which permits temporary tariffs of up to 15% for 150 days – a stopgap measure that may not deliver the revenue or optics the former president is seeking. Lawyers and people familiar with the plans also told FT that Trump could immediately slap tariffs on vehicle imports on April 2, reviving a national security study into the global auto industry from his first term. On Monday, Trump said tariffs on cars could be announced “over the next few days.” The debate within the Trump team has at times split along functional lines. The two main points of contact have also differed in their approaches, say people familiar with the discussions. While commerce secretary Howard Lutnick has served as the administration’s chief negotiator, he has lambasted trading partners over their trade surpluses and tax policies, before demanding “a deal”.

US trade representative Jamieson Greer, a lawyer who previously worked for Trump’s first-term trade chief Bob Lighthizer, has increasingly asserted himself as the legal planner, seeking to create a durable blueprint for the president’s drive to reorder global trade. -FT. Greer has notably advocated for launching investigations into trading partners before applying tariffs, according to people familiar with his thinking. This would rely on tested trade law, but could delay tariffs by up to six months. White House spokesperson Kush Desai said the final details of the reciprocal tariff plan remain under wraps, but emphasized internal alignment on the broader goal: “Although the final reciprocal tariff plan for April 2 has yet to be unveiled by President Trump, every member of the Trump administration is aligned on finally leveling the playing field for American industries and workers.”

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Hard to follow even. This is what we call “convoluted”?

• The Atlantic’s Signal Story Is Quickly Falling Apart (Vespa)

So, what the hell is this story now? It’s a warning that perhaps more administrative due diligence should be applied when creating these group chats on encrypted and secure messenger apps. Still, while alarming at first, the hubbub is dying down quickly. This story in The Atlantic that secret war plans were disclosed to known anti-Trump fake news writer Jeffrey Goldberg, who was accidentally added to the group, is falling apart faster than a skiff made of paper.

Was it an unforced error by the Trump team? One hundred percent—they’re no angels here, but no classified information was disclosed. There were no war plans. We have a bunch of top officials speaking candidly and in generalities about anti-Houthi operations. These were unclassified discussions, and Signal is an approved app. Biden’s people used it. It was already downloaded on the devices of the principals involved. CIA Director John Ratcliffe was on those chats—no classified information was disclosed.

So, it’s a nothing burger on the primary charge that this administration disclosed secret war plans to a journalist. That kills the narrative when the CIA director says nothing harmful was disclosed, and Ratcliffe is respected on both sides of the aisle. That’s three significant stories this publication has tried to trip up the administration, only to do faceplants.

CIA Director John Ratcliffe confirmed that according to CIA record management, Signal is approved for “work use.” Let’s set this record straight. Here is the truth about Signal:
-In 2016, the DNC instructed all staffers to exclusively use Signal to talk crap about Trump because it was encrypted.
-In 2017, Signal was approved by the sergeant at arms of the U.S. Senate and staff. -The use of common amongst the security community.
-Cybersecurity firm iVerify’s Rocky Cole has also stated the app has “stellar reputation and is widely used and trusted in the security community”.
-Even Edward Snowden has said that he uses Signal due to its strong encryption services.

Losers and suckers in 2020 was a lie. Trump liking Nazi generals was a lie. And now, classified information being leaked on Signal has blown up in their faces. It was for sure the liberal media’s attempt to avenge the Hillary Clinton emails fiasco from 2016, which makes no sense because it was the liberal media who covered that story extensively; that wasn’t primarily a conservative media thing. The New York Times, believe it or not, had some of the most damning articles about that and the slush fund politics at the Clinton Foundation.

The Atlantic tried to drive a wedge into Trump’s inner circle. They aimed and missed again. This story died in less than 24 hours, disintegrating so fast that all the theatrics and talking points the Democrats had prepared looked out of date and unhinged. Sen. Michael Bennet (D-CO) got all twisted up, bellowing about things that Ratcliffe never said at today’s hearing.

https://twitter.com/townhallcom/status/1904567362239504804

Meanwhile, we might have some palace intrigue: someone is talking to Politico about National Security Adviser Michael Waltz’s status, who looked like a dead man walking a few hours ago. Now, if this leaker is found, no doubt that person should be fired, not Waltz. Whatever happens, happens, but after we’ve all had a drink or two and simmered down, this is another bombshell that quickly collapsed because it’s the fake news doing its work again.

https://twitter.com/storm_paglia/status/1904548462907072950?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1904548462907072950%7Ctwgr%5E430d286571e97f4efa82650f8d45c839b9c928ed%7Ctwcon%5Es1_c10&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Ftownhall.com%2Ftipsheet%2Fmattvespa%2F2025%2F03%2F25%2Fcia-director-ratcliffe-blows-up-secret-war-plans-narrative-n2654467

Trump responds:

https://twitter.com/townhallcom/status/1904613271249830207?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1904613271249830207%7Ctwgr%5E430d286571e97f4efa82650f8d45c839b9c928ed%7Ctwcon%5Es1_c10&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Ftownhall.com%2Ftipsheet%2Fmattvespa%2F2025%2F03%2F25%2Fcia-director-ratcliffe-blows-up-secret-war-plans-narrative-n2654467

https://twitter.com/townhallcom/status/1904615502959300954?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1904615502959300954%7Ctwgr%5E430d286571e97f4efa82650f8d45c839b9c928ed%7Ctwcon%5Es1_c10&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Ftownhall.com%2Ftipsheet%2Fmattvespa%2F2025%2F03%2F25%2Fcia-director-ratcliffe-blows-up-secret-war-plans-narrative-n2654467

***

Last Note: Again, Hillary Clinton can shut her face, along with the rest of the political class who think this is some major scandal. Most people in DC use Signal, too. Hillary Clinton did all official State Department business through an unsecured server, which was not approved, and if she had asked, it wouldn’t have been permitted, per the inspector general at the time:

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Was it leaked just to see the EU’s reaction?

• Disdain For Europe In US Signal Chat Horrifies EU (BBC)

“Horrific to see in black and white. But hardly surprising,” is how a top European diplomat reacted to what comes across as deep, heartfelt disdain for European allies, revealed late on Monday, European time, in an online group chat between top US security officials. Seemingly by accident, Atlantic magazine editor-in-chief Jeffrey Goldberg was also invited to the chat, which discussed planned strikes on Houthi rebels in Yemen aimed at unblocking trade routes on the Suez Canal. He subsequently made the frank exchange public. In the chat, Vice-President JD Vance notes that only 3% of US trade runs through the canal, as opposed to 40% of European trade, after which he and Defence Secretary Pete Hegseth complain of European “free-loading”. The monumental security breach is causing a ruckus at home, with Democrats calling for Hegseth’s resignation as a result.

Across the pond – aka the Atlantic – Europe’s leaders and policy-makers felt “sick to their stomach”, as an EU official put it to me. Officials quoted here are speaking on condition of anonymity in order to comment freely on what are volatile times in US-European relations. You won’t see comments in the public domain, so as not to rock the transatlantic boat any further. Vance first stunned European officials with his speech at last month’s Security Conference in Munich condemning the continent for having misplaced values such as protecting abortion clinics and censoring speech in the media and online. “The enemy from within,” he called it. Monday’s Signal chat strikes at the heart of a slew of tensions, discomfort and plain old fear in Europe right now, that the Trump administration can no longer be relied on as the continent’s greatest ally. At a time when Europe is facing off against a resurgent Russia.

Western Europe has looked to the US to have its back in terms of security and defence since World War Two. But it is precisely that fact that so riles the Trump administration and has cemented Europe in its mind as “freeloaders”. While the US commits 3.7% of its colossal GDP to defence, it’s taken the majority of European partners in the transatlantic defence alliance Nato until recently to cough up even 2% of GDP. Some, like big economies Spain and Italy, aren’t even there yet, though they say they plan to be soon. Europe relies heavily on the US, amongst other things, for intelligence, for aerial defence capabilities and for its nuclear umbrella.With the phasing out of conscription in most European countries, the continent also relies on the around 100,000 battle-ready US troops stationed in Europe to help act as a deterrent against potential aggressors.

Europeans have focused more on investing in welfare and social services than defence – collective or otherwise – since the collapse of the Soviet Union and the end of the Cold War. Why on earth should the US pick up the slack, asks the Trump administration. On the leaked group chat, National Security Adviser Michael Waltz laments the state of Europe’s naval forces. “It will have to be the United States that reopens these [Suez] shipping lanes.” The chat then debates how to ensure that Europe remunerates the US for its actions. “If the US successfully restores freedom of navigation at great cost there needs to be some further economic gain extracted in return,” states a message from someone called SM – presumed to be deputy White House chief of staff Stephen Miller. Europe is now loudly and publicly discussing spending a lot more on its own defence – hoping to keep Donald Trump onside and an aggressive Russia at bay after Ukraine.

But Trump’s irritation with Europe is nothing new. He displayed his displeasure during his first term in office: furious about Europe’s low defence spending; incandescent over the EU’s trade surplus with the US. The United States had been long been taken for a ride and that must stop, seemed to be his sentiment. Imposing trade tariffs was one of Trump’s first responses. Then as now. Earlier this month, when Trump threatened eye-watering 200% tariffs on European alcohol in an ongoing trade tit-for-tat, he lambasted the EU as “abusive” and “hostile” for allegedly taking advantage of the US at any opportunity. Coinciding uncomfortably with the leaked Signal chat and its Euro-bashing, the EU’s trade commissioner Maros Sefcovic, along with the head of cabinet of European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, arrived in Washington on Tuesday hoping to launch a charm offensive to try to stave off a new tariff onslaught.

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“We will spend more on defense and we will spend it better,” von der Leyen said.”

• Europe Backs Off Tariffs, But … (Lyman)

In the first face off of what could turn into an all-out trade war between the U.S. and the European Union, the Europeans blinked first. European economies are already feeling the impacts of the 25% levy on global imports of steel and aluminum that went into force March 12. The European Union vowed to retaliate with around $30 billion worth of targeted tariffs on U.S. goods including a 50-percent markup on Bourbon and other American whiskey, starting April 1. Further EU taxes were set to start two weeks later. In response, Trump said the strategy was “nasty,” and he threatened a 200% markup on prices for European alcohol in the U.S. Then, this week, Europe struck back by delaying the April 1 tariffs until at least April 15. The reason, according to European Union trade spokesman Olof Gill, is to give time for “a constructive dialogue with the U.S. in order to seek a solution that avoids unnecessary harm to both economies.”

Wine producing countries were particularly worried about the 200-percent tariff threat and so it was no surprise that the implementation of the measures was reportedly pushed by France, Italy and Spain – not coincidentally, the three European countries that sell the most wine in the U.S. market. The decision on tariffs came during an unusually high-profile meeting of the European council of leaders Thursday and Friday in Brussels and in the days after, scores of analysts were almost unanimous that a trade war would hurt Europe more than the U.S. The European leaders did take more decisive stands in other areas related to the policies of the two-month-old Trump administration. That includes reiterating support for Ukraine and sending an additional $1 billion to help the country in its war against Russia.

That is a stance that has not changed despite the unexpectedly harsh welcome for Ukrainian leader Volodymyr Zelensky at the White House last month. Leaders also agreed to “intensify” the process toward Ukraine becoming a European Union member state. Despite Russia President Vladimir Putin’s intense opposition to that, they elected not to consider unfreezing $50 billion in Russian financial assets immobilized last year. European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen also said she opposed the proposed U.S. ceasefire plan for Ukraine, arguing that such a move would only allow Russia to “regroup” before launching new attacks. Probably most notably, the European states agreed to dramatically increase defense spending and to coordinate their security initiatives as the 27-nation bloc looks for ways to flex its geopolitical muscles even as the U.S. withdraws security guarantees Europe has enjoyed since the end of World War II.

“We will spend more on defense and we will spend it better,” von der Leyen said. “We have no choice.” Apart from Europe’s at least temporary retreat on tariff policies and its renewed support for Ukraine under Zelensky and opposition to Putin’s Russia, the big takeaway from the Council of Europe meeting may be the difficult position some European leaders find themselves in as they seek to straddle the growing U.S.-Europe divide. The best example of that may be Italy’s Giorgia Meloni, who supported Trump’s first term even when she was part of Italy’s political opposition (she had a prominent spot at CPAC in 2019, for example). As prime minister, she made a surprise trip to meet with Trump at Mar-a-Lago in January, more than two weeks before Trump’s inauguration (Trump called her “a fantastic woman”). The bond between Trump and Meloni had media calling the 48-year-old Italian Europe’s “Trump Whisperer.”

But Meloni is also committed to European priorities that sometimes clash with White House priorities. That includes strong support for the Ukrainian cause, a willingness to criticize Israel’s Benjamin Netanyahu, and the recognition that the cash-strapped Italian government cannot afford to spend dramatically more on its military (the country is under the NATO target of spending 2 percent of GDP on defense) and that any disruption of trade would hit Italy harder than it would most European economies. That has put Meloni, likely Trump’s most important ally in Europe, in a tough spot, as France’s Le Monde (and many others) reported, leaving the Rome native “trapped in an awkward position on European defense and the trans-Atlantic crisis.”

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“These heavy fines appear to have two purposes: to force businesses to follow European standards and to tax American companies in Europe..”

• EU Could Slap Meta With €1 Billion Fine, Trump Vows To Retaliate (RMX)

The European Union could fine Mark Zuckerberg’s Meta (Facebook, Instagram) €1 billion or more for violating antitrust rules, in response to President Donald Trump’s sanctions against EU companies. The European Commission (EC), the EU’s antitrust watchdog, is expected to conclude that Meta does not comply with the Digital Markets Act, sources close to the situation said. The EU’s Digital Markets Act (DMA) comes into force in 2023 and applies strict competition rules to Meta and six other internet moguls. The regulator’s focus is on data processing and business activity. According to Post sources, the fines could be in the hundreds of millions of dollars at the minimum and as high as $1 billion after the EC’s decision. The EU investigation into the parent company of Facebook and Instagram is expected to be concluded this week, with the commission’s enforcement measures to be announced immediately, the people said.

According to the sources, EU officials are expected to call on Meta to comply with the rules and inform the company of what changes it needs to make to comply. In addition, Apple is also in the EU commission’s crosshairs and could be fined this week or next week. Interestingly, earlier this month, Reuters reported that Apple and Meta were likely to get away with “modest fines” for violating the DMA. Theresa Ribera, the EU’s antitrust chief, had previously said that a decision on enforcement actions against both companies would be made in March. Now, that view appears to have changed. In addition to Meta and Apple, the companies considered “gatekeepers” under the DMA include Google’s Alphabet, Amazon, Booking.com, TikTok’s ByteDance and Microsoft. These are the so-called Big Tech companies.

EU regulators and other supporters say the law prevents tech giants from using anti-competitive behavior, such as abusing their market power, to squeeze out smaller rivals. The law allows Big Tech companies to be fined up to 10 percent of their global revenue for repeated violations, with the penalty going up to 20 percent of revenue. The EU launched an investigation into Meta in June last year over its “pay or opt-in” model that restricted customers. In practice, this meant that users either paid to opt out of ads on Instagram and Facebook or were given them without asking. The problem was that those who didn’t pay also agreed to Meta using their data to target ads. The EU commission said the company had failed to offer a third option. Meta argued that the EU commission had consistently used conditions to comply with the rule that went beyond the law.

In June of last year, Apple became the first company to be charged with violating the DMA, allegedly for preventing rival app developers from easily diverting customers to services outside the App Store. The EU last week again warned Apple that it must open up its iPhone operating system to app developers, just as it has done with Android. The problem with Google’s Alphabet is that it treats its in-house (i.e., its own) services “more favorably.” Amidst sharp criticism from big tech, the law has increasingly drawn the ire of President Trump, who has vowed to impose retaliatory tariffs to level the playing field. Trump issued a memo last month warning that his administration would consider countermeasures.

President Trump will not allow foreign governments to siphon off America’s tax base for their own benefit, the White House said at the time. House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jim Jordan has specifically asked EU officials for information on how the bloc plans to enforce the Digital Markets Act. Jordan noted that six of the seven “gatekeepers” covered by the law are American-owned. “These heavy fines appear to have two purposes: to force businesses to follow European standards and to tax American companies in Europe,” Jordan said in his letter.

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“He also dismissed EU leaders’ proposals to deploy Western ‘peacekeepers’ to Ukraine, calling them “dreamers” who are “proving their complete political irrelevance with each passing day.”

• EU ‘Contradicting’ US On Ukraine – Lavrov (RT)

The approach taken by EU leaders on the Ukraine conflict directly contradicts the position of US President Donald Trump, according to Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov. In an interview with Russia’s Channel 1 on Tuesday, Lavrov said the bloc’s continued push for Ukraine’s NATO membership is the result of former US President Joe Biden’s decision to push the EU towards a confrontation with Russia. As a result, the EU is grappling with “an enormous number” of social and economic problems, which “probably partly explains why they are so fervently not giving up on Ukraine” and are calling for more military aid to the country, Lavrov said.

“In other words, they are in direct contradiction to the Trump administration,” he added, noting that the US president, along with Secretary of State Marco Rubio and National Security Advisor Mike Waltz, had “made it clear that preliminary talks are underway on the parameters of the final settlement [of the conflict] and that NATO should be off the table.”

Ukraine has long sought NATO membership as a security guarantee for ending the conflict with Russia. Moscow, however, has cited Kiev’s NATO ambitions as one of the key causes of the conflict and has called for Ukraine’s neutrality as a foundation for any peace deal. sLavrov said Biden made “a colossal mistake” by refusing to engage with Russia and instead insisting that Ukraine join the military bloc, “thereby creating an unacceptable threat for us.” He also dismissed EU leaders’ proposals to deploy Western ‘peacekeepers’ to Ukraine, calling them “dreamers” who are “proving their complete political irrelevance with each passing day.”

Earlier this month, the UK and France signaled an openness to sending a military contingent to Ukraine once a ceasefire is reached. Moscow has described the plan as a pretext for deploying NATO troops in the country, warning that this could lead to a direct war between the military bloc and Russia. Lavrov has likened EU rearmament plans and calls to contain and defeat Russia to past military campaigns by Napoleon and Hitler, who had similar goals. “We’ve been through all this before,” he said. The diplomat’s comments come a day after senior Russian and US officials held 12-hour talks in Saudi Arabia aimed at resolving certain technical issues. Details of the negotiations are expected to be released later on Tuesday.

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“The United States and Russia have agreed to ensure safe navigation, eliminate the use of force, and prevent the use of commercial vessels for military purposes in the Black Sea..”

• White House Reveals Details Of US-Russia Talks In Riyadh (RT)

The White House has released a short statement on the US-Russia negotiations in Saudi Arabia, shedding some light on the more than 12-hour talks held on Monday. The “bilateral technical-level talks” focused on the situation in the Black Sea, as well as the agreement to halt strikes on “energy facilities of Russia and Ukraine” proposed by US President Donald Trump, the White House said on Tuesday. “The United States and Russia have agreed to ensure safe navigation, eliminate the use of force, and prevent the use of commercial vessels for military purposes in the Black Sea,” the statement reads.

The US has also pledged to “help restore Russia’s access to the world market for agricultural and fertilizer exports, lower maritime insurance costs, and enhance access to ports and payment systems for such transactions,” according to the White House. Both Moscow and Washington remain committed to “working toward achieving a durable and lasting peace” to end the Ukraine conflict, it added. Earlier in the day, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov confirmed that the negotiations explored the possibility of reviving the defunct Black Sea Grain Initiative, originally brokered in July 2022 by the UN and Türkiye. The deal envisioned the safe passage of Ukrainian agricultural exports in exchange for the West lifting restrictions on Russian grain and fertilizer trade. Moscow declined to renew the deal in 2023, citing the West’s failure to meet its obligations.

To renew the deal, Moscow needs firm guarantees from the US, which can “only result from a direct order issued by Washington to [Ukraine’s Vladimir] Zelensky and his team,” Lavrov explained, pointing to Kiev’s habit of breaking promises. Russia’s position now “is simple: We cannot take anyone’s word at face value,” he said in an interview with Channel 1. “We need the clearest, most specific, verifiable, working guarantees and mechanisms [to revive the deal],” Lavrov stated. “We want the grain and fertilizer market to be predictable so that no one tries to kick us out of this market.”

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“The Defense Ministry is promoting the offer by showing how much recruits can buy with the money – equating it to 15,625 cheeseburgers or 185 years of Netflix subscriptions.”

• Zelensky Announces Push To Enlist Younger Men (RT)

Ukraine must enlist more young men into its armed forces, as a number of units face a pressing need for reinforcements, according to Vladimir Zelensky. In a regular news briefing on Monday, Zelensky announced that the military leadership had approved an expansion of recruitment targeting citizens aged 18 to 24. While mandatory conscription applies to men over 24, the government is trying to encourage younger individuals to volunteer by offering an array of incentives. “I visited the front on Saturday. There is a demand from specific brigades, and we will be responding positively to it. There will be more brigades employing young specialists,” Zelensky stated. “This initiative will extend to the National Guard and border guard units, as all effective defense forces should be given every opportunity to enhance their capabilities.”

Under a recruitment campaign launched in February, young adults are promised 1 million hryvnia ($24,000) for a year of military service, as well as free dental care and the option to leave Ukraine after fulfilling their contract – an option not available to regular fighting-age men. The Defense Ministry is promoting the offer by showing how much recruits can buy with the money – equating it to 15,625 cheeseburgers or 185 years of Netflix subscriptions. Critics have condemned the ad campaign as demeaning to potential recruits. Last year, Zelensky reduced the minimum conscription age from 27 to 25, but refrained from further adjustments, citing concerns over the economic and demographic impact.

Western supporters have urged Kiev to enlist younger men, saying the aging Ukrainian army is struggling to fight effectively. Ukraine is intensifying its mobilization efforts as the US attempts to mediate a resolution to the conflict with Russia, leveraging Kiev’s reliance on foreign aid. Washington has convinced both sides to agree to a moratorium on strikes against energy infrastructure. After several attacks, however, Moscow has accused Kiev of not honoring its obligation and has threatened to pull out of the 30-day partial ceasefire. Over the past few days, US officials met separately with Ukrainian and Russian delegations in Saudi Arabia to explore the potential resumption of the Black Sea Initiative, aimed at facilitating maritime exports.

Read more …

“Russia needs ironclad guarantees from the US, Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov has said, arguing that only a “direct order” from Washington could compel Kiev to observe any agreement.”

• US ‘Thinking About’ Easing Russia Sanctions – Trump (RT)

Moscow and Washington have committed to advancing the Black Sea Initiative as a step toward settling the Ukraine conflict, although according to the Kremlin, the deal will take effect only after the US lifts a number of sanctions hampering Russia’s trade and freedom of navigation. Both the Kremlin and the White House stated on Tuesday that, as part of the agreement, the US “will help restore Russia’s access to the world market for agricultural and fertilizer exports, lower maritime insurance costs, and enhance access to ports and payment systems for such transactions.” Moscow’s statement further noted that the deal envisages lifting restrictions on Russian Agricultural Bank and other financial institutions involved in the international trade of food and fertilizers, as well as removing sanctions on Russian-flagged vessels, port services, and the supply of agricultural machinery and related goods to Russia.

The White House did not provide details, but President Donald Trump confirmed that his administration is indeed considering lifting some of the sanctions against Moscow. “They will be looking at them, and we’re thinking about all of them right now. There are about five or six conditions. We’re looking at all of them,” Trump told reporters at the White House on Tuesday. Ukraine’s Vladimir Zelensky lashed out at Washington later in the day, accusing the US of discussing the issue of sanctions with the Russian delegation without properly briefing Kiev on the matter. “We did not agree to this so that it would be in a joint document. We believe that this is a weakening of positions and a weakening of sanctions,” he claimed.

The US and Russia agreed to revive the defunct Black Sea Grain Initiative following 12-hour talks focused on the Ukraine conflict, held on Monday in Saudi Arabia by expert groups from both countries. The agreement, originally brokered in July 2022 by the UN and Türkiye, envisioned the safe passage of Ukrainian agricultural products in exchange for the West lifting sanctions on Russian grain and fertilizer exports. Moscow eventually refused to extend the deal, citing the West’s failure to uphold its obligations. Now, Russia needs ironclad guarantees from the US, Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov has said, arguing that only a “direct order” from Washington could compel Kiev to observe any agreement.

Read more …

Why it couldn’t be done in one day.

• Trump Hails ‘Progress’ On Ukraine (RT)

US President Donald Trump has hailed the outcome of Washington’s negotiations with delegations from Moscow and Kiev as a significant step forward in resolving the Ukraine conflict. Following separate talks in Saudi Arabia this week, both Kiev and Moscow expressed readiness to observe President Trump’s proposed agreement to mutually halt strikes on energy facilities, as well as to revive the defunct Black Sea Initiative – aimed at preventing the use of force and ensuring commercial vessels are not used for military purposes. “We’ve made a lot of progress on two fronts,” Trump told reporters at the White House on Tuesday, explaining that he was referring to “Russia, Ukraine, and also the Middle East.” “We’ll see what happens. We’re in deep discussions with Russia and Ukraine, and I would say it’s going well,” the US president said.

Trump declined to disclose further details about the contacts in Riyadh but acknowledged that his administration officials are “thinking” about lifting some sanctions against Moscow to facilitate progress on the Black Sea Initiative. In response, Ukraine’s Vladimir Zelensky accused Washington of “weakening” its position and sanctions pressure. Earlier in the day, the Kremlin released a comprehensive list of energy facilities subject to the 30-day US-brokered truce, including oil and gas processing and storage sites, pumping stations, pipelines, electricity production and distribution infrastructure, nuclear power plants, and hydroelectric dam facilities.

The suspension of strikes was originally proposed by Trump during a phone call with Russian President Vladimir Putin last week. The Russian leader agreed and immediately ordered the military to halt attacks on Ukrainian energy infrastructure. According to the Russian military, it had to intercept and destroy seven kamikaze drones that were already en route to targets in Ukraine. While Zelensky publicly backed the ceasefire initiative, Kiev violated the truce almost immediately, according to Moscow, with multiple energy facilities in Russia reportedly targeted by Ukrainian drones over the past week. An international oil consortium – including US firms Chevron and ExxonMobil – also condemned the attacks on its vital energy infrastructure in Russia’s Krasnodar Region.

Read more …

 

 

 

 

Lab coat
https://twitter.com/MustangMan_TX/status/1904219626952688089

 

 

Phantom
https://twitter.com/Yoda4ever/status/1904282170988142818

 

 

Peanuts

 

 

Shanahan

 

 

Transform

 

 

Snoopy

 

 

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Debt Rattle March 25 2025

Mar 252025
 
 March 25, 2025  Posted by at 10:59 am Finance Tagged with: , , , , , , , , , ,  65 Responses »


Caravaggio Conversion on the way to Damascus 1600-01

 

• “A New World Order With European Values” (Turley)
• ‘Nazis’ In Ukraine ‘Nurtured’ By Europeans – Lavrov (RT)
• Kiev Wants Trump Envoy Witkoff Sacked (RT)
• Ukraine Doesn’t Want Peace – Moscow (RT)
• US and Russia Engaging In ‘Creative’ Talks – Moscow (RT)
• Rubio Accuses ‘Other Countries’ Of Blocking Peace In Ukraine (RT)
• DOGE Reveals Mind Shocking Fraud Propping Up Economy – Ed Dowd (USAW)
• The Pentagon’s War on Wasted Dollars (RCD)
• Mike Davis Cooks Judge Screwing Around With Trump’s Deportation Flights (Vespa)
• Anti-Trump Judge Makes Another Outrageous Ruling (Margolis)
• New Dirt on Judge Boasberg Raises More Questions (Margolis)
• The Last Resort (James Howard Kunstler)
• Pentagon Chief Hegseth Comments On ‘Yemen War Plans’ Leak (RT)
• Trump Team Unwittingly Sends Yemen Strike Plans to Editor of The Atlantic (Sp.)
• Trump Names Alina Habba To Be Interim US Attorney For New Jersey (NYP)
• The ‘Real’ Epstein Files Are Coming. Here’s What to Know. (Margolis)
• “Tread Carefully”: Pam Bondi Issues Warning Over Musk “Takedown” (ZH)
• Elon Musk Disguises IRS Building As Tesla Dealership (BBee)

 

 

Carpe
https://twitter.com/CarpeDonktum/status/1904173446759625176

RFK

2.924

Taxes
https://twitter.com/TONYxTWO/status/1904206868269945336

Gingrich

Zeldin
https://twitter.com/EricLDaugh/status/1904209863128814043

 

 

 

 

“The problem is that this vision for a new Holy Roman Empire lacks a Charlamagne. More importantly, it lacks public support.”

• “A New World Order With European Values” (Turley)

“A New World Order With European Values.” Emblazoned across banners and signs, those words met the participants at this week’s meeting of the World Forum in Berlin. Each year, leaders, executives, journalists and academics gather to address the greatest threats facing humanity. This year, there was little doubt about what they view as the current threat: the resurgence of populism and free speech. In fairness to the Forum, “a New World Order” likely sounds more ominous for some civil libertarians than intended. While the European Union is a transnational government stretching across 27 nations, the organizers were referring to a shift of values away from the United States to Europe. As one of the few speakers at the forum who was calling for greater protections for free speech, I found it an unnerving message.

Even putting aside the implications of the New World Order, the idea of building a world on today’s European values is alarming for free speech. Free speech is in a free fall in Europe, with ever-expanding speech regulations and criminal prosecutions — including for having “toxic ideologies.” The World Forum has a powerful sense of fraternity, even an intimacy, among leaders who see each other as a global elite — a cadre of enlightened minds protecting citizens from their own poor choices and habits. There has long been a push for transnational governing systems, and European figures see an opportunity created by the conflict with President Trump. The European Union is the model for such a Pax Europaea or “European peace.” The problem is that this vision for a new Holy Roman Empire lacks a Charlamagne. More importantly, it lacks public support.

The very notion of a “New World Order” is chilling to many who oppose the rise of a globalist class with the rise of transnational governance in the European Union and beyond. This year, there is a sense of panic among Europe’s elite over the victory of Trump and the Republicans in the U.S., as well as nationalist and populist European movements. For globalists, the late Tip O’Neill’s rule that “all politics is local” is anathema. The European Union is intended to transcend national identities and priorities in favor of an inspired transnational government managed by an expert elite. The message was clear. The new world order would be based on European, not American, values. To rally the faithful to the cause, the organizers called upon two of the patron saints of the global elite: Bill and Hillary Clinton. President Clinton was even given an award as “leader of the century.”

Read more …

“..the West’s approach to public messaging that “portrays itself as infallible and suffers from an exceptionalism complex.”

• ‘Nazis’ In Ukraine ‘Nurtured’ By Europeans – Lavrov (RT)

European NATO members are willfully ignoring the “Nazi” character of the Ukrainian government, which they have empowered as an anti-Russian instrument, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov has asserted.On Monday, the senior diplomat expressed concern over the “demons of neo-Nazism, Russophobia, and other hateful ideologies” spreading across multiple EU nations. Member states are deliberately overlooking Kiev’s misconduct, even as it persecutes ethnic Russians and violates human rights, he stressed. “Ukraine – ‘that’s different.’ Those Nazis have been nurtured for the latest attempt to unite all of Europe under racist, Nazi banners for a war against the Russian Federation,” Lavrov stated.

The minister was speaking in his capacity as a trustee of the Gorchakov Fund, a Russian NGO aimed at enhancing public diplomacy. He emphasized the organization’s mission of presenting an authentic view of Russia and contrasted it sharply with the West’s approach to public messaging that “portrays itself as infallible and suffers from an exceptionalism complex.” The EU is pursuing a multibillion-dollar rearmament plan, justified by what Brussels labels a growing Russian threat. European officials have warned that a direct NATO confrontation with Moscow may break out within the next few years. Russia, however, denies any hostile intentions toward the US-led military bloc.

Tensions between European NATO members and Washington resurfaced after President Donald Trump assumed office in January. The new US administration has sought a swift resolution to the Ukraine conflict and intends to shift security responsibilities onto Europe once a truce is achieved. Moscow’s goal of ‘denazification’ remains central to its stance on the Ukraine conflict. Russian officials have denounced the Ukrainian government as a “neo-Nazi regime” due to its discriminatory domestic policies, alleged war crimes against Russian citizens, and veneration of historical nationalist figures who collaborated with Nazi Germany during World War II.

Read more …

“..this person needs to be removed from this delegation, he should not be a representative of the [US] president. Since he’s either completely unprofessional or simply repeats Putin’s narratives..”

• Kiev Wants Trump Envoy Witkoff Sacked (RT)

US President Donald Trump’s special envoy to the Middle East, Steve Witkoff, who has played a central role in opening negotiations on resolving the Ukraine conflict, is “spreading Russian propaganda” and should be sacked, according to a senior Ukrainian lawmaker. The head of the Kiev’s Foreign Affairs Committee, Aleksandr Merezhko, made the remark in response to Witkoff’s interview with American journalist Tucker Carlson, during which the envoy spoke about the status of former Ukrainian territories that have joined Russia, describing the issue as “an elephant in the room” that “no one wants to talk about.” “They’re Russian-speaking. There have been referendums where the overwhelming majority of the people have indicated that they want to be under Russian rule,” Witkoff said.

“The Russians are de facto in control of these territories. The question is: Will the world acknowledge that those are Russian territories? Can [Vladimir] Zelensky survive politically if he acknowledges this? This is the central issue in the conflict,” he added. Merezhko strongly condemned the “disgraceful, shocking statements,” accusing Witkoff of acting as an envoy of Russian President Vladimir Putin rather than of Trump. “We are talking about a representative of the president who should have professional expertise in this matter and know some basic things. obvious things. And he doesn’t know this. He spreads Russian propaganda,” the lawmaker insisted in a televised interview.

Merezhko said that [he] wasn’t sure if “ignorance, naivety, or unprofessionalism” was behind Witkoff’s statements and called for the US official to be booted from his role. “We clearly can’t dictate to American friends who should represent them. But this person needs to be removed from this delegation, he should not be a representative of the [US] president. Since he’s either completely unprofessional or simply repeats Putin’s narratives,” Merezhko added.

Moscow and Kiev have taken bipolar positions on the former-Ukrainian Kherson and Zaporozhye Regions and the Donbass republics of Donetsk and Lugansk, all of which officially joined Russia in autumn 2022 following a series of referendums. Kiev also formally claims Russia’s Crimea, which seceded from Ukraine in the aftermath of a violent Western-backed coup in Kiev and joined Russia in 2014, as its own. Moscow has repeatedly signaled that its sovereignty over the territories is not negotiable, while Kiev has repeatedly pledged to seize back control of all the territories it claims as its own. The Ukrainian leadership has seemingly softened its rhetoric as of late, now insisting it will never recognize “occupation” of the territories and Russian sovereignty over them in any form.

Read more …

The US should simply leave.

• Ukraine Doesn’t Want Peace – Moscow (RT)

Ukraine continues to attack Russian civilian infrastructure, proving that Kiev does not actually want peace, Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova has said. Last week, following a phone call between Russian President Vladimir Putin and his US counterpart, Donald Trump, Moscow and Kiev agreed to a partial ceasefire and pledged to suspend strikes on each other’s energy infrastructure for 30 days. However, the Russian Defense Ministry has since reported multiple Ukrainian drone strikes on Russian energy facilities such as oil and gas pipelines. The latest attack reportedly took place at 2 a.m. on Monday on the Kropotkinskaya oil pumping station in Russia’s Krasnodar Region. The station is operated by the Caspian Pipeline Consortium (CPC), which works with US energy giants such as Mobil and Chevron.

Russian air defense systems intercepted a Ukrainian attack UAV some 7km from the facility, with fragments falling in the area of a railway station, according to the Defense Ministry. In an update on Monday, the Russian Defense Ministry claimed that Ukraine had also launched drone strikes on the Glebovskoye gas condensate field in Crimea on March 23 and on a gas distribution center in Belgorod Region on March 22. Commenting on the recent attacks, Zakharova claimed it is typical of Kiev’s behavior, particularly ahead of international events such as this week’s Russia-US talks in Saudi Arabia.

”Every time it’s the same story. Before any contacts, including during visits to Moscow by foreign delegations, the Kiev regime commits terrorist acts, attacks on civilian infrastructure, on civilian objects, extremist acts, and so on… They don’t need peace. They have stated this repeatedly,” Zakharova told reporters. Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov has stressed that despite Kiev’s repeated violations, Moscow continues to uphold the energy strike truce and that President Putin has not issued any new commands to the country’s armed forces. However, Zakharova warned over the weekend that Russia reserves its right to respond to Ukraine’s attacks, including “symmetrically,” if Kiev continues its “destructive course.”

Read more …

The talks will intensify.

• US and Russia Engaging In ‘Creative’ Talks – Moscow (RT)

The US-Russian talks held in Saudi Arabia are a “creative” endeavor, though they may not yield a diplomatic breakthrough on Monday, a Russian lawmaker who is part of Moscow’s delegation told journalists. Grigory Karasin, chairman of the International Relations Committee in Russia’s upper chamber of parliament, provided the media an update during a break in the talks in Riyadh. The discussions, which he described as “technical,” focus on maritime security in the Black Sea and the possibility of reviving the Black Sea Initiative, which was originally mediated by the UN and Türkiye. Russia withdrew from the deal in July 2023, citing the West’s failure to provide sanctions relief for its grain exports, as the conditions of the arrangement required.

“Not every negotiation yields a high-profile document or agreement,” Karasin remarked before returning to the closed-door meetings. “What matters is maintaining communication and understanding each other’s positions. In this regard, we are succeeding.” Alongside Karasin, Russia’s delegation includes Sergey Beseda, an adviser to the director of the Federal Security Service. Their American counterparts, as identified by Reuters, are Andrew Peek, a senior director at the White House National Security Council, and Michael Anton, a senior State Department official. When asked about possible outcomes, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov remarked earlier in the day that they “primarily concern the safety of maritime traffic. However, if you recall [the original version] of the deal, there were significant obligations made to our side that were never fulfilled. This remains part of the agenda.”

US President Donald Trump has suggested revisiting the grain deal as part of his efforts to mediate a broader truce between Russia and Ukraine, Peskov added. Russian President Vladimir Putin agreed to Trump’s proposal to suspend attacks on Ukrainian energy infrastructure, while Ukraine committed to reciprocate. However, Kiev has violated the partial ceasefire multiple times, including on Monday morning, according to Russia. Moscow has warned that it reserves the right to withdraw from the arrangement should Ukraine fail to meet its commitments. A Ukrainian delegation is also present at the same luxury hotel in Riyadh where the US-Russian talks are taking place, but they have no direct contact with the Russian team. The Ukrainians had their own talks with the US delegation the previous day.

Read more …

There are 27 of them in the EU.

• Rubio Accuses ‘Other Countries’ Of Blocking Peace In Ukraine (RT)

US Secretary of State Marco Rubio has said that unnamed foreign governments are obstructing efforts to end the Ukraine conflict, crediting President Donald Trump with leading negotiations to mediate peace between Moscow and Kiev. Senior Russian and US officials held marathon 12-hour talks in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia on Monday, focused on resolving the Ukraine conflict and ensuring maritime security in the Black Sea. However, the two sides have yet to release details or announce the outcome of the discussions. Speaking during a cabinet meeting at the White House before the talks concluded, Rubio stressed that the conflict “needs to be brought to an end” through negotiations, not military means, and praised Trump as “the only one leader in the world that’s capable of bringing two sides to a table.”

According to Rubio, Trump’s diplomatic initiative has faced resistance from other governments, although he did not name any specific countries. “You’ve done it despite impediments from other countries and others who maybe have different opinions about how this should go,” Rubio said, addressing Trump directly. “Ultimately, I think that the only chance we have for peace is through the President’s leadership.” Following a phone call between Russian President Vladimir Putin and his US counterpart last week, Moscow and Kiev agreed to a partial ceasefire and pledged to suspend strikes on energy infrastructure for 30 days.

However, the Russian Defense Ministry has since reported multiple Ukrainian strikes on Russian energy facilities. Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov has stressed that despite Kiev’s violations, Moscow will continue to uphold the energy strike truce. In an interview on Sunday, Peskov also remarked that instead of seeking peace and addressing the root causes of the conflict, EU member states are now discussing the deployment of NATO contingents to Ukrainian territory. “This rampant militarist policy of Europe – there is no other way to describe it – is hard to comprehend,” he said.

Tensions between Washington and European NATO members resurfaced after Trump assumed office in January. The new administration has pushed for a swift resolution to the Ukraine conflict and plans to shift security responsibilities to Europe once a truce is in place. Following an emergency summit in London earlier this month, the UK and France signaled that they are open to sending Western “peacekeepers” to Ukraine once a ceasefire is reached. Moscow has rejected the proposal, stating that it makes no difference under what pretext NATO troops enter the country. Former Russian President Dmitry Medvedev warned that this could lead to a direct war between the military bloc and Moscow.

Read more …

DOGE vs the NGOs.

“Martin Armstrong says all the gold movement coming to the US is because of a coming war..”

• DOGE Reveals Mind Shocking Fraud Propping Up Economy – Ed Dowd (USAW)

Former Wall Street money manager and financial analyst Ed Dowd of PhinanceTechnologies.com is back with an update of a report on “Danger of Deep Worldwide Recession in 2025.” It was not just heavy government spending on illegal immigration, but “mind shocking” fraud that has been revealed with DOGE (Department of Government Efficiency). Investigators have uncovered $115 billion so far with many hundreds of billions more to be exposed. Dowd says, “Both sides of the aisle are probably going to have problems. The DOGE revelations are mind shocking. The clear way in which the government was spending money through NGOs (non-governmental organizations) and people taking kickbacks and profits along the way is going to come out. There may have been theft along the way. What business does Stacy Abrams have getting $2 billion for an NGO? This doesn’t make any sense.

It’s going to be shocking, even shocking to me. I knew there was rot in the system, but the mind blowing way the NGOs were used to facilitate the illegal immigration just blows my mind. The 10 million plus illegals that came in over the last four years, you just don’t wake up one day in Central America and say I am going to the Darien Gap, and go to the Mexican border and then meander my way into the interior of the US without a tremendous amount of aid along the way. NGOs facilitated that and probably took their cut. What was the all-in economic cost of the goodies they got once they got here? Plus, the NGOs spent and what the government spent themselves to facilitate this, it’s not hard to imagine $50,000 to $100,000 all-in cost per illegal. . . . This is the all-in cost up and down the entire economic food chain. . . . It was anywhere between $500 billion to $1.5 trillion depending on the illegals. It was an illegal project funded purposely, and it was very logistical. It was not something that just happened overnight.”

The result, says Dowd, was the US economy was propped up when it should have already tanked. Now, all this spending on this illegal invasion is going away. Dowd says, “When we wrote our report, we were surprised on how fast DOGE would get to work. . . . This is why our thesis is playing out a little quicker than we thought. . . . The housing market was on fragile ground the last year or so. It was held up by illegal immigrants supporting rent prices. So, as that unwinds, we think there will be a mini 2008–2009 housing issue. Housing prices are going to come down, and that is a big driver of consumption in the economy. That needs to happen because home affordability is off the charts.”

Dowd also see a recession coming as the government downsizes, illegal alien funding gets cut and illegals continue to self-deport. Dowd says, “Consumer confidence has taken a nosedive recently, and you can see why. There are 10 million to 15 million illegal immigrants worried about their gravy train coming to an end. So, they may be holding back on their spending. There are millions of government employees worried about their jobs. Then, you have the NGO networks that employ about 6 million people. So, you have about 20 million to 25 million people that are in the workforce . . . worried about where their money is going to come from, and that can cause consumer spending to slow down.”

There is good news with the spending cuts, according to Dowd, and that will come in the form of lower interest rates in the bond market. Dowd still likes gold as a core asset and does not see Trump tariffs as inflationary. Dowd says the problems with tariffs are “overblown” and are a negotiation tool to get fair trade for America around the world. Dowd sees “deflation” and possibly a short but “deep recession” coming before inflation. A possible black swan event is an intensified war in Ukraine and no peace deal along with the EU getting deeply involved in a war with Russia. This could be a plus for the US if it stays out of the conflict. Dowd says, “There seems to be war drums beating in Europe, and capital will flee to the US. Martin Armstrong says all the gold movement coming to the US is because of a coming war, and of all the theories on this, that makes the most sense to me. I am not predicting war, but that is a geopolitical risk out there. That is one of those ‘black swan’ events. Another ‘black swan’ event is a Bank of Japan currency crisis and, also, something going on with Iran and the Middle East. . . . Black swan events add to the risk, and those are hard to predict.”

Read more …

“America cannot afford inefficiency..”

• The Pentagon’s War on Wasted Dollars (RCD)

So far, Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency has swept through government agencies like the United States Agency for International Development, brushing off cobwebs and uncovering skeletons as it goes. Now, DOGE is set to enter a much bigger agency whose shortfalls demand reform: the Department of Defense. Long criticized for its budget woes, the DOD has recently faced accusations of overspending, underspending, and even simple misspending—criticisms which are all well founded. In fact, the DOD consistently mismanages its budget, a fact that’s led it to fail all of its last seven audits.To address these issues, Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth recently announced that he would work with DOGE to conduct a DOD-wide budget review.

Already, this initiative has revealed $80 million in wasteful spending, including $1.9 million in “DEI transformation and training” and $3.5 million in “Defense HR Support for DEI.” While the Pentagon is notoriously resistant to change, additional pressure from DOGE and the administration could finally force the reforms needed to modernize the American military, refocus on warfighting capabilities, and rid the Pentagon of absurd budget line items. But DOGE’s mission isn’t just to slash budgets: it’s also to restore efficiency. Specifically, DOGE’s role is to ensure the federal government makes the most effective use possible of American taxpayer dollars.

Fundamentally, the DOD exists to ensure America’s warfighting capability—a task DOGE has no intention of obstructing. And even as the DOD’s mission grows more and more urgent, Pentagon dollars continue to be misused, a flaw that cries for immediate correction. Hegseth recently announced he’d be implementing a DOD budget “cut” of 8%, or about $50 billion. Rather than simply imposing strict cuts, this plan seeks to “refocus … and reinvest … existing funds” to build a more lethal fighting force, restore “warrior ethos,” and reestablish global deterrence. This shift is essential at a time when our arsenal is severely depleted and outdated and we lack the ships and planes to deter China from launching an attack in the Indo-Pacific.

To fix this, Hegseth should prioritize reinvesting funding cuts into procurement and, specifically, into the construction of new ships, planes, and munitions. Hegseth should also divert dollars from personnel—a category that accounts for almost a quarter of the DOD’s budget. Already, he and Musk have announced plans to reduce the civilian workforce by between 5% to 8%, a cut that will save the DOD between $9 and $14.5 billion. So far, he’s implemented this plan via a hiring freeze and the firing of probational employees and recent hires.

Many have sought to villainize the Pentagon’s budget purge. Yet those in national security should recognize the need to cut defense budget waste, especially given recent developments on the international stage. There, China continues to rapidly modernize its military to challenge U.S. dominance, while Russia persists in its aggression in Eastern Europe. North Korea still pursues its ever-growing nuclear ambitions (and strengthens its support for Russia), while Iran maintains its destabilizing influence in the Middle East.

These various actors all share one common feature: a vicious antipathy toward the United States. The burden falls on the Pentagon and the DOD to protect the American people. DOGE represents a historic opportunity for the DOD to further this mission by rethinking how it organizes, supports, and employs its people. The goal isn’t to cut corners—it’s to reinvest in the capacity and capability of America’s warfighting force. In a world of rising global threats, America cannot afford inefficiency. The Pentagon must embrace DOGE’s mission to break free from outdated bureaucracy and inefficient spending. Only then will the DOD be able to enhance American warfighting capability and ensure our security and prosperity.

Read more …

“He publicly exposed an ongoing U.S. military, intelligence, and law-enforcement operation with an American ally dealing with the most vicious terrorists (Tren de Aragua) and international gang member (MS13) in the Western Hemisphere. That public exposure put American and allied lives in grave danger.”

• Mike Davis Cooks Judge Screwing Around With Trump’s Deportation Flights (Vespa)

Well, Attorney General Pam Bondi isn’t going to discuss further the details regarding the deportation flights of Tren de Aragua members, a Venezuelan gang that the Trump administration has designated a foreign terror group. Judge James Boasberg, however, wanted to know the classified details regarding this operation. No, sir. This will not happen, as the Justice Department informed the courts that they’re invoking the State Secrets Act. Move on, little man.

It still doesn’t negate the days of judicial overreach and insanity from Boasberg, who thought he was the executive, or at least in charge of deportation policy. He is not,andd never will be. He dabbled in the Russian collusion hoax, ran legal interference for those caught fabricating evidence to secure illegal FISA warrants. This man is a disgrace to the bench. Before Ms. Bondi invokes the state secrets provision, Boasberg insisted that those marked for deportation should be afforded court dates. Mike Davis, a former clerk to Supreme Court Justice Neil Gorsuch, took a hatchet to little Boasberg, arguing that it’s time to impeach for his serial incidents of judicial overreach: Here is the fatal flaw with DC Obama Judge Jeb Boasberg’s order:

“Even if these designated foreign terrorists are entitled to individual court review before their deportation, which is disputed, the DC court is not the proper court. Judge Boasberg did not, and does not, have the power to do what he is purporting to do. For this reason alone, everything he is doing is lawless. But it is much worse; it is also dangerous. Judge Boasberg ran to his courtroom to hold a Saturday hearing, even though he was not even serving as the emergency judge that weekend. (How did he get this case?) He publicly exposed an ongoing U.S. military, intelligence, and law-enforcement operation with an American ally dealing with the most vicious terrorists (Tren de Aragua) and international gang member (MS13) in the Western Hemisphere. That public exposure put American and allied lives in grave danger.

Stunningly, Judge Boasberg even ordered the President to turn around planes full of terrorists over the Gulf of America, without knowing the fuel levels, the security footprint back in America, or other crucial operational details. We saw the enormous security footprint in El Salvador. Why would we have had that same footprint in America, as who could have ever imagined an activist DC judge could or would order the President to return planes full of terrorists? And not completing the mission would have humiliated and politically damaged El Salvador’s president, who had hundreds of military, law-enforcement, and other officials awaiting–and who took a significant political and personal risk by agreeing to take these terrorists. Judge Boasberg’s Saturday hearing and order crossed the red line. But Judge Boasberg is doubling down by demanding details about the military operation, to which he is not entitled.

Judge Boasberg says he has a security clearance, but he definitely does not have the need to know. And allowing judges to meddle in military operations like this is dangerous and unacceptable. Foreign leaders are less likely to work with the President, if they fear an activist American judge may disclose their secrets. This harms the President’s ability to conduct foreign policy and his constitutional duty to keep us safe. The President has a constitutional duty, as the chief executive officer and commander-in-chief, to conduct international affairs, repeal foreign invasion, and protect American lives. The President has a constitutional duty to ignore any clearly unlawful court order that imminently endangers American lives, like Judge Boasberg’s orders. Judge Boasberg is refusing to back down. So the House must move forward with impeachment proceedings for his lawless and dangerous sabotage of the President’s core Article II powers.

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“He dragged us into court on a Saturday without any notice. And then he’s continuing these hearings. He’s trying to ask us about national security information, which he is absolutely not entitled to.”

• Anti-Trump Judge Makes Another Outrageous Ruling (Margolis)

U.S. District Judge James Boasberg is at it again. In a mind-boggling 37-page decision, he has blocked the Trump administration from swiftly deporting members of the notorious Tren de Aragua gang. The judge’s ruling reads like a progressive wish list, demanding “individualized hearings” before any deportations can proceed. Because apparently, we need to roll out the red carpet and due process for criminal aliens who shouldn’t be here in the first place. Even more outrageous, the government must now prove these individuals are actually gang members — as if their presence alone isn’t a violation enough of our immigration laws. Boasberg previously ordered a deportation flight for these illegal alien gang members to turn around back to the United States; however, since he made the ruling while the plane was over international waters, he had no jurisdiction, and the deportations continued as planned.

Boasberg’s memorandum opinion, which accompanied the order, maintains that these individuals must have “the opportunity to challenge their designation as alien enemies.” In other words, we’re giving suspected gang members a chance to argue that they’re actually upstanding citizens who deserve to stay in our country. Now he has the audacity to say that the court “need not resolve the thorny question of whether the judiciary has the authority to assess this claim in the first place.” This is an obvious reaction to the Trump administration’s position that district court judges don’t have the authority to micromanage the president of the United States or the executive branch. Boasberg’s opinion continues:

“That is because Plaintiffs are likely to succeed on another equally fundamental theory: before they may be deported, they are entitled to individualized hearings to determine whether the Act applies to them at all. As the Government itself concedes, the awesome power granted by the Act may be brought to bear only on those who are, in fact, “alien enemies.” And the Supreme Court and this Circuit have long maintained that federal courts are equipped to adjudicate that question when individuals threatened with detention and removal challenge their designation as such. Because the named Plaintiffs dispute that they are members of Tren de Aragua, they may not be deported until a court has been able to decide the merits of their challenge. Nor may any members of the provisionally certified class be removed until they have been given the opportunity to challenge their designations as well. The Motion to Vacate will thus be denied.”

This isn’t just judicial overreach; it’s judicial insanity. “This is an out-of-control judge, a federal judge trying to control our entire foreign policy, and he cannot do it,” Attorney General Pam Bondi told Fox News host Maria Bartiromo on Sunday. “He dragged us into court on a Saturday without any notice. And then he’s continuing these hearings. He’s trying to ask us about national security information, which he is absolutely not entitled to.” The plaintiffs now have until Wednesday to request converting the temporary restraining order into a preliminary injunction. If granted, this would further cement this dangerous precedent and extend protection for these gang members from deportation. Because obviously, what America needs right now is more legal shields for criminal aliens. This ruling sets a dangerous precedent that undermines our immigration enforcement capabilities and makes a mockery of our national sovereignty.

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They’re organized.

• New Dirt on Judge Boasberg Raises More Questions (Margolis)

The district court judge who recently blocked President Donald Trump’s efforts to deport illegal alien gang members attended a suspiciously partisan legal conference just months before his ruling, according to a judicial ethics report. Judge James Boasberg, who serves on the D.C. District Court, participated in what appears to be nothing more than a Democrat strategy session masquerading as a legal conference in Sun Valley, Idaho. The conference’s agenda items, “Judges in a Democracy” and “State of Democracy,” sound eerily similar to the Democrats’ tiresome 2024 campaign rhetoric about “saving democracy” — which, of course, has become the justification for their using the courts to obstruct Trump’s agenda.

“Called a ‘Privately Funded Seminar Disclosure Report,” the document discloses that Boasberg was in attendance but offers no details of whether Boasberg was paid for his attendance or travel, or what the remuneration was,’ reports Just the News. The outlet was “alerted to the conference and to Boasberg’s attendance by a retired Democrat-appointed judge, who was concerned the July 2024 conference’s focus on judges’ role in a democracy was too close to a political party’s theme for comfort.”

“Overseen by the Administrative Office of the U.S. Courts, the ethical rules governing federal judges require that a private entity who “issues an invitation to a federal judge to attend an educational program as a speaker, panelist, or attendee and offers to pay for or reimburse that judge, in excess of $480, must disclose financial and programmatic information.” The rules do not require a specific accounting for each judge, or even how much was paid to judges at all. […] It is possible that his “payment” was merely reimbursement for expenses, but Boasberg did not respond to a request for comment from Just the News.”

The entire arrangement reeks of the same swamp politics that President Trump has been fighting since day one. Is it any surprise that after rubbing elbows with fellow liberals at this partisan powwow, Judge Boasberg decided to obstruct Trump’s efforts to remove dangerous gang members from our streets? This is exactly why Americans have lost faith in our judicial system — unelected judges attending partisan conferences, then making decisions based on partisan biases, not constitutionality. The conference was part of the Rodel Institute’s Judicial Fellowship, and each attending judge, including Boasberg, was a first-year fellow, according to the institute’s website. Notably, Rodel receives funding from the same foundations that frequently bankroll anti-Trump organizations, programs, and publications. Additionally, the institute’s faculty advisors — twenty in total — are overwhelmingly outspoken Trump critics or those who have opposed his policies.

The Rodel Institute’s Board of Directors is stacked with Trump critics, including Ian Solomon. Co-founders Bill and Don Budinger have deep ties to Democratic organizations and candidates, with Don opposing Arizona’s immigration enforcement efforts and backing Democratic Senate candidates. Former Montana Gov. Steve Bullock was under consideration for Kamala Harris’s Cabinet, while former Arizona legislator Heather Carter abandoned the GOP and endorsed Democrats like Katie Hobbs. Jamie Woodson co-chaired a report lamenting “political disinformation” in 2016, and former Washington Attorney General Rob McKenna has openly attacked Trump, calling him a “demagogue” and dismissing his legal arguments as “flimsy.” Maybe next time, Judge Boasberg can hold his strategy sessions somewhere less obvious than a millionaire’s playground. But then again, the left has never been particularly good at hiding its contempt for Trump or the rule of law.

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“What is the alternative to presidential oversight and management of the agencies listed in this branch of government? They run themselves? That claim means nothing in practice.” —Jeffrey Tucker

• The Last Resort (James Howard Kunstler)

Law is humanity’s instrument for creating order out of the terror and chaos of nature, where anything goes. The result of law theoretically, is a civil society, where only the good, true, and right things can go. These days, lawyers are hard at work to replace civilized order with the terror and chaos of nature — which is to say, the seeking of raw power: this is what I can do to you! That primal despotism is the motivating engine of the Democratic Party in its terminal phase, a feral, power-seeking monster. It was why, in case you hadn’t noticed, the essential drive of Woke politics was the sadistic pleasure it took in exacting its endless punishments — cancellation, personal ruin, censorship — not correcting alleged injustices against marginalized minorities.

And that tells you, by the way, exactly why the J-6 defendants were treated so harshly by the likes of Judge James Boasberg, Tanya Chutkan, and their colleagues of the DC federal district. The enabling device for that monstrous power seeking of the Democratic Party was the colossal racketeering operation they implanted in every corner of the federal government, an insidious process that accelerated during the Obama years, eluded discipline during Trump One — with the many distracting ruses such as RussiaGate — and surged into final overdrive during the perfidious term of “Joe Biden,” America’s first false-front president. The racketeering operation was perfectly illustrated in the DOGE’s recent deconstruction of USAID.

That agency worked as a gigantic money laundering matrix to pay Democratic Party activists for the sole purpose of maintaining and expanding the party’s power — its ability to push American citizens around, control our lives, tell us how to live, how to think, and, ultimately, in the Covid-19 scam, telling us to take our shots, get lost, and die. Pitifully, a lot of those vaxx victims were the Democratic Party’s own rank and file, which shows you how psychotically suicidal the Democratic Party became. By and large, it was conservatives who avoided the vaxxes because they were able psychologically to entertain the evidence that Covid was a nefarious set-up and that, month-by-month, the vaxxes were proving to be both ineffective and harmful. Democrats, in their Woke fugue state, could not do that. Even today, they insist that their vaxx injuries are “long Covid” and would be worse if not for the additional boosters they took. Poor dumb bunnies.

Mr. Trump was played masterfully in the initial 2020 Covid roll-out by the likes of Dr. Fauci, Deborah Birx, and the faithless Veep Mike Pence who directed the Coronavirus Task Force (and whoever was behind it). The president could not bring himself to oppose or cast doubt on their diktats and to this day he must remain embarrassed about how that all worked out. But he also probably learned to not be fooled again. And so, after the fishy 2020 election, and during the disastrous “Biden” years, Mr. Trump had time to lay careful and comprehensive plans for ending the massive racketeering and for restructuring the federal apparatus into a leaner, more efficient, and more lawful enterprise for managing the civil society known as the USA. Which brings us to the present.

Mr. Trump’s lawfully appointed agent, Elon Musk, and his legally chartered investigative advisory unit, called DOGE, has begun making recommendations for severe cuts in agencies and employees, which have been executed by the lawfully confirmed heads of agencies, and the chief executive himself. Thus, the rapid, systematic disassembly of the Democratic Party’s grift machine and the end of its immense revenue stream. No more USAID and its thousands of NGO money laundromats. No more Department of Education and its Grant-O-Matic depredations in the universities. No more work-from-home (but not really) nonsense. No more DEI reverse racism in hiring. No more flooding the swing state voting precincts with illegal aliens. No more stupid proxy war in Ukraine. No more gender pretending chaos. You see how it goes now.

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CNN yesterday didn’t talk about anything else.

• Pentagon Chief Hegseth Comments On ‘Yemen War Plans’ Leak (RT)

Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth has addressed a recent leak of high-level discussions about US airstrikes against Yemen’s Houthi rebels, calling the journalist involved “deceitful” and downplaying the significance of the disclosure. The incident came to light after The Atlantic reported on Monday that its editor-in-chief, Jeffrey Goldberg, had been accidentally added to a Signal group chat that included top Trump administration officials such as Vice President J.D. Vance, National Security Adviser Mike Waltz, and Hegseth. The group had been actively discussing potential US military operations against the Houthis for days prior to President Donald Trump ordering strikes on Yemen on March 15. Goldberg claimed that one of Hegseth’s final messages before the attack “contained operational details of forthcoming strikes on Yemen, including information about targets, weapons the U.S. would be deploying, and attack sequencing.”

When asked about the leak on Monday, Hegseth dismissed Goldberg as “a deceitful and highly discredited so-called journalist who’s made a profession of peddling hoaxes.” “Nobody was texting war plans, and that’s all I have to say about that,” Hegseth said when pressed on the content of the messages. National Security Council spokesman Brian Hughes told Reuters that the message thread “appears to be authentic” and confirmed that an internal review had been launched into “how an inadvertent number was added to the chain.” “The thread is a demonstration of the deep and thoughtful policy coordination between senior officials,” Hughes added, without clarifying whether national security protocols had been breached or if any disciplinary action would follow.

Trump ordered a “powerful military action” against the Yemen-based Houthi militants last Saturday, accusing them of conducting an “unrelenting campaign of piracy, violence, and terrorism against American, and other, ships, aircraft, and drones.” The group, officially known as the Ansar Allah movement, has controlled large portions of Yemen – including the capital, Sanaa – since the mid-2010s. In what The Atlantic described as a “fascinating policy discussion,” senior US officials reportedly acknowledged the difficulty of building public support for a new military campaign.

“There is a real risk that the public doesn’t understand this or why it’s necessary,” the account labeled ‘JD Vance’ said, arguing that “the strongest reason to do this is, as POTUS said, to send a message.” In response, Hegseth agreed, stating: “I think messaging is going to be tough no matter what – nobody knows who the Houthis are – which is why we would need to stay focused on: 1) Biden failed & 2) Iran funded.” Trump has claimed that the Houthi attacks “emanate from, and are created by, Iran,” warning that from now on, Washington would view every shot fired by the Yemeni group as if it were fired by Tehran. “Iran will be held responsible, and suffer the consequences, and those consequences will be dire,” the president wrote on his Truth Social platform last Monday.

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“..the president dubbing it a “second-” or “third-rate,” “failing magazine” and calling “sleazebag reporter” Goldberg out by name..”

• Trump Team Unwittingly Sends Yemen Strike Plans to Editor of The Atlantic (Sp.)

The Atlantic editor-in-chief Jeffrey Goldberg was included in a confidential Signal messaging chain detailing US planning. Here’s what was revealed. In a message to Pete Hegseth, Vice President Vance said it was at the DoD chief’s discretion whether or not to proceed. “I just hate bailing Europe out again,” Vance said. Hegseth responded by saying he “fully” shared Vance’s sentiments about the “free-loading” Europeans, but added that the US was the only one capable of engaging the Houthis “on our side of the ledger.” A user named S M (presumably WH deputy chief of staff Stephen Miller) chimed in, saying that “as [he] heard it, the president was clear: green light.” In return, the US would look to “extract” “some further economic gain” from the Europeans, S M indicated. A follow-up message by Hegseth titled “TEAM UPDATE” provided operational details on the attacks, targeting details, which weapons the US would be using, and attack sequencing.

By Goldberg’s account, he was added to the confidential chat by National Security Advisor Mike Waltz, and didn’t believe it was real at first, fearing it might be an attempt “to somehow entrap” him or a script “by a particularly adept AI text generator.” The White House has confirmed that Goldberg had been made privy to classified discussions and information by mistake. “We are reviewing how an inadvertent number was added to the chain,” NSC spokesman Brian Hughes said. The Atlantic and its editor-in-chief have been a longtime source of Trump’s ire, with the president dubbing it a “second-” or “third-rate,” “failing magazine” and calling “sleazebag reporter” Goldberg out by name multiple times over what Trump said was false reporting on his private conversations.

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Re-organizing the legal teams. Time for the heavies.

• Trump Names Alina Habba To Be Interim US Attorney For New Jersey (NYP)

President Trump on Monday appointed his former personal attorney Alina Habba to serve as interim US attorney in New Jersey — with Habba vowing to clean up “corruption” in her home state. Habba, 40, became a public figure while repping Trump in a defamation case brought by writer E. Jean Carroll between the president’s terms of office, and has held the senior role as presidential counselor since January. “There is corruption, there is injustice, and there is a heavy amount of crime right in [Senator] Cory Booker’s backyard and right under Governor [Phil] Murphy. And that will stop,” Habba told reporters on the White House driveway.

“I look forward to working with [Attorney General] Pam Bondi and with the Department of Justice and making sure that we further the president’s agenda of putting America first, cleaning up the mess and going after the people that we should be going after, not the people that are falsely accused.” Habba declined to say if she viewed the appointment as a stepping stone toward elected office in the Garden State — despite aiming her initial remarks directly at the Garden State’s two most prominent Democrats. “I think Cory Booker and Governor Murphy have failed the state of New Jersey,” Habba said. “If you look at what happened in crime, what’s going on in Newark, what’s going on in Camden, this has been a neglected state. It is one of the most populated states for its size, and it needs to stop. We’re going to do a bang-up job. I cannot wait. It’s a great honor.”

Trump announced Habba’s selection after selecting current interim US attorney John Giordano to serve as ambassador to Namibia. “It is with great pleasure that I am announcing Alina Habba, Esq., who is currently serving as Counselor to the President, and has represented me for a long time, will be our interim U.S. Attorney for the District of New Jersey, her Home State, effective immediately!” Trump wrote on Truth Social. “Alina will lead with the same diligence and conviction that has defined her career, and she will fight tirelessly to secure a Legal System that is both ‘Fair and Just’ for the wonderful people of New Jersey.”

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“I recognize that when you’re dealing with children, it takes much more time. You’ve got to ensure that what you’re sending out publicly is not revealing any personal information.”

• The ‘Real’ Epstein Files Are Coming. Here’s What to Know. (Margolis)

The Trump administration is proving once again that promises made are promises kept. After successfully releasing over 80,000 pages of files connected to the assassination of John F. Kennedy on March 18, the focus has now shifted to perhaps what should be an even more explosive collection of documents—the Jeffrey Epstein files. As you know, there was a huge document dump of files related to the Jeffrey Epstein case last month that was, to say the least, underwhelming. Part of the problem, it turns out, was that rogue officials out of the Southern District of New York office had withheld documents from the Department of Justice. So, where’s the good stuff? Well, according to a report from Vanity Fair, it should be coming soon.

It’s the FBI’s flagship field office, with more than a thousand agents and another thousand or so civilian employees. And right now, multiple sources with knowledge of the matter say that one priority at the bureau’s New York field office is taking precedence over all others: the review and redaction of sensitive information in the Jeffrey Epstein case files, to prepare for possible publication.“It’s literally all hands on deck,” one source familiar with the matter tells me, adding that dozens and dozens of agents are working around the clock on the case, instead of on their regular duties. “I even saw an agent walking in with a pillow,” the source added. Attorney General Pam Bondi, appearing on Maria Bartiromo’s “Sunday Morning Futures,” spoke about this massive undertaking. Bartiromo pressed Bondi about the release of files related to Jeffrey Epstein. Acknowledging the complexity of handling such sensitive material, Bartiromo noted,

“I recognize that when you’re dealing with children, it takes much more time. You’ve got to ensure that what you’re sending out publicly is not revealing any personal information.” She then asked Bondi whether more details would be forthcoming. Bondi confirmed that updates were on the horizon, stating, “You’re absolutely right, Maria. You know, tens of thousands of pages of documents and hundreds and hundreds of victims, um, of Jeffrey Epstein.” Bartiromo reacted with a stunned “Wow.” Bondi assured viewers that federal authorities were making progress. “The FBI, they have been working round the clock at my directive, at [FBI Director] Kash Patel’s directive,” she said, adding that FBI Deputy Director Dan Bongino is also involved. “Dan Bongino’s there, who is a great asset for all of us at the FBI as well.”

Bondi reiterated the need to safeguard victims while ensuring transparency. “We have to protect their identity, their personal information, to make sure they’re safe,” she said. “But other than that, we are releasing all of these documents as soon as we can get them redacted to protect the victims of… of, of all of these horrific crimes he has committed.” Bartiromo responded, “Understood.” Rest assured, transparency is coming, everyone.

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“She is an elected public official, so she needs to tread very carefully because nothing will happen to Elon Musk..”

• “Tread Carefully”: Pam Bondi Issues Warning Over Musk “Takedown” (ZH)

We certainly did not have a member of Congress conspiring with radical far-left NGOs to sabotage the most made-in-America car company and critical to retirement and pension funds for millions of Americans on our 2025 bingo card. But here we are, and far-left Congresswoman Jasmine Crockett (D-TX) joined a “Tesla Takedown” teleconference last week, laughing and rooting for Tesla and Elon Musk’s demise. Other revolutionaries on the call described how they wanted to “kill the Tesla brand” and “drive down the stock price” to push Tesla “into a death spiral.” Now Attorney General Pam Bondi is getting involved, warning Crockett to “tread very carefully” following her support for the Tesla Takedown. “She is an elected public official, so she needs to tread very carefully because nothing will happen to Elon Musk, and we’re going to fight to protect all of the Tesla owners throughout this country,” Bondi said on Fox’s “Sunday Morning Futures.”

Bondi’s warning to the unhinged Democrat comes days after her appearance on the Tesla Takedown teleconference:

Crockett’s alliance with Tesla Takedown is alarming, considering the Soros-funded non-profit Indivisible is preparing a multi-city assault on Tesla service locations nationwide by the end of the month. There have been far-left terrorist attacks on Tesla service centers, showrooms, Supercharging networks, and vehicles that paint the Democratic Party as in disarray and resorting to communist revolutionary tactics. Polling data for the party has collapsed, while the latest ploy by the party to improve optics was entirely disproven to be “inorganic” by GPS data. The American people are finally getting to see the real Democratic Party—filled with hate and violence as its revolutionaries attack Tesla, all because the owner, Elon Musk, is uncovering massive fraud and waste by the Deep State. Remember when Democrats wanted to defund everything after George Floyd? Yet suddenly, now they don’t.

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🙂

• Elon Musk Disguises IRS Building As Tesla Dealership (BBee)

Proponents of eliminating the federal income tax rejoiced today as Elon Musk cleverly disguised the Internal Revenue Service headquarters as a Tesla dealership so Democrats would burn it down. The billionaire inventor and entrepreneur hatched the genius plan to cover the main IRS building with Tesla emblems and signage, which goaded angry Democrats to launch a large-scale firebomb attack against the building. “This’ll show Musk who’s boss! Burn it to the ground!” one enraged leftist reportedly shouted before throwing a Molotov cocktail through a window of the IRS building. “This looks different from any other Tesla dealership I’ve ever seen. It’s almost like a really old government building. Oh well. It’s all got to go. Everything he owns must be destroyed.”

When reached for comment, Musk was quietly pleased that his plan had worked. “It was quite a simple idea, really,” he said. “If Democrats are trying to burn down anything belonging to me, why not redirect that anger in a useful way to burn down something that should be demolished? For the cost of a few Tesla signs, we’ve now freed the American people from the terrible burden of excessive taxation. Ironically, once the rubble of the IRS building is cleared, we will, in fact, build an enormous new Tesla dealership in its place.” At publishing time, reports had circulated that the U.S. Capitol would be next to be disguised as a Tesla dealership in a plot to round up and imprison Democrats for attempting a violent insurrection.

Read more …

 

 

 

 

MS

Swan
https://twitter.com/AMAZlNGNATURE/status/1903880749935206439

Rooster

Elephants

Bounce

 

 

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

 

 

 

 

 

Debt Rattle March 24 2025

Mar 242025
 
 March 24, 2025  Posted by at 10:44 am Finance Tagged with: , , , , , , , , , , ,  30 Responses »


Henri Matisse Still Life with Apples on Pink Cloth 1925

• Pam Bondi Destroys Judge Boasberg for Meddling in Immigration Policy (Margolis)
• The Agony of John Roberts (Kurt Schlichter)
• Trump Goes Nuclear Against Activist Lawyers Undermining His Presidency (Margolis)
• “The Most Intuitive Man Who Ever Lived” (CTH)
• Zelensky Regime Likely to Collapse Soon – Jeffrey Sachs (Sp.)
• US Sets Easter Target For Ukraine Ceasefire Deal (RT)
• Trump Hails ‘Rational’ Putin Conversations (RT)
• Waltz Reveals Topics Of Russia-US Talks in Riyadh (RT)
• Trump Is The First Leader Who Is Looking To Rebuild Trust With Putin (Proud)
• Putin and Trump Could Have Other Contacts Alongside With Official Ones (TASS)
• Europe’s Policy On Ukraine Conflict ‘Paradoxical’ – Kremlin (RT)
• EU Afraid Trump Will Cut Off Weapons Support – WaPo (RT)
• The Führer of Germany – Friedrich Merz – In A War And Spending Frenzy (Hanseler)
• Hungary’s Orban Continues Blocking EU’s ‘Pro-War’ Stance On Ukraine (ZH)
• Musk Slams South Africa Over ‘White Genocide’ (RT)
• My Time in the Reagan Administration (Paul Craig Roberts)

 

 

 

 

Modi -highly recommend-

Elon
https://twitter.com/Girlpatriot1974/status/1903543762783277072

Lutnick

Rescission

 

 

 

 

“He dragged us into court on a Saturday without any notice. And then he’s continuing these hearings. He’s trying to ask us about national security information, which he is absolutely not entitled to.”

• Pam Bondi Destroys Judge Boasberg for Meddling in Immigration Policy (Margolis)

U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi unleashed a scathing attack on U.S. District Court Judge James Boasberg during a Sunday morning interview on Fox News, accusing him of overstepping his authority and attempting to control U.S. foreign policy from the bench. “This is an out-of-control judge, a federal judge trying to control our entire foreign policy, and he cannot do it,” Bondi told host Maria Bartiromo. “He dragged us into court on a Saturday without any notice. And then he’s continuing these hearings. He’s trying to ask us about national security information, which he is absolutely not entitled to.” The case revolves around the Obama-appointed judge’s attempt to block the Trump administration’s deportation of illegal alien Tren de Aragua gang members, an effort Bondi made clear would not stand.

“We are appealing. We will be in court Monday. Again. We will win. We will prevail,” she stated, showing no hesitation in taking the fight back to court. Boasberg previously ordered a deportation flight for these illegal alien gang members to turn around back to the United States; however, since the ruling was made while the plane was over international waters, he had no jurisdiction, and the deportations continued as planned. According to New York Post columnist Miranda Devine, Boasberg has been “demanding DOJ lawyers provide minute details of the flights—potentially to hold members of the administration in contempt and serve as the basis for a future impeachment of Trump.” Bondi highlighted the administration’s success in swiftly deporting dangerous criminals, arguing that their efforts are already making the country safer.

“There are 261 reasons why Americans are safer today. And that’s because those people are now in an El Salvador prison,” she explained. “We are going to follow the law and we are going to protect Americans.” Slamming the left’s failed border policies, Bondi noted the overwhelming public dissatisfaction with the Biden administration’s handling of immigration, which led to President Trump’s decisive victory in 2024. “There’s a reason why Biden’s approval rating was plummeting because of the border. There is a reason why the current Democrats’ approval rating is at 29%,” she said. She made it clear that the Trump administration’s approach is rooted in basic public safety—something the American people overwhelmingly support. “People want to be safe. This is President Trump’s agenda to keep Americans safe,” she said. “It’s basic public safety. Get these people out of our country as fast as we can.”

Bondi also rejected the left’s attempts to blur the distinction between legal immigration and illegal entry by dangerous criminals. “They’re not immigrants. They’re illegal aliens who are committing the most violent crimes you can imagine on Americans—murder, rapes,” she said. “Ask the parents of all of these young women who have been violently strangled, raped, and murdered.” The Biden administration’s lax immigration policies fueled a surge in crime, making border security a top issue in the 2024 election. Under Trump, Bondi emphasized, those days are over. “We are going to continue to make America safe again because that’s President Trump’s agenda,” she declared.

Despite judicial activism from the left, Bondi reaffirmed the administration’s commitment to upholding immigration laws, deporting violent criminals, and keeping Americans safe. “We are going to follow the law, and we are going to protect Americans,” she reiterated. With the Trump administration refusing to back down and the American people firmly behind stronger border enforcement, it’s clear that Bondi and the White House will not allow activist judges like Boasberg to undermine national security.

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Schlichter gets it exactly right. Roberts wants things to go “as they should”. Where a court case slowly winds its way up the chain. But there is no time left for that. Moreover, he and the SCOTUS judges also know that Schumer boasts he has 235 judges in his pocket. If they don’t deal with this, soon, Trump will simply ignore them like he ignored Boasberg. Basically, is foreign policy set by the administration or by a dictrict judge?

• The Agony of John Roberts (Kurt Schlichter)

Pity poor John Roberts. No, he’s not corrupt or compromised. He is simply a man who has found himself at a pivotal time and place in a position of great responsibility for which he is utterly unsuited. He’s not a dumb man. He is, in fact, a very smart man – Hugh Hewitt knew him personally in the Reagan administration and testifies to that. I have no doubt it’s true. I know many smart people who have similar flaws. As objectively intelligent as John Roberts is, he is unwise, and he is endangering the institution he wants to preserve because he does not understand human nature or the times he finds himself in. Frankly, I’ll take wisdom over raw intellect any day of the week.

If he had the capacity to lead that he so manifestly lacks, John Roberts could save his institution with decisive and bold action. But that’s not who he is. Understand what John Roberts wants. He is an institutionalist who has always wanted to protect the judiciary branch. He wants it to be a fully co-equal branch that is respected by all. But the very actions he has chosen to take – or not to take – in response to the current crisis of out-of-control subordinate courts are guaranteeing that it will fall. Article III of our Constitution provides for the judicial branch, but it does not expressly provide the judiciary with any powers other than those it earns in the eyes of the other two branches. It cannot self-enforce its decrees.

Article I creates the Congress, and the legislative branch has both the power of the purse and the power to impeach to check the judiciary. Article II establishes the presidency, but the Constitution does not specify its checks and balances over the court. That power is implied, and the implied power is for the executive – who runs the machinery of the federal government, including the cogs and gears that carry guns – to simply say “No” to an out-of-control judiciary. This implied power of defiance is as much a check and balance as any enumerated one, and without it, you would have an unchecked judiciary with hundreds of district court judges presuming to micromanage the legitimate actions of the executive branch. You know, kind of like what’s happening now.

Judge Roberts’s problem is that he wants to return to something like regular order in the judiciary. What we have is highly irregular order. You non-lawyers need to understand that all these temporary restraining orders and injunctions and so forth are insane. This is not how law is done, either procedurally or substantively. I did litigation for 30 years, including in federal courts (up to arguing in front of the Ninth Circuit), and never saw anything remotely like these antics. So, realize that this is abnormal. Abnormal times call for abnormal responses, but that’s not how John Roberts or his ilk work. Remember, he’s a Bushie, the kind of soft Republican who sees his job less as fixing our broken government than managing its gentlemanly decline. We’ve largely booted them out of elective office, but Roberts has his seat for life. His advocation is protecting his institution. He wants the judiciary to be held in respect and obeyed, but he doesn’t want to do the hard, stern work of disciplining his underlings that makes that possible.

John Roberts wants the normal appellate procedures to apply. He’s hoping that if he shuts his eyes and pretends that everything is normal, he’ll open them and it will all be normal again. This was the main takeaway from his unbelievably tone-deaf response to Trump’s, Musk’s, and others’ frustration-driven talk about impeachment. Now, Roberts was right in theory about what he said, but what we’re facing is not theory but practice. Put aside the practical reality that we’re not going to be able to impeach anybody, and don’t fall for the Internet amateur ambulance chasers who think there’s one neat trick where we can somehow get rid of judges by a majority vote because of “bad behavior.” That is a reason to get rid of them, not a means. The means is impeachment, and that takes 67 senators. That’s never going to happen so we should stop talking about it. They would wear a failed impeachment like Tim Walz would have worn his war medals if he had shown up to earn any. Haven’t we learned not to engage in failure theater?

In normal times, the response to a judge over one dumb decision is the appellate process. But these are not normal times. These are not one dumb decision. These are dozens of dumb decisions. And the answer here is not the appellate process because the appellate process is long, drawn out, and deliberate. The goal of this campaign is to use that delay to effectively strip Donald Trump of the ability to govern. To that end, they have sought to wrap him up in a web of orders and injunctions that will prevent him from doing the things he was elected to do. If it was one case or ten cases, you could wait months and months for the appellate process to grind through. Eventually, Trump administration will win most of these cases through the appellate process because they’re procedurally and substantively ridiculous.

But the purpose of these judicial antics is not to fulfill the letter of the law, but to create friction that improperly prevents political actions that the executive has the right to take. In other words, Donald Trump may live in the White House, but he can’t actually be President, thereby disenfranchising the people who elected him. So, we have a system that is not being used normally and that is not being used for a normal purpose. But Chief Justice Roberts, in his lack of wisdom, refuses to see that abnormal actions sometimes require abnormal responses. As I have said before, he will never be able to normal the abnormal back to normality. He thinks he can force normality back onto the judiciary by simply pretending the abnormality doesn’t exist and that everything is hunky-dory. He can’t. He must force normality back on the judiciary by addressing the abnormality directly.

That means he has to take abnormal actions in response. Procedurally, he needs to lead the charge to stop the imposition and use of these bizarre nationwide orders and injunctions by giving the circuit courts of appeal clear guidance to end this nonsense. Substantively, he needs to direct the circuit courts to issue stays on district court orders that far exceed the scope of the judiciary’s proper powers. And if the circuit courts of appeal refuse to do that, then the Supreme Court needs to issue the orders to enforce its will, even if that means issuing dozens and dozens of orders. The Supreme Court only takes 50 or so cases a year. With over 100 lawsuits against the Trump administration as part of this lawfare campaign, that workload no longer works.

What John Roberts is risking by refusing to put an end to these abuses is the Trump administration putting an end to these abuses by exercising its implied power under the Constitution to check an out-of-control judiciary. If an order issues and no one enforces it, is it really an order?

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“Accountability is especially important when misconduct by lawyers and law firms threatens our national security, homeland security, public safety, or election integrity.”

• Trump Goes Nuclear Against Activist Lawyers Undermining His Presidency (Margolis)

The radical Left’s latest scheme to derail President Trump’s America First agenda has reached a fever pitch, with over 100 frivolous lawsuits filed against his administration since January. But Trump isn’t taking their lawfare lying down. In a bold move that should have Democrats and their army of activist attorneys panicking, Trump directed Attorney General Pam Bondi to investigate anti-Trump lawyers and law firms attempting to hamstring his presidency through baseless litigation. The timing couldn’t be more critical, with an unprecedented 15 injunctions slapped against presidential actions just last month—far more than Obama or Biden ever faced. The Left’s desperation is palpable. After losing the Oval Office, the House, and the Senate in November, they’re resorting to their favorite tactic: shopping for activist judges to block crucial executive actions.

We’ve seen this circus play out with injunctions against Trump’s birthright citizenship executive order and his use of wartime powers to deport Venezuelan gang members terrorizing American communities. “Lawyers and law firms that engage in actions that violate the laws of the United States or rules governing attorney conduct must be efficiently and effectively held accountable,” Trump declared in a memorandum released Saturday. “Accountability is especially important when misconduct by lawyers and law firms threatens our national security, homeland security, public safety, or election integrity.” Trump also named names. Recent examples of grossly unethical misconduct are far too common. For instance, in 2016, Marc Elias, founder and chair of Elias Law Group LLP, was deeply involved in the creation of a false “dossier” by a foreign national designed to provide a fraudulent basis for Federal law enforcement to investigate a Presidential candidate in order to alter the outcome of the Presidential election. Elias also intentionally sought to conceal the role of his client — failed Presidential candidate Hillary Clinton — in the dossier.

Many immigration lawyers, including those from major law firms, are undermining Trump’s power to enforce our nation’s immigration laws. The memorandum notes that these activist lawyers actively coach clients to lie or hide their past to manipulate the asylum process, bypass national security measures, and deceive immigration authorities. The federal government faces a heavy burden in combating this widespread fraud, which not only erodes the rule of law but also fuels mass illegal immigration—leading to tragic crimes against innocent Americans and straining taxpayer-funded resources meant for citizens. Now, Attorney General Bondi has been specifically tasked with recommending additional countermeasures against these frivolous lawsuits, which the administration correctly views as a violation of separation of powers.

“I further direct the Attorney General and the Secretary of Homeland Security to prioritize enforcement of their respective regulations governing attorney conduct and discipline,” Trump wrote. “I further direct the Attorney General to take all appropriate action to refer for disciplinary action any attorney whose conduct in Federal court or before any component of the Federal Government appears to violate professional conduct rules, including rules governing meritorious claims and contentions, and particularly in cases that implicate national security, homeland security, public safety, or election integrity.”

Trump also directed the attorney general to hold law firms accountable for ethical misconduct, including making senior partners responsible for junior attorneys’ unethical actions when appropriate. If an attorney or firm engaged in litigation against the federal government is found to warrant sanctions or disciplinary action, the attorney general must recommend further steps to the president, such as revoking security clearances or terminating federal contracts. Additionally, the attorney general is ordered to review attorney conduct in cases against the government over the past eight years and, if misconduct is found—such as frivolous lawsuits or fraud—to propose further action, including contract termination or other penalties. It’s about time someone stood up to these legal mercenaries who abuse our court system.

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Good talker – and thinker.

• “The Most Intuitive Man Who Ever Lived” (CTH)

Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick appears for an extensive discussion with the All In podcast. Secretary Lutnick has been a 30-year friend of President Trump and is currently one of the most critical members of the MAGAnomic team who are executing Trump’s agenda to Make America Great Again. Secretary Lutnick outlines the background of what makes President Trump so effective in his position, and within the discussion Lutnick notes at the core of Donald Trump is “the most intuitive person he has ever known.” This is a casual discussion about President Trump and how Lutnick came into the administration.

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“The government rules by martial law, has failed in its key policies, is reportedly highly corrupt, and lacks public support.”

• Zelensky Regime Likely to Collapse Soon – Jeffrey Sachs (Sp.)

The government of the Ukraine’s Volodymyr Zelensky will probably be replaced soon as it does not have enough public support and is corrupt, renowned American economist and Columbia University professor Jeffrey Sachs told RIA Novosti. “The Zelenskyy government will likely be out of power sometime soon. The government rules by martial law, has failed in its key policies, is reportedly highly corrupt, and lacks public support. These conditions suggest the likelihood of political change,” Sachs said when asked how did he view the future of Zelensky. The professor noted that his viewpoint was “strongly against regime-change operations” and that the UN doctrine of non-intervention in internal affairs should prevail.

Earlier in March, media reported that senior allies of US President Donald Trump have held talks with possible opponents of Volodymyr Zelensky to assess whether Ukraine could hold a quick presidential election. In February, Trump criticized Zelensky for his unwillingness to hold elections, called him a “dictator,” and also suggested that the Ukrainian leader wanted to keep the “gravy train” going amid the grinding conflict with Russia. Trump also said that Zelensky talked the US into spending $350 billion “to go into a war that couldn’t be won.” Zelensky’s presidential term expired on May 20, 2024. The presidential election in Ukraine was canceled due to martial law and general mobilization

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4 weeks.

• US Sets Easter Target For Ukraine Ceasefire Deal (RT)

Washington is still hoping to broker a ceasefire in the Ukraine conflict by Easter, Bloomberg wrote on Sunday, citing sources. US President Donald Trump has vowed to bring a swift end to the hostilities in Ukraine, and has moved to restart diplomatic relations with Russia, which were frozen during the term of his predecessor, Joe Biden. Russian and US delegations are set to meet in Riyadh on Monday for the second round of high-level talks since the apparent thaw. Following Tuesday’s phone conversation between Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin, Moscow agreed to a mutual temporary halt on strikes against energy infrastructure, which it says Kiev immediately violated.

The White House aims to have Russia and Ukraine agree to a full ceasefire by Easter Sunday – April 20 – but realizes that the timeline could be delayed due to significant differences between the sides, Bloomberg wrote, citing anonymous sources familiar with the discussions. Prior to talks with Trump’s special envoy, Steve Witkoff, in Moscow last week, Putin stated that while he is open to a 30-day ceasefire, all military supplies to Kiev as well as the Ukrainian draft campaign need to stop to avoid strengthening Ukraine during the pause. Washington, which briefly stopped intelligence sharing and military aid to Kiev earlier this month, has not agreed to any of the demands, US officials told Bloomberg. According to the newspaper’s US sources, Trump wants any potential deal to be acceptable to Kiev, and isn’t prepared to concede too much.

Despite agreeing to the terms of the US-brokered partial truce, Ukraine struck an oil depot in southern Russia the day after the agreement, and blew up a gas metering station in Russia’s Kursk Region on Friday. The violations show that Ukraine’s Vladimir Zelensky is not trustworthy, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said in an interview on Sunday. “The Kiev regime’s words and Zelensky’s word are not worth much,” he said. Ukrainian claims that Russia shelled its own gas metering station in Sudzha are “absurd,” he added. Earlier this week, Putin stressed that Russia needs to hear a concrete plan on how a full ceasefire would be enforced and regulated before Moscow agrees.

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“I don’t think there’s anybody in the world that [is] going to stop [Putin], except me, and I think I’m going to be able to stop him..”

• Trump Hails ‘Rational’ Putin Conversations (RT)

US President Donald Trump has praised his work relationship with his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin, describing their conversations as “very rational” and reiterating a desire to end the Ukraine conflict. In an interview aboard Air Force One with the outlet OutKick on Saturday, Trump reflected on his history with Putin and the Ukraine conflict, describing himself as the only person capable of “stopping” the Russian leader. “I don’t think there’s anybody in the world that [is] going to stop [Putin], except me, and I think I’m going to be able to stop him”, he said. “We’ve had some very rational discussions, and I just want to see the people stop getting killed.”

He warned that failure to mediate the conflict could lead to World War III, but noted that “it’s somewhat under control.” “I have a good relationship with President Putin and, actually, a good relationship with President Zelensky too. It’d be a great thing to be able to stop it. And I will say this, nobody else would have been able to.” After his inauguration, Trump actively sought to restore relations with Russia, which were at an all-time low, and to mediate a settlement of the Ukraine conflict. The Russian and US leaders have held at least two phone calls on the matter, while delegations from the two countries have held several rounds of direct talks. During the last phone conversation on Tuesday, which lasted two and a half hours, Putin and Trump discussed the US president’s idea of a 30-day ceasefire.

Putin generally spoke favorably of the initiative but mentioned several major obstacles, including the need to establish a monitoring mechanism and prevent forced mobilization and rearmament in Ukraine during the ceasefire. At the same time, Putin supported the idea of Moscow and Kiev halting strikes on each other’s energy infrastructure facilities for 30 days. Following the talks, Steve Witkoff, Trump’s special envoy to the Middle East, suggested that a complete ceasefire in the conflict could be implemented within “a couple of weeks.” He later noted that Kiev had seemingly agreed to stay out of NATO – one of Moscow’s key demands – adding that the key item on the agenda was now the fate of Crimea and the four other former Ukrainian territories that voted to become part of Russia.

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The Black Sea becomes more important.

• Waltz Reveals Topics Of Russia-US Talks in Riyadh (RT)

A Black Sea maritime truce will be one of the top issues on the agenda of the upcoming US-Russia meeting in Riyadh, US National Security Adviser Mike Waltz told CBS on Sunday. If reached, the ceasefire deal would allow both Moscow and Kiev to “move grain, fuel, and start conducting trade” in the sea again, according to the official.Waltz hailed the US-mediated peace efforts, saying: “we’re closer to peace than we ever have been.” His comments come ahead of a new round of negotiations between Russian and US officials scheduled for Monday.

He described the upcoming event as “proximity talks.” Apart from the Black Sea ceasefire, the sides are also expected to explore options for a wider truce, according to the national security adviser. “We’ll talk the line of control… details of verification mechanisms, peace keeping, you know, freezing the lines where they are.” The issue of a “broader and permanent peace” and “security guarantees” for Kiev will also be on the table, Waltz added. On Wednesday, Waltz said he had a phone call with Russian President Vladimir Putin’s foreign policy aide, Yury Ushakov, in which they discussed the details of the upcoming meeting.

Ushakov confirmed that “a conversation did take place,” and said the meeting, which is scheduled to take place in the Saudi capital, Riyadh, will focus on the “safety of navigation in the Black Sea.” The issue of a maritime ceasefire was raised by US President Donald Trump during a phone call with Putin on Tuesday. The Russian president supported the idea and agreed to initiate talks on the details of a potential arrangement.

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Includes a great story about human trust,

• Trump Is The First Leader Who Is Looking To Rebuild Trust With Putin (Proud)

Western politicians and journalists constantly tell us that President Putin cannot be trusted, and that, under no circumstances should anyone strike a deal with him. But in response to that rhetorical question, I always ask, ‘do you think that he trusts us?’ Trust is a two way thing and it must be built on small gestures and mutual respect. And it is so much more complicated building trust with people of different cultures, languages and worldviews etc. Right back in 2014, a colleague and friend in the Russian Presidential Administration told me that it would take at least a decade to rebuild the trust lost over the Maidan and Yanukovych’s ouster. It will take much longer now, after three years of devastating war. Zelensky, European politicians and the mainstream media scream at us constantly that Putin can’t be trusted. They claim, with no basis in evidence, that Putin has broken 25 (pick any number that you like) ceasefires in Ukraine since 2014.

Yet I wonder when we’ve really trusted Putin to stick to a deal and trusted in ourselves to hold to our end of the bargain? One thing’s for sure; everyone in the Russian state apparatus would say that western leaders have broken every promise that they made in the past, including on NATO expansion, and have acted in shockingly bad faith in other ways, including in orchestrating a coup in Kyiv and in setting up the Minsk 2 agreement to fail. The problem with refusing to talk to President Putin since the war started, and minimising all diplomatic contact with Russia since 2014, is that you reduce opportunities to rebuild trust to almost nought. How do you trust someone you dislike and then refuse ever to talk to again? It’s like schoolkids falling out epically, with 6000 nuclear missiles thrown into the mix. You focus obsessively on owning the media narrative of ‘I’m right and you’re wrong’, as if you are a ten year old using X for the first time in the playground.

You tell all your closest friends and family members about how awful the other person is, and they nod and say, ‘oh, I know’ like Sybil Fawlty. I don’t believe for a minute that Russia can’t ever be trusted or that decision makers in the west are purer than the driven snow. Trust is about making a deal and sticking to it. I often recall taking my family on holiday to Dubai to escape the Moscow winter in early 2015. With the kids still very young, we loaded up the minibus taxi with luggage, pushchairs and car seats etc. and made our way to Sheremetyevo through the morning snow. At the airport, I discovered that I only had a 5000 rouble note for the 2500 rouble fare and the driver, having unloaded our stuff, was clearly in a hurry to get back in his warm cab and drive home. He took one look at the crisp note and said he didn’t have change.

I had absolutely no intention of dashing into the terminal, finding somewhere to break the note, while navigating very young kids, luggage trolleys and a diminutive wife whose saintly patience would only stretch so far. So I looked at the cab driver and he looked at me, wondering how we’d break the deadlock. I could have tried not to pay, but that would have caused an argument and, in any case, that’s not the sort of move I’d ever pull anyway. I could have asked him to check whether, in fact, he did have change, being that he was a taxi driver. But then he may well have been offended, because he’d clearly told me that he didn’t have change, and why shouldn’t I believe him? In the end, I decided that, as it was before 7 in the morning, he probably didn’t have change, and that, as it was minus ten degrees outside on the frosty kerbside, I’d have to trust him. So I said, ‘look, take the 5000 rouble note. Our flight gets back on this date at this time, and if you can come and pick us up and we’ll be even.’

He nodded, shook my hand without much of a smile and disappeared. I had his phone number, but there was practically nothing I could have done had he simply disappeared and left us stranded at the airport upon our return two weeks later. So it was with a certain trepidation that we passed through the diplomatic lane at passport control and I wondered whether he’d be in arrivals. As it happens, he was, just as we’d agreed. I smiled at him, he offered a smile back, we loaded up the minibus, clicked the kids into their car seats, and headed back into the centre of Moscow. Trust is a two-way exchange. Now and then, you have to take a chance on trusting someone, when your instincts raise questions.

Zelensky clearly doesn’t trust Putin, but he also has no interest in peace, from my observation. When he made it illegal to talk to Putin or any Russian official, he was, in my opinion, investing in a continuance of the war, hoping the west would back him come what may. And despite the rapid shift in U.S. policy over the past two months, many decision makers in Europe still do want to back Zelensky come what may, which is a worrying thing.

But peace in Ukraine will only be possible once the grown-ups start talking again. Maybe that’s the difference that Donald Trump is bringing to the war; taking small steps through initial deals towards bridging the vast gulf in trust between Russia and the west and, eventually, ending the death and destruction.In one month, Donald Trump has spoken to Vladimir Putin for four hours, which is probably four times more time that Biden spent in engagement in the preceding four years. There are stark parallels with Reagan and Gorbachev in the Eighties, breaking down barriers to focus on the longer-term good. Right now, Trump and Putin are the only grown ups in the conversation. Let’s hope the small steps towards trust they are taking right now, develop into something lasting. The world needs it. Though I remain sceptical that European leaders are ready to follow Trump’s lead.

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“Peskov also noted that the meeting between the two presidents must be carefully prepared and requires difficult technical negotiations first. “On Monday, our negotiators will travel to Riyadh to begin this difficult process,” Peskov said.”

• Putin and Trump Could Have Other Contacts Alongside With Official Ones (TASS)

Kremlin Spokesman Dmitry Peskov did not rule out that Russian and US Presidents Vladimir Putin and Donald Trump could have other contacts in recent months in addition to those officially announced. “We are informing you about the conversations that we know about, but we cannot rule out everything else,” Peskov said in an interview with VGTRK journalist Pavel Zarubin. The journalist noted that if you listen to Trump’s statements, you can conclude that there were more contacts between the presidents than was officially announced. Talking to the journalist Peskov also noted that the meeting between the two presidents must be carefully prepared and requires difficult technical negotiations first. “On Monday, our negotiators will travel to Riyadh to begin this difficult process,” Peskov said.

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“This rampant militarist policy of Europe – there is no other way to describe it – is hard to comprehend..”

• Europe’s Policy On Ukraine Conflict ‘Paradoxical’ – Kremlin (RT)

The approach taken by European powers to the Ukraine conflict makes no sense because instead of seeking peace they have decided to engage in reckless militarization, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov has said. In an interview with Russia 1 TV journalist Pavel Zarubin on Sunday, Peskov also remarked that rather than addressing the root causes of the conflict, European powers “are talking about placing NATO contingents on Ukrainian territory”. “This rampant militarist policy of Europe – there is no other way to describe it – is hard to comprehend,” he added.

At the same time, the Kremlin spokesman acknowledged that the EU has found itself in a tight spot after the return to the White House of US President Donald Trump, who has repeatedly demanded that the bloc pay more for its own defense. “There’s a new sheriff in town… So they are forced to leave their comfort zone — and they’re doing it in an aggressive, militarist way. We hear [French President Emmanuel] Macron talking about a nuclear umbrella for Europe, and that also sounds very dangerous.”

Peskov’s comments come after the UK and France said they are open to sending Western peacekeepers to Ukraine once a ceasefire is reached. Moscow has rejected the idea, saying it does not matter under what disguise NATO troops arrive in the neighboring country. Earlier this month, Macron also signaled that France would discuss the possibility of using its nuclear arsenal to protect its allies in Europe, and urged the EU to ramp up military spending while labelling Russia a “threat.” Russian President Vladimir Putin has repeatedly dismissed speculation that Moscow could attack NATO as “nonsense,” arguing it has no interest whatsoever in doing so.

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All based on the narrative that Putin plans to overrun Europe. For which there is zero evidence.

• EU Afraid Trump Will Cut Off Weapons Support – WaPo (RT)

Officials from EU member states are worried that the Trump administration could stop supporting US-made weapons systems used by its NATO allies in Europe, the Washington Post reported on Sunday, citing people familiar with the matter. The US has provided nearly two-thirds of Europe’s arms imports in recent years. Many of the systems are maintained and operated by American personnel. Equipment containing US components could also face restrictions if support is withdrawn. According to the Post, officials are afraid that reliance on American missile defense, surveillance aircraft, drones, and fighter jets could become a major vulnerability, given President Donald Trump’s strained relations with the EU. Some are reportedly concerned that US-made platforms could be rendered inoperable if access to parts, software, or data is blocked.

“It’s not as if President Trump could just push a button and all aircraft would fall from the sky,” an EU official told the Post. “But there is an issue of dependency,” particularly in intelligence and communications, the official added. Several member states are reviewing their arsenals to assess how exposed they would be in the event of a support cutoff. French President Emmanuel Macron recently urged the bloc to stop buying American weapons, arguing that European rearmament is pointless if member states remain dependent on US suppliers. German Chancellor-designate Friedrich Merz proposed extending France’s nuclear deterrent to cover its EU neighbors, a move that Macron said could be discussed.

Rasmus Jarlov, the chair of Denmark’s defense committee, said he regrets that Copenhagen purchased US-made F-35 fighter planes. He called them “a security risk that we cannot run,” and warned that the US could deactivate the systems if Denmark refuses its demands, such as handing over Greenland. Portugal has scrapped plans to purchase F-35s, citing the current “geopolitical context.” UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer has backed the push for military autonomy, saying Trump “may have a point” about Europe needing to spend more on its own defense.

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There is a lot of blood thirst in Europe.

• The Führer of Germany – Friedrich Merz – In A War And Spending Frenzy (Hanseler)

After more than 80 years, Germany once again has a Führer who is in no way inferior to the old one in terms of mendacity and megalomania while spending sums that are unimaginable for most people. We do the math while our optimism withers.
Peter Hanseler

Introduction
Yesterday I read the following lines on the Internet – unfortunately without an author’s reference: This has never happened before: a man who has not even been elected chancellor yet negotiates the biggest borrowing in the history of the Federal Republic of Germany with parties that lost the election, in a Bundestag that has long since been dissolved. If you had described Friedrich Merz’s current behavior to a German 10 years ago, you would have been declared insane and put in a clinic without raising a fuss. Friedrich Merz, who refuses to form a coalition with the AFD because he accuses them of right-wing extremism, is preparing Germany for war against Russia. The AFD wants peace with Russia, Russia seeks peace, the Americans want peace and Merz opposes all those who seek peace. This week the Handelsblatt reported that up to 1.7 trillion could be spent. This article will prove that this plan is madness, simply by putting this astronomical figure into perspective for regular people.

How much is a trillion seconds? I maintain that very few people are able to categorize the size of this number. Let’s give it a try: How much time elapses in one million seconds? – Correct, 11.57 days. How much time elapses in a trillion seconds? – You will be wrong if you say a few years. It is exactly 31,709 years. That is indeed a long time ago. The earth was populated by sabre-toothed tigers and woolly mammoths, the last ice age took place. Rome was only founded a good 28,000 years afterwards. I assume that all readers are somewhat overwhelmed that a trillion is as much as it is. 1.7 trillion in money. Germany’s current debt at federal level. As at June 30, Germany’s federal debt amounted to 1.621 trillion – or 1,621 billion euros. This corresponds to a national debt to GDP ratio of 62.4%.

1.7 trillion is a hundred times more than all DAX companies together earned in 2023. Friedrich Merz will double this debt. This would lead to a debt ratio of 125% – which would put the country in the neighborhood of Greece (158%). The additional interest burden for the 1.7 trillion euros will amount to 47.6 billion euros per year if the current interest rate of the 10-year German government bond of 2.8% is used for the calculation. The cumulative profit of Volkswagen, Mercedes-Benz and BMW amounted to 29.2 billion euros in 2024. The German automotive giants would therefore not even be able to pay the interest on this madness if they were to send all their profits to Berlin. In 2024, Germany collected income taxes amounting to 181.95 billion euros at federal level. This means that for nearly 10 years, 100% of total income taxes would have to be spent on the repayment of 1,700 billion euros.

Conclusion Without even mentioning that Friedrich Merz’s actions are more than legally questionable, it is already clear from the figure of 1.7 trillion euros that he has lost his mind. This debt bonanza will drive the former world export champion and the former jewel of industry to the wall financially. For many years, the German political elite has been railing against Russia, the country to which it owed the cheap energy that allowed Germany to become the industrial jewel of the world in the first place. Russia forgave the Germans, who had 27 million Russians on their conscience; the Russians have not forgotten these atrocities, but the Germans, or rather the German leadership, have, because what the German people think, choose or want is once again a thing of the past in Germania. Germany then turned imperiously against China, the current industrial jewel that, unlike the Germans, has not slept through the major trends.

Last but not least, the German leadership is salivating against the US, the colonial master of the Germans, which has made a political U-turn and is now seeking peace with Russia. It is therefore by no means inappropriate to describe Friedrich Merz’s behavior as megalomania. Ms. Baerbock, who made Germany a laughing stock on the international stage during her time as foreign minister, is cuddling up to the new Syrian government, which is made up of terrorists. For about two weeks now, civilians have been slaughtered in Syria, women and children have had their heads cut off, obviously a necessity on the road to democracy. Ms. Baerbock seems to agree with this. Incidentally, I do not recommend our readers to watch videos of these goings-on, thousands of which are posted on social media; they are nightmares that will deprive you of sleep.

Ms. Baerbock is transferring 300 million euros to these very gentlemen. Ms. Baerbock, who will soon no longer have a job, seems to have special talents. She is to become the new President of the UN General Assembly. As a geopolitical analyst, you should always remain an optimist at heart, otherwise you will burn out completely. However, I find it increasingly difficult to carry a spark of hope for Germany: legally, geopolitically, in terms of freedom and emotionally.

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“There is one way to achieve this: if we get Europe to support the president of the United States in his peace efforts, instead of embarking on war adventures, and then there will be peace.”

• Hungary’s Orban Continues Blocking EU’s ‘Pro-War’ Stance On Ukraine (ZH)

Hungary continued this past week being a lone EU voice blocking the European Union’s collective efforts to ramp up more financial and military aid to Ukraine, at a moment Prime Minister Viktor Orbán has a powerful backer in Washington – the Trump administration. Hungary in a Thursday European Council summit vote refused to endorse a statement reaffirming the bloc’s commitment to Ukraine’s sovereignty and territorial integrity. The Orbán government slammed the ‘pro-war’ stance of the EU, despite 26 out of 27 EU nations signing off on it. While the statement had only largely symbolic significance, saying Europe backs the “continued and unwavering support for Ukraine’s independence, sovereignty and territorial integrity” – Orban described that this only prolongs the war and brings the conflict no closer to peaceful resolution.

“Once again, they wanted to adopt a common position in which we want to give Ukraine even more money and even more weapons, and we are committed to the war,” the Hungarian leader explained after the veto. “Over the past three years, Hungarian families have lost around 2.5 million forints (approximately €6,268) per household as a result of the war. I must stop this, and we must not allow Hungarian families to continue to pay the economic consequences,” Orbán stated. He urged European capitals to get in Trump’s corner, who is seeking a diplomatic solution. But here’s how The Associated Press and other outlets characterized Hungary’s stubborn refusal to go along with Brussels:

“At the same time, Orbán is also emboldened by U.S. President Donald Trump, who is pushing for a ceasefire in Ukraine. Trump has blamed Ukraine for Russia’s unprovoked invasion, all while accusing Kyiv of unnecessarily prolonging the biggest land war in Europe since World War II.” Orban described further in an interview with regional media… “There is one way to achieve this: if we get Europe to support the president of the United States in his peace efforts, instead of embarking on war adventures, and then there will be peace. This debate took place, but we were unable to convince each other.” He continued, “I vetoed the common position, and therefore the European Union has no common position. What will be made public here today is nothing more than the private position of 26 member states, not the common position of the European Union, because without Hungary such a position cannot be accepted.”

“The president of Ukraine is confused about his role, he is behaving as if he were in the European Union and therefore could afford to take a sharper tone when he cannot do so. He is an applicant who wants to join the European Union, about which opinions are divided,” Orbán remarked. Parrel to all of this, NATO is seeking to ‘Trump-proof’ the alliance for the long-term, which reports of closed-door discussions on how to replace United States leadership in the alliance some five to ten years down the road, amid fears that Washington will retreat from leadership, and its majority financial and weapons support to NATO.

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“Very few people know that there is a major political party in South Africa that is actively promoting white genocide,”

• Musk Slams South Africa Over ‘White Genocide’ (RT)

Elon Musk has once again lashed out at his country of birth, South Africa, over what he claimed was “active promotion” of “white genocide.” In a post on X on Sunday, the tech billionaire wrote that his Starlink satellite internet service cannot operate in the African country because he is “not black.”Musk’s remarks came amid tensions between Pretoria and Washington over a controversial land expropriation law signed in January that allows land seizures without compensation and aims to address longstanding disparities between black South Africans and the Afrikaner minority, who own nearly 75% of the country’s freehold farmland. US President Donald Trump condemned the law as an “egregious action” that unfairly targets white South Africans and signed an executive order directing federal agencies to cut aid to the country in a bid to pressure Pretoria to repeal the policy.

Musk, a close advisor to Trump who was born in Pretoria, has also been vocal in his criticism of the law. In his post on Sunday, he lashed out after sharing footage of a rally led by Julius Malema, head of the Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF) opposition party. The video showed demonstrators chanting an apartheid-era slogan Musk interpreted as calling for the killing of white South Africans. “A whole arena chanting about killing white people,” Musk wrote. “Where is the outrage? Why is there no coverage by the legacy media?” “Very few people know that there is a major political party in South Africa that is actively promoting white genocide,” Musk continued, apparently referring to the EFF. He then alleged for the second time in two weeks that Starlink had been refused a license to operate in the country “simply because I’m not black.”

The rally Musk referred to was held to commemorate the 1960 Sharpeville massacre, where police killed 69 black South African protesters during what is considered the first and most violent demonstration against apartheid in the country. The old chant – “Kill the Boer, kill the farmer” – has been a longstanding point of controversy in South Africa. Malema, whose party advocates for eliminating racial and economic disparities, has been known to sing it at rallies and considers it part of the country’s heritage, despite being found guilty of hate speech over it by the ruling African National Congress (ANC).

Despite criticism from Washington, Pretoria has maintained that its land policy is aimed at correcting historical injustice and does not discriminate against any racial group. South African officials have also called for dialogue with Washington to address what they say is “misinformation” about the new land policy. Foreign Ministry spokesman Clayson Monyela rejected Musk’s claim that Starlink was barred due to his race, saying the entire situation had “nothing to do” with skin color, and that the service could operate in South Africa provided it complied with local laws.

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“Reagan was considered an outsider, and he was “dangerous” because the Republican establishment could lose its grip on the party to a populist whose basis was in the people and not in the organized interest groups.”

• My Time in the Reagan Administration (Paul Craig Roberts)

Paul Craig Roberts, who played a crucial role in enacting the tax cuts of the 1980s and in forging the political emergence of supply-side economics, reflects on his experience in Washington. He emphasizes that intra-party power struggles, not economics, are the main influence on policy. — Editor, The Independent Review. Paul Craig Roberts is chairman of the Institute for Political Economy. He had academic careers as senior research fellow, Hoover Institution, Stanford University, and William E. Simon Chair in Political Economy, Center for Strategic and International Studies, Georgetown University; journalism careers as associate editor and columnist for the Wall Street Journal and columnist for Business Week; government careers as a member of the U.S. congressional staff and as assistant secretary of the Treasury in the Reagan administration; and business careers as a director of industrial and financial companies.

*****
When I was an economics professor, I often wondered if what my faculty colleagues and I were teaching students about economic policy had any validity. I left Stanford University, went to Washington, D.C., and joined the congressional staff in order to experience how policy is made. In the House, I helped Rep. Jack Kemp introduce supply-side economics to his colleagues. I became chief economist of the House Budget Committee on the Republican side, and then staff associate for Senator Orrin Hatch on the Joint Economic Committee. My success in explaining to Congress that there was an alternative to Keynesian demand management, which had no solution for stagflation, led to President Reagan appointing me assistant secretary of the Treasury for economic policy.

Having learned how policy is made (and unmade), I now had the assignment to implement a new one. The story of my experience is useful to economists. As one of my graduate professors, Ronald Coase, used to tell his class, “It would help economists to occasionally look outside the window of the box they keep themselves in.” The conflict between merit and redistribution that is characteristic of the American political system and the influence of established explanations are not the only problems confronting a policymaker, especially if he is introducing a new approach. As Niccolò Machiavelli wrote in The Prince, “There is nothing more difficult, more perilous or more uncertain of success than to take the lead in introducing a new order of things.”

One of the many problems a policymaker faces is that policies affect different interest groups in different ways. Some benefit, some don’t, and I don’t mean just in a material or economic way. Most of the things that influence economic policy have nothing to do with economics. They have to do with power. The party establishments that control the parties intend to stay in control. The organized interest groups that control the party establishments intend to continue in control. Few Americans understand that the main political fight is not between the two parties but within the administration of the party in power. Within the parties the fight is over who controls the party. When the fight is between the establishment and a populist rival like Ronald Reagan or Donald Trump, it can get very nasty.

During the first year of the Reagan administration, much of the battle was between President Reagan and his Treasury allies (primarily me and Secretary Don Regan) on one side and Reagan’s chief of staff, Jim Baker, chairman of the Council of Economic Advisers, Murray Weidenbaum, and Office of Management and Budget (OMB) director David Stockman on the other. The fight within the Reagan administration had its origin in Reagan taking the Republican nomination for president away from the establishment’s candidate, George H. W. Bush, former CIA director. Reagan was considered an outsider, and he was “dangerous” because the Republican establishment could lose its grip on the party to a populist whose basis was in the people and not in the organized interest groups.

Reagan was advised that he must take the defeated George H. W. Bush Republican establishment into his administration or suffer the fate of Barry Goldwater, who rejected Nelson Rockefeller after he defeated him in the Republican presidential nomination. Consequently, the Republican establishment helped the Democrats defeat Goldwater, the Republican populist candidate. Nancy Reagan judged by appearances, and Bush’s man, Jim Baker, a polished dresser, presented to Nancy a better image than Reagan’s laidback California crew to be standing by her husband. Baker was appointed chief of staff. So, from the start Reagan and his supporters in the administration were handicapped by an establishment operative being chief of staff of the Reagan Revolution. Only Reagan had offered a solution to the problem of “stagflation.” It was called supply-side economics. Lacking a solution to offer during the campaign for the nomination, Bush termed Reagan’s policy “voodoo economics.” This, of course, played into the hands of the Democrat opposition and the liberal media determined to undermine President Reagan as a Grade B movie actor who believed in fairy tales about tax cuts paying for themselves.

Read more …

 

 

 

 

Self harm

 

 

 

 

Job loss
https://twitter.com/its_The_Dr/status/1903631330321052141

Hand
https://twitter.com/buitengebieden/status/1903821746605609121

 

 

Moose

 

 

Plank

 

 

Dogsbabies

 

 

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

 

 

 

 

 

Debt Ratle March 23 2025

Mar 232025
 
 March 23, 2025  Posted by at 11:01 am Finance Tagged with: , , , , , , , , ,  30 Responses »


Albrecht Dürer Praying hands 1508

 

• Russia ‘100%’ Doesn’t Want To Invade Europe – Witkoff (RT)
• Witkoff: The ‘Elephant In The Room’ Which Will Decide Peace In Ukraine (ZH)
• Witkoff Names ‘Largest Issue’ In Ukraine Conflict (RT)
• Moscow Issues Warning To Kiev (RT)
• The Americans Want Zelensky Out – Is This Woman Their Plan B? (Ryumshin)
• Ukrainian MP Claims Zelensky Tried To Kill Him (RT)
• EU ‘Stabbed Its Economy In The Heart’ With Russia Sanctions – Hungarian FM (RT)
• Explosive Growth In Federal Spending Since 2021 (DS)
• Bookmakers See 20% Chance Of Third Trump Term – Media (RT)
• John Roberts Is Responsible for the High Court’s Self-Delegitimization (DS)
• Welcome to the Krytocracy: The BorderLine (Hankinson)
• Border Czar Homan Says Border Security Will Bankrupt Cartels (JTN)
• Guess Who Wants to Rename the Department of Defense? (Margolis)
• VA Secretary Doug Collins Vows More Cuts: We’re ‘Not An Employment Agency’ (NYP)
• FBI On ‘Frenzied Mission’ To Redact Epstein Files – CNN (RT)

 

 

 

 

 

 

It’s immediately obvious why Trump selected this unknown real estate developer as his representative. Smart, affable, self-effacing. Nothing to not like.

One thing, though. Witkoff mentions the status of Crimea and the four regions as the main area of contention. They are not, They are part of Russia now. Not because Russia wanted that, but because in multiple rounds of talks (Minsk et al), Ukraine wouldn’t guarantee their protection. If they had, they would still be part of Ukraine. Putin will not change this back now. He tried all he could. Besides, the vast majority of people living there are Russians. He can’t betray them.

How long before Witkoff and Trump acknowledge this?

 

 

Broke

Sacks

Putin
https://twitter.com/MyLordBebo/status/1903530185468596608

Rosie
https://twitter.com/ImMeme0/status/1903446924289564693

 

 

 

 

 

 

What in Euope they call blasphemy.

• Russia ‘100%’ Doesn’t Want To Invade Europe – Witkoff (RT)

Russia has no desire to invade other European countries, US special envoy for the Middle East Steve Witkoff has said, dismissing such fears as “preposterous.” He made the remarks in an interview with American journalist Tucker Carlson on Friday. Asked to comment on the UK’s declaration that it is ready to send troops to Ukraine to help guarantee a potential peace deal between Moscow and Kiev, Witkoff suggested that British policymakers want to be “like Winston Churchill,” who warned that “the Russians are going to march across Europe.” Asked by Carlson if he thinks Russia wants to do this, Witkoff replied: “100% not.” “I think that’s preposterous, by the way. We have something called NATO that we did not have in World War II,” he added.

Moscow also does not want to “absorb Ukraine,” according to Witkoff. “That would be like occupying Gaza. Why do the Israelis really want to occupy Gaza for the rest of their lives? They don’t. They want stability there. They don’t want to deal with that.” Witkoff argued that Russia has already achieved its goals in the conflict. “They’ve reclaimed these five regions. They have Crimea, and they’ve gotten what they want. So why do they need more?” Crimea voted overwhelmingly in favor of joining Russia in a referendum in 2014, following a Western-backed coup in Kiev, with the regions of Donetsk, Lugansk, Kherson, and Zaporozhye following suit in autumn 2022.

Witkoff’s interview came out after he held face-to-face talks with Russian President Vladimir Putin earlier this month as part of diplomacy aimed at mediating an end to the Ukraine conflict. Following the talks, he suggested that a complete ceasefire could be reached within “a couple of weeks,” adding that the US could ease the sanctions on Moscow once an agreement is reached. Amid the Ukraine conflict, a number of European leaders have claimed that Russia harbors plans to attack NATO countries within several years. Putin has dismissed the claims as “nonsense,” arguing that Russia has no interest whatsoever in doing so.

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“Will the world acknowledge that those are Russian territories?”

• Witkoff: The ‘Elephant In The Room’ Which Will Decide Peace In Ukraine (ZH)

Tucker Carlson has just released a wide-ranging new interview with Trump’s Special Envoy to the Middle East Steve Witkoff, who has also been deeply involved in efforts for the peaceful settlement of the Ukraine war. Witkoff has been active in the Saudi hosted talks between the US and Russia, as well as between the US and Ukraine, with more rounds of talks set for Monday. Perhaps the most interesting part of the interview came when Witkoff addressed the key, central issue to achieving the end of the war. The US top envoy described the question of the fate of the annexed territories in Ukraine’s east as “an elephant in the room” that “no one wants to talk about.”

“They’re Russian-speaking. There have been referendums where the overwhelming majority of the people have indicated that they want to be under Russian rule,” Witkoff told Carlson. Witkoff admitted that militarily and politically, Moscow now exercises full control over the bulk of these territories, as Ukraine forces continue to be steadily retreating from their remaining holdouts in Donetsk. Putin had first described in February 2022 that the people of Donetsk, Luhansk, Kherson and Zaporizhia regions are “our citizens forever” – and soon after a series of referendums resulted in their absorption into the Russian Federation.

Witkoff in the interview actually struggled to identify or say the names of the territories, which he numbered at five – noting that Crimea remains hotly disputed as well.”When that gets settled… this has always been the issue” – Witkoff continued, describing that this is the question likely to finally resolve the war. He asked, “Will the world acknowledge that those are Russian territories?” But that’s when he noted that there are serious domestic issues in Ukraine which would make such a significant territorial concession very difficult. “Can Zelensky survive politically if he acknowledges this?” Witkoff questioned.

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“There are constitutional issues within Ukraine as to what they can concede to with regard to giving up territory..”

• Witkoff Names ‘Largest Issue’ In Ukraine Conflict (RT)

The status of the former Ukrainian territories that have joined Russia following referendums is key to resolving the conflict between Moscow and Kiev, Steve Witkoff, US President Donald Trump’s special envoy to the Middle East, told American journalist Tucker Carlson in an interview released on Friday. Witkoff, who has also been actively involved in the US efforts to resolve the Ukraine conflict, described the issue as “an elephant in the room” that “no one wants to talk about.” “They’re Russian-speaking. There have been referendums where the overwhelming majority of the people have indicated that they want to be under [the] Russian rule,” Witkoff told Carlson during the hour-and-a-half-long interview, adding that Moscow also exercises effective control over the territories.

Kherson and Zaporozhye Regions, as well as the two Donbass republics, officially joined Russia in autumn 2022 following a series of referendums. Kiev has never recognized the votes and continues to claim sovereignty over the territories, as well as over Crimea, which joined Russia back in 2014. The Ukrainian military still controls parts of Donetsk, Kherson and Zaporozhye regions, including the regional capitals of the latter two. According to Witkoff, the issue now is whether the world will acknowledge these territories as Russian and whether Kiev will agree to drop its claims to them. “There are constitutional issues within Ukraine as to what they can concede to with regard to giving up territory,” the envoy said, adding that it could also be particularly difficult for Ukraine’s Vladimir Zelensky as it could jeopardize his political career.

“Can Zelensky survive politically if he acknowledges this? This is the central issue in the conflict,” Witkoff said. The envoy still maintained that the US had “very, very positive conversation” on the issue with both sides. The interview with Witkoff came out shortly after he held face-to-face talks with Russian President Vladimir Putin as part of diplomatic efforts aimed at mediating an end to the conflict. After the talks, he suggested that a complete ceasefire between Kiev and Moscow could be reached within “a couple of weeks.”

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“Kiev is once again demonstrating its complete inability to negotiate, as well as its lack of desire to achieve peace..”

• Moscow Issues Warning To Kiev (RT)

Moscow reserves the right to retaliate in kind if Ukraine continues to strike Russian energy infrastructure in violation of the recently agreed partial ceasefire, Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova has warned. On Tuesday, Russian President Vladimir Putin held phone talks with his US counterpart, Donald Trump, and agreed to a US-mediated partial ceasefire. As part of it, Moscow said it would halt strikes on Ukrainian energy sites if Kiev does the same. Ukraine’s Vladimir Zelensky also agreed to the terms. Despite this, Kiev struck an oil depot in Russia’s Krasnodar Region the day after the agreement and blew up a gas metering station in Sudzha on Friday. The Ukrainian army also deliberately targeted “residential buildings and social institutions,” Zakharova said in a press statement on Saturday.

“Kiev is once again demonstrating its complete inability to negotiate, as well as its lack of desire to achieve peace,” the spokeswoman said. “As in 2022, they have once again turned to provocations aimed at disrupting the negotiation process.” Moscow is free to retaliate if this continues, she warned. We clearly warn you that if the Kiev regime continues this destructive course, the Russian side reserves the right to retaliate, including symmetrically. Kiev struck an oil facility operated by the Caspian Pipeline Consortium (CPC) in southern Russia overnight on Tuesday, immediately after the US-brokered ceasefire was agreed on, the Russian Defense Ministry reported on Wednesday. The CPC’s international shareholders include US giants Chevron and Exxon Mobil.

Early Friday, Ukrainian forces destroyed a gas metering station in Sudzha as they were retreating from Russia’s Kursk Region.Moscow has condemned both attacks as violations of Ukraine’s ceasefire responsibilities, and accused Kiev of attempting to derail US peace efforts. According to the Kremlin, Putin brought up Kiev’s history of sabotaging peace processes in his phone call with Trump on Tuesday. The Russian leader stressed that Ukraine has “repeatedly sabotaged and violated the agreements reached,” the Kremlin press service said earlier this week.

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Ukraine will need new people, not the same old again.

“Should Zelensky step down, Timoshenko would become acting president by default..”

• The Americans Want Zelensky Out – Is This Woman Their Plan B? (Ryumshin)

While international attention remains focused on the high-stakes negotiations involving Vladimir Putin, Donald Trump, and Vladimir Zelensky, Ukraine’s internal political theater continues to play out in full force. Though less headline-grabbing than the drama in Jeddah or Washington, the developments in Kiev are no less consequential. Two major events have shaken the domestic landscape in recent weeks. First, former Prime Minister Yulia Timoshenko, long dormant since the launch of Russia’s military offensive in 2022, has suddenly re-emerged. Timoshenko kept a low profile during the early years of the conflict, occasionally criticizing the government from the Rada’s rostrum, traveling to hospitals, and attending international forums. Her support for Zelensky, when it suited her, was loud and clear. Yet earlier this month, she shocked observers with an emotional rebuke of German intelligence chief Bruno Kahl, who opposes a ceasefire.

Timoshenko accused him of attempting to weaken Russia at the expense of “the very existence of Ukraine and the lives of hundreds of thousands of Ukrainians.” Her social media presence has since taken a distinct turn. Timoshenko now praises Trump and openly advocates for a swift peace deal. This puts her in direct contrast with Zelensky and his administration on Bankova Street, who continue to delay settlement talks. Behind the scenes, according to media reports, it turns out that both Poroshenko and Timoshenko have been in covert communication with Donald Trump’s circle, aiming to pave the way for new elections in Ukraine. Poroshenko, it seems, is primarily angling for a role as a go-between for Washington and Kiev. Timoshenko, however, appears to be playing a longer game.

According to Politico, Timoshenko has been working behind closed doors to gather support from members of parliament, hoping to position herself as the head of a future ruling coalition. Then came a cryptic comment from Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko, who claimed that a certain Ukrainian politician had secretly reached out to Putin. Many believe the description fits Timoshenko. In a recent interview with Bild, former CIA director John Brennan – who bitterly opposes the current US president – was blunt: Timoshenko is under consideration by the Trump team as a potential replacement for Zelensky. Of course, Washington is not about to push Zelensky aside overnight. Timoshenko’s role, for now, is to serve as a pressure point – a reminder to Zelensky that his options are not unlimited. On the surface, this seems like a strange move. Timoshenko is considered a political relic, well past her prime. Her popularity is low, and her public trust ratings are among the worst in the country. So why invest in her?

Because, politically speaking, she makes sense. Consider General Valery Zaluzhny, the former head of Ukraine’s armed forces. Though still popular, his sharp criticism of Trump has caused his ratings to dip dramatically. Then there’s Poroshenko and the rest of the post-Maidan elite. Their track record – particularly the failure to implement the Minsk agreements – makes them unacceptable to Moscow. Any peace deal with these figures would be dead on arrival. A more plausible candidate is former Rada speaker Dmitry Razumkov, a moderate figure who could be palatable to all parties. Timoshenko falls into a similar category but brings with her a distinct advantage: Experience. She has spent decades in Ukrainian politics, has deep connections, and once maintained close working ties with Putin. If Ukraine is to undergo a painful but necessary peace process, Timoshenko’s political skill set could prove invaluable.

And it wouldn’t be difficult to bring her to power. As a sitting MP, she could be made Rada speaker. Should Zelensky step down, Timoshenko would become acting president by default – granting her the legal mandate to steer Ukraine through the transitional period, broker peace, and organize new elections. What happens after that? It scarcely matters. If Timoshenko performs well, she can run and potentially win the presidency. If she fails or becomes politically toxic during negotiations, she can be discarded – as Friedrich Schiller wrote, “The Moor has done his duty, the Moor may go.” Either way, it would be a manageable outcome for both Russia and the US. Timoshenko, a seasoned survivor of Ukraine’s cutthroat politics, may well be the figure who guides the country to a post-conflict reality – not because she is beloved, but because she is useful.

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“The order to commit these crimes against me was given personally by Volodymyr Zelenskyy, Andriy Yermak, and the head of the Odessa SBU..”

• Ukrainian MP Claims Zelensky Tried To Kill Him (RT)

Artyom Dmitruk, a fugitive member of the Verkhovna Rada, has claimed that Vladimir Zelensky directed the Security Service of Ukraine (SBU) to kidnap and kill him. He said that SBU agents detained and severely beat him during an incident in the Black Sea port city of Odessa in 2022. Dmitruk was elected to parliament as part of Zelensky’s Servant of the People party in 2019. He was expelled from the party two years later and continued serving as an independent MP. He fled the country in August 2024, claiming that the authorities had plotted to “liquidate” him. The Prosecutor General’s Office has since placed Dmitruk on a wanted list on suspicion that he had assaulted a police officer and attempted to steal his gun. In a video posted to X on Friday, Dmitruk detailed his accusations against Zelensky and his chief of staff, Andrey Yermak, as well as shared photos of his injuries.

“I was brutally beaten, tortured in basements, and nearly killed on Zelensky’s orders for my opposition activities,” the self-exiled politician wrote in an accompanying post. He insisted that the government targeted him because of his “political activities.” Dmitruk claimed that in 2022, Viktor Dorovsky, the head of the SBU office in Odessa, had threatened him over the phone. “We’re going to kill you. We’ll cut your head off,” Dorovsky said, according to Dmitruk. The politician said that a group of SBU agents abducted him on March 4, 2022, when he was delivering aid to a military checkpoint. According to Dmitruk, the agents put a bag over his head and handcuffed him. “They beat me severely with rifle butts, feet, and hands. I lost consciousness,” he said.

Dmitruk claimed that he was taken to a basement where he was “tortured” and had his nose broken. He said that the agents wanted to force him into making incriminating statements. They then drove him to several locations, including a regional SBU office, where the threats and beatings continued, he added. The legislator said that the agents threatened him with a gun and made him promise on camera that he would stop criticizing Zelensky, Yermak, and the government. According to Dmitruk, the agents eventually dropped him off at a parking lot. “The order to commit these crimes against me was given personally by Volodymyr Zelenskyy, Andriy Yermak, and the head of the Odessa SBU Viktor Dorovsky,” Dmitruk wrote on X, using the Ukrainian spelling of the names. “There are thousands of stories like mine. There are people who have been sitting in the basements of the SBU for more than two years,” he said.

Read more …

Szijjarto said it was “becoming unserious, ridiculous, and really harmful” for Brussels to squeeze out new restrictions for the sake of anti-Russian “ideology.”

• EU ‘Stabbed Its Economy In The Heart’ With Russia Sanctions – Hungarian FM (RT)

The sanctions against Russia have greatly backfired on the EU economy and are becoming increasingly “ridiculous” and “harmful” with each new package, Hungarian Foreign Minister Peter Szijjarto has said. In an exclusive interview with RT released on Saturday, Szijjarto reiterated that the bloc’s measures targeting Russia have failed in both of their presumed goals – to destabilize the country’s economy and bring about an end to the Ukraine conflict. The EU has adopted 16 packages of sanctions against Russia since the escalation of hostilities in February 2022. Hungary, while critical of the approach, has ultimately backed each round, but only after carving out exemptions, including from the oil embargo and restrictions on the nuclear sector. Both Budapest and Moscow, as well as numerous international observers, have maintained that the restrictions have backfired on the nations that imposed them.

“The EU has basically stabbed the European economy in the heart by the sanctions,” Szijjarto told RT. He argued that the sanctions have eroded the EU’s competitiveness and isolated the bloc. Now, Szijjarto said, Brussels is preparing a 17th round despite the obvious failure of the strategy, which he said “made no sense.” “We are three years after the first package. Russian economy is far from being on its knees. And we are now close to peace, but not because of the sanctions,” he stated. Szijjarto said it was “becoming unserious, ridiculous, and really harmful” for Brussels to squeeze out new restrictions for the sake of anti-Russian “ideology.”

According to the minister, Budapest has “made it very clear” that it won’t support any future sanctions if Hungary’s national interests were in danger. He also expressed concern about the EU’s growing militarization and plans to continue supplying Ukraine with weapons, warning that such decisions “prolong the war” and increase the risk of escalation. “This pro-war sentiment of the European leaders is really, really dangerous,” Szijjarto warned. “Our clear expectation is that they should not put obstacles in the way of the peace process… in the way of [US President Donald] Trump and [Russian President Vladimir] Putin negotiating about how to make an agreement and how to make peace here.”

Russia and the US are currently negotiating a ceasefire in the conflict. Trump earlier indicated that sanctions on Russia might be used as leverage in the talks. Putin has dismissed any notion that Western sanctions are temporary, saying earlier this week they were a tool for applying “systemic, strategic” pressure on Russia. Moscow has repeatedly slammed the measures as illegal, but the country’s officials have often noted that the restrictions have ultimately boosted domestic industry and reduced dependence on Western technologies.

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“The Department of Commerce’s annual spending grew from roughly $13.1 million in 2021—the year former President Joe Biden took office—to an estimated $20.5 million in 2024..”

• Explosive Growth In Federal Spending Since 2021 (DS)

A host of federal government agencies have overseen massive spending for years while greatly expanding their workforces, according to an OpenTheBooks report. Annual spending across multiple federal government agencies has exploded over the past several years, often outpacing growth of staff and even inflation rates, according to a report from OpenTheBooks first obtained by the Daily Caller News Foundation. The report comes amid President Donald Trump’s ongoing efforts to crack down on wasteful spending across the federal government and reduce the federal workforce to save American taxpayers money. The Department of Commerce’s annual spending grew from roughly $13.1 million in 2021—the year former President Joe Biden took office—to an estimated $20.5 million in 2024, OpenTheBooks’ report found. Meanwhile, the department’s workforce declined from 53,939 in 2020 to 47,650 in 2024.

“Time after time, at agency after agency, we see spending skyrocketing since 2000, even when headcounts grew modestly and stayed flat,” OpenTheBooks wrote in the report. “In this most recent batch of examples, we also saw Biden administration spending priorities reveal themselves through the outlays at key agencies” The Biden-Harris administration notably oversaw massive government spending, with a large sum going toward costly COVID-19 relief funding in the aftermath of the pandemic. Biden’s administration also funneled millions of dollars into various left-wing initiatives such as programs related to diversity, equity, and inclusion and environmental justice. While federal agency funding levels are set by Congress, OpenTheBooks said that “upticks in spending since 2021 also appear to comport with key priorities of the Biden administration.” Throughout Biden’s time in office, many American consumers struggled with an ongoing cost-of-living crisis amid rampant inflation.

The U.S. Department of Agriculture’s employee count declined from 106,715 in 2000 to 92,072 in 2024, according to OpenTheBooks. Despite this, the report found that the USDA’s annual spending soared during the same time period, rising from $75.1 billion to $254.2 billion. Moreover, the Department of Housing and Urban Development’s estimated annual spending grew from $33.2 million in 2020 to nearly $56.4 million in 2024, OpenTheBooks reported. HUD’s workforce also increased slightly during the same period, growing from 7,845 employees in 2020 to 8,825 in 2024. The Biden administration’s hefty government spending also worsened the growing U.S. national debt and widening national deficit, which reached $36.2 trillion and $1 trillion as of Thursday, respectively. The federal workforce also greatly expanded during Biden’s term, while the private sector shed jobs and many other jobs were lost to foreign-born workers.

Additionally, while the National Endowment for the Humanities’ workforce only slightly increased over the past four years, from 173 in 2020 to 197 in 2024, the agency’s spending grew massively in the same time period, increasing from $160 million in 2020 to a whopping $305 million in 2024, according to the report. The Council on Environmental Quality, a little-known division of the Executive Office of the President, maintained between one to three members each year from 2000 through 2020, according to OpenTheBooks. But the number of council members increased greatly under the Biden administration, reaching 17 in 2024. While the Council on Environmental Quality only spent $12 million in 2020, the council’s annual spending grew during Biden’s presidency, hitting a whopping $51 million in 2024, according to the report.

Shortly after returning to the White House, Trump established the Department of Government Efficiency to target any wasteful spending in the federal government, which has thus far conducted mass layoffs at multiple federal government agencies. The Trump administration’s massive push to reduce government waste has been met with public outrage from many Democrats and corporate media outlets. DOGE reported that it has thus far saved American taxpayers an estimated $714.29 per person as of Friday. As part of his ongoing push to abolish government waste, Trump signed a Feb. 11 executive order to reform the federal workforce by “eliminating waste, bloat, and insularity” at government agencies.

“To restore accountability to the American public, this order commences a critical transformation of the Federal bureaucracy,” Trump wrote in the executive order. “By eliminating waste, bloat, and insularity, my Administration will empower American families, workers, taxpayers, and our system of Government itself.” Notably, the federal government shed an estimated 10,000 jobs in February, marking the largest downturn in jobs in the sector since June 2022. “Secretary [Brooke] Rollins fully supports the President’s directive to improve government, eliminate inefficiencies, and strengthen USDA’s many services to the American people,” a USDA spokesperson told the Daily Caller News Foundation. “We have a solemn responsibility to be good stewards of the American people’s hard-earned taxpayer dollars and to ensure that every dollar spent goes to serve the people, not the bureaucracy.”

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“The leading contender is Vice President J.D. Vance, with 5/2 odds (28.6%). Trump’s eldest son, Donald Trump Jr., is next in line with 9/1 odds (10%).”

• Bookmakers See 20% Chance Of Third Trump Term – Media (RT)

Bookmakers view US President Donald Trump as one of the top picks to win the 2028 election, despite the two-term constitutional limit, Newsweek has reported, citing the latest betting data. According to an article published on Saturday, British betting company William Hill has listed Trump as a favorite to win the next presidential race with 5/1 odds, giving him a 16.7% chance of securing what would be his third term in office. The leading contender is Vice President J.D. Vance, with 5/2 odds (28.6%). Trump’s eldest son, Donald Trump Jr., is next in line with 9/1 odds (10%). Democratic governors Josh Shapiro of Pennsylvania and Gavin Newsom of California are also in the top five, with 9/1 and 10/1 odds, respectively.

Trump won the 2024 election by a wide margin against Democratic candidate and then-Vice President Kamala Harris, becoming the second president in US history to serve two non-consecutive terms. The 22nd Amendment to the US Constitution states that “no person shall be elected to the office of the President more than twice.” The amendment was introduced after Franklin D. Roosevelt’s unprecedented four-term presidency. Trump has repeatedly joked that he may end up serving more than two terms. Former White House strategist Steve Bannon has claimed recently that Trump will run again in 2028. In an interview with journalist Chris Cuomo, Bannon said his team is working to find ways Trump could bypass the restrictions laid out in the Constitution.

A William Hill spokesperson told Newsweek that repealing the 22nd Amendment would be a difficult process, but Trump might attempt it due to his support in Congress. “Trump ally Steve Bannon predicted this week that the POTUS would run for a third term and win, so there’s certainly a feeling that it could be possible, and we’re not taking any chances as we’ve installed him in our next president market at 5/1, behind only favorite J.D. Vance,” the spokesperson added. Amendments to the Constitution must be approved by a 2/3 majority in both the House and Senate and then ratified by 3/4 of the states.

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“..in ham-handed and self-aggrandizing fashion—what he believes to be the judiciary’s integrity. But on this particular score, Roberts is dead wrong..”

• John Roberts Is Responsible for the High Court’s Self-Delegitimization (DS)

At his 2005 Senate confirmation hearing to be chief justice of the United States Supreme Court, John Roberts famously invoked America’s national pastime in describing his view of the judicial role in our constitutional order: “Judges are like umpires. Umpires don’t make the rules, they apply them. The role of an umpire and a judge is critical. They make sure everybody plays by the rules, but it is a limited role. Nobody ever went to a ball game to see the umpire.” If only! Unfortunately, Roberts’ actual career on the high court has been one extensive repudiation of his lofty “umpire” proclamation. In exalting above all other concerns his personal conception of the institutional integrity of the Supreme Court, and by extension the entire judiciary, Roberts has ironically done more than anyone else to delegitimize the courts.

His recent wildly out-of-line criticism of President Donald Trump’s call for impeachment of a rogue lower-court judge is just the latest example. For the court’s own sake, in these politically tense times, Roberts must change course immediately. Roberts first showed his hand in the landmark 2012 Obamacare case, National Federation of Independent Business v. Sebelius. As was initially reported by CBS News’ Jan Crawford in the immediate aftermath of the decision and subsequently reported in later years by other court watchers such as CNN’s Joan Biskupic, Roberts initially intended to rule against the constitutionality of the health care law’s individual mandate—its most controversial feature.

But at some point during the court’s deliberations, Roberts changed his mind. He decided that he could throw a bone to the court’s conservative bloc by ruling against the mandate on Commerce Clause grounds, which the law’s drafters and the Obama administration alike had cited as its constitutional basis. But Roberts threw an even larger bone to the court’s liberal bloc, unilaterally opting to rewrite the statute so as to construe the mandate as a “tax”—which then-President Barack Obama himself had repeatedly told a skeptical public that it was not. Obama’s signature domestic achievement was thus upheld. That is not what a judicial “umpire” calling legal “balls and strikes” looks like. Making matters worse, the timing of Roberts’ flip coincided with Obama’s spring 2012 Rose Garden speech, in which he ludicrously described the possibility that the Supreme Court could nullify his health care law as “unprecedented” or “extraordinary.”

Did the chief justice conveniently switch his vote in a historically important case so as to mistakenly attempt to maintain the high court’s “institutional integrity” in the face of an imperious president? It certainly seems so. In the years since Sebelius, there have been any number of additional examples of Roberts ruling in a high-profile case in a way that can only be construed as a clumsy attempt to make “both sides” of the court—and both sides of the broader American public—happy. In the 2022 abortion case of Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, which mercifully overturned the Roe v. Wade decision of 1973, Roberts notably refused to join the Justice Samuel Alito-written majority opinion, opting to write separately and merely concur in the judgment. It was a classic Roberts move: He argued the court could uphold Mississippi’s underlying 15-week abortion ban statute without overturning Roe.

Roberts’ Dobbs stunt was legally incoherent to the point of outright intellectual dishonesty, but it was politically convenient for Roberts’ idiosyncratic conception of the role of the Supreme Court chief justice—that of a jurist who should somehow attempt to “rise above the fray” and steer the ship of the court in a way that preserves the court’s public image and integrity. But once again: That is certainly not what a judicial “umpire” calling legal “balls and strikes” looks like. Roberts’ pointed criticism this week of Trump’s call for the impeachment of Judge James Boasberg, who last weekend ruled that midair flights deporting Tren de Aragua thugs had to be turned around, is in line with his history of prioritizing—in ham-handed and self-aggrandizing fashion—what he believes to be the judiciary’s integrity. But on this particular score, Roberts is dead wrong.

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“Krytocracy” is rule by judges.

“The Melian Dialogue taught that the strong do what they will, while the weak suffer what they must.”

• Welcome to the Krytocracy: The BorderLine (Hankinson)

We may think we live in a democracy, which comes from the Greek words “demos” (people) and “kratos” (rule). But with one federal district judge after another attempting to stop President Donald Trump from carrying out his policies, it’s starting to look more like a “krytocracy,” or rule by judges. Look at the litigation tracker from the organization Lawfare and you’d think it was from Trump’s first 100 months, not first 100 days. Here’s a small sample of what his administration is being challenged on: deporting criminal or terrorist-supporting aliens; freezing federal funding to avoid fraud and waste; giving federal employees a voluntary early severance package; DOGE (too many times to go into); making senior civil servants more accountable to the president; and dismantling federal agencies that no longer serve the national interest.

Some of the cases on the tracker seem to be meritless efforts to tie the Trump administration down with process and run out the clock. They should be dealt with swiftly, in the national interest, to let the president do what he was elected for. Let the people then judge for themselves and vote accordingly. But a few of the cases will decide the kinds of crucial questions that emerge from time to time as the tectonic plates of our democratic republic shift. For instance, should the president be able to manage federal agencies to carry out his constitutional duty to “take care that the laws be faithfully executed?” If not, and courts can mandate who he hires and fires, how he spends the money allocated to the agencies under his purview, and even what foreign and military decisions he makes, then we really are in a krytocracy—imposed by activist lawsuits and judicial coups.

A second vital question to the survival of our country is on immigration. One test case is Mahmoud Khalil, who arrived on a student visa around 2022 and apparently became a legal permanent resident last year. Since Oct. 7, 2023, he has been at the center of anti-Israel campus protests and disruptions at Columbia University. The Department of Homeland Security is seeking to deport Khalil for national security and foreign policy reasons. Activists who believe that noncitizens should be free to preach the destruction of Western civilization or support terrorism sued the government to let him stay. And when U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement flew a couple hundred illegal alien gang members to El Salvador where they will be held safely outside the U.S., another lawsuit by the ACLU (the “A” stands for “American,” you’d be amazed to learn) resulted in a temporary restraining order (that was too late to have effect) by a federal judge to keep them here, too.

I think most Americans agree that the president of the United States should be able to remove foreigners who hate our country or victimize our citizens. If lower-level judges don’t agree, I hope the Supreme Court sets them straight—fast.White House spokesperson Karoline Leavitt said Wednesday that “67% of all of the injunctions in this century have come against … President Donald Trump.” Sadly, if not surprisingly, 92% of these orders came from judges appointed by Democrat presidents. I say sadly because I studied history, law, and international relations and, having lived in eight countries and visited maybe 80, I know the value of the rule of law. In ancient Greek times, Thucydides told a story where the Athenians went to the tiny island of Melos and told them something like, “We outnumber you 100 to 1, and this is the way it’s going to be.” The Melian Dialogue taught that the strong do what they will, while the weak suffer what they must.

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This will take a long time, even without anti-Trump judges.

• Border Czar Homan Says Border Security Will Bankrupt Cartels (JTN)

At Thursday’s Florida Roundtable, former ICE Acting Director Tom Homan, who is Trump’s new “border czar,” defended the president’s border policies. At Thursday’s Florida Roundtable, former ICE Acting Director Tom Homan, who is Trump’s new “border czar,” defended the president’s border policies. Homan said that there were 400 individuals on the terrorist watchlist apprehended at the southern border over the past four years of the Biden administration, while there were 14 in total caught during Trump’s first term. Homan argued that overwhelming U.S. borders makes it more likely for drug trafficking and human smuggling, which is why he believes that strong enforcement essential.

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Well, it’s the original name…

• Guess Who Wants to Rename the Department of Defense? (Margolis)

In what can only be described as an unusual move, Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth has sparked debate over potentially renaming the Department of Defense back to its original name: the Department of War. Hegseth took to X to conduct an informal poll that garnered roughly 170,000 votes in just 18 hours. The results show Americans narrowly prefer “Department of War” over “Department of Defense.” Elon Musk chimed in, saying that “War is more accurate.” I can’t help but notice the contradiction in this proposed change. President Trump has proudly touted his record as the only modern president who kept America out of new conflicts. Given that, reverting to “Department of War” seems oddly out of step with his peace-through-strength doctrine.

So why not call it the “Department of Peace?” That would better reflect Trump’s commitment to avoiding unnecessary wars. Then again, he has also prioritized maintaining the most powerful and lethal military in the world—making “Department of War” a fitting choice in its own right. For those interested in the history, the Department of War was one of just four original cabinet departments established under George Washington’s administration in 1789, with Secretary Henry Knox serving as its first leader. It operated under that name until 1947, when President Truman’s National Security Act reorganized our military structure.

The bureaucratic evolution went through an awkward phase as the “National Military Establishment” (NME) before settling on “Department of Defense” in 1949. The same act established several crucial institutions we still rely on today, including the National Security Council, Joint Chiefs of Staff, and the U.S. Air Force. While Trump recently referenced the “Department of War” in a Truth Social post, no official confirmation exists whether the administration is seriously considering this modification, or if it’s simply Hegseth testing the waters. It’s difficult to accept that he would post such a thing if a change wasn’t under serious consideration.

As you know, this wouldn’t be the first time the Trump administration has tackled federal nomenclature. The president has already renamed Mount Denali in Alaska back to Mount McKinley and the Gulf of Mexico to the Gulf of America. These changes were controversial, and renaming the Department of Defense would certainly be as well. The poll remains open for another day, but regardless of the final tally, the more pressing question is why this discussion is happening now. With multiple global challenges facing our military, one has to wonder whether a departmental rebranding deserves priority attention. Probably not. I’d rather attention be focused on increasing lethality and purging woke ideology and DEI from our military. I voted in the poll and voted to keep the name Department of Defense. Perhaps Elon Musk is right, that “War” is more accurate, but is such a change necessary? I’m not convinced.

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Not the easiest department to oversee cuts.

• VA Secretary Doug Collins Vows More Cuts: We’re ‘Not An Employment Agency’ (NYP)

In his first six weeks on the job, US Department of Veterans Affairs Secretary Doug Collins has combed through less than 2% of the agency’s contracts — and is already stunned by the bloat he’s found, he told The Post this week. “The VA was paying for PowerPoint slides and meeting notes, for the watering of plants, and consulting contracts to do the work that we should be doing ourselves,” he told The Post this week. Not to mention DEI training, prosthetic private parts, gender affirming hair removal and gender affirming voice training. But that spend-happy era is over — and he’s not making any apologies for it. “I’m not going to allow the VA to be the whipping post anymore. We’re actually going to solve problems and keep doing our job, so for anybody on the Hill or in unions who wants to complain,” he said, firing back at critics across the aisle decrying cuts.

“We’ve got to make sure that we’re doing what is mandated by us and that is to take care of veterans, no matter what,” he said. “They’re all still going to have their benefits and healthcare. But we’ve got to remember we’re not an employment agency, we’re a service organization.” Collins has so far canceled hundreds of non-mission critical contracts to net $900 million in savings, and then saved another $14 million by ditching DEI employees and contracts. On Monday, he ended treatment for gender dysphoria to reallocate funds to treat severely injured veterans and amputees. The agency previously covered hormone therapy, prosthetic genitals and breasts, hair removal, voice training, and other so-called “gender-affirming care,” according to internal agency documents viewed by The Post.

Transgender people make up only about “one-tenth of one percent” of the 9.1 million veterans enrolled in VA healthcare, according to the agency. Likely the biggest savings will come from reductions in force — the department already axed 2,400 employees, and a leaked memo from the Elon Musk led Department of Government Efficiency earlier this month recommended firing 80,000 more. If implemented, that number of terminations would return the VA to its 2019 staffing levels. During former President Biden’s term, the total number of VA full time staff grew by more than 52,000 employees, said a VA spokesperson. That accounts for two-thirds of the department’s expanded workforce set to be slashed.

“The previous administration added tens of thousands of employees, and frankly we’re not sure what they were hired for because we’re not seeing the benefit,” Collins told The Post. Biden tacked on a staggering $89 billion to the VA’s budget during his term, but Collins said the last administration had nothing to show for it. An 2024 Office of Inspector General documented hundreds of millions of dollars in improper payments and questioned costs under Biden, including $325.5 million in unauthorized dental procedures and $200 million in prescription costs lacking justification. Meanwhile, average VA wait times for primary care, mental health care, and specialty care all rose significantly between 2021 and 2024, according to a VA spokesperson.

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“Get us the information we asked for instead of leaking old info to press,” she wrote on X..”

• FBI On ‘Frenzied Mission’ To Redact Epstein Files – CNN (RT)

The US Federal Bureau of Investigation is “frantically” trying to complete the redactions of the files related to the Jeffrey Epstein investigation before their public release, CNN reported on Saturday. Agents are “working around the clock” and have even suspended ongoing investigations in order to process the files, it claimed, citing sources familiar with the efforts. Every FBI division was ordered to provide agents for the task, including those working on criminal and national security issues, the US broadcaster said. Agents were told to put aside ongoing probes, including into threats allegedly posed by China and Iran, to assist the redacting work, according to CNN’s sources. The redactions have been ongoing for “much of the week” in the FBI headquarters in Washington, DC, as well as in offices in New York and Chantilly, Virginia, the report said. Agents have reportedly spent hours making redactions to both text files and videos.

According to the report, the redactions were required under federal law. The US Justice Department (DOJ) still vowed to “deliver unprecedented transparency for the American people” in a statement to CNN. US President Donald Trump signed an executive order shortly after taking office mandating the release of the Epstein files along with classified documents related to the assassinations of President John F. Kennedy, Robert F. Kennedy, and Martin Luther King Jr. The DOJ released what it called ‘The Epstein Files: Phase 1’ in late February. The documents were heavily redacted and contained mostly previously reported information. US Attorney General Pam Bondi then accused the FBI of withholding “thousands of pages” of documents related to the investigation.

The initial release was also criticized by Florida Representative Anna Paulina Luna, who leads Trump’s newly established declassification task force. “Get us the information we asked for instead of leaking old info to press,” she wrote on X at that time.The Epstein case has drawn significant attention due to the late financier’s extensive network of high-profile associates, including former US President Bill Clinton, Britain’s Prince Andrew, billionaire Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates, and numerous other celebrities and business leaders. Trump also personally knew the convicted sex trafficker but denied ever visiting his private island and maintains that he cut ties with him in the 1990s – years before Epstein’s first arrest for soliciting prostitution in 2006.

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USAID

 

 

 

 

Empires
https://twitter.com/Rainmaker1973/status/1903688161001181396

 

 

Genius
https://twitter.com/i/status/1903455578908750054

 

 

Guitar

 

 

Bees

 

 

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