Debt Rattle April 25 2026
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Christopher Makos Andy Warhol piloting John Denver’s bi-plane 1977 • US Sending Witkoff, Kushner To Pakistan As Iran Balks At Talks (ZH) • Trump Weigh
[See the full post at: Debt Rattle April 25 2026]• US Sending Witkoff, Kushner To Pakistan As Iran Balks At Talks (ZH)•
■■ pure jenius
Trump Weighs Consequences For NATO Allies On ‘Naughty’ List (Politico)•
■■ God Weighs for Consequences for Raytheon investors
Europe Bets On Newsom To Reverse Trump’s America – And Save Its Own Model (Kolbe)•
■■ Newsom Bets on Israel to fund Trumplite2028
Europe’s Hormuz Mission And The Illusion Of Geopolitical Power (Kolbe)•
■■ EUROPE’S MISSION!? ARE YOU EFFING SERIOUS!?
What CBS News’ Dinner to Honor Trump Means for the Future of News (Rivera)
■■ full throttle fellatio
Canada Pushes Closer to the FAFO Threshold (CTH)
■■ gas stations across the u.s. Midwest push closer to running dry
In President Trump’s Mind There’s Not Going To Be a USMCA (CTH)
■■ In Mr trump’s mind, schoolgirls make excellent targets for “decapitation strikes”
Globalism is a Series of Dependencies (CTH)
■■ so is the entire u.s. war machine
House Panel Orders SPLC to Turn Over Communications With Biden’s DOJ (ET)
■■ House Panel Orders TPUSA to Turn Over Communications With Trump’s DOJ (2027)
I’m Part of America’s ‘Most Stressed’ Generation (Reagan Wilbanks)
■■ I’m part of the world that wants America to go home and shut the eff up
UAE To Move 50% Of Government Services To AI By 2028 (ZH)
■■ Entirety of UAE to return to Oman by 2030
Google Deepens Anthropic Bet With Up To $40 Billion Investment (ZH)
■■ hahahahaha
China’s DeepSeek Debuts Flagship AI Model As Compute Race Intensifies (ZH)
■■ My robot’ll kick your robot’s ass any day!
Bruce Springsteen’s Land of Hope and Dreams No Longer Welcomes All (Perrotta)
■■ Mr Springsteen’s music is eczema for the ears
“Monday is a key date for Trump, as it is the end of the 60 day period allowed before he has to get Congressional approval for his war.”
Yet there is no chatter that this is important and happening. Why?
“Flurry Of Reports Signal ‘Breakthrough’ In US, Iran Getting Back To The Table In Pakistan, As Third US Carrier ArrivesBut I was promised they were never going to talk to us, nor should they, since they were winning, and also only Trump flip-flops and is Chaotic. Iran is completely orderly and never changes their minds by waving ships through, then attacking them anyway.
This is why Iran should run the world and not the U.S. by all of us giving them infinity nukes, missiles, and money.
“US Sending Witkoff, Kushner To Pakistan As Iran Balks At TalksNope, the’re not. But Trump is chaotic and Iran is normal.
BTW did anyone find if the tankers escaping blockade was normal or fake? I’ve heard both about a dozen times.
“IRGC Seizes Ship With Witkoff-Kushner Team En Route To Pakistan; US Sanctions Chinese Refinery, Iran Shadow Fleet
Looks like Iran is Israel now: whenever peace might be had, the IRGC sabotages it.
“’Lying Scumbag’: Schumer Blasted After Saying ‘Nobody Respects’ Border Patrol And ICE On Senate Floor
That’s odd, CNN did an entire puff peace on how awesome ICE was in Chicago, how wonderful and deeply American. …During Obama. Schumer was there when ICE was wonderful…and doing the same job for the “”Deporter in Chief”. In fact, isn’t Trump still like half, a quarter, of Obama’s deportations? Everyone leaving is voluntary, all arrests are existing criminal warrants. So in essence he’s deporting no one.
THAT is the ICE that Schmer says everyone always hated. The one Hillary said she was going to use vigorously to close the borders…in 2015.
“The Pope’s True Loyalty Is To Globalism, Not Christianity
Well, to Pachamama and gay sex, really.
No warranties.
“Jeffrey Sachs: Trump’s Defeat in Iran & Decline of the U.S. Empire”Sachs, always furious the US Empire is declining. He will CRUSH anyone who declines it! How dare they embarrass his beautiful empire?
Should I jump in and update with these guys again? They had been running fact-free or worse, fact WRONG for 55 days in a row. Half of their logic was self-contradictory, and about 1/3 of the vocabulary was poopy-pants words. They defined “Total Iranian domination” as “Any Iranian being left alive and the name ‘Iran” still existing on the surface of earth” so that’s a pretty low bar for winning. Meanwhile the U.S. will have lost if we don’t send 10 million men and occupy the place for 80 years. …And they won’t concede for the first 79 years and 11 months.
Nah…I can’t take it yet. You reach a point where EVERY sentence has 4 errors, and they START by saying they have no idea what any world leader – anywhere – is doing, and it’s clearly a waste of time. Maybe something will happen and I’ll check in again.
When I want to know something, I always check in with the most liberal, yellow journalist person in Britain and indeed the entire Anglo world, someone with a record of being consistently wrong, but also a billionaire, and oligarch of the highest order. Only then will I believe what is said. …Said Fox News. Hanging. On every word.
Too bad about Trump nuking Tehran and landing 10,000 troops in Kharg where we can’t actually get ships. But at least the million men we left in Caracas went well. “Most Trusted Name in News!!!”
“Victor Gao’s BRUTAL Warning to Trump LIVE: Iran & China Won’t BACK DOWN from War”
That’s odd because China ALREADY abandoned Iran entirely and let them get flattened to powder without lifting a finger. But we got your back! …With friends like these, who need enemies? So once again, whatever happens, we just report, then act as if it’s the Opposite.
…Btw, I didn’t forget your minesweeper reports. I mean “HereLetMeGoogleThatForYou.com” but I have an eye out when I see it cross the transom.
Trita Parsi of Quincy Institute, is Iranian. But far worse: Swedish. He begins his very first sentence with DonaldTelepathy, saying “the war did not go the way Donald Trump desired within his invisible, internal state of his mind.” Oh no. He then introduces “Experts”. Brrrrrrr. Okay, we’re definitely going to fail then. The first is from Harvard, proud hotbed of racism and loser of multi-billion dollars in failed trading, ALSO wrong about everything, but she also worked with Oxford…which is worse.
Next up are journalists for “Foreign Policy” which is a oligarchic think tank from birth (Carnegie) but now is straight CIA (Owned by WaPo, which gets their finding from CIA central).
What is her genius insight? The U.S. has entirely lost and we will never have any credibility again from this minute until forever. Not even if Obama is president again. Just like Vietnam. Uhhhh…hey wait. Weren’t we an Empire before, during, and after Vietnam and indeed these self-same experts say the U.S. was a hyperpower after Vietnam with essentially no interruption whatsoever? So THEY say we both totally lost – completely, utterly – but also won because it had no effect and we became a far GREATER power immediately after. –Say 1987. Genius! We are five minutes in.
This is why even the janitors of Harvard and Oxford pretend that they work at WalMart rather than be associated with such morons. All things and their #Opposites are the same.
“Elon Musk made it clear: [Twitter] will not censor speech to please advertisers or anyone.”
If I’m not mistaken, Twitter still censors people handily. Just less.
I think that VDH vid from X is AI. Certainly the entire verbal construction is AI.
I’ve gotten somewhat furious at AI because the only certainty is it will be condescending, waste my time, and have no new, useful ideas. So it causes an investment INTO the video/pic/AI which is always betrayed, 100% of the time.
“Jesse Watters: “I’m beginning to think the entire Democratic Party is a whole scam”. Here’s why:”
Yes. They were co-opted and are Russian Revolution 2.0. Always were. And why? International, sure, but Probably OURSELVES. They are the party of the CIA. The CIA is the one that wants to dispense with America and Democracy, and “Reveal the bare brick prison wall behind the curtain” as Zappa would say. Keeping up these puppet shows is expensive and pointless! Just admit there’s no democracy and the CIA runs it all. C’mon Muppets.
Overreaction? Nope. Top DNC career strategist Carville said the DNC should erase democracy and have a one-party system yesterday because the voters have their own minds and can’t be trusted to obey him. VA Governor and CIA Asset ran EXPRESSLY on several points, including not re-districting…then INSTANTLY redistricted, illegally in like a dozen ways, clearest of which is that you need certain time periods and an intervening election to do so. They merely ignored all constitution and law “’cause they felt like it” and not even to pilfer, but to swing a 50-50 state to 10:1 against their own voters. And the examples are deep, brazen, widespread, and historic, going back decades.
The people then said “Hey man, no” to everything, going back to Hillary 1.0, Obama, to Occupy, to Bernie, M4A, etc all covered abundantly here. They again ignored all voters, all base, going with George Bush’s whole cabinet (Obama) 5 new wars, and losing EVERYONE on the Left: Dore, Pool, Rogan, Tulsi, Vance, …Trump even, who is a NYC Business Democrat with Bill Clinton’s political platform. Finding they lost and everyone hates their guts and their plans, at each election – like VA – they double down AGAIN on infuriating voters, and the only way they can accomplish that is, yes…
Using the CIA, which is unbelievably illegal, they interfere in local politics and elections
By laundering Federal money, offshore, (eg in Somalia, Ukraine)
then recycling it BACK to certain candidates,
who very CLEARLY are trying to destroy and overturn the United States and everything it stands for
In what is EXPRESSLY a Color Revolution
Of immense, intentional, and pre-planned VIOLENCE,
which is exactly what the Russian Revolution was too, funded from the outside. Money from London, Trotsky etc from NYC.Again, this is because no one in America wants their policies, at all, the only way they can advance them is to STEAL, using FRAUD, other people’s tax dollars they refuse to give voluntarily, the most anti-democratic position anyone could possibly have.
“even as Tehran sounded a more pessimistic tone on the prospects of further negotiations.”
Their plan is the same as the last 47 years: lie, stall, and pretend, especially as the 60 day window is closing and Fox News and all Democrats are elated for Iran to “win” while every Muslim nation on earth, plus Russia and China, appear to disagree. Isn’t that…odd to anyone? No?
Anyway, I suspect we will have seen that coming, since Iran has ONLY this one play in their whole book. It may be 60 days (and I don’t see anything happening, which is also odd??) but their entire oilfield clocks out at the same time. So again, they are making the PERMANENT decision to be Yemen forever rather than be richer than UAE and put cities in the desert.
“Embarking on timely tour of Islamabad, Muscat, and Moscow.”
You might want to ask why Moscow is not supporting you at all then. Just saying. I sound harsh but I am merely following Xi, Putin, and the entire Muslim world on this.
“• Trump Weighs Consequences For NATO Allies On ‘Naughty’ List (Politico)Yes NATO is a treaty. However, these are necessary steps to ending it, which are happening at light speed. And they may SAY there is a NATO, but we neither need to fund or man it. Certainly Europe doesn’t. So we close all our bases or just have 5 men in one office next to a nail salon in Cadiz. That’s totally legal and the President’s discretion.
““The situation remains fragile: the currently stable ceasefire ends on Wednesday. And negotiations between the United States, Israel, and Iran are entering their final phase.” Are they though? Why not 400 days from now?
““A US withdrawal from NATO would likely also mean a full retreat from the Ukraine conflict. This move would expose both Europe’s fragile finances and its non-existent security infrastructure.”
The actual goal. Europe could have averted this and we told them 1,000 times. They told us to GFY. Even now, there are many things they can do besides killing all cows, paving all land and importing more hungry people who will kill them, but they don’t.
“European power is essentially the product of media magic”So is Iranian power it seems. VDH pointed out that 40 years of planning plus half a trillion(?) in military spending was wiped out in 20 days? And while we can tolerate that punishment, Iran can’t. Especially the 40 years part. As I constantly say, we’re essentially unharmed and don’t notice. At all. I’m not driving to work on cratered roads, detouring around the 11 missing bridges. I just have to re-plan how many pointless joyrides with gas at $4.
“That European power is permanent propaganda wrapped in moral excess”
Yes, while they are visibly the least moral on the planet, what hurts them far more. As I was saying of Canada, Canadians will allow EVERY atrocity in their nation – complete Stalin lockdown of Sikh truckers, the enthusiastic murder of every Emo girl and Stewart from coast to coast – so long as they can look down their nose at “The United States”. It’s okay if everyone dies here and our nation ceases to exist because “Orange Man”. And it actually WORKS! That doesn’t even make any logical sense, but it WORKS, like 100% surety. And not only Canada of course, which is culturally halfway between Europe and US, but in Sweden, Rotherham, Paris, the entire Frankish race can be eradicated and everyone will cheer because Orange Man. Sweden can be the bombing and hand grenade capital of the planet, outshining Mogadishu, but no Orange Man! We win!
They’re still depending entirely on a morality of being “The Garden People” while guys being murdered in Kentucky are Jungle savages.
Running a little thin though, isn’t it?
“Conservatives long ago created their own successful media channels, allowing them to circumvent liberal-controlled news platforms.”
This was noteworthy since it wasn’t the usual 50-50, fair game. The Left news COLLAPSED, savagely. Many went bankrupt (HuffPo). Dead-broke skaterbois and nightclub comedians, used up boxers with a webcam became multi-millionaires in the same “News Space” that “Couldn’t make money” for the NY Times. Huh. Funny Dat.
“Experience demonstrates that “woke” doesn’t sell. Just ask Budweiser, Target, and Cracker Barrel, among plenty of other companies”
Who knew as Michael Jordan said, expelling half your customer base because “Republicans buy shoes too” wouldn’t be a winning decision except for literally everyone? This is a RELIGIOUS thing. They are intolerant, racist, RELIGIOUS Zealots. America no like that.
“Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney says the U.S. will not be permitted to dictate terms of the USMCA renegotiation”
Huh? What does that mean except nothing? Sounds like you’re starting a negotiation with America conceding everything you want. Uh, no. Not just with a nation 10x your size and 50x your power, but also that’s not how any negotiation anywhere has worked ever. We don’t start from the end, that’s what deranged cartoon people like Zelensky do.
As I said with Military yesterday, essentially, right now, the US can do anything they want with you.
And I have said for 40 years you should fix this while you made it worse hourly.Warning: Mothership UK wants you to die attacking the US exactly as the same UK used Ukraine to attack Russia and everyone died there too, Ukr ceasing to exist as a country. That’s their, Carney’s plan right now. As you can see if you just drive to Loblaw’s in Scarborough. And it’s not now either: this all started way back when you trashed all the Maritimes as a “National Sacrifice Zone” so China could vacuum the seas down to the bedrock rather than control the Grand Banks for yourself. Those Provinces still haven’t recovered and no one cares, certainly not Ontario. Right now the same China is doing the same with resources in BC with the same enthusiasm for killing native Canadians. So pointing up that disputes with the U.S. may be misplaced and the results may be worse yet.
So you can see why Trump preferred Carney as PM. Nothing could be better than undemocratic, air-dropped Carney – who I believe was installed against all Canadian law – opens his mouth like this every day.
“The people of Canada are stuck inside an Orwellian government constructed echo-chamber unable to hear opposing viewpoints.”
Mothership UK is essentially the same.
“If Canada violates the terms and spirit of the USMCA, it makes dispatch of the unliked trade agreement even easier.”
This is ironic, since NAFTA treaty with the US SAVAGED Canada on many levels, it was entirely unfair and should never have been signed but we can still hang Malrooney for it. But since it’s a GLOBALIST, Oligarch treaty, WE shouldn’t have signed it either. It’s meant to extract and destroy ALL nations, by design. But Canada got hammered. And Ontario? Maybe not. But all oil, gas, lumber…sold below cost so Ontario would say yes and Calgary would remain subservient. Something like that. RUTHLESS hate of East for West that was just coming into effect at that time. Crush, Grind, Destroy, disenfranchize, extract, all provinces not Ontario. Then smile and say they’re brothers. Incredible. Like exceeds even narcissistic abuse, I don’t see how they can’t see it inter-familia. Maybe if you did, you’d get so mad N.S. would secede. This is an Ontario and Toronto run by a crackhead who demands people open their houses to burglars and rapists, let them in, ask them to stay for some Red Rose and bear paws.
““The world leaders came because the process to keep USA wealth inside the USA is against their interests. That’s why they came, and that’s why President Trump left.”
Exactly as NAFTA and Canadian extraction above. They keep us looking at “Does Canada or Mexico or the US extracting each other” instead of noticing that “Giant Sucking Sound” is for ALL of us. No one’s winning, it’s all three of us losing. It’s to make US fight while they run away with the loot. CA and US have the same enemy: Globalist Oligarchs. As exemplified by Carney, air-dropped in, even as the CA trucker policeman was air-dropped into other parts of the Empire (and that busy-busy police chief from the Vegas shooting, found in Lahina and the LA fires)
We’re not mad at Canada, but they can’t get serious about Globaists and are therefore elated to be the puppets for them, which is really frustrating and inconvenient right now. We’ve never known how to break through your air-tight superiority/denial bubble. Right now it’s going to kill you, and we can’t stop that either: only you can.
“More stressed than the people living through the Civil War? My, what a loser.”
Probably. There was a front line and a not-front line in the Civil and every other war. So if you’re not in Appomattox, you can just milk cows a few towns over and not notice. Not now, and not only every WHERE, but every minute and every person. Not just every kid, but every person says, “What can I do? What useful action can I take?” And the answer is “none”. Every loophole and exploit has been closed 20 times over.
Being “Well” is an internal state of mind. You can be desperately poor and be well – very well in fact. Native Americans were. But that requires a coherent, cohesive social and family structure, mostly. That you’re all in love and pulling together. Modern people are all in hate and stabbing each other at any provocation.
“Only God, through a new movement of the Holy Spirit, is able to awaken faith and revive hope across America.”
Yes. Because above, internal emotional state, and one which tells you to adhere to Good and not Evil.
“• UAE To Move 50% Of Government Services To AI By 2028 (ZH)
You can see UAE was going to be the new London, the Technocratic world center. Because AI will simply hallucinate something, doctor the records, have no appeal, and no human remains to double-check it. The entire thing will be as made by jibbering crazy people. Sadly, people will accept it because they don’t think they’ll be the 1% it “Erases” from all citizen records randomly that day. Then denies you ever existed while also admitting you did.
Springsteen is a poster child for how that highly engineered installation of mind by the Derp State works. And who is immune to it, like Covid. Who? Every MAGA guy because they’re all POOR WORKERS who have to get up, know masks are bulls—t, and go DELIVER food, gas, plumbing, to the PMC laptop jockeys who have “Status Feelz” and can, do, need to make up drauma trauma and excitement that is all entirely fake. So anywhere people contact “Reality” they are mostly immune to the abstracted bulls—t of the system. That’s why it’s perennially online. And why Harvard is the dumbest location on the planet — they are most removed from consequences.
“The Tesla Terror against Elon really heated up when he started exposing NGOs”
This same mental engineering, installing the new bot chip in the NPC, got ACTUAL Teslas and dealerships arsoned, which isn’t just a felony, starting fires is VERY DANGEROUS. Like poison, you can’t really predict what might happen next, who will get hurt, nor stop it after. But they very proudly endangered the whole city “For safety”. Same as strapping on guns, then roving the city kicking policemen as certain guys in Minnesota thought was a good, safe idea, the apex of peace and love.
“The state actively and aggressively imports hundreds of thousands of single male migrants annually who are then awarded permanent housing, welfare, and access to free medicine,”
Not ONLY that, born citizens do NOT get those advantages. And also Born citizens are prosecuted for crimes while immigrants are not. Hundred-thousand such cases at this time. Cannot deport child rapists because “he would be sad”. (UK last month).
good catch on the VDH video. I watched it again. The AI artifacts jumped right out. It has about a 2Hz major calculation cycle. About twice a second the screen jumps like it was edited to take out dead time. Not something you do 2Hz. In the middle of words. The face is locked in place with no gentle rolling around like VDH does. And last. Autism giveth and taketh away. Voices are like finger prints. Thats not VDH speaking.
Raining In Iran https://drjohnsblog.substack.com/p/raining-in-iran
Paul Craig Roberts notes that, Washington Chose Wars for Israel instead of Health Care for the American People
According to research at Brown University’s Watson School of International and Public Affairs, Washington’s 21st century wars in behalf of the Zionist agenda of Greater Israel have cost American taxpayers about 10 trillion dollars. Twenty-five percent of the US national debt, the interest cost of which is approaching one trillion dollars annually, is the price imposed on Americans by Washington fighting Israel’s wars for Israel. The ten trillion dollar cost consists of:
“The cost of the post-9/11 wars in Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Syria, and elsewhere totals about $8 trillion. This does not include future interest costs on borrowing for the wars.” [Or the mounting cost of the war on Iran.]
“The costs of caring for post-9/11 war vets will reach between $2.2 and $2.5 trillion by 2050 – most of which has not yet been paid.”
The American people had no stake in these wars. The Zionist neoconservatives and presstitute media disguised these wars as a “war on terror.” https://paulcraigroberts.org/washington-chose-wars-for-israel-instead-of-health-care-for-the-american-people/Neither side is compelled to change “maximalist” position, as each undergoes attrittion, as does most of the world: Moon of Alabama, War On Iran: A Stalemate With No End In Sight
The U.S. has, as Trump had previously acknowledged, already received Iran’s 10-point proposal.
What Trump is acknowledging without saying it is that it is unlikely that there will be any negotiated settlement of the war. The U.S. is structurally incapable of lifting sanctions on Iran or signing a peace treaty.
Iran is unwilling to give up its (enrichment) rights for bare promises Trump or his successors are unlikely to hold.
The conflict will thus continue.
Iran’s military capabilities are sufficient to wage a long war. The intense U.S. and Israeli bombing campaign was unable to disarm the country…
..Main stream opinion writers who, with Trump’s applause, are calling for murdering the allegedly resistive party in Iran are only exposing their ignorance.
With his latest TACO Trump has pushed the problem out into the future. I expect him to try to ignore the situation he has created until more significant damage in the U.S. economy becomes visible. https://www.moonofalabama.org/2026/04/war-on-iran-a-stalemate-with-no-end-in-sight.htmlI’m glad Iran is getting rain again. This article discusses weather-mod mechanisms, now interrupted: Did the war disrupt weather modification on Iran? – Speculations about post-war rainfall
Two mechanisms are suggested for how a drought over Iran could be engineered through UAE-based weather modification.
First, cloud seeding over UAE could indeed have deprived Iran of rainfall in proportion to the extra rainfall received by UAE.
Second, if ground-based ionization can be used to encourage condensation, a similar process could be used to discourage condensation and prevent the formation of clouds.
One Iranian poster (@AcEpic69, April 15/26) speculated that THAAD radar arrays could be used to disrupt the formation of clouds over Iran. Another poster (@raminrnp, April 22/26) believes that weaponized weather modification against Iran will continue from other bases (Qatar, Bahrain), drones, HAARP emitters in the northern hemisphere, and more.
In this fourth section we have left the scientific literature and headed on to twitter. The evidentiary standard is lowered. Correlation is not causation. But the radars are destroyed, the UAE’s cloud seeding program is disrupted, and it’s raining in Iran again. https://justinpodur.substack.com/p/did-the-war-disrupt-weather-modificationTrump Shares Post Calling for the Killing of Iranian Leaders Who Won’t Accept US Demands https://news.antiwar.com/2026/04/23/trump-shares-post-calling-for-the-killing-of-iranian-leaders-who-wont-accept-us-demands/
More on that. The winter rain comes from the Mediterranean across Syria and Iraq, hitting the NW mountains and causing snowpack, the melt of which supplies water to Tehran & environs. This could be interdicted over Syria and Iraq by cloud-seeding
The summer rains hit SE Iran/Balochistan in an Indian monsoon pattern.
https://bluegreenatlas.com/climate/iran_climate.html
https://www.mdpi.com/2220-9964/9/2/73 (Seasonal rainfal color maps)
https://rmets.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/joc.8094
https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s11600-024-01351-1
He is in a mobile-ICU with burns, they say. He “agrees with the IRGC”. Ayatollah Mojtaba Khamenei Surrounded By 24/7 Medical Team In Hideout As Generals Run Iran: NYT https://www.zerohedge.com/geopolitical/ayatollah-mojtaba-khamenei-surrounded-247-medical-team-hideout-generals-run-iran-nyt
IRGC Seizes Ship; Witkoff-Kushner Team En Route To Pakistan; US Sanctions Chinese Refinery, Iran Shadow Fleet
IRGC seizes a ship it says ‘collaborated with US’ in provocative move ahead of Pakistan talks; Iran FM preparing written proposal for US side.
President Trump is sending two envoys – Steve Witkoff and Jared Jushner – for talks with Iran in Pakistan, CNN reported, while Tehran sounded a more pessimistic tone on the prospects of further negotiations
US hits Iran ‘shadow fleet’ with new sanctions, also takes aim at Chinese ‘teapot’ oil refinery.
Third US aircraft carrier, the George HW Bush, has finally arrived in Mideast regional waters after taking the long way around Africa.
Hegseth in presser renews call, highlighting main issue, for Iran: “All they have to do is abandon a nuclear weapon in meaningful and verifiable ways…”; Warns Iranians over continued mine-laying. https://www.zerohedge.com/geopolitical/flurry-reports-signal-breakthrough-us-iran-getting-back-table-pakistan-third-usThe rumor is that the secretary did not want to undertake major risks for vague and improbable objectives: Simplicius, US Secretary of Navy Resigns (Or Is Fired) Just as Third Carrier Group Arrives In Iran Theater
Various rumors abound as to the reason. It’s only natural to speculate that some major disagreements within the Pentagon about US’s handling of the ongoing Hormuz crisis could be at the root of this.
In fact, it appears the US Navy is growing quite concerned, given the latest testimony from the head of IndoPacom Admiral Samuel Paparo this week.
Amongst his statements:
Adm. Paparo said: “I don’t have enough amphibious ships. We don’t have enough surface destroyers. We certainly don’t have enough attack submarines, and our trajectory is on the wrong side.”
WSJ now reports that the Iran war has snuffed out hopes of US standing any chance in helping Taiwan during a hypothetical Chinese intervention.
The U.S. has burned through so many munitions in Iran that some administration officials increasingly assess that America couldn’t fully execute contingency plans to defend Taiwan from a Chinese invasion if it occurred in the near term, U.S. officials said.
It says it could take up to six years for the US to replenish the spent munitions, and that’s if US doesn’t squander another major portion of them, which it may very well do…
..At the same time, estimates regarding Iran’s remaining military capabilities continue gradually sliding upward, as predicted. Trump had claimed Iran’s airforce was “completely destroyed”, but CBS now reports that “two-thirds of Iran’s air force is still believed to be operational”…
..They assess 60% of Iran’s navy as still up and running, which was demonstrated in full earlier when Sentinel released images of a massive armada of Iranian speedboats crossing Hormuz…
..Some believe rather than simply “enforcing the closure”, the boats were dropping mines as Axios claims to have “confirmed”. Either way, it was an impressive show of force from a navy said to be completely “obliterated”…
..The carrier USS Bush is nearing the theater and is days away from joining the USS Lincoln, which along with the Marine-laden USS Tripoli is pecking at Iran’s crumbs somewhere at the distant edges of the Arabian Sea and Gulf of Oman.
Many believe that once Bush arrives, Trump will be primed to unleash another round of futile strikes. It’s obvious that Trump is still desperate for an off-ramp and the only way he’d launch another major attack is to get out of dodge with a cheap bit of “victory” theater: “See, now we’ve OBLITERATED all their power plants and have decisively won the war, now we’re going home!”
..There continue to be estimates that Iran has under two weeks left until the storage capacity on Kharg Island runs out, and no one is quite sure what Iran will do…
..One thing Iran has done so far is brought in additional VLCCs (Very Large Crude Carriers) out of retirement to store excess capacity on the water nearby, but even that will run into a limit wall at some point…
..The Economist analyzed leading indicators to conclude the situation is already dire, and if the Strait doesn’t soon reopen it can get catastrophic.
Futures markets have a different view of things. Yet even if Hormuz reopened today, it would take months for Gulf crude output, shipping and refinery production to resume in full. Saad Rahim of Trafigura, a trader, reckons a cumulative loss of 1.5bn Gulf barrels, or 5% of annual global output, is almost unavoidable. If the strait does not reopen, it could easily reach double that. The last time oil demand fell by 10% in short order was during the covid-19 lockdowns of 2020, a shock that also brought about a fall in world GDP of more than 3%. The time to avoid a similar tumble is running out.
There is much more to the supply chain damage than just oil. Reuters reports that aluminum is seeing the largest supply shock in decades…
..Meanwhile, Trump was asked what if oil goes to $200 a barrel? His response is that it’s better to have $200 oil than for Israel to be targeted by nuclear weapons…
..We’ve gone from promises not to get embroiled in another forever war, and that Iran would be a “quick job”, to settling for favorable comparisons to Vietnam and WWII—how times change.
On that note, Axios reports that Trump is losing his nerve:
“He’s over it. He wants it done. He doesn’t like Iran holding [its control of the strait] over the Middle East. He doesn’t like them holding this over our heads. He doesn’t want to fight anymore. But he will if he feels he has to,” an administration official told Axios.
Given the dilemma, and given this retweet by Trump himself, he may elect to just keep bombing until “someone to talk to emerges”—unlikely as that prospect is.
But remember, $200 oil and a wrecked economy are very small prices to pay for Israel’s security. https://simplicius76.substack.com/p/us-secretary-of-navy-resigns-or-isCENTCOM Says Third US Aircraft Carrier Has Arrived in the Middle East as Trump Warns Iran the ‘Clock is Ticking’ https://news.antiwar.com/2026/04/23/centcom-says-third-us-aircraft-carrier-has-arrived-in-the-middle-east-as-trump-warns-iran-the-clock-is-ticking/
Gold & Geopolitics, Daily digest: 2026-04-24
Iran war escalation imminent: 3rd carrier group arriving, Navy Secretary fired. USS George H.W. Bush confirmed entering Indian Ocean with Trump declaring “total control” of Hormuz while the Pentagon simultaneously denied a leaked assessment that mine-clearance could take 6 months. Navy Secretary Phelan fired/resigned “effective immediately” amid reported disputes over escalation. During ceasefire, US doubled airlift of military supplies…
..Iran’s oil storage filling — permanent reservoir damage on the clock. Iran reactivated 30-year-old VLCC NASHA as floating storage, buying roughly 48 hours of upstream production …Maleki & Gordon estimate 300K-500K bbl/day of permanent capacity loss if shut-in completes…
..US munitions critically depleted — Taiwan defense capability at risk. Trump administration officials “increasingly assess” the US could not fully defend Taiwan if China invaded near-term per WSJ… Full replacement: up to 6 years. Zelensky separately noted 2 years of Patriot production was used in day one…..Physical vs paper oil disconnect at historic extremes. Dated Brent physical cargoes landing in Asia at $170/bbl while futures trade mid-$90s per Energy Aspects. The gap is “distorting refining economics, hedging strategies and procurement decisions globally”. IEA head Birol: “largest energy crisis we have ever faced”…
..Israel’s Defense Minister Katz openly stated they await US “green light” to resume war, threatening to “return Iran to the Stone Age”
All senior Iranian officials published a joint statement rejecting the “hardliners vs moderates” framing: “one God, one leader, one nation”
Insider trading: US special forces soldier arrested for $400K bet on Maduro capture using classified info. Trump’s response: “The world is a casino”…
..[Speculation is facilitated] Precious metals futures margins being CUT across the board. CME reducing margins effective Friday: gold -14%, silver -21.4%, platinum -15.3%, palladium -14.2% … This amid record Chinese silver imports and zero Chinese silver exports in 2025….
..China imported 836 tonnes of silver in March — nearly 3x seasonal average.. Clive Thompson (47 yrs Swiss private banking): silver heading into 6th consecutive deficit year, 170M oz supply gap in 2025…
..Prof Michael Hudson: US #1 export for 5 months is gold — to Switzerland, Hong Kong, China. “The empire is liquidating itself”…
..Energy Chokepoint Economics: The Sulfur/Ammonia Catastrophe Nobody’s Pricing
~50% of global seaborne sulfur exports transit Hormuz. Russia (15% of global supply) exports down 70%. China implementing export ban…
Sulfuric acid is feedstock for fertilizers (50% of global food production), copper/nickel leaching, batteries, water treatment
UN WFP contact described as “desperate” — death toll projections comparable to WWII by 2027.
Jet fuel supplies in “freefall”… Australia receiving emergency fuel shipments from US…
..Semiconductors: Record Streak Meets Peak Euphoria
SOX gained for 16-17 consecutive days — longest winning streak in history, +38.7%, on track for largest monthly gain since Feb 2000
Intel surged +20% after hours, surpassing its August 2000 dot-com peak…
..Taiwan market cap tripled since 2020 to $4.14T, surpassing the UK for the first time. TSMC = 40% of Taiwan’s total market value…
..DeepSeek V4 & GPT 5.5: The AI Arms Race Just Went Nuclear
DeepSeek V4 released: zero CUDA dependency (runs entirely on Huawei Ascend chips), 3-100x cheaper than GPT-5.5, fully open-source with open weights. Arnaud Bertrand: “you’d have to be a literal idiot to keep paying OpenAI’s prices when this exists”
OpenAI released GPT 5.5 — “new class of intelligence” with expanded Codex browser capabilities
US accused China of “industrial-scale” AI theft — weeks before Trump’s scheduled China visit
AI stocks now reflect 45% of S&P 500 market cap and 15.4% of investment-grade debt ($1.4T). Never before has a single theme dominated both equity and credit markets to this degree https://no1sdailydigest.substack.com/p/daily-digest-2026-04-24It really looks like China’s Deep Seek would be cheaper and more efficient for their autonomous-killing robots: Pentagon Requests $54 Billion for AI War https://www.armstrongeconomics.com/world-news/war/pentagon-requests-54-billion-for-ai-war/
You won’t have to decide anything… Palantir’s Manifesto Is the Agenda of the New Class Reconfiguring the System’s Power Structure
The Internet has erupted in condemnation of Palantir’s manifesto. Understandably so. It is the open declaration of a private company to take over government systems and dictate policy. It is the admission by a concrete group that they have enough power to state their claim openly…
..The way we work, communicate, consume, travel, and even rest is now mediated through their technologies. Not only does that allow the owners of those technologies to extract a rent and monitor our behavior, but also to influence it. We have become dependent on their hardware and software devices to do some of the most routine everyday tasks, like checking the weather.
The people who have developed and manage these technologies are not an abstract group. There are countless anonymous foot soldiers, middle managers, and small entrepreneurs—I have relatives involved—who are just doing their jobs. But there is also a defined group with some very well-known faces, like Peter Thiel, Elon Musk, Jeff Bezos, or Mark Zuckerberg, and some less well-known, like Alexander Karp (though he’s eager to be in the well-known group), David Sacks, Balaji Srinivasan, or Palmer Luckey…
..This core group is a tight-knit network of founders, venture capitalists, and thinkers—including Nick Land and Curtis Yarvin—who control some of the biggest hardware and software companies, venture funds, and media companies. They have their own think tanks, usually in the form of podcasts, like the “All-In Podcast,” but they also publish books and articles, and back public-facing institutions, politicians, and campaigns. They have a very particular idea—though, as in any group, there are different strands—of what the world is and how society should function.
The ideological core of this group—often referred to as the “Thielverse” or the “New Right” of Silicon Valley—is a synthesis of radical technological optimism, deep skepticism of modern democracy, and a desire to rebuild the world through “Exit” rather than reform (i.e., accelerationism). They support politicians who might help them achieve those aims, for example, Donald Trump, and have an ideological commitment to Israel. https://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2026/04/palantirs-manifesto-is-the-agenda-of-the-new-class-reconfiguring-the-systems-power-structure.htmlAutonomous AI Lab Leak World, now in progress: Skynet: Anthropic Has No “Kill Switch” for AI They Gave the Pentagon if the Bots Go Rogue https://discernreport.com/skynet-anthropic-has-no-kill-switch-for-ai-they-gave-the-pentagon-if-the-bots-go-rogue/
8 minutes of clear global financial battlefield context: Prof. Michael Hudson: The #1 US export for 5 months straight is gold. Not AI, not aircraft. Gold to Switzerland, Hong Kong, China. In 1971 Nixon shut the gold window to stop it. Now America can’t — it IS the one selling. The empire is liquidating itself. America’s broke. https://x.com/i/status/2047372825439178947
Michael Hudson: US Economy is Based on a Ponzi Scheme
Is another financial crisis brewing in the US economy? Economist Michael Hudson explains the dangers.” Reports suggest the US economy may be on the verge of another financial crisis, with major problems in the $3 trillion private credit market.”
There are growing signs that the United States may be on the verge of another major financial crisis, one that could start in the private credit market, which is already seeing significant turmoil, before spreading to other sectors.
Geopolitical Economy Report editor Ben Norton interviewed economist Michael Hudson to discuss the serious problems on Wall Street. Hudson warned that the US economy is built on a Ponzi scheme that depends on continuing to pour money into a bloated, bubbly financial system based on unsustainable speculation, not industrial production…
..Where exactly could this crisis come from? Well, some financial analysts are worried about the private credit industry in the US.
This has exploded in recent years, because after the 2008 crash, banks were more heavily regulated. So more and more firms on Wall Street began to lend to private companies, and the private credit industry ballooned.
It is now a $3 trillion industry, yet it is not regulated. And many of these private credit firms have given bad loans to bad companies that are now defaulting…
..MICHAEL HUDSON: Yes, the whole problem stems exactly from 2008 or more particularly, 2009, when President Obama took office. His solution to the junk mortgage crisis, the bank fraud crisis, was to turn the economy into a Ponzi scheme.
He needed to bail out the banks. The banks had made so many fraudulent and bad loans, that exceeded the ability of these banks to collect on their high-interest, junk mortgages that had been given, that the major banking companies were in negative equity.
What was the solution? The solution was a zero interest-rate policy, ZIRP. The Federal Reserve lowered interest rates from the high crisis levels in 2008 and 2009 way down to 0.1%, which is what banks could borrow for.
The Federal Reserve was able to create electronic money on its computers to lend to the banks at a very low interest rates and said, “Well, banks, you have as much money as you want, at 0.1%, that we are providing you to lend out to the economy, to support the price of real estate, stocks, and bonds, so that we will restore the negative equity that the reckless banking sector has created”…
..Well, the banks weren’t set up to evaluate loans to particular companies. They usually make money on collateral being pledged for their loans. Bank credit isn’t extended, in the United States or Britain, to finance industrial capital investment. That’s the job of the stock market, if anything, or of companies to reinvest their earnings.
Banks lend money for assets, real estate, stocks, and bonds, already issued, already in existence. So they lend money out to intermediaries, saying, “You do the job; you find the companies to take over”.
You then begin to have private capital take over companies and make money by essentially looting them…
..The result is that a lot of hospitals went bankrupt. Private equity proceeded to bankrupt whole swaths of the American economy. A new word was added to the English language: enshittification — just cutting back the quality of what companies were doing, slashing expenses, working labor harder, making them work overtime, cutting.
When there was an attrition of the labor force, when workers left, you let the remaining workers pick up all of the slack. Productivity went up. So you had an extractive, predatory financial system in the United States…
..So the financial system has been turned into a predatory system. And all of this enormous growth in financial wealth since 2009 has accrued to the financial and real estate sector, dominated by the wealthiest 10% of the population…
..We’re in a post-industrial society, and that’s a financial society run by the banks, through their control of the central banks, which are controlled by the government, [which is run by politicians] whose campaigns are financed by contributors from the finance and the real estate sector.
So it’s all sort of a self-feeding circular flow. And Ponzi schemes always end in a crash. That’s what’s leading other investors to try to withdraw from the American and European economies. But where can they withdraw to? That’s the problem. What can they do? …
..When an investment firm deals with an investor — primarily what you call average people are largely pension funds. We’re having pension-fund capitalism being used to bail out the Ponzi scheme.
In other words, when a company sees an investor or a fund manager come in, what do they think? “How can I make money off these people?”
Well, right now, the wealthiest funds, like Blackstone, think, “It’s now how can we make money; we know that we’re entering a depression period where we can’t make money, really. There’s not going to be much more to be made. The market has gone as high as it can be”.
“But what we can do is minimize the losses. What we want to do is avoid making a loss. But there are going to be losses. What do we do? Let’s make labor pay for them. Let’s turn the economy of pension-fund managers and the average people into suckers. https://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2026/04/michael-hudson-us-economy-is-based-on-a-ponzi-scheme.htmlPaging Average Suckers: S&P 500, Nasdaq close at records, boosted by Intel, as investors hope for a restart to U.S.-Iran talks https://www.cnbc.com/2026/04/23/stock-market-today-live-updates.html
CHINA JUST LIQUIDATED ¥1.1477 TRILLION IN U.S. TREASURY HOLDINGS THIS IS THE BIGGEST SINGLE DUMP IN THE LAST 20 YEARS, WHILE ITS GOLD RESERVES HAVE RISEN TO $343 BILLION https://halturnerradioshow.com/index.php/component/content/article/u-s-senate-defeats-5th-attempt-to-stop-iran-war?catid=20&Itemid=101
Iran Announces First Hormuz Toll Fees Successfully Transferred To Central Bank https://www.zerohedge.com/geopolitical/iran-announces-first-hormuz-toll-fees-successfully-transferred-central-bank
Katz: Israel Waiting for US ‘Green Light’ To Attack Iran, Plunge Country Into the ‘Stone Age’ – The minister also said the IDF was ready to ‘complete the elimination of the Khamenei dynasty’ https://news.antiwar.com/2026/04/23/katz-israel-waiting-for-us-green-light-to-attack-iran-plunge-country-into-the-stone-age/
The European Copernicus has filmed dozens of Iranian boats hunting ships in Hormuz.
New satellite images have emerged confirming the activity of the Iranian “mosquito” fleet” in the Strait of Hormuz…
..Iran has a fleet of small vessels, numbering thousands of high-speed boats capable of speeds of up to 120 km/h (or even higher, according to other sources). And it has become a real headache for the American Navy. Despite US claims to have destroyed most of the Iranian fleet, these small vessels, equipped with machine guns, guided and unguided missiles, rockets and Kamikaze drones remain an extremely effective tool. They are difficult to detect on radar, and their tactics of surprise attacks and instant disappearance among coastal rocks and islands make them virtually invulnerable.
Iran’s opponents claim that such activity directly threatens global oil supplies, as approximately 20% of global exports pass through the strait. Iran, however, counters that it did not start the war and is ready to stop intercepting ships at any moment – as soon as the US unblocks the strait and Iranian ports. https://en.topwar.ru/281481-evropejskij-kopernik-snjal-ohotu-desjatkov-iranskih-katerov-na-suda-v-ormuze.htmlTanker Seizures By Iran Don’t Breach Ceasefire: White House https://www.zerohedge.com/geopolitical/tanker-seizures-iran-dont-breach-truce-white-house
34 Iran-Linked Tankers Bypass US Naval Blockade in the Strait of Hormuz, Data Shows https://www.thedefensenews.com/news-details/34-Iran-Linked-Tankers-Bypass-US-Naval-Blockade-in-the-Strait-of-Hormuz-Data-Shows/
Israel Continues Relentless Attacks in Gaza, Killing Seven Palestinians in 24 Hours
Since the so-called ‘ceasefire’ deal was signed in early October 2025, the IDF has killed at least 784 Palestinians in Gaza https://news.antiwar.com/2026/04/21/israel-continues-relentless-attacks-in-gaza-killing-seven-palestinians-in-24-hours/90 Palestinian women held in Israeli Damon prison
Most Palestinian female prisoners are held in Damon jail, including two minors and one woman who is three months pregnant, describing the humanitarian conditions inside the facility as “sensitive.”
Among the female prisoners are 25 held under administrative detention without trial or indictment, in addition to three journalists and two women suffering from cancer. https://english.palinfo.com/news/2026/04/22/361741/Depleted Uranium? Gaza’s unseen casualties: A surge in stillbirths and birth defects
As the impacts of war linger, Gaza is witnessing an unprecedented rise in congenital anomalies and a 140 percent increase in stillbirths. https://www.aljazeera.com/features/2026/4/22/gazas-unseen-casualties-a-surge-in-stillbirths-and-birth-defects‘Day of Ordinary Terror’: Israeli Attack on West Bank School Kills Man, Child
Israeli soldiers and settlers opened fire on a school in a West Bank village Tuesday, killing a Palestinian man and child and wounding at least four other people amid their escalating ethnic cleansing efforts in the illegally occupied territory…
..Amin Abu Ulaya, head of the local council, told Reuters that settlers and Israel Defense Forces (IDF) soldiers entered the village and then shot at students at the school and other Palestinians who rushed to the scene.
PRCS said that 14-year-old Aws Hamdi Al-Naasan and 32-year-old Marzouq Abu Naim were shot and killed by the attackers. https://israelpalestinenews.org/day-of-ordinary-terror-israeli-attack-on-west-bank-school-kills-man-child/Israeli Government Honors Israeli Rabbi Who Boasted of Destroying Civilian Homes in Gaza
Rabbi Avraham Zarbiva operated a bulldozer in Gaza and has called for Israel to ‘flatten’ the Palestinian territory https://news.antiwar.com/2026/04/22/israeli-government-honors-israeli-rabbi-who-boasted-of-destroying-civilian-homes-in-gaza/IOF issues demolition notices for more than 30 homes west of Bethlehem https://english.palinfo.com/news/2026/04/22/361724/
The funding is having major problems, too. Trump’s Gaza committee teeters as Israel obstructs peace process
A third of the 12-member Palestinian-led Gaza committee have submitted resignations in protest at Israel’s refusal to abide by the ceasefire agreement. https://www.newarab.com/news/trumps-gaza-committee-teeters-israel-obstructs-peace-processBreakthrough: Trump Unveils 3-Week Extended Ceasefire In Lebanon, But Says ‘All The Time In The World’ To End Iran War
Trump unveils three week extended ceasefire in Lebanon, wants country to “protect itself from Hezbollah”.
Trump orders US Navy ‘shoot & kill’ small Iranian boats amid concern over mines in Hormuz. Says US now “doesn’t need a deal”. Says he has “all the time in the world, Iran does not” – to end the war.
Overnight, US military intercepted two more Iranian oil supertankers that tried to evade the blockade And in Indian Ocean US conducted a maritime interdiction and right-of-visit boarding of the sanctioned stateless vessel M/T Majestic X transporting oil from Iran.
Media sources confirm based on prior Trump post that US has extended the ceasefire indefinitely until ‘unified proposal’ can be brought forward by Tehran’.
Iran announces first Hormuz tolls paid to the country’s central bank. Also asserts US blockade breached & could build atomic bomb “if we wanted to”. https://www.zerohedge.com/geopolitical/us-intercepts-iranian-tankers-tehran-keeps-hormuz-chokepoint-shutIsraeli drone strike kills one, wounds two in Lebanon’s Bekaa despite ceasefire – A 10-day ceasefire between Lebanon and Israel took effect on Friday. https://www.trtworld.com/article/f8d6d8bd4c36
Lebanese Journalist Amal Khalil Bombed and Left to Die by Israel
After Khalil was apparently targeted by Israel, a commentator asserting a connection with the military said journalists “affiliated with Hezbollah” are “destined for death.”
Khalil and Zeinab Faraj, a freelance photojournalist, were both on assignment in southern Lebanon, reporting on recent attacks on the southern village of Bint Jbeil. According to Al-Akhbar, which published a timeline of the events, the car they were driving behind was targeted by an Israeli drone at 2:45 p.m, killing two men inside. Khalil and Faraj took shelter in a nearby house.
At 2:50 p.m., Khalil contacted her editors and family, according to Lebanon-based journalist Courtney Bonneau. News of the incident quickly spread, prompting Lebanese President Joseph Aoun to put out a statement calling on the Red Cross to rescue the two journalists in coordination with the Lebanese Army and the United Nations.
At 4:27 p.m., the house where the two journalists were taking refuge was bombed by the Israeli military and contact with the journalists was lost. https://www.dropsitenews.com/p/lebanon-journalist-amal-khalil-killed-israelWednesday, Israeli strikes kill 5 in Lebanon, Beirut to seek truce extension https://www.spacewar.com/afp/260422221142.gu6nte3u.html
Israeli Media Says IDF Soldiers Looting ‘On A Crazy Scale’ In Lebanon
“It’s on a crazy scale,” one soldier said. “Anyone who takes something – televisions, cigarettes, tools, whatever – immediately puts it in their vehicle or leaves it off to the side, not inside the army base, but it’s not hidden. Everyone sees it and understands.” https://www.zerohedge.com/geopolitical/israeli-media-says-idf-soldiers-looting-crazy-scale-lebanonHow Israel is destroying Lebanon’s water infrastructure
Israel is ‘deliberately’ attacking Lebanon’s water, experts say, aiming to displace or kill southern Lebanon’s population. https://www.aljazeera.com/features/2026/4/22/how-israel-is-destroying-lebanons-water-infrastructureIsraeli attacks on Lebanon during its latest war with Hezbollah damaged or destroyed more than 50,000 housing units in the country, a government estimate found on Wednesday. https://www.spacewar.com/afp/260422171958.o4tsbp73.html
China on Wednesday denied again that a ship intercepted by the United States contained a “gift” from Beijing for Iran, a day after US President Donald Trump made the accusation.
Trump had said that an Iranian-flagged ship seized by US forces in the Gulf of Oman on Sunday contained “a gift from China”, which “wasn’t very nice”.
His comments came after former US ambassador to the United Nations Nikki Haley wrote on X that the ship was travelling from China to Iran and was linked to chemical shipments for missiles.
Responding to Haley’s accusations at a regular news briefing on Tuesday, foreign ministry spokesperson Guo Jiakun said the ship was “a foreign container ship”, and that China opposed “any malicious association and speculation”.
Asked about Trump’s comments on Wednesday, Guo said China had already stated its position. “As a responsible major country, China has always set a good example in fulfilling its due international obligation,” he added.
Trump had said Tuesday that he was “a little surprised”, given he thought he had an “understanding” with China’s President Xi Jinping.
A week ago, Trump announced that Xi had assured him there would be no Chinese weapons deliveries to Iran. https://www.spacewar.com/afp/260422094556.62rkibsy.htmlNate Hagens, Oil 201: What Happens When the Oil Stops Flowing
We’ve built everything – our institutions, our governments, our stories, our expectations about the future – on this cheap energy input. Now, its scale and affordability are no longer guaranteed.
The Price Trap
When energy prices spike, entire systems can become fragile and often break. Because oil has been so consistently cheap, the economic logic has been to imagine and engineer thousands of mechanical processes around that cheapness. The Industrial Revolution is really the story of adding hundreds or thousands of units of fossil energy to tasks that humans used to do by hand…
..We Eat Oil
Nowhere is this pattern more consequential than in the thing we all do three times per day: eat. To some people this might sound like an exaggeration, but when we sit down for a meal, what most of us are really eating is processed fossil fuels.
Contrary to all of human history, our food system now runs on energy deficit…and a huge one at that. Roughly ten calories of fossil hydrocarbons go into every one calorie of food on your plate. The tractors run on diesel, the fertilizer comes from natural gas, the pesticides come from petrochemicals, and the food is packaged and shipped on trucks and container ships where they’re kept cold the entire way.
What’s truly staggering is that roughly half the nitrogen in your body today carries a chemical signature from the Haber-Bosch industrial process, which makes synthetic fertilizer from natural gas. That single industrial process is what allows Earth to feed roughly four of our eight billion humans. Beyond food, our clean water, pumping, treating, desalinating and distributing it, also requires fossil fuel inputs.
When people talk about oil and gas, they’re mostly thinking of our cars, but we should also be thinking of groceries and dinner…
..Oil is woven into virtually everything we touch. Only about 40% of a barrel of oil becomes gasoline. The rest is diesel, jet fuel, heating oil, bunker fuel, asphalt, and feedstock for roughly 6,000 other products like medicines, plastics, surgical devices, synthetic clothing, electronics, contact lenses, tents, kayaks, the interior of our cars, and the list goes on.
Assumptions that electric cars or other substitutions would eliminate our need for oil misses the overwhelming majority of what non-gasoline oil actually does…
..Low priced oil is running out faster than most people, and our financial system, realize. Most people are unaware that depletion, the rate at which we’re drawing down and drying up oil fields and wells, is accelerating, especially in the United States…
..You might be thinking I’ve been ignoring other forms of energy throughout this brief analysis: hydro, nuclear, solar, and wind. But there’s a reason substitutes can’t simply step in.
Energy quality matters almost as much as energy quantity. Oil is liquid at room temperature, energy dense, portable, and storable. These qualities are what made modern civilization possible. Replacing it isn’t a matter of just matching kilowatt hours from another source. Our entire mining, shipping, rail, trucking, and personal transport system runs on oil. Despite the headlines about solar and electric vehicles, that is not likely going to change.
Here’s a key distinction: energy is the total amount of work available, while power is the rate at which you get that energy per unit time.
Biological creatures on Earth do not optimize for energy, we optimize for power. Organisms and economies that get more energy sooner outcompete those that don’t.
Oil and its products – gasoline, diesel, heating oil, and jet fuel – contain unbelievable power. When burned, they give us ginormous amounts of work quickly, whenever and wherever we want it…
..Alternative energy sources will play a role in the human energy portfolio, but our current system was built around the qualities and cheap price of oil. The time, land, and material dimensions are almost never discussed, but they’re some of the main reasons direct substitution is so much harder than people assume, and why there are now warships in the Persian Gulf…
..The current popular stories of an energy transition are really built upon a myth, a false narrative about the history of humans and energy. The reality is that we have never in human history fully transitioned off an energy source, we always add new sources on top of the old…
..The deeper question here is about what happens when there is less energy available overall. Cheap energy builds complex systems. Complex systems depend on cheap energy. When energy gets tight, complexity unravels. Current alternatives cannot replace what cheap oil does. https://natehagens.substack.com/p/essay-oil-201-what-happens-when-theJudge Blocks Trump Admin’s Move To Halt Wind, Solar Approvals https://www.zerohedge.com/political/judge-blocks-trump-admins-move-halt-wind-solar-approvals-0
Trump signs five executive orders to promote fossil fuels as essential to national security
The five orders seek to address a number of bottlenecks and impediments to coal, natural gas and petroleum production, including financial support, infrastructure development, improved supply chains, and permit expediting. https://justthenews.com/politics-policy/energy/trump-signs-five-executive-orders-promote-fossil-fuels-essential-nationalHow the energy shock due to Iran war compares with past disruptions
The 1979 Iranian Revolution resulted in a smaller-scale loss than the current disruption, but led to a larger cumulative loss.
Unlike earlier crises, the Iran war has simultaneously hit crude, natural gas, refined fuel and fertiliser supplies, exposing new vulnerabilities created by decades of rising demand, deeper global trade links and the Middle East’s expanded role as a supplier of finished fuels.
The peak supply loss from the current crisis stands at more than 12 million barrels per day, the IEA said earlier this month. That is equivalent to 11.5 percent of global oil demand, which this year is expected to average around 104.3 million bpd.
The outright daily supply loss is larger than earlier peak supply losses of 4.5 million bpd during the 1973 Arab oil embargo and of 5.6 million bpd during the Iranian revolution in 1979 combined, the IEA said. It is also higher than the estimated peak supply losses of 4.3 million bpd during the 1991 Gulf War, the IEA said.
The Iran war has also triggered the shutdown of roughly a fifth of the world’s liquefied natural gas production in Qatar.
The world consumes much more gas than it did during the oil shocks of the 1970s and 1990s. During the Arab oil embargo and the Iranian Revolution, the LNG industry was nascent. Qatar first exported LNG in 1996. https://www.trtworld.com/article/5ace3a7693b0 Mercuria, Goldman, JPMorgan See Major Aluminum Market Shock
“We are already in a ‘black swan’ event. No one could have foreseen something on this scale.” … Snowdon’s alarm over the global aluminum market is mainly because the Gulf region accounts for 9% of world supply, and with major smelters already declaring force majeure and the Hormuz chokepoint blocked for much of this week, this is shaping up to be one of the most memorable shocks in the metal market in decades.
Aluminum prices have already surged to a four-year high, and Mercuria estimates the market could face at least a 2 million-ton deficit by the end of the year, potentially worse. https://www.zerohedge.com/commodities/mercuria-goldman-jpmorgan-see-major-aluminum-market-shockNo other option now: EC to adopt 20th sanctions package without ban on Russian oil transportation https://tass.com/economy/2120771
“Russia is killing ten times more”: the Ukrainian Armed Forces have already lost over two million people. https://en.topcor.ru/70608-rf-ubivaet-v-desjat-raz-bolshe-vsu-uzhe-poterjali-svyshe-dvuh-millionov-chelovek.html
Russia Warns Moldova of Possible Intervention Over Threats to Transnistria
Sergei Shoigu, Russia’s former defense minister and now the secretary of the Security Council, warned that Russia could intervene if the unrecognized region of Transnistria were threatened.
The Moscow Times reported this.
He claimed that Moldova’s capital, Chișinău, allegedly with Ukraine’s involvement, has imposed a “blockade” on the region and is worsening living conditions for residents by creating barriers in trade, banking, and transportation.
“These include restrictions on freedom of movement, illegal customs charges, and arbitrary deprivation of citizenship… The situation, I’ll say it plainly, is difficult. Key industries are either not operating or functioning intermittently, and there is a chronic shortage of energy resources,” Shoigu said.
He added that “the rhetoric of Moldova’s leadership regarding Transnistria increasingly resembles statements made by Ukraine’s authorities about Donbas after 2014,” and warned Chișinău against escalation, threatening possible Russian intervention. https://militarnyi.com/en/news/russia-warns-moldova-of-possible-intervention-over-threats-to-transnistria/ Gilbert Doctorow, Communist Party Leader Zyuganov warns of a 1917 style revolution if government policies do not change
Yesterday, 22 April, on the anniversary of the birth of Vladimir Lenin, Russian Communist Party leader Gennady Zyuganov, who is a calm, collected and moderate politician, stood before the State Duma and warned that there may be a repetition of the revolutionary 1917 scenario in contemporary Russia: “If you don’t quickly take measures – financial, economic and other measures -then by autumn what await us is what happened in 1917.”
Those words touched off a vast controversy in the Russian social networks and the Party later issued a transcript which defined his warning more precisely: “If you do not change course in a fundamental way, then by autumn we may expect what happened in February 1917.”
For those unfamiliar with Russia’s two revolutions in 1917, the first one, in February was in fact a coup d’etat in which the Russian army commanders and chief politicians from the liberal centrist parties forced the abdication of the tsar. Put in modern language, it was a ‘palace revolution’ by the elites.
Note that Zyuganov was initially quoted as calling for financial and economic reform. What is that all about? Of course, it means that Nabiulina has to be fired and the insane high Central Bank interest rates must be brought down to levels that the small and medium sized enterprises can live with.
But as I have been saying in recent days, the Nabiulina interest rates which Putin has backed supposedly to counter inflation are a hidden way that the Putin government has been shutting down the consumer economy and subsidizing the war economy, so the issue is much bigger than just the prime rate by itself. It has everything to do with Russia’s current foreign policy that is preparing for a war with Europe several years down the road and with its military policy which is dragging out the war with Ukraine to absurd lengths for the profit of the oligarchs.
Russian elites, the foreign policy establishment, wants the war to end now. They have gotten no satisfaction from Putin. And now Zyuganov is saying in the Russian parliament what some prominent politicians within Russian have been saying: enough is enough; time to finish off Kiev right now. https://gilbertdoctorow.com/2026/04/23/communist-party-leader-zyuganov-warns-of-a-1917-style-revolution-if-government-policies-do-not-change/ ‘We were terrified they were going to kill us’: fishers who survived US boat strike speak out
An Ecuadorian fishing crew describe their ordeal as victims of Trump’s purported war on ‘narcoterrorists’ https://www.theguardian.com/global-development/2026/apr/21/ecuador-us-boat-strike-survivorsSenate To Vote on War Powers Resolution To Block US Attack on Cuba – Tell your senators to support S.J.Res. 124 to prevent a war with Cuba https://news.antiwar.com/2026/04/22/senate-to-vote-on-war-powers-resolution-to-block-us-attack-on-cuba/
HHS Shuts Down 500 LA Hospices. Some Were Registered to Burrito Stands and a Tire Store
Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) Administrator Dr. Mehmet Oz announced a requirement for all 50 states to audit their Medicaid provider networks to address waste… https://dailynewsfromaolf.substack.com/p/hhs-shuts-down-500-la-hospices-someRep. Luna Wants Pardon For Soldier Arrested In $400K Maduro Raid Insider Bet https://www.zerohedge.com/political/us-special-forces-soldier-arrested-400k-maduro-raid-insider-bet
Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. told senators on April 21 that glyphosate, a key ingredient in herbicides like Roundup, causes cancer and that human consumption of the chemical should be minimized. https://www.zerohedge.com/medical/rfk-jr-tells-senate-glyphosate-causes-cancer
BREAKING: U.S. Government Cancer Data Shows Early-Onset Cancers Surged 6.4% From 2021 to 2023
During the mass mRNA injection campaign, brain tumors, colon and rectal cancers, small intestine cancer, and ovarian cancer all rose sharply among Americans under 50. https://www.thefocalpoints.com/p/breaking-us-government-cancer-dataYet Another Dead NASA Scientist: Nuclear Propulsion Expert Was Found Charred Inside Crashed Tesla https://www.zerohedge.com/political/yet-another-dead-nasa-scientist-nuclear-propulsion-expert-was-found-charred-inside
She was repeatedly threatened, not suicidal: Read the chilling texts UFO-linked scientist sent before being found dead that raise major questions over suicide ruling https://www.dailymail.com/sciencetech/article-15748877/amy-eskridge-ufo-scientist-suicide-huntsville.html?ito=rss-connatix
Famous UFO Researcher David Wilcock Dead from ‘Apparent Suicide’ TWO DAYS After Posting Video Warning About How it’s ‘Scary’ that ‘Scientists Are Going Missing,’ Previously Posted About How He’s Not Suicidal https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2026/04/famous-ufo-researcher-david-wilcock-dead-apparent-suicide/
RAGING FIRE swallowed the US’s most Advanced Destroyer just a day before its Deployment to a warzone
Today Insight – the ideological contradictions
socialism – bureaucratic overreach
That necessary exploitation happened because the USA is innovative (freedom-based capitalism), while the CA/EU system is built on government control mechanisms.
Globalism, in its economic construct, is a series of dependencies. However, the opposite is also true. If nations are not dependent, they are sovereign – able to exist without the need for support from other nations and systems. If nations are sovereign, then globalism is no longer needed. If each nation of the world is operating according to its individual best interests, the position of Donald Trump, then what happens to the governing elite who set up the system of interdependencies?
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DeepSeek’s latest AI will manage complexities. (run the world)
————-America is being destroyed by stupid people. – Trump
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How to keep, (your job), the funding going – collective defense, (hate, fear), – who is doing the attacking, (KKK, White supremacists)
———–“What are other activist pressure groups that advocate censorship/deplatforming of their enemies that could be doing the same thing?”
Ooh ooh ooh! ADL ADL ADL!
“I’m not driving to work on cratered roads, detouring around the 11 missing bridges.”
Dr D, what utopian part of the US do you live in where the roads aren’t cratered by potholes and the bridges don’t fall down all on their own from deferred maintenance?
“many pointless joyrides with gas at $4.”
I’m sure everyone is fine paying 28% more than a year ago. I think I’ll buy a Hummer!
Oh, Canada:
Dr. D what you said is sadly Canada’s reality.
As my brother in Michigan says, “Canada is completely f*cked”.
It is sad that in order to find out what is really happening in Canada, I have to read US sourced information.
Canadians can not afford to have children of their own, because they have to support the children living in Ottawa.
tdk:
I think the only tribe that might take me are the English speaking Naskapi tribe located in northeastern Quebec, just north of my old home town of Schefferville! They are an Algonquin tribe.
In my very early days, my family had the help of a Naskapi woman, to cope with me!
That might, or might not, get me honorary tribal membership!The biggest problem is it is too bloody cold up there, as Zerosum knows all too well!
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