Debt Rattle May 15 2026
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Camille Pissarro Rue Saint-Honoré in the Afternoon, Effect of Rain 1897 • President Trump Discusses China Visit and Discussion with Chairman Xi (CTH)
[See the full post at: Debt Rattle May 15 2026]Dear D,
Your mention of porterhouse made me drool in my mouth.
What are you paying for North Atlantic lobster this new season.
Please watch this video and inform me why you support this evil and corruption.
Do you get a cut?
today’s tweeters and those who believe them
quite less than astute and stupendously naive
must admit to being envious of the latter
of course i always preferred Bijou to The Furry Freak Brothers, although Mr. Natural oft times made a valid point
bring back Firesign Theatre’s Blind Melon Chitlins!“Scott Ritter: Russia will Soon Expand War by Striking EUROPE” Daniel Davis / Deep Dive•11K•1h ago
So you’ll pay me $1,000 if they don’t? Russia is going to invade Poland, nuke Essex?
Listening to Alex Krainer, Dima today, and you’ll be glad to know it’s all perfectly obvious to him. It’s all Israel’s fault. The End. Well! That settles it! All thoughts can stop now. Moving on he also said the U.S. has completely lost and must surrender, having cut off all oil to China is the biggest blunder of all time, serving no purpose at all, and for which he must be completely humiliated.
Alex and Dima have also inspected and done a complete inventory of both the US Army and every Iranian tunnel, and Iran not only has every missile, taking no damage whatsoever, but Dima assures us that Iran in fact has 20% MORE missiles than when we started. On the opposite side, the U.S. is completely out of weapons altogether.
Iran is 10% the power of the U.S. yet the Army cannot invade and occupy it fully and conquer it completely. …Neglecting to mention that we DID use only 10% of our military to engage at all, and ran out of visible objects to hit in only 20 days, while additionally, we clearly have no intention of invading or occupying.
They then flip flop for 20 minutes on the “goals” of “Them” while flipping between Europe, Israel, the Gulf, and the US indistinguishably. They then flip between Iran, China, Russia, Global South and “The World” interchangably. With the “Them” of all sides being as if one man. All parties within the United States are also one man and so on. Are they? Is it? If Spain is the same as the US why did they stop our bases? If Germany is the same as Poland, Hungary, why are they fighting all the time? If Starmer is the same as Lowe, why have a collapse in Parliament? If Trump is the same as Walz and Comey, why are they arresting each other? Just asking questions here.
Far from making them reluctant about understanding and drawing conclusions, it instead made them far more certain than ever.
Needless to say we have RADICALLY different views about what is happening with the Iran war, the world, and our level of possible certainty about it. There certainly is a lot that’s hard to understand, but it is handwaved in each case to the Fox News, headline viewpoint, and essentially no contradicting data is discussed.
This is actually a good and great thing, since Europe, as with headlines, with the alternate set like Alex and the Durans, with the Dugans, all are so perfectly sure of themselves and their personal moral and intellectual genius they are unable to see “the American” view at all, even when we tell them directly, and there is no need to hide it whatsoever.
With a truly supernatural level of complete blindness we should have no trouble succeeding at all. With essentially no losses, which is in fact the case since 2024 at least, so far.
“Senators Unanimously Pass Resolution To Withhold Their Own Pay During Shutdowns
I thought hell has frozen over. Well they don’t need pay since insider trading is still “legal”.
“Billionaire and Democrat donor Stephen Cloobeck was arrested Tuesday in Los Angeles on suspicion of felony charges of attempting to prevent or dissuade a victim or witness from testifying after a warrant was issued for his arrest.
Cloobeck, founder of Diamond Resorts – who until recently was a major financial supporter of former Rep. Eric Swalwell’s (D) failed campaign for California governor, was booked into custody in West Hollywood,”Frozen and frosty. Where is the Arrest-o-meter? ‘Cause it’s no longer on zero, clearly. Omar is also clearly in a major arrest crosshairs. Half of Atlanta as well.
“Murders Down Roughly 20% In 2025, FBI Preliminary Data Show
Uhhhh…reporting? Because the only reason it can drop that much is if, for example, a few million criminals who should be here all just left. And what could possibly cause that to happen? Criminals only understand force, rounding people up n stuff.
“Minnesota ‘Culture Of Fraud’ Enabled More Than $9 Billion In Misused Taxpayer Funds, Panel SaysMore hell freezing over, more winning. We don’t arrest a “Culture”, we arrest specific instances of fraud specific named people profited from: and you were the one robbed. You are their victim and food source. Needy children of Minnesota somewhere were not served because the money was stolen by the PMCs.
“DOJ Sues DC Bar Over Its Prosecution Of Former Trump Lawyer, Calls It “Partisan Arm Of Leftist Causes”
Another de facto arrest. Another re-establishment of law, order and normalcy. I blame Orange Man.
“The Petrodollar Is Breaking Down Faster Than Anyone Expected – Gold, Silver & XRP Bob Moriarty YT
Yes, the dollar is .99 and hasn’t moved since forever. Its usage decline is slow, steady, but multi-decadal. If you count against benchmarks Gold and Oil, then sure, but that’s very lumpy. Not sure how you’d define it. Let’s say a 5-year rolling average?
But dollar usage and US Treasuries appear in no trouble whatsoever, much to his sadness. And this is worse since he’s said the same thing since 1995 and has been wrong for 30 years. You could say about the silver price too (he focuses on metals) sure it’s gone up huge…but nowhere near as huge as Dow, Bitcoin, Tesla. That’s just being dead-wrong.
“Robert Kagan on why he believes U.S. faces likely defeat in Iran YT
Neocons all against war. Huh. I bet taking the other side of the NeoCons is still the side of good and light, whaddya say? These are the same Neocons who say we can’t do what we’re doing but need to land a million men and invade too. Funny. Sounds like they just like murder and losing and are furious when that doesn’t happen.
“What President Trump is doing in Beijing right now is something entirely different:”
Was going to say this yesterday with “What fresh completely false nonsense have they made up out of their bums today?” A summit and delegation that includes CEOs and trade officials? That’s never happened except ALMOST ALWAYS, over ALL TIME. Trump is only trying to get rich personally, that’s why every other leader in world history does it too, because he’s uniquely evil. At least 2/3rds of them are like this, which is why it’s completely revolutionary and new, as the quote above.
He’s a big dork everyone hates, that’s why Xi pulled out the (symbolic) stops for a state visit, while Europe is met at the airport with tourist customs and a city bus (this actually happened to Ursula). So everyone in the world hates Trump — Alex, Ritter, Johnson, Pepe say, except the ONE BILLION people in China? I’m not saying he has to be universally loved, I’m just saying their story “Everybody, all nations” is false. Provably and easily false.
Yet people just repeat it anyway because they WANT it to be true. Why? A: For their personal Feelz. They need to HATE, the HATE is SO! GOOD! …Comfortable in their house on their pension and PMC pay, safely not building anything, but complaining you made that 3-point shot wrong.
““Trump and Xi agreed that the Strait of Hormuz should remain open to free navigation and that Tehran should not charge a fee to ships using the critical waterway.”
Interesting. I’m agnostic on the specifics, so long as it’s reasonable and open, but okay. That’s two veto votes demanding that, Iran is going nowhere.
CHINA IS COME OUT DIRECTLY AGAINST IRAN.
Checkmate.
“TRUMP SAYS CHINA’S XI OFFERED TO HELP ON IRAN: FOX NEWS”
Seems to be confirming this, which we just let pass bc Trump says a lot of things. And it makes sense, that’s China’s national interest. However, that closes the NeoCon story that “The West” (of which there is no more) takes out Iran, then Russia, then China. That’s CLEARLY not what Russia and China think. And they could, that’s not a crazy expectation, it’s a normal one. So for reasons inexplicable or hidden they “Trust” the U.S. here? Why? We can see they’re doing it, but what’s hidden for that to be true? ….Well Loungo or I have been saying for year(s) now. We couldn’t prove it but actions keep stacking up that’s correct.
Xi gives no weapons to Iran
Both countries agreed that Iran can never have a nuclear weapon.What are we 5 for 5 on Iran here? Checkmate. It will still take time though: as I keep saying, Iran can uselessly harass the straits for quite a long time with bows and arrows. That was always the problem.
IF say, Luongo, etc is right then China realized they are buying oil from Iran/Ven is really buying from LONDON. And they, Globalists, will never stabilize the situation, because it profits them, and they will never increase the flow. It’s real cartel druglord approach. The U.S. is “If we pump more, we profit more” which is different. The point is NOT to cut it off.
“The Secretary of State Is Cool (Sarah Anderson)
This is positioning Rubio for President. Guh. Still cannot explain why Rubio is competent at all. Did they swap him out for a robot? Whatever, competent is competent, I look for the catch, but if there isn’t one, what can you say.
“• Europe’s Dependence On US LNG Set To Surge (Irina Slav)
Hopefully we’re not intending to CRUSH them, just control/contain them. We’ll see. This is decadal, meaning many Presidents. Capital flows over decades. You look up and the UK Pound was 5:1 USD and is now par or something like in 1972. It was AWFUL for Europe. Awful.
“US Wants To Restore Nord Stream & Purchase, At Steep Discount: Lavrov (ZH)
Face value stupid, but only thing that can happen: Russia can sell gas, profit. Europe can not longer f—k with the pipeline because it’s American. We make a vig on the pointless stupidity because stupid is as stupid does. Outcome SHOULD be okay, but Europe has arranged to pay an extra 5% or whatever for lifetimes, for no good reason at all. The mass-murdering warmonger tax. Russia doesn’t lower prices, but gets stability and no headaches. When we make the 5%, that’s the fair service we provide, very common and normal.
“• NATO Chief Wants To Triple Money Flows To Ukraine – Politico (RT)
Congress just gave money to “Ukraine”. Yeah we all know that’s just money they need for their midterm elections, money-laundered there with a return trip.
“If you are already part of NATO, then you can’t create a separate army.”
The real solution is to have THREE armies: A Spanish one, a NATO one, AND an EU one, and pay for all THREE! …Oh and a private one for Blackrock. I hear there’s plenty of money in Europe they’re not pinched at all.
Two words: Taxing Authority.
““This is the moment of the sovereignty and independence of Europe.” That is, Taxing Authority. The PEOPLE of Europe won’t give it to them. I can’t imagine why.
“• Trump Administration Uncovers Massive Welfare, Citizenship Abuses (JTN)
Yes, but it’s not “Uncovered”, everyone knew for decades. Even Minneapolis Local News covered this decades ago, expecting it to blow open, but Obama, Biden, (Bush, Trump) did nothing and let them steal the $9B for CIA ops. Ppl were shot on their doorsteps for this. (remember one in DC too)
“He was the fifth Democrat to die in office since Jan. 3, 2025,”
Like one a month. They’ve been saying Congress is too old since GenX like 25 years ago they were too old. They’re now TWO generations too old and won’t give up. (Trump is 80) What was the one got lost, had staffers voting, and was found in a nursing home? Surprisingly not Nancy Pelosi? Biden, of course.
Here’s the thing the article is sideline to: the LOCAL interest – or at least on the Democrat side – is to be as radical as possible. Full Pol Pot if at all possible, like Mamdani. That definitely wins local elections and activates local base. Great. However, on the NATIONAL level, any AOC or Mandani is a big loss for any moderates nationally. Being a Democrat in Nebraska now means you want full communism, erasure of private property, and to chop up all kids with the age of consent lowered to 4. That sells great in CT and CA but loses the moderates, so the moderates are driven out, as we’ve seen 10, 20 years. Every single famous “Far right” is a Democrat: Rogan, Trump, Vance, Tulsi, Elon, Pool… The party then gets Mo’ Crazier, repeat.
At the NATIONAL level then, there are no Presidential candidates, and they need to own some other governmental levers like that, like Court Justices, and can’t get them, being too radical for the middle 99% of American voters. This has now slowly chewing up their leg to above the knee for years, but they thought they’d have the Bolshevik revolution shooting war by now and wouldn’t need to care. Preventing, avoiding that – that is, the simple task of NOT shooting your neighbors, even when they annoy you a little – has exposed them. You could say it’s “Biblical”? “Don’t be Evil and do other stuff gooder too”?
On the flip side, GOP goes pro-let’s be wealthy and leave people alone, which scales big and small. They ALSO have young people, but the young people aren’t “Radical”, only billed that way by very left wing news. Again, I don’t say this, go to any newspaper media outlet and ask. Like any Teachers, universities, etc, every single one would tell you they think Mao was a softie and too far-right. I talk to them daily. So I’m not accusing them of being Socialists – or even violent – they gleefully TELL you they are. “Burn it all down.” In fact, like vegetarians, you can’t actually get them to shut up and NOT tell you how communist they are and how many people they hate and want to kill. I’m pretty tolerant and threats make no impression on me, but find this rather off-putting. It’s inappropriate to go around hating whole groups and planning their murders, as if I have to point that out, yet here we are.
Mamdani threatened (and acted) on eevry millionaire, his housing director openly wants the destruction of every landlord, and the Governor wants the death of every Red hat. They are working in concert to accomplish this task daily instead of, eg, being Ground Zero for all Epstein events for 30 years, every Wienstein, every Nexium, multiple NDA rapes, every housing fraud, and every pension robbery, and Cuomo himself murdering 5,000 people. Not interesting to them. They don’t have money to steal bc they’re already dead.
So they both have “Young” members, but one is very different from the core, and one is very similar. Because of how they behave, one has a ever-wider roster of potential talent, and one has ever fewer.
“• US Gov’t Settles With Former NYT Reporter in Vaccine Censorship Case (ET)
It only took him a million dollars and 10 years, to win a million dollars and lose 10 years.
“worth much more than the other top ten countries combined. We create so much wealth because of creative entrepreneurs who are free to build new companies”
Not exactly. They print money to make fraudulent IPOs mostly, but the key here is we still suck way less than everyone else…even if we suck 90%. …We’re 90% better than you are.
“Worldwide freedom fighter and WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange is reportedly teaming up with American patriot”
Wondered what he was up to. Everyone feels Snowden was an agent. Yes, but what KIND of agent? My take is, they needed this done and drew straws. Ed got the short one and has done his best.
I don’t have a direct line for wholesale lobsters here but sounds nice.
As above, 2/3rds of all such summits have always included business. Suddenly history started 2024 and this never happened. Nixon never went to China, nor Bush Sr.
OBVIOUSLY we should NOT sell any jets to China, that’s very naughty. China should OBVIOUSLY not sell anything like car parts to us. We should go to war instead! Like sensible people!
That is the magic benefit I get by supporting it. We all trade peacefully, doing whatever we like.
Business is Evil! Wwe should definitley stop building and making stuff, then we wouldn’t have to sell and trade it. Because no one’s working, when we run out of stuff in a week, we just ATTACK AND KILL anyone who DOES have stuff. This is the road to certain riches with no downside at all.
Orrrrrr, we could do business and BOTH get rich, how is is Corrupt to make China wealthy? Is it because we must not be allowed to prosper at the same time?
No: ALL AMERICANS MUST DIE. Even the newborns, in the cradle. We accept nothing less! They are evil AT BIRTH, by accident of birth.
Well s—t man, you’ve been killing a million a year using your various ways, was that not enough?
I disagree categorically with Blumenthal here. Again, Iran having nothing to fight with in 20 days means we lost. Cutting off China’s oil worldwide means we have no leverage.
HOWWWWWWWWWWW???
How? He “Just Says”. That’s it. He “Just says” the U.S. is weak. As jobs rocket to record levels overnight. As we start booking billions in oil monthly. As our comparative gas prices are the LOWEST, so we are hurt the LEAST.
Max “Just says” they go begging. That’s it, “just says”. Like AI videos, that makes it true!
How about China “Just begs” us not to cut off their food and oil, both of which we own and have them by the balls.
He “Just says” that MTG “Just Said”. Well! In that case! More people “Just said” that proves it!
“He’s making a lot of mistakes and everyone can see it”
Completely, that’s why his support is stronger than ever, because everyone hates him and has turned. Galloway then says Trump falls asleep in front of the camera, unable to speak. Yup! That Donald! Always quiet as a mouse! The US Media is radically, slavishly pro-Trump both say. Yup! Totes. Well-known.
Talks about nothing but the ballroom. The whut? That was like one story two weeks ago, didn’t you hear there’s an IRAN on? Nope! Galloway has never heard this. There is a statue. Oh wow. Good to know there’s important news going on. They damaged the paint on the pool. The Whitehouse has never been worked on or constructed before, despite being essentially demolished in 1949. Max says it’s bad his corporate buddies were paying for it but it’s ALSO bad that he’s lying and taxpayers pay for it!
ALSO bad that he’s paying the workers, the Scum! Trump, the maniac IS PAYING THE CONTRACTORS THAT ARE DOING THE CONSTRUCTION. Can you believe the nerve of that guy?
Then again, they remark it both Is, but Isn’t reducing his support, which is lower on Democrats, which means Democrats are winning.
We are a mere 13 minutes in.
Iran has won the war, and Galloway assures us we are surrendering and won’t bomb anything ever again when the summit is over.
He lost if he goes in, and he lost if he doesn’t. Max says this war was for Israel, which was the secondmost flattened country, now severely weakened. Max says the war go on, which ove course completely agrees with Galloway, who says it’s ended.
Max says Iran should keep all the Uranium and make more bombs, which is great. Any attempt to prevent atom bombs is stupid.
He appears to say the USSC redistricting made REPUBLICANS lose 20 seats? Huh? And it’s getting worse? Huh? Well, when you “Just say things” that’s how it goes! “Just Make S–t Up!”
UAE is an oppressive dictatorial government, Iran is a free, moral, and open one.
Peace in the Gulf, ie the “Abraham Accords” are actually a child pedophole ring, viz “The Epstein Accords”. The two are identical. Florida guy, in America, with Israel = Gulf States, in 2018, 20 years later, halfway around the world. Different people, places, nations, purposes, are exactly the same. Just like a teapot in China is identical to a lawn mower in Minneapolis.
Trump is desperate to end the war and open the straits, which is why they are diplomatically lazy and are doing nothing there at all. (He literally said this) So fast = slow, slow = fast.
Ukraine: the US is the only one there, we are directing and running the whole thing. The only people on the planet who wants war is the Trump family personally. That’s why he cut off all weapons, money, and support first day and has been pummeling the entire leadership of Europe about the face and neck on this daily.
So another in a relentless illustration of pure genius.
They are as if AI: you hand it a dictionary and tell it to compose plausible sentences. Everything equals its opposite. All evidence is discarded, all contradictions only prove their case.
…As long as it means Orange Man, and everyone in the U.S. can surrender and be killed.
Thanks Max. You know, like Pepe yesterday (I didn’t realize that StrategicCulture.su was Pepe) I once had ANY respect for you guys. They are LITERALLY gibbering insane. Like disagree, I can take; this is Words have no meanings, practical effects have no meanings, logic has no meanings, history has no meaning:
…Only HATE has meaning. Only FEELING. I FEEL I HATE these guys, and if the whole world has to be twisted into a pretzel and burn to support that end, so be it.
When will it end.
I concluded that My Copilot forced a shutdown of my computer when I tried to comment on …
• Trump Administration Uncovers Massive Welfare, Citizenship Abuses (JTN)The shutdown forced the lost of all my saved comments on the surrender of USA
(It did not end the world)
————Iran War Summary: Week Eleven
15th May 2026
Dr. Rob Campbellhttps://robcampbell.substack.com/p/iran-war-summary-week-eleven
This week, the standoff continues in the war between Iran and the US with the Israelis impatiently waiting for Trump’s permission to expand their murder and destruction. The Iran War, the Zionists claim, will be considered lost if the Americans fail to steal Iran’s enriched Uranium. But most of all the Zionists want Iran destroyed or brought to heel. They will most certainly be disappointed in this regard. They are already disappointed with their failure to deal with Hezbollah in South Lebanon as IDF casualties mount.
In the Persian Gulf, the Iranians have almost total control of Hormuz while Trump and his team are desperately seeking the least humiliating off ramp possible. The Donald continues to regurgitate his deluded account of fantasy negotiations with Iran and is in China as I write hoping that Xi and Putin can help him out of this mess. With Trump in China, it has been possible to relax a little about a return to the hot war. But tensions will return when the markets close at the end of the day.
The US’s propaganda narrative has been reduced to one line: ‘Iran cannot be allowed to have nuclear weapons’.He got stoned and changed his password and forgot it: “LoL420F*ckThePOLICE!”: Millennial Uses Claude To Crack Crypto Wallet After Decade-Long Lockout https://www.zerohedge.com/crypto/lol420fckthepolice-millennial-uses-claude-crack-crypto-wallet-after-decade-long-lockout
mister trump either knew or was too stupid to know..
same difference
he was there at the nsc meetings
he had to have known….
it’s getting too hard to bear
PTDS = Pro-Trump Derangement Syndrome
Does the genocidal apartheid state have a right to exist? Build the Ballroom!
@DrJohn: With a password like that, I’m glad the guy got his bitcoin back.
Dear D,
“
What is already certain is that the idiocy of trying to retain global dominance by strangulating emerging superpower China via a “blockade” of Iranian ports and the Strait of Hormuz and setting the whole of West Asia to go up in flames while bankrupting their own economy in the process must feature in the Top Three of the long series of idiocies produced by the deeply deluded U.S. Deep State.
“
The Emperor Has No Clothes and No Cards
Business Shanghai is not exactly impressed by the arrival of the Emperor of Barbaria.SHANGHAI – China’s powerhouse moves on like a speed-breaking EV. The atmosphere is electric. At a business dinner in a landmark Cantonese restaurant, Trump’s visit to China at least propels the conversation towards something more tangible: the conflicting paths for future generations from the West down to the East.
Business Shanghai is not exactly impressed by the arrival of the Emperor of Barbaria. Even if every possible geopolitical variable may be at stake in what is arguably the most important diplomatic meeting of the Year of War 2026, with possible trade and security decisions bound to affect the whole Global South.
Let’s start with pedestrian American concerns. A master in the Art of No Empathy, Trump at least may have vociferated the whole game away: “I don’t think about Americans’ financial situation. I don’t think about anybody.”
And yet he does. He’s terrified of becoming a fat lame duck after the mid-terms. So he will pressure Beijing to buy more soybeans – to appease his Midwest base – and more Boeings. He will pressure Beijing to export rare earths – to appease the industrial-military complex.
And of course he will exercize maximum pressure on Xi to press Tehran to open the Strait of Hormuz, so oil prices will come down, inflation will be reduced, and the Fed will cut rates.
He holds zero cards to achieve this agenda. On the tech war, his maximum pressure only led to China spectacularly bypassing U.S. suppliers, over and over again. On the trade war, China amply diversified exports and even got a record trade surplus.
Iran of course is the key – not least by showing for all the planet to see the glaring structural mega-holes of the “indispensable nation”. What will Trump do? Threaten Xi because Iran is using the Chinese BeiDou satellite system, which de facto reduced the whole of West Asia to a glass house for Iranian ballistic missiles?
Iran never lost its oil connectivity corridor to China when the Emperor of Barbaria came up with the “blockade”. The flow is on, via the shadow tanker network navigating close to Iranian and Pakistani territorial waters, ship-to-ship transfers, disguised cargoes, and now Chinese refiners told by Beijing to absorb the sanctions risk.
That’s not a fight in effect only in thalossacratic terms, but also in Eurasia overland terms – via the Eurasian rail corridor, those trains running from Xian to Tehran and vice-versa. Railways may still not match the volume of maritime exports, but strategically that’s abolutely key, driving the point that maritime pressure is completely different from overland economic strangulation.
The “brilliant” American idea of suffocating China’s oil supply chain – from Venezuela to Hormuz – plus sanctioning Chinese teapot refineries only led to China emerging as one of the key real mediators during the (non-stop broken) ceasefire, alongside Russia.
The whole Hormuz game, played to perfection by Iran, has had very little impact on Chinese imports, as much as restricting exports of Nvidia H100 and H200 to “control” Chinese AI had next to zero impact. After all, China de facto ignores Nvidia. The DeepSeek V4 model uses local chips. And the H200 is not sold in China.
Xi won’t even need to tell Trump face to face that if he insists on deploying financial war by shutting down the financial institutions behind the teaport refineries, Beijing will have no trouble into deploying full-scale economic war.
Taiwan is not the only remaining card. Taiwan is not even a card. Taiwan is an internal security matter for Beijing. Everything else is just spin. Beijing may invest in persuading Trump about nullifying the $11 billion weapons sale to Taiwan, includign Aegis-equipped destroyers, F-35s, (inefficient) Patriot missiles and E-2D Hawkeye aircraft for early warning signs. But even that is peripheral.
So what’s left after all the (reduced) pomp and circumstance? At best the current, quite precarious status quo.
The Chinese tech war plan
In a nutshell, Trump’s game is to force Xi to apply diplomatic pressure on Iran into accepting Barbaria’s terms on ending the war. That’s a major non-starter on every aspect.
Even if that happened, in exchange Trump might offer “stable” U.S.-China trade relations; extensions to trade truces; and concessions on tech controls. Xi is not impressed by any of it – as much as he knows, following Lavrov’s maxim, that he U.S. is “non-agreement capable”.
The badly burnt BRICS brand may not even feature in the discussions. China will address its serious internal challenges separately, in the meeting of Foreign Ministers in India nearly simultaneous to Trump-Xi in Beijing.
Xi also may suspect that Trump’s real handlers – Tech Feudalism, Big Banking and assorted scions of Zionism Inc. – have concocted a sequenced, systemic world war that is already being waged, from now to roughly 2040, targeting essential global infrastructure, trade and energy, designed to collapse the old order and install a real Great Reset, in way more profitable terms.
That’s the exact, blunt, brute opposite of the official Chinese policy, which seeks to form a community for a shared future for mankind. Xi won’t deviate one milimeter from this policy, actually his policy, to appease the outsized ego of a pathologic, psychopathic Narcissist.
Xi is already concentrated on the 141-page Five-Year Plan, unveiled in March, which refers to AI over 50 times; targets 70% AI penetration across the Chinese economy by 2027; and commits to space-Earth quantum communication networks, nuclear fusion timelines, and brain-computer interfaces.
The Five-Year Plan also declares “extraordinary measures” for rare earths and semiconductor self-reliance – tightening a supply chain without which the U.S. military simply perishes.
The Chinese plan foresees AI implemented all across the economy; robotics as the industrial backbone; space infrastructure; quantum computing; and total strenghtening of rare earth processing dominance.
Call it a de facto Chinese war plan – to the level of national security priority – in a direct confrontation with the U.S.. To believe that Trump would be able to alter any of it with a stack of empty promises is beyond naïve.
The historic record shall be written. What is already certain is that the idiocy of trying to retain global dominance by strangulating emerging superpower China via a “blockade” of Iranian ports and the Strait of Hormuz and setting the whole of West Asia to go up in flames while bankrupting their own economy in the process must feature in the Top Three of the long series of idiocies produced by the deeply deluded U.S. Deep State.
The views of individual contributors do not necessarily represent those of the Strategic Culture Foundation.
When Killing Becomes Commonplace
Andrew P. Napolitano
May 14, 2026“It is forbidden to kill; therefore all murderers are punished
unless they kill in large numbers and to the sound of trumpets.”
— Voltaire (1694-1778)Last week, when the Pentagon resumed its attacks on small boats in the Caribbean and eastern Pacific Ocean, the media barely noticed. The U.S. military has now destroyed 56 vessels and killed 190 persons. The killings began in September 2025 and have continued to this month.
The attacks caused a stir a few months ago when one of the strikes disabled the boat at which the attack was aimed but failed to kill all the passengers. When a follow-up strike was ordered, it succeeded where the initial strike had failed. The admiral who ordered the murder of the survivors told members of Congress in secret that he believed he was following orders. The secretary of defense denied that he ordered the survivors to be killed.
Killing survivors is expressly prohibited by federal law as well as by the Uniform Code of Military Justice. And, of course, ordering the killing of innocents is always unlawful.
So, the Pentagon made two changes. It produced more lethal strikes so as not to be burdened with the problem of survivors, and it either stopped killing survivors or stopped revealing that it killed them.
Everyone who professionally monitors the government expects that it will not be truthful when the truth is unpleasant or reveals criminal behavior. This expectation is realistic, considering history and Supreme Court rulings that permit the government to lie.
The Navy rescued two survivors whom it failed to kill. Under the law, rescuing is to be done by the Coast Guard. But that law was written when the Coast Guard was in the Department of Defense. Today, it is in the Department of Homeland Security, which is largely mistrusted by the DoD.
So, rather than share information about its attempted murders with a department of the government over which it has no control, rather than having a team ready and nearby to rescue survivors, the Pentagon assigned the Navy to arrive long afterward and rescue two fishermen.
But the Navy didn’t know what to do with them, so its legal team asked Department of Justice lawyers for guidance. They asked the DoD what evidence of crimes it had on these fishermen, whereupon the DoD was unable to provide an answer that would rise to the level of probable cause — the legal standard for charging and detaining anyone.
Probable cause is a level of evidence such that a neutral person would conclude that it is more likely than not that the detained persons committed a stated crime. At that point, the DoJ told the DoD to return these would-be victims to their home countries.
In 56 attacks, and one follow-up attack, only three persons survived. Two of them have hired American lawyers and have served notice of their intention to sue the federal government for its attempted murder of them.
The government initially claimed that these killings were of known drug dealers and this was part of a law enforcement operation. Yet, under federal law, the military is prohibited from engaging in law enforcement.
When confronted with that, the White House claimed that the folks in the boats were enemy combatants, and thus susceptible to targeting by the military. But that would require some empirical evidence of their use of force or violence against U.S. personnel, of which the government revealed none.
Then, the White House likened the effect of the sale of drugs as a war on the American people and offered that the job of the military is to defend the country in wartime from what it called narco-terrorists. Yet, controlled dangerous substances are initially ingested voluntarily either by those looking to become addicted and separated from reality, or by those who believe that they — not the government — own their own bodies.
It is clear that none of the government’s changing justifications for these killings amounts to a legally cogent argument. The Constitution requires due process — notice, fair trial, right to appeal — and it permits only judges to impose sentences; and it requires judges to impose only sentences that have been prescribed by law.
Stated differently, the president cannot order the killing of a person because he thinks or fears — or even knows — of their criminal behavior. It is apparently of no moment to him that drug dealing is not a capital offence.
The Voltaire quotation at the top of this piece about murders and trumpets has haunted me since I first read it as a college student. The reference to the trumpets was Voltaire’s way of calling attention to government wars and executions, many of which in his day were often accompanied by trumpets.
But trumpets or not, all this raises the question: How can an act that is intrinsically evil — the intentional killing of the legally innocent — become moral or lawful just because it is committed by government officials? The short answer is: IT CANNOT. Moreover, intrinsically evil acts can never produce moral outcomes, because the toleration of pure evil will propagate it.
In America, all persons are innocent until proven guilty beyond a reasonable doubt and to a moral certainty. This principle has been a bedrock of Anglo-American jurisprudence for 600-plus years. The president and all in government take an oath of fidelity to the Constitution, whose values embody this principle.
A government is illicit when it violates the very laws it enforces. When the government breaks its own laws, it invites others to do so. When it kills innocents, it invites others to do so. It is always immoral and criminal for anyone intentionally to extinguish innocent human life.
And now, Trump’s ordered killings are so commonplace, there is little coverage and less outrage. But we will see both when the killings come home.
To learn more about Judge Andrew Napolitano, visit JudgeNap.com.
Reprinted with the author’s permission.
Copyright © Andrew P. Napolitano
The Best of Andrew P. Napolitano
Andrew P. Napolitano [send him mail], a former judge of the Superior Court of New Jersey, is the senior judicial analyst at Fox News Channel. Judge Napolitano has written nine books on the U.S. Constitution.
Dear D,
Consider this:
How can an act that is intrinsically evil — the intentional killing of the legally innocent — become moral or lawful just because it is committed by government officials? The short answer is: IT CANNOT. Moreover, intrinsically evil acts can never produce moral outcomes, because the toleration of pure evil will propagate it.In America, all persons are innocent until proven guilty beyond a reasonable doubt and to a moral certainty.
May 15, 2026
Trump Leaves China With Little In Hand
President Trump’s visit to China has ended.I had predicted that there would be no tangible outcome from that trip:
Trump is coming to Beijing with his cap in his hand. He, as usual, will try to bluff a way to ‘victory’. He will proceed as if the U.S. were in a great position. The Chinese will be polite, but won’t have any of it.
There have been little preparations for the trip. The sherpas did not convene beforehand to straighten out serious issues between the countries. There are no big contracts or treaties to sign.
One hope had been to sell some 500 Boeing jets to several Chinese airlines. Returning from the trip Trump has claimed that China would buy 200 airplanes. The Chinese Foreign Ministry declined to confirm that. Boeing’s stock price dropped.
Some 20 company bosses had joined Trump on the trip. But there seem to have been no plans or tasks for any of them. No deals were made, no contracts were signed.
Trump offered to lift the U.S. blockade on the sales of some older NVIDIA AI chips to China. China declined as it now makes its own chips with similar characteristics.
The Chinese side spoke of a “new positioning” and a “constructive strategic stability” as major outcomes of the talks.
The “new positioning” is seeing the U.S. and China as equals with China being objectively in a better position.
The “constructive strategic stability” could be interpreted as an advise to the U.S. to shut up and stay quiet while China is doing its thing:
President Xi clearly pointed out that “constructive strategic stability” means positive stability with cooperation as the mainstay, healthy stability with competition within proper limits, constant stability with manageable differences, and lasting stability with expectable peace. These “four stabilities” paint a clear and feasible blueprint for China-US relations. It is not a stopgap measure, but a long-term approach. It is not a zero-sum game, but a mutual benefit and win-win cooperation. The “four stabilities” lead strategic stability with a constructive attitude and safeguard long-term development through strategic stability, fully demonstrating that China-US relations are a relationship between major powers fully capable of helping each other succeed and prospering together.
While Trump was in China some 30 Chinese ships moved through the Strait of Hormuz in coordination with the Iranian authorities. Given that Trump was in China the U.S. blockaders in the Arab Sea did not dare to make attempts to stop those ships. This has thus has set a precedence which will allow continues Chinese shipping.
For China the Strait is open.
Amb. Chas Freeman: COLLAPSE IMMINENT: US Picks Fights w/ China, Russia, Iran – Israel is the Trigger
the thought that there is a lyric, music and scene that encapsulates how i experience Dr. D. has been on my mind of late.
the lieutenant and the song Bali Ha’i from South Pacific is my choice
Bali Ha’i
Most people live on a lonely island,
Lost in the middle of a foggy sea.
Most people long for another island,
One where they know they will like to be.Bali Ha’i may call you,
Any night, any day,
In your heart, you’ll hear it call you:
“Come away…Come away.”Bali Ha’i will whisper
In the wind of the sea:
“Here am I, your special island!
Come to me, come to me!”Your own special hopes,
Your own special dreams,
Bloom on the hillside
And shine in the streams.
If you try, you’ll find me
Where the sky meets the sea.
“Here am I your special island
Come to me, Come to me.”Bali Ha’i,
Bali Ha’i,
Bali Ha’i!Someday you’ll see me floatin’ in the sunshine,
My head stickin’ out from a loaf nighin’ cloud,
You’ll hear me call you,
Singin’ through the sunshine,
Sweet and clear as can be:
“Come to me, here am I, come to me.”
If you try, you’ll find me
Where the sky meets the sea.
“Here am I your special island
Come to me, Come to me.”Bali Ha’i,
Bali Ha’i,
Bali Ha’i!No discussion of rare earth elements
TRUMP GOES TO CHINA – THE WOUNDED BEAST LOOKS FOR ANOTHER BLOODY WAR IN THE ASIAN PACIFICOpposing the ruling elites is detrimental, if you win.
eg. Haiti, Cuba, Mediterranean countries,
Maybe, that’s why the US chose to surrender
Where will the money come from to pay for the soya beans, the 200 planes and any oil that they buy from US?
Hummmm
How about trading paper money for assethttps://www.investopedia.com/articles/investing/080615/china-owns-us-debt-how-much.asp
Understanding China’s Ownership of U.S. Debt
By The Investopedia Team
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Full Bio
Investopedia contributors come from a range of backgrounds, and over 25 years there have been thousands of expert writers and editors who have contributed.
Learn about our editorial policies
Updated May 04, 2026
Reviewed by Michael J Boyle
Fact checked by Amanda JacksonChina holds the number three position with $693.3 billion of U.S. Treasurys, about 1.8% of the total U.S. debt.
The Chinese buy up dollar bills in the form of Treasurys. This helps inflate the value of the dollar. American consumers get cheap Chinese products and incoming investment capital in return. The average American is made better off by foreigners providing inexpensive services and demanding only pieces of paper in return.
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