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Debt Rattle August 22 2026

Aug 222026
 
 August 22, 2026  Posted by at 9:12 am Finance Tagged with: , , , , , , , ,  28 Responses »


René Magritte Personal values 1952


• China Rejects US Demand To Back Its Economic Operation Against Iran (ZH)
• The Strait of Hormuz Is Repricing the Entire World Economy (Martin Armstrong)
• Deaths of ‘Iranian Leaders’ Hindering Deal With US — Trump (TASS)
• U.S-Canada Trade War is Now a Reality (CTH)
• Cocaine Networks and Communists — Marco’s Been Busy Today (Sarah Anderson)
• AOC for President? It’s Time We Take That Proposition Seriously (Rick Moran)
• Remember the Names (James Howard Kunstler)
• ‘My Guardian and Protector’: Natalie Harp’s Devotion to Trump (CNN)
• FBI Seizes Devices Belonging to Eric Swalwell (CTH)
• Mirror, Mirror on The Wall: Who Is the Prettiest Politician of Them All? (SA)
• Wait, What? Trump Was on Michael Cohen’s Radio Show? (Matt Margolis)

 


 

https://twitter.com/John_F_kJr/status/2090543513674961159?s=20

 


 


But will China understand?

• China Rejects US Demand To Back Its Economic Operation Against Iran (ZH)

China has firmly rejected Washington’s call to join in implementing US sanctions to “squash” Iran’s economy, pushing back against Trump administration pressure to be part of the “toughest sanctions in history” which has marked a new phase of conflict focused on extended economic warfare, as a military solution is seen as increasingly unrealistic and unlikely.”Regarding the Iran issue, sanctions and pressure do not help resolve the problem,” Reuters quoted a representative of the Chinese Embassy in Washington as saying. The White House’s new plan is to include heavy reliance on international pressure on external countries to impose extreme isolation on the Islamic Republic.


Chinese foreign ministry spokesman Lin Jian said the same to reporters Friday in a regular briefing. “China calls on all relevant parties to take responsible measures and resolve the problem through political and diplomatic means,” he said. Asked specifically about the latest comments of US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, Lin emphasized the need for all parties to take “responsible measures” in resolving the war. “China opposes illegal unilateral sanctions that have no basis in international law and are not authorized by the UN Security Council,” Lin said.

Bessent had on Thursday told CNBC: “It is a one-two punch. We have the blockade (on Iran), and we are going to have the toughest sanctions in history.” He then vowed, “It is going to work in Iran and we are going to collapse this regime.” He further invoked some (infamous) words of President George W. Bush issued to allies in the wake of the 9/11 attacks. “You are either with us, or against us,” Bessent said in the interview. “This is going to be the greatest coordinated economic isolation in the history of the world.”

Such back-and-white rhetoric is very unlikely to sway the Chinese, given also that of course they know what happened next after that original proclamation by Bush – American forces got stuck in no less than two quagmires in the Middle East, Afghanistan and Iraq, in what came to be viewed cynically as ‘forever wars’. What’s more as the blowback in Baghdad was pretty immediate, as a key unintended consequence of the US regime change war was the ascendancy of pro-Iran Shia politicians ruling Iraq. Beijing is all too aware of the US score card in the region, even as Washington decision-makers continue ignoring the glaring lessons of recent history.

Bessent seemed perplexed at the reaction in oil prices on Thursday, while he also said that discussions with Beijing would be best done in private: “I think oil markets are misinterpreting what this economic pressure means,” Bessent said on Thursday. Oil prices climbed to more than three-week highs on Thursday. “We have asymmetric information, and I’m not sure why oil has popped up on this,” Bessent said. “If we are doing the maximum economic pressure, then that means that likely there will not be a large-scale kinetic restart.”

When asked if the U.S. could target China for doing business with Iran, Bessent said many conversations were best to have in private. “We are confident that everyone wants the Strait (of Hormuz) reopened, and for energy prices to come back down,” ` he continued. “Keep in mind that the Chinese get 50% (of their) energy from inside the Gulf. So it would do them a big service to get with the program.”Still, Bessent has been busy doubling-down on Trump’s message shift this week (opting for an economic siege warfare ‘solution’ as after military strategy hasn’t gone so well)…

Tehran has been consistently saying that is is ready for a long war, whether that come in the form of more US-Israeli bombs, or else an economic siege. Even Reuters has acknowledged the obvious in its own coverage, saying “Iran has weathered punishing economic sanctions for nearly 50 years, since the Islamic Revolution of 1979.” “Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araqchi called Trump’s comments an attempt to divert American public opinion from domestic financial problems, including record debt and rising interest rates,” the report added.

There’s an additional important factor. At this point there’s no way that the two key UN Security Council permanent members Russia and China will sign off on any big new anti-Iran sanctions regimen brought before the United Nations. Closer to home, the White House risks more China blowback, especially with President Xi Jinping slated to visit the US next month. Bloomberg poses the following in Friday analysis:“Is the White House willing to prioritize this new economic warfare campaign above its China relationship? And if it chooses to, there are serious ramifications,” said Chris Kennedy, an economic statecraft analyst at Bloomberg Economics. Kennedy said the new threats are also an “admission that the US is running out of options.”

Any decision to hit China would risk worsening tensions just weeks before Trump hosts Xi for the Chinese leader’s first visit to Washington in a decade. It also raises the threat of Chinese countermeasures that could inflict pain on the US economy ahead of November midterm elections that will hinge on pocketbook issues. Beijing has already demonstrated a willingness to push back against Trump, most notably by announcing export restrictions on rare earths that forced the White House into a climbdown from their tariff fight. Meanwhile, more pushback against this week’s Axios report saying that large quantities of oil are moving through the Strait of Hormuz via a US Navy established ‘stealth’ corridor:

https://twitter.com/borzou/status/2090576229900423280?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E2090576229900423280%7Ctwgr%5E0a80588e3499234b9a74d868adceed0299b51c1e%7Ctwcon%5Es1_c10&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.zerohedge.com%2Fgeopolitical%2Fchina-firmly-rejects-us-demand-back-its-most-crushing-economic-operation-against-iran

On Friday, Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian said that Iran will “under no circumstances bow to bullying.” But he also struck somewhat of a conciliatory tone, perhaps signaling Iran is still open to dialogue so long as Washington is willing to compromise. “It would be better to end the war today, now that we are strong and have dignity, with the whole world acknowledging our victory,” the semi-official Iranian Students’ News Agency quoted him as saying.

Read more …

If it were so bad, oil would be $200.

• The Strait of Hormuz Is Repricing the Entire World Economy (Martin Armstrong)

The politicians continue to speak about the Strait of Hormuz as though this were merely a regional dispute between Iran and its neighbors. That is complete nonsense. The strait is one of the most important arteries in the global economy, carrying roughly one-fifth of the world’s oil and gas shipments. Brent crude has moved above $91, but the headline price of oil is only the beginning. The real economic damage appears in shipping rates, insurance premiums, refinery margins, diesel prices, electricity costs, and ultimately government borrowing. War does not remain confined to the battlefield. It enters every household through inflation.


Washington claims the strait is open while Iran insists it remains closed. Both statements are political propaganda because it is the shipowners, insurers, and commodity traders who determine whether a waterway is commercially open. A tanker can theoretically pass through Hormuz, but that means nothing if the insurance premium becomes prohibitive or the crew refuses to accept the risk. Most politicians have never operated a business and do not understand that commerce depends upon confidence—not government declarations. Once confidence collapses, trade will retreat regardless of how many officials stand before cameras insisting that everything remains under control.

This is why the cost of the conflict cannot be measured solely by the number of barrels temporarily removed from the market. Every vessel delayed or redirected reduces available shipping capacity and increases freight rates elsewhere. Insurers must reprice the probability of a tanker being damaged, captured, or destroyed. Refineries must compete for alternative supplies, while countries dependent upon Gulf energy begin building precautionary inventories. Traders add a geopolitical premium because nobody knows whether the next missile will strike a ship, a refinery, a pipeline, or an export terminal. These costs compound through the entire system long before the average person notices the increase at the gasoline station.


The more serious warning is coming from refined products, particularly diesel. Politicians obsess over crude because that is the price quoted every evening on television. Yet modern civilization runs on diesel. Trucks transport food and consumer goods, farmers operate machinery, construction companies run heavy equipment, and emergency generators protect hospitals and critical infrastructure. When diesel rises, the cost of virtually everything rises with it.

Governments will pretend that this inflation is temporary or caused by greedy corporations. They said the same thing after the monetary expansion of 2020. Inflation is never politically convenient because it exposes the true cost of government policy. A war financed through borrowing does not require politicians to present taxpayers with an immediate bill. The expense is transferred into sovereign debt, currency depreciation, and higher prices. The public pays through the destruction of purchasing power, while officials continue claiming that military operations can be conducted without domestic sacrifice.

Europe is particularly vulnerable. It has spent years undermining its own energy security while increasing sanctions, regulations, and military commitments. European governments are already struggling with weak growth, aging populations, expanding welfare obligations, and enormous debt. A sustained rise in energy prices will reduce industrial competitiveness and force governments to subsidize households once again. Those subsidies will require still more borrowing at precisely the moment bond yields are rising. This is the trap: war raises energy costs, energy raises inflation, inflation prevents central banks from reducing interest rates, and higher rates increase the cost of servicing government debt.

The bond market understands what politicians refuse to see. Long-term government yields are rising across Europe, the United States, and Japan because investors are beginning to question whether governments can continue borrowing without limit. The Middle East conflict is accelerating a sovereign-debt problem that already existed. Governments accumulated debt during the pandemic, borrowed again to subsidize energy after the war in Ukraine, and are now expected to finance another expanding conflict surrounding Iran. Each crisis is treated as temporary, but the debt is permanent.

This is how confidence collapses. The decline of an empire does not begin when it loses one battle. It begins when the cost of maintaining its military commitments exceeds the productive capacity of its economy. Rome debased its currency to pay the army and preserve the frontiers. Spain consumed the wealth of the New World financing wars across Europe. Britain emerged from two world wars victorious but financially exhausted, surrendering its position as the center of global capital to the United States. Military power is always dependent upon economic power, yet the warmongers imagine the relationship works in reverse.

Iran also understands that Hormuz is more valuable as a threat than as a permanently closed waterway. Completely stopping trade would damage Iran and alienate China, India, and other Asian customers dependent upon Gulf energy. Tehran does not need to seal the strait with an impenetrable naval blockade. It merely needs to create enough uncertainty that commercial traffic slows and the world pays a permanent risk premium. A missile landing near a tanker can accomplish economically what a fleet might fail to achieve militarily.

The United States may possess the naval power to escort ships, but it cannot force private capital to ignore risk. Nor can it guarantee that mines, drones, missiles, or small boats will never penetrate the security perimeter. Every escalation requires more ships, more aircraft, more personnel, and still more government spending. The attempt to protect the trade route therefore adds to the fiscal burden created by the disruption itself.

The Strait of Hormuz is becoming a tax imposed upon the entire world economy. It will appear in freight costs, food prices, utility bills, interest rates, government deficits, and eventually elections. Western leaders will blame Iran, corporations, speculators, or climate change before admitting that their endless wars carry an economic price.

Read more …

“The US leader emphasized that Washington was successfully achieving its goals in the conflict with Iran”

• Deaths of ‘Iranian Leaders’ Hindering Deal With US — Trump (TASS)

The deaths of a significant portion of Iran’s leadership are among the factors complicating the conclusion of a deal between Washington and Tehran, US President Donald Trump stated. “Part of the problem is [that] so many of the leaders are gone. It’s not easy to make a deal. Nobody knows who’s leading [the country],” Trump said in an interview with WABC radio. At the same time, he emphasized that Washington is successfully achieving its goals in the conflict with Iran, particularly by preventing Tehran from acquiring nuclear weapons.
Read more …

Why exactly? Do we know? They seemed close to an agreement.

• U.S-Canada Trade War is Now a Reality (CTH)

Moments ago, Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney delivered the news via his X account. Discussions between the U.S and Canada have collapsed. All trade representatives are called back home. The 50% U.S. tariffs against Canada are now in effect. A trade war begins. First, read the statement from Prime Minister Mark Carney, with the understanding that Carney is making the first statement because the news is exceptionally bad for Canada. Worse than bad.


When the 3-day tariff pause was announced, CTH said to be cautious. When USTR Jamieson Greer and Canadian negotiator Dominic LeBlanc said the terms were “basically agreed”, again CTH said be careful.The reason for our notes of extreme caution is because the divide between the two economies and trade policy is just too big. There was no way for both sides to close the gap without major structural economic changes within Canada. The issues are not points of friction, they are just too big and embedded within the laws of Canada that would have to change.

anking regulations would have to change. Intellectual property and media rules, regulations and laws would have to change. Industrial policy would have to change. The Canadian energy policy would have to change. The carbon trading scheme would have to change or be removed. All of this would fall upon Canada to carry out in order to position their economy in alignment with the USA. There’s literally no way for their government to accomplish this against the backdrop of their political ideology.

That was the structural argument and point made by former Prime Minister Justin Trudeau. This is also why the USMCA as a trilateral trade agreement is impossible to maintain. The only trade agreement construct possible is two clearly separate bilateral free trade agreements, one with Mexico and one with Canada.

The 50% tariffs begin tonight.

A trade war is underway.

 

 

UPDATE: USTR Response

“Tonight, Canada declined to finalize the trade deal under the terms agreed earlier this week. Despite the U.S. offer to Canada to receive the best treatment of any major exporter to our market, new demands and walk backs of other commitments by Canada have upended the careful balance reached in the past days. In addition, Canada is continuing to maintain its prolonged retaliation against the United States, including, among other things, flat-out prohibitions on certain American goods and services.

For decades, Canada has enjoyed the most favorable access to the U.S. market of any country. And from the beginning of President Trump’s trade program, Canada has continued to enjoy the best treatment in the world, even after – like China – retaliating against the United States. This week, the United States agreed to provide even better treatment to Canada, offering significant tariff reductions on steel, aluminum, autos, and lumber.

The U.S. offer was also forward looking, and included a historic economic and national security partnership to cooperate on export controls, combat transshipment, enhance digital trade, and align certain external tariffs. The offer would have led to supply chain coordination on aerospace, complementary actions to address unfair trade practices, critical minerals cooperation, increased enforcement against imports produced with forced labor, and the announcement of formal U.S.-Mexico-Canada Agreement (USMCA) negotiations.

This is a missed opportunity for Canada to partner with the United States, which is the fastest growing economy in the G7.”

~ U.S. Trade Representative Jamieson Greer

Read more …

Trump gives Marco free Latino reign.

• Cocaine Networks and Communists — Marco’s Been Busy Today (Sarah Anderson)

I was just getting ready to take the rest of the day off when the State Department flooded my inbox with emails. It seems that Marco Rubio has been pretty busy this week, and he’s largely focused on eradicating communism, crime, and drug trafficking from the Western Hemisphere, which is exactly where I like him. Let’s start with our old pal, Cuba, which Rubio has been sanctioning to death this summer. Or close to death. Unfortunately, the regime is still breathing, but it’s doing so with a massive statue of the secretary on its chest.


Today, the Department of State is designating nine entities and three individuals to further the Trump Administration’s comprehensive push to end the Cuban regime’s malign activities, both in Cuba and across our hemisphere. This action targets the leadership of the U.S.-designated Cuban Institute of Friendship with the Peoples (ICAP) and designates nine Cuban entities supporting the regime.These designations build on the Department’s July 20 report Cuba: The Capital of 21st Century Communism, which summarizes the Cuban regime’s decades-long use of brigades, such as the one coordinated by the designated ICAP earlier this month, to advance Cuban interests at the expense of the United States.

ICAP is the organization Fidel Castro began in 1960 to build global “friendship” and “solidarity” and maintain relationships with foreign activist groups. In reality, it’s a way to spread communist propaganda. According to the State Department, “it claims to have more than 2,000 solidarity organizations across over 150 countries [and] serves as the main organizing hub of Cuba’s ideological network.” Think Code Pink and the like. Additionally, “it coordinates research, educational, and cultural exchanges between American and Cuban institutions, builds relationships between American political movements and Cuban officials, and harnesses its global reach to draw leftwing activists, intellectuals, students, influencers and politicians to Cuba from across the world.”

It’s also directly tied to Cuban intelligence, and 90% of its staff are affiliated with the Cuban spy agency. Anyway, on Thursday, Rubio sanctioned some of ICAP’s leadership, including: Fernando Gonzalez Llort, the president of ICAP and is one of the “Cuban Five” group of Cuban intelligence officers arrested in 1998. Llort was released from U.S. custody to Cuba in 2014. Noemi Ramona Rabaza Fernandez, who serves as the first vice president of ICAP. Leima Martinez Freire, who serves as the ICAP North America Director.

But he didn’t stop there. Rubio also sanctioned entities he accuses of exploiting Cuba’s metals and mining sector for the benefit of the regime. These include:
• Empresa de Níquel Comandante Ernesto Che Guevara, a state-owned enterprise dedicated to the extraction and processing of nickel and cobalt.
• Empresa Importadora Exportadora y Comercializadora de Metales or METALCUBA, a “Cuban state-owned enterprise that facilitates the import of heavy industrial products, including specialized fuel and metal components, on behalf of state and non-state actors.”
• Grupo Empresarial Geominero Salinero (Geominsal), a group that “develops and markets mineral resources and salt, and provides technical services associated with these industries.”
• Acinox Comercial, a state-owned enterprise that facilitates the import and export of metallurgical goods and industrial equipment.

In addition to those, he sanctioned several regime-controlled entities, including the Ministry of Construction of Cuba and Agencia de Contratacion a Representaciones Comerciales S.A. (Acorec S.A.), an organization that supplies Cubans to foreigners for labor inside Cuba and then garnishes 90% of the workers’ wages. That’s not all. He also designated: • Coratur S.A., the organization that “manages international trade, import-export operations, and foreign market partnerships.”
• Empresa Central de Abastecimiento y Ventas de Equipos de Transporte Pesado y Sus Piezas (Transimport), a group that has “imported over $5 million worth of vehicles, automotive parts, and industrial equipment in recent years.”
• Empresa Comercializadora de Articulos en General (Consumimport), a group that “imports and exports a wide variety of goods, including appliances and construction materials.” Meanwhile in Ecuador…

The State Department also announced on Thursday that it is sanctioning “an Ecuador-based network of 15 individuals and entities and identified 10 Ecuador-based fishing vessels as blocked property for their role in trafficking thousands of kilograms of cocaine each month from South America to Mexico, destined for distribution in our homeland.” It goes on to state that these groups in Ecuador are growing closer to Mexican cartels, particularly the two biggest and most dangerous, Sinaloa and Cártel de Jalisco Nueva Generación (CJNG), as well as Ecuadorian Foreign Terrorist Organizations, Los Choneros and Los Lobos.

“These trafficking operations generate billions of dollars annually for cartels responsible for a significant share of the deadly drugs flowing into our communities,” the State Department reports. “The United States will continue to use all our tools to dismantle the cartels profiting at the expense of American lives.” The network operated under the cover of legitimate fishing fleets out of Manta, using government-subsidized fuel to resupply go-fast boats hauling multi-ton loads across the Pacific.

Editor’s Note: Thanks to President Trump and War Secretary Pete Hegseth’s leadership, the warrior ethos is coming back to America’s military.

Read more …

“She’s palling around with Bernie Sanders and will likely inherit his very large, very sophisticated political movement.”

• AOC for President? It’s Time We Take That Proposition Seriously (Rick Moran)

Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) may be uninformed, poorly educated, and without scruples. But she’s the frontrunner in some polls for the Democratic Party’s 2028 presidential nomination and is well-positioned to ride the growing wave of radical-left energy now taking over the Democratic Party all the way to the top. Getting past superficial profiles of her, AOC has many gifts and a jungle savviness about politics that makes her a formidable opponent for any Democrat who’s been mentioned as a potential presidential candidate.


Her clownish social media gimmicks aside, this is a woman with a plan. And Republicans who underestimate her do so at the party’s peril.Mark Halperin, a veteran of several presidential campaigns, writes in The Free Press, “AOC boasts three indispensable factors for a successful presidential race: national name recognition, the capacity to raise tens or hundreds of millions of dollars, and insatiable media interest.”

A Democrat Trump? Don’t laugh it off. She’s palling around with Bernie Sanders and will likely inherit his very large, very sophisticated political movement. In that, she’ll have a leg up on Trump, who didn’t have much of an organization when he started running for president in 2014.

AOC maintains one of the largest digital footprints of any politician in Congress, with a combined social media following exceeding 23 million across major platforms. It doesn’t matter if they’re all brain-dead millennials and Gen Zers. They don’t care about “issues” the same way that older voters might consider before deciding who to vote for. It’s all about “feelings” and “vibes.” And AOC knows how to tap into that zeitgeist.

The Free Press: “An iconic face of the zeitgeisty progressive movement, a fundraising dynamo on a first-name basis not just with cable news hosts but with producers, network executives, hair and makeup folks, and popular influencers as well, AOC showcases other en vogue traits. She is a young outsider railing against the establishment. She is a master of the attention economy, a social media wizard with a keen sense of timing. She is bracingly gruff and tart, unafraid of conflict and controversy, and comfortable in the eye of the storm. She is widely considered gorgeous, with a sharp fashion flair. She possesses ineffable magnetism that catches attention; when she appears on any television or tablet, she compels viewers to turn up the volume to find out what she is saying.”

AOC understands that modern politics is part ideology, part organization, and part show business, and she does not pretend to be offended by the performative superficialities of the profession. Most politicians say they hate the circus while making sure they are standing in the center ring. AOC genuinely enjoys the circus. She is soulful, sincere, winking, ironic, and a ham all at the same time. Many Republicans have a hatred for AOC that’s so rabid they can’t acknowledge her obvious political gifts and the threat she poses. This is suicidal. She will be a formidable opponent in 2028 if she doesn’t stumble over her own stupidity.

Her obvious weak spot is foreign policy. Her recent efforts to create a foreign policy résumé resulted in an embarrassing appearance at the Munich Security Conference in February. Halperin notes that “even an intensive course in national security and foreign policy might leave her vulnerable to a career-stalling gaffe.” That’s because talking about foreign policy with simple-minded talking points or stumbling over a “what I believe” question shows a shallowness voters will recognize immediately.

Foreign policy is not simply a matter of expressing the ideologically accepted values. Presidents have to know things. They have to understand NATO, China, deterrence, nuclear doctrine, intelligence, trade, alliances, sanctions, the Middle East, the history behind the current crisis, and the interests behind the public rhetoric. They have to know enough to tell when the generals, diplomats, and intelligence officials sitting around the table are right, and when they are protecting their own bureaucratic interests.

At Munich, AOC at times seemed like someone who had learned the broad strokes but was not particularly capable of comprehending or interested in the intricacies. A presidential campaign would ultimately unmask that weakness, and her opponents would run with it as far and fast as possible. Furthermore, her Munich stumble laid bare the broader question of gravitas. AOC has spent her entire national political life as an insurgent legislator. She has never been a governor. She has never run a large executive branch. She has never had to balance a state budget, manage a natural disaster, command a National Guard, negotiate a major bipartisan agreement, or make the kind of lonely executive decision for which there is no politically easy answer.

She’s got a little more than a year to change that impression. The frightening possibility is that it might not matter as much as it has in the past. The younger voters are far more impressionable and have less ability to recognize a lightweight like AOC. Her communication skills will only take her so far, as long as her voters don’t question the intellectual basis for her ideology. Personally, I believe 2032 will be her year. If she’s the nominee in 2028, she will lose and lose big.

Read more …

“. . . it’s subversion and nothing about it is accidental. it’s a well worn playbook to use the democratic institutions of a high trust state to destroy a civilization.” —El Gato Malo on Substack

Jim has been in fine form for quite a while..

• Remember the Names (James Howard Kunstler)

An eerie quiet masks the panic rising among the many players in the long-running train of crimes carried out under color-of-law against the people of the this country that goes roughly under the clunky name of The Grand Conspiracy. What is Joe DiGenova up to, exactly, in the Southern District of Florida, with its several grand juries grinding away? Indictments will fly, for sure, but then who will flip on whom? It won’t take a whole lot of flippers to seal many fates in this skein of sedition and treason. The tension must be terrible for them.


The question has long been: how do you even begin to organize a set of coherent cases around this roaring avalanche of nefarious acts that got bigger with each successive attempt at cover-up? Let’s see if we can block out a panoramic picture of potential prosecutions. The gigantic mess must be separated into packets.

It’s probably best to begin with the FBI’s “Midyear Exam” op of 2016 — the investigation into Hillary Clinton’s private email server. You can bet that the server contained evidence of HRC’s two seminal crimes that kicked things off: 1) the transfer of US military technology to Russia’s Skolkovo high-tech hub and payments from seventeen companies involved coincidentally received by the Clinton Foundation when she was Sec’y of State; and 2) the “Uranium One” deal transferring US-owned nuke material to Russia (via Canada) that required a State Dept signoff by HRC — coincident with husband Bill receiving a half-million dollar “lecture fee” from a Russian bank. Players involved in Midyear Exam: Comey, Strzok, McCabe, Page, then-AG Loretta Lynch.

That potential embarrassment of this sketchy business was simply squashed by Lynch and Comey, while HRC took care to physically destroy the server and devices linked to it. But it also prompted the creation of the Russian collusion prank against then-candidate Donald Trump, (“Crossfire Hurricane”) to distract attention from all that. . . which turned into the huge RussiaGate operation that marshaled the FBI, the CIA, the Senate Intel Committee, and offices deep in the Pentagon to put over a gigantic hoax. It was green-lighted by President Barack Obama and organized by CIA-Director John Brennan, with FBI Director Comey and DNI James Clapper.

Supporting players (potential defendants) include Susan Rice, Sally Yates, Veep Joe Biden (or “Joe Biden”), then White House aide Lisa Monaco, and CIA agent Eric Ciaramella (who wrote the actual Intel Community Assessment that jump-started the op). McCabe, Stzrok, Page, Ohr (and wife, Nellie), Rosenstein, and many FBI agents are potential defendants. Also Gina Haspel, CIA London station chief, who coordinated with the UK’s MI6 agent, Christopher Steele of the Steele Dossier. Throw in DOD-sponsored spook Stefan Halper and FBI liaison in London, Alan Kohler. After May, 2017, Christopher Wray was responsible for all FBI mischief and FISA Court irregularities (along with FISA Judge James Boasberg).

The Mueller Investigation was a subset of RussiaGate, but deserves its own case packet. It was an attempt to legitimize the RussiaGate hoax, and to keep the news media fed with innuendo. In effect it was a hoax unto itself, consumed $32-million, and ran nearly two years. It produced exactly nothing in evidence that President Trump had “colluded” with Russia about anything. Since Robert Mueller was mentally incapacitated, the investigation was run by subordinates, Aaron Zebley, Andrew Weissmann. Attorneys Jeanie Rhee, Elizabeth Prelogar, Brandon Van Grack and others. It was a fraud on the public and probably an obstruction of justice.

Impeachment No. 1 (the Ukraine phone call impeachment) was an entirely false operation cooked up by lawfare ninja Norm Eisen in collusion with Reps. Jerrold Nadler and Adam Schiff, with assistance from CIA agent (“whistleblower”) Eric Ciaramella and NSC member Lt. Col. Alex Vindman, with a boost from then-IC Inspector General Michael Atkinson. Eisen later admitted on a video that the aim of the impeachment was to “prebunk” Veep “Joe Biden’s” bribery and grift activities in Ukraine as the Democratic party prepared to run him for president in 2020. Ciaramella had accompanied Veep “Joe Biden” on several trips to Ukraine and knew what “JB” was up to there. Indict them all for sedition and treason.

The 2020 election op was pulled off in coordination with the Covid-1 scam that positioned the nation for massive mail-in ballot fraud, which was coordinated by lawfare ninja Marc Elias, then employed by the Democratic Party law firm Perkins Coie. Elias was assisted by Mark Zuckerberg (Facebook, now Meta), whose nonprofit, Center for Tech and Civic Life (CTCL), distributed over $400-million to roughly 2500 election districts around the country, much of it used to pay select officials who would count and report mail-in ballots. The mail-in ballot fraud had been planned and gamed-out previously by the non-profit org Transition Integrity Project, run by Rosa Brooks and Nils Gilman.

In October 2020, fifty-one former intel officials signed a public letter denouncing the Hunter Biden laptop as having “the earmarks of Russian disinformation.” The letter was organized by Antony Blinken and former CIA-Director Michael Morrell. It was done in coordination with a social media campaign to suppress public knowledge of the laptop (and the Biden family record of international grift inside it) to influence the presidential election a month later. Potential fraud indictments.

The Jan 6 riot at the US Capitol has never been adequately investigated. FBI Director Wray was allowed to evade answering to Congress about the number of FBI agents and associated employees (including CIA personnel) that were mixed in with the crowd to provoke the intrusion inside the building and related violence. Speaker Nancy Pelosi engineered the situation so that the certification of electoral vote slates would not be challenged as procedure allowed. Sedition and Treason.

The Jan 6 Congressional Committee was a fraud on the American people put together by Speaker Nancy Pelosi to coverup her involvement in the crimes behind the Jan 6 Capitol riot. The members involved likely enjoy Congressional immunity for the spectacle itself, but perhaps not for destroying all the evidence that was collected in the course of the investigation. Chairman Bennie G. Thompson was responsible for that.

The Mar-a-Lago raid of August 2022 was authorized by Attorney General Merrick Garland and carried out by FBI Director Wray with Assistant Director Steven D’Antuono. Three months later, Garland appointed Jack Smith Special Counsel to oversee the Mar-a-Lago documents case, which he botched, resulting in its dismissal two years later. The raid itself arguably lacked probable cause and was based on an improper scope of evidence sought. Indict Merrick Garland under 18 U.S.C. § 241, conspiracy against rights.

The lawfare operations of 2023-2024 in several jurisdictions resulted in indictments against candidate Donald Trump and others in Fulton County, GA, and New York City. The Fulton County case under DA Fani Willis (later disqualified for “the appearance of impropriety”) was assisted by the “Joe Biden” White House, possibly by attorneys Richard Sauber and Beth Mueller in the WH Counsel’s Office, giving it the odor of a purely political prosecution.

In the the Stormy Daniels hush money case against Donald Trump brought by Manhattan DA Alvin Bragg, DOJ officer Matthew Colangelo left his cushy position as Principal Deputy Associate US Attorney General to take a job assisting DA Bragg in the NYC court. Colangelo delivered the opening statement at the 2024 trial and played a central role in the prosecution. The trial was presided over by political judge Juan Merchan. Just days ago, The New York Times reported that the Democratic Party fundraising company, Authentic Campaigns, previously owned by Judge Merchan’s daughter, Loren Merchan, has been under investigation the past year. Anybody detect the odor of politics? Malicious prosecution, improper judicial conduct.

Many of the political celebrities mentioned above, and probably many not-so-well-known players, must be freaking out as the waves ominously pound the beach and the summer days tick down toward the ill winds of fall. I’m pretty sure that readers and commentors can add some candidates to the list of potential indictments, and perhaps some ops I might have overlooked. (The entire odious Covid-19 affair is partly a separate matter, but that has also commenced a new phase with the guilty plea deal announced days ago by Dr. Fauci’s chief advisor, Dr. David Morens.) Even former President Obama looks boxed-in. He enjoys immunity from actions he took as president, but that immunity prevents him from hiding behind the fifth amendment as a now-private citizen in a court of law. Things are livening up.

Read more …

CNN finds it a juicy story. So they keep running with it.

• ‘My Guardian and Protector’: Natalie Harp’s Devotion to Trump (CNN)

President Donald Trump’s close aide Natalie Harp expressed her utmost loyalty to him in at least two letters addressed to the president, which were published by The Daily Beast on Thursday amid increased scrutiny of the close aide’s relationship to Trump. “I want things to always be right between us,” Harp wrote in one of the letters, which were printed out and signed. It began with “Dear Mr. President” and concluded with, “With all my heart, Natalie.” Excerpts of one of the letters had previously been published by the New York Times.


Harp’s constant and dedicated presence at Trump’s side has been in the spotlight this week after Democratic Sen. Jon Ossoff mentioned her by name in a now-viral speech attacking Trump. The Georgia senator swiped at the president’s “travel with Natalie on their apparently defenseless flying palace gifted by the Emir of Qatar,” a reference to her joining the president — along with a very limited group of aides — when he secretly boarded a smaller aircraft to leave Turkey due to a threat from Iran in July.

She added in the letter from 2023: “I never want to bring you anything but joy. I’m sorry I lost my focus. You are all that matters to me. I don’t want to ever let you down. Thank you for being my Guardian and Protector in this Life.” In another letter, Harp reminisced about their relationship when she was a host on the conservative One America News Network. “I miss the days when you used to call, during my Talkshow days, and we’d talk about everything and nothing,” Harp wrote. “I want to get back to that synergy. We shouldn’t have to talk about work all the time!!” In the same letter, Harp added: “And please, when I fail, will you tell me? You have the absolute right to cuss me out, if need be, when I deserve it, because no one knows or cares about me more.”

US President Donald Trump and aide Natalie Harp exit Marine One on the Ellipse near the White House on August 16, 2026.


CNN has not independently confirmed that Harp wrote or sent these letters to Trump in 2023. The Daily Beast said the writer Michael Wolff obtained them while he was writing a book about Trump’s 2024 campaign. White House spokesperson Davis Ingle defended Harp in a statement to CNN, saying she is “one of the most loyal and hardest working aides on President Trump’s team.” But White House officials have privately acknowledged in recent days that the sharper, widespread attacks have had the adverse effect of bringing more attention to Harp’s relationship with Trump.

Harp is so close to Trump that she once rode in an SUV trunk to accompany him to a court appearance in New York City in October 2023, CNN reported on Tuesday. There wasn’t room for her in the vehicle, but she insisted that Trump had personally asked her to attend and was determined not to be left behind.

Harp is omnipresent in Trump’s orbit, officials familiar with her role have told CNN. But unlike past staff secretaries and aides to the president — like Trump’s former personal secretary Madeleine Westerhout, who similarly served as the president’s gatekeeper of information during his first term — she doesn’t sit outside the Oval Office, but in it. Harp is with Trump much of the day, sitting in on meetings and in constant communication with him.

She speaks with Trump late into the night about social media posts, the officials said. Harp is also a channel for foreign leaders to try to reach the president and is tasked with contacting people he sees on television. She is someone he will ask to send notes to others when he doesn’t want to reach out directly. Their working relationship is so effective, officials said, because of her total loyalty to the president.

But Harp’s methods have irked senior aides and at times prompted efforts to box her out of the president’s inner circle, according to multiple sources who described her dynamic with Trump. The former television host began working for Trump after crediting him with saving her life. Harp has become a main conduit between the president and the outside world, passing along messages from allies and setting up meetings, typing out Truth Social posts and toting printouts of laudatory articles, all while staying in close physical proximity at all hours of the day.

She is known as the “human printer” — a title she referenced in one of the letters, in which she said Trump “forced me to ‘unplug’” during a trip to Scotland and Ireland. “I didn’t have to be ‘Human Printer.’ I could take time to enjoy good conversation, and still get all my work done at the end of the day. In fact, I even had time to take long morning and evening walks to enjoy each Sunrise and Sunset (though I did forget to eat and sleep!),” she wrote.

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“…During Investigation of Rape and Sexual Misconduct.”

• FBI Seizes Devices Belonging to Eric Swalwell (CTH)

Generally speaking, when the FBI seizes devices it’s usually to bury them and protect affected interests in/around Washington DC. Rarely, if ever, does the confiscation of electronic devices result in any public awareness of the contents – unless the release runs in alignment with the interests of those in Washington DC.


EX. If it was the confiscation of electronic devices deemed adverse to the interest of DC (Donald Trump, Rudy Giuliani, Scott Perry, Mike Lindell, etc.) then the content of those devices is publicly exposed. However, most confiscations are to protect the guilty – therefore they are buried. SEE: Hunter Biden laptop, Huma Abedin laptop, Anthony Weiner cell phones, Hillary Clinton phone(s) and laptops; Awan Brothers laptops (4) and phones; Seth Rich phone and laptop; Jeffrey Epstein, phones, laptops, hard drives; Stephen Craig Paddock phones and laptops, Syed Rizwan Farook/Tashfeen Malik cell phones, Tamerlan and Dzhokhar Tsarnaev phones and laptops; Senator Bob Menendez, phones and laptops etc.

Therefore, accepting things as they are most likely – and not as we would prefer them to be – it is best to think of the recent story as one of protecting the downstream issues from Eric Swalwell, as they are associated during his tenure as a targeting conduit for the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence (HPSCI) and later as a Trump impeachment manager and J6 Committee official.

WASHINGTON (AP) — Federal agents seized electronic devices from former Rep. Eric Swalwell and searched his Washington home as part of an investigation into allegations of sexual misconduct by the ex-Democratic congressman from California, according to a person familiar with the matter. Swalwell’s devices were seized at the San Francisco airport on Saturday and agents executed a search warrant at his home a day later, said the person, who was not authorized to publicly discuss an ongoing investigation and spoke on the condition of anonymity.

A message seeking comment was left Thursday with an attorney for Swalwell, who has denied allegations of sexual assault and misconduct. The Daily Mail first reported the seizure of Swalwell’s devices on Thursday. Swalwell announced his resignation from Congress in April following allegations that Swalwell had sexually assaulted a woman twice, including when she worked for him. The San Francisco Chronicle, followed by CNN, first reported the allegations. CNN also reported that three other women alleged various kinds of sexual misconduct by Swalwell, including sending them unsolicited explicit messages or nude photos.

[…] A lawyer representing Lonna Drewes, a California woman who in April said she had been raped in 2018 by Swalwell, said his team was cooperating with all law enforcement agencies investigating the former congressman. “We are encouraged to learn about the escalation of the FBI’s investigation into the allegations against Eric Swalwell,” attorney Arick Fudali said in a statement. (read more)

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Sarah Anderson. “I’m gonna need a real man to represent my state, not this clown.”

• Mirror, Mirror on The Wall: Who Is the Prettiest Politician of Them All? (SA)

(I bet some of you regulars thought I was about to write about Marco Rubio. That’s not what this is about.) Somehow, this story slipped through the cracks a bit when the Free Beacon came out with it in July, but it’s making the rounds this week. I know our own Scott Pinsker mentioned it in passing a few days ago, but I felt it deserved its own standalone article.


Because, as a Georgia resident, I’ll do anything I can to ensure this person is not my senator anymore. So if you had to guess, which prominent political candidate (at the federal level) spends the most on hair and makeup? Maybe it’s Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.)? She might not be the brightest bulb in the box, but she’s a pretty girl who looks put together most of the time. Or maybe it’s Rep. Anna Paulina Luna (R-Fla.)? Another lovely lady who obviously puts a lot of effort into her appearance.

Well, if you guessed it was either of them, you’re wrong. If you guessed it was any woman at all, you’re wrong. The answer is Sen. Jon “Pee-wee Herman” Ossoff (D-Ga.). According to campaign finance records, Ossoff has paid “makeup artist Stephanie Ponder $2,887 for ‘makeup services'” since February. The Free Beacon reports that the most recent payment came in June to the tune of $900. Here’s more:

Ossoff’s four-figure makeup expenditures stand out among federal candidates. The Georgia senator who is running for reelection against Republican Rep. Mike Collins (Ga.), has reported spending more on makeup than any other candidate this year, beating out the likes of far-left Reps. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D., N.Y.) and Rashida Tlaib (D., Mich.). Ocasio-Cortez has spent $1,837.93 on ‘campaign event hair & makeup services’ in 2026, while Tlaib has spent $320 on ‘hair and makeup services.’

The spending also comes as liberal media figures praise the 39-year-old Ossoff’s carefully managed on-camera presence and float him as a prospective 2028 presidential candidate. He’s not only paying big bucks for hair and makeup, but he’s also paying them to a high-profile artist. Ponder has a resume that includes working on The Notebook, Hunger Games, and Remember the Titans. The article also mentions that, “A recent Puck profile asserted that Ossoff ‘has seemingly reinvented himself’ in anticipation of a 2028 presidential bid, adding a ‘beefier physique to his studied, Obama-like cadence.'”

And the media is falling for it, of course. Ezra Klein of the New York Times has pointed out that Ossoff knows how to make himself appear imposing and powerful on TV (I invite Mr. Klein to come to Atlanta and watch these campaign commercials that are in my face constantly because that’s not what I see — I see a weasel). Vogue did an article on his “internet thirst” and called him “an attractive camp counselor.” Queerty reported that “Jon Ossoff & his slutty little glasses are already our summertime political crush” and called him “an attractive version of Atticus Finch.”

All I can say is gag me with a spoon. You can’t see me, but I’m trying not to throw up as I write this. The idea of a man who spends more on hair and makeup than I do — and I love expensive makeup, I must confess — is just gross. I’m gonna need a real man to represent my state, not this clown.

Read more …

Two audio files. Not sure what the difference is.

• Wait, What? Trump Was on Michael Cohen’s Radio Show? (Matt Margolis)

Donald Trump spent part of Thursday swapping pleasantries with Michael Cohen, his former “fixer” who then became the left’s favorite anti-Trumper and even testified against the president in court and before Congress. It’s hard to say which is more bizarre: that this interview happened at all, or how warm it was. Part of the sit-down aired Thursday evening on Cohen’s radio show on 77 WABC-AM in New York, with the full interview set to air Sunday. It was an exceptionally friendly affair. Believe it or not, the whole segment played like a reunion special.


Cohen is currently filling in for Andrew Cuomo, who is taking a break from the show for the summer. Apparently, station owner John Catsimatidis, a Trump ally, ran it by the White House. The administration “had no objection,” Catsimatidis told the New York Post, adding that Trump had “expressed empathy” for Cohen. Empathy. For Michael Cohen. Sit with that for a moment.

On the air, Trump told Cohen, “They weaponized you like nobody’s ever been weaponized, like few have been.” He went from empathy to esteem. “I respect the fact that you recanted everything you said,” Trump said. “That’s a big thing that you did.” In a separate interview before the radio segment aired, Cohen told CNN he’d resubmitted a pardon application to the White House after the Biden administration denied his original request, and he hadn’t heard back yet. “I took that same application with the same documentation, and I just rewrote the cover letter removing the name of President Joe Biden and inserting the name President Donald Trump … I do have a receipt,” Cohen said.


Cohen is hardly the first Trump ally to blow up publicly and find his way back into the fold, following Elon Musk and Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis (R-Fla.). He once said he’d “take a bullet” for Trump, before his testimony in Trump’s 2024 trial, on charges of falsifying business records to illegally influence an election, helped secure a 34-count felony conviction that carried no punishment. It’s worth noting that Trump never said a warm word about Cohen before Thursday, though he’d linked to Cohen’s own comments this year about feeling pressured by prosecutors Cohen has spent the past year trashing.

Cohen framed it all as forgiveness in his Substack. “Forgiveness does not mean amnesia,” he wrote. “It is about having the courage to decide that yesterday will no longer dictate tomorrow.” At one point, he even got sentimental. “Boss, remember when I was by your side?” he asked. Cohen now says he only turned on Trump because prosecutors squeezed him. “I felt pressured and coerced to only provide information and testimony that would satisfy the government’s desire to build the cases against and secure a judgment and convictions against President Trump,” he wrote on Substack in January.

That tracks. We know how desperate the Deep State was to stop Trump. Heck, the Biden administration didn’t even try to hide that it was weaponizing the government against Trump.

Read more …

 

 

 


 

https://twitter.com/RobotaxiRadar/status/2090557478689734670?s=20 https://twitter.com/niccruzpatane/status/2089885020328505454?s=20

 

 

 

 

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Debt Rattle August 17 2026

Aug 172026
 
 August 17, 2026  Posted by at 10:26 am Finance Tagged with: , , , , , , , , , ,  17 Responses »


Pablo Picasso Self portrait 1896


• “US Can’t Bomb Its Way To Victory ” (Scotiabank)
• Ukraine Celebrates Launching Largest Attack Drone Swarm of the War (CTH)
• Not Winning? Just Change the Rules (Victor Davis Hanson)
• This Might Be the Most Brutal Diagnosis of AOC You’ll Ever Hear (Margolis)
• Jen Psaki Calls Karoline Leavitt a Liar (Teri Christoph)
• A Love Letter to Karoline Leavitt (Scott Pinsker)
• Fauci Refuses Senate Appearance (Fox)
• 2026 Midterms Very, Very Tight Election – Martin Armstrong (USAW)
• Newsom’s High Speed Train to Nowhere is Not Arriving Anytime Soon (Turley)
• War On Rowling Continues (Sans Facts) (Christian Toto)
• It’s Spelled ‘Turkey,’ Not ‘Türkiye” (A.J. Christopher)

 


 

https://twitter.com/EricLDaugh/status/2088613110579953913?s=20 https://twitter.com/mcafeenew/status/2088356232801427540?s=20 https://twitter.com/BoLoudon/status/2087988353522192691?s=20

 


 


Who says they can? Why would you say that? When they’re not trying?! What’s your point?

• “US Can’t Bomb Its Way To Victory ” (Scotiabank)

Bessent said Friday that Washington would announce unprecedented economic-isolation measures next week, warning that the coming pressure campaign would be unlike anything “seen in the history of economic isolation on a country.”For clarity on Bessent’s upcoming economic-isolation operation against Iran, Derek Holt, head of Capital Markets Economics at Scotiabank in Toronto, provided clients with an assessment in which Bessent’s warning could signal a move well beyond sanctioning shadow tankers and refiners, toward dismantling the entire financial network supporting Iranian oil exports.


Holt explained: WHAT COULD BESSENT MEAN? What could Bessent do to economically isolate Iran further that has “never been seen”?

• Target China and India: China is the main buyer of Iranian oil and is involved in undermining US sanctions. The US sanctions some individual Chinese entities and, in April, announced sanctions against Chinese “Teapot” refineries (here). The US could step up its actions by sanctioning all Chinese banks, this time including large institutions, and blocking their access to the US and global financial systems. That would push China further away from the SWIFT system and block access to correspondent and other forms of banking. It could block access to US dollar funding markets. This would very likely enrage China and risk multiple forms of retaliation and escalation.

• Broaden the scope of sanctions on Iran: This would extend the scope to any global group, company or entity involved in buying, financing, insuring or shipping Iranian oil. Looking at you, global banks, currency exchanges, commodity traders, shippers, etc. Actions under this category would aim to entirely thwart the sale of oil from Iran to China in yuan and its conversion into dollars and other currencies via exchange houses in Iran and elsewhere. You target other Middle Eastern nations facilitating this trade by blocking their access to dollar funding and global banking markets, such as Dubai’s one-foot-in-and-one-foot-out stance on the war, which continues to facilitate Iranian transactions. Dubai fancies itself a financial center; you destroy such ambitions.

• Target Iranian crypto assets: This Treasury announcement last month targeted individuals and entities under a specific Iranian person’s name. The US could broaden this action to include freezing access to all Iranian global holdings of crypto, gold, real estate, foreign accounts, etc.

• Target global ports: Any foreign port that facilitates trade and transactions with shipping companies that transited Iranian ports could be targeted.

He continued: “And there may well be other creative options in scale and scope. The broad point is to escalate the economic and financial blockade of the Iranian economy and financial system by enveloping all parts of the global economy, namely China, and the global financial system that allow Iran to continue to sell oil and access funding markets.” Would it work? I’m not sure. Iran knows suffering. Iran is used to being a pariah. Iran still has friends in low places. Iran has its own means of escalating, including unleashing unspeakable terror.

The consequences to the global economy and financial system could also limit or entirely thwart the chances of success. I’m sure they know the risks, but Treasury would sharply amplify tensions with China and India and could potentially cripple individual banks while not ruling out increased systemic risk within the broader financial system. Cutting off access to dollar funding markets could destabilize major players in the financial system. The spillover effects through a complicated web of connections shouldn’t be treated lightly.

The US is finally getting that it can’t just bash and bomb its way to victory against Iran. I’m not sure it gets the limitations and risks that could be associated with escalating broader measures at an all-encompassing global level. It could well take a bungled war that the US and Israel entered without much thought, without a strategy and without an exit plan, while not consulting Congress or allies, and compound the missteps even further and potentially more seriously.”

For context, China buys more than 90% of Iran’s oil exports, making it the most likely target in any effort by Bessent to cut Tehran’s energy revenues. But the escalating economic war would carry significant risks. Sanctions on large Chinese companies or financial institutions could escalate tensions with Beijing ahead of a planned meeting between Presidents Trump and Xi Jinping. Also removing discounted Iranian crude from the global market could also tighten supplies and push already elevated Brent and WTI prices higher.

Read more …

How absurd and idiotic is the “news” coming out of Kiev?

As I’ve said a thousand times.

“It’s like me telling you that right now there’s a gorilla in your bathtub playing chess, and all your neighbors believe it.”

• Ukraine Celebrates Launching Largest Attack Drone Swarm of the War (CTH)

Approximately six days from now I will share a great deal of information on World War Reddit. I took the insert picture about a week ago as a Ukraine drone struck a venue 500 meters from my location. Suffice to say, I’m not reporting information to you based on propaganda media, seriously skewed alt-media or misinterpreted/intercepted Telegram channel discussion; there’s an information war on that platform also.


Almost everything being told, shared and sold about the Russia vs Ukraine conflict is entirely made-up nonsense that has zero basis in reality. My goal has been to find out why there is this much effort toward twilight-zone level propaganda being pushed by unified interests in western media. Honestly, it’s beyond crazy. According to Ukraine/NATO media, and probably soon to be shared by President Trump, “Russia suffered 42,860 battlefield casualties in July, its highest monthly losses since January 2025.” This type of stuff is so far beyond silly no one can figure out where they come up with the ideas for the rates.

In media headlines you might have read that Ukraine is celebrating the biggest launch of drones against Russia in a single day, Sunday. The Russian media counter by saying they have shot down 822 drones, with 600 of them targeting the Russian capital of Moscow. Inside Russia, none of this stuff is happening; however, the govt of Putin finds some sort of purpose/value (personally I think it is just Russian humor) in countering the Ukraine nonsense by accepting the claim and then reiterating it in their claims of interception.

It’s all an illusion. First, the illusion makes it look like Russia is under bombardment (western happy), and then the Federation flips the script (it is indeed a script) and uses the claim as evidence of their exceptional capabilities at interception of the non-existent. If you are suddenly cross-eyed, yes, that’s the level of crazy I’m talking about.

(VIA CBS) – Ukraine launched hundreds of drones across Russia Sunday, killing at least six people in one of Kyiv’s largest aerial attacks of the war. Russia’s Ministry of Defense said that it had destroyed 822 Ukrainian drones overnight. Some 600 drones were detected headed toward the Russian capital, Moscow Mayor Sergei Sobyanin said, with a third of those destroyed over the Moscow region itself. An 83-year-old man was killed after a Ukrainian drone hit a private home in the Moscow region, local Gov. Andrey Vorobyov said. He also confirmed that a Ukrainian attack had sparked a blaze at a Wildberries warehouse in the town of Podolsk.

A drone attack targeted three towns in Russia’s southwestern Rostov region, killing five people, local Gov. Yury Slyusar said. The attack, with more than 150 drones, damaged several homes and a railway station and sparked a forest fire. Kyiv has stepped up its attacks on Russia this year, with long-range missiles and swarms of drones increasingly targeting military industries and energy facilities. It has also increasingly pummeled giant Wildberries depots, burning billions of dollars’ worth of merchandise belonging to the Russian online retail giant and bringing the war home to the Russian public nearly four and half years into Moscow’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine. (read more)

It is accurate that Ukraine drones have hit about a half dozen Wildberries distribution centers. Think about Wildberries as if you combined Amazon with E-Bay. What would life be like in America if a dozen (out of 1,300) Amazon distribution centers caught fire? Well, that’s the sum of the disruption. All those stories of gasoline refineries taken offline(?). More nonsense. Gasoline shortages(?), total gibberish – beyond silly. Beyond the overstated drone attacks all this stuff about military industrial centers, energy facilities and infrastructure being damaged is non-existent. So, why is this such a common thing to read about? Factually, I have no idea. It’s like me telling you that right now there’s a gorilla in your bathtub playing chess, and all your neighbors believe it.

Somewhere there is also a story about a new FP-9 Ukraine ballistic missile about to go into operation (next 60 days). They are supposedly working out an issue with the rocket engines. However, where they are being built is not easy to determine. All indications are in Europe somewhere. The FP-9 is part of a rushed missile and defense system from a company called Fire Point {citation} that is hoped to replace the missing U.S. Patriot Missile (defense) and Tomahawk missile (offense) that Ukraine and Germany have desperately been seeking. As the story is told, the funding comes from Ukraine, the targeting system from Germany and the build operations are taking place somewhere unknown.

I don’t have it all figured out yet, but from what is visible on the surface is there appears to be a plan to drag out the conflict as long as possible, often with as outlandish claims as needed, in order to structure some kind of narrative that will eventually bring Europe -maybe NATO- into a direct combat operation against the Russian Federation.

Read more …

“.. the radicalism of the Democrats in the age of Trump Derangement Syndrome—lawfare, de-balloting, the Mar-a-Lago raid, and calls to destroy the Electoral College, the nine-justice Supreme Court, and the filibuster—helped give birth to the socialists.”

• Not Winning? Just Change the Rules (Victor Davis Hanson)

Kamala Harris speaks to AOC one day before the 2024 election

What binds the new Democratic Party to the new democratic socialists is a set of shared issues and values. That is, the radicalism of the Democrats in the age of Trump Derangement Syndrome—lawfare, de-balloting, the Mar-a-Lago raid, and calls to destroy the Electoral College, the nine-justice Supreme Court, and the filibuster—helped give birth to the socialists. But the overriding commonality among those on the new Left is that if they do not get their way, they blame the “system.” Then they seek to change the rules, no matter how hallowed those laws and conventions may have been or how much they themselves benefited from them in the past.


When the Left lost the White House, Congress, and, for the most part, the Supreme Court, it began clamoring to change the system. For left-wing Democrats, that angst also translated into calls to bring in two new blue states, weaponize the FBI and the Justice Department, ally with social media to suppress the news, and spy on congressional representatives. All the socialists and communists did was up the ante in destroying norms by calling for the end of the presidency, the Senate, the border, the police, and the Pentagon.

By 2021, it was time to destroy the southern border and welcome in some 10 million illegal immigrants—without audits, English proficiency, health checks, or the ability to support themselves. Had Kamala Harris been elected in 2024, we would have had another four years and another 5 million illegal aliens. And perhaps America would have gone from 50 million foreign-born residents to 60 million, or about 18% of the population. In this regard, the Left sees California as our most liberal—and most ideal—state and perhaps concludes that the reason is that 28% of its resident population is now foreign-born, with the majority arriving with vast needs for health, education, housing, and food subsidies.

Today, 50% of all births in California are paid for by Medi-Cal, which serves 40% of the population. When second-generation immigrants are added to the foreign-born population, the two groups together comprise roughly 45% of California’s current population. This demographic transformation is one of the most profound in American history and came at a time when traditional civic education stressing assimilation, acculturation, integration, and knowledge of American traditions, history, and values was nearly nonexistent in California public schools.

So one way of achieving radical change was to alter the demography and welcome as many immigrants as possible who, in the first or second generation, might follow the examples of Reps. Rashida Tlaib, Ilhan Omar, and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, New York Mayor Zohran Mamdani, or Michigan Senate candidate Abdul El-Sayed.

They represent an entirely new sort of immigrant who arrives—or is born to immigrant parents—with both complaints against and dependence on their host country. They can see only the sins of America, never the catastrophes of their homeland that drove them or their parents here. This strange demand to change the rules whenever they do not bode well for angry and aggrieved parties permeates every possible manifestation of the Left but is especially egregious when demanded by immigrants who came originally as uninvited guests but almost immediately damned their magnanimous host.

It is strange for so many new immigrants to act on an elemental desire to reach America—only on arrival to profess that it is full of toxic, sinful people, living and dead. Yet the damned hosts have inexplicably welcomed total strangers like themselves, and have allowed them to share in the freedom, security, and prosperity created by the dead whom the newcomers nonetheless endlessly slander and smear.

If particular minorities statistically did not do as well on the SAT as Asians and whites did on average, the solution was certainly not SAT tutorials in the inner city or K-12 SAT outreach, demands for tougher classes in grammar, math, and analytics, or a return to the melting pot rather than the current salad-bowl tribalist model.

Instead, after the George Floyd riots, the call went out to abolish the SAT entirely—as if there had never been a purpose behind its creation. In fact, merit-based SAT exams were designed in the 1920s and 1930s to allow anyone, regardless of race, gender, region, or class, to enter college through meritorious performance on the tests—and, in particular, to overcome old-boy insider preferences and regional and ethnic prejudices.

Yet when the SAT was mostly abolished for four or five years, higher education thought it had solved the problem of minority underrepresentation. In fact, its racialist war on standards only magnified its dilemmas. The SAT had once informed admissions officers not only about applicants’ qualifications but also whether admitted students could do the work once enrolled. But soon liberal professors learned that many of the newly admitted cohorts lacked the K-12 training necessary to do customary university coursework. Yet if professors maintained their regular courses, requirements, and grading, they might soon be labeled racists once particular minorities were shown to do less well than Asians and whites.

So universities inflated grades. They introduced new remedial and gut courses. And they reduced the required coursework. But again, racialism is never a solution to problems. Instead, it is a catalyst that fuels them—as we have seen with the new notion that plagiarism is not an actionable offense when the culprit can plead victim status, whether a former president of Harvard or a current professor at Cambridge. But there are ancient laws and norms that insist intellectual theft is a crime and should be punished, not rewarded or ignored.

Soon employers noticed that the reading, writing, and analytical skills of graduates from prestigious schools were proving dismal. Alumni complained both that the reputations of their almae matres were in decline and resting on the fumes of the past and that their own children, who had prepared diligently to ensure suitably competitive grades and SAT scores for admission, were being rejected solely on the basis of their race.

Read more …

“AOC has spent a decade cultivating an image as the insurgent outsider fighting the establishment. Conway just pointed out what should have been obvious all along: the insurgent outsider has become the establishment, and yet she has nothing to show for it.”

• This Might Be the Most Brutal Diagnosis of AOC You’ll Ever Hear (Margolis)

Kellyanne Conway appeared on Fox News’s The Five this week and gave a blunt yet extremely fair assessment of Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.): she’s not actually doing her job. v”AOC stands for Always On Camera,” Conway said. “She is a performer, not a reformer. She went to Washington to legislate; that’s her job. She’s a pontificator, not a legislator.”Conway piled on by pointing out that, in four years under President Joe Biden, AOC passed one bill. One.


Conway’s point was simple: if you’re not good at legislating, you find something else to be good at, like living online, playing with your hair, and giggling every time someone asks whether you’d be fit to serve as commander-in-chief. Conway didn’t think that was funny. With the whole world watching, she said, that kind of response would be “embarrassing and a disaster.” Just watch The Brink of War and imagine AOC in a similar situation. You can’t, because she’s an absolute joke. But I digress.

AOC has tried to distance herself from her old positions by claiming her rhetoric from years ago doesn’t reflect where she is today. Conway found that laughable. Five years isn’t ancient history, and she made the point with a sharp comparison: does AOC’s position change with the seasons, too? If it’s raining, does she flip? If it’s October instead of April? Conway called the whole excuse disgraceful, and said both failed Wisconsin gubernatorial candidate Francesca Hong and AOC had proven themselves untrustworthy to voters.

Conway also gave AOC credit for one thing. She started as a bartender who knocked off longtime incumbent Joe Crowley in a primary nobody saw coming. That, Conway said, was the best thing AOC ever did. Everything since has traded on being the fresh face, the disruptor. But by 2028, AOC will have spent ten years in Washington voting the party line, while also proving herself to be extremely radical. For example, she was also one of only ten Democrats to vote against a resolution condemning the October 7, 2023 attack, just eleven days after it happened.

And Conway wasn’t finished with the receipts. She explained how 2024 was a disaster for AOC’s political brand. Kamala Harris spent over a billion dollars and lost anyway. AOC endorsed Jamaal Bowman in his primary, and he lost. She endorsed Cori Bush, and she lost, too.

Make no mistake about it, Conway’s larger argument wasn’t really about policy. It was about authenticity, or the lack of it. She called AOC a “performative progressive,” someone running “stunts and grunts” to sway voters, rather than legislating on their behalf. Conway doesn’t think Americans are buying it anymore. Voters who tweet first and think third and fourth, she said, will pay a price for it.

She’s right. AOC has spent a decade cultivating an image as the insurgent outsider fighting the establishment. Conway just pointed out what should have been obvious all along: the insurgent outsider has become the establishment, and yet she has nothing to show for it.

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“.. Then Gets Hit With a Brutal Fact Check “

• Jen Psaki Calls Karoline Leavitt a Liar (Teri Christoph)

Well, this is rich. Upon hearing the news that White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt would be stepping away from her role at the end of the month to focus on her young family, former Biden press secretary Jen Psaki used the occasion to trash Leavitt and call her a liar. Yes, really, the woman whose inane and repeated “circle back” responses during her own tenure behind the White House briefing podium – she was Biden’s first press secretary – made her a laughingstock both in and outside of Washington, D.C., now wants to lecture Karoline Leavitt about how a press secretary should behave.


Psaki apparently has a show on MS NOW and let loose on the Thursday night episode, saying Leavitt didn’t engage the media “in good faith” and “reshaped” the White House Briefing Room “into her own personal safe space.” “The relationship between the press and the White House is supposed to be adversarial by design,” Psaki said on MS NOW, formerly MSNBC, where she was hired after her performance on then-President Biden’s behalf from 2021 to 2022.

“I mean, the press in the room are supposed to push for more access, for more information. And there are times when it’s absolutely appropriate for the press secretary to push back. But Karoline Leavitt didn’t want to engage in good faith with those reporters and their tough questions. “And so, instead, she did everything she could to reshape that briefing room into her own personal safe space where she rarely had to answer a tough question, hardly ever. I mean, she only briefed once or twice a week, max.”

https://twitter.com/TVNewsNow/status/2088295754242625539?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E2088295754242625539%7Ctwgr%5E51a5118d96cbec2591a5d28cf11329865172c856%7Ctwcon%5Es1_c10&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fredstate.com%2Fterichristoph%2F2026%2F08%2F14%2Fformer-biden-spox-attacks-karoline-leavitt-n2205622

Psaki wasn’t done there and “accused Leavitt of lying repeatedly in her role and said she only served one man: Trump.”“It’s been about telling the version of the truth according to the serial liar who sits in the Oval Office. Reporters in the room don’t matter. The American people who rely on the reporting from the reporters in the room [don’t] matter, she’s never seen her job as working for the American people as a public servant,” Psaki said, adding she had damaged the job.

As a reminder, Jen Psaki spent years helping sell the fiction that Joe Biden was mentally sharp and physically vigorous, once claiming that the then-78-year-old president was so energetic she sometimes had trouble keeping up with him; even after leaving the White House, she insisted she had never witnessed any diminished capacity. She’s hardly in a position to cast judgment on anyone with that resume. Wid Lyman, an independent journalist who often attended Leavitt’s briefings, served up a brutal fact check on Psaki, revealing that, behind the scenes, the media has appreciated the increased access to the president, describing Leavitt’s entire team as “first class.”

“Jen Psaki recently said the White House press briefing room “has massively changed” under the Trump administration and @karolineleavitt. If you talk to anyone who has worked in media at the White House this is undoubtedly true. Two comments I have heard recently: “There is way, way more going on during this administration compared to the last.” “The entire press team is first-class.” Karoline Leavitt not only fostered a more open atmosphere for multiple types of media in the briefing room, but she also created an environment where her staff was professional and courteous.

The 49 permanent seats in the James S. Brady Press Briefing Room are allocated to legacy and major news organizations, but standing room only crowds of unseated journalists regularly attend the briefings. I routinely hear how much more crowded the room is compared to other times. Thank you for the opportunity to give our readers and followers a voice. God bless in all things.”

White House spokesman Davis Ingle had a very simple response to Psaki’s attack on Leavitt: “Jen ‘Circle Back’ Psaki couldn’t hold a candle to Karoline Leavitt.” Leavitt leaves the White House having expanded press access and earned praise even from journalists outside the conservative media bubble. Psaki left after helping hide Joe Biden’s obvious decline from the American people. If she really wants to have a conversation about who disgraced the podium, by all means, let’s have it.

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“.. the GOAT of White House Press Secretaries”

• A Love Letter to Karoline Leavitt (Scott Pinsker)

From predicting Donald Trump’s victory in 2024 to nailing the Democrats’ Graham Platner bait-and-switch a month before everyone else, my predictive hit rate is among the best in the punditry biz. (And just this week, 48 hours after I hailed AOC’s “woke” pivot as a PR masterstroke, she shot to the top of the prediction markets. Booyah!) No, I haven’t gotten everything right, but to be fair, I’ve taken some very yuuuge swings. (Go big or go home, amiright?)

I’d guesstimate my accuracy is about 75%. But one of my proudest prognostications was less a prediction than an observation: Almost immediately, I hailed Karoline Leavitt — the youngest White House press secretary in history — as a frickin’ rockstar, and the greatest to ever serve President Trump.From March 18, 2025:

“We’re now eight weeks into Donald Trump’s second term, and two things are perfectly clear: 1) His press secretary, Karoline Leavitt, is an absolute rockstar. 2) The mainstream media hates her.

The difference between Karoline and, say, Sean Spicer — Trump’s original press secretary — is night and day. Look, I don’t want to be unkind to Spicer, but her charisma, charm, and intellectual dexterity leave him in the dust. It’s the difference between chicken salad and chicken [EXPLETIVE].

Personally, I think she’s the best press secretary President Trump’s ever had”It took the rest of the media a little bit longer to catch up. People forget, but Leavitt was initially dismissed as a dumb blonde bimbo who only got the job ‘cause she’s young and hot.

Ain’t that a kick in the head: Within 20 months, Karoline Leavitt went from an “airhead” to irreplaceable! Yet her biggest legacy will be how she transformed the position of White House press secretary. Pre-K.L. and post-K.L. are gonna be night and day. What once was an afterthought is now a PR priority. She turned White House press secretary into a prestige position.In the past, it was hit and miss. Sometimes, the White House press secretary was competent; sometimes, he/she wasn’t. Either way, nobody gave it much thought. (And at least one president clearly prioritized DEI box-checking over PR talent.)

But the era of appointing uncharismatic lumps such as Robert Gibbs, Jay Carney, Karine Jean-Pierre, and Dee Dee Myers to the position is over. It’ll NEVER happen again. That’s because Leavitt redefined the political — and personal — utility of being White House press secretary. It’s a byproduct of our media age: Voters consume content in quick bites, conflict sells, and viral moments are manna from heaven. Some of the top conservative podcasters and media personalities (including Charlie Kirk) had to manufacture conflict by traveling to college campuses, debating left-wingers, and uploading the most viral encounters to YouTube.

Kirk and others invested in this strategy because it moved the needle — repeatedly.But the White House press secretary doesn’t have to travel anywhere. Whenever she wants, she can go to the podium, whack reporters around like a piñata, and become an instant social media sensation.It’s an ambitious politician’s passport to fame and stardom!

Pre-K.L., someone such as Scott Jennings would have had no interest in being the White House press secretary. Why would he? He’s already kicking [tush] on CNN as the network’s top conservative counterweight; why deal with the headache of pushy left-wing reporters? Why hitch your wagon to the lame-duck Trump administration when you’re doing just fine on your own? (CNN pays him with real money, y’know.) Now, it’s a very real possibility — because Karoline Leavitt went from MEETING the press to BEATING the press.

With the D.C. press corps’ blistering hatred of Donald Trump and the MAGA movement, the purpose of the White House press secretary changed out of necessity. The goal, after all, of the mainstream media wasn’t to report “without fear or favor,” but to cheerlead for the Democrats and undermine the Republicans. In such a climate, a by-the-books, dispassionate PR presentation would be a disaster.You can’t treat a bad-faith question like a good-faith question. It just doesn’t work. Which is why Karoline Leavitt didn’t try:

The purpose of the position has changed. Instead of serving as the media’s punching bag, Leavitt reversed the equation, flipped the narrative, and leveraged the media’s idiocy to punctuate her own political points — manufacturing viral moments by the barrelful. Best of all, she instinctively mirrored her boss’s ethos: Trump is a fighter; so is Leavitt. If you come after Trump with a hammer, he’ll fire back with a torpedo. His tolerance for stupidity is famously thin.Same goes for Leavitt.

Plus, she had fun with the gig. Her joy was genuine; it leaped through the screen. Whether the next press secretary is Scott Jennings, Kari Lake, Spencer Pratt, or someone else, Leavitt created the blueprint that her successor will surely follow.Post-K.L., the primary job of a Republican White House press secretary is to produce viral moments by out-sparring D.C. reporters. Each day you’re behind the podium, your goal is the same: Defend the president by excoriating his detractors — and exposing their left-wing bull[feces]. It’s now a debating position, not an information desk.

Which, in all honesty, is way more fun: Not too many elite political talents would sign up to be the media’s punching bag ‘til the end of 2028… but getting two solid years of primo media facetime? Going one-on-one against America’s most famous journalists? Your top moments uploaded to X? Smashing reporters on a daily basis? Hooboy! The media is our perfect foil. Just 28% of Americans trust it — and for Republicans, it’s just 8%. We couldn’t ask for a better enemy. Post-K.L., the position of White House press secretary could elevate a current media star such as Scott Jennings to the next level for superstardom.

After leaving D.C., Karoline Leavitt will have plenty of options. If Fox News is wise, it’d load a Brink’s truck and make her an offer — as should CNN, Newsmax, and the major networks. She’d also be a helluva pick-up for The Daily Wire (assuming they could afford her). Or she could launch a digital network of her own, a la Tucker Carlson, Candace Owens, and Megyn Kelly. She has the name I.D. and political credibility to draw millions of eyeballs right out of the gate. Everyone knows her; everyone respects her. She’s about to be the hottest free agent in all of political media!

Or maybe she’ll take some time off and be a full-time momma for the next few years. Lord knows she’s earned the right to rest — and focus on her babies. She’s still only 28. Because, unlike most members of the media, she doesn’t have to strike when the metal is hottest. We won’t forget her — and her career won’t suffer. She can afford to take her time. Because she’s simply too talented. Congratulations, Karoline. You’re the GOAT of White House press secretaries. You were so damn good, you changed how the entire game is played. We salute you.

And it was the easiest prediction of my career.

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Lock him up until he’s there?!

• Fauci Refuses Senate Appearance (Fox)

Dr. Anthony Fauci on Friday declined a request to voluntarily appear before a second Senate panel, opening another front in Republicans’ investigations into the former public health official’s handling of the COVID-19 pandemic. An attorney for Fauci rejected the request from Sen. Ron Johnson, R-Wis., chairman of the Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations, arguing that compelling Fauci to testify again after his contentious July 29 Senate hearing would “impermissibly harass or degrade Dr. Fauci for political purposes.”


Johnson has been conducting a parallel investigation into Fauci and the federal government’s response to COVID-19, including the safety and efficacy of COVID-19 vaccines. The refusal comes after Republicans on the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee voted along party lines last week to hold Fauci in contempt of Congress after he invoked his Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination more than 100 times during the July hearing. Committee chairman Rand Paul, R-Ky., has sought to send the contempt referral directly to the U.S. Attorney’s Office in the District of Columbia, bypassing a full Senate vote.

“It’s a good legal discussion, and we will make those legal points to DOJ in sending the referral over,” Paul told Fox News Digital ahead of last week’s contempt vote. At issue is whether Fauci can invoke the Fifth Amendment after former President Joe Biden issued him a preemptive pardon before leaving office. Paul has argued that Biden’s pardon removed Fauci’s risk of federal prosecution and therefore undermined his basis for refusing to answer lawmakers’ questions. Fauci and his attorneys have disputed that position.

Paul has spent years investigating Fauci’s role in the government’s response to COVID-19 and has accused the former National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases director of funding “risky” research that led to an alleged lab leak of the COVID-19 virus in China. Paul has repeatedly called for Fauci to be prosecuted.

Johnson’s subcommittee has separately obtained records related to Fauci and the government’s pandemic response. Fox News Digital previously confirmed that the Department of Health and Human Services sent the subcommittee a copy of Fauci’s pandemic-era cellphone. The broader Homeland Security panel also received more than 1,000 pages of Fauci’s personal diary before his July hearing.Fox News Digital reached out to Johnson’s office to ask whether he intends to subpoena Fauci following the refusal. Fox News Digital also sought reaction from Paul’s office and asked Fauci attorney David Schertler whether Fauci would comply with a subpoena compelling his testimony.

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“It’s going to get much worse before the Midterms. As I said, these people don’t care about the country..”

• 2026 Midterms Very, Very Tight Election – Martin Armstrong (USAW)

Legendary financial and geopolitical cycle analyst Martin Armstrong is out with a new report (more than 100 pages) that takes a deep dive on the “2026 Midterm Elections” in November. Armstrong says, “The computer is showing this is going to be a very, very tight election. It’s a 50/50 deal where we didn’t see either party coming in with a landslide. The bottom line looks like the Democrats can take the House, but not the Senate. So, you will have a 50/50 divided government. You are going to get a lot of the crazies on the Democrat side. Even the conservative Democrats are getting very nervous. You recently had (Democrat) James Carville talking about how the party is going to split, which was our forecast in 2024.


So, this is where we are heading. By the Dems taking the House, you will see all kinds of investigations, there will be another impeachment of Trump, etc. They will be real obstructionists. They don’t give a crap about the country. If Trump says the sky is blue, they have to say it’s red. This is the way politics degenerated.”The implications for the Democrats will be long lasting and not in a good way. Armstrong says, “If the Democrats take the House, they will basically make this a real shit fight. Our computers show for 2028 something very, very interesting. I have never seen it do this, and it’s showing the Democrats will lose dramatically. On the Republican side, it shows they win even slightly above 70%.

You take the two favorites from both sides, which would be Vice President Vance against AOC (Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez), Vance would blow her out, yes. I think the Democrats need to take the House to show the world how screwed up they really are. There will be a check against them from Trump and the Senate. They can do an impeachment, but the trial has to be in the Senate, and it’s not going to go anywhere. . .. It’s going to get much worse before the Midterms. As I said, these people don’t care about the country. This has turned into a bloodsport. This is part of what the computer has been projecting. By 2032, we are looking at the collapse of Republican forms of government.”

On the war in Ukraine, Armstrong says, “I am not optimistic. It looks like it goes off the boards by 2030 or so. Even the EU looks like it’s going to collapse after 2029 and break up again.” With the Iran war, Armstrong says, “China is using Iran to drain our resources, which has happened. It takes two to three years to replace the missiles. Taiwan is up in arms saying to the US, you don’t have the fire power to protect us. . .. You see the same thing with Russia and Ukraine. They say Russia is weak. They can’t take Ukraine, and Ukraine has seriously weakened Russia. That is what Ukraine is doing. That’s the whole purpose of this, and that was to drain Russia. Iran is doing the same thing to America.”

Armstrong says don’t expect the stock market to crash anytime soon as money is flowing into and not out of America. Armstrong also is forecasting a new gold bull market in 2027.

Extra:

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I did check the date to make sure it’s recent.

• Newsom’s High Speed Train to Nowhere is Not Arriving Anytime Soon (Turley)

California Gov. Gavin Newsom has been frantically trying to restart a presidential campaign that appears moribund, with polls showing him losing in some states to figures such as Pete Buttigieg and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. In his absence, his multibillion-dollar high-speed train also seems to be going nowhere fast. A new report from the state inspector general revealed that the train will be delayed again and that the public is being kept in the dark about ongoing problems with Newsom’s signature project. Oh, and one more thing: the project will run out of money by December 2027.


Benjamin Belnap’s report revealed the project is again running out of money. It found missing details in the project’s 2026 business plan, and concluded that the project will again be out of money by next year. The state has already spent $18 billion, but it will need at least another $18 billion to finish the first segment. It could take roughly $200 billion more actually to complete the original San Francisco-to-Los Angeles line. Even with billions more, the current segment will not be completed until 2034.

Voters approved a $9.95 billion bond issue in 2008 under Newsom’s predecessor after absurdly low cost estimates. Newsom has been a champion of the project. Influential figures and companies stood to make a fortune, and the key was to secure a “buy-in” worth billions, so that it would become increasingly difficult to abandon the project as overruns and delays sent costs soaring. Now the official estimate of future ridership has dropped by 25%, and it demands billions more to complete a project delayed by decades. Remember that this entire project was meant to create a rail line of only 171 miles.

One would think that the California voters would be marching to the capital with pitchforks and torches over such breathtaking incompetence and waste. However, they appear to have been conditioned to accept the lowest level of performance from their public officials.

The response of Democratic leaders is crushingly predictable: they are pledging to seek a federal bailout to cover their own incompetence. The Democratic nominee for governor, Xavier Becerra, is promising to fight to get back federal funds that were cut off by the Trump Administration. While promising to seriously review any problems in the project (as if they are not obvious), no one has been held accountable for this financial train wreck. Instead, all Democrats can do is demand that citizens around the country help bail out their boondoogle.

Yet, the Inspector General is describing a failure of leadership where no one is making any real decisions: “Exploration of specific financing mechanisms is a positive step, but because the Authority might run out of funding as soon as December 2027, and the financing strategy the Authority uses has the potential to significantly affect the amount of interest it will need to repay, the Authority and state lawmakers have little time for delay in deciding upon a strategy and implementing it.”

Belknap indicated that those in control are simply shrugging off the problem, noting that “[b]ecause the Authority has thus far not demonstrated a willingness to establish and reinforce a process that ensures accuracy and transparency in project reporting, we have directed our report recommendations to the Board.”

In the meantime, the state will continue to creep along with a project that is sucking billions into a project that has become a national disgrace. Beccera’s pledge to seek bailouts shows that the problem remains the political culture in California. There is little accountability left in a one-party state where companies and individuals have made fortunes off this debacle. The only people being taken for a ride are Californian citizens and it is not the ride that they bargained for.

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What is this? Communiusm? There’s only one possible opinion?

• War On Rowling Continues (Sans Facts) (Christian Toto)

Journalists love to ask two questions spun from the same unhinged premise. Do you support trans women in women’s sports, and do you agree with author J.K. Rowling’s “anti-trans” views?The former bullies athletes for passing Biology 101. The latter targets the Harry Potter author at every possible turn. We’re seeing both in action of late. Indiana Fever guard Sophie Cunningham is under media assault for sharing a simple truth about men in women’s sports, a fact supported by science at every turn. “She’s MAGA Barbie,” select outlets cry!


Rowling is under a fresh attack from an actor lucky enough to snag a role in HBO Max’s hotly anticipated Harry Potter TV series. Bel Powley, who plays Petunia Dursley in the upcoming series, told The Telegraph that she “strongly disagrees” with Rowling’s position on trans issues.”I strongly disagree with J.K. Rowling’s views on gender. I think that the trans community deserves safety and dignity and respect and total acceptance … but I love Harry Potter. I grew up with the books. I am from that first generation of readers and, again, I love magic and spookiness.”

That’s why Powley took the gig. That, and the paycheck, of course. It’s likely that The Telegraph asked Powley about the Rowling issue and that the actress didn’t bring it up on her own. Either way, it’s part of a larger, disturbing media trend. Reporters describe anyone who doesn’t embrace the whole activist trans agenda as “anti-trans.” And they never ask the person in question to share specifics on what they’re criticizing or recite the actual comments by the “villain” du jour. For Cunningham, that means her critics won’t admit the obvious. Men have clear, distinct biological advantages that don’t vanish if they embrace “womanhood” or take hormones. Cunningham spoke very clearly on the issue. She did so without malice or political rhetoric.

The media and the Left, but we repeat ourselves, targeted her anyway. Rowling also has been very careful in her language on trans issues. She doesn’t wish the trans community harm. Her initial statements on the subject were kind and hardly alienating. She simply understands the need for separate spaces for biological women while acknowledging the physiological differences between male and female athletes. Oh, and she’s faced frequent death threats for sharing her commonsense opinions. Here’s what Rowling wrote in 2020, responding to the very early stages of the Left’s war on the beloved author.

“Trans people need and deserve protection. Like women, they’re most likely to be killed by sexual partners. Trans women who work in the sex industry, particularly trans women of colour, are at particular risk…I feel nothing but empathy and solidarity with trans women who’ve been abused by men.” Does that sound cruel or hateful? Hardly. Did Powley read Rowling’s long, personal essay on the subject back in 2020? Has she read it lately? Unlikely.

The same is likely true for John Lithgow. The veteran actor plays Professor Dumbledore in the series, and he, too, has been coaxed into savaging Rowling for her trans views. They’re “inexplicable,” Lithgow said. Has he tried speaking with her directly? She’s a key player behind the scenes of the new HBO Max show.

Why not start there? Has he read everything she’s said on the matter? Where does he agree or disagree? It’s fine to disagree, of course, but he must know the intense cancellation movement she’s faced in recent years. Or does he realize that the “safe” position in Hollywood for anyone, let alone an 80-year-old actor, is to slam Rowling and leave any critical facts out of the conversation? To be fair, the legacy media does just that, too.

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If Washington were the capital of a piece of land named Turkey, someone would do something about it too.

• It’s Spelled ‘Turkey,’ Not ‘Türkiye” (A.J. Christopher)

I noticed that when media outlets write about the country Turkey, they’re now spelling it “Türkiye.” Have you noticed it, too? Did you get the memo on this? Because I sure didn’t.

But apparently the United Nations did. At the request of the Turkish president, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, the United Nations in June 2022 agreed to use the spelling “Türkiye” to refer to the country. The State Depa
rtment also must have gotten the memo, because in January 2023, it followed suit. Naturally, the Western media was only too happy to play its polished role as court eunuch to Biden’s autopen, and it slipped into the usage of “Türkiye” with nary a peep.

So why did Erdogan make the request? Because “Turkiye” is how the country is spelled in its native Modern Turkish alphabet, and Erdogan’s rebranding of its spelling is part of his larger nationalistic, anti-Western agenda. Erdogan is also well aware of the West’s Achilles’ heel, which is the insatiable addiction of white liberals to pander to anything they feel counters Western influence. Erdogan is a president in name only. In reality, he lords over an increasingly repressive Islamist dictatorship that has been busying itself for over a decade with decoupling from the West and aligning with Russia and Iran. One would think that Western liberals would recoil from taking direct orders from a man who cozies up to the oppressors of women, the murderers of gays, and the architect of the Ukraine invasion.

Ah, but that would require them to stand on their stated principles. And it turns out their stated principles are not really their principles at all. It’s more important for them to denigrate their own culture and language — hence their eager and willing use of the word “Türkiye” – than to make common cause with “workers of the world” or “indigenous communities” or whatever their catchphrase of the week is. White liberals do this effortlessly with other linguistic overlaps as well. This is why they pronounce Spanish-originating words with faux-accents. They’ll pronounce the word Latino as (Lah-TEE-no), and they’ll over-accentuate the double E. Or they’ll pronounce the word Mexico as (Meh-hee-co), and pronounce the X as an H.

Liberals do this partly to brag about how cultured they think they are. They do this partly because they think it makes them sound exotic and diverse. But they do it more so as a direct criticism of the English language and American culture, as if by pronouncing these words with Spanish accents and pronunciations, they are disavowing their own native language as inferior. This is pandering, and it’s embarrassing to watch. It reeks of desperation. And the attempt doesn’t flatter the minority whose rear end the groveling white liberal is desperately trying to kiss. He’s rather insulted. You don’t get into people’s good graces by poorly mimicking their accent. You don’t impress them by flaunting the half a dozen or so words you know of their native language.

One particularly asinine example is that of the Micmac Indians, a Native American tribe in the American northeast, formally changing their name to the Mi’kmaq to appear less “colonial.” The left, of course, duly did what they were told and began using the word Mi’kmaq. It solved none of these Indians’ problems and changed nothing of history, but it made everyone feel woke and special.I find this particular example silly for two reasons. First, let’s be honest. None of us even knew the Micmacs were an Indian tribe until the movie Pet Sematary hit the theaters in 1989. And second, there is nothing colonizing about the spelling of the word Micmac.

Do you know why? Because there was never a written native version of the word which could be “colonized.” Do you know why? Because the Micmac Indians had no written language. That’s why. They were that primitive. And it amuses me that a culture which appropriated the concept of written language from us now tries to dictate to us how to use that language. Sorry, not sorry. I’m spelling it as Micmac. And if you continue to insist on taking the word and making it Mi’kmaq? Fine. You can take that word back. And I will take back electricity and indoor plumbing and modern medicine and literacy and the wheel.

The worst, though, is when white liberals do this with Islam. It starts, again, with their pronunciation of the word itself. In English, we pronounce it as (IZ-lam). But the pandering white liberal will try to adapt an Arabic accent and pronounce it as (Is-LAHM). It’s subtle, but it’s unmistakable when you hear them do it. And it sounds like nails on a chalkboard. Because it’s such shameless pandering. But they have to outdo each other to show whose most woke. And so they refer to the religion’s founder Mohammed as the Prophet Mohammed. As if he were an actual prophet, and not a schizophrenic, incestuous warlord. And you’ll notice they never extend this respect to any other religion. They never refer to Moses as the Prophet Moses. They never refer to Jesus as Jesus the Messiah.

But with Islam? They trip over one another rushing to fasten the shackles to their own wrists. So let’s get a few things straight. Without apology, I will continue to pronounce every word I speak, regardless of that word’s origin, with an American accent, just as people of other languages will continue to speak their words using their own accents, without anyone trying to guilt trip them for it. Without apology, I will continue to spell every word I write using phonetic English, just as people of other languages will continue to write their words using their own phonetics without anyone trying to guilt trip them for it.

And without apology, I will never refer to Mohammed as a prophet. Because he wasn’t one. He initiated a death cult which rivals only leftist ideology in the amount of sheer human suffering it inflicts wherever it goes. I’m American, and I speak and write based on the culture in which I was raised. I’m proud of that. And because of my cultural self-confidence, I feel no need to insist that strangers halfway across the globe pronounce and write the word “America” the same exact way I do. And if some dime store Islamic thug like Erdogan thinks he has a say in how I speak my language in my country, I’d like to see him try to enforce it.

Hey Erdogan, you know that city you call Istanbul? The proper pronunciation is actually “Constantinople.” And you want us to spell your country as Türkiye? The proper spelling is actually “Byzantium.” You might not be aware of that now.

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https://twitter.com/EricLDaugh/status/2088335459713716536?s=20 https://twitter.com/cb_doge/status/2088368087536169145?s=20 https://twitter.com/WakeUpPatriott/status/2088014520602022365?s=20 https://twitter.com/AmericaPartyX/status/2088347581705302441?s=20

 

 

 

 

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Debt Rattle August 12 2026

Aug 122026
 
 August 12, 2026  Posted by at 9:50 am Finance Tagged with: , , , , , , ,  33 Responses »


Rene Magritte Memory 1948


• Iran’s Military Command: US Must Meet All Demands For Hormuz Opening (ZH)
• Iran Has One Last Chance Before Trump Hits Back (Victor Davis Hanson)
• Biden Caused US Munitions Problems By Aiding Kiev — Trump (TASS)
• I Liked the Dems Better When AOC Was Their Craziest Commie (Stephen Kruiser)
• The Cunning Genius of AOC’s ‘Woke’ Reboot (Scott Pinsker)
• Radical DSA Platform Grabs Spotlight As Candidates Surge In Primaries (JTN)
• COVID-19 Vaccines, Scientific Theories, Medical Speculation (CTH)
• Judge Allows Trump To Amend $10 Billion BBC Lawsuit (JTN)
• Trump Weighs Federal Challenge to Mamdani’s New York Pied-à-Terre Tax (ZH)
• Massachusetts Legalizes Abortion Up To Birth As Liberals Cheer (MN)
• Wall Street Giants Hand Nvidia $500bn To Fund Boom In AI Projects (BBC)
• Niceness as Whiteness: Professors Denounce Niceness as White Privilege (Turley)

 


 

https://twitter.com/seanhannity/status/2086990011816202702?s=20 https://twitter.com/CaseyKrol/status/2086837726943363530?s=20

 


 


Iran is overasking. They can’t help themelves.

• Iran’s Military Command: US Must Meet All Demands For Hormuz Opening (ZH)

Pakistan started the day by floating optimistic reports of the warring sides reverting to ‘moving toward peace efforts’ – however that appears very short-lived, or really was probably never a reality, given soon on the heels of these claims a top Iranian official has reiterated that the Strait of Hormuz will remain closed until the US corrects its ‘behavior’. According to fresh reports out of state media sources:


Secretary of the Supreme National Security Council of Iran Rezaei says Strait of Hormuz will not open until the US changes its behavior and accepts Iran’s conditions. This comes amid widespread reports that Iran has just undergone a significant military shuffling of top command leadership, which points to the ascent of the ‘hardliner’ crowd – as in those who are against signing an MoU deal with Washington…


The Wall Street Journal and others are picking up on Tehran’s obvious shift away from negotiations, and toward a more permanent state of military resistance. It writes: “Now, the new supreme leader, Khamenei’s son Mojtaba, is putting his own stamp on the country’s national-security policy amid a confrontation with the U.S. that could last months or even years.” According to more of WSJ’s analysis:

“In a sweeping overhaul of the government’s top echelon on Sunday and Monday, Iran named seasoned hard-liners to run the country’s security policies and institutions of repression. It marked the most significant government reshuffle under Mojtaba Khamenei, who hasn’t been seen in public since the war began. U.S. intelligence agencies say he is alive but severely injured, and top Iranian cabinet members say they have never met him since he took office. Iranian officials say he was injured but in good health.

Analysts said the appointments signaled Khamenei’s determination to hold fast in a showdown with President Trump, who is seeking concessions on Iran’s nuclear program and the Strait of Hormuz. “The regime is preparing for a more confrontational posture at home and abroad,” said Kasra Aarabi, an expert on the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, a powerful paramilitary force, at United Against Nuclear Iran, a policy organization that opposes Iran’s government. For some – especially the non-interventionists, it was obvious the war would take this course from day one.

‘Return of Peace Efforts’ Headline Pushes Oil Down
Despite what are clearly ongoing attacks on international vessels in regional waters, suddenly mediators are feeling optimism again, and decided to float another apparent round of pre-US market open headlines suggesting peace could return. Though there’s as yet no evidence of this, the Pakistani Defense Minister has signaled that the US and Iran are close to some agreement and that the situation is moving towards peace. Oil prices promptly plummeted ahead of market open. Pakistan’s interior minister Mohsin Raza Naqvi, has also just arrived in Tehran for talks with Iranian officials amid going mediation efforts, according to Iran’s Mehr news agency.

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“I don’t think you can trust them. But the point is they got the message that now this was the last chance. So, if they break this, and I think they will, Trump will have no choice, if he is to have any credibility..”

• Iran Has One Last Chance Before Trump Hits Back (Victor Davis Hanson)

Sami Winc: But there were leaks from the government that there was a depletion of our weaponry to fight Iran with. And then, if you have anything, [President Donald] Trump is talking about there’s a new deal with Iran in the works. I know your audience is thinking, “Yeah, that’s not gonna pan out.” But if you have anything on that, and then also tales of JD [Vance] and Bibi Netanyahu not getting along.


Victor Davis Hanson: Well, to go first very quickly, people have been leaking that there are not enough Patriot missiles, for example, or Harpoon missiles, older ones, Tomahawk missiles. We’ve heard there are not enough bunker busters. I don’t know if any of this is true, but it’s been leaking.

And the problem, why Trump is so angry, is we have enough, we have about 40% or 50%, likely, of our arsenal, which is too low. This has been going on for a long time. [Former President Barack] Obama cut the defense budget, [former President Joe] Biden did, and we don’t have enough stuff. But the problem that makes people angry is we have enough to handle Iran. We don’t have enough to handle Iran, give Ukraine enough to protect Kyiv, and then deter China from attacking Taiwan. So, the more you say that and leak it, the more likely China might believe it and want to try.

While we’re engaged with Ukraine and Iran, they might want to try to see if they could go into Taiwan, and we wouldn’t have enough missiles. That’s the worry. The second thing about Trump and the Iran war, we’ve had five or six of these where he says the negotiations are going great. And then they break down, and then he hits them once or twice, and then they beg him, beg him, beg him to get back, and then everything’s close to an agreement. But the Iranians don’t tell the truth, and then he gets frustrated.

And the problem with this is that on Feb. 28, you know, we had 250 days before the midterms. So, after 38 days of kinetic operations, we stopped. We stopped because about 80%, 90% of everything they had was destroyed. But we didn’t know that they had these little mosquito boats hidden everywhere, and we didn’t know to what degree they had drones and missiles hidden. And they had a lot.So, when we kept saying we’re destroying 90% of their air capacity as far as missiles and drones, we didn’t know what the denominator was. We didn’t know 90% of what. 10,000? 20,000? It could be a lot, 10%. And so, they started threatening the Gulf.

At that point, the Gulf freaked out. And they had wanted us to go in there and eliminate Iran. But now that they got hit, they didn’t want to commit with their 600 aircraft and join us because they thought we wouldn’t take them out completely. So, then people came to Trump, I guess, this week and said, you’re out of time. We’re only 90 days. If you’re going to solve this, you can’t keep saying this because—so, last week they dreamed up, we’re just going to unload the greatest military campaign in the air since World War II. And they were. And then that panicked Iran.

And they say now they’re going to open the Strait of Hormuz. I don’t think you can trust them. But the point is they got the message that now this was the last chance. So, if they break this, and I think they will, Trump will have no choice, if he is to have any credibility, unless he continues with that program. And your third part of the question?

Winc: JD was at odds with Bibi. That was the tale. He was on Laura and he denied it, but—

Hanson: Well, that’s a complicated question because Trump came out today and said that he supports JD as his successor as the Republican nominee in 2028. The reason he did that was JD was starting to be associated with these negotiations and not the kinetic part under [War Secretary Pete] Hegseth. And the negotiations hadn’t worked.

And he had said we were dealing with the moderates. There are no moderates in Iran. There’s people who pose as moderates, but even if they wanted to be moderate, they’d be murdered. It’s run by the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, everybody knows that, and the theocracy. And then he said that Israel couldn’t kill its way out. That sounds like Israel wanted to kill people. They didn’t want to kill people. If Hezbollah had stopped the missiles tomorrow, they wouldn’t have ever gone into Lebanon.

So, there was an impression that, on the international stage, he wasn’t as experienced, let’s say, as Rubio, and Rubio’s stock was starting to come up. And if that continued, there might be a destructive race in 2028. So, what Trump did was he said to JD, pretty much, I will back you, but you’ve got to stop the stuff about Netanyahu. So, he had him meet Netanyahu, and there was supposedly—on Laura Ingraham’s interview, he denied there was a bad.

But the problem is this, that Tucker’s son worked for JD, and he, whether it’s fair or not, is associated with that wing of the MAGA movement, the Tucker Carlson, the Candace Owens, the Steve Bannon, the Joe Kent, is that his name? Yeah. All of those guys, and maybe Megyn Kelly, I don’t know. And Marjorie Taylor Greene and Thomas Massie.

And the problem with that, if he is to be associated with them, they say some pretty crazy things about Israel and the Jews. And when Thomas Massie is at a loss, because of the decision that was made in Israel, you know. And so, there’s a lot of— And there’s two problems with that. Trump’s grandchildren are Jewish and his daughter has converted to Judaism. And more importantly, there’s a lot of powerful Jewish donors who are sick of the Democratic antisemitism. So, the Republican Party is trying to attract them.

But already you see, not just among Jews, but among other people, are worried that JD seems to be singling out Israel for criticism that’s not applicable to other, more deserving targets. So, this week he’s been rehabilitated, sort of, as he got in with, he had a talk with Netanyahu. He got on Fox and said it went well. Trump endorsed him, and you didn’t hear him taking—he’s more now looking at corruption than trying to solve the negotiations. And we’ll see what happens.

Winc: Yeah, we’ll see what happens. Well, let’s turn to some of the things going on at the federal level of our government. Rand Paul has gotten the votes to refer [Dr. Anthony] Fauci for contempt, given that he took the Fifth 111 times. And my question is not so much on that as this precedent set, and I don’t know if it’s worse now than it has been in the past, of having a government official execute the laws terribly against the people or to the people, and then just being able to get away with it because, at the end of a president’s term, they pardon them. And that’s a very bothersome pattern or precedent. And I’m not sure which one.

Hanson: Well, there’s two things that presidents do. They give pardons, so they’re exempt from prosecution, and they give clemencies, so that if they’ve been sentenced, their sentence can be stopped, they can get out of prison, for example. And they do both. And it’s controversial who does more of one or the other. But if you put them both together, which you should, out of our last 47 presidents, the top 10 were Democrats. And the most was Joe Biden at about 4,500 total. That’s pardons and clemencies and other things related to that.

And then there’s FDR. Then there’s Woodrow Wilson. I think Trump now is three or four in six years. But Eisenhower gave a lot too, by the way. But out of that 10, I think eight are Democrats. And that’s important to remember because they keep saying that Trump is the all-time pardoner. I think it’s been widely abused.

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”According to the US leader, Joe Biden gave Kiev munitions worth $300 billion to Ukraine.”

• Biden Caused US Munitions Problems By Aiding Kiev — Trump (TASS)

US President Donald Trump said that any hypothetical shortage of munitions in the US armed forces stemmed from his predecessor Joe Biden’s decision to supply them to Ukraine, rather than the current military campaign in Iran. “They talk about munitions. We’re fine with munitions. <…> But the reason it could be lower <…> is because he [Biden] gave $300 billion worth to Ukraine,” Trump said in an interview with Real America’s Voice. Earlier, US media reported that US weapons stockpiles had fallen to record lows amid the conflict with Iran. The reports concerned Patriot air defense missiles, THAAD interceptors, ATACMS and PrSM long-range missiles. On August 5, The Washington Post reported, citing sources, that Trump had asked Pentagon chief Pete Hegseth to explain why the department had misled the president about a munitions shortage in the conflict with Iran. According to the report, the exchange demonstrated Trump’s “growing frustration” with Hegseth. Trump later denied that he was dissatisfied with Hegseth’s work.
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AOC’s career is carefully scripted. It has to be, because she’s not terribly bright. But this is the party that can’t find a face/leader.

• I Liked the Dems Better When AOC Was Their Craziest Commie (Stephen Kruiser)

Democrats are big fans of election year chaos. It helps cover up the fact that they are bereft of any substantive ideas to offer the voters. This year, they’re flooding the zone with crazies and waiting to see what sticks. Thus far, it’s mostly the communism that’s sticking. I wrote in last Friday’s Briefing that the Dems will never believe their party is so broken that it needs to be fixed. Of course, the reality divide between us is so wide that what we think is broken they might think is perfectly fine.


The way that the Democrats used to go about playing the game of politics was impressive. Until President Trump came along, I maintained that they played the long game much better than the Republicans. That’s one of the many things that he flipped on its head. The Dems have been in pure rage mode since then, just seeking out opportunities to tell the world that they hate Trump. It seemed to me that they lost their mojo for long-term strategy. Because nothing is ever too weird anymore, I’m willing to reconsider my opinion.

Rather than back away from the issues that have turned their party into a coastal elitist insane asylum, the Dems and their flying monkeys in the mainstream media are now pointing to the commies of the Democratic Socialists of America as proof that the establishment isn’t so bonkers. No, really:

That’s right: Things are so topsy-turvy now that people can speak of Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez as a member of the Dem establishment. Squeaky is no longer the biggest thorn in the side of the elder Democrats, or so some would have us believe. She’s actually the Queen of the Thorns, which is the surest sign that the Dem elders aren’t that freaked out by this so-called DSA insurgency. Once more, with feeling: The DSA has been an accepted coalition in the Democratic Party proper all along. It’s not as if its members just emerged from the fog and surprised the geriatric Schumer wing of the party.

The only real thing that the Democrats have to sucker the voters is the promise of “free” stuff that isn’t really free, and the upstart honest commies in the party are even better at that than the more seasoned officials. The old way was to offer the voters fake freebies that were at least in the realm of possibility. With the DSA Stalinistas, it’s all unicorns and free housing in cities that run on cotton candy wishes. When you consider that, the internecine drama in the party looks a lot less genuine.

I’m all for them heading into November trying to sell a narrative that says Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez is whatever passes for a centrist over there. She’s not even “commie lite.” My RedState colleague Sister Toldjah wrote about Wisconsin Democratic gubernatorial candidate Francesca Hong, the next looming DSA “problem” for the Dems. Hong’s past is littered with campaign fodder for any eventual Republican opponent. The post mentions a recent interview with AOC and her attempt to cover for Hong. Put mildly, she’s not the best at being the grownup in the room.

As I also wrote on Friday, when November rolls around, every Democrat will be all-in on the DSA commie kids. It’ll be fun to see what kinds of faux tortured rationalizations they come up with to pretend that wasn’t the plan from the beginning.

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“She’s now a known entity — practically a comfort food. And because of the public’s familiarity with her, AOC doesn’t seem as scary — or as flippin’ weird — as the new kids on the DSA block.”:

• The Cunning Genius of AOC’s ‘Woke’ Reboot (Scott Pinsker)

After meeting Zohran Mamdani, Graham Platner, Abdul El-Sayed, and Francesca Hong, AOC doesn’t seem so scary, does she? Why, she’s almost quaint, traditional, and (slightly) old-fashioned by comparison. Tread carefully, Republicans: Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) is still America’s most dangerous Democrat — and still the odds-on favorite to win her party’s 2028 presidential nomination.And if she captures the nomination, there’s (roughly) a 50%-50% shot she’ll win the White House. Don’t underestimate her: She’s media-savvy, camera-friendly, photogenic, and her PR instincts are as sharp as Sardinian swords.


Consider how deftly she just rebooted the “woke” narrative. Because woke is a joke in 2026: Woke is cringe, woke is dead, woke is done. Other than the fringiest of the fringe, nobody takes it seriously anymore. Just ask South Park: The excesses of wokeism are legion. A lesser politician would’ve tried to relitigate this or recalibrate that. But AOC knew better. Instead of polishing a turd and pretending it’s chocolate, she acknowledged overreaching, killed the old narrative, and set the stage for the “new and improved” version 2.0. Remarkably, she did it in a single sentence.

“I have a local city councilman that has this saying, ‘Woke One was crazy,'” says Ocasio-Cortez with a laugh. Lots of conservatives attacked her for it — and justifiably so.

All of the above are fair, legitimate criticisms. Yet consider what AOC just accomplished: She demonstrated humility by acknowledging her “woke” mistakes. (And a politician who admits mistakes isn’t something we see every day on Capitol Hill. She rebranded ALL the P.C. craziness as “Woke One,” which effectively closed its chapter. (Now, everything that follows is “Woke Two” — which, of course, is something TOTALLY different [eyeroll]. She signaled a willingness to learn, grow, adapt, and change. (OMG, AOC is maturing before our eyes!)

For her political purposes, #3 was most significant. AOC’s greatest vulnerability in a national election is being painted as a far-left extremist, but by showing a willingness to learn, grow, and change, she comes across as an open-minded pragmatist.And by definition, an open-minded pragmatist cannot be an ideological extremist. It was a subtle but effective PR rebuttal: One of the most radical, far-left politicians in federal history is mastering the art of cosplaying as a moderate!Naturally, her liberal allies are happy to help:

As are some conservatives:

AOC was elected to Congress in 2018. After she wins reelection in 2026 (she usually gets about 70% of the vote) and completes her fifth term, she’ll have served in the House for 10 years. And she was a celebrity from the very beginning.That’s 10 long years in the spotlight. She’s now a known entity — practically a comfort food. And because of the public’s familiarity with her, AOC doesn’t seem as scary — or as flippin’ weird — as the new kids on the DSA block. (Hey, at least she doesn’t want to ban Thanksgiving or get rid of July 4 fireworks, right? Why, by comparison, she’s borderline MAGA!)

Because politics is a comparison sport: Your goal isn’t perfection; it’s to outperform your opponent. And compared to the DSA newbies, AOC really, truly seems moderate, mature, and (gasp!) reasonable. They’re the ones who are extreme — not her! Rep. Ocasio-Cortez won’t be the only Democrat vying for the DSA lane in 2028. Rep. Ro Khanna (D-Calif.) is sprinting in that direction, too. But Khanna is ugly; Cortez is attractive. Khanna is boring; Cortez is charismatic. Khanna is a bandwagoner; Cortez a trailblazer. Sorry, but it ain’t a fair fight. Khanna is toast.

Assuming AOC inherits Bernie Sanders’ socialist network of donors and activists, the DSA lane is hers for the taking. Meanwhile, “establishment” candidates like Kamala Harris, Gavin Newsom, Josh Shapiro, Pete Buttigieg, Mark Kelly, JB Pritzker, Cory Booker, Wes Moore, Andy Beshear, and Rahm Emanuel are all locked into a fierce battle to be the darling of the DNC. But that’s a very crowded lane. Not much room. Only one establishment candidate will survive. (The rest will cancel each other out.) It’s like Highlander — there can be only one. And by then, it’ll probably be too late: AOC will already have won a plurality in multiple primaries — and all the momentum going forward. She’ll be unstoppable. The nomination will be hers.

In the good ol’ days, a politician like AOC would have to move miles to moderate her image (which would risk angering her base). Not anymore. With the rest of her party racing like Usain Bolt to the radical left, all AOC has to do is temper her rhetoric and acknowledge overreaching with the “woke agenda” — and presto, she’s a moderate. It might be a coincidence, but she’s doing EVERYTHING a 2028 presidential frontrunner needs to do. Either way, the 2026 election will be the last time AOC competes in a House race. She’s outgrown her seat. Two years from now, she’ll have bigger fish to fry.

Chuck Schumer’s Senate seat is within her grasp, too. If she’s too risk-averse to run for president, replacing Schumer would be the next best thing. Schumer is done; he’s the least popular man in Washington. But if you want to change the world, nothing equals the presidency. She’ll still be attacked as a left-wing loon because she is a left-wing loon. And rebrand or not, the sheer magnitude of cringeworthy “Woke One” content she disseminated on social media won’t be forgotten: And by her own standard, it shouldn’t be forgotten. After all, in woke’s heyday, AOC called for archiving all the X posts of “Trump sycophants” who may “deny their complicity in the future.” Lo siento, mi amiga: What’s good for the goose is also good for el ganso.

But she’s making all the right moves to moderate her image. (Notably, AOC declined to endorse Francesca Hong and Graham Platner.) She rebooted the woke narrative in a single borrowed sentence. And in a Democratic Party where everyone else is sprinting left, simply by staying in place and making pragmatic concessions, she comes across as a reasonable, middle-of-the-road, non-threatening politician. We’ve known her for 10 years: That’s our Sandy! She has more name recognition, DSA fundraising infrastructure, and a larger social media footprint than almost all her peers. And like it or not, she’s excellent at PR. She really is. Don’t sleep on her.

Think of AOC like this: A bag of bones like Bernie Sanders came within a whisker of winning the Democratic nomination not once, but TWICE! (And Sanders was an old man, turning 79 in 2020.) So what do you think will happen when a photogenic, charismatic, media-savvy, 30-something Latina — running as Sanders’ successor — throws her hat in the ring? Sanders did well with his “Bernie Bros” but struggled with minorities and women. Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) even claimed that Sanders told her point-blank that a woman isn’t electable, which Sanders hotly denied. Either way, he couldn’t connect with either group — struggling mightily with minority women.

AOC is positioning herself as the next Bernie Sanders — plus women and plus minorities. In today’s Democratic Party, that’s a passport to the presidential nomination. It was an under-the-radar move, but AOC just moved one step closer to the White House.

Read more …

Will they defeat the “old” Democrats?

• Radical DSA Platform Grabs Spotlight As Candidates Surge In Primaries (JTN)

As they experience newfound success across the United States in Democratic primaries, the Democratic Socialists of America have gone on a media blitz to share their vision for America. That vision includes radical changes to the American political system, like abolishing the senate, heavily restricting private markets, and abolishing police and prisons. The Democratic Socialists of America (DSA) rode a wave of dissatisfaction with the status quo to unprecedented electoral success this year. DSA affiliated candidates and fellow travelers lead New York City and are poised to dominate its congressional delegation.


Dismantling the entire American system of government
In other areas of the country, DSA candidates are campaigning on a radical platform once unthinkable. Beyond New York, DSA candidates have won in Colorado, Michigan, and in down-ballot races in Oregon, California, Arizona, Georgia, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, Vermont, Utah and Maryland. On Tuesday, a DSA member is leading in the polls for the Democratic Party nomination for governor in Wisconsin, testing the viability of the far-left political and economic messaging in a state that President Donald Trump won in 2024. Controversy has followed Francesca Hong. Like many other DSA affiliates, her past social media posts, including arguing to defund the police and calling to cancel Thanksgiving, are at the center of it.

In an interview last month on Fox News, DSA’s national co-chair, Megan Romer, answered that, “yes,” the DSA’s platform includes “abolishing the Senate,” “[replacing] the presidency and Supreme Court as we now know them,” and “absolutely” abolishing immigration enforcement, defunding the military, and, eventually, abolishing police and prisons. “Yes,” “true,” and “yep,” said Romer in response to the host’s questions. The relentless media tour by senior DSA leaders focused scrutiny on the organization’s official platform. Republicans sensed an opening and traditional Democrats are worried the group’s radical proposals might sink the party’s midterm chances.

Indeed, many of the Democratic Socialist leaders are self-professed communists, Just the News previously reported. Many of the DSA’s leaders belong to internal party caucuses that explicitly define themselves as Marxist and advocate for achieving communism. This includes Romer, who is a member of the Red Star caucus of the DSA, which explicitly pronounces its ultimate aim: the overthrow of capitalism in the U.S. and, eventually, communism. Last month, the DSA released a new “program,” or platform, that outlined its priorities. Here are some of the most striking in the group’s own words:

‘End Mass Incarceration and Police Immunity’
The DSA’s platform includes radical proposals to defund, and eventually abolish, the “police and prison system,” which the organization argues is slanted for the benefit of the rich. Similar comments made by DSA-backed candidates have stirred controversy. “Demilitarize police departments, disempower police unions, and redirect funding to public services as steps towards fully abolishing the police and prison system which protects the rich and jails the poor,” the DSA’s program reads.

Francesca Hong, the DSA member vying for the gubernatorial nomination in Wisconsin, has worked to distance herself from prior social media posts from years ago in which she argued for abolishing police. “I support defunding the police as a first step towards abolishing the police,” Hong posted in 2020, echoing the modern DSA policy platform. Other DSA-tied candidates have come under fire for holding similar views. For example, Darializa Avila Chevalier in New York City faced scrutiny for a series of deleted posts to social media expressing support for abolishing police, prisons and borders, seizing private property, and nationalizing industries, Just the News previously reported.

‘Abolish ICE’ and ‘Amnesty for All’
“A world without borders—just like a world without prisons or police—is possible, necessary, and the only moral way forward,” Chevalier posted to Twitter, now X, in September 2021. The DSA’s program also calls for completely ending immigration enforcement, including ICE detentions and deportations. DSA organizers have been at the center of nationwide protests against the Trump administration’s immigration enforcement policies, cooperating with a coalition of left-wing organizations, some of which received funding from China-based billionaire Neville Roy Singham.

“End ICE detention and deportations and punish federal agents’ brutality. Legalize migration, grant amnesty for all immigrants regardless of status, provide a path to citizenship for all permanent residents, and end visa caps and quotas,” DSA’s program reads. New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani, who is a member of the DSA, has called repeatedly for Immigration and Customs Enforcement to be abolished. “As [New York’s] mayor, I firmly believe that ICE should be abolished,” Mamdani said. “I will not sit here beside you and proclaim the only way to respond to [immigration] is an agency that I’m older than.”

‘Abolish the Senate’ and ‘Replace the President and Supreme Court’
Hong, who will face Wisconsin Democratic voters on Tuesday, has also called for abolishing the agency. “Abolishing ICE isn’t radical — it’s good policy,” she posted to social media in January. The DSA’s proposals for reforming the United States government are also nothing short of radical. The organization envisions completely remaking the three separate branches of power in Washington and replacing the current system with a single legislature that directly appoints the other branches.

For example, rather than reform the Senate, as some Democratic politicians have argued for many years, the DSA wants to do away with the upper legislative chamber completely, vesting all congressional power in an expanded and more proportional House of Representatives. The organization’s leaders argue that doing so would make the country more democratic and representative. “The Senate is a very undemocratic institution,” DSA co-chairman Ashik Siddiqu said in an interview on C-SPAN. “I talked a bit about democracy, a ‘small d’ democracy, and that’s really important to us. We want democratic representation of all people who live in this country.”

“Public Ownership” of “Corporations”
The DSA calls for the “public ownership of the largest corporations and essential industries.” This program of nationalization would be “to ensure democratic control and accountability to the people.” To this end, the organization’s program calls for “the end of capitalism” as the system of economic organization. In some way, New York City Mayor Mamdani is piloting aspects of this broader plan in a place where the DSA actually holds levers of power. His city-run grocery store experiment intends to create a system of stores that will offer a 30% discount compared to private competitors. The plan has some in the city warning that the stores will cost taxpayers and may force private stores to close.

The platform also argues for replacing the presidency and the Supreme Court with an executive and judiciary panel “chosen by and subordinate to Congress.” All of these reforms would require major constitutional changes. Abolishing the Senate would likely require the approval of all the states because of the special constitutional provision requiring each state to have “equal Suffrage in the Senate.”

Read more …

The best queation is short:

“Why would Anthony Fauci need criminal immunity?”

• COVID-19 Vaccines, Scientific Theories, Medical Speculation (CTH)

What is surfacing now, five years later, is a stronger understanding of just how the establishment medical complex determined the safety and efficacy protocols of the COVID-19 vaccination. They had theories, they had speculation, they had scientific discussion; but ultimately, they did not know to what extent the vaccine was safe – and statistically it wasn’t safe. Looking back on recent history, the COVID experience stands out. The lessons from observing the government’s response, and how people reacted to it, have influenced our perspective on many topics related to liberty and freedom.


I turn to faith, read the gospel and recognize in more than a few ways the COVID experience was a generational test. It is generally accepted that somewhere around 60 to 70% of Americans accepted the COVID vaccine, although a great many of those who took the vaccine did so under tremendous pressure, essentially under duress and without fully informed consent.

There really was no way to apply “informed consent” to the process because the ‘information’ that should have supported the consent was skewed, shaped and in many instances intentionally manipulated. Again, the pressure for compliance to the process was extreme; beyond extreme. I said at the time we had never seen such a pressure campaign on any topic or issue as aggressively oppressive as we endured during two-years of COVID vaccination compliance pressure.

I do not fault anyone who took the vaccine. In fact, I hold great empathy toward those who now live with the hindsight question of their life potentially being shortened. Everyone has been impacted by this medical experiment and the subsequent sociological implications in the aftermath. A few days ago, a person wanted to discuss Dr Anthony Fauci’s testimony with me. I never bring up the subject of the COVID vaccine; not ever in personal discussion. However, if it is brought up to me, I will engage carefully, honestly and with empathy. I was asked about Fauci taking the fifth amendment and his previous grant of immunity by Joe Biden.

My response was short, purposeful and direct. Why would Anthony Fauci need criminal immunity? A lengthy reframing of the question resulted from my friend, who essentially then repeated it. Again, I responded, “why would any agent of the United States govt even begin a thought process that immunity for criminal activity would be needed?” Silently, inside my mind I wonder if perhaps I’ve spent too much time learning about the way Russian people think. They are like American mid-westerners of old; the questions are much shorter and more direct; there is no pretense. Why did Fauci need immunity? Why indeed. Someone knew something, eh?

That sense, the one we all carry that alerts us when something just doesn’t add up, doesn’t sit right, doesn’t reconcile unless we pretend something else exists in the sentence to explain the stuff that doesn’t reconcile. The stuff inside the sentence we create in order to explain or justify is the nonexistent stuff, the pretending stuff. Take the pretending out of the thought, and suddenly you know the answer. [Again, now you are thinking like a Russian.] We are in an abusive relationship with government. The COVID-19 experience just created a shortcut to show us just how extensive and abusive that relationship is.

How many Americans have physically been harmed in this example, and how many millions more are suffering the downstream consequences of continued codependent denial. COVID-19 was the embodiment of the truism: “when push comes to shove.” How far are you willing to go -what pain are you willing to suffer through- to retain your definition of liberty, freedom and sovereign control. Is there a price? The COVID-19 experience gave us all the uncomfortable answers….. and now the discussion necessarily gets quiet in mixed company.

Many people are angry. Many people have every emotional right to be angry. The scale of vaccine compliance suffering runs the gambit from collapsed friendships to lost jobs, broken marriages, to painful isolation and yes, to death itself.

There is no way to measure cold anger at a scale not entirely visible. Several years ago, CTH said to gently avoid touching the sensitive nerve of those vaccinated, there is no way for them to retreat from the decision. Done is done. Genuine human empathy must be applied generously, while simultaneously a pragmatic perspective must be maintained. Each person can define and judge but choosing to express that judgement is a different matter entirely. Remember, for the vaccinated all discussion is zero-sum.

As the revelations about the vaccine administrators, their thoughts, their severely compromised and corrupt activity continues to surface, it is worthwhile reminding ourselves that some people need to retain cognitive denial in order to avoid seeing the vaccinated person in the mirror. The credibility of all U.S. government institutions has collapsed; all of them. Let me repeat. When you stop pretending you accept the credibility of all U.S. government institutions has collapsed in our lifetime. The only people left covering for this collapse are those who need to retain the illusion of institutional credibility.

The Food and Drug Administration permits toxic chemicals in food and is controlled by Big Rx. The United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) is controlled by Big Ag. The corporate media are controlled by their corporate advertisers. Manage your personal affairs accordingly. We may not live there, but we are all Russians now.

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The BBC should be bankrupted over this. At a minimum, those who took decisions should lose their jobs and pensions.

• Judge Allows Trump To Amend $10 Billion BBC Lawsuit (JTN)

The president sued the network in December in his personal capacity for defamation over the BBC airing a program in 2024 that edited clips from his speech on January 6, 2021, to make it seem like he was inciting violence.A federal judge handed President Donald Trump a minor legal victory Monday by allowing him to amend his $10 billion lawsuit against the BBC in a move that is expected to help him dodge sharing financial information with the outlet. The president sued the network in December in his personal capacity for defamation over the BBC airing a program in 2024 that edited clips from his speech on January 6, 2021, to make it seem like he was inciting violence.


United States District Judge Roy K. Altman gave the president permission to file an amended complaint by next week, and dismissed the BBC’s request to dismiss the lawsuit as “moot.” The federal judge said the network can file a new motion to dismiss after the amended complaint is filed. “Today’s strong and thoughtful ruling is a major win for President Trump’s powerhouse lawsuit against the formerly respected and now disgraced BBC, which defamed President Trump by intentionally, maliciously and deceptively doctoring his speech in a brazen attempt to interfere in the 2024 Presidential Election,” a spokesman for Trump’s legal team told Fox News.

“President Trump is holding the leftist BBC, along with all of its comrades in the mainstream media, accountable for their peddling of Fake News through deception and maliciously defamatory conduct,” he added. The lawsuit comes after the British news corporation apologized for the editing, acknowledging that it failed to live up to the company’s standards by giving a false impression and promised to never show the segment again. But the network declined to say it was defamatory.

The segment edited Trump’s declaration at the White House that he and his supporters were “going to walk down to the Capitol, and we’re going to cheer on our brave senators and congressmen and women,” and his statement nearly an hour later that Republicans should “fight like hell.” The clip instead combined the comments to have the president state: “We’re going to walk down to the Capitol… and I’ll be there with you. And we fight. We fight like hell.”

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“.. for the millions of people who cherish New York and want to see it thrive, as opposed to becoming a filthy, crime-ridden, decrepit place of mockery and scorn.”

• Trump Weighs Federal Challenge to Mamdani’s New York Pied-à-Terre Tax (ZH)

President Trump said in a Truth Social post around lunchtime that his administration is examining whether the federal government has the legal authority to block NYC Mayor Zohran Mamdani’s dangerous political “experiment” before it can “destroy what was once a great City and State.”


“It is pure Amateur Hour, and it’s hard, as President of the United States of America, to sit back and watch it happen, especially to a place I once loved. Financial, and then Social, RUIN, is a 100% certainty – And then the Radical Left Jihadists charge Congestion Pricing on top of everything else,” Trump said.

He continued, “This doesn’t work in America, and must be stopped, NOW! I am looking to see if the Federal Government has any legal right to avert this disaster, before it is too late, for the millions of people who cherish New York and want to see it thrive, as opposed to becoming a filthy, crime-ridden, decrepit place of mockery and scorn.”

“The City Screwed This Up”: Judge Temporarily Blocks Mamdani’s Pied-A-Terre Tax Scheme
A New York judge temporarily halted Mayor Zohran Mamdani’s socialist experiment to impose a new tax on luxury second homes, ordering far-left City Hall officials to remove a controversial list doxing more than 900,000 homeowners from the public domain

The publicly accessible database exposed names, addresses, and property values, effectively creating an easily accessible targeting list for radical activists, including Luigi-worshipping far-left activists, amid City Hall’s escalating war on property owners.

“I’ve Been Doxed”: Lefty Podcaster Scott Galloway Rips Mamdani After Landing On Socialist’s Rich Target List
Bloomberg reports that Justice Wayne Ozzi temporarily restrained City Hall from proceeding with the new pied-à-terre tax and required the city to remove the online list of properties that would be targeted by the tax and halt further action based on roughly 17,000 notices mailed to property owners. A hearing is scheduled for Aug. 31. “The city screwed this up… got it wrong… stop the train and make them do it over,” Randy Mastro, a former deputy mayor, told the court. Mastro is the one who brought the suit on behalf of three New York homeowners.

“The city screwed this up… got it wrong… stop the train and make them do it over,” Randy Mastro, a former deputy mayor, told the court. Mastro is the one who brought the suit on behalf of three New York homeowners. z”We are very gratified by the judge’s decision, which has vindicated the rights of hundreds of thousands of New York City homeowners who were subjected to a process they never should have been a part of in the first place,” Mastro said after the ruling. On Monday, Mamdani noted Mastro’s role in suits challenging his socialist housing policies. “You know, there are few things more certain in New York City than death, taxes and Randy Mastro filing a lawsuit against this administration,” the mayor said at a press conference.

He continued, “So we look forward to vigorously defending our city’s position in court as we have done so with the previous lawsuits that he has filed and I’m sure with the lawsuits that he will continue to file in the months and years to come.” Last month, Mastro also filed a separate complaint on behalf of a group of NYC landlords who sued to void a rent freeze approved in June, arguing that Mamdani improperly influenced the Rent Guidelines Board’s vote and ignored evidence of soaring operating costs for landlords. This plays into the broader socialist endgame: bankrupt landlords and create conditions for City Hall to seize distressed apartment buildings.

Mamdani has said the new pied-à-terre tax will help fund safer streets, safer schools, and “the city that New Yorkers deserve.” Yet we know socialists do not live in economic reality, and the fact that they had to dox homeowners suggests an alternative motive: they want to seize the means of production. Putting such a list out in the public domain for their radical left foot soldiers to access suggests that wealthy homeowners will be targeted. This is dangerous, especially given the rhetoric pushed by Mamdani’s friend Hasan Piker, who recently said, “Kill capitalists.”

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“At the very stage when premature babies are receiving lifesaving care in neonatal intensive care units, Massachusetts will permit abortionists to end the lives of children of the same age – and even older. That is not compassion, and it is not health care,”

• Massachusetts Legalizes Abortion Up To Birth As Liberals Cheer (MN)

Massachusetts Democratic Governor Maura Healey has signed into law a measure that effectively permits abortion through all nine months of pregnancy, right up to the point of birth. Liberal women packed the room and gleefully cheered as she put pen to paper.The previous statute restricted abortions after 24 weeks to specific circumstances: preserving the life of the patient, physical or mental health, lethal fetal anomaly, or a grave diagnosis incompatible with sustained life outside the womb without extraordinary intervention. That framework is now gone.


The new law, deceptively titled the “Prioritizing Patient Access to Care Act” (H.5595), states that an abortion may be performed by a physician based solely upon the professional judgment of the physician. No medical review process can override that judgment and the patient’s decision. Healey framed the change around stories of “pain and anguish and heartache and a lot of trauma.” She declared: “We’re signing this law today so that new patients, people we won’t know or won’t meet, will be able to get the care that they need in Massachusetts.”

She added that health care decisions should be made “between women and families and their doctors, not politicians,” and promised abortion would remain “safe… legal, and… accessible here in Massachusetts.” The ceremony featured applause and smiles from advocates, doctors, and lawmakers. Massachusetts now joins Alaska, Colorado, Maryland, Michigan, Minnesota, New Jersey, New Mexico, Oregon, Vermont, and Washington, D.C., as jurisdictions with no statutory gestational limit. The law takes effect in 90 days.

https://twitter.com/EricLDaugh/status/2086974128565723606?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E2086974128565723606%7Ctwgr%5E19c5838c7a6769317dcca19cbcfb9d5ac8b965bd%7Ctwcon%5Es1_c10&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.zerohedge.com%2Fpolitical%2Fmassachusetts-legalizes-abortion-birth-liberals-cheer

Pro-life leaders did not share the celebratory mood. Carol Tobias, president of National Right to Life, stated: “Governor Healey and the Massachusetts Legislature have erased the final protections for unborn children who can feel pain and who could survive outside the womb.” “At the very stage when premature babies are receiving lifesaving care in neonatal intensive care units, Massachusetts will permit abortionists to end the lives of children of the same age – and even older. That is not compassion, and it is not health care,” Tobias further urged.

Myrna Maloney Flynn, president of Massachusetts Citizens for Life, was blunt: the measure “legalized elective abortion up to birth on healthy moms and healthy, pain-capable infants. She continued that it is “not about protecting the doctor-patient relationship. It is about abortionists normalizing the deaths of fully-developed infants and pressuring vulnerable women to permit their unborn children to die in heinous acts of violence.” These procedures, she noted, rank among the most severe human rights abuses permitted in only a handful of places worldwide.

Rep. Tim Burchett (R-TN) responded simply: “Jesus wept.” This movement fits a pattern of cultural celebration around the destruction of the unborn. Earlier this year a woman in Memphis took abortion pills at a gender-reveal party after learning she was having a girl while friends shouted “kill it.” Washed up Sex and the City actress Cynthia Nixon drew widespread criticism for posing in a red hat altered to read “Make Abortion Great Again,” once again providing an example of how weirdo celebrities with dysfunctional lives should not be taken seriously whenever they spout off about how society should function.

Across the Atlantic, the UK House of Lords advanced measures that also effectively open the door to abortion up to birth, despite polling showing only about 1 percent of Britons approve of such extremes and clear majorities favor gestational limits to protect viable life.

The Massachusetts law removes objective statutory guardrails and hands the decision entirely to the attending physician. Pro-life physicians emphasize that true medical emergencies requiring separation of mother and child are distinct from induced abortion intended to end the life of a viable unborn child. Late-term procedures often involve dismemberment or induction, with the latter risking live birth if fetal demise is not first induced. Supporters insist the change merely prevents families from traveling out of state for “complex medical circumstances.”

Critics counter that the prior exceptions already covered life-threatening situations and severe anomalies, and that the new open-ended standard invites elective procedures on healthy mothers carrying healthy, pain-capable infants. Data from the state’s own Department of Public Health already showed dozens of abortions at 24 weeks or later in recent years; the removal of limits is expected to increase that number.

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The money boys don’t understand AI. But they can’t afford to miss out on it. So they play it safe.

• Wall Street Giants Hand Nvidia $500bn To Fund Boom In AI Projects (BBC)

Nvidia has teamed up with some of Wall Street’s largest banks and investors to raise $500bn (£370bn) in capital for artificial intelligence infrastructure. The chipmaker said it had struck deals with Apollo, BlackRock, Blackstone, Brookfield, Goldman Sachs and KKR, and that the investors were for the first time treating AI hardware and infrastructure, often referred to as “compute”, as an asset class. “In AI, compute is revenue,” Nvidia chief executive Jensen Huang said. “We are bringing the world’s leading long-term capital providers together to independently underwrite AI infrastructure.”


The financing will go towards Nvidia’s own projects and those being built by its partners. Infrastructure projects backed by this fund will likely include the construction of new data centres to house, operate, and cool miles of stacked computer chips that process AI data and actions. It will also back new factories to manufacture the AI chips needed to power these systems and increase their availability to buyers. “Compute has become a critical infrastructure asset,” Joe Bae and Scott Nuttall, co-chief executives of KKR, said in a joint statement. “As we’ve scaled our approach to digital infrastructure, we’ve learned that delivery, not ambition, is the hard part.”

Essentially every major technology and AI company uses Nvidia’s computer chips, or graphics processing units (GPUs), to power their services, AI platforms and AI chatbots. “Nvidia is absolutely enormous and produces these chips that everybody needs for AI and it needs to keep facilitating the growth of AI,” Jane Sydenham, senior investment manager at Rathbones, told the BBC. However, she added: “The worry is that more and more money is going into these projects. Are they all going to earn the right return for the future?” ‘

Mission critical’
Companies using Nvidia’s popular chips or GPUs include Google, Meta, Amazon, Microsoft, SpaceX, Tesla, OpenAI and Anthropic. Such companies have collectively spent over $1tn in just three years on AI projects and infrastructure, with much more spending expected. And their demand for Nvidia’s chips and services has driven the stock market value of the company up fivefold in three years. In a statement on Monday, Huang referred to Nvidia’s role as a chip-maker as the company’s beginning. “Today, we are helping create a new class of productive, investable infrastructure: AI factories,” he said.

With a new ability to tap some funding from the banks and investors partnering with Nvidia, they will be able to finance more of the AI boom. Jim Zelter, president of Apollo, a lender which manages more than $1tn in assets, said: “Modern compute has emerged as a scarce, mission-critical asset class.” It is also “positioned to drive significant long-term economic growth and productivity gains”, Zelter added. BlackRock last month entered into an individual deal with Meta to finance and take a majority ownership stake in one data centre in Texas.

Anthropic also recently entered into a deal with Macquarie Asset Management and GIC, a sovereign wealth fund in Singapore, for its own investment in AI infrastructure. The company did not specify the size of the deal, but said more financing was needed as its popular chatbot Claude had become so popular that the “demand requires significant new compute”.

Read more …

I must admit I don’t think I fully understand this. Can someone explain?

• Niceness as Whiteness: Professors Denounce Niceness as White Privilege (Turley)

We have previously discussed how many professors seem to compete in finding new forms of racism in every facet of society and education. Astrophysics, math, runoffs, science, statistics, and meritocracy have all been denounced as racist. In this academic cottage industry, professors secure publications and speaking opportunities by identifying racism in expressions, images, or entire fields. Even time itself has been declared racist. Now, however, academics have found another undiscovered continent of white privilege: niceness.


When I saw a story in The College Fix on a study of “niceness as Whiteness,” I was skeptical and decided to take a look. The study by Vanderbilt Postdoctoral Research Fellow Abigail Beneke, Professors Benjamin Fisher (U. Wisconsin-Madison), F. Chris Curran (U. Florida), and Samantha Viano (George Mason) was first flagged by Dr. James Nuzzo. The paper “Niceness as Whiteness in School Police Officers’ Perceptions of Student Arrest” addresses the “perceptions of arrest” by school resource officers, or SROs) in two school districts.

The officers appear to be precisely what you are looking for in an SRO: empathetic and reluctant to make arrests. The researchers admit that they try to avoid arrests. However, according to the authors, hidden behind those sympathetic approaches was, of course, a boiling caldron of racism in terms of the racial disparity of those arrested. Indeed, the researchers realized that it was the niceness itself that was the evidence of oppressive “Whiteness.” Indeed, the officers may not want to be engines of racism and use “niceness” as a “coping mechanism,” but do so by deluding themselves and others that they are nice:

“Nice SROs did not want to arrest children. Nice police officers thought of themselves as well-meaning. Yet, they expressed being required to arrest children because of real or imagined mandates. They used niceness as a strategy for upholding a system of Whiteness that systematically privileges White people and excludes those who fall outside of Whiteness. Niceness hinders possibilities for the types of political, communal relationships central to authentic care.”

The paper makes it sound like everyone would be better off, or at least more honest, to return to hostile, racist-spewing officers. The reason is that niceness is an “enduring component of Whiteness” which “allows predominantly White people to elide how their own actions contribute to inequality by maintaining a sense of their own benevolence.” The evidence of niceness includes such findings as how officers work at “minimiz[ing] the negative impact of arrest by highlighting their own goodness.” (This includes saying things like “You want to listen to the radio? You want the window down? Is there a station you want to listen to?” after an arrest.)

Then there is the fact that these officers have good relationships and perspectives of the students. Again, it is just a shield of “whiteness” “SROs used niceness as Whiteness in their recounts of arrest … by highlighting the positive relationships they had with students they arrested…As with highlighting their own goodness, highlighting these positive relationships reframes violence (i.e., arrest) that contributes to racial inequality as a positive, since students still like the SROs. This strategy emphasizes the officer’s ability to retain his niceness—by virtue of the maintained interpersonal relationship—despite having arrested the student.”

The paper is an example of ideological screeds posing as academic research. Based on a few interviews, the researchers simply declare the empathy and relationships to be shields perpetuating “whiteness.” They cite other studies identifying niceness as a whiteness tactic:

“Prior research has demonstrated how primarily White women educators use niceness to uphold Whiteness in their work with children (Bissonnette 2016; Drake & Rodriguez 2022; Gardiner et al., 2023; Vlach et al., 2022; Wiborg, 2022). We found niceness was also present in the work of SROs, suggesting the potential for broader application of niceness to well-intentioned actors working in structurally violent systems. In addition to framing niceness as a means of excusing behavior that upholds Whiteness, we equally center the structural binds that delimit SROs’ capacity for providing care. In doing so, we identify niceness as a coping mechanism for arresting children.”

At these universities (Vanderbilt, Wisconsin, George Mason, and the University of Florida), these faculty members and their obvious agenda are viewed as ideal choices to teach their students. With four kids, I found the SROs at their schools to be extraordinary and popular figures. They would routinely intervene with kids to see if they were having trouble or try to direct them away from trouble. It turns out that everything that parents valued in their SROs was a perpetuation of privilege, according to these researchers.

While the researchers insist that “we do not intend to demonize individual SROs,” they reward the cooperating officers by twisting their every comment as revealing their deep white privilege. Presumably, they conveyed to the SROs that this would be a fair, unbiased study. It was neither, and, perhaps reaffirming their own triumph over racism, they were not a bit nice about it.

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https://twitter.com/mcafeenew/status/2086906681058025620?s=20 https://twitter.com/Teslaconomics/status/2086919130465411429?s=20 https://twitter.com/GuntherEagleman/status/2086895337545801994?s=20

 

 

 

 

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Debt Rattle July 7 2026

Jul 072026
 
 July 7, 2026  Posted by at 9:33 am Finance Tagged with: , , , , , , , , , ,  25 Responses »


Vincent van Gogh Dance hall in Arles 1888


• Vance: AOC Will Be Leading Democratic Candidate For President In 2028 (JTN)
• Shapiro Could’ve Been A Contender, But He Caved To The Loons (Turley)
• ‘Restraining Order Needed’: Trump Again Taunts Italy’s Meloni (ZH0
• Former Sen. Warren Staffer Attends Ayatollah’s Funeral (ZH)
• How Canadian Govt Controls Canadian Media (CTH)
• Werewolves of London (James Howard Kunstler)
• Trump Keeps Building What His Critics Will Later Take for Granted (Manney)
• Cuba’s Power Grid Collapses As Castro’s Grandson Seeks Talks With Trump (ZH)
• Biden Illegal Immigrant Wave Caused 30% of Home Price Increases (JTN)
• Mamdani Fancies Himself A Financial Whiz (NYPost)
• EU Shifts From Trade To War – Ex-Austrian Foreign Minister (RT)
• Zelenskyy Demands Western Support After Russian Strikes Kill 11 In Kyiv (Pol.eu)
• The EU Spins A $2.2 Trillion Wealth Transfer Machine (Thomas Kolbe)
• Royal Navy In Worst State In Centuries – Retired Admiral (RT)
• ‘Crimes Against Humanity’: The CIA’s Sickest Secret May Finally Be Exposed (RT)

 


 

https://twitter.com/XFreeze/status/2073846691183333652?s=20

 


 


FWIW.

• Vance: AOC Will Be Leading Democratic Candidate For President In 2028 (JTN)

Vice president JD Vance said that he believes Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y., will lead the field of Democratic presidential candidates in 2028. “I think it’s got to be AOC. I know that’s probably conventional wisdom,” Vance said in a wide-ranging interview on the “The Michael Knowles Show” released on Tuesday. Knowles countered that the conventional wisdom is that California Gov. Gavin Newsom would be the leading Democrat, but Vance said he doesn’t “buy that.”


“I think he hurt himself with his comment to an audience full of black Americans that I’m low IQ, just like you,” Vance said. Vance was referring to comments Newsom made at an event in Atlanta in February in an attempt to say he related to the audience. “I’m just trying to impress upon you: I’m like you. I’m no better than you. You know, I’m a 960 SAT guy,” Newsom said. Initial reports claimed Newsom was speaking to a predominantly Black crowd, but subsequent photos and videos from the event revealed a diverse crowd with many whites in the audience.

Read more …

“Yesterday’s armchair revolutionaries like Shapiro will soon be treated as today’s reactionaries by the very mob that they are trying to enlist.”

• Shapiro Could’ve Been A Contender, But He Caved To The Loons (Turley)

Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro has finally reached his Terry Malloy moment. In the classic movie “On the Waterfront,” the character tells his brother of losing it all; his shot to be a champion and a person of respect: “You don’t understand! I coulda had class. I coulda been a contender. I could’ve been somebody, instead of a bum, which is what I am, let’s face it.”


Shapiro decided to deliver his defining moment on MS NOW’s “Morning Joe” when he abandoned all principle and decided to join other Democratic establishment leaders in offering up the Supreme Court to the radical left. Shapiro used the common coded reference to court packing, calling for “radical reform of the court.” The only “radical” reform being seriously discussed is packing the institution with an immediate liberal majority to reverse a series of recent decisions and to greenlight an equally radical agenda for changes to our political system.

Democratic Gov. Josh Shapiro greets the crowd at a presidential campaign rally for Vice President Kamala Harris, on Aug. 6, 2024, in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. (Andrew Harnik/Getty Images)What is so disappointing is that Shapiro truly could have been a contender, an alternative to the cringing, accommodating politicians who are yielding to the demands of the mob. Figures from Kamala Harris to Pete Buttigieg have recently embraced the scheme to show their bona fides to a rising socialist and radical movement in the Democratic Party.

Shapiro could have been different. He could have offered the country moderation and pushed back on the radical elements of his party. Shapiro was reportedly rejected as a vice presidential candidate due to being Jewish and is a member of a party that is careening toward open antisemitism. He could have been that mature voice within his party cautioning restraint before destroying one of our core institutions.Instead, he chose to just be another bum in American politics. “I think we need radical reform that’s actually going to ensure that the voices of the people are heard from, that the voices of the people are represented in the three branches of government,” Shapiro told MS NOW. “We don’t have that right now.”

The comment echoes the remarks of other court-packers like Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., who insisted the court was illegitimate for rendering decisions against “widely held public opinion.” The Supreme Court was never designed to be the “voice of the people.” On the contrary, it was meant to be a counter-majoritarian check on the people’s impulse. It is that body that is designed to stand against the majority to protect minority interests and to maintain a constitutional system meant to blunt popular impulse.

In my book, “Rage and the Republic,” I discuss how the Framers sought to avoid a direct democratic system, which had failed repeatedly in history. These systems (based on channeling public demands) became what Benjamin Rush called a “mobocracy.” The Supreme Court is a vital part of preventing our Republic from destroying itself. For years, professors and pundits have quietly urged a hostile takeover of the court to remove the barrier to fundamentally changing our system. Now, on the 250th anniversary of our Republic, they are close to getting their way.

Years ago, Harvard professor Michael Klarman laid out a radical agenda to change the system to guarantee Republicans “will never win another election.” However, he warned that “the Supreme Court could strike down everything I just described.” Therefore, the court must be packed in advance to allow these changes to occur. Former Obama Attorney General Eric Holder has put packing the Supreme Court front and center, explaining, “[We’re] talking about the acquisition and the use of power if there is a Democratic trifecta in 2028.”

James Carville declared, “If the Democrats win the presidency and both houses of Congress, I think on day one, they should expand the Supreme Court to 13. F— it. Eat our dust. Don’t run on it. Don’t talk about it. Just do it.” Now Shapiro has joined these ignoble ranks. Shapiro and others are demanding the radical reforms despite the current court repeatedly ruling against the Trump administration, including most recently on birthright citizenship. Without acknowledging that the decision again showed the court’s independence, Shapiro griped, “this case should have taken a nanosecond to decide and it should have been 9-0.”

What does that mean? Should the courts not have heard arguments, or should the Supreme Court have issued an immediate ruling from the bench during oral arguments? Nevertheless, that is enough for Shapiro to toss the court to the mob. It is transparent and frankly pathetic. Shapiro added that too much power was being given to the executive branch. This is a court that just ruled against the president on issues from citizenship to tariffs. It has drawn sharp rebukes from President Donald Trump for curtailing his powers.

Now Shapiro appears ready to repeat his controversial move against his neighbor and exercise a type of adverse possession against the court. However, he lacks the courage (as do figures like House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, D-N.Y.) to come out and call it court packing. They simply refer to “radical” changes. It is part of conditioning voters to the type of structural changes contemplated by the Left to guarantee Republicans “will never win another election.” Most voters still oppose court packing. You have to wait until voters are angry enough to take a hammer to a system that remains the oldest, most stable democracy in history.

Former Obama Attorney General Eric Holder has put packing the Supreme Court front and center. The court could well fall in the coming years to this mad frenzy, but it will be preceded by the fall of figures like Shapiro. He and his establishment colleagues are deluding themselves into believing that they will be spared in this mobocracy that they are making. Refusing to have his state participate in the 250th celebration on the Mall and offering up the Supreme Court will not appease an increasingly violent and antisemitic far-left movement.

Despite his own pandering to the mob, the socialists recently chanted “you’re next” when they saw Jeffries’ image on a screen at a New York victory party. Yesterday’s armchair revolutionaries like Shapiro will soon be treated as today’s reactionaries by the very mob that they are trying to enlist. What will be left is a lament of what Shapiro could have been at this moment in our history. As Terry Malloy said, he “coulda had class. [He] coulda been a contender. [He] could’ve been somebody.”

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“Ahead Of NATO Summit ..”

She used to be Elon’s girl…

• ‘Restraining Order Needed’: Trump Again Taunts Italy’s Meloni (ZH0

There’s no time like the eve of the major annual NATO summit for Trump to reignite his longstanding feud with Italian prime minister Giorgia Meloni, apparently. The American President blasted out the below Truth Social just before heading to Ankara, Turkey for the gathering of NATO heads…


The doctored image featuring the caption “Restraining order needed” marks but the latest escalation between to the two leaders. Meloni has not responded or commented directly regarding the Truth Social Post, and is unlikely to given that Italy likely wants to avoid escalation. “People come and go but relations must endure,” Italian Defense Minister Guido Crosetto remarked on the prime minister still being in Trump’s crosshairs to news channel Sky TG24. And Foreign Minister Antonio Tajani tried to brush it off while presenting an optimistic picture of future relations, saying he was “sure that transatlantic relations go well beyond individual comments.”

This new post follows on another Truth Social post from June, in which Trump accused the Italian PM of asking for a picture with him “over and over” at the G7 Summit in France. At heart of the feud is Italy’s breaking with Trump over his Iran operation. This has included denying shared base usage for American military flights connected with Operation Epic Fury. Trump had claimed earlier in the summer of Meloni, “She is doing poorly in Italy with her level of popularity, possibly because she turned down the United States of America, a Country that truly loves and protects Italy, when it came to denying Iran from obtaining or developing a Nuclear Weapon.”

He then suggested that Meloni wanted to be “friends again” to get her “numbers up” – but has appeared to stipulate that she must fully open up Italian bases for US aircraft usage once again. Meloni in response to the prior June post slammed the US president for his “senseless” and “constant, unprovoked attacks”. “As for my popularity, being your friend has certainly not helped it, nor does it depend on my relationship with you,” she shot back. “My popularity is none of your concern. I suggest you focus on yours.”All of this could serve to make any close-quarter contact at the NATO summit in Ankara very awkward – also as the two will certainly be in the same general vicinity for events like the group photo.

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Curious.

Walsh shared a message similar to that of the Democratic Socialists: “Death to America”

• Former Sen. Warren Staffer Attends Ayatollah’s Funeral (ZH)

A former Democratic Party operative who worked on campaigns linked to prominent unhinged left-wing politicians such as Elizabeth Warren, Ed Markey, and others has become a case study in how far-left radicalization can influence those on the left, spiraling dangerously and leading to the open championing of leaders of foreign adversaries. Calla Walsh began organizing for Democratic Senator Ed Markey while she was still a teenager. She had the perfect profile: earnest, idealistic, and a model Gen Z Democrat.


But, like many of her peers on the left, that idealism mutated into something darker – something Democrats are now concerned about as socialists and Islamists gain power in their party. The latest Walsh episode shows the Gen Z Democrat on Iranian TV from Tehran during funeral ceremonies for slain Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei, praising the late Iranian cleric as the “greatest anti-imperialist leader” of her lifetime. “Ayatollah Khamenei was the greatest anti-imperialist leader to have lived during my lifetime,” Walsh said.

Walsh shared a message similar to that of the Democratic Socialists: “Death to America”…

https://twitter.com/naz8nin/status/2073783162434445515?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E2073783162434445515%7Ctwgr%5E6e11c5068e6c2261930d1f77d053d207708ac4e1%7Ctwcon%5Es1_c10&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.zerohedge.com%2Fpolitical%2Felizabeth-warren-staffer-chants-death-america-tehran-radicalization-plagues-democrat

Walsh’s message was also shared with attendees at the funeral.

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“.. it’s clear why the Canadian people will be stunned when it all collapses around them. They have no reference points.”

• How Canadian Govt Controls Canadian Media (CTH)

U.S. Ambassador to Canada Pete Hoekstra appears for an interview on CBC News to share perspectives on U.S-Canada relations. However, what happens within the interview is a case study on how Canadian media represent an extension of the Canadian government. This example is exactly why the Canadian people have no reference point for information counter to the official propaganda policy from their government offices.


Rebecca Zandbergen, host of CBC’s Ottawa Morning represents the voice of government in combative tone, condescending attitude and refusal to accept counter arguments. The level of passive-aggressive condescension highlights why Canada has continued to lose position in a world where pretending has become devalued. However, it’s clear why the Canadian people will be stunned when it all collapses around them. They have no reference points. Ambassador Hoekstra should get hazard pay. WATCH (prompted):

I like how Hoekstra reminds Rebecca Zandbergen that the 51st state issue surfaced as an outcome of a discussion between Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and President Trump in Mar-a-Lago that centered around NATO spending and reciprocity in trade via non-tariff barriers. The points Ambassador Hoekstra makes at the end of this interview are exactly on point, and yet Zandbergen pretends not to understand them.

The American govt is not running anti-Carney advertising in Canada. Americans are not banning Canadian products. The American Government is not telling Americans not to travel to Canada. The American govt has not banned Canadian companies from bidding on contracts. These are all actions taken by the Canadian government.

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“To use language to obscure reality is to show ‘indifference regarding the truth’— to lie to the public and cease to treat our fellow citizens as equals.” —Justice Clarence Thomas

“.. the slippery closet-Marxist Barack Obama and, behind him, the American Deep State nomenklatura desperate to stay out of prison, along with the unelected EU Commission led by the grandmotherly sadist Ursula von der Leyen ..”

• Werewolves of London (James Howard Kunstler)

Now that the grand 250th USA birthday party is over — the speeches, the shrieking warplanes, the dazzling fireworks, the speeches and strawberry shortcake — there is only one way this thing can go. What thing? The war for the soul of the nation. Some mysterious somebody is behind the surging “Democratic-Socialist” craze. Somebody is paying for it. It’s a last-ditch drive to marshal the disaffected, under-employed young voters, choking on their college loans, deranged by anomie, and get them marching in solidarity with X-million illegal aliens to act-out an election jihad so as to squeeze out House and Senate majorities and, ultimately, wreck the nation.


That mysterious background “somebody” is not so mysterious. It just doesn’t self-identify under a banner, but you can easily tell who they are: the, the slippery closet-Marxist Barack Obama and, behind him, the American Deep State nomenklatura desperate to stay out of prison, along with the unelected EU Commission led by the grandmotherly sadist Ursula von der Leyen (plus the banksters behind her). Some call them “globalists.” They are a loose coalition of convenience against the populist threat of Mr. Trump in America and similar populist movements in Europe: AfD in Germany, the two parties of Nigel Farage and Rupert Lowe in the UK, and LePen’s Nationalist Rally in France.

The EU, with its front-men Macron, Merz, and whoever will replace Starmer this month, is currently preoccupied with its stupid effort to provoke Russia into a wider war, using their proxy, Ukraine. Mr. Putin, still advancing through the Donbas, refuses to get drawn-in deeper with the EU despite the drone and missile sorties lately banging-up his oil depots. Mr. Putin is actually a defender of Western Civ — yes, ironic, isn’t it, considering what his country escaped out of in 1991 — but it’s so. Russia has become our natural ally in this struggle as the EU goes all werewolf on both Russia and us. File under strange-but-true.

Contrary to Deep State propaganda, and the IRGC’s bullshit, Mr. Trump has the Iran situation in-hand. We have bigly reduced Iran’s capacity to make trouble in the world and our satellites watch everything they do now, so there will be no Iranian military re-build, no matter how the MOU talks go. They still do have the option of dropping their jihad fixation and acting like a normal nation, but we’ll just have to stand by on that.

What has to happen now in the USA is a summer of accountability. Perp walks. Indictments. Preparation for trials. Many of you are discouraged about this, I know, but please put those black pills back in the medicine chest. Accountability is coming. The mills of the law grind slowly, and its especially difficult since the Deep State has corrupted select precincts of the law, such as the US District Court for the District of Columbia, where rogue judges Boasberg, Chutkan, Sullivan, Howell, Meta, Reyes, Cooper, et al., have made an industry of paralyzing Mr. Trump’s executive branch.

Nevertheless, accountability might also be coming for Chief Justice John Roberts, who wrote the dodgy majority opinion on the SCOTUS’s June 30 “Birth Citizenship” decision (Trump v. Barbara), an epic fail for Justice Roberts (joined by Amy Coney Barrett and the three DEI gals). The 14th Amendment was written to mitigate the disruptions of the Civil War. Section One is clearly aimed at defining the full citizenship of former slaves, and that’s all, not the offspring of casual visitors and border-jumpers. There was considerable clarifying debate on the record about all that in June, 1866, with skeletons still being cleared off the battlefields. The 2026 decision looks like a debacle for reasons also obvious.

What motivated Mr. Roberts to do such a harm? Perhaps he’s just an idiot, but there’s more lurking there. It’s widely known that the Chief Justice made at least one week-long visit to Norm Eisen, after Eisen had been appointed Ambassador to Prague (2011) by his law school classmate, President Barack Obama. In these final years of Obama-in-office, Norm Eisen was busy plotting so-called Color Revolution in Europe, which climaxed in the 2014 Maidan operation in Ukraine. The purpose was to make Ukraine as a proxy to weaken Russia, and would come to entail massive money-laundering and the setting up of bio-weapons labs there. This was also the period when then-Veep Joe Biden was given the “Urkaine Portfolio” and was busiest with his own grifting enterprise, through son Hunter.

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Granite helipad.

• Trump Keeps Building What His Critics Will Later Take for Granted (Manney)

President Donald Trump saw torn-up grass on the South Lawn and treated it like a problem worth fixing. The newer Marine One helicopters are more powerful, and their heat and exhaust have damaged the White House lawn. His answer is a granite helipad built for the aircraft that carries the president of the United States. For most people, that sounds practical. In Washington, because Trump is doing it, practical work gets treated like scandal.


The helipad is expected to cost $5 million to $6 million. Sikorsky, the Lockheed Martin subsidiary that makes the VH-92A presidential helicopters, is funding it through the Trust for the National Mall, a nonprofit partner of the National Park Service. Reuters reported Trump asked Sikorsky for a little extra work: The president said that after learning Sikorsky was paying, he asked for the helipad to have a carved seal of the White House. In a statement, Lockheed said it could confirm the contribution range shared by Trump. The company did not provide a specific cost.

“This specific contribution was made to the Trust for the National Mall, the National Park Service s non-profit organization,” a Lockheed Martin spokesperson said in a statement. “Our engagement with the federal government is guided by rigorous ethics and compliance standards and conducted in full accordance with all applicable laws and regulations.” In 2024, a fleet of new Marine One helicopters was completed, meant to increase performance and payload, according to the U.S. Navy. “When you land on the grass, it’s not that the grass gets discolored, it gets ripped out,” Trump said.

From US News and World Report: “Confirmation of the project came as construction crews had already begun working on the helipad on the South Lawn, where the president had UFC build a temporary arena for a cage fight celebrating his 80th birthday. He said the project would be privately funded and estimated its cost at up to $6 million. “It’s got the seal of the White House on it in granite, in carved granite,” Trump told reporters in the Oval Office. “It’s really a beautiful thing.” The president did not offer details on how long the work would take. It is the latest major construction project he has overseen in an effort to increasingly mold the White House in his own image. The helipad can handle new choppers, Trump says..”

The pad will sit on the South Lawn, carry a carved White House seal, and give Marine One a durable landing surface instead of more scorched grass. The pattern is familiar.

If Trump adds flagpoles, critics sneer.

If he changes the Rose Garden patio, they sneer.

If he pushes a ballroom for larger state events, they sneer.

If he restores or improves landmarks around Washington, polish and permanence get framed as vanity.

The White House says the new State Ballroom will add roughly 90,000 square feet and seat 650 guests, far beyond the East Room’s 200-person limit. Construction began in September 2025 and is projected to finish before the end of Trump’s term. The same official page notes that presidents and White House staff have sought larger event space for over 150 years. Future presidents, foreign leaders, military heroes, Medal of Honor families, and ordinary Americans honored at the White House will use that space. Many people mocking it now will one day praise an event held there without mentioning who made it happen.

The same story surrounds the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool. President Trump pushed to make it clearer and cleaner ahead of America’s 250th birthday. Interior Secretary Doug Burgum defended the repair work and the use of nanobubbler technology to fight algae. Critics argued over cost, color, process, and liner damage, but the goal was simple: one of America’s most photographed places should look like America cares about it. A country tells on itself by what it maintains. Broken fountains, damaged lawns, dirty pools, and temporary fixes send one message. Clean stone, working infrastructure, restored landmarks, and spaces built for national ceremony send another.

Trump understands image because image is part of leadership. Every president leaves marks on the White House. Theodore Roosevelt built the West Wing; Franklin Roosevelt added the East Wing; Harry Truman rebuilt the interior when the building became unsafe; and Jacqueline Kennedy restored history and taste to rooms that had drifted from their purpose. Trump’s changes will likely follow the same path. The outrage will fade, while the work remains.

The South Lawn helipad isn’t a constitutional crisis; it’s a practical answer to a practical problem. The ballroom isn’t an offense against history; it’s an expansion for a house that belongs to the American people. The Reflecting Pool is a national landmark worthy of care. Trump keeps building; his critics continue sneering, and time will sort the two.

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Needs Trump to stay in power. But why would the US keep the Castro’s in power?

• Cuba’s Power Grid Collapses As Castro’s Grandson Seeks Talks With Trump (ZH)

Hours after USA Today published an interview between one of its journalists and Cuban President Castro’s grandson, Raúl Guillermo Rodríguez Castro, the communist-run island experienced an island-wide power grid collapse. The electrical workers’ union said the entire power grid went offline and that officials were investigating the cause. Cuba’s energy ministry confirmed the blackout and said crews were working to restore service. “A total disconnection of the National Electric Power System is occurring. The causes are being investigated,” the electrical workers’ union wrote on X.

https://twitter.com/OSDE_UNE/status/2074165873120567548?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E2074165873120567548%7Ctwgr%5Ebcd730013695b5245cc101ec63913f1d90be5b89%7Ctwcon%5Es1_c10&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.zerohedge.com%2Fgeopolitical%2Fi-can-negotiate-castros-grandson-says-hes-ready-discuss-cubas-future-president-trump


Time is ticking for the communists in Havana to make a deal with Trump or face further economic collapse, as Havana is a case study in the failure of communism and how that economic system has never succeeded. Yet the Democratic Party is trying to convince people otherwise as it embraces the far left. Raúl Guillermo Rodríguez Castro, former Cuban president Castro’s grandson and one of the more important shadow figures inside Cuba’s communist ruling circle, told USA Today in an exclusive interview that he is prepared to speak directly with President Trump, signaling publicly a potential back-channel opening as the Trump administration intensifies economic pressure on Havana.

“I’ve never been interested in politics. It’s never been a calling of mine,” Rodríguez Castro told the outlet over the course of several days in June in Havana. “But if at some point the revolution needs me to step up, I will do it.” He said that he would never abandon the principles of Cuba’s 1959 revolution or the nation’s sovereignty. Rodríguez Castro is a lesser-known figure outside Havana’s communist circles. He holds no formal government position, rarely appears on state television and has never spoken to a US news outlet before. But the Castro family name gives him unique status inside Havana’s opaque power structure and the ability to act as a back-channel liaison with access to the island’s communist elite.

Now, the younger Castro is signaling he is ready to negotiate Cuba’s future, saying he wants to deal directly with President Trump. “I can negotiate with anyone designated by the U.S.,” Rodríguez Castro said. “If given the opportunity, claro que con Trump.” Of course, with Trump. Why would Rodríguez Castro want to negotiate now and not earlier this year? Well, that’s because Trump’s gunboat diplomacy has unleashed an economic stranglehold on the communist-run island, and it continues to work, with pressure now crushing the already poorly managed economy and collapsing its tourism sector.

The island drew just 360,000 tourists in the first five months of 2026, down 58% from a year earlier, according to Cuban government data. The neighboring Dominican Republic attracted more than 10 times that number over the same period. The Trump administration says the pressure campaign is aimed at forcing the communist government to open its political system after generations of economic misery under failed communism. Havana can’t turn to help from the socialists in Venezuela because the Maduro regime was taken out by US Delta Force operators. The Chinese and Russians won’t dare send their militaries to the island en masse because of the US naval presence in the region.

For Havana, the regime’s external lifelines have been disappearing one by one over the last six months. Recall that CIA Director John Ratcliffe was recently in Havana meeting with communist officials. Now, Rodríguez Castro speaking with a US media outlet is another promising signal, suggesting that back-channel talks are likely already underway as pressure builds on the island’s ruling elite.

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“Fed Reserve working paper suggests..”

30% seems a lot.

• Biden Illegal Immigrant Wave Caused 30% of Home Price Increases (JTN)

A new Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas working paper estimates the record surge in illegal immigration during the Biden administration boosted employment while causing 30% of home price increases and 20% of rent increases. The paper combined immigration court records with government administrative data to create the first ever calculation of how a wave of 7 million illegal immigrants from 2021 through 2024 affected local labor and housing markets.


“From early 2021 to early 2024, the U.S. experienced an unprecedented boom in unauthorized immigration, followed by a rapid slowdown beginning in mid-2024. We provide the first systematic empirical assessment of the labor- and housing-market effects of this episode,” the working paper said. “The total weighted-mean increases in house prices and rents over this period were 22.4% and 22.6%, respectively. Putting these together, for the average MSA, UIWF can explain approximately 30% of the total increase in house prices and 20% of the total increase in rents,” it added.

The researchers said they found little evidence that homebuilding expanded enough to meet the added demand, essentially creating a demand shock in markets where supply was already constrained. The authors cautioned that the study is a preliminary draft circulated for professional comment and does not necessarily reflect the views of the Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas or the Federal Reserve System.

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“To avoid making $2 billion a year in pension contributions over his two possible terms, Mamdani is forcing his successor to absorb about $7 billion in unnecessary interest costs..”

• Mamdani Fancies Himself A Financial Whiz (NYPost)

On Tuesday, Mayor Zohran Mamdani and City Council Speaker Julie Menin reached a record $125.8 billion budget deal for fiscal 2027 that began the following day. The mayor boasted: “Socialists not only understand economics just as well as the capitalists who came before, but . . . we can solve their years of mismanagement through an embrace of our principles.” Spare us the propaganda, Mr. Mayor. The city budget isn’t in great shape. Lest anyone be fooled, Mamdani’s supposedly balanced budget rests on a series of one-time tricks that got him through this year — and won’t be available in the next.


Remember back in January when he claimed he’d inherited a $12 billion deficit? A prudent budgeter would have identified the lowest-value uses of money and trimmed accordingly. Not Mamdani. Despite robust tax receipts, he labeled his inability to grow government even more of a “fiscal emergency.” He started demanding higher taxes on corporations and high earners from the state — which, thanks to Gov. Kathy Hochul’s caution, he didn’t get. Now he claims he balanced the budget with the help of pension-contribution “savings,” but in truth, as Manhattan Institute’s Ken Girardin explained, he merely dodged today’s bill by dumping a bigger one on tomorrow’s taxpayers.

To avoid making $2 billion a year in pension contributions over his two possible terms, Mamdani is forcing his successor to absorb about $7 billion in unnecessary interest costs between 2033 and 2037. What kind of financial whiz makes smaller credit-card payments today just to get killed on interest later? Mamdani also re-estimated expenses lower and agreed to Albany’s delaying its school class-size mandate. In the end, he and the council wound up spending 8.5% more than last year’s $116 billion budget. Just between the mayor’s proposal in May and the final deal, fiscal 2027 spending grew by $1.4 billion on various agency programs.

Some “emergency.” Meanwhile, City Comptroller Mark Levine’s latest report reveals the city’s mounting cash-flow issues. During the first nine months of fiscal 2026, average cash balances declined by over $2.4 billion from the year-ago period. Expenditure growth of 8% far outpaced receipt growth of 2.8%. By failing to address this unsustainable structural imbalance, Mamdani will be back where he started come January. By the mayor’s own estimate, he’ll face a $6.4 billion hole in the next fiscal year. Levine puts the figure at $8.8 billion.

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“Brussels’ geopolitical agenda and the creation of a defense portfolio reflect a broader policy shift, Karin Kneissl has told RT”

• EU Shifts From Trade To War – Ex-Austrian Foreign Minister (RT)

The European Union has abandoned its historic focus on trade and begun to increasingly define itself in terms of its military and geopolitical priorities, former Austrian Foreign Minister Karin Kneissl told RT in an interview on Saturday.She made the remark days after Russian President Vladimir Putin accused Kiev and the “so-called European pseudo-peacekeepers” of seeking to prolong the conflict. He said their goal was “not peace, but the continuation of the war with Russia to the last Ukrainian.”


Speaking on Friday after visiting an auxiliary command post alongside top military commanders, Putin said Ukraine’s European backers were openly encouraging attacks on civilian targets, including infrastructure, transport, and student dormitories. Last week, Brussels transferred €3.9 billion ($4.44 billion) to Ukraine under a €90 billion loan package that allocates €30 billion for budget support and €60 billion for defense in 2026-2027. The latest tranche is expected to finance drone procurement, according to European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen.

Earlier this week, the Russian Foreign Ministry stated that the Baltic states have provided air corridors for Ukrainian drones that have attacked civilian infrastructure in northwestern Russia. “European integration has been moving from let’s trade with each other to let’s go to war,” the former diplomat said, stressing that the bloc had increasingly embraced a geopolitical and defense agenda instead of its usual focus on trade.

Kneissl pointed to the creation of an EU defense commissioner, whom she described as “a commissioner for war.” “Europe was always about trade,” she said, reiterating that von der Leyen had established a geopolitical commission in 2019. “We Europeans do not have the power to project force and have never really been able to define some sort of values with which some of us don’t agree,” the former diplomat continued, having expressed doubts that “this geopolitical commission will work.”

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“The United States and Europe have enough strength to stop this terror,” the Ukrainian leader wrote on X.

• Zelenskyy Demands Western Support After Russian Strikes Kill 11 In Kyiv (Pol.eu)

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy renewed his calls for more Patriot missiles Monday as Russia’s latest missile attacks killed at least 11 people and injured 46 in Kyiv on Sunday night. “It is critically important that the world — first and foremost the United States and our European partners — come out of the NATO summit in Turkey with strong decisions in support of our air defense,” Zelenskyy wrote on X on Monday. Zelenskyy had warned late Sunday that intelligence suggested Russia was preparing another massive strike on Ukraine ahead of this week’s NATO summit in Ankara.


“As long as Patriot missiles remain in our allies’ stockpiles, Russia is only encouraged to keep ‘vanquishing’ residential buildings,” the Ukrainian leader said. Only Western support for Kyiv’s air defense can guarantee “the protection of ordinary people’s lives,” he added. “The United States and Europe have enough strength to stop this terror,” Zelenskyy said.Kyiv Mayor Vitali Klitschko said Moscow’s overnight strikes destroyed four districts, with Podilskyi reporting the most damage as several high-rise residential buildings were struck.

Among the 46 injured were three children, Klitschko wrote on Telegram and declared Tuesday a day of mourning for the victims. The number of casualties might rise as emergency crews continued searching the rubble for survivors on Monday morning. The latest attack comes just days after another wave of Russian missile and drone strikes killed 13 people and injured more than 80 last week and two days after Russia’s leader Vladimir Putin held a call with U.S. President Donald Trump.

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More Defense Spending, More Climate Redistribution

• The EU Spins A $2.2 Trillion Wealth Transfer Machine (Thomas Kolbe)

Negotiations over the European Commission’s next seven-year budget are entering their decisive phase. Should Ursula von der Leyen and her allies succeed with their plans, Germany will once again shoulder a substantial financial burden. By now, however, Germans have become accustomed to that reality.


Across the world, public debt levels are approaching dangerous flood marks. The global economy is effectively drowning in debt, with total public liabilities now exceeding 95% of global GDP. It is therefore only a matter of time before bond markets bring the debt party to an end, pushing interest rates—and with them debt-servicing costs—to levels governments can no longer afford. Such a reckoning would merely represent the logical consequence of political irresponsibility, contempt for taxpayers, and the megalomania of a political culture that continues expanding government on an ever-growing mountain of debt.

A four-decade bull market in sovereign bonds, characterized by steadily declining yields, came to an end roughly four years ago. Since then, interest rates have been rising as investors gradually lose confidence in both the political direction of Western governments and the relentless expansion of the administrative state. A turning point is approaching. Fiscal austerity is standing at the gates of an era defined by political extravagance.

For politicians like Ursula von der Leyen, however, austerity would amount to admitting that decades of debt-financed government expansion have led into a dead end. Few things are more alien to modern political elites than acknowledging failure. This is particularly true within Brussels, where the bureaucratic establishment and the ideological foundations of the European project remain firmly convinced that they are building a supranational European state on the right side of history.

Unsurprisingly, austerity is nowhere to be found in Brussels. Instead, negotiations over the next seven-year EU budget are underway. The European Commission has floated a financial framework worth approximately €2 trillion. Funding for Ukraine-related military expenditures, broader European rearmament, and the enormous subsidy complex underpinning the Green Deal are all expected to come from higher member-state contributions and newly issued common debt. In doing so, Brussels continues to strengthen both its political authority and its influence over national governments.

Germany currently finances roughly one-quarter of the EU budget. Under the proposed framework, German taxpayers would ultimately contribute around €500 billion over the entire budget period. Last year alone Germany paid approximately €30 billion into the EU budget while receiving roughly €13 billion back, primarily in the form of agricultural subsidies and the ever-expanding subsidy machinery supporting Europe’s green industrial policies and interventionist economic model.

Yet even a €2 trillion budget – already representing a leap into fiscal fantasy given the severe economic damage inflicted by years of excessive European regulation – is apparently no longer sufficient for Brussels. Discussions are now underway to increase the budget by another €200 billion. Leading the charge, unsurprisingly, is the European Commission itself: an insatiable bureaucracy working relentlessly to establish independent sources of taxation. Customs revenues, proceeds from emissions trading, plastic taxes—the imagination of Brussels appears limitless. At the same time, direct financial demands on member states continue expanding almost automatically, with ever-higher budget contributions treated as political routine despite growing conservative resistance across Europe.

Should the von der Leyen Commission succeed in making this fiscal leap, Germany’s annual contribution to financing the European project would rise from roughly €30 billion today to approximately €78.6 billion. For taxpayers, the implications are profound. An entirely new layer of government—complete with its own bureaucracy and increasingly its own taxation powers—has gradually positioned itself above existing national institutions. Since the joint borrowing undertaken during the pandemic and the issuance of the massive NextGenerationEU bonds, Brussels has steadily transformed itself into an independent borrower on international capital markets.

Officially, the German government still opposes granting the European Commission broader taxation powers and objects to dramatically expanding the EU budget. Yet all indications suggest that Berlin will ultimately shift the fiscal burden to Brussels itself, paving the way for larger common bond issuance—or some comparable mechanism—to finance the growing central apparatus.

Beginning in 2028, repayment of the €750 billion NextGenerationEU debt will commence. Those obligations, spread over subsequent years, must eventually be repaid to investors. Since these resources simply do not exist, Europe’s capitals will almost certainly reach the same conclusion: refinance the liabilities through continuous new bond issuance, effectively burying what remains of the European Union’s original prohibition against common sovereign debt. In many respects, the transformation of Europe’s financing structure resembles a financial evolution toward a European superstate.

Ultimately, common liability for Brussels’ debts appears virtually inevitable. The political and institutional path back has largely disappeared. For German taxpayers, this strategy amounts to little more than witnessing another familiar fiscal shell game. Brussels will almost certainly continue creating new revenue streams through customs duties, emissions trading, plastic taxes, and whatever additional levies policymakers may devise. The remaining financing gap will inevitably be covered through Eurobonds issued on capital markets.

Such policies carry significant inflationary risks, as additional sovereign borrowing expands the money supply and places upward pressure on prices. At the same time, government borrowing increasingly crowds private investment out of credit markets, raising financing costs for productive businesses while strengthening the role of the public sector. The consequences are already becoming visible. Europe’s downward spiral of declining prosperity is accelerating. It is a tragic process of economic deterioration—one that is increasingly likely to culminate in a major sovereign debt crisis.

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“While Britain considers a potential confrontation with Russia, it reportedly operates the smallest fleet in its history”

• Royal Navy In Worst State In Centuries – Retired Admiral (RT)

The Royal Navy has been reduced to the worst state in British history, retired chief of the Naval Staff, Lord Alan West, has told the Sun. London now operates the smallest fleet ever, according to the outlet. A total of nine ships have been scrapped over the past two years under Prime Minister Keir Starmer and the UK is now operating a fleet that includes five operational frigates and no amphibious assault ships, the Sun reported on Friday. The government dropped plans for new Type 83 destroyers and Type 32 frigates, calling them “unaffordable,” it added.


According to West, Starmer’s naval policy has been catastrophic. “The number of ships we have is pathetic, to do the things we need to do,” the former first sea lord and Labour security minister said. “The last time the Navy took this sort of hammering was in Samuel Pepys time [in 1667] and the Dutch sailed up to Chatham, burnt the fleet and stole the flagship,” he said, referring to the Second Anglo-Dutch War in the 17th century, where the British suffered heavy losses in a raid on Medway and were forced to sign a peace treaty favorable to Amsterdam.

Starmer has axed four frigates, two assault ships, two tankers and a nuclear-powered submarine since taking office, the Sun estimated, adding that it was more than the seven ships lost to Argentina during the 1982 Falklands War. Last month, The Telegraph and Daily Mail also reported that the UK’s entire available fleet of nuclear-powered attack submarines is stuck in port awaiting maintenance. The report comes as London continues to raise defense spending under the slogans of “transforming” the military in a “more dangerous and volatile” word, all while citing the alleged “Russian threat.”

Moscow has consistently dismissed claims that it is preparing to attack European NATO members, calling them “nonsense.” It also accuses the West of jeopardizing global security through “reckless militarization.” Earlier this week, the British government announced an additional £15 billion ($20 billion) for the armed forces and vowed to bring total military funding to nearly £300 billion over the next four years in what Starmer himself called “record investment.”

The list of spending targets includes the Dreadnought and SSN-AUKUS submarine projects, as well as “multi-billion-pound upgrades at Faslane, Portsmouth and Devonport” naval bases but provides no timeline for the projects’ completion. The spending increase comes in the face of a growing budget deficit and higher inflation. Reuters reported in May that British government borrowing had jumped by 30% year-on-year to £23.3 billion, with debt servicing costs 54% higher than the 2025 level.

Read more …

“New MKULTRA hearings have reopened questions about victims, destroyed files, and experiments America never answered for..”

• ‘Crimes Against Humanity’: The CIA’s Sickest Secret May Finally Be Exposed (RT)

A decorated US Air Force serviceman with no history of violence suddenly abducted, raped and murdered a three-year-old girl. When a search party found Jimmy Shaver wandering near San Antonio, Texas, he appeared to be in a trance, unable to explain where he was or how he had gotten there. After his arrest, he reportedly failed to recognize his own wife when she visited him in jail. Until the moment he was executed four years later, Shaver insisted he had no memory of committing the crime for which he had been sentenced to death. More than seventy years later, some researchers believe his case may have been linked to one of the CIA’s darkest Cold War programs: MKULTRA, the covert project that sought to manipulate, erase and ultimately control the human mind through drugs, hypnosis and psychological experimentation.


That possibility returned to the spotlight on June 30, when the US Congressional Task Force on the Declassification of Federal Secrets reopened one of the intelligence agency’s most notorious chapters. Lawmakers pledged to uncover the truth behind MKULTRA, the illegal human experimentation program through which the CIA developed and tested psychotropic drugs and interrogation techniques designed to alter behavior, memories and perception. Whether the hearing lived up to those promises is another question. But the testimony presented before Congress suggested that, more than sixty years after MKULTRA officially ended, many of the program’s darkest secrets may still remain hidden.

Congress promises – again
Task force chair Anna Paulina Luna left little doubt about the gravity of the allegations. “Administering drugs to people without their consent. Subjecting humans to psychological torture. Using prisoners and hospital patients as non-consenting research subjects. These are crimes against humanity. Some of the worst, most notorious crimes of the 20th century,” she declared in her opening remarks. “The American people deserve the complete record. The victims and their families deserve acknowledgement, accountability, and justice. No one went to prison. No one was ever compensated by the government for the harm they caused.”

The language was uncompromising. Yet it was also strikingly familiar. Nearly half a century ago, Congress opened another investigation into MKULTRA, promising victims that the full truth would finally emerge and that those responsible would be held accountable. Those commitments quietly faded away. The victims were never fully identified, compensation never came, and many of the program’s records were presumed lost forever. Tom O’Neill, author of CHAOS: Charles Manson, the CIA, and the Secret History of the Sixties, reminded lawmakers that they were retracing a path Congress had already walked once before.

“During those same hearings, committee members like yourselves promised the victims of MKULTRA would be identified, compensated and provided lifetime medical care,” he told the panel. “None of that ever happened.”According to O’Neill, lawmakers in the 1970s accepted one of the CIA’s most consequential claims with remarkably little scrutiny: that after more than two decades of secret experimentation, the agency had simply failed to master mind control. CIA officials repeatedly insisted that “their twenty-five-year effort to learn how to control the human mind had been a colossal failure.”

O’Neill believes that conclusion deserves to be revisited. For years, he has argued that the historical record tells a very different story – one that Congress never fully examined and that may have been deliberately obscured by the destruction of key evidence. To make that case, he turned not to speculation, but to documents exchanged between two of the central figures behind the CIA’s most secretive experiments. To support his argument that Congress never uncovered the full scope of MKULTRA, O’Neill pointed to a cache of correspondence that, in his view, fundamentally changes our understanding of the program.

The letters were exchanged between psychiatrist Louis Jolyon West, who “sought to control the minds of people without their knowledge, with the ultimate goal of creating programmed killers” and “Sherman Grifford” – the pseudonym used by Sidney Gottlieb, the CIA’s chief poisoner who designed and oversaw MKULTRA from its earliest days. Far from describing a failed scientific curiosity, O’Neill argued, the documents laid out an extraordinarily ambitious blueprint for manipulating the human mind.

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https://twitter.com/iam_smx/status/2073856998462959868?s=20 https://twitter.com/ConstitustionX/status/2074036815066214832?s=20

 

 

 

 

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Debt Rattle May 13 2026

May 132026
 
 May 13, 2026  Posted by at 9:46 am Finance Tagged with: , , , , , , , , , , , , ,  34 Responses »


Caravaggio The raising of Lazarus 1609


• Trump Ready To Raise “Core of China’s Core Interests” In Xi Summit (ZH)
• Iran Specifies 5 Demands To Restart Peace Talks With US (ZH)
• Trump Considering Resuming Airstrikes As Talks With Iran Stall – Axios (RT)
• Zelensky Chief of Staff Yermak Charged with Corruption, Money Laundering (CTH)
• Tulsi Gabbard Probes 120 Foreign Biolabs Funded by US – 40 in Ukraine (CTH)
• Nearly $22 Billion Secretly Shipped To Ukraine – Austrian Politician (RT)
• John Brennan: Still “Legions” of His Allies at DOJ, FBI and CIA (CTH)
• Here Are The People Accompanying Trump On His China Excursion This Week (JTN)
• Minnesota Democrats Block Ilhan Omar Subpoena (JTN)
• Scott Jennings Nukes the Democrats’ Gerrymander Hail Mary (Margolis)
• Acting AG Blanche Warns Reporters To Expect Subpoenas In Leaks Probe (JTN)
• Virginia Democrats Ask US Supreme Court to Reinstate Congressional Map (Hyde)
• The Language Got a Little Salty on CNN Monday Night (Matt Margolis)
• Socialist Storytime: AOC Spins Anti-Capitalist Fable About the Founders (Turley)
• Media Spreads Hantavirus Hysteria In Attempt To Save Disgraced WHO (ZH)
• Over 500,000 Waiting To Cross Into Europe From Libya – Greek Minister (RT)

 


 

https://twitter.com/MAGAVoice/status/2053909037545357652?s=20 https://twitter.com/Bubblebathgirl/status/2054023281208918512?s=20 https://twitter.com/AlecLace/status/2054011075914342417?s=20

 


 


Big party for Trump?

• Trump Ready To Raise “Core of China’s Core Interests” In Xi Summit (ZH)

Chinese President Xi Jinping is expected to raise the issue of increasingly costly US arms transfers to Taiwan during their bilateral summit at the end of this week, spanning Thursday through Friday. Taiwan of course remains the “core of China’s core interests” – as Beijing has in the recent past characterized the issue. While Trump officials have previewed that it will be focused on trade and investment, the White House too is reportedly placing Taiwan and regional geopolitical hot button issues on the agenda.


“I’m going to have that discussion with President Xi,” Trump told reporters at the White House, specifically on the question of weapons sales. “President Xi would like us not to, and I’ll have that discussion. That’s one of the many things I’ll be talking about.”

Also there’s the looming question of the future of the Iran war and blockaded Strait of Hormuz. Currently there’s a stalemated situation and supposed ceasefire which is barely holding. By many accounts, Trump was hopeful that the Iran ‘excursion’ would be wrapped up by now, but it now seems to be sliding into protracted quagmire – critics point out. The WSJ says that Beijing is feeling confident as it prepares to receive Trump and what’s looking to be a rather large entourage: But behind the scenes, Beijing feels more emboldened, and more insistent on defending areas it regards as vital to its long-term strategic interests.

These include resisting U.S. pressure to relax its grip over global supply chains and fundamentally rebalance trade between the two countries. They also include urging Washington to look the other way as it pressures Taiwan, the self-ruled island that Beijing claims as its own, and as it projects military power across Asia. “They feel very well about how last year played out,” said Jonathan Czin, a fellow at the Washington-based Brookings Institution and a former U.S. intelligence officer focused on China. “They showed they could weather the storm and the administration had to climb down from the tariffs and spend most of the past year trying to mollify China.”

As for more implications of the Iran war dragging on as Trump goes to Beijing, CNBC writes: Iran’s ambassador to China Reza Rahmani Fazli in a Tuesday post on X pressed Tehran’s case with Beijing, saying that the relationship between the two is too strong for the U.S. to overcome. The bottom line is that higher energy prices are baked in for the foreseeable future. The price of crude oil makes up about half of the cost of a gallon of gas, according to the Energy Information Administration.

And U.S. elections are less than six months away. The 2026 midterm elections will be a crucial referendum on Trump and the Republican Party as they seek to retain a lock on both chambers in Congress. Trump early Tuesday put out the following message on Truth Social, teasing that the next regime change operations could be unleashed on China’s small island-nation ally in America’s immediate backyard…

For some further big picture analysis on how the Iran gambit has raised the stakes, and made the Beijing summit more unpredictable, the below is some fresh Rabobank commentary outlining related developments to watch:

In a case of curious timing, the US just imposed fresh sanctions on individuals and firms involved in facilitating Iranian oil sales to China, and Acting Secretary of the Navy Hung Cao yesterday released a new 30-year shipbuilding plan. That plan anticipates the acquisition of 11 nuclear-powered Trump class battleships, new underwater drones, and an ongoing review to the Ford class aircraft carrier design to increase lethality and reliability while reducing unit costs and production lead times. The planned expansion of the US fleet and shipbuilding industrial base is undoubtedly a reaction to China’s growing naval strength and substantial advantage in production capacity. The message to Xi is an unsubtle one.

The FT’s Gideon Rachman characterises Trump as arriving at Xi’s court in a state of supplication, having effectively lost the trade war vs China and the shooting war vs Iran. This perhaps overstates the weakness of Trump’s position by ignoring the fact that the US has tightened its grip on global energy supply chains and has shown that is has the power to put its foot on the hosepipe of Chinese energy imports whenever it likes. In the flurry of commentary over China’s bumper trade surplus in April, it seems to have been missed that import volumes for crude oil were down sharply, but values were higher. Yesterday’s April PPI figures for China also underscored the uncomfortable effects that the Iran war is having on the Chinese industrial economy.

Xi will be acutely aware of this, and he will also be aware that the US holds similar power to disrupt Chinese food imports if it was of a mind to do so. Seapower IS power, as the shipbuilding plan should remind us all. In this respect, Trump holds better cards than the FT is giving him credit for. Perhaps it is no coincidence that China bought more soybeans in April than it had done for months.

Some more of Trump’s latest commentary amid his hope for a ‘good’ Xi meeting:

Read more …

Iran “demands”? They don’t even want to talk about nukes. Perfectly unrealistic.

Even Saudi Arabia was bombing Iran.

• Iran Specifies 5 Demands To Restart Peace Talks With US (ZH)

Iran on Tuesday revealed its demands in a counteroffer to the United States that President Trump shot down on Sunday, which has put the whole conflict and Pakistan-mediated talks in a holding pattern and stalemate, as the Strait of Hormuz remains effectively blocked. The demands hinge on war reparations, Iranian sovereignty over the Strait of Hormuz and an end to US sanctions – things which the White House balked at, with war reparations especially being focus of rejection by the US side, and the lack of taking up the nuclear issue, which Iran has insisted is a non-starter and would only be dealt with after the war is settled.


Trump had previously made clear on Truth Social that “I have just read the response from Iran’s so-called ‘Representatives.’ I don’t like it — TOTALLY UNACCEPTABLE!” Al Jazeera correspondent Ali Hashem has listed the following five conditions that it sees as the basis for reentering talks:

1) Ending the war on all fronts, including Lebanon

2) Lifting all sanctions

3) Releasing frozen Iranian assets

4) Compensation for war damages and losses

5) Recognition of Iran’s sovereign rights over the Strait of Hormuz

Again, all this according to Tehran must be agreed to while at the same time Iran is pushing back against nuclear negotiations. In a Monday press briefing Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman Esmail Baghaei had publicly alluded to several of these, including in his words, “Demanding an end to the war, lifting the blockade and piracy, and releasing Iranian assets that have been unjustly frozen in banks due to U.S. pressure.” Also, there was mention of “Safe passage through the Strait of Hormuz and establishing security in the region and Lebanon were other demands of Iran, which are considered a generous and responsible offer for regional security” – before talks could begin in good faith.

Tehran apparently feels it can weather the tightening economic noose its under, given Tanker Trackers on Tuesday said Iran has not successfully exported any crude oil by sea over the past 28 days. To our best knowledge, Iran hasn’t successfully exported* any crude oil by sea over the past 28 days. Some refined products managed to escape because US OFAC did not slap sanctions on those tankers.

In addition, Kharg Island hasn’t loaded any tankers since 2026-05-06 as a result…
— TankerTrackers.com, Inc. (@TankerTrackers) May 12, 2026

Trump, just before his departure to China, remarked to Axios: “Iran will either do the right thing or we will finish the job… we are either gonna make a deal or they will be decimated.”

Read more …

If/when they go in again, it’ll be for a long haul.

• Trump Considering Resuming Airstrikes As Talks With Iran Stall – Axios (RT)

US President Donald Trump is considering resuming the bombing campaign against Iran as peace talks remain stalled, Axios reported on Monday, citing three US officials familiar with the matter. On Sunday, Trump rejected Iran’s latest terms as “totally unacceptable” and said the ceasefire reached around a month ago was “on massive life support.” According to Axios, Trump was set to meet with his national security team on Monday to discuss next steps, including potentially resuming Project Freedom – an operation aimed at guiding ships through the Strait of Hormuz – as well as restarting airstrikes and hitting the remaining 25% of targets identified by the Pentagon but not yet struck.


The Washington Post, citing a CIA assessment, reported last week that Iran retained about 75% of its pre-war mobile launchers and roughly 70% of its missiles, and could withstand a US naval blockade for at least three to four months. Trump suspended Project Freedom within 24 hours of announcing it last week, following a request from Pakistan, which has acted as a mediator in the conflict. NBC later reported that the president shelved the initiative after Saudi Arabia refused to allow the US to use its bases and airspace to escort ships through the Strait of Hormuz.

Iran’s top negotiator, Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf, said on Sunday that the US had “no alternative” but to accept Tehran’s terms. “The longer they drag their feet, the more American taxpayers will pay for it,” he wrote on X. Iranian state media described Trump’s demand to shut down the country’s nuclear sites as “a non-starter that Iran has rejected for decades.” According to Press TV, Iran’s conditions include the lifting of sanctions, reparations, and a new framework governing the Strait of Hormuz that would recognize “Iran’s sovereign control over this vital waterway.”

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You can accuse everyone in Kiev of corruption. Can’t go wrong.

• Zelensky Chief of Staff Yermak Charged with Corruption, Money Laundering (CTH)

Andrey Yermak is not just some random high-level government official in Ukraine. Andrey Yermak was President Zelenskyy’s right hand, chief of staff, organizer of the functions of Ukrainian government and the guy who controlled the systems that keep all other government officials working on the agenda of the President. If you took Susie Wiles and Marco Rubio’s responsibilities and combined them into one job function, that would be the scale of importance and influence that Andrey Yermak controlled inside the Ukrainian government and the office of President Zelenskyy.

Today, following an explosive criminal corruption charge that surfaced less than 36 hours ago, Andrey Yermak appears in court to face charges of corruption, theft and money laundering. Yermak was under investigation for his role in theft through the energy sector and now stands accused of using construction projects near Kiev as a tool to launder money to himself and other high-level government officials.

There are three facets to this I find very interesting. First, is the timing. Second, is the often-overlooked admission by National Anti-Corruption Bureau of Ukraine (NABU) about them working closely with FBI investigators in Europe and American intelligence units. Third, is the way they caught him: “The anti-corruption bureau shared part of a wiretapped conversation as part of its case and said six more people had been identified as suspects.”

(Via BBC) – “[…] For years he was a close friend of Zelensky, and led Ukraine’s talks with the US until an anti-corruption raid on his flat last November prompted his resignation. Ukraine’s Anticorruption Prosecutor’s Office (Sapo) said it was asking the Kyiv court to either place him in preventive detention or give him bail of about $4m (£3m). The head of the National anti-corruption bureau (Nabu) stressed that Zelensky himself was not part of the pre-trial investigation.

Yermak had been the president’s closest adviser throughout Russia’s full-scale invasion, until he became caught up in a broader inquiry by Sapo and Nabu into an alleged $100m (£74m) embezzlement scheme in Ukraine’s nuclear energy sector. As part of Operation Midas, ex-Deputy Prime Minister Oleksiy Chernyshov was charged with abuse of office, while businessman Timur Mindich reportedly fled the country after he was flagged as a suspect and ex-Energy Minister Herman Haluschenko was detained while trying to leave. Like Yermak, Mindich was once part of Zelensky’s inner circle and co-owned the president’s former TV studio Kvartal95, before sanctions were imposed on him. Mindich denies wrongdoing.

The latest claims center on an elite housing project called “Dynasty” in a village outside Kyiv where millions in construction funds were allegedly laundered. The anti-corruption bureau shared part of a wiretapped conversation as part of its case and said six more people had been identified as suspects. On November 17, 2025, reports surfaced indicating that Yermak, then head of Zelensky’s office, might have been recorded by NABU. Subsequently, Yermak’s residence was searched on November 28, and by evening, Zelensky had dismissed him from his position.

Since late April, Ukrainian media outlets and parliament members have continued to publish new excerpts from the recordings. These reveal Mindich discussing with Rustem Umerov, the current Secretary of the Security Council and former Defense Minister, details of embezzlement from multimillion-dollar contracts, funding for drone manufacturing through a company affiliated with Mindich, and potential candidates for the Ukrainian ambassadorship to the United States. Keep in mind, Rustem Umerov is the current lead negotiator and point of contact for U.S. peace efforts.

Russia Federation President Vladimir Putin suggested last weekend that the war in Ukraine was “coming to an end.”

Interesting timing.

Read more …

What do you use 40 biolabs for? Do we need to pay more attention?

• Tulsi Gabbard Probes 120 Foreign Biolabs Funded by US – 40 in Ukraine (CTH)

According to a report within the New York Post, Director of National Intelligence, Tulsi Gabbard, is now investigating 120 foreign biolabs that are funded by the U.S. government – potentially involved in ‘gain of function’ or weaponized virus research. More than 40 of the labs are identified operating in Ukraine. Keep in mind, DNI Gabbard recently took control of the CIA development of Artificial Intelligence systems pulling In-Q-Tel, the CIA-backed venture firm, under management of ODNI. Through a series of what seems like well-coordinated moves by Secretary Rubio, CIA Director Ratcliffe and DNI Gabbard, a significant amount of the CIA’s operations is no longer in the dark network. https://twitter.com/WarClandestine/status/2053944250870489500?s=20


USAID has been dissolved (Rubio/Ratcliffe); the Directorate of Analysis taken out of CIA and into ODNI (Ratcliffe/Gabbard); the President’s Daily Brief now assembled by the ODNI (Ratcliffe/Gabbard); Artificial Intelligence systems, In-Q-Tel under ODNI management (Ratcliffe/Gabbard), and now Intelligence Community (CIA) biolabs being identified, investigated and potentially removed from operation. The biolab issue is a current concern given the discoveries of former National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) Director, Anthony Fauci, lying to congress and the American people about funding gain of function research in Wuhan, China. However, given recent events we might even file this under proactive election integrity measures.

WASHINGTON — Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard is investigating more than 120 biological laboratories abroad that were funded by US taxpayer dollars for decades, as part of an effort to end potentially risky experiments with viruses pursuant to President Trump’s executive order on so-called “gain-of-function” research.Gabbard told The Post Monday in a statement that her team is going “to identify where these labs are, what pathogens they contain and what ‘research’ is being conducted to end dangerous gain-of-function research that threatens the health and wellbeing of the American people and the world.”

“The COVID-19 pandemic revealed the catastrophic global impact research on dangerous pathogens in biolabs can have,” the spy chief also said. “Yet despite these obvious dangers, politicians, so-called health professionals, like Dr. Fauci, and entities within the Biden administration’s national security team lied to the American people about the existence of these US-funded and supported biolabs and threatened those who attempted to expose the truth.” Under new guidance from Gabbard, the US Intelligence Community will review research at all US-funded biolabs, which would include facilities engaged in gain-of-function experiments that could increase the transmissibility of viruses, as well as work for defensive purposes against dangerous pathogens.

Office of the Director of National Intelligence officials noted that the foreign labs extend into more than 30 countries, and several had received funding in the past through a Department of Defense program that sought to dispose of weapons of mass destruction after the end of the Cold War. More than 40 of the biolabs under review are located in Ukraine — and could “be at risk of compromise” due to Russia’s war, ODNI officials noted. (read more)

Read more …

“Euroskeptic FPO leader Christian Hafenecker has called on Vienna’s money laundering watchdog to investigate..”

• Nearly $22 Billion Secretly Shipped To Ukraine – Austrian Politician (RT)

A right-wing Austrian politician has demanded that the country’s Finance Ministry explain how nearly $22 billion in cash and gold was shipped to Ukraine from Austria since 2022 without triggering concerns about money laundering or regulatory oversight. In a statement published on Sunday, Austrian Freedom Party (FPO) Secretary General Christian Hafenecker called out what he described as Vienna’s “two-class justice system” for overlooking massive payments to Kiev, while keeping a tight hold on taxpayers’ purse strings.


“We’re not talking about play money here: 1,030 registered cash and gold shipments, around €12 billion ($14 billion) plus $7.75 billion, physically transported over 1,300 kilometers into the war zone,” Hafenecker said. “And the responsible finance minister simply tells me… ‘We know nothing, we’re not investigating anything, we haven’t collected any information.’ That’s not an answer, that’s dereliction of duty,” he added. By comparison, Austrian money laundering rules require a private citizen withdrawing as little as €12,000 from an inherited account to prove the origin of the funds, and any person crossing the EU’s external border with more than €10,000 in cash must declare it, Hafenecker said. “This is a two-class justice system in finance.”

The politician demanded full disclosure on all cash shipments from Austria to Ukraine since the escalation of the conflict, a full audit by the country’s Financial Market Supervisory Authority, and a report by the Austrian Money Laundering Reporting Office in parliament. Earlier this year, the Euroskeptic FPO party demanded that Vienna cut all financial aid to Ukraine, denouncing the country as a corrupt “bottomless pit,” following a wave of high-level embezzlement scandals in Kiev.

Major probes by Ukraine’s Western-backed anti-graft agencies have implicated senior officials in Vladimir Zelensky’s government since last year. Two ministers and the Ukrainian leader’s chief of staff, Andrey Yermak, stepped down following the massive scandal. Russian President Vladimir Putin has slammed the current leadership in Kiev, calling it a “criminal gang” sitting on “golden potties,” and interested far more in personal enrichment than in the fate of ordinary Ukrainians.

Read more …

Obama, Clinton, Brennan, Clapper. You can fill a phonebook. “FBI Director Kash Patel has removed about ten percent of the problem in his agency.”

• John Brennan: Still “Legions” of His Allies at DOJ, FBI and CIA (CTH)

Appearing on MSNBC to talk to Lawfare ally Nicole Wallace, wife of New York Times narrative engineer Michael Schmidt – the guy who received leaks from FBI Director James Comey via Daniel Richman, former CIA Director John Brennan notes there are “legions” of operatives still embedded within the DOJ, FBI and CIA who are working against President Donald Trump. This is not a surprise as we have noted the Trump administration continues to take apart the tentacles of Lawfare and Intelligence operatives in Main Justice, various U.S. Attorney offices, FBI Headquarters, FBI field offices and various Intelligence Community silos.


Marco Rubio has been working to clean up the National Security Council as well as the State Department operations, including USAID. Tulsi Gabbard and John Ratcliffe have been working on the NSA and CIA collaboratively, and Todd Blanche has been working through the Dept of Justice. FBI Director Kash Patel has removed about ten percent of the problem in his agency.

The core problem goes back to what we outlined on these pages {GO DEEP} and is not limited to those operatives who remain from the Obama/Biden era. Some of the problems surface as a result of ‘republican’ voices recommending “sleeper cell” staff and sketchy personnel for positions in the administration. [I’ll put an example below] One way to tell if the agency head or leader understands the challenge is by paying attention to how they talk about the agency’s mission objective. Leaders like Marco Rubio and Tulsi Gabbard have openly acknowledged the problem and are actively tackling corruption within their ranks. Even John Ratcliffe has admitted his agency was politically weaponized and has taken steps to address it. There’s still a lot of work ahead, but their actions show visible progress.

People like Pam Bondi and Kash Patel have praised the institutional embeds without drawing attention to the corruption beneath them. Thankfully, Acting AG Todd Blanche seems to be taking a more confrontational approach internally, so maybe Kash Patel will follow suit. This isn’t about style—it’s about results, and there’s an urgent need for action. To give an example of “sketchy” recommendations and predictable outcomes, I would draw attention to the lesser visible appointment of Morgan Ortagus. Do you remember this very weirdly worded announcement, two weeks prior to the inauguration?

I have no idea who “them” is referencing in the announcement.

[…] “I’m not doing this for me, I doing it for them”

There were always three options for “them”: (1) the strong republican support people; or (2) people in the Middle East who would be dealing with her; or (3) Stephen Witkoff and Jared Kushner. Regardless, of who “them” was, it was obvious President Trump was not thrilled by “their” request. Mrs. Morgan Ortagus is a long time Deep State operative with roots in the U.S. intelligence community and USAID {citation}. It was very predictable that she would undermine the goals of President Trump and she only lasted six months in the job. Ortagus was quietly dispatched from her position in June 2025.

CTH predicted Mrs. Ortagus would be a big mistake because she was, quite frankly, one of the “legion” insiders referenced by former CIA Director John Brennan. Ortagus’s entire career profile was/is textbook intelligence operative, likely legacy CIA. Not coincidentally, former National Security Advisor Mike Waltz was removed from his position only a month before Ortagus lost hers. On the day he was announced CTH said National Security Advisor Mike Waltz would be the first administration member to get the boot, because in the non-pretending world Waltz was a horrible choice just like Ortagus. Mike Waltz was removed as National Security Advisor in May 2025, Ortagus was removed as Middle East envoy in June.

If the goal was to eliminate the Deep State, President Trump couldn’t take on a deeply corrupt Intelligence Community while also appointing its allies. Their close ties to the Intelligence Community made the failures of both Waltz and Ortagus predictable. That said, behind the veneer of John Brennan’s statement on MSNBC is a guy who realizes the Trump administration has changed the dynamic and the agency systems Brennan is talking about no longer exist; at least they no longer have the same capabilities. The need for control is a reaction to fear, and Brennan’s fear is both visible and very well founded.

The DOJ and FBI operate under the influence of the Intelligence Community, which ultimately holds the reins. The key figures leading the IC have made changes to the institutions that have significantly reduced the impact of bad actors within the DOJ and FBI. The key positions are the National Security Advisor, the Secretary of State, the Office of the Director of National Intelligence and the Director of the Central Intelligence Agency.

Marco Rubio, Tulsi Gabbard and John Ratcliffe are the people to watch, and we can tell by the counsel(s) they have put into place that each of them has clear eyes and a steady hand on those critical institutions. Since mid-year 2025, around the same time Waltz and Ortagus were dispatched, you will note significant changes began surfacing in the National Security Council, the State Dept, the DNI and importantly the CIA. Some of the changes make headlines, many do not; however, each is important and builds on a larger goal of dismantling a highly weaponized and political intelligence apparatus.

Internationally, what we see in the reaction of allied -or oppositional- governments and their intelligence agencies, is in large part a geopolitical reaction to the consequential changes being made by Rubio, Gabbard and Ratcliffe. Each building upon a system that fundamentally changes U.S. policy to be in alignment with President Trump. Each of them should be commended. Domestically, the accountability developments involving James Comey, John Brennan, John Bolton, Michael Atkinson, Eric Ciaramella and others yet to emerge, stem from the transparency brought by the same trio working upstream from Main Justice and the FBI. The combined intelligence apparatus of the U.S. can cut through the chaff and countermeasures of Lawfare operatives, and I feel optimistic watching them in action.

Again, it’s not just the silo heads that are making a positive impact, it is the personnel decisions they are surrounding themselves with. The amount of sunlight now coming over the horizon is toxic to the interests of those who organized shadow operations. As long as Rubio, Ratcliffe and especially Gabbard, keep pushing the truth to the surface; as long as they keep exposing all the corruption that was used to manipulate and weaponize our government; as long as they keep strategizing on ways to declassify evidence former officials buried under false pretenses; then the DOJ, FBI and more importantly We The People, will have information we can use to make decisions.

Ultimately, it is the truth which makes evil enterprise retreat.

Read more …

Excursion??

His name is not on every list ,but Nvidia’s Jensen Huang is very much part of the group. As Trump himself confirmed.

• Here Are The People Accompanying Trump On His China Excursion This Week (JTN)

President Donald Trump will meet with Chinese President Xi Jinping in China this week and is taking a notable cohort with him to the Asian powerhouse. Trump arrives in Beijing on Wednesday for a two-day summit, which will include talks about sanctions on Iranian oil and the conflict in the Middle East at large. The group of powerful American CEOs and billionaires include Trump ally Elon Musk and Apple CEO Tim Cook, according to CBS News. Here is the rest of the notable American executives expected to go on the two-day excursion:


BlackRock’s Larry Fink

Blackstone’s Stephen Schwarzman

Boeing’s Kelly Ortberg

Goldman Sachs’ David Solomon

Meta’s Dina Powell McCormick

Micron’s Sanjay Mehrotra

Qualcomm’s Christiano Amon

Illumina’s Jacob Thaysen

Mastercard’s Michael Miebach

Visa’s Ryan McInerney

Cargill’s Brian Sikes

Citi’s Jane Fraser

Cisco’s Chuck Robbins

Coherent’s Jim Anderson

GE Aerospace’s H. Lawrence Culp.

The trip comes after the president postponed the original trip because of the conflict in the Middle East. The summit will take place May 14-15, with the president arriving May 13.

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“We have been absolutely ignored by a sitting member of Congress.”

• Minnesota Democrats Block Ilhan Omar Subpoena (JTN)

Minnesota House Republicans want help from U.S. congressional oversight leaders after Democrats on a state committee blocked an effort to subpoena U.S. Rep. Ilhan Omar over communications tied to the Feeding Our Future fraud investigation. Rep. Kristin Robbins, R-Maple Grove and chair of the Minnesota House Fraud Prevention and State Oversight Committee, announced Friday she has asked congressional leaders to assist in securing the records.


Robbins sent letters to U.S. Rep. James Comer, chairman of the House Oversight Committee, and U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz, chairman of the Senate Judiciary Subcommittee on Federal Courts, Oversight, Agency Action, and Federal Rights. The move comes days after Democrats on the state committee voted against authorizing a subpoena for Omar’s communications connected to the Feeding Our Future investigation. All five Republican committee members supported the motion, while three DFL members opposed it, leaving Republicans just short of the six votes required.

“Minnesota House Democrats chose to protect Rep. Omar rather than support our effort to get the truth,” Robbins said in a statement Friday. “Without at least one Democrat vote in support of the motion to subpoena these communications, we cannot get the two-thirds majority required to compel Rep. Omar produce the documents.” Republicans on the committee have repeatedly sought testimony and records from Omar related to trial exhibits introduced in the federal criminal case U.S. v. Bock. Robbins said Omar’s office has not responded to multiple requests, including an April 22 letter requesting records by May 5. “We have been ghosted,” Robbins said during Tuesday’s hearing. “We have been absolutely ignored by a sitting member of Congress.”

The committee’s Republican members have focused heavily on Omar’s sponsorship of the federal MEALS Act in 2020, legislation they argue loosened oversight requirements in federal child nutrition programs during the COVID-19 pandemic. “Rep. Omar had some role, whether inadvertent or not,” Robbins said Tuesday. “She passed the MEALS Act in March of 2020, and that took the guardrails off the federal school nutrition program, which created the conditions for Feeding Our Future.”

Federal prosecutors have described the Feeding Our Future case as one of the largest pandemic-era fraud schemes in the country, alleging more than $250 million intended for child nutrition programs was fraudulently claimed through fake meal reimbursements. Robbins said the committee became interested in Omar’s involvement after learning of communications between her office and individuals later convicted in the scheme. She also pointed to a 2020 video in which Omar promoted meal distribution efforts at Safari Restaurant, a Minneapolis site prosecutors later identified as a major participant in the fraud.

Democrats on the committee pushed back against the effort. Rep. Dave Pinto, DFL-St. Paul, questioned the timing of the subpoena. “We know the president and federal administration have got no hesitation going after political enemies and investigating them in all sorts of ways,” Pinto said. “If there’s any sort of wrongdoing by Congresswoman Omar—and if there’s no wrongdoing by Congresswoman Omar – I have no doubt the Trump Administration will do all it can with all the resources it has.” Rep. Isaac Schultz, R-Elmdale Township, argued the subpoena effort was part of a broader push to understand fraud in Minnesota government programs.

“Feeding Our Future is one part of the picture as it relates to what we know is to come in the fraud we’ve seen in Medicaid,” Schultz said. “Now, we have this opportunity to use our tools here in the House of Representatives to issue this subpoena to gain a greater understanding.” Robbins said Friday she hopes action from the congressional oversight committees will help Republicans obtain the records. “I hope the federal oversight committees will be able to help us get the facts about Representative Omar’s involvement in the case,” Robbins said. “If she has nothing to hide, she should testify before our committee and produce the trial exhibits.”

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“There is every reason to think the justices will leave this one where it belongs: in Virginia, under Virginia law, after Virginia Democrats tried to rig the map and got caught.”

• Scott Jennings Nukes the Democrats’ Gerrymander Hail Mary (Margolis)

Virginia Democrats lost big time in the redistricting wars and have considered all kinds of ways to respond — including trying to force the retirement of all of the justices on the Virginia Supreme Court. That scheme isn’t likely to happen, but they are hoping to drag the U.S. Supreme Court into this. The whole saga is a perfect example of how a party can overplay its hand and then act stunned when the cards fall flat. The Virginia Supreme Court struck down the Democrats’ map, saying the process violated the state constitution and nullified the referendum vote. That map would have shifted Virginia from a 6-5 split to a 10-1 advantage for Democrats, which is exactly why they wanted it so badly.


And they’re trying to drag the Supreme Court into this? It’s a Hail Mary for sure and not a very good one. Does anyone actually believe that this will succeed, that the Supreme Court will even take the case? It makes no sense. There’s really no jurisdiction for the U.S. Supreme Court to get involved. The only thing this emergency appeal does is make them look more desperate.And Scott Jennings called them out on it. CNN’s The Arena, he mocked the idea that the U.S. Supreme Court would wade into this fight. “There’s a better chance of me sprouting wings and flying out of that window over there than the United States Supreme Court dealing with this in any way, because this is a state Supreme Court ruling on a state constitution.”

He added, “The U.S. Supreme Court doesn’t deal with these kinds of things, number one. Number two, the freakout in Virginia has been so extreme. You even have Democrats over there who are saying they want to effectively, politically decapitate the entire Virginia Supreme Court by putting an age limit of 54 so they can get rid of every existing justice and install people who will promise to rule a certain way on a certain case. “ “You know, they went from, ‘Oh, this is just a temporary map thing’ to ‘Let’s burn down the entire Virginia Supreme Court’ in about two seconds over there in Virginia, which tells you all you need to know about just how power hungry and corrupt the Democrats are in Virginia.”

That is the real story here. This was sold as a temporary map fix and morphed into a power grab so aggressive that even the state’s own courts slammed the brakes. “This is not going to work at the U.S. Supreme Court,” Jennings declared. “And this whole project of maximum warfare by Hakeem Jeffries is completely blown up in their face.”

The Supreme Court is set to decide on May 14 whether it will take the emergency appeal. There is every reason to think the justices will leave this one where it belongs: in Virginia, under Virginia law, after Virginia Democrats tried to rig the map and got caught.

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“Virginia’s General Assembly adopted a new map in February that would have favored Democrats in 10 of the state’s 11 seats in the US House ..”

• Virginia Democrats Ask US Supreme Court to Reinstate Congressional Map (Hyde)

Virginia Democrats, along with their state Attorney General, have asked the US Supreme Court to override the Virginia Supreme Court’s decision last week that struck down a partisan redistricting plan. ABC News reports Virginia Attorney General Jay Jones wrote in the emergency application filed on Monday that the Virginia Supreme Court was “deeply mistaken” when it invalidated a ballot measure to amend the state constitution that would have netted Democrats as many as four new congressional seats.


The state Supreme Court had ruled last Friday, in a 4–3 decision, that Democrats had violated the state Constitution, by failing to follow proper procedures, while racing to get the measure on the ballot before the midterm elections. According to SCOTUSblog, Virginia’s General Assembly adopted a new map in February that would have favored Democrats in 10 of the state’s 11 seats in the US House—a potential increase of four seats from the current balance between Democrats and Republicans in Virginia.

The new map hinged on obtaining approval for an amendment to the Virginia constitution that would give the state legislature the power to draw a new congressional map outside of the normal cycle following the decennial census. In a referendum held in April, Virginia voters approved that amendment by a margin of three percentage points. The Virginia Supreme Court ruled that the referendum was not valid because the General Assembly had not followed proper procedures when it put the new amendment on the ballot.

In Monday’s 24-page filing, Jones argued: “The irreparable harm resulting from the Supreme Court of Virginia’s decision is profound and immediate. By forcing the Commonwealth to conduct its congressional elections using districts different from those adopted by the General Assembly pursuant to a constitutional amendment the people just ratified, the Supreme Court of Virginia has deprived voters, candidates, and the Commonwealth of their right to the lawfully enacted congressional districts.” Legal experts told ABC News last week that they believe Democrats have little chance of a successful appeal at the US Supreme Court because the state Supreme Court would be the highest authority dealing with state constitutional issues and no federal issues are at stake.

According to former Virginia Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli, “The Virginia Supreme Court is the final authority on Virginia constitutional questions. This is the end, folks. You will have the same map in 2026 that existed in 2024. That is now unchangeable and immutable.” Politico reports that Chief Justice John Roberts, who oversees emergency appeals arising from Virginia, instructed the Republicans who challenged the Virginia referendum to respond to Jones’ appeal by Thursday at 5 p.m.

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“Blanche, on Tuesday, indicated that the DOJ probe would use compulsory authority to bring in witnesses, including from the press.”

• Acting AG Blanche Warns Reporters To Expect Subpoenas In Leaks Probe (JTN)

Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche on Tuesday indicated that the Department of Justice would subpoena reporters as part of its probe into leaks of classified materials. The FBI, this month, opened a probe into Senate Democrats over the possible leak of classified materials related to Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard’s confirmation hearings. At issue was the leak of an intercept from the National Security Agency (NSA) concerning Gabbard. More recently, Trump has reportedly complained of rampant leaks related to the ongoing Iran war, The Hill reported.


Blanche, on Tuesday, indicated that the DOJ probe would use compulsory authority to bring in witnesses, including from the press. “Prosecuting leakers who share our nation’s secrets with reporters, in turn risking our national security and the lives of our soldiers, is a priority for this administration,” he said. “Any witness, whether a reporter or otherwise, who has information about these criminals should not be surprised if they receive a subpoena about the illegal leaking of classified material.”

The Trump administration has long maintained a strained relationship with the press, dating back to his first term, which saw pervasive leaks to the media, especially from the Department of Homeland Security over immigration enforcement efforts.

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“..the Supreme Court basically supported one vote, one person guaranteed in perpetuity, and the rest is just map wars..”

• The Language Got a Little Salty on CNN Monday Night (Matt Margolis)

If Bakari Sellers thought he could trot out an emotional guilt trip and quietly justify racist gerrymandering on live TV, Kevin O’Leary wasn’t about to let that slide. He didn’t just push back—he pulled the curtain back on the whole performance, forcing a raw, uncomfortable showdown between the U.S. Constitution and Sellers’ political theater. And Sellers let loose with some salty language in the process. The exchange began with host Abby Phillip laying out the stakes in the wake of the Supreme Court’s ruling that racial gerrymandering is unconstitutional. She noted that states may soon try to redraw maps in ways that could leave the minority party with no meaningful representation, which isn’t true, of course.


I could get into all the states that have had conservative representation gerrymandered into oblivion, but I’ll do that another time. O’Leary jumped in with a blunt take, saying the Supreme Court had effectively settled the matter. “I think everybody should take confidence in the fact the Supreme Court basically supported one vote, one person guaranteed in perpetuity, and the rest is just map wars,” he said. “And I think we should get used to it. And I think it’s, as you said, a state-based situation. Add this to the mix. At the end of the day, the state decides at the state level. It’s in the Constitution. Get over it.” That, apparently, set Sellers off.

“The problem with that sentiment is that you were born in 1954,” Sellers shot back, immediately turning the argument into a generational and moral rebuke. O’Leary, never one to miss a chance to needle someone, replied, “Yes,” when Sellers noted his age, then joked, “By the way, I’m a vampire.” Sellers clearly wasn’t in the mood and just pressed on with patronizing O’Leary. According to Sellers, O’Leary had lived through the entire post-Brown era and should understand what that history means. “During your lifetime, we’ve actually had Brown v. Board of Education,” Sellers said. O’Leary interjected, “I remember.” “Yes, Brown v. Board of Education, I don’t know how you remember it. I think you were like two months old.”

The temperature kept rising as Sellers tried to ground his point in personal history. “My mother was born in 1951. She desegregated schools. My father was shot in the Civil Rights Movement,” he said. “Those people—” Before he could finish, Phillip stepped in to let him continue. Sellers accused O’Leary of being “utterly disrespectful.” Then came the line that guaranteed the clip would travel fast. “So, I’m going to finish this comment. So, what I’m telling you is that there are people in this country who fought, died, and bled for the right to vote. Don’t be a d**k, just understand. Just understand.”

O’Leary didn’t care for that and pushed back immediately, insisting he was simply defending the Constitution. “I’m not a d**k. I’m pointing something out to you. The Constitution’s being upheld. You have a problem with that? You have a problem with the Constitution of the United States of America?” he asked.

Phillip tried to restore order, scolding Sellers, “I just want everybody to reset with a modicum of respect at this table.” But Sellers didn’t care, “I want you to understand that there’s a price that was paid for this right. There is a price that we uphold. And whether or not you value that—” O’Leary cut in again, clearly not caring about Seller’s belittling tone. “Where are you going with this?” Sellers answered by making the point even more directly. “Whether or not you value that or not, there are people who bled, sweat, and died, and were in prison for access to the ballot box.”

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No kings, no billionaires!

• Socialist Storytime: AOC Spins Anti-Capitalist Fable About the Founders (Turley)

Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y., is fast becoming the greatest fabulist since Aesop. Recently, Ocasio-Cortez insisted that true billionaires are a capitalist myth since “you can’t earn a billion dollars.” However, her greatest work of fiction may be her insistence that the Framers fought against billionaires and would have joined her and other socialists in seeking to eradicate them today. Bertrand Russell once noted that “there is something feeble and a little contemptible” about those “who cannot face the perils of life without the help of comfortable myths.”


The American left has long peddled such “comfortable myths” as the wealthy “not paying their fair share” of taxes. (The top one percent of income earners pay over 40% of federal taxes, and that percentage goes up to 70% for the top ten percent). However, Ocasio-Cortez has become a liberal Homer for her reputation for spinning collectivist tales. What is impressive is her myth-within-a-myth signature style: “You can’t earn that, right? And so you have to create a myth… you have to create a myth of earning it.” In a discussion at the University of Chicago Institute of Politics, Ocasio-Cortez gave her revisionist account of the Founders as, surprise, budding anti-capitalists:

“I want to talk about how this is in the heritage of our country, because America was founded… you look at Thomas Jefferson writing to Madison in revolt of British aristocracy. The American Revolution was against the billionaires of their time. And we are declaring independence from such an extreme marriage of wealth and power and the state that the voices of everyday people did not exist.”In my recent book, “Rage and the Republic,” I discuss the economic philosophy of the Founders in exploring the history and future of this unique Republic.

While Ocasio-Cortez references our 250th anniversary, she ignores that it is also the 250th anniversary of Adam Smith’s Wealth of Nations. Smith’s free-market theory was an instant hit with the founding generation. These men had just created the first major Enlightenment Revolution based on a belief in natural rights that came from God, not governments. Yet, they knew that true individual liberty could not be achieved without economic freedom. Smith’s economic theory was the perfect companion for their political theory.

The combination of American democratic theories and free market theories produced the world’s most successful and oldest democracy in history. In Rage and the Republic, I discuss the threats to this Republic, including from figures like Ocasio-Cortez, in spreading socialist myths. The book calls for a recommitment to what I call a “liberty-enhancing economy.” That is why this particular myth told by Ocasio-Cortez was so jarring. The Founders were great believers in capitalism and the free market. They were not fighting “the billionaires of their time” over their wealth. Many of the Founders were themselves quite wealthy, including banker Robert Morris Jr., who was known as the “Financier of the Revolution.”Adjusting for inflation and current rates, Morris would be a billionaire today.

The Founders believed in unleashing everyone’s ability to become a Morris. They fought against the taking or occupation of property by the government. Aat the very top of their stated purpose for the American Revolution was “Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.” The phrase was virtually ripped from the page of John Locke’s “life, liberty, and property.” Locke believed that there was a natural right to property created by what God left “in common” for humanity. Preceding any government, it was a right that belonged to human beings by divine grant. Hardly a roaring endorsement of socialist ideals or, as Zohran Mamdani put it, the “warmth of collectivism.”

George Mason relied on Locke for his draft of the Virginia Declaration of Rights, which Jefferson relied on heavily. Mason wrote of “the enjoyment of life and liberty, with the means of acquiring and possessing property, and pursuing and obtaining happiness and safety.” bOf course, the property reference was changed to happiness in the Declaration, which reflected the more transcendent values of these Enlightenment devotees. While reduced to “Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness,” the original language appeared in the Fifth Amendment and, later in the Fourteenth Amendment, protecting citizens from being “deprived of life, liberty, or property.”

In his 1792 essay “Property,” Madison echoed Lockean values in declaring that good government “secures to every man whatever is his own.” Other early figures, like Chief Justice John Marshall, wrote, “The power to tax is the power to destroy.” The new myth-making on the left is meant to revive what I previously described as “economic factionalism,” seeking political power with this type of “eat-the-rich” rhetoric. It is working (as it has in history). In California, many are pushing a “billionaire’s tax,” while far-left figures like Bernie Sanders and Ocasio-Cortez are pushing for a federal variation. In states from Washington state to Virginia, Democrats are virtually chasing wealthy taxpayers out of blue states with planned millionaire taxes.

To achieve such radical change, you must first destroy the values upon which this Republic was born, convincing people that their fundamental ties to capitalism are as ephemeral as true billionaires. The greatest irony is that Ocasio-Cortez personifies what the Founders truly wanted to combat. They feared mobocracy and the tyranny of the majority, the arbitrary power that can come from majoritarian abuse. Ocasio-Cortez, Sanders, and others are truly not new or particularly interesting additions to the political dialogue. They are the same voices of democratic despotism that Madison and others sought to quell.

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A trial balloon?

• Media Spreads Hantavirus Hysteria In Attempt To Save Disgraced WHO (ZH)

The establishment media has been drumming up fear after a recent outbreak of Hantavirus on a cruise liner traveling from Argentina to West Africa. The Guardian has used the opportunity to assert that the US is currently ill equipped to deal with future pandemic threats, largely because of Donald Trump (of course) and the dramatic US exit from the now disgraced World Health Organization. Is Hantavirus a serious danger to the world, or, is it another hyped up virus like Covid being used to trigger public hysteria? And if it is being hyped, who (or WHO) stands to benefit?


For decades the WHO constructed its image as a global angel of benevolence; the primary line of defense against what they said was the inevitable invasion of a population rending plague. However, when the time finally came in the form of a mutated Coronavirus (Covid), they dropped the ball, and evidence suggests they may have done it deliberately.During the initial outbreak in China, the WHO echoed CCP propaganda suggesting that human-to-human contact was unlikely and, knowingly or unknowingly, aided China in hiding details behind the outbreak.

Details surrounding the involvement of the Wuhan Institute of Virology, the largest dangerous disease lab in Asia, were actively dismissed (or suppressed). Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus even praised China’s “transparency”. The WHO then set up a joint task force to determine the origins of Covid, only to let the Chinese dominate the investigation and lead it away from the activities at the Level 4 lab in Wuhan. The Chinese wanted to push the theory of animal-to-animal mutation instead of the gain of function research that was ongoing at the lab (partially funded by US interests in the Obama Administration).

Today, evidence overwhelmingly suggests that Covid originated in the Wuhan Lab. In January 2025, the CIA assessed that a lab-related origin is more likely than natural spillover. This determination matched with similar FBI assessments. In 2025, German Intelligence also reported their findings, indicating a 90% likelihood that Covid was engineered and originated at the Wuhan Lab in China. Of course, anyone who made this claim online during the pandemic response was called a dangerous “conspiracy theorist” and was deplatformed (much like Zero Hedge).

The WHO would go on to exaggerate the death rate of the virus, claiming an initial Case Fatality Rate (CFR) of 3.4%. This data was based on studies which ignored mild cases as well as asymptomatic cases, thus artificially pumping up the death rate. Dozens of studies as early as May 2020 showed that the median Infection Fatality Rate (a more accurate number) was only 0.27% (later adjusted to 0.23%). The WHO continued to spread disinformation and hysteria surrounding covid while ignoring the true IFR data. That is to say, all the lockdowns, the mandates, the social media censorship, the arrests, the push for vaccine passports, etc. – all of it was over a virus that 99.8% of the population would easily survive.

The WHO has been exposed as a perpetrator of pandemic disinformation and is no longer trusted by the public. The US under the Trump Administration has exited the organization on these grounds, and as a result the WHO has lost at least 20% of its total funding. It is now facing dire financial conditions. In response, the UN and the establishment media have been running a spin campaign to present the WHO as indispensable. It is therefore not surprising that the WHO and the media are suddenly jumping on the cruise line Hantavirus story as if it is significant, while at the same time arguing that Trump is putting the public at risk by not participating in the WHO’s antics. They need the money badly, and so they’ve decided to remind the public why we should be afraid.

For those who are unaware, Hantavirus is a common virus around the world and in the US. Estimates show around 100,000 cases of the disease occur annually. In 2023, there were 40 cases in the US. The virus is most often contracted when humans are exposed to dried rodent feces and urine, floating as particulates in the air which are then inhaled into the lungs. The spread from human to human is rare and only occurs with the South American strain. Contraction is difficult, with the virus passing from one person to another through “prolonged contact with bodily fluids”. It makes you wonder what kind of pleasure cruise these people were on when the most recent outbreak started? The point is, the story is being inflated from a normal event into a crisis event.

This is probably why the Spanish Government set up an elaborate bus transfer of supposedly highly infectious cruise passengers, only to drop off a psychiatrist with the Ministry of Health down the road without protective gear like he’s going home after school. The bottom line? Hantavirus is all over the world and it’s not a threat to the vast majority of people. The artificial media panic and the opportunism of the WHO may be an effort to test the waters for another fraudulent pandemic scare, but the majority of the propaganda seems to be aimed at restoring the WHO’s reputation and saving it from financial ruin.

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The North African nation poses the biggest problem for the bloc in terms of arrivals, Thanos Plevris has said

• Over 500,000 Waiting To Cross Into Europe From Libya – Greek Minister (RT)

The EU might be on the verge of a new migrant crisis, with more than half a million people waiting in Libya alone to cross into Europe, Greek Migration Minister Thanos Plevris has said. The bloc was first inundated by asylum seekers from the Middle East and Northern Africa during the 2015 refugee crisis, when a million migrants entered Europe, straining welfare systems and prompting tens of millions of European voters to turn to far-right political parties. Greece remains one of the bloc’s main entry points, registering 48,771 arrivals in 2025, according to UNHCR data. According to the UN refugee agency, 7,589 migrants and asylum seekers have arrived in the Mediterranean country this year as of May 3, including 5,615 by sea.


Athens has introduced a number of tough policy measures in a bid to stem the flow over the past years, including detention for those denied asylum. Commenting on the situation on Sunday, Plevris said that Greece was “the first country to criminalize illegal residence” and would not allow those denied protection to just roam free. “Those who are not entitled to asylum will be detained,” the minister told a local broadcaster, adding that Athens would “operate within the law but will go to its limits to protect the borders.” He also described the situation in Libya as the biggest problem faced by his country and the EU. According to Plevris, around 550,000 people have gathered there and are now seeking to enter Europe.

In February, Plevris also announced that it was working together with Germany, the Netherlands, Austria, and Denmark to create “return hubs” for rejected asylum seekers outside of the EU’s borders, with Africa being the preferred destination. Libya became a key transit point for human trafficking and migration to Europe via the Mediterranean following a NATO-backed uprising in 2011 that led to the overthrow and assassination of longtime ruler Muammar Gaddafi. The EU has struggled to manage the migration crisis since 2015, with Greece, Italy, and Spain receiving the highest number of arrivals across the Mediterranean.

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https://twitter.com/Rainmaker1973/status/2053784729493602624?s=20

 

 

 

 

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Debt Rattle May 12 2026

May 122026
 
 May 12, 2026  Posted by at 9:03 am Finance Tagged with: , , , , , , , , , , ,  53 Responses »


Henri Matisse The Dessert – Harmony in Red 1908


• Trump to Iran: Time’s Up (Robert Spencer)
• Trump: Iran Ceasefire ‘On Life Support’ (JTN)
• Trump Mulls Military Action As Ceasefire On “Life Support” (ZH)
• Dear Mr. President: Just Finish the Mullahs Already (Stephen Green)
• Khamenei Orders Iran’s Army To ‘Continue Decisive Operations’ (Cradle)
• Confused About Iran? Here’s What U.S. Victory Looks Like. (Victoria Taft)
• EU Prepares For ‘Potential’ Talks With Putin As US Slowly Reduces Troops (ZH)
• Putin’s Failure as a World Leader has Cleared the Path to WW III (PCR)
• The Earth Moves Just a Bit (James Howard Kunstler)
• Durov Slams French Hypocrisy Over X Crackdown (RT)
• Um… Did the GOP Just Win the Midterms? (Stephen Green)
• Zelensky Touts That 20 Countries Seek Ukraine Drone Deals (ZH)
• White House Identifies Treatment Course for TDS Sufferers (CTH)
• Trump Floats Making Venezuela The 51st State (ZH)
• “You Just Can’t Earn a Billion Dollars”: AOC (Turley)

 


 

https://twitter.com/EricLDaugh/status/2053517163177169095?s=20 https://twitter.com/EricLDaugh/status/2053838729467371690?s=20 https://twitter.com/Real_RobN/status/2053635138765062154?s=20 https://twitter.com/MAGAVoice/status/2053546881050169600?s=20

 


 


“I don’t like it — TOTALLY UNACCEPTABLE! Thank you for your attention to this matter. President DONALD J. TRUMP”

• Trump to Iran: Time’s Up (Robert Spencer)

“Iran,” said President Donald Trump in a Truth Social post early on Sunday afternoon, “has been playing games with the United States, and the rest of the World, for 47 years (DELAY, DELAY, DELAY!),” and there is no doubt that his assessment is true, particularly in regard to the present on-and-off negotiations. Now, however, Trump has issued an ominous warning that the surviving leaders of the Islamic Republic would be wise to take seriously, which doesn’t at all mean that they will do so.


The leaders of the Islamic Republic, whoever they may be, have been playing a delaying game with Trump with the peace talks, and that’s essentially all that those talks were or ever could be. This is clear from the very fact that Iran is an Islamic republic that strives to adhere to Islamic principles and laws in all of its dealings. Islamic law allows for a truce between a Muslim force and a non-Muslim one only under two circumstances: if the non-Muslim force is about to convert to Islam, which is obviously not in play here (although it could be sooner than anyone expects), and if the Muslim force is losing the war, and needs time to gather strength to fight again more effectively.

There is no scenario in Islamic law in which a Muslim force and a non-Muslim one sign a treaty for a lasting peace, lay down their arms, and coexist. The assumption among Western policymakers that the Islamic Republic of Iran would do such a thing under any circumstances is based on those policymakers’ willful ignorance regarding Islamic law, and fond assumption that everyone in the world thinks just the way they do. Trump went on in his Truth Social post to skewer a pair of his predecessors for showering the Islamic Republic with American largesse in pursuit of exactly that chimerical peaceful coexistence:

“…and then finally hit “pay dirt” when Barack Hussein Obama became President. He was not only good to them, he was great, actually going to their side, jettisoning Israel, and all other Allies, and giving Iran a major and very powerful new lease on life. Hundreds of Billions of Dollars, and 1.7 Billion Dollars in green cash, flown into Tehran, was handed to them on a silver platter. Every Bank in D.C., Virginia, and Maryland was emptied out — It was so much money that when it arrived, the Iranian Thugs had no idea what to do with it. They had never seen money like this, and never will again. It was taken off the plane in suitcases and satchels, and the Iranians couldn’t believe their luck. They finally found the greatest SUCKER of them all, in the form of a weak and stupid American President. He was a disaster as our “Leader,” but not as bad as Sleepy Joe Biden!”

Trump was right about Obama giving the Islamic Republic a “very powerful new lease on life.” Without the financial boost that Obama gave to the mullahs, they likely would not have survived the nationwide protests that swept Iran several times since Obama’s billions arrived. Those protests were ruthlessly suppressed, and the money for that suppression came from the United States. Adding insult to injury for the long-suffering people of Iran, Old Joe Biden sent them $10 billion. All this cash has kept the bloodthirsty Islamic regime alive. Trump continued:

“For 47 years the Iranians have been “tapping” us along, keeping us waiting, killing our people with their roadside bombs, destroying protests, and recently wiping out 42,000 innocent, unarmed protestors, and laughing at our now GREAT AGAIN Country. They will be laughing no longer! President DONALD J. TRUMP” Just over two hours after posting this, Trump added: “I have just read the response from Iran’s so-called ‘Representatives.’ I don’t like it — TOTALLY UNACCEPTABLE! Thank you for your attention to this matter. President DONALD J. TRUMP”

What Trump will do now is anybody’s guess, but one thing is certain: the Islamic Republic will keep on behaving belligerently and aggressively toward the United States and Israel as long as it continues to exist. It cannot end its hostility to either country without ceasing to be an Islamic republic. It hates the U.S. because free society and representative government is the foremost competitor to the Sharia-based society that it wishes to export, and it hates Israel because the Qur’an designates the Jews as the “most vehement in hostility” to the Muslims (5:82).

And as long as Iran is losing, it will continue to delay. Trump is correct to call them out. Now is the time to act.

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“I didn’t even waste my time reading all of it. It’s on life support..”

• Trump: Iran Ceasefire ‘On Life Support’ (JTN)

President Donald Trump on Monday stated that the ceasefire with Iran was “on life support” amid a growing diplomatic deadline between Tehran and Washington and the exchange of live rounds across the Persian Gulf. It’s unbelievably weak. After reading that garbage they sent over? I didn’t even waste my time reading all of it. It’s on life support,” he told reporters. “I would say the ceasefire is on massive life support, where the doctor walks in and says, ‘sir, your loved one has approximately 1% chance of living.'”


Trump’s remarks came from the Oval Office during an unrelated event. He also lamented the difficulties of dealing with Iran, saying they agreed to commitments and then backed out. He rejected the Iranian peace proposal over the weekend, calling it “totally unacceptable.” Earlier this month, Iran and the United Arab Emirates exchanged fire across the Persian Gulf, despite the ceasefire, with Iran launching missiles toward UAE territory and striking at least one industrial oil facility.

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Iran act like they’re winning.

“Everything we proposed in the text was reasonable and generous.” However, US officials continue to insist on their “unreasonable demands,” Baghaei stressed. He described that Iran’s demands for the war to stop, for the US to lift its blockade, and the release Iran’s frozen assets, remain legitimate..”

• Trump Mulls Military Action As Ceasefire On “Life Support” (ZH)

President Trump is meeting with his national security team Monday to discuss the way forward in the Iran war, including possibly resuming military action, after negotiations with the countrydeadlocked on Sunday, three U.S. officials told Axios. U.S. officials say Trump wants a deal to end the war, but Iran’s rejection of many of his demands and refusal to make meaningful concessions on its nuclear program puts the military option back on the table. This sent oil prices back to the highs of the day…


President Trump also told Fox, that he sees a 1% chance of an Iran deal materializing and succeeding, as even the ceasefire is one of “the weakest, on life support”: President Donald Trump called out the “piece of garbage” peace proposal from Iran on Monday from the Oval Office, saying only “stupid people” in Iran are questioning his resolve in guaranteeing Iran will never have a nuclear weapon. The latest Iranian proposal reneged on a past vow to give up enriched uranium. None of this bodes well for the prospect of the Strait of Hormuz opening up anytime soon. Oil prices have reflected general pessimism at the start of this week.

Trump Might Fully Restart Project Freedom
Fox News is reporting that President Trump is considering renewing Project Freedom, pushing oil up. According to the developing story: President Donald Trump has stated in an interview with Fox News that he is considering renewing Project Freedom, a military operation originally launched to secure the passage of commercial vessels through the Strait of Hormuz. This operation, involving significant U.S. naval assets, had been paused amid diplomatic efforts with Iran. The initial pause was influenced by diplomatic progress mediated by Pakistan, although recent developments suggest a potential escalation.

However, the reality is that the de facto US naval blockade has remained in place. The Iranians last week fired on US warships which were escorting foreign vessels through the strait. Since then there’s been an uneasy calm amid stalled negotiations. There’s really no movement on either side. Trump indicated in the fresh comments that all of this could be part of a larger operation, and strangely a bit of a contradictory stance: he said of Iran’s “hardline leaders” that “they are going to fold” and that “I will deal with them until they make a deal”. Of course, the very label of ‘hardline’ would suggest the opposite.

The same Fox correspondent was told by Trump that forcibly retrieving Iran’s ‘nuclear dust’ is still on the table: It is clear there remains a huge gap between the positions of Washington and Tehran, after the past days saw proposal and counterproposal submitted via Pakistan, with the White House issuing its final response over the weekend, as President Trump called it ‘unacceptable’.

According to new Monday words from Iran’s Foreign Ministry Spokesman, Esmail Baghaei, “Everything we proposed in the text was reasonable and generous.” However, US officials continue to insist on their “unreasonable demands,” Baghaei stressed. He described that Iran’s demands for the war to stop, for the US to lift its blockade, and the release Iran’s frozen assets, remain legitimate. Further, Tehran is demanding safe passage through the Strait of Hormuz, along with establishing security in the region and in Lebanon.

Senior Iranian military official Mohsen Rezaee to Tasnim: There Is No Clear Prospect for a Political Agreement With the United States n”Unfortunately, the US continues to insist on its one-sided view,” Baghaei added of the “reasonable, generous offer” built around Iran’s national interests. Iran has strongly suggested that the US is actually too influenced by driving Israeli interests, not American priorities. But per WSJ, Washington’s focus remains on the nuclear issue, which Iran considers a non-starter in negotiations: “The president on Sunday said a multipage response that Iran sent to the U.S. proposal to end the war, which didn’t include commitments about Tehran’s nuclear program, was unacceptable,” the publication writes.

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Do the mullahs still have any say? Or is it now really the IRGC?

• Dear Mr. President: Just Finish the Mullahs Already (Stephen Green)

“When you set out to take Vienna,” Napoleon advised, “take Vienna.” When President Donald Trump initiated the current round of hostilities in the 47-year-old Iran War on February 28, observers had no way to tell whether Trump had merely ordered U.S. forces to inflict more heavy damage to the Islamic Republic’s nuclear ambitions, or if he was determined to force regime change.


Lately, it looks like neither. As PJ Media’s own Robert Spencer noted on Sunday, “There is no scenario in Islamic law in which a Muslim force and a non-Muslim one sign a treaty for a lasting peace, lay down their arms, and coexist.” There comes a point where even Trump’s so-much-winning art-of-the-deal negotiating tactics come up against this hard reality, and it looks increasingly like that’s where we are.

Look, I love the idea of Trump doing to Tehran what he did to Caracas back in January, and removing the problem leader, then making peace with the much more pliable survivors. But it’s clear by now that either no such people exist in the Islamic Republic, or the government is too fractured or leaderless to comply. Either way, the fiery-but-mostly-peaceful ceasefire may have run its course. The man himself said on Sunday that the regime “will be laughing no longer!” at the U.S., but that’s not the way it looks to those of us watching from the outside.

This exchange between my Red State colleague Bonchie and another X user explains where I arrived over the weekend: In the interest of fairness, let’s look at the flip side, because there’s also the global picture that Oil Price analyst Irina Slav reported on this weekend. The short version is that China is hurt more by the growing oil crisis than the U.S. is. If temporarily higher gas prices are the price of ending the Islamic Republic and hurting the CCP, too, then I’d think of them as a worthwhile investment.

Then again, midterm voters are likely less sanguine about gas prices than I am, and political considerations are real. Or as another X user put it, “We either prove we can open the straits now or deal with it being closed in October.” It may well be that Trump is simply running out the clock on Tehran’s finances and oil storage issues that could go critical as soon as this week. If that’s the ploy, and it works, then please forgive my itchy trigger finger. But the more I think about what desperate actions the regime might take in either one of those circumstances, the more convinced I become that waiting them out could prove to be a huge mistake.

There are two clocks ticking. One on the Islamic Republic, the other on America’s patience with the war’s economic fallout. It’s always looked like Tehran’s clock will run out first, but after 10 weeks, the time might have come to force a decision instead. Did Trump set out to take out the regime? He’s been typically coy about his actual endgame, but whatever the goal was on February 28, maybe now Trump needs to finish the job.

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Khameini jr. “orders”? Who listens?

• Khamenei Orders Iran’s Army To ‘Continue Decisive Operations’ (Cradle)

Iran’s Supreme Leader Mojtaba Khamenei has ordered the country’s forces to continue military operations against the US and Israel, according to a report by Iranian public broadcaster IRIB released Sunday. The order came during a meeting between Khamenei and Major General Ali Abdollahi, the commander of the Iranian army’s Khatam al-Anbiya Headquarters. “During this meeting, the Supreme Commander-in-Chief, His Eminence Ayatollah Sayyed Mojtaba Hosseini Khamenei, while expressing appreciation for the brave and valiant fighters and the country’s powerful armed forces, issued new directives and guidance for continuing operations and confronting enemies decisively,” the report said.


Abdollahi also “presented a report on the readiness of the armed forces” during the meeting, IRIB added. The report comes after two months of speculation and unverified media claims about the Supreme Leader’s status. Western news outlets like The Guardian and The Times had claimed earlier in the war that Khamenei was in a coma following the US-Israeli strikes that assassinated his father. Reports also claimed that he fled to Russia. Mazaher Hosseini, head of protocol in the office of Iran’s supreme leader, recently stated that Khamenei was healing from minor injuries he sustained and “is now in complete health.”


“Thank God, he is in good health. The enemy is spreading all kinds of rumors and false claims. They want to see him and find him, but people should be patient and not rush. He will speak to you when the time is right,” the Iranian official stated. The IRIB report came a day after CNN cited US intelligence as saying that Khamenei “is playing a critical role in shaping war strategy alongside senior Iranian officials.” It also comes days after Iran’s President Masoud Pezeshkian said he met with the supreme leader. “What struck me most during this meeting was the vision and the humble and sincere approach of the supreme leader of the Islamic Revolution,” he said.

Tehran has sent out its response to a new US proposal for a ceasefire via Pakistan, according to state media. The US has maintained an illegal blockade of Iranian ports since the ceasefire began. Washington violated the truce days ago by bombing Iran’s coast and attacking two vessels. Iranian forces targeted two US military vessels in response. The next day, skirmishes broke out between Iranian and US forces in the Strait of Hormuz. Spokesperson for the Iranian parliament’s Foreign Policy and National Security Committee, Ebrahim Rezaei, said on Sunday that Tehran will strike US military bases and vessels in response to any new violations from Washington – stressing that “restraint has come to an end.”

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“..maximum victory for the U.S. would look like, in addition to the other tiers of victory. “Regime change … empowering the Iranian people and giving us an Iran that could be a friend in the future..”

• Confused About Iran? Here’s What U.S. Victory Looks Like. (Victoria Taft)

The Trump Administration is the most transparent in the history of the country, but keeping up with the torturous talks with the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) is getting harder all the time. It started off clearly enough, but since this Iran campaign went into negotiation mode with the leftover leaders of the IRGC, it’s been as if we’re “looking through a glass, darkly,” as Paul put it in 1 Corinthians. From claims of kamikazi dolphins, to on-and-off-again negotiations, claims of full air superiority, use of autonomous ships, to the question of whether we can call it a “war,” there’s been confusion about what is going on in the Iran conflict and the subsequent talks. Some of this confusion is on purpose, no doubt, to confound the IRGC leftovers, but people like me who try to keep up are, well, frustrated.


The Iranian leftover leaders are conducting what is obviously a stall strategy, of course, and President Trump posted on Truth Social over the weekend that he knows what they’re doing, “DELAY, DELAY, DELAY!” he wrote. I asked a subject matter expert, Edmund Fitton-Brown — a former UK ambassador to Yemen and former UN negotiator with Al Qaeda and the Taliban — to explain if those talks can get us to something we can call “victory.” The Iran conflict is something I tackle on Tuesdays in my Adult in the Room Podcast livestream, and I asked the senior fellow at the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies to explain things to me.

In the interview, Fitton-Brown explained that “[Trump] is really serious about peace, but you don’t get peace with people who want to kill you.” However, there are three tiers of achievable “peace,” and they are “minimum victory, medium victory, and … maximum victory.” You can see the entire exchange at 22:20 of this video below, but here’s a distilled version of his theory. “Minimum is the straightforward moves, open [Hormuz], no Iranian toll, complete reassertion of… the law of the sea and freedom of navigation,” he told me. “[W]e need the Iranians to acknowledge that they can’t enrich uranium in the future,” he said. “Those are the minimum conditions.”

The Hormuz takeover, though not completely unexpected, gave the Iranians another leverage point they didn’t have before. Fitton-Brown said he’d negotiate for more, of course. “Medium conditions for success would be to get the Iranians to agree that they will not resume their procurement and manufacture of ballistic missiles so that so that we don’t have this constant threat to Israel that has destabilized the Middle East,” and that sounds even better. He continued, “Iranians would acknowledge that they have to reign in their proxies. They can’t just keep waging war on their neighbors using the Houthis, the Hezballah, Iraqi militias and Hamas and the Palestinian Islamic Jihad.”

Minimum plus Medium equals a better deal. Here’s what he says maximum victory for the U.S. would look like, in addition to the other tiers of victory. “Regime change … empowering the Iranian people and giving us an Iran that could be a friend in the future,” he told me. He says they’ve been anything but that in the past 47 years. “We have allowed the Iranians for 47 years to chant death to America. And that should never have been allowed. Right from the start, we should have said to them, you know, if you say that, then you cannot be allowed to have a kind of civilized relationship with us,” he stated. He’d keep sanctions going until “they realized there was a real cost to [saying] it.” The IRGC gets a vote, too. Now the Iranian nuke czar says Trump’s number one goal, the Islamist’s nuclear program, will not be part of any negotiations.

Fitton-Brown says, “The lesson is to take people at their word.”

Maybe it’s time to bring back the B-2s.

Watch my interview below.

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Europe has a long way to fall.

• EU Prepares For ‘Potential’ Talks With Putin As US Slowly Reduces Troops (ZH)

A recent report in Financial Times indicates the European Union is preparing for “potential” future talks with Russia and President Vladimir Putin at a moment of extreme doubts over both US military commitments and Russia’s intentions in Ukraine. Putin himself during his V-Day speech Saturday hinted for the first time that the conflict may be ‘coming to an end’: “I think that the matter is coming to an end,” Putin told reporters of the Russia-Ukraine war, Europe s deadliest conflict since World War II.


The Russian leader, however, added he would be willing to meet Zelensky only after the terms of a peace agreement had already been settled. The Kremlin had rejected US President Donald Trump’s August 2025 offer to hold a trilateral meeting with Zelenskyy, Putin and Trump. “This should be the final point, not the negotiations themselves,” Putin said after the Victory Day, which marks Russia’s victory over Nazi Germany in 1945 in World War II. Also on Saturday, António Costa, the president of the European Council, said to a press conference the EU will only talk to Putin at the “right moment”. Costa ultimately sees “potential” for direct EU engagement with Putin.

“We need in the right moment to have talks with Russia to address our common issues with security,” the EU president had said. “We don’t want to disturb the initiative led by President Trump,” said Costa at a ‘Europe Day’ celebration in Brussels. He also spoke of preparations aimed at being “ready to do what we need to do” regarding Europe’s security. And separately an EU official said: “There will be a moment when the EU will need to speak to Russia because it’s an existential issue for Europe. Now it’s not the time.”= President Trump has recently blasted NATO as a “paper tiger” (though it wasn’t the first time) and has said the US is withdrawing 5,000 American troops from Germany.

In response, European governments have accelerated discussions on deeper EU military coordination, including joint defense initiatives which bypass US protection. Currently, the three-day Ukraine ceasefire announced and backed by President Trump appears to have held throughout the weekend, as no drone attacks have been registered on Moscow or other parts of the country. Trump had presented this as a window and opportunity to achieve a more permanent truce, and Putin is without doubt seizing on the initiative, but surely wants a final settlement in line with Kremlin aims in Ukraine.

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In 1999, Putin took over a desperate, despondent, bankrupt country from Yeltsin. Life expectancy among men was in their 50s. Ask them now how they feel about Putin. Not as a failure, I guarantee you.

• Putin’s Failure as a World Leader has Cleared the Path to WW III (PCR)

Igor Girkin regrets that Putin’s pusillanimous behavior has humiliated Russia before the world.


“We — as an entire country — have been humiliated before the whole world by our astonishing inability not only to defend our status as a Great Power (something that had remained unquestioned for Russia for centuries), but even to uphold ordinary national interests. We allow ‘neutral’ states to seize our ships and cargo without the slightest response; we supply (at a discount) oil, gas, and other essential resources to states openly producing missiles and drones that rain down daily on Russian soldiers and civilians; we are ‘passionately friendly’ with neighbors openly laying claim to Russian territory; and in the end, amid triumphant shouting, endless boasting, and equally endless lies from state media, we are unable to defeat an enemy that 10 years ago was pitiful both militarily and socioeconomically — but which we ourselves allowed to grow stronger through our own insane (downright idiotic) actions and inaction.

“And there is much more besides…“We tolerate these idiots in power in the hope that they will ‘come to their senses’ and finally (if only out of self-preservation) defend Russia from external enemies — but the further things go, the more these idiots behave like cowards, while continuing to profit shamelessly from the difficult and unsuccessful war they themselves are losing. “So why should anyone respect us as a country? Who would genuinely ally themselves with obvious losers?”

In 2007 when Russian President Putin spoke at the Munich Security Conference it looked as if the fear of the American Zionist neoconservatives had been realized that a country sufficiently strong to stand as a barrier to Washington’s hegemony had appeared on the scene. Putin declared that Russia did not accept Washington’s unilateralism. Not long after he drove the American trained and equipped Georgian Army out of South Ossetia. Next he threw down the gauntlet with his unequivocal statement that “Russia will never again fight a war on its own territory.” Putin presented Russia to the world as a barrier to US imperialism and looting of the world.

The Israeli-American Zionist neoconservatives decided to fight back. They saw Russia’s weakness in Putin’s desire for peace and good relations. The Zionists correctly read this weakness as an opportunity to seize Ukraine, which Washington had already broken out of Russia and created as an independent state when the Soviet Union collapsed politically. The American Zionists reasoned correctly that Putin would regard Russia’s intervention against their coup as a propaganda advantage for Washington to portray Russia as a revanchist state bent on recovering the Soviet empire and then adding all of Europe. As Putin’s goal was mutual trust and beneficial business relationships, he stood aside, not understanding that the Zionist intent was to use Ukraine in a proxy war against Russia in the expectation of destabilizing Russia.

The American Zionists are achieving their goal. Increasingly, Russians are expressing discontent with Putin’s prevention of the Russian military from winning the conflict initiated by Washington. More and more Russians are speaking out strongly. Drones and missiles supplied by Washington and NATO now hit deep into Russia. They hit Russian energy production facilities, reducing the energy flow. They hit Russian energy export facilities, reducing the ability to export energy. They hit civilian residential housing killing Russian civilians. EU countries of zero military potential seize Russian oil tankers on the high seas. The humiliations go on and on, and Putin accepts them to the disgrace of Russia.

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“Operation Epic Fury was the loud one. Operation Economic Fury is the quiet one. . . . While the carriers were on television, Treasury was doing the actual demolition.” —Jesús Enrique Rosas on X

• The Earth Moves Just a Bit (James Howard Kunstler)

Expect a consequential week. The Persian Gulf remains closed and colossal oil slicks leak out of Kharg Island while Iran blusters and stomps its feet. No one can even try to buy its oil anymore, not even China. The sanctions are too onerous. Iran’s wells must be shut in now. Imagine how the production chiefs out in the oil fields are howling at their insane IRGC overseers. Iran has no economy left operating. Iran’s domestic security force, the Basij (Sâzmân-e Basij-e Mostaz’afin, or “Mobilization of the Oppressed”) is strangling anyone who expresses discontent in the streets, not a good look for a regime that can’t survive without the pretense of popular support.


Late Sunday, the US President rejected Tehran’s latest conditions for peace out of hand. They are trying to jerk the whole world around, even while they whirl around the drain. Despite what you read in The New York Times — Iran’s US-based chief cheerleader — it is probably a matter of days now before capitulation. The ball is in America’s court this morning, a real hanging lob shot. The return is apt to be hard. Of course, whatever official utterances come out of Iran, you must discount by about 99.9-percent. For now, there is nothing but the morning fog of suspense.

But strange doings are a’foot elsewhere. You might have noticed that the UK’s labor government got drubbed in local elections, losing nearly 1,500 council seats, a humiliating repudiation. It’s a matter of days before PM Keir Starmer will have to hang it up. His possible replacements are utterly unknown to Americans — Angela Rayner, a former Deputy PM, Energy Secretary Ed Milliband, Health Sec’y Wes Streeting — and any of them is just a place-holder for the election’s main winner Nigel Farage of the Reform Party, which exists wholly outside the age-old British political transect of Labour / Tories.

The Labour Party, you see, is lately as loathsome in the altogether to British voters as its current avatar, Sir Keir (Knight Commander of the Order of the Bath, KCB), whose latest act was to extend social welfare benefits to the additional wives of poly-marital Muslims. Way to go! Why not just travel the island empire from town-to-town and slap every indigenous Briton in the face? And the Tories (putative Conservatives), well, just fuggeddabowdem. Sir Keir’s Tory predecessor as PM, Rishi Sunak, screwed the pooch for his party into the next twenty years allowing net Third World migration to hit record highs while the kingdom crumbled.

The way it works over there, Sir Keir or whoever takes over from him, asks King Charles to dissolve Parliament, and you get a sudden national election short of Parliament’s regular five-year term. And so, sometime in the months ahead, Nigel Farage will become Prime Minister and things will change-up bigly in Britain. Mr. Farage will have to contend, among other things, with Donald Trump’s dismantling of whatever was left of Britain’s stealth neo-colonial command of global finance through the British banking system.

he question really is: can Farage arrest his country’s sickening slide into becoming an Islamic caliphate, with all the Third World bells and whistles? Can he possibly even start shipping the most recent arrivals back to where they came from? Can he do what Mr. Trump is attempting in the USA and turn the UK back to an economy based on the actual production of goods rather than financial finaglery?

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“France is illegally harvesting its citizens’ data, while accusing social media platforms of doing the same, the entrepreneur has alleged ..”

• Durov Slams French Hypocrisy Over X Crackdown (RT)

Telegram co-founder Pavel Durov has accused France of hypocrisy after prosecutors expanded a criminal investigation into Elon Musk’s X. Durov said French authorities were violating citizens’ privacy while accusing the social media platform of similar conduct. The entrepreneur made the remarks on Sunday, just days after the Paris prosecutor’s office announced that it would seek new charges against X over alleged illegal sexual deepfakes made by the platform’s Grok AI, as well as unlawful data extraction and other crimes.


“The French government is accusing X of the very things the French government itself is doing,” Durov tweeted. The French government is panicking. They know a major political shift in 2027 will expose their misdeeds – so they’re trying to silence free speech platforms under whatever pretext they think they can get away with.He called on the international community to back X against what he called the French state’s “immoral assault” on the social media app.

French investigators initially launched their investigation of X and Grok in January, alleging that the platforms’ algorithms were biased and accusing the company of illegal data gathering and of possessing and spreading sexualized deepfakes created by its AI, including images involving minors. The tech mogul has denied any wrongdoing and dismissed the legal action as a “political attack.” Last month, the US Department of Justice reportedly denied a request from French prosecutors to cooperate in the investigation. US President Donald Trump’s administration has long been critical of what it has called attacks on free speech and political opposition in the EU and UK.

Durov’s Telegram has also faced legal troubles in France. The entrepreneur was arrested at a Paris airport in 2024 and indicted on a dozen charges after French prosecutors accused him of being complicit in crimes committed using his social media platform. Durov has since been allowed to leave France, despite the ongoing investigation. The entrepreneur has repeatedly called the arrest absurd and condemned crackdowns on social media networks as a concerted attack on free speech.

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“You ask for miracles, Theo? I give you the Virginia Democrats.” —Hans Gruber, possibly

• Um… Did the GOP Just Win the Midterms? (Stephen Green)

You probably know that I’m not exactly up on the GOP’s chances of holding the House in November, but there’s a glimmer of light ahead, thanks in no small part to overreach by Virginia Democrats — and Republicans finally wising up. Over the weekend, Roger Kimball looked at the Supreme Court’s Louisiana v. Callais decision and declared that “the decision will net Republicans some 8-12 additional House seats in the midterms. In other words, Republicans will not only hold the House; they will also expand their majority.”


Reporting for the (extremely) left-wing Mother Jones, Ari Berman called the decision “devastating” for Democrats, but also noted that “the only silver lining for those harmed may be that the ruling came be too late to have a major impact on the 2026 midterm elections.” “Candidate filing deadlines have passed in most Southern states; primary elections have been held already in North Carolina, Texas, and Mississippi; and Louisiana, Alabama, and Georgia have mailed ballots for upcoming May primaries.” That’s six deep-red states out of play for 2026 redistricting, so it isn’t that Roger’s numbers are wrong, but they might be premature. Don’t get me wrong — I pray he’s right.

So for the moment, the GOP’s odds remain too long for comfort. Democrats are comfortably ahead on the 2026 generic congressional ballot, typically the best indicator of what happens on election day. The RealClearPolitics average has them up by 5.6 points. Overcoming a number like that requires the kind of enthusiasm that, frankly, much of the Trump electorate just doesn’t enjoy right now. The Iran War — while totally necessary, they were about to get nukes — has gas prices uncomfortably close to Biden-era highs. Food prices, particularly beef, remain stubbornly high. And the GOP Congress refuses to do a damn thing about election integrity. I’m looking at you, Sen. John Thune.

That last one is a real problem, for reasons both practical (election integrity, duh) and political (Trump voters need this win). We sent the GOP to Congress to undo the damage done to our election system, and they have yet to deliver. You had one job. But sometimes — as we learned from watching Hans Gruber make the FBI sing to his tune in Die Hard — knowing the other guy’s procedure is a yuge part of winning. Which brings us to Virginia, Indiana, and the GOP’s improved chances come November.

By now, you know what happened in Virginia. State Democrats — led by non-former CIA spook Gov. Abigail Spanberger — did what they’re now basically compelled to do, and broke every law on their way to gerrymandering the GOP into oblivion. Then the state Supreme Court knocked them down and declared the illegal referendum void. And Another Thing: Please note that the Virginia Supreme Court did not say that Democrats can’t gerrymander the GOP into oblivion. It just said you actually have to follow the law of the land to do it. At the next court-approved opportunity, you can be sure they’ll get it done.

In Indiana, GOP voters took one look at the new rules and voted out every RINO they could in the state’s primary election last week. Most of the Republican state senators who blocked Indiana’s congressional redraw got hammered by Trump-backed challengers, and Gov. Mike Braun is pushing again for redistricting. If successful, that could net the Republicans one or two more seats. Altogether, in states where it isn’t already too late, and including states like Florida that have already redistricted, Republicans could redraw themselves between 11 and 14 seats before the midterms. Is that enough to overcome the generic congressional ballot deficit? There’s just no way to know this far out, although if Sen. Thune would stop posturing on X long enough to pass the Save Act, I’d bet next month’s car payment that the GOP holds the House.

Grrrr.

Looking ahead, however, 2028 looks really good.

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Ukraine is all about money, Russia is not.

• Zelensky Touts That 20 Countries Seek Ukraine Drone Deals (ZH)

Ukraine is emerging as a global drone export powerhouse, coming fresh off vast experience gained in over four years of war with Russia – or at least that’s the image Kiev is seeking to present to the world. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said Monday that nearly 20 countries are pursuing drone agreements with Ukraine, with four deals already finalized. Agreements already confirmed include deals with Germany, Norway and the Netherlands, alongside long-term security partnerships with Saudi Arabia, Qatar and the United Arab Emirates which were inked in late March as Zelensky personally toured the Gulf, even amid the ongoing Iran war, according to Reuters.


Zelensky has been offering Ukraine’s services and drone supplies to Gulf countries as a cheaper, effective alternative to dwindling and costly American-supplied anti-air defenses. “Nearly 20 countries are currently involved at various stages: 4 agreements have already been signed, and the first contracts under these agreements are now being prepared,” Zelensky has newly proclaimed on X. “Ukraine has already started to receive the necessary volume of fuel thanks to the agreements,” Zelensky also stated. Interestingly, he’s also of late been pitching being a supplier of battlefield robots, as we’ve detailed before.

Starting in April, Zelensky had hailed that Ukrainian personnel were able to help partners build effective air defenses using interceptor drones to combat Iranian Shaheds. Low-cost interceptor drones deployed by Ukraine are among the most effective ways to combat the inexpensive $20,000 Shaheds, as a war of attrition makes little economic sense when interceptor missiles cost hundreds of thousands of dollars or more.

Ukraine has had four years to develop low-cost one-way attack drones and interceptors during its war with Russia. Now, this technology is clearly being exported across multiple theaters in Eurasia. Zelensky did not identify the countries or the exact interceptor drones used in his comments at the time, but it is possible that Octopus-100 autonomous interceptor drones were deployed. The past couple months have seen Zelensky touring around proclaiming Ukraine’s ability to fill defense tech sector gaps for allied countries:

He said Ukraine had deployed hundreds of experts to the Gulf area, and, in return, has received weapons to protect its energy assets as well as financial support. After the Trump White House began signaling a significant drawdown in direct military aid to Ukraine and to Europe more broadly, the Zelensky administration began launching more creative means to ensure ongoing funding for the war with Russia. Support from EU countries, however, doesn’t look to have wavered.

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Growacet.

• White House Identifies Treatment Course for TDS Sufferers (CTH)

The White House has identified a treatment course for those suffering from acute cases of TDS. In many cases the issue can be treated by moderate changes in behavior or lifestyle:

For more severe or intense cases of TDS, like the Carlson strain, the prescription below is also an option.

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Inviting outrage.

• Trump Floats Making Venezuela The 51st State (ZH)

First Canada, then Greenland… and now Venezuela?


President Donald Trump said Monday he is seriously considering annexing the South American nation as the 51st U.S. state, citing the country’s vast oil reserves and what he described as strong local support for his leadership. In a telephone interview with Fox News anchor John Roberts, Trump mused that he is weighing the move for a nation that holds an estimated $40 trillion in oil resources. “Venezuela loves Trump,” the president told the reporter.

The suggestion comes months after U.S. forces conducted a military operation in Venezuela in January that resulted in the capture of longtime President Nicolás Maduro and his wife, Cilia Flores. The couple was extradited to the U.S. to face narco-terrorism and weapons charges, effectively ending more than a decade of socialist rule that had transformed one of Latin America’s richest economies into an economic disaster marked by hyperinflation, mass emigration and the breakdown of public services.

Rather than installing opposition figure María Corina Machado, a Nobel Peace Prize recipient, as the new leader, the Trump administration supported the installation of Delcy Rodríguez—Maduro’s former vice president—as interim president. Trump has described the arrangement as “spectacular” and predicted a rapid economic turnaround. Rodríguez’s government has moved swiftly on economic reforms. Within weeks of taking power, it enacted legislation opening the oil sector to privatization, dismantling core elements of the Chavista model that had dominated for more than two decades.

Meanwhile, commercial activity has accelerated thanks to Chevron, which signed two agreements expanding its participation in a joint venture with state-owned Petróleos de Venezuela SA in the Orinoco Oil Belt, Reuters reported at the time. Venezuelan oil output is already rising.

PDVSA reported production of 1.095 million barrels a day last month, up 75,000 barrels a day from February, with Oil Minister Paula Henao setting a target of 1.3 million barrels a day by year-end. Trump administration officials have been candid about the financial stakes. A White House spokesman called the first $500 million portion of an approximately $2 billion oil-supply agreement a “historic energy deal,” CBS News reported at the time. Trump has said the U.S. would rebuild Venezuela “in a very profitable way,” adding, “We’re going to be using oil, and we’re going to be taking oil.”

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“Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) came up with the best reason to tax billionaires: They do not actually exist…”

• “You Just Can’t Earn a Billion Dollars”: AOC (Turley)

This week, Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) came up with the best reason to tax billionaires: They do not actually exist. On a podcast, Ocasio-Cortez declared with all the certainty of a freshman in a Smith College political science course that the notion of a self-made billionaire is simply a fantasy, because “you just can’t earn” a billion dollars. It is only the latest in a series of socialist fables that are being dressed up as economic facts. The difference is that this fable, if told often enough, could become true. In suggesting that true billionaires are a capitalist myth, Ocasio-Cortez is suggesting that people like Elon Musk and Jeff Bezos really did not earn their wealth and, therefore, it is really not their money.


“There’s a certain level of wealth and accumulation that is unearned. You can’t earn a billion dollars. You just can’t earn that. You can get market power, you can break rules, you can abuse labor laws, you can pay people less than what they’re worth, but you can’t earn that.” In other words, you can only make a billion dollars through theft and exploitation rather than actual entrepreneurial enterprise. This statement comes as support builds for the California billionaires’ tax which, even before it has a chance to pass in November, has already cost the state trillions due to an exodus of these billionaires.

In my book, “Rage and the Republic,” I discuss common myths spread by the left to fuel economic factionalism. One common myth is that the “wealthy do not pay their fair share of taxes.” In truth, the top ten percent of taxpayers pay the vast majority of taxes in the U.S. In the book, I also dispel the claim that most millionaires inherited their wealth or came from privileged backgrounds. These myths are designed to make redistribution schemes more palatable. And Democrats are ramping up the “eat-the-rich” rhetoric ahead of the midterms in pushing both millionaire and billionaire taxes. Democrats from Washington to Virginia are pushing millionaire taxes, and the mere conversation has already set off a stampede of high-earning taxpayers to red states like Texas and Florida, which have no state income tax.

It was also evident in this week’s California gubernatorial debate. Candidate Katie Porter (D) said she opposes the billionaire’s tax because it would not go far enough. Porter then pressed the only billionaire in the group, Tom Steyer, who has been moving to the far left to grab voters in the wake of the departure of former Rep. Eric Swalwell (D-Calif.) as a candidate. Steyer said that he supports the billionaire tax but would want to go even further.Steyer has spent a fortune of his own money on this race, apparently to convince Democratic primary voters that he is some kind of red billionaire in the mold of a George Soros or Neville Roy Singham. Good luck with that — after spending roughly $150 million of his own money, Steyer is still languishing between 12 and 18 percent support.

Of course, Steyer was not asked if he believes that real billionaires such as himself exist. Yet he has already apologized for making considerable money on private prisons, including those used to hold undocumented immigrants. Ironically, in finance, a “unicorn” is a company worth more than $1 billion dollars, a term coined by venture capitalist Aileen Lee to capture the rare and almost magical status of such enterprises Conversely, Ocasio-Cortez’s unicorn myth is part of a general denial of economic realities that has taken hold on the left. The cost of these policies is borne by workers, who are being left to eat soundbites.

Democrats have sold voters on raising minimum wages as high as $30 per hour, even though such policies cost thousands of jobs. Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) and former Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg bragged about blocking a merger of JetBlue and Spirit Airlines, claiming that it would create cheaper flights and better jobs. Spirit has now been forced to close its doors, causing the loss of thousands of flights and jobs. A rising generation of voters is eagerly devouring soundbites and promises of the “warmth of collectivism” from figures like New York’s socialist mayor, Zohran Mamdani. From promises of free buses to state-run grocery stores, voters are buying the same threadbare socialist schtick.

That was on display this week as socialist Seattle mayor Katie Wilson laughed when asked about the millionaires fleeing the city over rising taxes and crime. She delighted the crowd by mocking the departing millionaires with two words: “Like, bye!” The last laugh, however, rests with those fleeing a city facing a projected deficit of $114 million. As Wilson faces major cuts in the city budget, she gleefully mocks those whose tax dollars the city will desperately need to close this gap if it is to maintain public services.

Ironically, Wilson and other Democrats are quickly making their myth a reality. Soon, there will be no billionaire unicorns roaming the land. Even millionaires may become scarce, as these wealthy citizens move to less hostile states with less delusional leaders. The solution to this exodus is equally predictable. Rep. Ro Khanna (D-Calif.), who has campaigned for a billionaire tax in his state while representing Silicon Valley, has also joined with socialist Bernie Sanders to push for a national billionaire’s tax — an effort to guarantee that there is no place to hide. This is the same approach that tanked the French economy under François Mitterrand after the wealthy fled that nation.

These are not, however, a time for economics or history. It is the time of fables. Ocasio-Cortez has thrived in the land of socialist unicorns. She can even attend the ultra-rich Met Gala wearing an expensive “Eat-the-Rich” gown. Like her dress, it is fashionable to deny that billionaires created their wealth. It is your money for the taking. The result is that billionaires and even millionaires in states like New York may go the way of unicorns, fanciful creatures that once thrived in a land of jobs and growth.

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https://twitter.com/warDaniel47/status/2053414597722300913?s=20 https://twitter.com/ChildrensHD/status/2053612044860199013?s=20

 

 

 

 

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Debt Rattle February 24 2026

Feb 242026
 
 February 24, 2026  Posted by at 10:34 am Finance Tagged with: , , , , , , , ,  61 Responses »


Piet Mondriaan The red cloud 1907


• TRUMP Declares WAR On Euro CENSORSHIP (MN)
• EU Says Trump’s Tariff Workaround Violates Trade Deal (ZH)
• The Supreme Court has Ruled on Tariffs, but Who Will Ultimately Pay? (Turley)
• Bessent Signals No Retreat After SCOTUS Tariff Ruling (David Manney)
• AOC Has Instagram Meltdown. It’s a Sight to Behold. (Matt Margolis)
• AOC’s Ignorance Is No Laughing Matter (Stephen Soukup)
• Trump is Losing His Base – Mark Taylor (USAW)
• Obama’s ‘Gift’ Sticks Taxpayers With $200M+ Bill (ZH)
• CNN Finally Admits the Truth About Democrat-Run Cities (Matt Margolis))
• Trump is Netanyahu’s Puppet (Paul Craig Roberts)
• Judge Says Jack Smith’s Final Report on Trump Can Never Be Released (ET)
• British Police Take Former Ambassador Mandelson into Custody (Manney)
• The Putin Plan for Cuba and The Castro Family (Helmer)

 


 

https://twitter.com/RpsAgainstTrump/status/2025573014155227301?s=20 https://twitter.com/EricLDaugh/status/2025580547527856295?s=20

 


 

 


 


Europe’s last hope before the curtain closes. These guys want to operate in darkness. Because they all, Starmer, Macron, Merz, have one thing in common: they’re painfully unpopular back home.

US State does what I’ve been doing (trying to do) for many years:: give people a peek behind the curtains.

• TRUMP Declares WAR On Euro CENSORSHIP (MN)

As European governments ramp up their assault on online freedom, the Trump administration is striking back hard with Freedom.Gov—a portal designed to equip European and British citizens with tools to shatter digital barriers imposed by overreaching bureaucrats. The move exposes the hypocrisy of so called “safety” laws that geofence truth, forcing websites to block users or demand ID, all while claiming to protect the public from their own thoughts. A growing number of websites have chosen to simply block users rather than comply with arduous censorship demands in response to Europe’s Digital Services Act and the UK’s Online Safety Act, with many more hidden behind government-mandated age-verification making linking a real-life identity to internet use a prerequisite for access.


The U.S. government is launching a ‘Freedom.Gov’ website that will give British and European visitors the tools to access censorship-free parts of the internet they have been geofenced out of by their own governments in the name of public safety. The new initiative is the work of the U.S. State Department and led by Undersecretary for Public Diplomacy Sarah Rogers, who has been a key figure in bringing President Trump’s message of freedom to Europeans in recent months. Government insiders say the Freedom.Gov portal may feature a Virtual Private Network (VPN) tool to allow European users to bypass domestic controls and claims its use won’t be tracked.

A State Department spokesman is quoted as saying: “Digital freedom is a priority for the State Department, however, and that includes the proliferation of privacy and censorship-circumvention technologies like VPNs.” A placeholder website for the planned anti-censorship service is already active. The Freedom.Gov site first became active in January and was blank apart from the text “fly, eagle, fly”. Today, an updated landing page proclaims “Freedom is coming. Information is power. Reclaim your human right to free expression. Get ready.” In a crystal-clear message to the censorious British authorities cracking down on internet freedoms, the page also features an animated logo of Paul Revere on his famous 1775 midnight ride, warning the Minutemen of the approaching British troops.

The decision to launch the service will inevitably bring the U.S. into some sort of conflict with European capitals, given the pro-freedom move would force those governments to either defacto accept that their censorship laws will either be openly bypassed by their own citizens with the assistance of Washington, or to block Freedom.Gov, and clarify their opposition to the free dissemination of information.mThis puts Washington in the unfamiliar position of appearing to encourage citizens to flout local laws, without stopping to note this is, of course, not actually unfamiliar at all. The United States through the CIA and other agencies maintained a large network of censorship-busting initiatives through the Cold War using the latest technology of the time.

Among those efforts was Radio Free Europe and Radio Free Liberty, sending unfiltered news and other programming through high-powered broadcasts into the Soviet nations behind the Iron Curtain. This effort was something of a game of cat-and-mouse between the free West and the Communist East, with Soviet authorities attempting to block out the broadcasts with radio interference equipment of their own. In those Soviet countries, when the Western radio broadcasts did get through, those who tuned into them faced arrest “or worse” at the hands of the authorities. Today, the British government has already started to react to the use of VPNs to circumvent its new internet controls—imposed, it says, for the sake of public “safety”—and is moving to defacto outlaw them.

Pro-Freedom and anti-surveillance campaign group Big Brother Watch responded to the government’s plan to crack down on VPNs, saying: “The Prime Minister’s announcement that the government intends to restrict access to VPNs for under-16s represents a draconian crackdown on the civil liberties of children and adults alike. The only way such restrictions could be enforced effectively would be for VPN providers to require all users to undergo age-assurance measures.”

The group continues, “Having to provide ID or a biometric face scan to access a VPN utterly defeats the point of a technology designed to enhance privacy online. The ability to receive and share information absent state snooping is a vital part of living in a free democracy.” “There is a reason authoritarian governments in countries such as China, North Korea, Iran, and Belarus ban or restrict VPNs. Anonymity and enhanced privacy allow journalists, whistleblowers, campaigners, and dissidents to communicate securely,” they further urge. This latest escalation builds directly on the Trump administration’s earlier vows to counter British PM Kier Starmer’s censorship frenzy, where Under-Secretary Sarah B. Rogers warned that America would unleash its full arsenal against threats to X and free speech, treating the UK like Iran if needed.

Rogers stated: “With respect to a potential ban of X, Keir Starmer has said that nothing is off the table. I would say from America’s perspective, nothing is off the table when it comes to free speech.” It also extends Trump’s pattern of offering lifelines to UK and European dissidents, including asylum for “thought criminals” prosecuted for silent prayers or online posts challenging mass migration and gender ideology. nSources previously confirmed the White House was scouting cases, tying free speech erosion to Britain’s immigration failures.

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They don’t want transparency.

• EU Says Trump’s Tariff Workaround Violates Trade Deal (ZH)

Update (1715ET): Europe is now getting ‘legal’ over the whole thing – claiming that Trump’s new tariff workaround violates levels permitted in their trade agreement, Bloomberg reports. The European Commission, which handles trade matters for the bloc, told lawmakers Monday that the new global tariff will be added to levies that are already in place, according to Bernd Lange, chair of the European Parliament’s trade committee. The new cumulative rate means some goods would be above the 15% ceiling the EU and US agreed to in their trade deal.Under Trump’s new tariff program, some products including butter, plastics, textiles and chemicals would have levies above that 15% ceiling, according to people familiar with the commission’s assessment. The new global tariffs can stay in place for as many as 150 days.


* * * Update (9:40am ET): In response to the EU’s decision to freeze ratification of Trump’s landmark deal, the US president has come out swinging and on Truth Social threatened any countries that “play games” with the supreme court decision that they “will be met with a much higher tariff.” It just isn’t clear what the procedure for these much higher tariffs – aside from Section 122 which is limited to 150 days – will be now that IEEPA has been ruled unconstitutional.

Earlier: In the aftermath of Friday’s SCOTUS decision to reverse Trump’s tariff policy, one lingering question is what happens to the bilateral trade deals Trump struck with various countries (and which supposedly would lead to hundreds of billions of fresh investment into the US). Well, in the case of the EU we no longer have to wonder: {This] morning, the European Union said it would freeze the ratification process of its trade deal with the US and was seeking more details from the Trump administration on its new tariff program. Zeljana Zovko, the lead trade negotiator in the European People’s Party group on the US deal, said in an interview with Bloomberg that “we have no other option” but to delay the approval process to seek clarity on the situation.

The main political groups in the European Parliament say they’ll suspend legislative work on approving the trade deal on Monday, days after the US Supreme Court struck down Trump’s use of an emergency-powers law to impose his so-called reciprocal tariffs around the world. The center-right EPP, which is the largest political bloc in parliament, will be joined by parties including the Socialists & Democrats and the liberal Renew group to back freezing the process. According to Bloomberg, Bernd Lange – chairman of the parliament’s trade committee – called an emergency meeting later Monday to reassess the EU-US trade accord. He said over the weekend that parliament should delay work on the trade accord until the EU receives more clarity on the new tariffs. EU ambassadors will also meet Monday afternoon to discuss the US trade relationship.

Trump’s announcement following the court decision to impose a 10% global tariff, which he then increased to 15%, left many questions unanswered for American trading partners, stirring up more economic turbulence and uncertainty about the US policy. As a reminder, the deal struck last summer between Trump and European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen would impose a 15% tariff rate on most EU exports to the US while removing tariffs on American industrial goods heading into the bloc. The US would also continue to impose a 50% tariff on European steel and aluminum imports. The bloc agreed to the lopsided deal in the hopes of avoiding a full-blown trade war with Washington and retaining US security backing, particularly with regards to Ukraine. Parliament had been aiming to ratify the agreement in March.

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“Unless members want to further add to the deficit, Congress should intervene to uphold the tariffs retroactively. But that may not be possible.”

• The Supreme Court has Ruled on Tariffs, but Who Will Ultimately Pay? (Turley)

Friday’s blockbuster ruling on tariffs was hardly welcomed by the Trump administration, but it was also widely expected. The Supreme Court clearly established in its 6-3 decision that the International Emergency Economic Powers Act does not afford presidents authority to issue sweeping, unilateral tariffs like those imposed by President Trump over the last year. The justices fractured on other issues. And they left one issue conspicuously unaddressed: What happens to the hundreds of billions of dollars collected from these tariffs so far? Many of us predicted that the administration would lose this fight. That view was reinforced after oral arguments, when a majority of justices raised possible reasons why the president might not possess this power.


Then again, he does possess similar powers under other laws, which the administration has already announced he will use. Although Trump said he was “ashamed” of the conservative justices who ruled against him, their opinion is consistent with the conservative interpretive approach taken in prior statutory cases. The majority defended Congress’s core power over the purse, maintaining the balance among the branches of our tripartite system. There were good-faith arguments on both sides, but these conservative justices ruled regardless of the political or practical repercussions, based on what they believed was demanded by the Constitution. The most surprising votes were not the three conservatives but the three liberal justices, who historically have not been deterred by ambiguity in statutes in deferring to presidents.

They have repeatedly also found delegated authority in independent agencies without worrying too much about the separation of powers. Democratic politicians openly celebrated from the loss. Gov. Gavin Newsom (D) seemed gleeful over the idea that the country will have to incur massive penalties, costs that could undermine the current economic growth figures. Newsom, who has led his state into a deep deficit and triggered an exodus of taxpayers, eagerly called for economic penalties for the country: “Every dollar unlawfully taken must be refunded immediately — with interest. Cough up!”

In reality, the tariffs are not going away. Trump will just have to rely on less nimble laws, but he can pursue the same policies in the name of other causes, such as securing greater market access and other concessions from foreign governments. So what about “coughing up” those past tariff dollars? Newsom may ultimately be disappointed. Unless members want to further add to the deficit, Congress should intervene to uphold the tariffs retroactively. But that may not be possible.

Democratic politicians like Newsom are not likely to want to help Trump, even if that means wounding the national economy and the federal budget. But this may offer Republicans a unique opportunity to force such a vote. Do Democrats truly want to vote to give hundreds of billions back? There are already more than 1,000 claimants. Justice Brett Kavanaugh dealt with the problem directly in his forceful dissent. He criticized the majority for its silence on whether or how such refunds would be made. Most pointedly, Kavanaugh noted that the federal government “may be required to refund billions of dollars to importers who paid the … tariffs, even though some importers may have already passed on costs to consumers or others.”

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“.. tariff collections will continue at the same level because the rates and scope remain consistent. The mechanism changes, but the dollars don’t,..”

• Bessent Signals No Retreat After SCOTUS Tariff Ruling (David Manney)

After the Supreme Court handed down a six-to-three decision limiting how President Donald Trump used the International Emergency Economic Powers Act (IEEPA) to impose so-called Liberation Day tariffs, his critics pounced, declaring the strategy dead. Do they know President Trump? Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent went on the air and made clear the administration isn’t backing down. One tool was whittled down, but the policy is still kicking. The Supreme Court ruled that the administration stretched IEEPA beyond its intended scope. While the statute allows emergency economic measures, the majority found that the tariff action did not fit the framework Congress had designed. The decision appeared to force surrender, but all it did was cause a pivot.


Bessent told Sunday Morning Futures host Maria Bartiromo that tariff revenue wouldn’t stop, framing the ruling as procedural rather than authoritative. He said that the administration still has multiple statutory authorities to address trade imbalances and national security threats. The objective, he said, hasn’t changed: reduce trade deficits, protect domestic industry, and pressure the foreign governments that have been gaming the system. Bessent explained that the White House will move to Section 122 authority within days, as President Trump already announced a 15% global tariff, adjusting it over the weekend to maintain leverage.Section 122 allows temporary trade restrictions to address balance-of-payments concerns, and while formal investigations proceed, it remains in effect for 150 days.

Bessent said that the administration also plans to use Section 232, which addresses national security concerns, and Section 301, which targets unfair trade practices. Commerce Department reviews and United States Trade Representative studies will support those actions. Describing the shift as straightforward, Bessent argued that the Supreme Court’s decision clarified the boundaries and strengthened the administration’s footing under other statutes. “In a way, they have made the leverage that he has more draconian because they agreed he does have the right to a full embargo,” the secretary said. “Within three days, the President can put on the Section 122 10% global tariff. So, at Treasury for the full year 2026, we foresee no decrease in revenue,” he continued.

Some budget watchdog groups warned tariff revenue would fall. Maya MacGuineas, president of the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget, shared uncertainty about the long-term math, an argument Bessent rejected outright, saying that revenue projections remain intact under the new authorities. “Yes, so, Maria, let’s take a step back here. And Maya MacGuineas should be ashamed, and they should take the word ‘responsible’ out of her organization’s name,” Bessent responded. “Everything she told you was completely irresponsible, and look, where were they when the Biden administration blew out the deficit that we had a fiscal contraction last year? So she should be ashamed.”


Using the phrase “new authorities,” Bessent meant that different trade laws already on the books, not a fresh attempt at a supposed power grab. The administration plans to rely on Section 122 of the Trade Act for temporary tariffs, along with Sections 232 and 301, statutes written specifically for trade enforcement, giving the White House a firm legal foundation even after the Supreme Court narrowed the use of emergency powers. Bessent went on to say that tariff collections will continue at the same level because the rates and scope remain consistent. The mechanism changes, but the dollars don’t, while he pushed back against claims that tariffs worsen inflation or cause exploding deficits. Years of runaway spending happened long before these trade actions.

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“Everyone’s got this story wrong, that this is about me running for president. Global democracies are on fire the world over.”

• AOC Has Instagram Meltdown. It’s a Sight to Behold. (Matt Margolis)

Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) traveled to the Munich Security Conference with big ambitions and came home with a reputation problem. The trip was supposed to bolster her foreign policy credentials ahead of a future Senate or presidential run. Instead, it turned into a masterclass in unpreparedness, and now she’s doing damage control in the worst way possible: a tearful late-night Instagram rant.


In the video, an emotional AOC, appearing to hold back tears, pushed back against critics who saw her faceplant in Munich, convinced she has no idea what she’s talking about. Her defense? It’s not her, it’s you, who’s the problem. “If you think that I don’t understand foreign policy because out of hours of discourse about international affairs, I paused to think about one of the most sensitive geopolitical issues that currently exist on Earth, I’m afraid the issue is not my understanding, but rather the problem is perhaps you’ve gotten adjusted to a president that never thinks before he speaks.” There it is. You can’t blame her for not knowing what she’s talking about; you’ve got to blame President Donald Trump.

Make no mistake about it, the Instagram video isn’t going to rehabilitate her, because the Munich footage still exists. And it was bad, in every sense of the word. When a panelist asked AOC whether the U.S. should commit troops to defend Taiwan if China attacks — a question any serious foreign policy thinker should be able to handle — she froze. What followed was genuinely painful to watch: “Um… You know, I think that, uh… This is such a, uh, you know, I think that this is a, um… This is, of course, a very long-standing policy of the United States, and I think what we are hoping for is that we want to make sure that we never get to that point.” She rambled for several more seconds without saying anything approaching a coherent position. Taiwan policy has been a central pillar of U.S. foreign relations for decades. This wasn’t a trick question.

That wasn’t pausing to think; that was clearly her not having the faintest idea how to respond. Her wealth tax moment wasn’t any smoother. Asked whether she’d impose one as president, AOC giggled nervously before managing this: “I don’t think that, um, I don’t think that anyone, and that we don’t have to wait for any one president to impose a wealth tax. I think it needs to be done expeditiously.”Argentine politician Daiana Fernández Molero wasted no time dismantling that position with actual evidence. “You have the recipe that many Latin American countries applied many, many times; that is some relief in the short term, but ends up being a tragedy for the future,” Molero explained.

“It’s like a public expenditure, huge public expenditure, price controls, sometimes wealth tax, and you end up with the wealth going away, and you have just the tax, and you don’t have wealth anymore. That was something that Peronism did many, many times.”Molero continued, “So all these recipes create a cycle. Then you have this short-term relief, but then it goes with inflation, shortage, then you have more poverty, and the cycle goes and goes.”

Once again, AOC came away from an exchange looking like the dumb kid way out of her depth. So she did what any entitled brat would do: she called a reporter to defend her. New York Times journalist Kellen Browning publicly confirmed that AOC “gave me a call,” and his subsequent article dutifully suggested she faced a “potentially frosty reception” and that critics missed “the substance of her arguments.” AOC told Browning, “Everyone’s got this story wrong, that this is about me running for president. Global democracies are on fire the world over.”

The left-wing media ecosystem spent years building AOC into a political phenomenon, with protective coverage that kept her weaknesses hidden as much as possible. Munich stripped all of that away. Without friendly gatekeepers controlling the narrative, her lack of depth became impossible to disguise.If this conference was her 2028 audition, she bombed it. And no amount of teary Instagram videos is going to make people forget how badly she bombed.

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“.. in the United States, the most prominent Marxist theorists actually gave up on workers altogether as allies in the fight against capitalism.”

• AOC’s Ignorance Is No Laughing Matter (Stephen Soukup)

Over the past week or so, many on the political Right have understandably enjoyed a laugh or two at the expense of Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D, N.Y.). AOC went to the Munich Security Conference to provide “balance” to the Trump administration’s presence and to burnish her own credentials on the global stage. Instead, she mostly just made a fool of herself. Not only did she stutter, stammer, and offer a Kamala Harris-esque non-answer when asked about American interests in and obligations to Taiwan, but she also demonstrated a comically poor grasp of geography and a righteously ignorant understanding of history. In an effort to rebut and embarrass U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio, AOC embarrassed only herself, showing that historical facts mean far less to her than identity-inspired fiction.


But while it’s inarguably fun to chuckle at and mock the ignorance of the smug congresswoman and presumed presidential aspirant, it is also important to acknowledge that her historical and political illiteracy extends beyond the superficial and touches on matters of real and critical importance. Notably, this purported champion of the working class does not know the history of working-class politics, does not understand the reasons for the collapse of the working-class-centered ideology, and, as a result, has never contemplated the dangers inherent in attempting to resuscitate that failed doctrine. Congresswoman Ocasio-Cortez has long emphasized her biography and working-class roots to enhance her political status—and justifiably so. Her childhood may not have been quite the struggle she pretends it was, but she nevertheless endured economic hardships—especially after her father’s death—and was unable to find employment commensurate with her education. She was, famously, a bartender and a cocktail waitress before her election to Congress and, as a result, has long fashioned herself a champion of the working class and its purported priorities.

Indeed, on her trip to Munich, AOC emphasized her affinity with the working class and admonished democratic nations to erect a bulwark against totalitarianism by focusing on workers, workers’ rights, and worker-centered politics. “It is of utmost urgent priority that we get our economic houses in order and deliver material gains for the working class,” the congresswoman said, “or else we will fall to a more isolated world governed by authoritarians that also do not deliver to working people.” She railed against large corporations and especially billionaires, insisting that they had to be stopped from “throwing their weight around” in domestic and international politics. In short, the good congresswoman used her trip to Munich to urge the workers of the world to unite, because, as she sees it, they have nothing to lose but their chains.

There’s only one little problem with AOC’s exhortation: it’s ridiculous. Indeed, it’s been tried . . . and tried . . . and tried. It doesn’t work. And when I say that, I don’t mean that socialism doesn’t work or that communism has been tried countless times before and failed every time. That much is obvious by now. Rather, what I mean is that the workers of the world don’t care about the rest of the workers of the world. They don’t like the idea of being divided into classes, and they don’t have any particular affection for their fellow laborers. They don’t dislike other workers necessarily, but they don’t see themselves as a monolithic federation sharing the same interests, needs, or political predilections. Truth be told—and this is the key to understanding the silliness of the whole “global proletariat” nonsense—even the Marxists long ago gave up on uniting the workers of the world. In fact, in the United States, the most prominent Marxist theorists actually gave up on workers altogether as allies in the fight against capitalism.

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“God drove him to his knees, and it was supposed to humble him, but in some cases, it made him worse.”

• Trump is Losing His Base – Mark Taylor (USAW)

Retired firefighter, Lieutenant Mark Taylor, author of the popular book “The Trump Prophecies,” predicted Donald Trump would become President five years before the 2016 Election. Many thought that was an outrageous prediction, but he was proven right. Taylor also looked like he got it wrong when he predicted Trump would be a two-term President. He was, once again, proven correct despite the four-year gap in his Administration. Now, Taylor is sounding the alarm that President Trump is losing the votes of people who gave him the biggest political comeback of all time. Taylor explains, “Here’s the prophetic warning: If you wait too late to act, the patriots are going to take matters into their own hands. . ..


There is video after video from patriots fed up as to how long it is taking to get some of this stuff done. I get emails and comments on social media, and people are feeling how hurt they are from the President. How they even feel betrayed and angry with this President because it is taking so long. Nobody has been held accountable in their eyes. I am telling you the perception of the patriots. . .. Trump is losing his base. I don’t want to see that happen. I want to see him succeed because if he succeeds, the country succeeds. There are certain things this President is doing that is hampering this process. He is waiting too long, and the patriots are getting ready to take matters into their own hands. No amount of military is going to stop this if it starts because right now, they are feeling hopeless.”

Yes, Donald Trump has done some very good things such as getting America out of the World Health Organization. Trump brought in trillions of dollars in investments and has begun removing millions of illegal aliens the Biden Administration let in with open borders. The Southern border is now closed, but the enemy is not just external, and it’s not only flesh and blood. Taylor says there is an enemy within and explains, “God is calling for a place of repentance, and that includes the people’s house, The White House. This includes who is in charge of the people’s house. . .. Susie Wiles (White House Chief of Staff) needs to be fired.

Taylor contends, “Paula White is a spiritual gatekeeper. The President has clairvoyants, psychics and remote viewers around him. He has intelligence people around him. His spiritual advisory board is completely combat ineffective in the spiritual realm. I believe Susie Wiles and her people are responsible for not only killing this presidency . . . but she has him going off track and going in a different direction, and she is responsible for killing the America First agenda. This is what a lot of patriots that I am hearing from are angry about. . .. If there is not a giant turnaround, I think we are going to hand it over to the Democrats (midterms in 2026) because the Republicans are not going to show up to vote because they lost all hope in the President.”

Taylor says, “Who has his ear is steering the President in the wrong direction. He has got to correct this at some point. He’s got to get rid of some of these people. You cannot empower the spirit of Jezebel the way Trump has and not be demonically influenced. He has to throw Jezebel off the roof and feed her to the dogs.” Taylor says he would advise President Trump to fire FBI Director Kash Patel, AG Pam Bondi, spiritual advisor Paula White and political advisor Susie Wiles just for starters. Please keep in mind, Wiles had a disastrous interview late last year with Vanity Fair where she said President Trump had an “alcoholic personality.” President Trump never drinks alcohol because he had an alcoholic brother.

In closing, Taylor warns, “You cannot have this stuff going on and expect God (The Father) to be in it. . .. God is showing me if Trump does not repent and turn back to God and start listening to God instead of his intelligence, the intelligence that is purposely trying to steer him off track, then God is showing me there is something coming for him. There is going to be a David moment, so to speak . . .. God took a child from David. I am not saying he’s going to do that. The assassination attempt was allowed. The bullet grazed his right ear. What is the right ear prophetic for? It is for what you are hearing now. He’s listening to the wrong people now. . .. God drove him to his knees, and it was supposed to humble him, but in some cases, it made him worse.”

Read more …

Send the bill to Reid Hoffman.

• Obama’s ‘Gift’ Sticks Taxpayers With $200M+ Bill (ZH)

When former President Barack Obama announced plans for his presidential center on Chicago’s South Side, he described it as a privately funded investment in the city that would give back to the community that shaped his political career. And while construction of the brutalist eyesore itself remains privately financed through the Obama Foundation, taxpayers are footing the bill for massive infrastructure costs. A review by Fox News found that state and city agencies have not produced a unified accounting of total public expenditures tied to the project’s surrounding infrastructure. While individual agencies have disclosed partial figures, no single office has reconciled those totals or clarified how they overlap.


At the time the project was approved in 2018, public infrastructure costs were projected at roughly $350 million, to be split between the State of Illinois and the City of Chicago. Those estimates covered roadway modifications, utility relocations and related improvements necessary to accommodate the 19.3-acre campus in Jackson Park that nobody asked for. In July, the Illinois Department of Transportation said that approximately $229 million in state-managed infrastructure spending had been committed to the project. That total includes about $19 million for preliminary engineering, $24 million for construction engineering and $186 million for construction activities. A department spokesperson described the earlier $174 million figure as a preliminary 2017 estimate.

Now, Chicago’s most recent 2024–2028 Capital Improvement Plan lists more than $206 million allocated to roadway and utility work associated with the project. However, much of that funding is labeled as “state,” and neither state nor city officials have clarified how the figures relate to one another or whether they represent overlapping commitments. Fox submitted records requests to several agencies, including the Illinois Department of Transportation, Chicago’s Department of Transportation, the city’s Office of Budget and Management, the mayor’s office and Gov. J.B. Pritzker’s administration – yet, not one provided a consolidated, up-to-date accounting of total public infrastructure spending. The Illinois Attorney General’s Public Access Counselor is reviewing whether agencies complied with state transparency laws in responding to the requests.

The Obama Foundation defended the project, reiterating that the center’s construction – whose cost has grown from early projections of roughly $330 million to at least $850 million, according to its 2024 tax filings – is being financed by private donations. In a statement to Fox, foundation spox Emily Bittner said the organization is “investing $850 million in private funding to build the Obama Presidential Center and give back to the community that made the Obamas’ story possible,” adding that the project is intended to catalyze economic opportunity on the South Side. Bittner, of course, didn’t address the infrastructure costs – which have been extensive.

Chicago’s 2024–2028 Capital Improvement Program lists $206,078,058 for “Obama Presidential Center & Jackson Park – Infrastructure Improvements,” with most funding labeled as state sources. (City of Chicago Capital Improvement Program) Cornell Drive, a four-lane roadway along the eastern edge of Jackson Park, was removed and traffic rerouted farther west. Utilities, including water mains and sewer lines, were relocated, and new drainage systems were installed. City and state officials have said the changes were necessary to manage anticipated traffic and visitor demand.The center occupies 19 acres of public parkland transferred under a 99-year agreement for $10, a decision that prompted legal challenges arguing that the arrangement was not in the public interest. Courts ultimately dis missed those lawsuits.

Though often described as a presidential library, the Chicago complex will not function as a traditional library operated by the National Archives and Records Administration. Former President Obama’s official records will be maintained by the federal government at a facility in Maryland, while the Chicago site will be operated privately by the Obama Foundation. The foundation also pledged to establish a $470 million endowment intended to protect taxpayers in the event the project encounters financial difficulty. According to previous reporting by Fox News, that fund has received $1 million in deposits. Who didn’t see this coming?

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“.. not only are there never results, but there’s never any accountability either ..”

• CNN Finally Admits the Truth About Democrat-Run Cities( Matt Margolis))

CNN’s Fareed Zakaria went off-script this week — at least by his network’s standards — and said the quiet part out loud: Democrat-run cities are a mess, and the politicians in charge either can’t or won’t do anything about it. Of course, this isn’t news to you, but for a CNN host to admit this is a big deal. Zakaria opened with Zohran Mamdani’s New York, calling it “a prime example of a problem Democrats seem unwilling to confront.” That’s a pretty remarkable admission from a CNN host, but I assure you, he was just getting started. “Blue cities are out of control,” he said, “promising more, spending more, delivering less, and pushing off the fiscal problems to some future day.”


He then turned to Los Angeles, and the numbers he cited are staggering. Zakaria noted that the city’s homelessness budget for fiscal year 2025-2026 alone totals roughly $950 million. Not the cumulative total over several years. One year. And what has all that money bought? He explained that the LA Homelessness Services Authority reported that homelessness increased by 9% countywide and 10% within the city in 2023. A 2024 AP account found that homelessness had surged by 70% countywide since 2015 and by 80% within the city. “All this amid public frustration, despite billions spent,” Zakaria said. Then came perhaps the most damning detail. An audit reviewed $2.4 billion in city homelessness funding and found that “officials could not reliably track where it went or what it achieved.” That’s right. $2.4 billion has just disappeared into the bureaucratic ether.

To make matters worse, not only are there never results, but there’s never any accountability either, at least not for the people running the city. Zakaria moved on to Chicago next. He noted the city has a mayor whose approval rating is “deep underwater” and pension obligations so enormous they will “surely bankrupt the city at some point.” That’s a pretty frank diagnosis coming from a guy on a network that spent years cheerleading for this very brand of governance. Then Zakaria asked the key question Democrats never ask: “What is the theory of good government here?” His answer was cutting. “If the answer is keep adding programs, the city will keep producing unaffordability, because unaffordability is what happens when government becomes a machine that grows faster than the society it governs.”

Zakaria continued, “Zohran Mamdani’s basic instinct is correct: focus on affordability, especially housing, but not by providing government subsidies. These only seem to have driven up the cost of rent, as subsidies naturally do.” Here’s where Zakaria went wrong. Affordability isn’t an instinct for Mamdani; it’s a talking point. His instinct is to subsidize. It’s not like he wasn’t upfront about this during his campaign. So all the affordability problems New York City faces are going to get worse under Mamdani. Heck, he’s already gone looking to Gov. Kathy Hochul to bail out New York City — a mere two months into his administration. That’s the pattern. Spend more. Get less. Blame someone else. Repeat.

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Trump throw nukes? I doubt it.

• Trump is Netanyahu’s Puppet (Paul Craig Roberts)

It seems clear that Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu has disrupted Trump’s negotiations with Iran about nuclear weapons by interjecting in the middle of the negotiations another demand- that Iran give up its missiles and its alleged proxy forces. Netanyahu’s demand is obviously intended to ruin the negotiations as the demand clearly would prevent Iran s ability to defend itself from Israeli attack. From the beginning Netanyahu has been determined to force the US to war with Iran, and that is the purpose of his demand that the deal with Iran includes the military disarming of Iran.


We see this in the news reports that the Trump regime is now considering whether the deal with Iran should also extend to Iranian missiles. Iran is willing to agree not to produce nuclear weapons, but cannot possibly agree to disarm itself of conventional weapons, especially after US Ambassador to Israel Mike Huckabee recently acknowledged that Greater Israel is an ongoing Zionist project. If Iran has the Chinese battle control system that former British diplomat Alastair Crooke described, a US attack on Iran could result in an American defeat, the loss of aircraft carriers and US military bases in the area as well as heavy destruction of Israel. Why would Netanyahu expose Israel to this risk?

Could it be that he bets that an American defeat would lead to demand for revenge on Iran and the US would finally do what Israel wants and nuke the Iranian nation, thus removing Iran as a barrier to further Israeli expansion? Iran’s designation as a terrorist state and Iran’s alleged proxy forces are propagandistic claims used to justify a US military attack on Iran. As the world must know, the two terrorist states are Israel and the United States. Washington, for example, kidnaps foreign leaders of states, and Israel assassinates Iranian, Lebanese, and Yemeni leaders. Who has Iran assassinated ? What terrorist act is Iran responsible for?

The Israeli genocide of Palestine is reason enough for the Houthis in Yemen to oppose Israel. Israel’;s attempted expansion into Lebanon is sufficient reason for Hezbollah to oppose Israel. Perhaps Iran supplies them with weapons, but that doesn’t make them Iran s proxies. The US provides Israel with weapons. Does this make America an Israeli proxy? Insouciant Americans are unaware that Netanyahu and Washington are setting them up for a war that serves only Israel’s interest. Ever since Americans fell for the 911 narrative, they have been putty in the Israel Lobby’s hands, and their beliefs about the Middle East have been given to them by the Israel Lobby and it s many American associates. The prevailing ignorance can very easily produce a catastrophic war.

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“The Court strains to find a situation in which a former special counsel has released a report after initiating criminal charges that did not result in a finding of guilt.”

• Judge Says Jack Smith’s Final Report on Trump Can Never Be Released (ET)

federal judge on Feb. 23 said that the final report on President Donald Trump compiled by a former special counsel shall not be released. U.S. District Judge Aileen Cannon, who is based in Florida, said in a 15-page decision that she was granting requests from Trump and his co-defendants to keep part two of the report from former special counsel Jack Smith shielded from the public. Cannon said that Smith wrongly forged ahead with investigating Trump and others for allegedly violating federal law by gathering and retaining sensitive documents even after she ruled his appointment was unconstitutional and threw out the case.


“Rather than seek a stay of the Order, or clarification, Special Counsel Smith and his team chose to circumvent it, for months, by taking the discovery generated in this case and compiling it in a final report for transmission to then-Attorney General Garland, to Congress, and then beyond,” Cannon said. “The Court need not countenance this brazen stratagem or effectively perpetuate the Special Counsel’s breach of this Court’s own order.” She added later: “While it is true that former special counsels have released final reports at the conclusion of their work, it appears they have done so either after electing not to bring charges at all or after adjudications of guilt by plea or trial. The Court strains to find a situation in which a former special counsel has released a report after initiating criminal charges that did not result in a finding of guilt.”

The Department of Justice (DOJ) had appealed Cannon’s ruling, but dropped the appeal after Trump won a second term in office. The department also released part of Smith’s report just before Trump began his second term. The other part, which has not been made public, was not to be released, according to a January 2025 order from Cannon. Cannon announced in December 2025 that her injunction was set to expire in February this year. Trump and co-defendants said in filings on Jan. 20 that Cannon should permanently block the release of the other part of Smith’s report. Lawyers for Trump said Smith was illegally appointed, and all acts he undertook were thus void, so the release “would constitute an irreversible violation of this Court’s constitutional rulings in the underlying criminal action and of bedrock principles of the separation of powers.”

DOJ officials backed that position. “Put simply, Smith’s tenure was marked by illegality and impropriety, and under no circumstance should his work product be given the full weight and authority of this Department,” they said in a brief, adding later that making the second part of the report public would “lead to the public dissemination of sensitive grand jury materials, attorney-client privileged information, and other information derived from protected discovery materials, raising significant statutory, due process, and privacy concerns for President Trump and his former co-defendants.”

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Nothing to do with girls. That’s all just a cover.

• British Police Take Former Ambassador Mandelson into Custody (Manney)

Peter Mandelson built a career inside the highest levels of British power, but that career collided with a police investigation tied to Jeffrey Epstein. On Monday morning, officers with London’s Metropolitan Police arrested Mandelson on suspicion of misconduct in public office. Police transported the 72-year-old former British ambassador to the United States to a London station for formal questioning. Authorities also searched two properties linked to him in Wiltshire and Camden. Mandelson served as business secretary and twice held cabinet rank under Labour governments, later becoming the United Kingdom’s ambassador to the United States.


That role placed him at the center of diplomatic strategy between London and Washington, while also placing him under scrutiny once the newly released Epstein files revealed how deep his association ran with the convicted sex offender. Officials removed Mandelson from his ambassadorial post in September, after the extent of his relationship with Epstein became public. He resigned from the Labour Party the same day the news broke that police had opened a formal investigation into whether he shared confidential government information, the reason behind today’s arrest. Mandelson hasn’t been charged, and he’s said that documents released by the U.S. DOJ didn’t indicate wrongdoing or misdemeanor on his part. He’s stopped talking in public since the beginning of the investigation.

Law enforcement works under a long-standing legal principle: evidence found by unlawful means can’t stand in court, and anything derived from it falls with it—fruit from the poison tree. The fallout from the Epstein files works similarly in public life: Names connected to Epstein don’t come out of the washer clean when associations become liabilities, and careers erode once those ties come to light. If he understood anything, Mandelson understood influence, spending decades navigating political power inside Westminster and abroad. Prime ministers relied on him to negotiate, strategize, and manage party operations. He easily moved between government offices and diplomatic leadership, and that access is now at the center of a criminal inquiry.

It’s rare for British police to arrest former cabinet ministers, which shows that investigators believe serious questions remain unanswered. Officials haven’t disclosed the exact nature of the alleged confidential material involved, confirming only that a former government minister was arrested in connection with an ongoing investigation into misconduct in public office. This circus shows that Epstein’s network extended beyond American shores, both politically and financially. British figures repeatedly showed up in released documents and flight logs, and each new disclosure reopened old wounds, forcing political leaders to confront uncomfortable connections. Mandelson’s arrest marks one of the most significant developments inside the U. tied to those files.

European royals, government officials, politicians, and others are losing jobs and titles over their connection to the late convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein. European law enforcement agencies are opening investigations based on recent troves of documents released by the U.S. government. …

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“This year we will mark the centenary of Fidel Castro’s birth, and we will do so together.”

• The Putin Plan for Cuba and The Castro Family (Helmer)

President Vladimir Putin will not run the gauntlet President Donald Trump has established around Cuba with the Russian Navy to escort Russian-flagged tankers delivering crude oil and petroleum products to Havana. When Cuba’s Foreign Minister Bruno Rodriguez Parrilla sat down in the Kremlin on Thursday to ask for more “solidarity, firmly demonstrated by you, the Government of Russia, and the Minister for Foreign Affairs, in the face of the tightening blockade of Cuba and the recent energy siege,” Putin responded enough is enough. He meant that solidarity with Cuba is one thing, but not at the risk of military conflict with the Trump Administration and its naval forces in the Caribbean.


This is Mikhail Gorbachev talking, responded the Kremlin security analysis medium, Vzglyad, not Nikita Khrushchev. “Please convey my best wishes to the President of Cuba and Army General [Raul] Castro,” Putin told the foreign minister. “This year we will mark the centenary of Fidel Castro’s birth, and we will do so together.” It is not the first time Putin has said there is nothing but historical memory to share between Russia and Cuba; and that he would trade Russia’s military positions in Cuba for its interest in business with the US. In a meeting with President George W. Bush on October 21, 2001, Putin had said he would remove the Russian military intelligence base in Cuba. “I don’t want to horsetrade or nickel and dime this thing or argue about who gets what,” Putin said to Bush in a recently declassified record. In the outcome that is exactly what Putin did – and the trade failed because Bush did not reciprocate.

In his meeting with Rodriguez, Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov was clearer in public what the Russian line means. “We call on the United States to show common sense and take a responsible attitude,” he said – “refraining from implementing its plans for a naval blockade of the Island of Freedom. We categorically reject the far-fetched allegations regarding Russia and Cuba, and cooperation between them, which is presumably threatening the interests of the United States or any other countries. All disputes should be settled exclusively through dialogue based on mutual respect and a balance of interests. We know that our Cuban friends are always ready for honest negotiations… All issues should be resolved solely through a mutually respectful dialogue aimed at finding a balance of interests. We know that Cuban friends are always ready for such honest negotiations. In turn, we will consistently continue to support Cuba, the Cuban people in protecting the sovereignty and security of the country.”

“I would like to reiterate our complete solidarity with our Cuban friends. I fully share the views on our relations and strategic partnership, which you [Rodriguez] have stated. I would also like to reaffirm the complete unacceptability of actions by the United States, which, as you have reminded just now, has adopted an executive order designating Cuba as a threat to US national interests. At the same time, the document says that this alleged threat is exacerbated by Cuba’s cooperation with Russia, which has been described in the document as a ‘hostile’ and ‘malign’ actor. We are confident that all states should define their national interests in a way that will include recognition of and respect for the national interests of all other countries.”

Read more …

 

 

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Debt Rattle February 23 2026

Feb 232026
 
 February 23, 2026  Posted by at 10:52 am Finance Tagged with: , , , , , , , , , ,  60 Responses »


Edgar Degas Danseuse au Tutu Vert 1887


• JPMorgan De-Banked Trump Shortly After Jan 6th Capitol Chaos (ZH)
• Susan Rice Joins Call for a Revenge Purge If Democrats Re-Take Power (Turley)
• Trump Calls on Netflix to Fire Susan Rice (Matt Margolis)
• Europe To Recruit Migrants For “National Defense” (ZH)
• Sen. Kennedy Tells Us What He Thinks of AOC (Spencer)
• Scott Bessent Outlines “Multiple Tools” Now Deployed in Tariff Policy (CTH)
• Scott Jennings Drops Massive Truth Bomb About Supreme Court on CNN (Margolis)
• Mamdani Is Collapsing Faster Than We Thought (Margolis)
• CNN SLAMS Keir Starmer’s ATROCIOUS Ratings (MN)
• Starmer Appoints ‘Queen Of Woke’ As UK’s Top Civil Servant – Reform UK (RT)
• German Court Rules X Must Turn Over Data on Hungarian Govt Support (CTH)
• Hungary and Slovakia Push Back on Ukraine’s Oil Dispute (Manney)
• NASA Chief Blasts Boeing Over Botched Starliner Mission (RT)
• Investigation Exposes Cover-Up of Obama Center Taxpayer Scam (Matt Margolis)
• Is Tucker Carlson’s Career Toast Now? (Matt Margolis)

 


 

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On January 22 2026, the Epoch Times wrote: Trump Sues JPMorgan Chase Over Alleged Debanking . A month later, on February 22, new docs confirmed it all and they said: Documents Confirm JPMorgan Closed Trump’s Bank Accounts After Jan. 6 Capitol Breach . Also on February 22, Zero Hedge then cited the Epoch Times. see below.

We now know for double sure that one month after Jan.6, 2021, which is also right after his first presidential term, JPMorgan closed over 50 bank accounts tied to Donald Trump. Fankly, that raises more questions than I can answer. (Where do the contents go?) Trump filed a $5 billion lawsuit. And he should win. Banks should not feel free to act on political whims.

• JPMorgan De-Banked Trump Shortly After Jan 6th Capitol Chaos (ZH)

New court documents released Friday show JPMorgan Chase told President Donald Trump a month after the January 2021 breach of the U.S. Capitol that the bank was closing his accounts. The disclosure was made amid a $5 billion lawsuit Trump filed against JPMorgan and its CEO Jamie Dimon. JPMorgan, the nation’s largest bank, said for the first time late Friday that it cut off more than 50 Trump accounts in February 2021, shortly after Mr. Trump’s first term ended. The accounts included those for Trump hotels, housing developments and retail shops in Illinois, Florida and New York, as well as Mr. Trump’s personal private banking relationship that handled his inheritance from his father, according to letters filed to the court.


JPMorgan did not specify in those letters a specific reason for the mass account closings. In one unsigned note to Mr. Trump, dated Feb. 19, 2021, the bank wrote that he would need to “find a more suitable institution with which to conduct business.” The letter closed with, “Thank you for your prompt attention to this matter” – a phrase that President Trump often uses. As NYTimes reports, the President has maintained for years that his bank account closures were politically motivated, and a spokesperson for his legal team said the newest court documents are “a devastating concession that proves President Trump’ entire claim. [JPMorgan] admitted to unlawfully and intentionally de-banking President Trump, his family, and his businesses, causing overwhelming financial harm, the spokesperson said.

President Trump is standing up for all those wrongly debanked by JPMorgan Chase and its cohorts, and will see this case to a just and proper conclusion. the attorneys added. Mr. Trump’s lawsuit, which named Jamie Dimon, JPMorgan’s chief executive, as a defendant, contended that the bank put Mr. Trump on a blacklist because it “needed to distance itself from President Trump and his conservative political views.” That echoed earlier complaints from Mr. Trump that Capital One similarly closed his accounts and that Bank of America refused to accept billions of dollars in deposits after the Jan. 6 riots. The bank told The Epoch Times over email it will seek to dismiss the claims. “Plaintiffs’ threadbare allegations do not allege sufficient facts to plead a claim,” the institution said.

JPMorgan told The Epoch Times last month that the case “has no merit.” “[JPMorgan Chase] does not close accounts for political or religious reasons,” JPMorgan previously said. “We do close accounts because they create legal or regulatory risk for the company.” “We regret having to do so, but often rules and regulatory expectations lead us to do so.” These comments were made last month, days after Trump announced on social media his intention to sue the bank.

Since then, Trump’s lawyers have alleged in court documents that JPMorgan closed the president’s accounts because of its “‘woke’ beliefs that it needed to distance itself from President Trump and his conservative political views.” “In essence, [JPMorgan Chase] debanked Plaintiffs’ Accounts because it believed that the political tide at the moment favored doing so,” the lawsuit states. JPMorgan added it supports the Trump administration’s efforts to prevent the weaponization of the banking sector. There is still much legal wrangling to come. JPMorgan this past week asked that the case be moved from Florida state court, where Mr. Trump has had some success in litigation, to a federal court in New York.

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One scary lady.

• Susan Rice Joins Call for a Revenge Purge If Democrats Re-Take Power (Turley)

As Democrats plan for the possible takeover in the midterms and 2028 election, they are already openly discussing their push for radical changes in our political system, including packing the Supreme Court to guarantee that those changes are allowed. Many are also pledging trials, impeachments, and investigations of anyone who supported President Donald Trump in a purging of politics and government. The latest to join the revenge purge pledge is Susan Rice, Democratic powerbroker and top policy adviser to both President Barack Obama and Joe Biden.In an interview this week, Rice declared that supporters of Trump can expect the proverbial knocks on their doors:


“A very prominent public figure, who has served at nearly the very highest levels, once told me … ‘Revenge is best served cold,’ and the older I get, the more I see the wisdom of that.”She added: When it comes to the elites, you know, the corporate interests, the law firms, the universities, the media … it’s not going to end well for them, for those that decided that they would act in their perceived very narrow self-interest, which I would underscore, is very short-term self-interest, and, you know, take a knee to Trump. The promise to crackdown political opponents is hardly unexpected in this age of rage. Indeed, Democrats can point to the purging of the federal ranks, particularly at the Justice Department, as further justification for a tit-for-tat response.

Democratic politicians and pundits have been fueling the anger of their base with ludicrous claims that democracy is about to die since the 2020 election. They have now used anti-ICE protests to stoke the anger in the hope that it will return them to power in the midterm elections. Bravo star and liberal podcast host Jennifer Welch praised footage of a “No Kings” protester celebrating the death of Charlie Kirk. After playing the clip, Welch laughed with joy and declared, “So listen up, Democratic establishment. You can either jump on board with this s—, or we’re coming after you in the same way that we come after MAGA. Period.”

The pledge for revenge purges is an obvious way to further motivate a mob. In my book, Rage and the Republic, I discuss how elected officials often try to enlist mobs to advance their political agendas — only to be consumed by the unrest they helped fuel. This yielding to a “mobocracy” was one of the critical dangers that the Framers sought to deter through protections against majoritarian tyranny. It is a history that figures like Rice are ignoring in the hope of riding this rage wave back into power. The fact is that history has shown that “it’s not going to end well” for establishment figures like Rice who believe that they can control a mob.

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“How much is she being paid, and for what??? Thank you for your attention to this matter.”

• Trump Calls on Netflix to Fire Susan Rice (Matt Margolis)

On Preet Bharara’s podcast, Obama’s scandal-scarred former U.N. ambassador promised that any corporation, law firm, university, or media outlet that “took a knee to Trump” will be targeted when the left is back in charge. “It’s not gonna end well for them,” she warned, casting basic engagement with the Trump administration as a kind of original sin that must be punished. And now President Donald Trump wants accountability. On Saturday, Trump called on Netflix to fire Rice. “Netflix should fire racist, Trump Deranged Susan Rice, IMMEDIATELY, or pay the consequences,” he wrote in a post on Truth Social.


“She’s got no talent or skills – Purely a political hack! HER POWER IS GONE, AND WILL NEVER BE BACK. How much is she being paid, and for what??? Thank you for your attention to this matter.” In her interview with Bharara, Rice argued that major institutions are sensing a political shift and regretting their support for Trump. But that won’t stop the Democrats from settling scores aggressively. “If these corporations think that the Democrats, when they come back in power, are gonna, you know, play by the old rules, and say, ‘Oh, never mind, we’ll forgive you for all the people you’ve fired, all the policies and principles you’ve violated, all, you know, the laws you’ve skirted,’ I think they’ve got another thing coming,” Rice said.

She pointed to redistricting as proof that Democrats are done playing nice. “Just like when Trump thought, ‘Okay, I’ll redistrict, and the Democrats won’t have the guts to play hardball,’ they’re gonna be surprised. Democrats have had a belly full, and we’re not gonna play by, you know, the old set of rules, when these guys are playing by a very different set of rules.” Rice made clear that companies that accommodated the Trump administration will face consequences — big tech, media, universities, and law firms. “There will be an accountability agenda,” she warned. She even urged businesses to brace for investigations. “They better preserve their documents. They better be ready for subpoenas. If they’ve done something wrong, they’ll be held accountable.”

The only companies that would avoid the wrath of vengeful Democrats would be the ones that were on the “right” side of history. “If they haven’t broken the law, good for them,” she said. “If they’ve done the right things, good for them. That also will be noted and remembered.” We all know what that really means: If they were loyal to the Democratic Party, they’re in the clear. Her message was blunt. “This is not going to be an instance of, you know, forgive and forget… the damage that these people are doing is too severe to the American people and to our national interest,” Rice said.

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Muslims will defend the Christian heartland. Yeah yeah. Europe will no longer be Christian. And that’s a big deal, because then it will automatically become Muslim. Yes it will. And only then will the original population start defending itself. Much too late. Now there will be blood.

• Europe To Recruit Migrants For “National Defense” (ZH)

Europe’s lack of military readiness has become painfully obvious in recent years, due largely to the war in Ukraine as well as the Trump Administration’s efforts to force NATO members to fulfill their basic obligations. Specifically, Russia’s successful use of attrition tactics against NATO supported forces in Ukraine has exposed a significant weakness in western military doctrine.New and cheap technologies (including drone technologies) are making large scale maneuver warfare obsolete. The era of super-weapons dominating the battlefield with minimal manpower is over. As was the case in WWI and WWII, troop strength and boots on the ground are once again the key to victory.


A Washington DC-based defense think-tank, Center For A New American Century (CNAS), has come to the same realization and suggests a novel (as well as predictable) solution: Exploit mass immigration from Ukraine and third world countries to the west as a resource to fill the persistent void in military recruitment numbers. Writing for Foreign Policy, the CNAS notes: “Closing manpower gaps may prove harder than writing bigger checks. The continent’s demographic crisis compounds the problem: Births in the European Union fell below 4 million in 2022 for the first time since 1960, shrinking the pool of potential recruits as geopolitical threats—chief among them, Russian aggression—demand larger, more capable forces…

The argument, of course, presupposes that Russia has any intention of invading greater Europe. There is no evidence that this is Vladimir Putin’s goal. However, the Russian bogeyman does make for a useful excuse to justify the development of a unified EU military force. The threat of war can also be exploited by European officials as a way to justify open borders and mass immigration from the third world. Immigration from Ukraine makes some sense – It is a legitimate war torn country and Ukrainians are close to the rest of Europeans in terms of cultural attitude. But, EU elites need a rationale for flooding the region with third worlders and war with Russia seems to be their ticket. The CNAS uses the “demographic collapse” claim as a catalyst.

“Ukraine’s grinding war of attrition has laid bare an uncomfortable truth: Emerging capabilities in the form of high-tech weaponry cannot substitute for boots on the ground. Soldiers, sailors, marines, coast guardsmen, and airmen are the backbone of national defense. Yet the European Commission estimates a 43 million reduction in the bloc’s working-age population by 2070…” “…Meanwhile, Europe continues to grapple with significant migration flows from Africa, the Middle East, and other regions. These arrivals, often young, male, and seeking better opportunities, represent exactly the demographic cohort European militaries desperately need. Many migrants arrive with valuable skills: language abilities, cultural knowledge of strategic regions, technical expertise, and, most importantly, motivation to prove themselves and build new lives.”

It should be noted that these kind of articles from think-tanks are not so much “suggestions” for future policy initiatives. Rather, they are propaganda pieces designed to promote policies that governments already intend to implement in the near future. A number of European countries have already begun the groundwork for recruiting migrants for national defense. Ireland just recently announced that their are reviewing a possible program to give fast-track citizenship to immigrants who volunteer to join the military. Irish leaders assert that this is necessary to boost defense capabilities, but they also argue that it is need to increase Ireland’s “diversity.” Several other European governments are looking at similar programs, including Germany, France and Spain.

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“But our plan for dealing with her, as I have said before, has always been ‘Operation Let Her Speak.’”

• Sen. Kennedy Tells Us What He Thinks of AOC (Spencer)

Sen. John N. Kennedy (R-La.) is easily the funniest guy in the United States Senate, and would be the most hilarious politician in all of Washington were it not for the wit who currently occupies the Oval Office. Of course, most of his competition in this regard is no competition at all, as politicians are historically likely to be people who take themselves altogether too seriously. Today’s Democrats in particular are some of the sourest, unpleasant, and humorless people on the entire planet, so weighed down are they with the noble and never-ending struggle against Orange Man Bad, borders, gender, sanity, and common sense. And nobody, and I mean nobody, takes himself or herself or ximself more seriously than the average leftist who thinks that he (or she or xe) is nobly defending — well, not exactly the nation, which they want to leave borderless and defenseless, but at very least all the people who think the right thoughts and check all the proper boxes for the correct candidates — from the spread of “fascism.”


It’s doubtful that even a tiny percentage of these po-faced, self-righteous, self-important clowns even know what fascism is, but whatever, dude. They’re still busy saving us from it, and one of our principal saviors is none other than Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-The Queensboro), who recently went down in flames at the Munich Security Conference. After AOC sputtered and stuttered and hemmed and hawed and faked her way through an answer to a question about whether the U.S. should defend Taiwan militarily in the event of an attack from Communist China, President Donald Trump commented acidly: “Her performance was horrible. I was surprised, actually. I didn’t know she was stupid.”

One who did know that, however, was Sen. Kennedy, and on Friday, he didn’t hold back. “The Congresswoman,” Kennedy said as Charles Hurt of Fox News chuckled in the background, “is kind of like Vice President Kamala Harris, but with more bartending experience.” If you’d like a word salad with your beer, you’ll be happy to know that Kennedy was just getting warmed up.“She has never been accused,” Kennedy continued, “of being a policy maven. You put her in a presidential primary with Elizabeth Warren or Rahm Emanuel, they will devour her like a light snack.” The senator then added semi-apologetically: “I probably shouldn’t say this, but she can get me back.” No doubt about that, but can AOC be as funny as John Neely Kennedy? Not a chance? Will she even try, or just huff and puff about how evil Republicans are lowering the civil tone of our august legislative bodies? The smart money is on the self-righteous posturing.

Kennedy’s most uproarious jab came next: “Someone told me a joke today. They said Congresswoman Cortez announced today categorically that she is not a moron. And she went on to say she hasn’t even been to Utah, much less embraced their religion.” Buh-dum tiss! Kennedy then reiterated: “Now she can get me back, I don’t dislike the congresswoman.” And then he concluded with another zinger: “But our plan for dealing with her, as I have said before, has always been ‘Operation Let Her Speak.’ And so far, it’s working, and my message to my friend the congresswoman, is ‘You go girl! You just keep it up.’” Can we clone Sen. Kennedy? Can we get 52 more of him to fill out the ranks of Senate Republicans? Imagine the hilarity if we had 53 Kennedys instead of the likes of Thune, McConnell, Murkowski, Collins, and so many others. Not only would the legislation be better, but so would the laughs, and there’s a lot to be said for that.

Sen. Kennedy https://twitter.com/EricLDaugh/status/2025199354311520451?s=20 https://twitter.com/Jules31415/status/2025262073802858614?s=20 Read more …

There are so many options. Why did he pick the wrong one?

• Scott Bessent Outlines “Multiple Tools” Now Deployed in Tariff Policy (CTH)

Speaking to the Economic Club of Dallas, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent outlines what technical procedures the Trump administration will trigger now to retain tariff authority. As anticipated Bessent outlines section 232 tariffs, section 301 tariffs, and Section 122 tariffs. WATCH (prompted):


Section 232 [Steel and Aluminum examples] of the Trade Expansion Act of 1962 (19 U.S.C. §1862, as amended) authorizes the President to impose trade restrictions—such as a tariff or quota—if the Secretary of Commerce determines, following an investigation, that imports of a good “threaten to impair” U.S. national security. {SOURCE}

Section 301 tariffs are a trade enforcement mechanism established under the Trade Act of 1974. They allow the U.S. government to impose tariffs on imports from countries that are found to be engaging in unfair trade practices. The Office of the United States Trade Representative (USTR) conducts investigations to determine if a country is violating trade agreements, and if so, it can impose tariffs as a corrective measure {SOURCE}

Section 122 of the Trade Act of 1974 allows the U.S. president to impose tariffs of up to 15% to address “large and serious” balance-of-payments deficits. This authority can be exercised without prior congressional approval for a limited duration of 150 days. After this period, any tariffs must be extended by Congress. {SOURCE}

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“This is a properly functioning government today.

• Scott Jennings Drops Massive Truth Bomb About Supreme Court on CNN (Margolis)

Whatever you think about the Supreme Court’s ruling Friday on tariffs, the ruling was a blunt reality check for the Democrats, whose rhetoric about the high court has been vicious in recent years. On CNN’s NewsNight, host Abby Phillip was walking through the financial fallout from a court ruling, citing a CBO report that found U.S. businesses absorb about 30% of import price increases, while consumers bear the remaining 70% — with the net effect pushing consumer prices up by roughly 95 percent of the domestically borne tariff costs. Inflation has remained low and stable under President Donald Trump, but whatever. The left loves to push their narrative regardless of the facts. Scott Jennings promptly called out her inconsistency.


“Well, which is it?” he said. “You said all of it was passed through to the consumers. You said that most of it was absorbed by some of the companies. It sounds like maybe it might be a little bit of both.” While Phillip suggested refunds should mirror how the tariffs were collected, Jennings predicted a bureaucratic nightmare, warning of massive sums of money at stake and years of litigation likely to follow. Then Jennings shifted gears entirely, and this is where things got interesting.

“I’ll just say, you know, politically, today, you know, it was a big breaking news day, but I just think we ought to acknowledge something,” he said. “This is a properly functioning government today. The president of the United States, the head of the executive branch, made a policy decision. The Supreme Court, it renders legal opinions about these kinds of decisions, made a decision, they said, you can’t do that. The president of the United States said, ‘Okay, I agree, and I will acknowledge your decision. I’m going to use a different statute to try to do what I want to do.’ This is properly functioning government.”

He wasn’t done. Jennings went straight at the media narrative that has dominated coverage of this Supreme Court for the past two years — the one that cast the court as essentially a rubber stamp for whatever Trump wanted.”For every Democrat and every media person that has gone on for the last year or two about how this Supreme Court is a wholly owned subsidiary of Donald Trump, that it’s not independent, that it does whatever he says to do, obviously, that narrative was obliterated today.”

He drove it home: “So, to me, I thought this was actually — I thought the ruling was sound. I think the president is sound to try other statutes. And I think the narratives about the court not being independent and the president not obeying the court were totally blown up today.” How can you argue with that logic? You can’t. Democrats have become so obsessed with the narrative that the court has been a rubber stamp for Trump; they’ve literally considered packing the court because of this narrative. Frankly, the conservatives on the Supreme Court have shown far more independence than any of the leftists on the court.

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Wait till he starts raising taxes.

• Mamdani Is Collapsing Faster Than We Thought (Margolis)

You can’t say we didn’t warn New York what was going to happen if it elected Zohran Mamdani, but I gotta say, I don’t think anyone predicted it would start collapsing so quickly. But, alas, it has. That socialist utopia that Mamdani was supposed to deliver has instead turned into a slow-motion fiscal catastrophe a mere two months in — and even the liberal media is starting to notice. Mamdani unveiled a $127 billion budget for fiscal year 2027 this week — a staggering $5 billion increase over the prior year. But what’s $5 billion between socialists, right?


To put that into perspective, Mamdani’s proposed budget is actually larger than the budgets of 47 U.S. states, including Florida, which has nearly twice the population. And somehow, it still isn’t enough. The city is staring down a $5.4 billion deficit, with the real gap potentially closer to $12 billion when you do the actual math. So what was his plan? Tax someone else. Mamdani went straight to Albany looking for a handout, demanding that Gov. Kathy Hochul raise taxes on the “ultra-wealthy” and the most profitable corporations. When Hochul told him to pound sand and cut spending instead, he obviously couldn’t do that, and now he is looking at saddling homeowners with a 9.5% property tax hike.

“Faced with no other choice, the city would have to exercise the only revenue lever fully within our own control,” he said. “We would have to raise property taxes. We would also be forced to raid our reserves. To balance the budget as required by law, our preliminary budget takes the only path within our control: the second path. The options of the second path are the options of last resort. Options that we will only employ if there is no other means of arriving at a balanced budget.” As a New York resident, I can say there’s finally something I can agree with Hochul on. Why should the rest of the state subsidize Mamdani’s socialist experiment in New York City?

Let it foot the bill for the mistake of electing Mamdani. Remember, this is the guy who campaigned on affordability and making the rich “pay their fair share,” and now he’s already in a position where he has to tax regular people to cover the costs of his promises. This budget crisis he’s facing two months into his term comes on top of him taking heat for poor trash cleanup and snow removal on his watch. Two months into the job, and the basics aren’t getting done. Conservatives warned about exactly this before last year’s election. We said a self-described democratic socialist running one of the world’s most financially complex cities was a recipe for disaster. Voters in New York went ahead anyway. Now the city faces the reckoning that was entirely predictable.

“No one in New York is ambitious enough to dramatically reshape city government, and residents either vote for class warfare or vote with their feet,” the Washington Post editorial board observed. “A reckoning will have to come eventually. The question is how bad it gets before reality sets in.” That question may answer itself sooner than anyone expected. “No one in New York is ambitious enough to dramatically reshape city government, and residents either vote for class warfare or vote with their feet,” the Washington Post editorial board observed. “A reckoning will have to come eventually. The question is how bad it gets before reality sets in.” That question may answer itself sooner than anyone expected.

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The “leaders” of the large Eropean nations all poll in the sewers..

• CNN SLAMS Keir Starmer’s ATROCIOUS Ratings (MN)

Keir Starmer’s approval ratings have plunged to historic lows, with even CNN calling them “absolutely ATROCIOUS” and noting that President Trump appears “downright like Abraham Lincoln” by comparison. This brutal takedown highlights how Starmer’s globalist policies are alienating Brits across the board. As the Labour leader clings to power, his war on free speech and commitment to protecting illegal immigration is fueling a backlash that could spell the end for his regime. With polls showing just 20% approval, Starmer’s grip on Number 10 looks increasingly tenuous. The Overton News clip, which has gone viral on X, captures CNN’s scathing assessment of Starmer’s popularity nosedive.


In the segment, analyst Harry Enten declares, “The se numbers are absolutely ATROCIOUS! I mean, you never see numbers like this in the United States of America.” Focusing on the dire stats, Enten points out, “Britons who like Keir Starmer, look at this — overall it’s just 1 in 5! It’s just 1 in 5, 20%!” Even within his own ranks, support is crumbling: “His OWN party, Labour, he’s just at 52% there.” The commentary escalates, revealing, “I’ve even seen numbers with satisfaction in the TEENS — and this is actually HIGHER than the lowest.” The most striking line compares Starmer unfavorably to Trump: “You know, we always talk about Donald Trump being unpopular in this country — but Donald Trump looks downright like Abraham Lincoln compared to Keir Starmer’s numbers at this point!”

The latest YouGov survey from February 2026 shows Starmer’s net favourability at -47, with only 22% viewing him positively against 69% unfavorably. That’s an improvement from January’s -57, but still abysmal for a sitting PM.Other trackers paint an even grimmer picture. Ipsos reported satisfaction in the teens late last year, aligning with CNN’s observations. Opinium’s February poll pegs his net approval at -44, with over half the public calling for his resignation. Starmer’s woes stem from policies that prioritize globalist agendas over British interests. Mass immigration continues unchecked, straining public services while borders remain porous. Economic missteps, like burdensome regulations on businesses, echo the failures of socialist experiments.

Recall our earlier coverage where a former aide to Starmer revealed how a “stakeholder state” – an unelected network of insiders, NGOs, and civil servants – effectively controls the UK government. Paul Ovenden described this “political perma-class” as diverting power from voters to elite priorities, wasting resources on fringe issues while ignoring secure borders and sovereignty. This shadowy influence explains Starmer’s disconnect from the public, leading to approval ratings that rival the worst in postwar history. Historical comparisons show that every UK PM with similar low ratings either lost big or resigned before the next election. Adding fuel to the fire is Starmer’s aggressive stance against free expression. Threats to ban platforms like X over AI-generated content have drawn international condemnation.

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“Romeo set out plans for civil servants to spend around 20% of their working hours on diversity objectives such as encouraging workers to display their preferred pronouns and “recruiting non-binary staff,”

• Starmer Appoints ‘Queen Of Woke’ As UK’s Top Civil Servant – Reform UK (RT)

UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer has appointed the “Queen of Woke” as his new cabinet secretary, Reform UK party spokesperson Zia Yusuf wrote on X on Friday. Antonia Romeo’s elevation to the UK’s most senior civil servant position is the “embodiment of all that’s wrong” with the current establishment, Yusuf argued. While heading the Department for International Trade (DIT), “she bombarded staff with weekly emails pushing Transgender Awareness Week, Bi Visibility Day, and even recommended watching films about trans parenthood,” he claimed. During her time working in the Home Office, “65,000 illegal migrants have crossed on her watch,” he said.


During her stint at the DIT, Romeo set out plans for civil servants to spend around 20% of their working hours on diversity objectives such as encouraging workers to display their preferred pronouns and “recruiting non-binary staff,” the Telegraph reported on Friday, citing internal documents. She also reportedly instructed staff to join a “gender non-conforming book club” as part of their corporate performance review. Starmer has argued that Romeo is the “right person” for government to deliver a “period of national renewal.”

Only 15% of Britons approve of the prime minister’s job performance, according to an Ipsos poll from last month. His approval ratings have been battered by dissatisfaction with his handling of the ongoing migrant crisis, a surge in arrests related to comments made online, the cost-of-living crisis, and the resurgence of the Pakistani rape gang scandal. Most recently, revelations emerged that Starmer appointed Peter Mandelson as UK ambassador to the US despite knowing of his ties to convicted pedophile Jeffrey Epstein. Starmer has maintained that he “was lied to” during the vetting procedure.

The waning popularity of the prime minister’s Labour Party is expected to culminate in major losses to Reform at the upcoming local elections, according to projections from the pollster ElectoralCalculus. On Monday, Starmer’s government reversed its plans to postpone the elections until next year after a legal challenge from Reform.

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“This effort against PM Orban by the European Union is part of the reason why Secretary of State Marco Rubio was so strong in his words of appreciation and support for Orban during his recent visit to Budapest…”

• German Court Rules X Must Turn Over Data on Hungarian Govt Support (CTH)

The European Union has a major targeting effort against Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban, an ally of President Trump who does not support giving additional funding to the Ukraine war effort. Hungary is having national elections in April. Previously, USAID Administrator Samantha Power spent considerable time in Hungary organizing activist groups to conduct operations against the government {2023 – Go Deep}. Last week a German based NGO called Democracy Reporting International, won a ruling from a Berlin judge to force the X platform to turn over data related to support for Viktor Orban and the government of Hungary.


All of this opposition to Prime Minister Orban seems to be coordinated by quasi government agencies on behalf of Brussels and their interventionist intentions. We may remember it was also information from German intelligence, that was behind the nullification of the Romanian first-round election. However, Viktor Orban is fighting back and refusing to approve the funding of the Ukraine war despite the massive pressure campaign from inside the European Union.

As noted by Hungarian Minister Zoltan Kovacs, “Many have asked how Hungary can block the €90 billion Ukrainian war loan if we are not participating in it. clarified that the loan does not affect Hungary and does not entail any financial commitment for us. As Hungary is not part of the cooperation, in most of the decision-making procedures we do not even vote. However, he pointed out that for the scheme to function, the EU’s seven-year budget guarantee rules must be amended – and this requires the approval of all 27 member states, not only the financing member states. We are now blocking this decision, without which the war loan cannot be disbursed.”

https://twitter.com/PM_ViktorOrban/status/2025284661853782466?s=20

(Via Politico) – A court in Germany on Tuesday ordered Elon Musk’s social media site X to hand over data related to the upcoming election in Hungary to researchers for scrutiny. The court in Berlin ruled in favor of rights group Democracy Reporting International in its bid to access data to research influence campaigns and disinformation in the election. The group took its case to court after X in November refused its data access requests. The European Union’s rules for social media platforms, the Digital Services Act, obliges big online platforms like X to grant external researchers access to data to scrutinize how platforms handle risks, including election interference. The European Commission in December fined X €40 million for breaching that obligation, as part of a €120 million levy.

This effort against PM Orban by the European Union is part of the reason why Secretary of State Marco Rubio was so strong in his words of appreciation and support for Orban during his recent visit to Budapest.

RUBIO: “The President has an extraordinarily close relationship to the prime minister. He does. And it has had tangible benefits in our relationship. I’m not going to speculate about the future. What happens in this country is up to the voters of this country to determine and decide, and we love the people of Hungary. But I’m not – but there’s no reason to sugarcoat it. I’m going to be very blunt with you. The prime minister and the President have a very, very close personal relationship and working relationship, and I think it has been incredibly beneficial to the relationship between our two countries.” {Source – Transcript}

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When will the EU implode?

• Hungary and Slovakia Push Back on Ukraine’s Oil Dispute (Manney)

Slovak Prime Minister Robert Fico delivered a blunt warning, saying Slovakia would halt emergency electricity exports to Ukraine unless Kyiv restored Russian oil transit through Ukrainian territory, setting a firm deadline of Feb. 23. The dispute centers on the Druzhba pipeline, which still supplies Russian crude to parts of Central Europe. Russian forces struck Ukrainian energy infrastructure in late January, an attack that damaged equipment tied to the Druzhba system in western Ukraine. The flow of oil to Slovakia and Hungary stopped that same day. mUkrainian officials blamed Moscow and offered alternative routes, including the Odesa-Brody pipeline and maritime shipments.


Fico responded by declaring a state of emergency in Slovakia’s oil sector, saying he would instruct SEPS, Slovakia’s state grid operator, to suspend electricity deliveries to Ukraine if oil transit didn’t resume. Slovakia supplied roughly 18% of Ukraine’s record electricity imports in January, and doubled its support compared with the previous year. Oil transit to Slovakia and Hungary has been disrupted since late January after a Russian strike hit the Druzhba pipeline, a key route carrying Russian crude to Central Europe. Ukraine’s pipeline operator said this week that the Jan. 27 attack damaged critical infrastructure and that repair works are ongoing.

In a letter to the European Commission, Ukraine’s embassy to the EU proposed using the Odesa–Brody pipeline or maritime routes as temporary alternatives to supply Hungary and Slovakia while repairs are completed. Fico accused Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy of treating Slovakia as a “hostile country,” saying Kyiv first halted gas flows, costing Slovakia €500 million annually, and has now stopped oil supplies, causing further losses. He also defended his decision to refuse Slovakia’s participation in the EU’s planned €90 billion military loan for

Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán and Foreign Minister Péter Szijjártó escalated the pressure at the European level by blocking a major EU financial package for Ukraine that required unanimous approval. Budapest tied its position directly to the restoration of oil transit through Druzhba. It’s through that route that most of Hungary’s oil supply from Russia is delivered.When the EU adopted its 2022 oil embargo against Russia, Hungary and Slovakia both secured exemptions. Since then, Orbán has delayed or opposed several sanction packages and has resisted long-term funding commitments, while Fico shifted Bratislava away from the prior government’s strong military backing of Ukraine.

Disputes over gas transit agreements in late 2024 also strained relations. Kyiv ended certain transit agreements when contracts expired, increasing pressure on downstream countries that still rely on Russian supply routes. Each confrontation reinforces the same pattern: energy needs still drive national policy, even during wartime. Ukrainian officials labeled the moves as political blackmail, arguing that the infrastructure damage resulted from Russian attacks and that repairs and legal transit options were still under discussion. Officials in Kyiv also noted that only a handful of EU member states still import significant volumes of Russian oil.

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Boeing is gone. But it’s a big bloated corpse.

• NASA Chief Blasts Boeing Over Botched Starliner Mission (RT)

NASA chief Jared Isaacman has slammed Boeing for failures that plagued the botched debut mission of its first crewed spaceship, Starliner, which left two astronauts stranded for nine months last year. A billionaire private astronaut and close associate of SpaceX founder Elon Musk, Isaacman, who was appointed NASA administrator two months ago, also offered a blistering critique of the agency’s previous leadership, claiming that its decision-making risked creating “a culture incompatible with human spaceflight.” The remarks were made at a press conference on Thursday during the release of a sweeping report on the Starliner mission, which saw two astronauts, Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams, stuck in space for nine months instead of the planned one week.


The capsule returned empty in September 2024 while the crew came home on a different vehicle in March 2025.The report states the loss of control during the capsule’s rendezvous with the ISS constitutes a Type A mishap – the most serious category of anomaly. It identifies critical design flaws in Boeing’s spacecraft, presenting 61 recommendations to address the issues before any future crewed Starliner mission. It also exposed management failures, stating that the mission “was marked by chaotic meeting schedules, unclear roles, and communication breakdowns.” “Mistrust between NASA and Boeing was intensified by selective data sharing, perceived favoritism, and inconsistent transparency,” the report added.

Boeing is facing public scrutiny over numerous safety issues and incidents involving its commercial aircraft and repeated delays in delivering key government contracts. Despite its troubles, the US government continues to contract with the company because NASA has a strategic goal to maintain two independent American systems for transporting astronauts to the ISS. SpaceX, the agency’s other partner, has also experienced technical issues affecting ISS operations, including delayed astronaut returns and aborted missions.

With both US contractors facing challenges, Russia remains the only other country capable of independently transporting people and cargo to the ISS. While Western sanctions over Ukraine targeted Russia’s aerospace industry, space cooperation was deliberately exempted to keep the station operational. Last week, Isaacman publicly stated his desire to meet with Roscosmos head Dmitry Bakanov and expressed interest in attending the launch of the Soyuz MS-29 mission from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan, scheduled for the summer of 2026.

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“.. leaving taxpayers high and dry and putting them on the hook for hundreds of millions of dollars to support the ugliest building in Chicago,”

• Investigation Exposes Cover-Up of Obama Center Taxpayer Scam (Matt Margolis)

Barack Obama promised Chicago a “gift” with his Obama Presidential Center. Instead, he delivered yet another boondoggle, buried in secrecy, with missing money, and stonewalling straight out of a Chicago corruption playbook. When Obama got approval to build his presidential center in Jackson Park, he vowed the project would be privately funded. Every penny, he said, would come from donations to his foundation. Taxpayers, he insisted, wouldn’t be on the hook. That was the sales pitch — and like so many Obama promises, it’s proven to be fiction.


The Obama Foundation may be paying for the building itself, but taxpayers have been secretly shouldering hundreds of millions of dollars in hidden infrastructure costs. Roads were torn up, utilities relocated, and parkland reshaped — all to serve Obama’s monument to himself. Cornell Drive, a major four-lane roadway that once ran along the park’s lagoon, has been erased so Obama’s massive campus could dominate the landscape. This wasn’t just a minor tweak to city planning. It was a taxpayer-funded overhaul of a historic public park — one that Obama’s team couldn’t have pulled off without Chicago and Illinois residents footing the bill.

Back in 2018, officials estimated public infrastructure costs at $350 million. Fast forward to today, and that number is almost meaningless. The Illinois Department of Transportation (IDOT) now admits to roughly $229 million in “state-managed spending.” Chicago’s records show another $206 million linked to the same project. No one in city or state government will say how those figures line up — or whether the total cost is far higher. And if you don’t think there’s something scandalous going on, then why are all the agencies involved being tight-lipped about it?

Fox News Digital filed Freedom of Information Act requests with IDOT, Chicago’s Department of Transportation, the Office of Budget and Management, Mayor Brandon Johnson’s office, and Governor J.B. Pritzker’s administration. Not one produced a complete accounting of public spending. IDOT offered vague numbers. The city stalled and refused to release records. Pritzker’s office contradicted itself, then stopped responding entirely. OBM even admitted it had “no responsive records” — an absurd claim for the agency that manages the city’s capital budget.

This is a coordinated cover-up, plain and simple. The Illinois Attorney General’s Public Access Counselor is now investigating whether multiple agencies violated the state’s open records laws. But you don’t need a court order to see what’s going on. Obama’s so-called “gift” turned into a taxpayer-financed vanity project — protected by the same political machine that made Chicago famous for corruption.

To make matters worse, Obama’s promised $470 million “endowment” to shield taxpayers in case the foundation ran out of cash has barely materialized. The fund has just $1 million in deposits — one-fifth of one percent of what was pledged. “Illinois Republicans saw this coming a mile away. Now, right on cue, Illinois Democrats are leaving taxpayers high and dry and putting them on the hook for hundreds of millions of dollars to support the ugliest building in Chicago,” Illinois GOP Chair Kathy Salvi told Fox News Digital. “Illinois’ culture of corruption is humming along with pay-to-play deals to their allies and friends while lying to Illinois voters.”

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Strange stories.

• Is Tucker Carlson’s Career Toast Now? (Matt Margolis)

Tucker Carlson just had one of the most embarrassing weeks in recent media memory. In the span of a few days, he fabricated a detention story, spread a debunked antisemitic smear about Israel’s sitting president, and then had to crawl back with an apology, as the public watched the wreckage of his career unfold in real time. Last week, Carlson flew into Ben-Gurion Airport on a private jet to record an interview with U.S. Ambassador Mike Huckabee. He never left the airport. Critics noted the obvious irony: a man who lectures his audience about Israel couldn’t bring himself actually to set foot in the country. After the interview, Carlson claimed that airport security had “hauled” his executive producer into a side room, seized his team’s passports, and demanded to know what was discussed with Huckabee.


That story fell apart almost immediately. The Israel Airports Authority stated that Carlson was “politely asked a few routine questions, in accordance with standard procedures applied to many travelers,” and that the conversation took place in a VIP lounge specifically to protect his privacy. The U.S. Embassy in Jerusalem confirmed his group “received the same passport control questions that countless visitors to Israel” receive. Then, leaked security footage surfaced showing Carlson smiling, hugging, and posing for photos with airport staff. Former Israeli Prime Minister Naftali Bennett called Carlson a fraud and said he “fabricated a tale about being supposedly harassed by our security forces.”

The detention story was bad. What came on Friday was worse. Carlson released the Huckabee interview and used it to launch a series of outlandish claims and accusations. He called Israel “probably the most violent country on earth,” questioned its right to exist, accused it of controlling American foreign policy, and declared it a police state. He claimed Netanyahu believes in “blood guilt” — that he punishes not just wrongdoers but their entire bloodlines — even though Netanyahu has never said anything of the sort. His claim that “Prime Minister Netanyahu has way more influence over American foreign policy than Americans do” echoed antisemitic tropes that have circulated for decades.

Then came the Epstein bomb. Carlson repeatedly pressed Huckabee about Israeli President Isaac Herzog’s supposed connection to Jeffrey Epstein’s island. “The current president of Israel, whom I know you know, apparently was at ‘pedo island,'” Carlson said on air. Huckabee said he was unaware of any such connection. And for good reason — there isn’t one. Herzog appears in the Epstein files only through news articles that ended up in Epstein’s emails. Carlson was basing his allegation on a fake, AI-generated image that circulated online after the Epstein files were released.

After Huckabee learned the claims were false, he wrote on X that Carlson’s allegations “could be the stuff of libel lawsuits” and that “it was hard to follow Tucker’s line of questioning.” On Saturday, Carlson released a video apologizing, acknowledging he had no evidence and saying, “I’m sorry to imply that I knew something I didn’t know.”] That apology changes nothing. More than a million people watched the original interview without a warning that its core claims were false. Carlson threw out a serious accusation against a sitting head of state without doing five minutes of verification, and the only explanation is confirmation bias.I don’t know what happened to Tucker Carlson, but it looks like we’re watching his career blow up in front of our faces in slow motion.

Read more …

 

 

 

 

https://twitter.com/Jules31415/status/2025406665386766644?s=20 Tulsi https://twitter.com/Real_RobN/status/2025310000286236865?s=20 Mar-a-Lago CAFitts

 

 

 

 

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Debt Rattle March 17 2025

Mar 172025
 
 March 17, 2025  Posted by at 10:20 am Finance Tagged with: , , , , , , , , ,  50 Responses »


James Ensor The oyster eater 1882

 

• White House Ignores Activist Judge, Deports Plane Full Of Criminals (ZH)
• Trump Plans To Speak With Putin On March 18 (RT)
• The West Lives In A Simulation While Russia Is Shaping The Real World (CvH)
• Kiev Rejects Putin’s Offer of Mercy For Troops In Kursk (RT)
• Some 30 Officers From NATO Countries Surrounded in Kursk Region (Sp.)
• The Trump Cards That Trump Thinks He Has On The Ukrainian Issue (Dionísio)
• Who Really Provoked the Ukraine War? Was It Russia? (Rehak)
• Lavrov and Rubio Discuss ‘Next Steps’ In Restoring Russia-US Ties (RT)
• The Prospects for an End to the Ukraine Conflict (Paul Craig Roberts)
• UK Mulls Open-Ended Troop Deployment In Ukraine – Times (RT)
• NATO ‘Peacekeepers’ In Ukraine Mean War – Medvedev (RT)
• What’s Really Behind Trump’s Surprise Bombardment of Yemen (Sp.)
• Democrat Civil War Watch: AOC and John Fetterman Duke It Out (Margolis)
• The Democrats’ Path Out of the Wilderness (RCW)
• Trump Worse Than Covid – Deputy ECB Chief (RT)
• How Barack Obama Built An Omnipotent Thought-Control Machine (Samuels)
• China Unveils Quantum Processor ‘A Million Times Faster’ Than US Rival (RT)

 

 

 

 

Delivery
https://twitter.com/21WIRE/status/1901254646326292531

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Guess this judge falls under lawfare. Every move the government wants to make, can trigger a court case. That makes the land ungovernable.

“They were already outside of US airspace. We believe the order is not applicable..”

“This is headed to the Supreme Court. And we’re going to win..”

• White House Ignores Activist Judge, Deports Plane Full Of Criminals (ZH)

Update (2112ET): The Trump administration says it disregarded a judge’s order to turn around two planeloads of Venezuelan criminals because the flights were over international waters and therefore the ruling did not apply, Axios reports, citing two senior officials – one of whom made clear that it’s “Very important that people understand we are not actively defying court orders.”The Trump administration argues that US District Judge James Boasberg overstepped his authority when he issued an order blocking the president from deporting roughly 250 alleged Tren de Aragua gang members under the Alien Enemies Act of 1789, a wartime law that gives the executive branch immense power to deport noncitizens without judicial hearings.

“This is headed to the Supreme Court. And we’re going to win,” a senior White House official told Axios, adding “It’s the showdown that was always going to happen between the two branches of government.” “And it seemed that this was pretty clean. You have Venezuelan gang members … These are bad guys, as the president would say.” Axios then cites Democrat attorney Mark S. Zaid……who posted on X “Court order defied. First of many as I’ve been warning and start of true constitutional crisis,” adding that it could eventually lead to another Trump impeachment, according to Axios. According to the report, White House Deputy Chief of Staff Stephen Miller “orchestrated” the flights in the West Wing in tandem with DHS Secretary Kristy Noem.

More via Axios:The timeline: The president signed the executive order invoking the Alien Enemies Act on Friday night, but intentionally did not advertise it. On Saturday morning, word of the order leaked, officials said, prompting a mad scramble to get planes in the air. At 2:31 p.m. Saturday, an immigration activist who tracks deportation flights, posted on X that “TWO HIGHLY UNUSUAL ICE flights” were departing from Texas to El Salvador, which had agreed to accept Venezuelan gang members deported from the U.S. Hours later, during a court hearing filed by the ACLU., Boasberg ordered a halt to the deportations and said any flights should be turned around mid-air. “This is something that you need to make sure is complied with immediately,” he told the Justice Department, according to the Washington Post. At that point, about 6:51 p.m., both flights were off the Yucatan Peninsula, according to flight paths posted on X.

An internal discussion was had in the White House as to whether they should order the planes to turn around – only to press ahead per administration lawyers. “There was a discussion about how far the judge’s ruling can go under the circumstances and over international waters and, on advice of counsel, we proceeded with deporting these thugs,” said the senior official. “They were already outside of US airspace. We believe the order is not applicable,” said the other official.

Read more …

1/ Ceasefire plan, which looks dead right now.
2/ Surrender of troops in Kursk region.

• Trump Plans To Speak With Putin On March 18 (RT)

US President Donald Trump has announced that he expects to hold a phone conversation with his Russian counterpart, Vladimir Putin, on Tuesday to discuss the prospects of a peace agreement in the Ukraine conflict. Speaking to reporters aboard Air Force One on Sunday, Trump said he plans to speak with Putin on March 18, according to the AP. “We will see if we have something to announce maybe by Tuesday. I will be speaking to President Putin on Tuesday. A lot of work’s been done over the weekend. We want to see if we can bring that war to an end. We will be talking about land. We will be talking about power plants,” Trump was quoted as saying.

US special envoy Steve Witkoff previously stated that Trump and Putin were expected to hold a telephone conversation this week to discuss efforts toward establishing a ceasefire in the Ukraine conflict. Witkoff, who recently met with Putin in Moscow, described the discussions as “positive” and indicated that both Russian and Ukrainian parties are now “a lot closer” in negotiations. “I expect that there’ll be a call with both presidents this week, and we’re also continuing to engage and have conversations with the Ukrainians,” Witkoff said. On Saturday, US Secretary of State Marco Rubio held a separate phone call with Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov, during which the two top diplomats discussed further steps to reestablish direct communication between their countries.

The first formal telephone conversation between the Russian and US leaders in years took place on February 12, 2025. It was followed by high-level talks in Saudi Arabia on February 18, where Washington and Moscow agreed to assign teams to work on resolving the Ukraine conflict, restore embassy operations, and address other points of contention in bilateral relations. Since then, additional discussions have been held in Istanbul, focusing on diplomatic funding and a proposal from Moscow to reinstate direct flights.

Following negotiations in Jeddah last week, Ukraine agreed to a 30-day ceasefire. Shortly after, Witkoff traveled to Moscow on Thursday to present Putin with the details of the proposal. The Russian president welcomed the ceasefire in principle but insisted on addressing several key issues first, including the fate of Ukrainian troops encircled in Russia’s Kursk Region. While the details of Witkoff’s meeting with Putin have not been made public, Trump hinted at progress, stating that the White House had received “some pretty good news” regarding the ceasefire efforts and that US-Russia meetings over the past several days had been “very productive.”

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Constantin von Hoffmeister.

“This is why the West cannot win in Ukraine. It fights as a bureaucratic entity, not as a people. And Russia, for all its flaws, fights as a people.”

• The West Lives In A Simulation While Russia Is Shaping The Real World (CvH)

The conflict in Ukraine is not about Ukraine. It is the West’s last delirious attempt to exert control over a world that no longer needs it. The West, lost in the labyrinth of its own technocratic nightmare, flails like a dying beast, mechanized and blind. The German historical philosopher Oswald Spengler (1880-1936), in ‘Man and Technics’ (1931), wrote of the Faustian civilization’s ultimate downfall, where technology, once an extension of organic culture, becomes an iron cage, trapping its creators in a world they no longer understand. The Western response to Ukraine is precisely this: Drones, sanctions, media narratives manufactured in real-time, an illusion of omnipotence maintained by algorithms, and artificial intelligence. But reality is slipping through the cracks. The more the West mechanizes, the more it loses its ability to perceive the living, breathing cultures it seeks to control.

A ceasefire? A negotiation? The West proposes them like a bureaucrat offering a new tax code, as if war were a spreadsheet that could be adjusted to fit quarterly projections. US President Donald Trump’s emissaries meet with Russian officials, not because they believe in peace but because the old America – his America – has sensed the shift. A world order of raw power is replacing the West’s dream of digital hegemony, and Russia, China, and a thousand-year-old history stand against it. Spengler saw it coming: The machines would overtake the soul, and the West would become incapable of organic thought. This is why they cannot understand Russia – not because they lack intelligence, but because their intelligence has been reduced to an algorithmic process, stripped of cultural depth. The West is thinking in the way that a machine thinks, and Russia, still a creature of history, is thinking like an empire.

Russian President Vladimir Putin dismisses the ceasefire offer because he knows it is a mirage. He speaks of root causes, of history, of a world that is not reducible to transactions and diplomatic maneuvers. The West recoils in horror. This is the fundamental difference: Russia still understands what war means, while the West sees only an endless data stream of casualties, arms shipments, and strategic objectives. Spengler called this the tragic turn of Faustian civilization – when man, having created his machines, no longer controls them. The West does not wage war for power or territory but to maintain the facade that it is still in control. War as process. War as algorithm. The end goal is never victory, only perpetual management of crises.

Meanwhile, the financial technocrats of the G7 conjure $50 billion from thin air, leveraging interest from Russia’s frozen assets, a sleight of hand that Spengler would recognize as the final stage of Western decay – economic manipulation replacing genuine production, artificial wealth replacing true cultural strength. The West no longer builds. It merely extracts, redistributes, and sanctions, hoping that the machinery of global finance can replace the natural momentum of a rising civilization. Russia, in contrast, returns to the old ways: Industry, military strength, self-reliance. The difference is stark. One civilization grows more entangled in its own mechanical hat tricks, the other returns to the fundamental logic of history.

Spengler saw technology as both the great achievement and the final undoing of the West. It began as a tool, an extension of man’s will, but in the late stages, it turns against its creators, reducing them to mere components in a system that no longer serves them. The West’s obsession with sanctions, surveillance, and narrative control is not an expression of power. It is a sign of weakness. True imperial civilizations do not need to micro-manage the world; they shape it through sheer will. This is why Trump, despite his flaws, represents the only real possibility for a Western resurgence. He rejects the managerial ethos. He understands power instinctively, like the rulers of old. The new Conservative Revolution in America is not about ideology. It is about reclaiming agency from the machine.

And yet, the media apparatus, a monstrous organism birthed by technics, continues its relentless march, shaping reality through distortion. Spengler wrote that the press, in the late stages of Western civilization, ceases to inform and instead dictates what must be believed. Ukraine is reduced to a symbolic battlefield in this grand narrative. Russia is the villain because the system requires a villain. The truth is irrelevant. The headlines are written before the events occur. The war exists less as a physical struggle and more as a media spectacle, a grotesque ritual in which Western leaders play-act as warriors while ensuring they remain far from the consequences of their own actions. But while the West is trapped in its simulation, Russia operates in the real. The battlefield is not a metaphor. It is a place where men kill and die. Spengler warned that the civilizations of the late stage would become incapable of true war – they would engage in conflicts but only as technocratic exercises, devoid of the deep, existential struggle that defined the great wars of history. This is why the West cannot win in Ukraine. It fights as a bureaucratic entity, not as a people. And Russia, for all its flaws, fights as a people. The difference is everything.

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Have you asked the troops?

• Kiev Rejects Putin’s Offer of Mercy For Troops In Kursk (RT)

Ukraine’s forces in Russia’s Kursk Region will continue their operations, Ukrainian Foreign Minister Andrey Sibiga stated in an interview on Saturday, despite the troops being largely encircled, according to both Moscow and Washington. Speaking with Japan’s NHK, Sibiga claimed that Kiev had achieved its main objectives in the offensive but sees having a continued presence on Russian territory as providing leverage in future peace negotiations. Ukraine launched its incursion across the internationally recognized Russian border into Kursk Region last August, capturing the town of Sudzha and numerous villages. However, the Russian military quickly halted the advance and has since been reclaiming lost ground. Russian General Staff Chief Valery Gerasimov said on Wednesday that 86% of the land previously occupied by Ukrainian forces had been retaken, leaving the remaining troops “encircled” and “isolated.”

“As officially announced by General [Aleksandr] Syrsky, we are continuing the operation in Kursk Region and will continue to do so,” Sibiga stated. “The operation in Kursk Region is an important factor and a key point of discussion in future peace negotiations,” he added. The fate of the Ukrainian troops fighting in Kursk was addressed by Russian President Vladimir Putin earlier this week. Speaking at a press conference on Thursday, he said that he was open to the idea of a 30-day ceasefire proposed by Washington and Kiev at their recent talks in Saudi Arabia but stressed that the issue of the incursion forces, among others, must be resolved before Moscow could agree.

On Friday, US President Donald Trump acknowledged that “thousands of Ukrainian troops are completely surrounded by the Russian military and in a very bad and vulnerable position” in Kursk Region and urged Moscow to “spare” their lives. In response, Putin offered the servicemen guaranteed safety and merciful treatment if they surrender. Kiev, meanwhile, has staunchly denied that its forces in Kursk Region are surrounded. In a post on Telegram on Saturday, Ukrainian leader Vladimir Zelensky acknowledged that the situation in the area is “difficult” for Ukraine but stated that “there is no encirclement of our troops.”

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It gets better.

• Some 30 Officers From NATO Countries Surrounded in Kursk Region (Sp.)

About 30 officers from NATO countries, who have been providing coordinates for Ukrainian strikes deep into Russia, are surrounded in the Kursk Region, the coordinator of the pro-Russian underground network in Nikolayev Sergey Lebedev told Sputnik. “According to the information of the underground network, there are about 30 NATO career officers, who were engaged in commanding troops on the ground as well as handling incoming intelligence data from NATO satellites and adjusting strikes deep into Russian territory, are surrounded in the Kursk Region” Lebedev said.

Russian Chief of the General Staff Valery Gerasimov said at a command meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin this past Wednesday that Russian forces had liberated over 86% of the territory, or 1,100 square kilometers (425 square miles), previously occupied by Ukraine in Russia’s Kursk Region. He said Ukrainian troops were encircled in the Kursk Region and were being gradually eliminated, while Russian forces advanced into Ukraine’s Sumy Region across several segments of the border. On Friday, US President Donald Trump said that he “strongly requested” Russian President Vladimir Putin to spare the lives of thousands of Ukrainian soldiers currently surrounded in the Kursk Region. Putin said he would guarantee Ukrainian servicepeople life and decent treatment if they lay down their arms.

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“..contrary to what was announced, the U.S. never actually stopped supplying weapons and intelligence to Ukraine..”

• The Trump Cards That Trump Thinks He Has On The Ukrainian Issue (Dionísio)

In a week where the expectations of many Atlanticists regarding the Kursk adventure continue to deteriorate, we continue to witness successive media circus episodes surrounding the conflict in Ukraine. Between a Trump apparently concerned with a “lasting” peace in Ukraine, a “Europe” that insists on classifying the Russian Federation as a “threat,” a Zelensky aligned with EU powers but seemingly more open to starting negotiations, a Macron who claims to speak for all of Europe and states that “Putin cannot be trusted,” a Von Der Leyen who insists on a massive increase in military spending, and a Ukrainian delegation in Riyadh that, after the degrading spectacle at the White House, ultimately, a few days later, and after a decisive defeat in the Kursk adventure, comes to accept a proposal for an immediate ceasefire—all these episodes, seemingly contrasting, end up fitting together perfectly, complementing each other like a deck of cards at Trump’s service.

To understand how they fit together, the best way to approach them is to start with the last of these episodes: the farce of the negotiations in Saudi Arabia. It is no secret to anyone, whether they agree with the position and aspirations of the Russian Federation or not, what is intended with what has been termed the “Special Military Operation”: to demilitarize, denazify, neutralize Ukraine militarily, preventing its integration into NATO, and to protect Russian populations from the xenophobic persecutions recorded after the Euromaidan coup.

Nevertheless, the Russians have never shied away from leaving open lines of dialogue, as demonstrated when they went to Saudi Arabia to confer with the U.S. delegation. True to their nature, they did not mince words, play games, or send smoke signals. They were very clear that they are not prepared to negotiate fragile and temporary solutions, but only solid, lasting understandings that consider the Russian Federation’s security concerns. This situation has not changed, as the mainstream press now reports that Russia has made a list of demands for them to accept the ceasefire.

Nevertheless, Marco Rubio, after negotiating an agreement with the Ukrainian delegation for the famous “rare earths,” ensuring their supposed exploitation by the U.S., told anyone who would listen that the progress would now be the subject of a concrete proposal to the Russian Federation. The tone was clear and aimed to make people believe that the Americans are hopeful about the outcome of this entire mediation process. Are they?

Let us return to the Russian Federation and ask the following question: to what extent will the proposal for an immediate ceasefire, made at a time when Moscow’s forces have achieved a resounding and humiliating victory in the Kursk region, be to the liking of the Russian delegation? Will any of the objectives so often emphasized by the Kremlin be guaranteed? Can it be inferred from the immediate ceasefire that Ukraine accepts all the demands of the Russian side? And is it believable that, with the Russian Federation in a position of primacy in the conflict, it would throw it all away with a ceasefire? Especially when, contrary to what was announced, the U.S. never actually stopped supplying weapons and intelligence to Ukraine?

As we all heard in the mainstream press, Marco Rubio informed journalists that the supply of weapons to Ukraine had resumed. This means that it was never actually suspended. The time between one act and the other, just two days, would make the materialization of the suspension impossible considering the necessary bureaucratic deadlines. Therefore, if the U.S. did not suspend the supply of weapons to Kiev’s forces, and, on the contrary, supposedly even resumed it, what signal does this send to the Russian Federation? A signal that they want to negotiate? That they are acting in good faith? That they are genuinely interested in pressuring Kiev to accept negotiations?

It does not seem so to me, and, on the contrary, the message that may be conveyed is the opposite, namely that the ceasefire will serve the Kiev regime to regroup, consolidate forces, and rearm. If this were not the case, what would be the purpose, in a phase of discussing a ceasefire proposal, of resuming a supply that was never, in fact, suspended? What message will this send to Russia? That the U.S. wants to stop the war, but does not want to stop the supply of weapons? At the very least, it is contradictory and seemingly pointless.

Therefore, given this reality, it is not at all credible that the Russian Federation will accept the proposal for an immediate ceasefire—let us note that Lavrov has already mentioned several times that the Kremlin will no longer be swayed by “naivety”—we must ask ourselves, considering all these factors, whether it is acceptable to assume that the American proposal is genuine and that the intentions of the White House are genuine. How can they, who have access to all the information, believe that the Russian Federation will accept, without further ado, a proposal of this type, without any guarantees being provided and while continuing to supply weapons to Kiev? As Ushakov, Putin’s advisor, said, the Kremlin is interested in a lasting peace, not an “interval.”

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“Zelensky’s regime prohibited the Russian language in schools, political opposition was outlawed, the Orthodox church was banned, and all Russian shows and programs from TV were removed. Russian websites were blocked from the internet.”

• Who Really Provoked the Ukraine War? Was It Russia? (Rehak)

Ukrainian “president” Vladimir Zelensky lied when he called Russia the aggressor. Since 2014 his military forces have been shelling their own civilians in the east of Ukraine, killing at least 14,000 people and arresting thousands more with the SBU, the Ukrainian secret police, a de facto Gestapo-like terror organization. Zelensky’s regime prohibited the Russian language in schools, political opposition was outlawed, the Orthodox church was banned, and all Russian shows and programs from TV were removed. Russian websites were blocked from the internet. Zelensky called Ukrainian Russians in the east a “species”, as if he were referring not to his fellow countrymen, but to animals. Yet he speaks and behaves as if none of this ever happened. He portrays himself as a victim and a hero and ungratefully expects more money ($350 billion sent already!), some of which he and his fellow cronies have been found to spend on luxury cars, large fancy villas, and skiing resorts in Europe. It’s an open secret!

Russia simply stepped up for Russian people in Ukraine after eight years of doing nothing in the face of this injustice. Clearly Russia didn’t start it. They didn’t want this war. Period. And fundamentally speaking, Zelensky’s presidential term ran out in May 2024. He blocked new elections, apparently because polling showed his approval rating at four percent, so he’s not even the legitimate president of Ukraine anymore – not even on paper as a puppet. Clearly he is in no position to negotiate anything now. There is so much more that Vice President Vance and President Trump could have said to Zelensky in that historic and heated exchange before the cameras in the Oval Office. It was he, Zelensky, who initialled and then reneged on the peace agreement after Russian forces withdrew from around Kiev and other parts. And Zelensky walked out on the peace deal early on in March and April 2022, not Putin.

Although it was Zelensky’s regime which from 2014 to 2022 was bombing the Donbas and killing the 14,000 Ukrainian Russians, Zelensky turns around and hypocritically blames Putin for everything that he, Zelensky, did. And Crimea? Crimea is Russian, historically speaking, and 75 percent of the population is ethnically Russian. Relatively few Ukrainians live there. It was always the southern jewel of Russia but was unlawfully ”gifted” to Ukraine in the 1950s by the Soviet dictator Khruschev, who was also leader of the Ukrainian Communist Party at the time.

Just after the US-led 2014 coup against Ukraine’s elected government, US and NATO forces were moving naval fleets into the Black Sea. Russia saw this as a provocation, a threat to its national security, and a hindrance or blockage of its own access to those waterways, so in response to this development, Crimea was annexed in 2014 by Russian forces. Democratic referendums were soon held in Crimea that same year and again in Luhansk and Donetsk in 2022, and the vast majority of residents overwhelmingly voted to re-join Russia. There was no presentation of credible evidence of voter fraud, yet the results were rejected and deemed illegitimate by the international community. But Russia felt justified that it had to react to hostile action in the Black Sea and near its land border.

The Russians had been promised many times that NATO would not expand eastward beyond Germany after the Russians completely withdrew from eastern Europe with the dissolution of the Soviet Empire and communism. But this promise to Russia was broken by EU countries and NATO expansion started and continued in the 1990s and beyond. Missile systems aimed at Russia were installed in Poland and Romania. All of this was quite unnecessary and very provocatively hostile action against Russia. These are the plain, unbiased facts. Could Putin have reacted differently? If the Chinese or Russian military was arming and using the Mexican military as a proxy to try to provoke the US into attacking it, what would the US government do? It would quickly react with overwhelming military force in Mexico, that’s indisputable. It would consider Mexico’s actions as a clear and present threat to US national security.

Read more …

“..reestablish direct communication..”

• Lavrov and Rubio Discuss ‘Next Steps’ In Restoring Russia-US Ties (RT)

US Secretary of State Marco Rubio held a phone call with Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov on Saturday, as Washington and Moscow work to restore bilateral relations and advance negotiations for a Ukraine ceasefire. According to a statement from the US State Department, Rubio and Lavrov discussed steps to reestablish direct communication between the two countries. “Secretary of State Marco Rubio spoke today with Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov. [They] discussed next steps to follow up on recent meetings in Saudi Arabia and agreed to continue working towards restoring communication between the United States and Russia,” the statement read.

The call follows high-level talks in Saudi Arabia on February 18, in which Washington and Moscow agreed to assign teams to work on resolving the Ukraine conflict, restore embassy operations, and address other points of contention in bilateral relations. Since then, additional discussions were held in Istanbul, focusing on diplomatic funding and a proposal from Moscow to reinstate direct flights between Russia and the US. In the phone call, Rubio also briefed Lavrov on US military strikes against Houthi militants in Yemen, stressing that continued Houthi attacks in the Red Sea “will not be tolerated.” US President Donald Trump announced on Truth Social on Saturday that the US had launched a military action against the group, citing its “unrelenting campaign of piracy, violence, and terrorism against American and other ships, aircraft, and drones.”

No further details were provided on the US-Russia call. Following talks with US officials on March 11 in Saudi Arabia, Kiev agreed to a 30-day ceasefire. Trump’s special envoy, Steve Witkoff, arrived in Moscow on Thursday to present Russian President Vladimir Putin with the details of the proposal. Putin has welcomed the ceasefire in principle, but insisted on addressing several issues before its implementation, including the fate of Ukrainian forces currently encircled in Russia’s Kursk Region. While the details of Witkoff’s meeting with Putin have not been made public, Trump hinted at progress, stating that the White House had received “some pretty good news” regarding the ceasefire efforts and that US-Russia meetings over the past several days have been “very productive.”

Read more …

PCR still likes to blame Putin. Who apparently should have razed Kiev when he could.

• The Prospects for an End to the Ukraine Conflict (Paul Craig Roberts)

The prospects are not good as it seems the negotiations have already failed. Putin was excluded from participation in the agreement that Trump is threatening to shove down Putin’s throat with threats. On March 13 Nima hosted on Dialogue Works a discussion between myself and Professor Geoffrey Roberts of the prospects for negotiations ending the conflict between Washington, NATO, and Ukraine on one side and Russia on the other. https://www.youtube.com/live/VSnRCWBuF20. Geoffrey is optimistic about the prospects, whereas I emphasized the realism of the situation. Whereas I sincerely hope Geoffrey’s optimism is justified, I introduced the many overlooked problems that might stand in the way. A major challenge to ending the conflict is the pretense that it is a conflict between Russia and Ukraine whereas in fact the conflict is Washington’s proxy war against Russia.

It is difficult to resolve a conflict when the reality of it is denied. Essentially, I think Trump blundered by not first working out the terms of settlement with Putin and then taking them to Zelensky who would have had no alternative but to accept them. I was also concerned that having coerced Zelensky into agreeing to a cease fire, Trump would get pushy with Putin, and Trump has. Another major concern is that the Americans do not understand that they have much more to gain from ending the conflict than Russia and Ukraine together. An important result of ending the conflict would be the removal of sanctions. Washington in its characteristic stupidity thinks the sanctions harm Russia, whereas the sanctions have severely impacted the European economies, denying them business deals and cheap energy, and could yet wreck the dollar as world reserve currency, which is the basis of American power.

By weaponizing the dollar with sanctions and by stealing Russia’s central bank reserves held in US Treasuries, Washington made central banks around the world aware that should their governments get on the wrong side of Washington in some way, they could lose their reserves. This realization led to growing interest in BRICS and an alternative means of settling international balances. BRICS is Putin’s response to the West’s hostility toward Russia. If central banks move away from dollar reserves, Washington’s ability to finance its budget and trade deficits diminishes. Russia has won the conflict, and the West and Ukraine have lost. It is not Russia that needs a cease fire. It is not clear that Trump understands this. Trump enjoys being the player on the domestic and world scene. It is possible that what I said was Trump’s blunder in working out a cease fire deal with Zelensky instead of with Putin was actually a calculated move to box Putin in.

Trump can say only Putin’s agreement is needed for peace and put Putin on the spot for dragging his feet in reaching agreement. French President Macron has joined Washington in taking this line. Putin must stop making “delaying statements,” commands Macron. “Russia must now accept the US-Ukrainian proposal for a 30-day ceasefire.” The British foreign secretary adds “a ceasefire with no conditions.” In other words, Putin must immediately accept a deal made by Trump and Zelensky. Putin got himself in this situation because of all his stupid talk about his commitment to negotiations. Putin should emphasize nothing but military victory, and he should have produced one long ago. Instead, Putin has set himself up for blame for blocking a negotiated peace. The only way he can avoid this is by not capitalizing on Russia’s military victory.

Putin wants to know the details of the cease fire, such as: How can the cease fire be prevented from being used as a recovery and rearmament opportunity for retreating Ukrainian forces? How can the cease fire be made permanent when Ukraine is full of neo-Nazi elements antagonistic to Russia? What are the guarantees and how are they enforced that keep Ukraine neutral and not another base for American missiles like Poland and Romania? It is unclear at this time whether Trump is sympathetic with these and other questions or whether he sees them as foot-dragging on Putin’s part. On the morning of March 13 prior to the exchange of views between Geoffrey and myself, the London Times headline read: “Back peace or I’ll ruin you, Trump tells Putin.”

Twenty-four hours before our discussion the London Daily Mail reported “breaking news”: “Trump threatens Putin with devastating punishment and sanctions if he does not accept the 30-day ceasefire deal agreed with Ukraine.” Of course, this could just be the Western whore media determined to ruin the settlement to Trump’s discomfort, but Trump himself actually said in response to a reporter’s question: “I can do things financially that would be devastating for Russia,” which sounds like a veiled threat. In another likely ill-fated statement, Trump’s Treasury Secretary said that the Trump administration, if necessary, will coerce Russia into a settlement with “the toughest sanctions.” Putin must wonder about the origin of the settlement into which he is going to be forced. Whose settlement? Trump and Zelensky’s?

Trump and his advisors don’t seem to understand that Washington and Ukraine have lost the war. Russia dominates the battlefield. It is Russia’s prerogative to dictate the terms of the West’s surrender. As Putin doesn’t know what the settlement is, he doesn’t know what, if anything, Russia is getting out of it. As it is not Russia that needs a settlement, why should Putin give up anything in order to get one? In place of acknowledging the reality of the situation, idiot questions such as this one are being asked: “What does Putin want and will Trump give it to him?” It seems that mindlessness in the West knows no limit. The appropriate question is, “What does Trump want, and will Putin give it to him?”

It seems clear to me that Putin’s idea of what constitutes a settlement is entirely different from Zelensky and Trump’s. Perhaps Trump will realize his blunder in making a cease fire deal with Zelensky before clearing it with Putin. If not, Trump faces the failure of his boast that he will immediately end the conflict, and he will move into the coercive mode to force an agreement and thereby further erode any Russian faith in negotiations. I think the danger remains of this ending in a bad way. I have always thought that Putin’s decision to have a war without really fighting a war would end badly. As I said it would, it led to increasing Western involvement in the war which widened the conflict. Putin and Lavrov’s sophomoric calls for negotiations have now led to the losing side taking control of the negotiations. Putin and Lavrov now find themselves boxed in by their own unwillingness to win a conflict that they let drag on for three years, longer than it took the Red Army to clear the Wehrmacht out of Russia and Eastern Europe and arrive in Berlin.

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They don’t want peace but war. And they plan on dragging Trump in too.

• UK Mulls Open-Ended Troop Deployment In Ukraine – Times (RT)

The UK plans to station thousands of troops in Ukraine “for years” as part of a Western peacekeeping force to oversee a future ceasefire between Moscow and Kiev, The Times reported on Sunday, citing sources. The proposal was reportedly outlined by UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer at a virtual meeting of the so-called ‘coalition of the willing’ on Saturday. Starmer first announced plans for the coalition alongside France earlier this month, aiming to rally nations willing to continue military support for Ukraine amid concerns over potential US aid cuts. At a press briefing following Saturday’s meeting, Starmer said dozens of partner nations back the idea of deploying a peacekeeping force, with UK Defense Secretary John Healey set to meet with military chiefs in London this week to discuss details, including troop numbers and deployment timelines.

According to The Times, the force could comprise up to 30,000 troops, with the UK and France supplying the majority. An unnamed senior official said the British deployment in particular would be open-ended. “It would be a long-term commitment, we are talking about years. As long as it takes to preserve a peace deal and deter Russia,” the official added. Starmer noted, however, that the troops would be sent only after Moscow and Kiev agree on a peace deal with the aim of monitoring and upholding it. Asked whether the peacekeeping force would have the authority to engage Russian forces, Starmer declined to answer, saying this and other matters would be discussed in the coming days.

Russia has categorically rejected any Western military presence in Ukraine. Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said last month that the idea is “completely unacceptable to Russia” due to security risks. Former Russian President Dmitry Medvedev, the current deputy chair of Russia’s Security Council, warned on Sunday that the deployment of NATO forces, even under a peacekeeping mandate, would trigger direct war between Moscow and the military bloc. Starmer’s coalition talks come amid US-Russian efforts to secure a ceasefire in Ukraine. US President Donald Trump has said he expects to discuss the prospects of a peace agreement in the Ukraine conflict with his Russian counterpart, Vladimir Putin, on Tuesday.

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No NATO. Out of the question.

• NATO ‘Peacekeepers’ In Ukraine Mean War – Medvedev (RT)

The deployment of “peacekeepers” from NATO member states to Ukraine would trigger an all-out war between the military bloc and Moscow, former Russian President Dmitry Medvedev has warned. In recent weeks, the leaders of the UK and France have ramped up discussions about such a mission. In a post on X on Sunday, Medvedev, who currently serves as the deputy chair of Russia’s Security Council, stated that French President Emmanuel Macron and British Prime Minister Keir Starmer “are playing dumb.” “Time and again they are told that peacekeepers must be from non-NATO states. No, we will send tens of thousands – just lay it out – you want to give military aid to the neo-Nazis in Kiev,” Medvedev charged. “That means war with NATO. Consult with [US President Donald] Trump, scumbags,” he concluded.

Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov previously similarly argued that the deployment of NATO military personnel to Ukraine, even under the guise of peacekeepers, would be tantamount to the “direct, official, undisguised involvement of NATO countries in the war against Russia.” Earlier this month, Starmer announced that Britain and France were ready to lead a “coalition of the willing” to provide military support to Kiev, including the deployment of troops and aircraft. Speaking following an emergency summit in London, he said that “not every nation will feel able to contribute, but that can’t mean that we sit back. Instead, those willing will intensify planning now with real urgency.”

“The UK is prepared to back this with boots on the ground and planes in the air, together with others,” Starmer further clarified. Macron said Western troops would arrive in Ukraine only if and when the situation on the ground was safe for them. Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni, who attended the meeting along with several other leaders, stressed that “the presence of Italian troops in Ukraine has never been on the agenda.” In contrast, former Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau indicated that Ottawa was considering all possible options and was not ruling out sending troops to Ukraine.

Reiterating his readiness to deploy British military personnel to the conflict zone, Starmer told Parliament earlier this month that this effort would be contingent on securing US backing.On Monday, Danish Foreign Minister Lars Lokke Rasmussen told DR radio that “if it comes to the point where a European presence is needed for a ceasefire or peace agreement to be reached, then Denmark is in principle prepared for that.” Commenting on the prospect of NATO troops arriving in Ukraine, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov stated last month that such a development would be “completely unacceptable to us,” citing the ramifications it would have for Russia’s national security.

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Still nobody takes the Houthis serious.

• What’s Really Behind Trump’s Surprise Bombardment of Yemen (Sp.)

President Trump announced “decisive and powerful military action” against the Yemeni militia Saturday, demanding they halt attacks on shipping and warships in the Red Sea or face “hell” “like nothing [they] have ever seen before!” Sputnik reached out to a veteran observer of Middle East politics to find out what’s actually behind the US aggression. “Trump’s decision” to launch airstrikes on Yemen revolves around Washington’s desire “to protect and help extend Israeli domination over the larger region,” Isa Blumi, an associate professor of Middle East studies at Stockholm University, told Sputnik. The strikes have less to do with the Houthis than they do with trying to ensure the survival of the State of Israel, and Israeli and US projects to expel the Palestinians from Gaza, turn the strip into a glitzy Las Vegas-style resort, and exploit its offshore gas resources, the academic said.

“This is not possible if Ansar Allah is able to undermine Israel’s economy,” Blumi stressed, pointing to the colossal impact the militia’s partial blockade of the Red Sea in support of Gaza has had on Israeli shipping income, including the bankruptcy of the port of Eilat. This, not Trump’s claims about “freedom of navigation” in the region, accounts for the surprise US attacks, the observer said. Going forward, the professor fears that if the Yemeni crisis turns into a prolonged, regional crisis, Houthi missile power could be directed at neighboring countries providing direct or indirect support for the US, Britain and Israel. This would fundamentally “change the dynamics of the Middle East” and its resource-based economic well-being, Blumi said. US warplanes attacked the Yemeni capital of Sanaa, as well as Saada, Dhamar, Al-Bayda, Radaa, Hajjah, and Marib.

Yemeni Health Ministry spokesperson Anis Al-Asbahi said 31 people were killed and over 100 injured in the attacks, mostly women and children. CENTCOM said its “precision strikes” were carried out “to defend American interests, deter enemies and restore freedom of navigation.” The strikes were launched by F/A-18 jets from the USS Truman supercarrier in the Red Sea, and aided by P8 Poseidon, RC-135V and MQ-4C Triton jets and drones flying out of US bases in the Gulf. A British KC2 Voyager out of Cyprus also took part, per Yemeni media reports. US Secretary of State Marco Rubio spoke to Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov, touching on Yemen. Lavrov called for an “immediate” halt to the use of force, and stressed the need for dialog “to find a solution that would prevent further bloodshed.”

The Houthis’ political bureau warned the militia was “prepared to confront escalation with escalation.”Militia spokesman Yahya Saree announced Sunday that the Houthis had targeted the USS Harry Truman supercarrier and its escorts in the northern Red Sea with 18 ballistic and cruise missiles and a drone. Saree warned that Ansar Allah “will not hesitate to target all American warships in the Red Sea and in the Arabian Sea in retaliation to the aggression against our country.” CENTCOM has yet to comment on the Houthi operation, and whether the Truman or its escorts were threatened or damaged in any way. US and UK commercial vessels and warships have been added back on to the Houthis’ list of legitimate targets. Houthi Brig. Gen. Abdullah bin Amer recalled that ten years ago, a Gulf coalition sought to oust Ansar Allah in “two weeks,” but “months and years passed…and Yemen has not been subdued.”

The same fate will meet today’s aggressors, who were “disappointed before,” and “will definitely be disappointed again,” Amer said. Houthi political bureau member Hussein al-Azzi sent Trump a letter Sunday following the strikes, telling him he has “very stupid advisors,” and warning that the US president could “dream of breaking the will of the Yemeni people” when he becomes “able to uproot” the Brooks Mountain Range with his teeth.” Preparations for Saturday’s strikes began after Trump put the Houthis back onto the US’s “terror” listing, and accelerated after they downed another US Reaper drone March 4, per sources cited by Axios. The strikes come days after the Houthis’ announcement that they would resume attacks on Israeli vessels in the Red and Arabian Seas, citing Israel’s refusal to allow humanitarian aid into Gaza.

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“..AOC can afford to treat governance like some academic exercise because she’s safely ensconced in the bubble that is her deep-blue district. Fetterman has to deal with the reality that he represents a battleground state..”

• Democrat Civil War Watch: AOC and John Fetterman Duke It Out (Margolis)

The radical left’s grip on the Democratic Party is finally starting to crack, and it’s about time. The latest evidence? Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’s public tantrum over Chuck Schumer’s sensible decision to advance the House GOP’s continuing resolution. In a stunning display of performative outrage, AOC blasted Senate Democrats for what she dramatically called a “betrayal” of their House colleagues. The socialist superstar from New York couldn’t contain her fury, particularly at the thought of Democrats gasp working with Elon Musk. “I think there is a deep sense of outrage and betrayal. And this is not just about progressive Democrats. This is across the board, the entire party. There are members of Congress who have won,” the former bartender said.

“Trump held districts in some of the most difficult territory in the United States, who walked the plank and took. Took innumerable risks in order to defend the American people, in order to defend Social Security, Medicaid, and Medicare. Just to see Senate Democrats even consider acquiescing to Elon Musk, I think it is a huge slap in the face.” Ocasia-Cortez continued, “And I think that there is a wide sense of betrayal if things proceed as currently planned. How will House Democrats and Senate Democrats work together now? If there is such a sense of betrayal, I think that creates a real challenge. And that, in and of itself, I think, is part of what makes the leadership of this moment so crucial.” But here’s where it gets interesting. Sen. John Fetterman (D-Pa.) delivered a serious smackdown on AOC. “I hope you can relay how little I care about her views on this,” Fetterman told The Hill.

Fetterman didn’t stop there. He challenged AOC to explain her exit strategy in case of a shutdown, pointedly noting that while she’d keep collecting her cushy congressional paycheck, millions of Americans would suffer. “What about all the millions of Americans who are going to have their lives damaged?” Fetterman asked, exposing the hollow nature of AOC’s supposed concern for working Americans. This isn’t just another day of Democrat infighting—it’s a symptom of a deeper crisis within their party. While AOC and her squad of socialists perform their social media activism, more Americans are abandoning the Democratic Party in favor of Republican values. This isn’t conjecture. Polls show that the Democratic Party’s approval ratings are in the toilet, and Trump’s agenda is actually quite popular.

The left’s obsession with opposing Trump has morphed into their only coherent policy position, and voters are noticing. The truth is, AOC can afford to treat governance like some academic exercise because she’s safely ensconced in the bubble that is her deep-blue district. Fetterman has to deal with the reality that he represents a battleground state that is trending red and, despite being a leftist, has to at least pretend to be a moderate sometimes. While many of us see through that, it’s at least nice to see that some Democrats recognize that they can’t pander to the radical left 100% of the time like AOC does. The question is, will this tear the Democratic Party apart?

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It’ll be a long and winding path.

• The Democrats’ Path Out of the Wilderness (RCW)

Even in their darkest nights, politicians trust that their steady savior will once more ride to their rescue – their fiercest opponents. That’s why Democrats, as lost and bereft as they may be, are not engaging in soul-searching following their crushing defeat in November but instead banking on Donald Trump’s missteps to reverse their fortunes. We’re just one more trade war from relevance. Hoping the other guy fails may be a time-honored strategy embraced by both parties, but it is no way to govern. That helps explain our country’s fiscal mess. The reasons Democrats lost to a man they cast as an unhinged threat to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness are legion. President Biden was old and weak in a world that demands strength – especially the power to stand up to radical elements of his party that pushed unpopular policies.

But the knottier problem Democrats must address – and which Republicans should now be wary of as they hold the reins of power – is the towering belief in their own goodness, which robbed them of their moral compass, leading to corruption and deceit. In fairness, this is not a partisan kink but a human foible. Most every person and institution makes themselves the hero of their own story. We instinctively explain away, justify, and forgive even our most abject shortcomings. We seek to elevate ourselves by exposing the speck in our brother’s eye so we can ignore the log in our own. Even as we abhor this all-too-human behavior in others, it is a near universal survival strategy that allows us to feel good about our fallible selves. Democrats, however, turned this mindset into a giant chalice of Kool-Aid when Trump emerged on the scene in 2015.

As they described their opponent in apocalyptic terms, they truly came to see themselves as the embodiment of all that was right and good – the sole champions of truth and justice, democracy and the rule of law, women and children and non-GMO apple pie. Once you know you are on the right side of history, anything is permitted because the ends always seem to justify the means. This belief drove the Democrats’ staggering deceit. Saddled with a senescent but compliant president, these self-proclaimed defenders of the Constitution lied about Biden’s decline while advancing a vigorous program of change. The identities of those who were actually running the government during the last four years is one of the great mysteries of our time – a high-stakes whodunit that only deepened with the revelation that it was not Biden himself but a mechanical marker that signed many of the presidential orders that aimed to transform America.

Autopen-gate raises the troubling question: Did Biden even know what he wasn’t signing? Perhaps CNN’s Jake Tapper will reveal all in his forthcoming book, “Original Sin: President Biden’s Decline, It’s Cover-Up and His Disastrous Choice to Run Again.” But that seems unlikely given how complicit he and his legacy media colleagues were in dismissing the president’s obvious decline. If they had their way, Biden would be embarking now on his second term. It seems much more likely that Tapper et al. will embrace the narrative offered by the New York Times in its stab at damage control – that a tight-knit group of Biden’s “family and inner circle” engineered a massive cover-up. This is quite a stretch. An overwhelming majority of Americans – a majority of rank-and-file Democratic voters – doubted that Biden was all there. His failings weren’t covered up; they were brazenly denied.

The turn of mind that justified this deception is also why Democrats and their media allies continued to insist against all evidence that Trump had defended the neo-Nazis who marched at Charlottesville and had instructed Americans to inject bleach to thwart COVID. History, of course, is littered with such people, who convince themselves that lies are tools of the truth. This belief led progressives to embrace Orwellian actions that directly contradicted their self-proclaimed values – weaponizing the justice system to defend the rule of law and seeking to censor free speech in the name of open and honest debate. Even as they cast Trump as a kleptocrat who saw high office as a tool for personal enrichment, they dismissed and downplayed the Biden family’s extensive corruption.

In the final days of the 2020 election, future Secretary of State Antony Blinken corralled 51 former intelligence officials to sign a letter falsely suggesting that Hunter Biden’s notorious laptop – filled with emails and other documents showing how he sold access to his father’s foreign entities – was, as Joe Biden put it, “a Russian plan.” After these pay-for-play schemes dried up, Hunter turned his hand to art. It all seemed fishy, as the first son commanded high prices, which were mostly paid by Democrat donors and a Biden appointee. The legacy media had no interest in probing whether this was yet another scheme to funnel money to the sitting president’s family – evidence of such malfeasance would do nothing but hurt the cause. Hunter appears to have answered in a court filing earlier this month, reporting that “In the 2 to 3 years prior to December 2023, I sold 27 pieces for art at an average price of $54,481.48, but since then I have only sold 1 piece of art for $36,000.”

We are now learning that this hallowed corruption extended to policies concerning the poster child for progressive virtue, climate change. As James Varney reported for RealClearInvestigations, much of the $27 billion Greenhouse Gas Reduction Fund created in 2022 as part of the Inflation Reduction Act has been awarded to groups with minor track records but major ties to the Democrat party. Citing just one of the many examples. Varney unearthed a group called Power Forward Communities that was awarded $2 billion just one month after gaining nonprofit status from the IRS. Its CEO, Tim Mayopoulos, led Fannie Mae during the Obama administration. The fund engaged in so many other questionable practices that EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin moved this week to terminate the program.

The Biden administration did not invent hypocrisy, cronyism, and greed. But its corruption and deceit stand out because of the Democrats’ decision to cast themselves as the guardians of morality in an epic political battle between good and evil. This out-of-touch self-regard drove them to ignore ethical guardrails and advance deeply unpopular policies. If we are god, then everything is permitted. Now that it can wield the cudgels of power, the Trump administration should learn from its opponents’ hubris. As it seeks to expose and punish the excesses of the last administration, it should remember Nietzsche’s timeless warning, “Whoever fights monsters should see to it that in the process he does not become a monster.” Otherwise, they will end up rescuing their foes.

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“Tariffs are taxes, they are bad,” EU Commission President Ursula von der Leyen said..”

• Trump Worse Than Covid – Deputy ECB Chief (RT)

Washington under President Donald Trump has created more “uncertainty” than the Covid-19 pandemic, Luis de Guindos, the vice president of the European Central Bank (ECB), has claimed. The official made the remarks in an interview with The Sunday Times during which he bemoaned Trump’s use of tariffs, as well as plans to reform corporate taxes and deregulate the financial system. The actions of the new US administration have been causing short-term volatility in markets while making inflation expectations and interest rates hard to predict, he said. “We need to consider the uncertainty of the current environment, which is even higher than it was during the pandemic,” the ECB vice president said.

“What we’re seeing is that the new US administration isn’t very open to continuing with multilateralism, which is about cooperation across jurisdictions and finding common solutions for common problems. This is a very important change, and a big source of uncertainty,” he added. Concerns over what Trump might do next have also damaged consumer confidence, de Guindos believes, noting that the long-awaited increase in business investment and household consumption has not arrived. He blamed the decline in Eurozone growth projections on the actions of the new US administration.

“Real wages have increased, inflation is declining, interest rates are coming down and financing conditions are better. But still, the reality is that consumption is not picking up,” he said. “This is because consumers don’t always react to developments in their short-term real disposable income. They also consider what might happen with the economy over the medium term, which is clouded in uncertainty. The possibility of a trade war or wider geopolitical conflict has an impact on consumer confidence,” the official added, describing trade wars as a “lose-lose situation for everybody.”

Trump’s 25% tariff hike on steel and aluminum supplies from the EU took effect last week after previous exemptions and exclusions expired. Brussels has already vowed to retaliate, promising what it called “swift and proportionate” countermeasures. The European Commission has condemned Trump’s disruptive and “unjustified” tariffs, pledging to impose counter-tariffs on €26 billion (over $28 billion) worth of US goods starting in April. “Tariffs are taxes, they are bad,” EU Commission President Ursula von der Leyen said when announcing the retaliatory measures.

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500 years ago: the printing press. Today; the internet. I get it. But what does it have to do with Obama?

• How Barack Obama Built An Omnipotent Thought-Control Machine (Samuels)

If anyone in the future cares enough to write an authentic history of the 2024 presidential campaign, they might begin by noting that American politics exists downstream of American culture, which is a deep and broad river. Like any river, American culture follows a particular path, which has been reconfigured at key moments by new technologies. In turn, these technologies, which redefine both space and time—canals and lakes, the postal system, the telegraph, railroads, radio and later television, the internet, and most recently the networking of billions of people in real time on social media platforms—set the rules by which stories are communicated, audiences are configured, and individuals define themselves.

Something big changed sometime after the year 2000 in the way we communicated with each other, and the means by which we absorbed new information and formed a working picture of the world around us. What changed can be understood as the effect of the ongoing transition from the world of 20th-century media to our current digital landscape. This once-every-five-centuries revolution would have large effects, ones we have only just begun to assimilate, and which have largely rendered the assumptions and accompanying social forms of the past century obsolete, even as tens of millions of people, including many who imagine themselves to reside near the top of the country’s social and intellectual pyramids, continue to imagine themselves to be living in one version or another of the long 20th century that began with the advent of a different set of mass communications technologies, which included the telegraph, radio, and film.

It took three powerful men, each of whom had the advantage of operating entirely in public, and with massive and obvious real-world consequences, to rupture the apparatus of false consciousness that Obama built. In doing so, they saved the world—for the moment, at least. While history will judge whether their achievements were lasting, it is clear that if they hadn’t acted as they did, we would still be living inside the machine.

The first of these men was Elon Musk, who is notable for having purchased Twitter in 2022, after Joe Biden had been safely installed in the White House, and the social media site appeared perhaps to be reaching the end of its usefulness, for what was presented at the time and since as the wildly overblown price of $44 billion. Twitter was hardly identical with the permission structure machine that Barack Obama, David Axelrod, David Plouffe, Dan Pfeiffer, Ben Rhodes, and the rest of Obama’s operatives constructed in their takeover of the Democratic Party. The machine they built was much, much bigger than any social media platform. However, due to its first mover advantage, and the role it played within the sociology of journalism and other alloyed professions, Twitter was positioned to play an obvious and key role in the work of social signaling and coordination by which the party’s permission structure machine functioned.

Twitter’s significance, as part of the party’s permission structure machinery, was key in part because, as the history of platforms and companies like Facebook, Google, Uber, Instagram. and TikTok shows, advantages of scale tend naturally toward localized monopolies. Twitter could play the signaling and coordinating function that it did in part because it was a monopoly, which is why Obama, Axelrod, Plouffe, etc. all had Twitter accounts. It’s why the FBI came on board Twitter, to ensure that the tilt of the platform was coordinated with the FBI’s role in the party’s “whole of society” censorship efforts—whether directed against “disinformation,” or COVID measures, or “white supremacy,” or Donald Trump, or “insurrectionists.” So why sell a key module in the permission structure machine to Elon Musk?

Part of the reason appears to be price. The $44 billion that Musk eventually paid appears to be at least twice what any other plausible team of bidders offered. It is certainly possible that having decided to sell Twitter, the company’s board was stuck—both practically and legally—when Musk decided that price was not an object, and that he was willing to massively outspend any other possible bidder. Twitter’s board, and whoever they consulted within the ODP vertical, may have imagined that Musk would find an excuse to pull out of the deal—which he appeared at several points to be doing, though his reluctance may well have been a negotiating tactic.

It is certainly plausible that someone in Obama’s universe saw the danger in selling Twitter to Musk. That it happened anyway suggests—as in the case of the lawfare campaign against Trump—that they hubristically believed in their own propagandistic accounts of their adversary as venal, corrupt, and weak, and of their own practical and moral superiority. Unable to think outside their own box, they may have reasonably expected that Musk could be constrained by the need to keep his advertisers by retaining the existing tilt of the platform’s algorithms for as long as the platform itself continued to matter. To keep Musk in line, the party could cut the platform’s advertising revenues by half or more at will by having its adjuncts in the censorship business label it a sinkhole of racism and depravity, and getting it banned from Europe and other global markets. As the reputational cost spread, Musk would have no choice but to eat a loss of tens of billions of dollars and sell, or else face the destruction of his other businesses—which the party could speed up by canceling contracts with NASA and other government agencies and opening multiple SEC and Justice Department investigations that would further augment his reputational risk—until he agreed to kiss the ring.

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“Zuchongzhi-3’s computational speed outpaced that of the world’s most powerful supercomputer by 15 orders of magnitude (a quadrillion times faster)..”

• China Unveils Quantum Processor ‘A Million Times Faster’ Than US Rival (RT)

Chinese scientists have unveiled a new superconducting quantum computing prototype they say operates a million times faster than Google’s top quantum processors. The Chinese chip is also a quadrillion times more efficient than any conventionally built supercomputer, according to a statement issued by its creators. Dubbed Zuchongzhi-3, the chip was developed by the University of Science and Technology of China (USTC) in cooperation with half a dozen of the nation’s scientific institutions. The USTC published the results of its research and the chip’s performance analysis in an article for the Physical Review Letters earlier this month.According to the university’s statement, the testing showed that the new Chinese processor is a million times faster than Google’s Sycamore processor.

The US tech giant presented its quantum computer back in October 2024, boasting that it could surpass the fastest conventional supercomputers in performing computationally complex calculations. “We are focused on developing practical applications for quantum computers that cannot be done on a classical computer,” Google Quantum AI representatives said at the time. The USTC said in its statement that Zuchongzhi-3’s computational speed outpaced that of the world’s most powerful supercomputer by 15 orders of magnitude (a quadrillion times faster).It is unclear how the newly unveiled chip compares to another Google product – the Willow quantum processor unveiled in December. The two have roughly similar processing capacities, although the Willow is reportedly slightly better than its Chinese rival when it comes to coherence time, a key parameter enabling more complex computations, according to Live Science. The US tech giant has not commented on the USTC statement.

Chinese companies have substantially boosted investments in AI and quantum computing after President Xi Jinping urged the nation to accelerate fundamental scientific research. Beijing is aiming to increase self-reliance in crucial areas, including chip-making, space exploration, and military sciences. Bloomberg reported in October 2023 that Chinese companies and institutions applied for 29,853 AI-related patents in 2022, compared to 29,000 in the previous year. The figure is nearly 80% more than US filings.

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Stranded

 

 

50,000,000,000,000

 

 

Safe
https://twitter.com/buitengebieden/status/1901178073682260365

 

 

Puppyduck
https://twitter.com/buitengebieden/status/1901025355294454230

 

 

1 egg

 

 

2001

 

 

 

 

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

 

 

 

 

 

Debt Rattle February 15 2025

Feb 152025
 
 February 15, 2025  Posted by at 10:55 am Finance Tagged with: , , , , , , , , ,  49 Responses »


Rembrandt van Rijn Saint Paul in prison 1627

 

• JD Vance Gobsmacks NATO (Larry Johnson)
• Vance Slams EU Leaders For ‘Running In Fear’ Of Their Own Voters (RT)
• Scholz Calls For State Of Emergency In Germany (RT)
• Trump Ejects From Ukraine Joyride With EU Screaming In The Backseat (Marsden)
• How The US Made Western Europe Its Puppet (Bordachev)
• Zelensky Comments On Putin-Trump Call (RT)
• Only Zelensky Can Negotiate With Putin, Must Avoid ‘Capitulation’: Macron (ZH)
• Zelensky Demands 1.5 Million-Strong Army (RT)
• Retired Russian Colonel Claims Trump ‘Has Dirt’ On Zelensky (RMX)
• Moscow Responds To Chernobyl Strike Accusation (RT)
• Darkness Dying (Kunstler)
• 14 States Sue To Block DOGE From Uncovering Gov’t Abuses, Slashing Waste (ZH)
• Is DOGE Going to Kill the F-35? (Green)
• Treasury IG Launches Audit Of “Fraudulent Payments” Found By DOGE (ZH)
• Tom Homan Refers AOC to DOJ for Investigation (PJM)
• US Embassies Told To Reduce Staff (RT)
• Latest Claims of a Constitutional Crisis Won’t Lead to Happier Days (Turley)

 

 

 

 

IRS
https://twitter.com/i/status/1890131415683276875

JD

EU

Maddow
https://twitter.com/i/status/1890450334138384470

Blago

Greece

 

 

 

 

Attention shifts big time to Europe today. Partly because of JD Vance’s speech, partly because of the Munich Security Conference as a whole. Europe’s self destruction is here for everyone to see.

• JD Vance Gobsmacks NATO (Larry Johnson)

If Pete Hegseth’s Wednesday gut punch was not enough to rile up the European grifters, JD Vance jumped into the ring and did a body slam in a speech today at the opening of the Munich Security Conference. It lasted approximately 20 minutes and was met with mostly stony silence. The Eurocrats were not a happy lot. Vance made the following key points:
1) Internal Threats: Vance argued that the primary threat to Europe comes “from within,” not from external actors like Russia or China.
2) Free Speech: He accused European governments of censoring free speech and retreating from fundamental democratic values.
3) Immigration: Vance described immigration as the most “urgent” challenge facing European nations.
4) European Defense: He briefly mentioned that Europe must significantly enhance its own defense capabilities.
5) Ukraine Conflict: Vance touched on the Ukraine war, expressing hope for a “reasonable settlement” following President Trump’s announcement about initiating peace talks with Russia’s Vladimir Putin.

Vance made a point of chiding European hypocrisy on the issue of free speech: “Unfortunately, when I look at Europe today, it’s sometimes not so clear what happened to some of the Cold War’s winners,” he added, before rattling off a list of examples aimed at illustrating his point: European Union officials’ threats to shut down social media “the moment they spot what they’ve judged to be ‘hateful’ content,” Germany’s raids on people posting misogynistic speech online, Sweden’s jailing of an activist who burned the Quran in public, and “safe access zones” around abortion clinics established in the United Kingdom. For Europeans and others watching, Vance had a MAGA message: “In Washington, there is a new sheriff in town, and under [U.S. President] Donald Trump’s leadership, we may disagree with your views, but we will fight to defend your right to offer it in the public square,” he said, to scattered and hesitant applause—one of the few times he got any.”

Vance was especially tough on the Europeans for meddling in Romania’s election, which left the crowd steaming: “Several times in his speech, Vance singled out Romania, which late last year annulled its elections due to alleged Russian interference uncovered by Romania’s security services and is scheduled to hold them again. “You can believe it’s wrong for Russia to buy social media advertisements to influence your elections—we certainly do—you can condemn it on the world stage, even. But if your democracy can be destroyed with a few hundred thousand dollars of digital advertising from a foreign country, then it wasn’t very strong to begin with,” he said.” I think this was the first time in the history of NATO that the assembled poohbahs heard a speech like this. The reaction was comical, at least from my perspective as an American. Germany’s Defense Minister, Boris Pistorius, did a good imitation of Claude Rains, who played the police inspector in Casablanca.

Pistorius fumed: “This democracy was just called into question by the U.S. Vice President, not just the German democracy but that of Europe as a whole’, Defense Minister Boris Pistorius said at the Munich Security Conference on Friday. ‘If I understand him correctly, he compares the condition of Europe with what prevails in some authoritarian regimes … this is not acceptable’, he added.” What is unacceptable Boris, is that you clowns pretend to be all about democracy while restricting speech and attacking political opponents. The Germans and the Brits have been especially egregious in punishing those with opposing political views. When it comes to being an authoritarian… if the shoe fits, wear it. Kudos to JD Vance for calling them out. Remember Joe Biden’s claims about NATO unity? Well, I guess they are united in their dislike of JD Vance and Donald Trump. Good luck in keeping this party going. The Europeans are miffed that they are not being included in the effort to negotiate with Putin.

Maria Zakharova, the elegant spokeswoman for the Russian Foreign Ministry, provided a scathing explanation of why Russia does not consider the Europeans as valid interlocutors: “The Italian Foreign Minister, reacting to the phone call between Russian President Vladimir Putin and U.S. President Donald Trump, expressed the opinion that Europe should not play a “secondary role” in negotiations on Ukraine. There is no emoji to convey the full range of emotions, so I’ll have to use words. Let me remind you that it was precisely the leaders of EU countries—German Chancellor Angela Merkel and French President François Hollande—who not long ago openly admitted that they never actually intended to implement the Minsk agreements, despite previously assuring the world otherwise. Their official position now is that the Minsk agreements were merely an attempt to rearm Kyiv and “buy it time.”

In other words, they pretended to be working in good faith on the Ukrainian issue while actually engaging in a harmful charade. The problem is not just that they lied—everyone is used to that by now. The real issue is that they betrayed Europe’s interests, and this betrayal is one of the causes of the current tragedy. The Minsk agreements became part of international law through their approval by the UN Security Council. This means they were legally binding. Both Hollande and Merkel, as well as Italy’s leadership, knew this perfectly well then and understand it today. By violating international law—something they now openly admit—EU leaders became key accomplices in the catastrophe that unfolded in Ukraine. As a direct result of their actions, Europe now faces an armed conflict on its own continent.

Had the Minsk agreements been implemented, Ukraine would have been saved, and at the same time, the current dire situation of EU citizens—whose well-being has significantly declined due to their leaders’ misguided, and at times outright criminal, decisions—would have been alleviated. Looking even deeper, this was not only a personal betrayal by these leaders but also a reflection of the complete loss of independence in conducting a “sovereign” foreign policy. The European Union, as an integration bloc, and nearly all of its member states have become an extension of NATO, obediently following Washington’s directives. In this regard, the situation surrounding the sabotage and “investigations” of the Nord Streams is more than revealing.

Further confirming this is the vague comment from NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte about whether Putin’s phone call with Trump constitutes a “betrayal of Ukraine” by the West or not. Both the question and the answer are meaningless. Let me repeat: The West betrayed Ukraine when it obstructed its democratic transition and independence, interfered in its internal affairs, pitted Ukrainians against Russians, incited Slavs against Slavs, then initiated an unconstitutional coup, lied about implementing the Minsk agreements, and ultimately provoked a bloodbath in the region.“

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“..if American democracy can survive 10 years of Greta Thunberg’s scolding, you guys can survive a few months of Elon Musk.”

• Vance Slams EU Leaders For ‘Running In Fear’ Of Their Own Voters (RT)

US Vice President J.D. Vance has criticized European leaders for fearing their own voters and failing to uphold democratic values, citing the recent annulment of Romania’s presidential election. Addressing the Munich Security Conference on Friday, he said that Europe’s greatest threat comes from within, condemning what he called the suppression of free speech. Vance cited the cancelled Romanian presidential elections, saying that they were annulled “on the flimsy suspicions of an intelligence agency and enormous pressure from its continental neighbors.” He questioned the notion that democracy could be undermined with digital advertising from a foreign country, saying that if you believe that, then your democracy “was not very strong to begin with.”

He further urged European Union leaders to “embrace what your people tell you,” even when it is “surprising” and they do not agree. “If you’re running in fear of your own voters, there is nothing America can do for you, nor, for that matter, is there anything that you can do for the American people who elected me and elected President Trump,” Vance stated. According to the US vice president, the “cavalier” statements from Brussels officials “sounding delighted” about the cancelled presidential elections in Romania or expansive content moderation powers or other free speech restrictions in the US, Germany and Sweden were “shocking to American ears.” Vance also dismissed any criticism of Elon Musk’s alleged interference in European elections, stating “if American democracy can survive 10 years of Greta Thunberg’s scolding, you guys can survive a few months of Elon Musk.”

Musk, a close ally of US President Donald Trump, sparked controversy in Germany by endorsing the AfD party in this month’s federal election, claiming that “the entire fate of Europe” depends on its outcome. In response, the German government accused the billionaire of election interference, with Chancellor Olaf Scholz asserting that freedom of speech does not extend to promoting “extreme-right positions.” Vance’s criticism comes as Romania is facing political turmoil following its Constitutional Court’s decision in December to annul the presidential election following the shock November win of independent candidate Calin Georgescu.

The court has cited intelligence documents alleging ‘irregularities’ in Georgescu’s campaign performance. The 62-year-old, who promoted his bid for office largely via TikTok, also faced allegations that he was being funded by foreign actors, presumably Russia. None of the claims, however, were backed by any solid evidence, while the preliminary findings of an investigation into the election scandal found the culprit behind the campaign “irregularities” was the pro-Western National Liberal Party (PNL). Moscow has dismissed the accusations as “absolutely groundless.”

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“..the government cannot take on debts worth more than 0.35% of the country’s annual GDP..”

• Scholz Calls For State Of Emergency In Germany (RT)

German Chancellor Olaf Scholz has called on the country’s parliament to declare a state of emergency over the Ukraine conflict. The head of government said he wants the constitutional ‘debt brake’ mechanism relaxed in order to ensure continued support for Kiev. Enshrined in the German constitution, the limit dictates that the government cannot take on debts worth more than 0.35% of the country’s annual GDP. Temporary exceptions are allowed “in the event of natural disasters or exceptional emergency situations that are beyond the control of the state,” as long as the Bundestag supports the move. This, for instance, was done during the Covid-19 pandemic.

Speaking during a press conference on Thursday, Scholz said that the “Bundestag should adopt a resolution as soon as possible, whereby the war in Ukraine and its grave consequences for Germany’s and Europe’s security are classified as an emergency situation.” He explained that this would ensure that aid for Ukraine, “which is more important today than ever, no longer comes at the expense of the other duties that our state has to fulfil towards its own citizens.” The chancellor added that US President Donald Trump is right to demand that European NATO member states shell out more for their defense, stressing that military-related spending “must grow considerably more.” Scholz dismissed the idea that the necessary funds could be obtained from the existing budget.

Speaking on the debt brake, the chancellor suggested permanently exempting defense spending from the limit. Scholz welcomed President Trump’s phone call with his Russian counterpart, Vladimir Putin on Wednesday, stressing at the same time that the principle “nothing about Ukraine without Ukraine and nothing about Europe without Europe” should be respected. According to the Kiel Institute for the World Economy, between January 2022 and October 2024, Germany provided Ukraine with €11 billion ($11.5 billion) worth of assistance, emerging as its second-largest backer after the US. Meanwhile, amid the decoupling from relatively inexpensive Russian energy and several other factors, the German economy contracted for a second straight year in 2024 for the first time in more than two decades, according to a report released last month by the country’s federal statistics office Destatis.

Among the sectors bearing the brunt of the downturn is the country’s automotive industry. Commenting on Scholz’s remark, former Russian President Dmitry Medvedev suggested that by highlighting his staunchly pro-Ukrainian stance, the German chancellor had struck a pose in stark contrast to US President Donald Trump’s position. Medvedev, who currently serves as the deputy chairman of Russia’s Security Council, opined that the German chancellor is hoping to thus score political points at home ahead of the February 23 snap general election, with his party projected to lose to its Christian Democratic Union rivals.

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“The agreement is actually being made right in front of your face and ours, for once..”

• Trump Ejects From Ukraine Joyride With EU Screaming In The Backseat (Marsden)

The European Union was never in the driver’s seat on the Ukraine conflict. And now that same toddler sitting in the back with the plastic Fisher-Price steering wheel is throwing the kind of full-blown crimson-faced meltdown that makes adults chuckle. How many times was the EU told, including by its own citizens with sledgehammer subtlety at the ballot box, to stop kissing Uncle Sam’s butt and start covering its own? Instead, its leaders cribbed America’s talking points, completely oblivious as they indulged in economic seppuku. The EU’s entire economy-wrecking “strategy” over Ukraine was based on the fantasy that they were America’s little bro, not being used as naive pawns in a grand game that would knock them right off the chessboard.

If Washington had picked peace over profit from the start, the closest thing that the Euroclowns would have seen to a military confrontation with Russia in Ukraine would have been playing Sergeant Savoir-Faire back home, armed with a map of the nearest coffee shops and a five-course lunch. And now the previously unthinkable has happened. The jig is up on Biden’s ridiculous scam of vowing to do “whatever it takes” for Ukraine to beat Russia on the battlefield – mainly by dumping cash into US weapons which miraculously get lost en route to the frontlines after the cheque clears. Nice racket. Too bad it’s getting people killed – something Trump’s made it clear he’s not exactly a fan of. Looks like he’s finally asked himself if there’s a way for the US to keep feasting on cash without a body count in Ukraine. Spoiler alert: he found a way, apparently. Several, in fact.

Cutting to the chase through all this messy death and destruction stuff, Trump just wants to wrap up the fighting and have Ukraine hand over its resources to cover US spending — most of which has already gone straight into the pockets of American weapons industries. And can he keep the weapon sales flowing, even without active conflict? Absolutely. Just tell NATO countries to cough up some cash for the sake of “preventive defense,” like he’s been doing relentlessly. A solid 90% of EU-bought weapons are already American, according to last year’s EU competitiveness report. And that’s not changing anytime soon – unless the EU’s itching for a tariff-spanking.

A group of European foreign ministers have issued a statement insisting that Ukraine and the EU must be at the table for any peace talks. Yeah, they’re at the table alright – the bib-wearing kiddie table, along with Ukraine. And while they’re busy twisting balloon animals and tossing around buzzwords like ‘enhancing support for Ukraine,’ totally immersed in their ‘choose your own adventure’ game where they’re obviously ‘winning,’ it turns out that Russia and the US – Putin and Trump – did something totally wild. They picked up a phone. Probably even a landline, like something out of a history book. All while the EU was bravely ‘sticking it to Putin’ by flaming him on social media while wiping croissant crumbs off their keyboard between sips of overpriced lattes.

In the wake of that call, Trump announced the start of immediate negotiations for peace. And now the EU is acting like it’s just been dumped by Uncle Sam, who’s committing the added insult of hanging around with the guy on whom they’ve been obsessively hating. “If there is agreement made behind our backs it will simply not work because you need for any kind of deal, any kind of agreement, you need Europeans to implement this deal. You need the Ukrainians to implement this deal,” said the bloc’s chief diplomat, Kaja Kallas. The agreement is actually being made right in front of your face and ours, for once – unlike the back-room shenanigans between bloc officials and the Biden administration, which ultimately lured the EU economy straight off a cliff with EU “leaders” serving as willing lemmings, sanctioning their own Russian supplies of virtually everything critical to their economy.

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“Each has surrendered strategic autonomy to Washington. Each now dutifully executes even the most irrational dictates from across the Atlantic..”

• How The US Made Western Europe Its Puppet (Bordachev)

The biggest obstacles to a rational European foreign policy are American pressure, the internal crisis of Western European elites, and the continent’s neo-colonial economic model. Western Europe’s current antagonism toward Russia is not a natural state of affairs—it is a function of relentless US coercion. If this external pressure weakens, a shift in rhetoric and policy could come swiftly, transforming the political landscape of the continent. Regardless of how long the conflict in Ukraine continues, Russia cannot ignore its relations with its immediate Western neighbors. While Moscow has expanded its global partnerships, Europe remains a geographic and historical constant. The region’s role in world affairs, however, is changing fundamentally, with its influence declining under American dominance.

For much of the 20th century, Western Europe’s relationship with the US dictated its political and economic trajectory. Now, that relationship is not only defining its external stance but also its domestic political dynamics. How this dynamic evolves will determine whether the region can contribute positively to Eurasian stability or continue serving as a source of instability.

At the heart of the US-European relationship is the question of security. Washington’s objectives in Europe have always been twofold: preventing the rise of an independent European military power and using the continent as a staging ground for confrontation with Moscow. The so-called American “security umbrella” is a myth perpetuated for propaganda purposes. In reality, what exists is a US protectorate, reluctantly accepted but actively sustained by certain European elites. This arrangement has only accelerated the continent’s decline. Nowhere is this decline more visible than in Western Europe’s three most powerful states—Britain, Germany, and France. Each has suffered a slow erosion of its global standing. Each has surrendered strategic autonomy to Washington. Each now dutifully executes even the most irrational dictates from across the Atlantic, receiving nothing in return that enhances either national security or economic strength.

Even economically, the cost of Western Europe’s subservience is becoming unbearable. The loss of access to cheap Russian energy has crippled its industry, while economic dependence on the US has yielded no meaningful benefits. Western Europe is neither more prosperous nor more secure as a result of its adherence to Washington’s agenda. If anything, it has lost its ability to act in its own interests. The notion that Western Europe relies on American protection from a serious military adversary is fundamentally flawed. If the region truly faced an existential threat, the only plausible adversary would be Russia. Yet, Russia and the US are locked in a relationship of strategic where both possess the ability to inflict unacceptable damage on each other.

The idea that Washington would risk its own survival to defend European states from Russia is laughable. Even those who have sacrificed much of their sovereignty—such as Germany, Britain, and Italy, which host US nuclear weapons—have no real guarantee of American intervention. Their servility has bought them nothing but subjugation. This reality is well understood in European capitals, though few admit it openly. Instead, Western European leaders continue to act in ways that serve American rather than national interests. Washington views Europe as little more than a base for operations against Russia—its primary value being its geographic location. The US will never sacrifice its own security for the sake of its European vassals.

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Trump and Putin have no use for Zelensky. Anymore than for Brussels or Paris.

“..it was “not pleasant” that Putin was contacted first..”

“..Moscow cannot sign a deal with Zelensky, arguing that he no longer has legitimacy as the country’s leader..”

• Zelensky Comments On Putin-Trump Call (RT)

Ukraine’s Vladimir Zelensky has spoken out against US President Donald Trump’s recent phone call with his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin, telling reporters on Thursday that it was “not pleasant” that Kiev was not contacted first. On Wednesday, Trump and Putin held their first call since the US president returned to office, discussing possible steps toward negotiations to end the Ukraine conflict. In a statement on Thursday the Kremlin described the 90-minute conversation as “constructive,” with both leaders agreeing to meet soon in a third country. Following his call with Putin, Trump contacted Vladimir Zelensky, after which he announced that Kiev is prepared to seek an end to the conflict with Russia.

Commenting on the Putin-Trump phone call in a conversation with reporters on Thursday, Zelensky insisted that Kiev must be included in any negotiations. “We will not accept any bilateral negotiations about Ukraine without us,” he stressed. He described his own conversation with Trump as a “really good discussion of almost an hour” but reiterated that it was “not pleasant” that Putin was contacted first. “Calls are calls, I understand everything, but meetings are a priority for us. Ukraine-America, and only after such meetings, after developing a plan to stop Putin, I believe it is fair to talk to the Russians,” Zelensky said. During his presidential campaign Trump repeatedly promised to swiftly end the Russia-Ukraine conflict. Since entering office last month, the Republican has taken a starkly different approach to his predecessor Joe Biden.

Trump has criticized US assistance to Kiev and has insisted that Moscow must be part of the conversation to end the hostilities, suggesting that the US could use sanctions and the withholding of US support as leverage. The US president claims he understands Russia’s concerns about Ukraine joining NATO and has stated that Kiev would not become part of the bloc under any settlement. Russia has repeatedly said that it remains open to negotiations but has insisted that key issues, such as Ukraine’s NATO ambitions, must be resolved. At the same time, Putin has also said that Moscow cannot sign a deal with Zelensky, arguing that he no longer has legitimacy as the country’s leader. Trump has also acknowledged that Kiev would have to eventually hold elections and noted that Zelensky might not see another term as his domestic poll numbers “aren’t particularly great, to put it mildly.”

https://twitter.com/i/status/1890492997932102066

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Putin won’t negotiate with Zelensky, because he’s not a legitimate president. Macron knows this. The goal: keep the war going.

• Only Zelensky Can Negotiate With Putin, Must Avoid ‘Capitulation’: Macron (ZH)

French President Emmanuel Macron just ahead of the start of Friday’s Munich Security Conference, which will run through the weekend, declared that only Ukraine’s President Zelensky can negotiate with Putin. It was a shot across the bow warning against Trump’s peace plan, the contours of which are beginning to show, with the French leader saying it could amount to “capitulation” if Russia isn’t forced to make any serious concessions. Macron warned in a fresh interview with the Financial Times that a “peace that is a capitulation” would be “bad news for everyone” – including the United Sates and that fundamentally it must be the Ukrainians driving the talks. Yet the reality is that Ukraine is not in the driver’s seat on the battlefield, where the conflict is being decided. And the outcome of talks is going to reflect this lack of true military leverage.

Macron continued, “The only question at this stage is whether President Putin is genuinely, sustainably and credibly willing to agree to a ceasefire on this basis. After that, it’s up to the Ukrainians to negotiate with Russia.” Thus Macron did make clear that he’s open to this “window of opportunity” for a negotiated solution which Trump is jump-starting. He said that “everyone has to play their role.” There are aspects of Trump’s emerging plan that Macron appears to have welcomed, per the FT: “Nonetheless, the French president endorsed the Trump administration’s position that it was Europe’s responsibility to ensure Ukraine’s security, saying it stemmed from a generational and bipartisan shift in America’s foreign policy priorities away from Europe and towards Asia.

US unilateralism did not start with Trump’s return to power, Macron added, noting that he “did not receive a call” in advance from the Biden administration about its “Aukus” nuclear submarine deal with Australia and the UK or about its withdrawal from Afghanistan. “What Trump is saying to Europe is that it is up to you to carry the burden. And I say, it is up to us to take it on,” Macron said.” Trump policy toward Europe and ending the Ukraine war is now widely being referred to as ‘electroshock’ in various publications after the Macron interview: “The message is clear – an ‘electroshock’, as French President Emmanuel Macron called it: European countries will have to step up defense spending if they intend to protect themselves from Russian aggression.”

Other European leaders have displayed outright anger over what they say is going over Zelensky’s head and showing willingness to deal directly with Putin. German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock on Friday blasted the potential for peace talks that would cut out Zelensky or the Europeans. “A sham peace — over the heads of Ukrainians and Europeans — would gain nothing,” Baerbock said at the start of the security conference. “A sham peace would not bring lasting security, neither for the people in Ukraine nor for us in Europe or the United States,” she added, according to Reuters.

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The EU couldn’t even get 200,000 peacekeepers together.

• Zelensky Demands 1.5 Million-Strong Army (RT)

Vladimir Zelensky has issued a new demand to Ukraine’s western backers, after the US said Kiev’s goal of NATO membership is “unrealistic.” Speaking at the Munich Security Conference on Friday, Zelensky stated that Kiev needed an army of some 1.5 million soldiers. If Ukraine is not a member of the US-led military bloc, then it must build its defense capabilities together with Western Europe, Zelensky warned. He went on to claim that NATO membership remained the best and “cheapest” option for Ukraine’s security. US Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth this week described Kiev’s hopes of NATO membership as “unrealistic,” a stance that was later reaffirmed by US President Donald Trump.

Zelensky insisted however “Until we are part of NATO, we need an army capable of protecting the country. This means NATO-standard weaponry and a sufficient number of trained Ukrainian troops. Based on calculations with our military leadership, that means an army of 1.5 million soldiers,” Zelensky said. Russia has maintained that Ukraine’s aspirations to join the US-led military bloc are one of the conflict’s root causes. On Thursday, Trump blamed the hostilities on his predecessor Joe Biden’s support for Ukraine’s bid to join NATO. The US President held a phone call with his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin on Tuesday, stating afterwards that Moscow and Washington would start immediate negotiations to end the fighting. In January, Zelensky proposed deploying at least 200,000 European soldiers as peacekeepers in Ukraine to enforce any potential peace agreement with Russia.

In a recent interview with American podcaster Lex Fridman, Zelensky said Ukraine had 980,000 military personnel in service. Maintaining a 1.5 million-strong army would require a 50% increase in funding, Zelensky said, questioning who would finance it and how.The Trump administration recently froze all foreign US aid, including for Ukraine, amid a government-wide spending review. Many EU and NATO members have failed to meet the bloc’s current defense spending target of 2% of GDP. Since the escalation of the Ukraine conflict, western countries have provided over $82 billion in aid to Ukraine per year, according to data from the Kiel Institute for the World Economy. A Friday press release by the think tank claims that the EU has given Kiev nearly $64 billion in military aid, while the US has provided some $66 billion.

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Got the money? Got the money?

• Retired Russian Colonel Claims Trump ‘Has Dirt’ On Zelensky (RMX)

Retired Russian Armed Forces Intelligence Colonel Anatoly Matviychuk has come out swinging in the lead-up to the Munich Security Conference, saying the U.S. has compromising information on Zelensky that will force him to compromise, namely, that he has possibly embezzled large amounts of money from the funds sent to Ukraine for its defense against Russia. In an interview with MK, the retired colonel said that President Trump “has long had a grudge against Zelensky,” since the head of the Kyiv regime supported his persecution and passed on compromising information about him to the previous U.S. administration under Biden. “Today, Trump is skillfully dealing with everyone who once spoke out against him,” Matviychuk noted. “Among them are Zelensky and Yermak. I am sure that Trump has more than enough dirt on them.”

These may have to do with the embezzlement of money. “It is not surprising that it has now become clear that about 100 billion dollars have sunk into oblivion,” the intelligence officer noted. “I believe that in fact the U.S. knows very well where these billions ended up…” Matviychuk claims the money ended up in Zelensky’s Spanish, Italian and British real estate. However, he also went after Zelensky’s wife. “In addition, the million-dollar expenses of the First Lady of Ukraine, Elena Zelenskaya, in European boutiques have been well calculated,” the expert added. Matviychuk added that Zelensky has also opened himself up to accusations of prolonging the conflict and numerous war crimes. This is not the first time someone has claimed Zelensky has enriched himself from U.S. taxpayer money sent for his country’s defense against Russia.

The Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project found that Zelenskyy and his partners owned a network of offshore companies dating back to 2012 in the British Virgin Islands, Cyprus and Belize. The documents also revealed that before Zelenskyy became president in 2019, he gave his stake in an offshore company to a business partner but made an arrangement that the offshore company would continue paying dividends to a company Zelenskyy’s wife owned, the reporting project said. In response, USA Today offered up its own “fact check,” stating: “The Pandora Papers – secret records obtained by the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists – highlight information about Zelenskyy’s overseas dealings. However, the papers don’t reveal the exact amount Zelenskyy or his wife have in overseas accounts. Sullivan said none of the assets claimed in the social media post were in the papers.”

USA Today also cites a 2022 Forbes piece that estimated Zelensky’s real estate portfolio at some $4 million after reports that he purchased his parents an $8 million mansion — although USA Today said the claims about an $8 million mansion were false. Nor did the magazine find any proof to back up claims that Zelensky owned three private jets or five luxury yachts. The original Instagram post targeted by USA Today reportedly stating that Zelenky owned “a 35 million dollar home in Florida and has $1.2 billion in an overseas bank account” is no longer available. Despite no hard evidence of embezzlement, allegations have continued non-stop, with many saying that now that Donald Trump is in office, a real audit will uncover the truth.

Tucker Carlson headlined a recent episode of his podcast by claiming “Ukrainian military is selling American weapons systems on the black market, including to drug cartels on the (American) border.” His guest U.S. Col. Daniel Davis said that Zelensky had even recently made a point of denying such allegations, and “the media just reports what he says.” The colonel then added that this has been “an open secret for almost the duration of (the war).”

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How to properly define “false flag” once and for all…

• Moscow Responds To Chernobyl Strike Accusation (RT)

The Russian military does not target nuclear infrastructure, including what remains on the site of the destroyed Chernobyl power plant, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told journalists on Friday. Ukrainian leader Vladimir Zelensky had alleged earlier in the day that a Russian drone had attacked the containment structure built over what remains of the Soviet power facility which was devastated in a 1986 disaster. Zelensky reported “significant damage” in the incident. Peskov stated that any claims that Russia is targeting nuclear facilities are false by default. He said he has no verified information about the situation, but assumed that most likely it was “the latest provocation, a frame up” orchestrated by Kiev. He added: “This is what they love doing.”

The Chernobyl protective dome, also known as the New Safe Confinement, was built in the 2010s to protect the remains of the destroyed reactor 4 unit from the elements and prevent the escape of contaminated material into the environment. The project cost a reported €2.1 billion ($2.2 bn) in international funding. The alleged drone incident came days after the administration of US President Donald Trump ruled out Ukraine’s accession to NATO or restoration of control over all of its claimed territories as part of a potential peace deal with Russia. Zelensky had previously called both goals essential for Ukraine’s interests. Russian officials have warned that Kiev could resort to extreme measures, including false flag operations meant to frame Moscow, in an attempt to derail Washington’s peace efforts and ensure the continued flow of Western aid to Kiev.

Chernobyl
https://twitter.com/i/status/1890321938628665388

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“The nature of the NGO scams is to have a cause that sounds philanthropic, like ‘Save the Orphans of Sadville’ and then they pocket the money and zero actual orphans are helped.” — Elon Musk

• Darkness Dying (Kunstler)

The exorcism of the USA just keeps revving up. You can tell by the number of revolutions-per-minute Elizabeth Warren’s head spins while she spews pea soup at the cameras. Who knew what a demon-infested slough USA Management Central was? And yes, I would like some insight as to how humble civil servants like Liz Warren accrue a $12-million fortune . . . and $30-million for Samantha Power (ex-USAID-chief) . . . and more than a $150-million for Nancy Pelosi. Could it be as simple as just good stock-picking? (Is that how they spend their time?) You have reason to suspect that what goes on in Washington DC is the greatest racketeering operation ever run on God’s green earth. “A threat to our democracy!” the Party of Chaos spouted incessantly during the election campaign in re: Donald J. Trump.

“Democracy Dies in Darkness,” The Washington Post still declares on its name-plate. Yet, who exactly kept the lights off the past four years? Who scrambled the brains of the nation’s management and thinking classes? Who made mental illness aspirational? You begin to detect that by “our democracy” they actually meant “our everlasting grift.” And it didn’t die darkness — it thrived, grew, and spread in the moist bureaucratic darkness like the Devil’s own slime mold. And now it is being revealed, to the astonished disgust of slightly more than half the nation that was not on-the-take. Turn over a log in the woods and you have the metaphor for “our democracy.” Countless hundred-footed things slither around under it, their feeding interrupted . . .

[..] This colossal worm-farm lies exposed now with its slithering denizens drying up under the DOGE sunlamp. The response by the political left’s clown troop fronting for all these scams is the most pathetic performative cluster-B psychodrama ever enacted on the streets of our nation’s capital: Schumer, Maxine Waters, Ayana Pressley, Liz Warren, and every other mewling loser in Wokedom singing that old union ditty Which Side Are You On for the cameras — as if they were reenacting the 1907 Monongah Mining Disaster. They are crying— as the old saying goes — all the way to the bank. The histrionics of the past three weeks are only the beginning, you understand, since USAID was just a mole-hill beside the mountain range of past turpitudes yet coming into view as Mr. Trump’s generals deploy in the battle-space.

Yesterday — mirable dictu! — Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., was sworn-in for Health and Human Services, to oversee the empire of fraud that public health became during the rogue reign of Tony Fauci and his cohorts. The flip-side of MAHA is Make Medicine Truthful Again. Everything about health-care in America slouches in disrepute and ignominy, from the doctors hostage to their private equity taskmasters to the faked drug trials at FDA to the deliberate data mismanagement at CDC to the grant-and-kickback game at NIH and NIAID, to the hellscape of medical insurance fraud, to the revolving door between pharma and government —RFK faces one of the most onerous tasks of filth-clearing since Hercules shoveled out the Augean stables. And then there’s the giant hairball of poisoned American food.

The solitary figure who remains absent on the playing field is Kash Patel, and you can tell by the delaying tactics employed by the Party of Chaos that they (and their blob allies) dread the coming day that he gets confirmed to lead the FBI. That’s when the combined forces of avalanche, tsunami, earthquake, and fire send forth an exterminating spewage of long-suppressed information about the 1960s assassinations, RussiaGate, the Epstein matter, the Ukraine money-laundry, and any number of other unresolved treasonous scandals.

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Lawfare 2.0.

• 14 States Sue To Block DOGE From Uncovering Gov’t Abuses, Slashing Waste (ZH)

We are now firmly in the lawfare stage of the second Trump presidency, with Democrats filing a flurry of lawsuits to hinder the new administration’s agenda until a strong ruling from the Supreme Court eventually sets precedent. In the latest legal move, a group of 14 states have sued Elon Musk and President Donald Trump, alleging that the authority granted to the billionaire and his team at DOGE is unconstitutional. The states, including Arizona, Michigan and Rhode Island, have taken aim at efforts to dramatically reduce the size of the federal workforce, including dismantling entire agencies, as well as their access to sensitive data. “The founders of this country would be outraged that, 250 years after our nation overthrew a king, the people of this country—many of whom have fought and died to protect our freedoms—are now subject to the whims of a single unelected billionaire,” said Arizona AG Kris Mayes in a statement reported by NBC News.

The lawsuit argues that Trump violated the Appointments Clause of the Constitution by creating DOGE – an unofficial government agency, without congressional approval, and for granting Musk “sweeping power” without the advice or consent of the Senate through a confirmation hearing. “President Trump has delegated virtually unchecked authority to Mr. Musk without proper legal authorization from Congress and without meaningful supervision of his activities,” reads the complaint. “As a result, he has transformed a minor position that was formerly responsible for managing government websites into a designated agent of chaos without limitation and in violation of the separation of powers.” The states seek a court order blocking Musk from making changes to government funding, canceling contracts, making personnel decisions, and more.

According to White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt, the lawsuit is nothing more than a “continuation of the weaponization of justice against President Trump,” adding “The White House will continue to fight these battles in court, and we expect to be vindicated.” Another Thursday lawsuit from a group of government employees sought to block Musk and DOGE from accessing sensitive data and removing federal employees until “Musk is properly appointed pursuant to the U.S. constitution.” That lawsuit came on the heels of NY Attorney General Letitia James and 18 other attorneys general suing the Trump administration to block DOGE from accessing personal data housed in the Treasury department, calling it “unconstitutional.” A federal judge temporarily granted that request, ruling that the states “will face irreparable harm in the absence of injuctive relief.” Meanwhile, 22 state attorneys general were separately granted a request to halt an effort by the Trump administration to make large cuts to federal research agencies.

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Someone likes the F-35… Doesn’t mention the price tag..

• Is DOGE Going to Kill the F-35? (Green)

Lockheed-Martin’s F-35 Lightning II stealth multirole fighter is one of those development boondoggles that we’ve become all too familiar with, and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth and Elon Musk’s DOGE boys are looking at perhaps canceling it. The Spectator’s Teresa Mull wrote Wednesday that while in Hegseth’s view,“’efficiency’ does not equate to funding cuts (he wants DoD spending to increase), one quick and easy way to curb waste right out the gate would be to abandon the F-35 fighter jet, fire every senior person involved in its commission and put in place systems to ensure that such horrors never happen again.” Seriously, the development of the jet was that bad. Although I’m certain that the entire program needs the green eyeshade treatment from DOGE, I don’t think that Mull made the case that the F-35 is a “totally flawed” “monster” that the Air Force, Marines, and Navy should “cease using.”

It’s a short article and even shorter on specifics. One specific detail left out is that, despite the jet’s unspecified “871 unresolved deficiencies,” the F-35 is the safest jet to fly in our arsenal. “The Air Force’s F-15 Eagle has a lifetime Class A accident rate of 2.36 per 100,000 hours of flight, with a spike early in the Eagle’s flying career and a relatively low accident rate 10-30 years after reaching operational status,” while the Air Force jet the F-35 is meant to replace, the F-16, “has a lifetime Class A rate of 3.45 per 100,000 hours.” The F-35’s accident rate is 1.5 crashes per 100,000 flight hours. That’s the lowest for a new jet, ever. It’s such an overpriced, useless hunk of jet that [checks notes] countries like Belgium, Japan, and South Korea that weren’t even in on the development contractor dollars can’t seem to buy enough of them. That’s one helluva endorsement.

Pilots seem to love it. The F-35’s god’s-eye view of the battlespace and its ability to share that data with many other platforms in the air, on land, or sea increases the lethality of everyone fighting alongside it. That’s a unique capability, and it would be missed. And Another Thing: While my wife is a former employee of Lockheed-Martin, she didn’t work anywhere near the F-35 program. I own no shares in the company. But I’m more than willing to be proven wrong here because I believe in two things. The first is that America needs the best jets and that our pilots deserve the best jets. If the F-35 isn’t the best, then we need to start working on the F-36 or whatever, pronto. The second is that American taxpayers deserve something better than the screwing-over we typically get from the Pentagon and its contractor buddies — and that our entire arsenal needs a second, third, and fourth look.

At the very least, DOGE should take a high-powered loup to the F-35’s maintenance costs. While production costs have come down nicely — a fully modern Air Force F-35A (without the fancy VTOL or carrier requirements of the Marines’ F-35B and the Navy’s F-35C) is $82.5 million. The latest version of the F-16 — an impressive upgrade but still based on a 1970s airframe — is about $65 million. Not exactly a bargain, but it’s certainly in line with its greater capabilities. Still, maintenance costs are too high, and readiness is too low. Maybe the mere threat of DOGE will convince Lockheed to offer a serious discount on those maintenance costs.

If Hegseth and the DOGE boys do decide to kill the program, my advice would be to kill it slowly. Milblogger (and retired Navy officer) CDR Salamander devised a rule about procurement that goes something like this: don’t stop building the Current Thing until the New Thing is ready to go. Indecisiveness and development delays with big-ticket items like the NGAD stealth fighter and the navy’s Ford-class aircraft carriers have left us dangerously dependent on aging platforms like the F-22 and the Nimitz-class carriers that, frankly, we built too few of. So, if the F-35 needs to die, then make its replacement a high-priority/high-speed job. In the meantime, keep making F-35s, perhaps at a lower rate of production, until that replacement is ready to fight.

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Lawfare lives!

• Treasury IG Launches Audit Of “Fraudulent Payments” Found By DOGE (ZH)

The US Treasury’s Department of Inspector General is launching an investigation into “alleged fraudulent payments” found by Elon Musk’s DOGE team, and will analyze the past two years of transactions within the government’s payment system. The IG will also review the security controls to the system after Democratic senators freaked out over the access provided by Trump to Musk and the Department of Government Efficiency. According to a Friday letter by Treasury Deputy IG Loren J. Sciurba, the audit will take approximately six months. “We expect to begin our fieldwork immediately,” Sciurba wrote. “Given the breadth of this effort, the audit will likely not be completed until August; however, we recognize the danger that improper access or inadequate controls can pose to the integrity of sensitive payment systems. As such, if critical issues come to light before that time, we will issue interim updates and reports.”

Musk claims to have found massive waste, fraud and abuse – and has launched an official government website for DOGE that will track how large the US government is, and how much DOGE has saved. The site (which still needs a little ‘fine tuning’) also has an ‘unconstitutionality index,’ which compares the number of rules passed by Congress in 2024 vs. the number of agency rules created out of thin air. According to the report, the audit comes after Democratic Sens. Elizabeth Warren (MA) and Ron Wyden (OR) pushed for an inquiry at the US Treasury. On Wednesday, Warren, Wyden, and Sen. Jack Reed (D-RI) sent a letter to Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent raising the alarm over DOGE (and not what they’ve found, of course).

“Your lack of candor about these events is deeply troubling given the threats to the economy and the public from DOGE’s meddling, and you need to provide a clear, complete, and public accounting of who accessed the systems, what they were doing, and why they were doing it,” wrote the lawmakers. Several lawsuits have also been filed by labor unions and advocacy groups against DOGE’s potential unauthorized access to sensitive Treasury payment systems, while five former treasury secretaries (who ostensibly oversaw massive fraud), have similarly sounded the alarm over what they say are risks associated with DOGE accessing sensitive Treasury Department payment systems. Of course, if the following is true, DOGE may be 100% within its right to access these systems after actually having been established by the Obama administration.

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“‘MaYbe shE’s goiNg to be in TroUble nOw.’

• Tom Homan Refers AOC to DOJ for Investigation (PJM)

President Donald Trump’s Border Czar, Tom Homan, accused New York Democrat Rep Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of impeding U.S. immigration law enforcement efforts after she was caught advising illegal aliens on how to avoid deportation. Homan told Fox News, “Impediment is impediment in my opinion,” when asked if her actions were “crossing the line” and noted that he was “working with the Department of Justice to find out.” According to 8 US Code 1324 1/A/iv: “Any person who— encourages or induces an alien to come to, enter, or reside in the United States, knowing or in reckless disregard of the fact that such coming to, entry, or residence is or will be in violation of law; or engages in any conspiracy to commit any of the preceding acts, or aids or abets the commission of any of the preceding acts, shall be punished.”

AOC hosted the “Know Your Rights With ICE” webinar live on her Facebook page on Feb. 12, which provided illegals in her NY congressional district with information on how to handle Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agent search requests at their homes or workplaces. She told illegals viewing the webinar, “When one of these things [raids] comes to your backyard, you can resist, and when that happens over millions of people, is that you generate enough friction that they cannot go as fast as they want to go,” so it slows down ICE raids. “Believe it or not, in America EVERYONE has rights,” Ocasio-Cortez later posted on her X account. Homan questioned whether AOC’s behavior constituted obstruction of immigration enforcement and asked the DOJ for clarification on whether her acts could be considered unlawful interference.

“I sent a letter today to the deputy attorney general. At what level is that impediment? Is that impediment? I’m not an attorney, I’m not a prosecutor. Is that impeding our law enforcement efforts? If so, what are we going to do about it?” asked Homan.The border czar further hinted, “Maybe AOC is going to be in trouble now.” “‘MaYbe shE’s goiNg to be in TroUble nOw.’ Maybe he can learn to read. The Constitution would be a good place to start,” AOC responded on X. The Trump administration has made enforcement of U.S. immigration law and the deportation of illegals a major priority. The White House has pledged to prosecute anyone who attempts to halt ongoing deportation operations against criminal aliens, including leakers in law enforcement and elected public officials.

Homan has also suggested that President Trump may pull out all Federal dollars from NYC to pressure the local authorities to comply with immigration law and finally end its sanctuary city status. Meanwhile, New York City Mayor Eric Adams, who recently saw charges dropped against him by the DOJ, told city officials not to hinder ICE agents from carrying out deportation raids. The DOJ has not commented on whether it would investigate AOC’s actions, but if they do proceed, prosecutors would need to establish that her webinar actively obstructed ICE operations rather than merely provided information to illegal alien residents living in her district.

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It’s government wide.

• US Embassies Told To Reduce Staff (RT)

The US State Department has directed embassies worldwide to prepare for staff reductions, ABC News and Reuters reported on Thursday, citing sources. Some diplomatic missions have been instructed to consider reducing both US and locally employed staff by 10%, Reuters wrote, citing sources close to the matter. Senior embassy officials have reportedly been asked to compile comprehensive lists of all employees, including tenured, untenured, and temporary staff, sources familiar with the issue told ABC News. The reported directive was issued shortly before US President Donald Trump signed an executive order titled “One Voice for America’s Foreign Relations,” which mandates that State Department staff align with his administration’s foreign policy goals.

The order emphasizes the need for the US secretary of state to maintain an “exceptional workforce of patriots” In line with efforts to cut costs, the Trump administration is also considering eliminating several US consulates and diplomatic posts around the world, NBC News reported on Wednesday. Consulates in Europe, Canada, Mexico, and the Pacific Islands are among those under review, the outlet said. Officials have reportedly been asked to assess the relevance of these facilities to Trump’s America First agenda, considering factors such as diplomatic necessity and potential additional government activities like military contacts and intelligence gathering. The moves are part of President Trump’s broader initiative to reshape the federal workforce. He has proposed a 10% reduction in government employees, in a move to streamline operations and reduce costs. The US administration has already initiated extensive layoffs of probationary workers, impacting nearly all who have not yet attained civil service protection.

Additionally, the administration has launched the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), led by billionaire Elon Musk, in order to streamline federal operations with a target of trimming $2 trillion in expenditures from the federal budget. Musk has acknowledged that achieving this goal is a long shot, while suggesting that the drive might result in achieving $1 trillion in cuts.As part of its cost-cutting measures, DOGE has already implemented significant reductions, including the dismantling of the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) and the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB), as well as imposing severe restrictions on National Institutes of Health (NIH) grants as part of a broader strategy to eliminate wasteful spending and increase government efficiency.

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“Democrats Jump the Shark..”

• Latest Claims of a Constitutional Crisis Won’t Lead to Happier Days (Turley)

Forty years ago, a radio personality coined the phrase “jump the shark” in reference to the episode of the sitcom “Happy Days” in which the character Fonzie (Henry Winkler) jumps over a live shark on water skis. The term is often applied to dying franchises that turn to sensational language or scenes to try to revive the fading interest of the public. More often, you jump the shark and land in utter obscurity. This week, the Democratic Party jumped the shark. For years, Dems and their allies pushed the absurd claim that democracy was about to die if Joe Biden or Kamala Harris was not elected president. The public wasn’t buying it. In 2024, Donald Trump won a majority of the voters as well as control of both houses of Congress. Rather than examine its messaging, Democrats decided to double down. After the election, politicians and pundits announced a new “constitutional crisis” surrounding the effort to downsize the federal government led by Elon Musk and the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE).

Kris Mayes, the attorney general of Arizona, declared this week, “We are on the brink of a dictatorship, and America has never been in a more dangerous position than she is today.” The same media that carried the breathless accounts of the imminent death of democracy with the last election are now running “constitutional crisis” articles with many of the same “experts.” Despite Trump repeating that he “will abide by the courts” while appealing opposing decisions, NPR insisted that Trump’s circle has indicated it is “willing to ignore court orders and defy judicial authority.” During his first term, Trump repeatedly lost cases — as did his predecessor, Barack Obama, and successor, Biden — but he continued to comply with those rulings.

The fact is that we have the oldest and most stable constitutional system in history. It has repeatedly survived challenges from political to economic meltdowns that would have destroyed other systems. That Madisonian system relies on an independent judiciary, including Trump appointees who regularly ruled against the Trump administration, including on the Supreme Court. For many citizens, what is most striking is not Trump’s actions, but how Democrats are seeking to prevent the very reforms that a majority of voters supported. Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-Minn.) warned that this “is a really, really sad day in America. We are witnessing a constitutional crisis. We talked about Trump wanting to be a dictator on day one. And here we are. This is what the beginning of dictatorship looks like when you gut the Constitution, and you install yourself as the sole power. That is how dictators are made.”

Actually, that is not how dictators are made but how democracies work. Trump ran on reducing the deficit and size of the government. The public is worried about a crisis — though it is not one of democracy but debt. In 2024, the $6.75 trillion budget exceeded our tax receipts of $4.9 trillion. The rest, $1.8 trillion, had to be borrowed. As a result, the national debt has ballooned and, if left on its current trajectory, would amount to 250% of gross domestic product within three decades. We are becoming a debtor nation where every citizen now shoulders a $106,000-per-capita burden to pay for our out-of-control spending.

Nevertheless, in the first DOGE subcommittee hearing in the House, Rep. Stephen Lynch (D-Mass.) insisted that he would “defend democracy,” which is “under attack” by DOGE and the effort to carry out Trump’s campaign pledges. What is truly in danger is the status quo. Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) may have ironically had the most honest moment when he joined one of the daily protests and yelled how Musk’s government efficiency efforts are “taking away everything we have.” By declaring a constitutional crisis, these figures are using “rage rhetoric” that gives a license for extreme conduct and messaging. Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) has declared a “coup” is being carried out. Rep. LaMonica McIver (D-NJ) insisted “God d—-it shut down the Senate! … WE ARE AT WAR!” Rep. Maxine Waters (D-Calif.) called on citizens “to fight back” as Sen. Cory Booker (D-NJ) called for a fight in the streets and for citizens “to rise up.”

Not to be outdone in the rage-fest, Rep. Jasmine Crockett (D-Texas) yelled, “We are gonna be in your face, we are gonna be on your a–es, and we are going to make sure you understand what democracy looks like, and this ain’t it.” Biden was repeatedly found to have violated the Constitution, including with unilateral actions through executive orders. Courts called him out for it. None of these Democratic members declared a coup or collapse of democracy. Such court challenges are common and often these early initiatives shake out with new guarantees and judicial guidelines. The courts may oppose certain moves by Trump and DOGE, but these are decisions of process, not policy. Eventually the president will be able to pare government spending, which is what the Democrats are really upset about — not the invented “constitutional crisis.”

Judging from the polls, the public sees that. The Fonz saw it, even if he still does not get it. Just before the election, Winkler mocked Trump’s huge Madison Square Garden rally and told NBC, “That’s his life’s bread; his life’s blood is the sound of appreciation or adulation or whatever.” That “whatever” is called public support. It is a lesson that the Democrats may want to learn if they ever want to see happier days.

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