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Debt Rattle July 1 2026

Jul 012026
 
 July 1, 2026  Posted by at 9:37 am Finance Tagged with: , , , , , , ,  6 Responses »


Jessie Willcox Smith From The Princess and the Goblin by George MacDonald 1920


• Supreme Court Rules on Landmark Birthright Citizenship Case (Athena Thorne)
• Supreme Court Strikes Down Trump’s Birthright Citizenship Executive Order (ZH)
• Here’s How Devastating the Birthright Citizenship Ruling Is (Margolis)
• Trump Could End Most Birthright Citizenship With 1 Simple Trick (Thorne)
• Cheer Up! The Birthright Citizenship Case Moves Us Toward Inevitable Victory (TH)
• A New Deal for Presidents? (Turley)
• Trump Gives Remarks and Opinion on Three Supreme Court Decisions (CTH)
• Blue States Refuse to Join 250th Anniversary Celebration on the Mall (Turley)
• Latin American Countries Moving to the Right (Anderson)
• Supreme Court Makes a Big Ruling in Favor of Free Speech (Anderson)
• The Supreme Court Just Settled the Trans Athletes Debate (Margolis)
• Democrats Have Always Been Communists (Margolis)
• Euroclear Files Lawsuit To Block $231.5 Billion Recovery (TASS)
• NATO and Ukraine Seeking Weapons To Target Russian Airfields – Moscow (RT)
• Ukraine In Bed With Mexican Drug Lords (RT)
• Western Media Distorting Ukraine Battlefield Reality – Journalist (RT)
• Pusillanimity Brings War, Not Peace (Paul Craig Roberts)

 


 

 


 


Birthright Citizenship belogs in the 19th century. A time before airplanes.

• Supreme Court Rules on Landmark Birthright Citizenship Case (Athena Thorne)

The U.S. Supreme Court issued its decision on the historic birthright citizenship case, Trump v. Barbara, on Tuesday morning. In a 6-3 decision, the court struck down President Donald Trump’s executive order, which had ordered that U.S. citizenship not automatically be conferred upon children born on U.S. soil whose parents are illegally present in the United States, or whose mother is visiting here legally but temporarily and whose father is not a citizen or lawful permanent resident. Justices Sotomayor, Kagan, Barrett, and Jackson join the Roberts opinion in the full decision. Justices Thomas, Alito, and Gorsuch dissented.


“Roberts concludes that children born to parents who are in the United States unlawfully or temporarily are ‘born in the United States’ and ‘subject to the jurisdiction thereof.’ ‘Under the Constitution, they are citizens at birth,'” wrote Supreme Court expert Amy Howe at SCOTUSblog’s live coverage of the announcement. In practice, the ruling means nothing changes, and the nation will continue as it has been doing. Namely, every baby born on U.S. soil is automatically a U.S. citizen, regardless of the status of the parents. Apparently, it’s too much to ask that parents have at least the most basic allegiance to or standing in our country before we bestow its greatest gift — citizenship — on their offspring.

Howe added, “As others have noted, Kavanaugh writes that Trump’s EO conflicts with the federal law ‘[u]nless and until Congress enacts new legislation,” potentially leaving the door open for Congress to tighten up citizenship rules. The ACLU originally filed the suit as a class-action lawsuit (Barbara v. Trump) on behalf of affected families. The lead plaintiff, “Barbara,” is a pregnant “asylum seeker” from Honduras, though the suit also represents other families of various residency statuses. Lower courts ruled for the plaintiffs, sending the case up the chain to the Supremes.

The court heard arguments in the case on April 1, 2026, notes a Congressional Research Service (CRS) legal sidebar: The question before the Court was whether Executive Order 14160 (E.O. 14160, or the E.O.), “Protecting the Meaning and Value of American Citizenship,” is constitutional under the Fourteenth Amendment’s Citizenship Clause and authorized by 8 U.S.C. § 1401(a), a provision of the Immigration and Nationality Act (INA) that codifies the Citizenship Clause. The EO stated that: “The Fourteenth Amendment has always excluded from birthright citizenship persons who were born in the United States but not “subject to the jurisdiction thereof.”

Beyond the 14th Amendment, the case further examined the meaning of the phrase “domiciled residents” from the 1898 decision in United States v. Wong Kim Ark. In that case, Wong Kim Ark’s parents had maintained a legal, permanent domicile in the U.S. for over 20 years. Though not citizens (people born in China were prohibited from naturalizing at that time), the parents were legally present and conducting business here, and not serving in diplomatic roles. The Trump administration argued that this situation contrasts with that of foreign nationals who are illegally present in the country. Trump’s signed E.O. 14160 on Inauguration Day 2025. The CRS sidebar explained the intent of the original order: The E.O. seeks to interpret “subject to the jurisdiction thereof” in the Citizenship Clause to limit who may be considered a U.S. citizen from birth. […]

The E.O. outlines two categories of persons that, in the view of the executive branch, are not “subject to the jurisdiction” of the United States and therefore are excluded from the Fourteenth Amendment’s grant of birthright citizenship: (1) a child whose mother was not lawfully present in the United States, and whose father was not a U.S. citizen or lawful permanent resident, at the moment the child was born; and (2) a child whose mother was lawfully but temporarily in the United States, and whose father was not a U.S. citizen or lawful permanent resident, at the moment the child was born. The E.O. asserts that children born in the United States to parents in either of these categories are not “subject to the jurisdiction” of the United States within the meaning of the Fourteenth Amendment.

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“In response to the ruling, President Trump wrote that it was “too bad for our Country,” but that Republicans can “easily make up for it in Congress through Legislation…”

• Supreme Court Strikes Down Trump’s Birthright Citizenship Executive Order (ZH)

The Supreme Court on Tuesday struck down President Donald Trump’s executive order curbing birthright citizenship. President Donald Trump signs an executive order in the Oval Office of the White House in Washington, D.C., on January 20, 2025. (Jim Watson/AFP/Getty Images)In a massive 194-page, 5-4 ruling, the Court affirmed a District Court ruling, holding that Executive Order 14160 – Trump’s attempt to deny automatic citizenship to children born in the U.S. to parents who are undocumented or only temporarily present – violates the Fourteenth Amendment’s Citizenship Clause. Chief Justice Roberts wrote the majority opinion, joined by Sotomayor, Kagan, Barrett, and Jackson.


Justice Kavanaugh provided the sixth vote against the order while explicitly rejecting the majority’s constitutional theory, arguing the EO fails only because it conflicts with a 1940s immigration statute – leaving the door open for Congress, not the Constitution, to revisit the question.

In response to the ruling, President Trump wrote that it was “too bad for our Country,” but that Republicans can “easily make up for it in Congress through Legislation…”

Background
Birthright citizenship – the principle that nearly everyone born on U.S. soil automatically becomes a U.S. citizen – has stood as a foundational element of American law and identity for more than 150 years. Its modern constitutional anchor is the Citizenship Clause of the 14th Amendment, ratified in 1868 after the Civil War: “All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside.”

The clause was enacted primarily to overturn the Supreme Court’s 1857 Dred Scott v. Sandford decision (which denied citizenship to black people) and to guarantee citizenship to formerly enslaved people and their descendants. It established a clear rule of jus soli (citizenship by birth on the soil) with narrow historical exceptions, such as children of foreign diplomats or members of invading armies.

The Supreme Court’s landmark 1898 decision in United States v. Wong Kim Ark cemented this broad understanding. Wong Kim Ark, born in San Francisco to Chinese parents who were legal residents but ineligible for naturalization under then-existing exclusionary laws, was ruled a U.S. citizen. Justice Horace Gray’s majority opinion affirmed that the 14th Amendment codifies “the ancient and fundamental rule of citizenship by birth within the territory, in the allegiance and under the protection of the country,” applying to children of resident aliens without regard to race or the precise immigration status of the parents (beyond the traditional exceptions).

For well over a century, this interpretation has governed practice: federal agencies, courts, and both political parties treated birth on U.S. soil as conferring citizenship almost universally, regardless of whether a parent was undocumented, a temporary visa holder, or a lawful permanent resident.

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“.. the senator who authored the relevant language in the 19th century made it clear that it was never intended to cover foreign nationals or the families of foreign diplomats.”

• Here’s How Devastating the Birthright Citizenship Ruling Is (Margolis)

The Supreme Court handed down some good rulings on Tuesday, but one of them, Trump v. Barbara, was truly stinking hot garbage, to put it as nicely as possible. It was one of the most consequential rulings in a generation, and if you’re not furious about it, you haven’t been paying attention. As my PJ Media colleague Athena Thorne put it, the Supreme Court ruled that “any basic skank who can sneak onto American terra firma and give birth is automatically the parent of a U.S. citizen, with all the rights and benefits that implies.” On The Five on Tuesday, Jesse Watters didn’t hold back in his reaction to the ruling.


“I’m angry,” he said. “Are you?” And that set the tone for everything that followed. He focused on Justice Samuel Alito’s dissent, which Watters described as a genuine alarm bell. Alito and Justice Clarence Thomas, he noted, saw this for what it was — a case with enormous implications that the court essentially fumbled. “He said in his dissent, this was one of the most important cases the court’s ever seen, and we blew it,” Watters said. “He and Thomas were basically like, ‘Yeah, this devalues and degrades U.S. citizenship because it opens it up for anchor babies and for birth tourists.’” The example Watters used was, honestly, terrifying.

Under birthright citizenship as it currently stands, a Chinese Communist Party official could bring his pregnant wife to Guam, deliver the baby on American soil, then fly that infant back to Beijing, complete with a U.S. passport in hand. That child could grow up in China, get funneled through whatever the CCP wants him for, and then, at 18, have access to American welfare programs. He could vote. And theoretically, at 35, he could become eligible to run for president. It’s a scary thought, because yes, that’s what the decision would enable. “That’s the stupidest thing anyone ever thought of,” Watters said. “Literally.”

The historical context makes the ruling even harder to swallow. Watters noted that the senator who authored the relevant language in the 19th century made it clear that it was never intended to cover foreign nationals or the families of foreign diplomats. The amendment’s architect agreed. So did the president at the time, Ulysses S. Grant. “The guy that sponsored it, the guy that initiated, the architect of, this 14th amendment, the AG, the president at the time, Grant, all said, yeah, no foreigners, no visitors,” Watters said.

Of course, none of those men could have imagined international air travel. They couldn’t picture an enemy nation strategically flying pregnant women to American territory as a coordinated demographic tactic. The 14th Amendment was written in a world where the idea of a hostile foreign government exploiting birthright citizenship for generational gain was simply inconceivable. We don’t live in that world anymore.

“This was also before airplanes,” Watters pointed out, “so no one could imagine enemies of the United States flying here to have babies that 18 years later they could use against us to sway elections, soak up welfare, and then steal our defense technology. Because that’s what they do, they steal it.” And the Democrat Party? They’re not innocent bystanders in any of this. “The Democrats are in cahoots with this,” Watters said. “They like it cuz they like it for money and power.” Watters didn’t pretend there are easy outs. Congress won’t act. The court didn’t protect the country. So what’s left? “I think the DOJ has to ramp up prosecutions of birth tourism fraud,” he said. “And Trump’s gotta deport even more because this is demographic destruction.”

As bad as this decision was, there are ways to fix this. Let’s hope Trump gets it done.

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Don’t let pregnant women into the country.

• Trump Could End Most Birthright Citizenship With 1 Simple Trick (Thorne)

That was some disappointing poo from the Supreme Court on Tuesday about birthright citizenship, non? The court ruled that any basic skank who can sneak onto American terra firma and give birth is automatically the parent of a U.S. citizen, with all the rights and benefits that implies. It seems like a dark day for the republic, to be sure. But pause and catch your breath: If the outcome had been different, would the Democrats take “no” for an answer? Of course not! Democrats never take “no” for an answer. They keep pushing and cheating and indoctrinating and menacing and jiggling the handle every which way until they pass whatever disagreeable turd they’re trying to cram through.


We, too, can play that game. There is more than one way to skin a cat, after all. The justices say that babies born in our country to illegal aliens and birth tourists are U.S. citizens? Fine.What if these grasping, scofflaw women weren’t allowed into the country in the first place? Under the U.S. Code, the president has broad authority over who may enter our country. Specifically, 8 U.S.C. § 1182(f) (INA Section 212(f)) says: Whenever the President finds that the entry of any aliens or of any class of aliens into the United States would be detrimental to the interests of the United States, he may by proclamation, and for such period as he shall deem necessary, suspend the entry of all aliens or any class of aliens as immigrants or nonimmigrants, or impose on the entry of aliens any restrictions he may deem to be appropriate.

My AI research assistant tells me that “This gives the President wide latitude to define a ‘class’ of aliens and suspend or restrict their entry if he determines it serves U.S. interests (e.g., public health, welfare, preventing ‘birth tourism,’ or resource strain).” Why, yes, I’d say birth tourism and resource strain are substantial concerns of the U.S. in this instance. Trump would absolutely be within his rights to pen-and-phone an end to the pregnant invasion — perhaps even the child-bearing-age invasion. Will leftists stamp their feet and sue to stop it? Of course they will. But Trump has issued other travel bans in the past — and won in court.

During Trump’s first term, through EO 13780 and Proclamation 9645, he took action to ban entry from terrorist-sponsoring nations, including Iran, Yemen, Libya, Somalia, and Venezuela. Leftists whined and sued, labeling the actions as Trump’s “Muslim Ban” in their petty way. But in Trump v. Hawaii (2018), the Supreme Court affirmed the president’s right to control harmful foreign travel into the U.S. And in 2020, Trump’s administration created rules that consular officers must deny B-1/B-2 tourist visas to pregnant applicants if they believed the woman’s primary purpose in traveling to the U.S is to birth an American baby.

“A broader executive order could expand this by declaring pregnant non-citizens (or those reasonably believed to be pregnant) as a class whose entry is detrimental, potentially covering visa issuance, admission at ports of entry, and exceptions (e.g., for diplomats, certain humanitarian cases, or lawful permanent residents),” notes my AI research assistant. Seriously, the president could do this as fast as White House counsel can write it up.

And frankly, I’m optimistic that this obnoxious and unfair Supreme Court ruling will light a fire under Republican voters’ butts the same way the Dobbs decision that overruled Roe v. Wade did for the Democrats, turning our much-anticipated 2022 midterms red wave into a barely discernible pink trickle. Barbara v. Trump will have the twin effects of demotivating blue voters while firing up red ones. (My colleague Scott Pinsker has a more in-depth analysis of the positive political fallout from this decision here.)

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It was close.

• Cheer Up! The Birthright Citizenship Case Moves Us Toward Inevitable Victory (TH)

Calm down about today’s birthright citizenship case, Trump v. Barbara. We were always going to lose. That was expected by anyone who understands how the courts work; what wasn’t expected is that this ruling was such a huge step toward eventual victory. You don’t have to be happy, but you don’t have to freak out. We’re winning.


Here’s the deal. Let me give it to you from the perspective of a politically informed lawyer, because I understand a little about how courts think, having been raised in a house with a mother who was a judge and appearing in courts all the way up to the Ninth Circuit for 30 years. It’s important you understand all the context to see where we are really at. It’s also important that you keep your feelings in check and not freak out like an emotionally incontinent teenage girl who catches her mom reading her diary.

Let’s talk about the 14th Amendment, which establishes birthright citizenship in the view of the very narrow majority. That “very narrow” part is key. For about 150 years, the common legal understanding of the 14th Amendment has been that it provides that, with narrow exceptions (such as the children of ambassadors), anyone born in the United States is an American citizen. And the text of the amendment can be read to support that. Now, you don’t have to like that, and you don’t have to agree with that reading—like most of you, I think the stronger argument is the one against birthright citizenship for children of transients and illegal aliens—but whether you agree or disagree, it’s not so legally ridiculous as to be disconnected from reality. And it was the reality until new scholarship, developed over the last couple of decades, began to seriously challenge it.

Let’s understand how the courts work. They don’t like changing things. They revere precedent. It takes a lot to get a new understanding of the Constitution to become the mainstream interpretation. Look at the Second Amendment. For a century, it was understood to allow pretty much any regulation of guns, as long as the regulation was “reasonable,” which it always ended up being in the eyes of the courts. The Heller decision completely changed that, and that decision was based on new scholarship. That’s the same process as we’re going through with birthright citizenship. We’re challenging something that’s been established, and you need to understand that our constitutional system is designed to make that hard.

Yeah, we lost today—barely. And that “barely” part is the good news. This was a 5–4 decision on the constitutional issue. Obviously, the three liberals voted against it because they will always vote the way that they perceive helps leftism. If illegal alien kids were believed to be aspiring Republicans, they would’ve been on the other side. None of these legal arguments that I’m talking about apply to them; they are hacks, and they don’t vote on principle. Chief Justice Roberts and Justice Barrett do vote on principle; their vote was entirely predictable to anyone familiar with how the courts work.

It’s just that their principle is wrong, reflecting the old and established view of the 14th Amendment that we are currently challenging with new scholarship. Lots of people are wrong, and it doesn’t make them the antichrist. Yes, I know all the arguments in favor of changing the understanding of birthright citizenship, and we don’t need to relitigate them here. Just understand that in any case, both sides believe in their arguments. What we need to do is make an effort to get folks nominated to SCOTUS who are more open to new challenges to old thinking because we are making a lot of new challenges to old thinking.

Frankly, I expected SCOTUS to punt completely and rule only on the executive order that President Donald Trump issued. There’s a principle in law that you try to resolve things without reaching constitutional issues if you can, and Trump challenged birthright citizenship with an executive order. Did he have the power to issue such an executive order? I expected the Court to rule that he did not and to avoid the constitutional issue entirely. If the Court decided to confront the constitutional issue, I expected a 7–2 ruling with Justice Alito and Justice Thomas in dissent. What we got was Justice Kavanaugh and Justice Gorsuch both stepping in and accepting, at least to some extent, the new thinking on the 14th Amendment citizenship clause.

This is huge, people. It’s enormous, and the dramatic implications in favor of reforming the old idea of birthright citizenship are being swamped by people freaking out over what was an entirely predictable response to anyone who’s vaguely familiar with how courts work. .

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“That does not mean that Cook cannot be replaced, but it requires due process, not a “thank you for your attention.”

• A New Deal for Presidents? (Turley)

On Monday, Donald Trump sealed one of the most lasting parts of his legacy. In Trump v. Slaughter, the Court reaffirmed and reinforced the authority of presidents to determine who will carry out the functions of the Executive Branch. In so doing, the Court overruled one of the long-standing limits of presidential power in Humphrey’s Executor v. United States. Humphrey’s Executor is hardly a household name. Yet the demise of the 1935 case represents a seismic shift in the balance of power within our constitutional system. In this case, the court decided that President Trump had the right to fire Rebecca Slaughter, a commissioner of the Federal Trade Commission.


For decades, scholars and jurists have questioned where the Court found the authority for Congress to create a hybrid creature like the FTC — part legislative and part executive, with officials protected from removal by a president. Various presidents have chafed at this limiting doctrine. But Trump pushed aggressively against the precedent and appointed three justices who would prove critical in ending Humphrey’s Executor after more than 90 years. In a separate case, Trump v. Cook, the Court ruled that the president could not fire Lisa Cook, a member of the Federal Reserve’s Board of Governors.

Both the win and the loss were vintage Trump. The win because he was unrelenting in his assertion of inherent powers. The loss in part because he is equally unrelenting in his use of social media to carry out policy. Chief Justice Roberts wrote that more than a tweet and conclusory letter is demanded in such a removal from the Federal Reserve, which has always held a unique position in the government and prior cases. Roberts wrote, “would in effect transform the Federal Reserve’s for-cause protection into at-will employment — an interpretive leap out of step with the statute Congress enacted and our Nation’s tradition of central banking protected from political interference.”

That does not mean that Cook cannot be replaced, but it requires due process, not a “thank you for your attention.” It is hard to overstate the transformation of the new executive branch during the Trump terms. The Slaughter case follows the Loper Bright decision, which ended the huge deference given to government agencies “interpreting” law to their own ends. Past Republican presidents have criticized the ““administrative state” that was iron-plated under the prior Chevron doctrine.

The result is that our government will remain markedly different from that of many of our allies, particularly the United Kingdom. In the UK, ministries operate with a considerable degree of independence and insularity. It is difficult for a prime minister to force through major changes when opposed by ministry civil servants.

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From Monday.

• Trump Gives Remarks and Opinion on Three Supreme Court Decisions

During an oval office event to highlight President Trump signing three executive orders informing all agencies of government that federal officials will not be enforcing any rule that blocks citizens from repairing or modifying their own vehicles, President Trump took questions from the media on today’s Supreme Court rulings.


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Divided.

• Blue States Refuse to Join 250th Anniversary Celebration on the Mall (Turley)

This morning, I discussed the upcoming Supreme Court decisions from the temporary Fox studio on the Mall, surrounded by the state pavilions. I was buoyed by the enthusiasm of the young National Guard members from Puerto Rico and Alaska. They are thrilled to be part of our 250th celebration. The only disappointment was the decision of 10 states—Connecticut, Illinois, Maine, Massachusetts, North Carolina, Oregon, Rhode Island, Vermont, Washington, and Pennsylvania—to decline to participate. Pennsylvania’s governor, Josh Shapiro, refused, but the state’s two senators stepped in to ensure their representation. It is an utter disgrace for these states and another manifestation of our age of rage.


All of these states cited transparent excuses over the cost of participating in our anniversary despite their lavish spending in other areas. Massachusetts is a particular insult. The home of John Adams and other colonial leaders elected to sit out the celebrations. Recently, we discussed how a Massachusetts church ended the long-standing celebration of the Fourth of July to focus on the “on-going process within the congregation to better understand our own whiteness.” John Adams once wrote his wife Abigail to predict that Independence Day would be:

“celebrated by succeeding generations as the great anniversary festival. It ought to be commemorated as the Day of Deliverance by solemn acts of devotion to God Almighty. It ought to be solemnized with pomp and parade, with shows, games, sports, guns, bells, bonfires and illuminations from end of this continent to the other from this time forward forever more.” Rather than Adams, Massachusetts now has figures such as Gov. Maura Healey, who balked at spending $100,000 to be counted among the states in the pavilion.

Gov. Shapiro did the same. This is a man who wants to be the next president of the United States but has opted out of participating, despite his state being home to our Independence Hall. It appears that he could not acquire space by simple adverse possession. Many people in Pennsylvania and across the country will not soon forget his ignoble stance or the two Pennsylvania senators’ efforts to ensure the state’s presence despite Shapiro’s efforts. These leaders decided to spread division at the very moment when we could overcome our differences to remember what we share as fellow citizens of this country.

They may see the rallying cry of “taxation without representation” replaced by “celebration without representation” for many disappointed voters. Despite the effort of blue states to boycott the celebration, tourists and participants appear to be having a ball. It is a beautiful space and filled with wonderful people from around our country. This morning I met Al Underwood, who was playing Paul Revere. He and his wife were delighted to participate and drove in from their home outside of Charlottesville. As these leaders in blue states sit out the celebrations, many of their citizens are rallying to support our unique republic.

E pluribus unum

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With USAID gone…

• Latin American Countries Moving to the Right (Anderson)

Peru officially announced that it finally has a new president on Monday: The more conservative candidate, Keiko Fujimori, won by a slim margin of 50.1% to 49.9%.


We are cautiously optimistic about this news. Normally, I’d celebrate this as another new right-leaning leader in the Western Hemisphere, but Peru is a bit of a mess. It’s had something like nine presidents over the last decade, but most of them have been impeached or have faced corruption scandals, congressional gridlock, and various other issues.

Fujimori also comes with a little baggage. Her father is a former Peruvian president, and she’s run for election something like four times. But many say she could be the game-changer and bring some stability to the nation, especially economically. She’s also likely to be a good partner to the United States. We’ll just have to see how it plays out.

The actual run-off election was held earlier this month, and it’s taken over three weeks to count the ballots. Fujimori has held the lead for much of that time, though Sanchez did for a while. That said, I couldn’t help but notice that many media outlets have been reporting her as the winner for weeks without actually waiting for the final tally. I’ve had several people ask me why I wasn’t reporting on it, and while I knew it was highly likely she’d win, it wasn’t confirmed. And that’s about the slimmest of slim margins you can have between two candidates in an already chaotic country — anything was possible.

It’s just like when I reported on the Colombian elections and how the more conservative Abelardo de la Espriella (“El Tigre”) defeated Gustavo Petro’s hand-picked commie candidate Iván Cepeda. In the days following the election, Petro did what he does and spent hours mouthing off about it on social media — blaming Israel, blaming the United States, etc. So many media outlets ran to report that the election was being contested, that El Tigre’s win would not be honored. I actually had a few of you go after me for being naive to think it would.

Well, if that’s the case, I’m still being naive. Petro has big plans for himself post-presidency, and that’s mostly what he cares about: himself. Due to sanctions Donald Trump, Marco Rubio, and Scott Bessent have placed on him or threatened him with, he won’t be able to do those things — I believe he’s mentioned traveling the world, giving talks on *checks notes* climate change and writing erotic poetry — and he knows all eyes are upon him. It’s why Trump endorsed El Tigre multiple times and Rubio congratulated him on his win almost instantly. A subtle reminder. Petro can talk all he wants, but he knows he needs to be on his best behavior if he wants his freedom after he leaves office in August. Even Cepeda wasn’t really playing along with his shenanigans and has officially conceded.

The current president of Colombia likes to talk. Most of the time, it should be ignored. Which leads me to something else. Some of you aren’t going to like this, but there’s another false story that’s going around about the Latin American elections that a lot of my colleagues in conservative media keep touting but that I feel like I need to correct. It goes something like this: the closing of USAID is why the region is swinging to the right.

While it would be fun if that were true, it’s not correct. I’d say the real influence was Nayib Bukele, followed by Javier Milei, and then Donald Trump. But we have to give the voters themselves a little credit because this was in the works before Trump was even re-elected in 2024. Back in February, I wrote an article called “The Real Reasons Why Latin America Is Moving to the Right.” I won’t rehash it all, but crime, economic frustration, and mass migration backlash were the top three reasons I listed.

Crime is certainly number one. People are tired of gangs and cartels taking over their communities and bringing violence with them. They saw how Bukele turned the so-called “Murder Capital of the World” into a safe, desirable place to be, and they wanted that for themselves. Nearly every single person I’ve spoken to over the past year or so who lives in or is from Latin America has hailed Bukele as a hero, claiming they want someone like him to fix this. And almost every single “right-wing” candidate who has been elected in Latin America in recent years has promised exactly that — some have even brought him on as a consultant.

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“The RNC has been preparing for this ruling, and we are ready to expand the ways we directly help and provide resources to Republican candidates across the country.”

• Supreme Court Makes a Big Ruling in Favor of Free Speech (Anderson)

The Supreme Court ruled on Tuesday in a 6-3 decision that federal limits on how much political parties can spend in coordination with their candidates violate the First Amendment, delivering a major victory for free speech and party operations and for Republicans. It should have an impact on the 2026 midterm elections. In National Republican Senatorial Committee v. FEC, the justices overturned the 2001 Colorado II precedent, clearing the way for unlimited coordinated spending by parties. The ruling is expected to reshape the 2026 midterm battlefield by empowering official party committees over super PACs.


Justice Brett Kavanaugh wrote for the majority, joined by Chief Justice John Roberts, Clarence Thomas, Samuel Alito, Neil Gorsuch, and Amy Coney Barrett. The majority found that these caps are not narrowly tailored to the government’s interest in preventing quid pro quo corruption. It effectively overruled the key aspects of the 2001 precedent FEC v. Colorado Republican Federal Campaign Committee (Colorado II), noting that subsequent cases have applied stricter scrutiny and that other tools (earmarking rules, disclosure requirements) are sufficient to address circumvention concerns. Dissenting Justice Elena Kagan, joined by Sonia Sotomayor and Ketanji Brown Jackson, argued that the decision opens the floodgates to corruption and that the majority was too quick to dismiss that.

Here’s some background on the case: In 2022, two Republican party committees — the National Republican Senatorial Committee and the National Republican Congressional Committee — along with then-Senator JD Vance and then-Representative Steve Chabot, sued the Federal Election Commission (FEC). The Republican committees asserted that the Federal Election Campaign Act of 1971 (FECA) unconstitutionally restricts their ability to coordinate campaign advertising with their own candidates. This coordination allows the party and its candidates to unify their political message and spend money more efficiently.

For example, in the 2021-2022 election cycle, the senatorial committee spent about $15.5 million and the congressional committee spent about $8.3 million on such coordinated expenditures, which primarily fund political advertising. The plaintiffs argue that developments since a 2001 Supreme Court decision, FEC v. Colorado Republican Federal Campaign Committee (Colorado II), which upheld these same limits, have rendered that decision obsolete. Specifically, they point to changes in campaign finance law, the rise of “Super PACs,” and shifts in the Supreme Court’s First Amendment jurisprudence as reasons the restrictions no longer pass constitutional muster.

The plaintiffs filed their lawsuit in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Ohio. As required by FECA for constitutional challenges, the district court certified the legal question to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit sitting en banc. The Sixth Circuit concluded that the FECA’s limits on coordinated campaign expenditures do not violate the First Amendment and denied both the facial and as-applied challenges brought by the plaintiffs.

“This is a massive victory for the First Amendment,” said Republican National Committee Chairman Joe Gruters. “Limiting the ability of political parties to work with and provide support directly to their candidates is not only ridiculous, it’s unconstitutional as the Supreme Court has now ruled. The RNC has been preparing for this ruling, and we are ready to expand the ways we directly help and provide resources to Republican candidates across the country.”

Ultimately, political parties can now coordinate more freely and spend without those previous dollar caps, shifting some power back to official party committees vs. independent super PACs and other outside groups.

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“The majority concluded that “Title IX allows schools to provide separate women’s and men’s sports teams defined by biological sex..”

• The Supreme Court Just Settled the Trans Athletes Debate (Margolis)

The Supreme Court ruled Tuesday to uphold state laws banning biological males from competing on female sports teams, delivering a tremendous victory for female athletes and the commonsense principle that biological sex matters in athletic competition. Brett Kavanaugh wrote the majority opinion in West Virginia v. B.P.J., which the court combined with Little v. Hecox. Justices Clarence Thomas and Neil Gorsuch each wrote a concurring opinion. The 6-3 decision found West Virginia’s Save Women’s Sports Act and Idaho’s Fairness in Women’s Sports Act both constitutional, rejecting claims that the bans violate Title IX or the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. A huge victory for women. Real women.


The majority concluded that “Title IX allows schools to provide separate women’s and men’s sports teams defined by biological sex, and West Virginia has permissibly maintained female sports for biological females consistent with Title IX.” The term “sex” in Title IX, the Javits Amendment, and the Title IX regulations cannot plausibly be interpreted to refer to anything other than biological sex. The ordinary meaning of the term “sex” at the time of enactment in the early 1970s was biological sex and not gender identity, particularly in the sports context.That conclusion required no legal gymnastics, just common sense. In the end, biology is biology. Title IX was supposed to bring fairness into sports, and the transgender movement has been.

That the Supreme Court had to even weigh in on this is quite sad, just as it was sad that states had even to pass laws that made it clear that girls’ sports are for girls, not boys who pretend to be girls.So, how did we get here? Well, Idaho passed the Fairness in Women’s Sports Act in 2020, the first law of its kind in the country. West Virginia followed in 2021. Both laws faced immediate legal challenges from the radical left, yada, yada, yada, and it went before the Supreme Court.

Honestly, the challengers were doomed to fail. They built their case primarily on Bostock v. Clayton County, the 2020 ruling that extended Title VII’s sex discrimination protections to gay and transgender employees. Their argument was that if you can’t discriminate against a transgender person at work, you can’t exclude one from a sports team. If that explanation sounds stupid to you, you’re not alone. Biological sex is largely irrelevant to workplace performance, but it is directly relevant to athletic competition, and no amount of self-identification or plastic surgery can change your biology.

President Donald Trump signed an executive order in February 2025 directing the federal government to pull funding from schools that allow biological males on female sports teams, calling such policies “demeaning, unfair, and dangerous to women and girls.” His solicitor general, D. John Sauer, filed a brief calling both state laws “eminently reasonable.” Today’s ruling directly validates that position. Justices Sonia Sotomayor, Elena Kagan, and Ketanji Brown Jackson dissented, which was hardly surprising at all. Jackson, for one, was unable to define what a woman is during her confirmation hearings in 2022 because, in her own words, “I’m not a biologist.” Sotomayor wrote the dissenting opinion, joined by Kagan and Jackson.

The female athletes who intervened in both cases to defend these laws spent years fighting for the right to compete on a level playing field. The far left spent those same years calling them bigots for trying. Now that the highest court in the land has ruled on this issue, women can once again enjoy the fair opportunities they deserve under Title IX and not have to worry about biological males robbing them of awards and opportunities.

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Nope. It’s recent.

• Democrats Have Always Been Communists (Margolis)

There’s a reason the Democrat Party keeps repeating the same three words like a broken record, and it has nothing to do with strategy. On The Five Monday night, Jesse Watters pulled back the curtain on what’s really driving the chaos inside the party, and it’s not Trump derangement this time. It’s something the establishment spent decades swearing wasn’t there. So what changed? Watters laid out exactly how the Democrat Party actually operates behind closed doors, and it’s not the grassroots fantasy they sell on MS NOW or CNN.


“The Democrat party’s a machine, and the donors tell you what policy you have to do,” he said. “The superdelegates choose the nominee, and then they all get talking points.” That’s the part nobody wants to admit. The party isn’t a movement. It’s a top-down operation, where money decides the agenda and everyone else just repeats the script. “That’s why every day, you hear, ‘big tent, big tent, big tent,'” he said. “They all say the same thing.” It’s not organic enthusiasm. It’s a memo.

But the machine broke down, and Watters didn’t let the Democrats off easy for it. The country got fed up, and according to Watters, the party earned every bit of that anger through pure neglect. “They’ve screwed up, and the country’s now pissed,” he said. “The party’s pissed because what’d they do? They did nothing. They made life more expensive and just focused on Mexicans and Ukrainians, and that let the communists creep in.”

That last line is the whole story. While Democrat leadership obsessed over border policy fights and foreign aid packages, something far more radical was setting up shop inside their own coalition. Watters called out the years of denial that made this moment possible. “They have been denying they’ve been communists for decades,” he said. “No, we’re not communists. We love America. We’re for strong borders. We love the police.” Then, the second the socialist wing started winning primaries, the welcome mat came out. “All of a sudden, the communists start winning, and they’re like, ‘Big tent! Come on in!’” Watters said. “They don’t believe in anything except power.”

Remember the soul-searching after Kamala Harris lost? Watters does, and he’s not letting anyone forget how that played out. “What did we hear after Kamala lost? The Democrats need to define who they are, right?” he said. “You can’t just be anti-Trump. What do Democrats stand for?” For a year and a half, the plan was a working-class makeover. Football games. Backing off the trans agenda, funding police instead of defunding them. You know, pretend to be the party of the working class. “And now the commies start winning, and they’re like, ¡viva la revolucion!” Watters said. “That was fast.” “The Democrats have more in common with communism than the Republicans have in common with fascism,” Watters continued, “and they think they can cobble some winning coalition together.”

He added, “Kennedy is exactly right. The communists are going to steal the Democrat banner to get on the ballot,” Watters said. “They’re going to win. They’re in a caucus with them when it works.” After that comes the reckoning. “Here comes the purge,” Watters warned. “And the purge is going to be ugly, and the establishment is going to get purged.” That sets up a brutal internal war between cash and conviction, a fight Watters says the party simply cannot win. “You’re going to have money versus passion, and that’s a fight they have to have, but that’s a fight they can’t afford because they are dead broke.”

The mask is off. The only question now is how much damage the Democrat Party does to itself before voters figure out who’s really running the show. And they may find out sooner than you think.

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A lawsuit to avoid the inevitable.

• Euroclear Files Lawsuit To Block $231.5 Billion Recovery (TASS)

The Euroclear depository has filed a lawsuit in Belgium against the Bank of Russia in an attempt to block the enforcement of an 18.2 trillion ruble ($231.5 billion) Moscow Arbitration Court ruling over frozen assets, the Echo newspaper reported. On May 26, the Moscow Arbitration Court granted the central bank’s motion to enforce the ruling in its lawsuit against Euroclear.


In December 2025, the Central Bank of Russia filed an 18.2 trillion ruble lawsuit against Euroclear with the Moscow Arbitration Court, amid European Union plans to use frozen Russian assets to fund Ukraine. This amount includes frozen funds, the value of blocked securities, and lost profits. The Bank of Russia stated that the procedure for enforcing the decision using the defendant’s assets, including those located in foreign jurisdictions (both friendly and unfriendly), would be determined after the court ruling enters into legal force.

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“The bloc is integrating Kiev deeper into its structures, risking a direct conflict with Russia, Maria Zakharova has said..”

Not risking, deliberately creating.

• NATO and Ukraine Seeking Weapons To Target Russian Airfields – Moscow (RT)

NATO is openly helping Ukraine acquire weapons capable of reaching strategic targets deep inside Russia, Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova has said. The latest joint arms development tender shows that the US-led bloc is actively integrating Ukraine into its structures, moving dangerously close to an open confrontation with Moscow, she warned. Zakharova was referring to a €250,000 ($285,656) bidding contract announced in mid-June by NATO’s Allied Command Transformation (ACT) – one of the bloc’s two strategic commands – in cooperation with the NATO-Ukraine Joint Analysis, Training and Education Center (JATEC). Created in February 2025, JATEC describes itself as “the first joint NATO-Ukraine organization in the NATO Command Structure.”


Although the contract does not mention Russia directly, it contains a clear reference to enhancing Ukraine’s long-range strike capabilities with “solutions” capable of “persistent airport denial.” The project gives priority to various unmanned systems or loitering munitions capable of flying in signal-denied, electronic-warfare-contested environments and effectively striking runways, fuel reserves, and ground support facilities. The tender stipulates that any solutions must be ready for combat deployment within 12 months and should not require extensive training for operators, with submissions due by late July.

The contract shows that NATO is accelerating Ukraine’s integration into its command structures and military-industrial complex, Zakharova said on Monday. The bloc “is steadily losing what remains of its rationality and drifting into an increasingly high-risk zone” in an effort to turn Ukraine into a “testing ground” for emerging military technologies, she added. However, NATO strategists are “clearly underestimating” the risk of further escalation of the Ukraine conflict into a direct confrontation with Moscow, the spokeswoman said. “With their recklessly aggressive actions, the Ukrainian-NATO partnership is giving the Russian military additional grounds to pay heightened attention to any enterprises involved in the development and production of weapons used against our country.”

The development comes amid broader European militarization, with NATO Secretary-General Mark Rutte consistently urging member states to adopt a “wartime mindset.” Senior UK and German defense officials recently urged citizens to accept “difficult choices” on military spending as NATO states move to hit targets of 5% of GDP. German Defense Minister Boris Pistorius claimed last year that Russia could attack a NATO member “as early as 2028,” insisting on the need for a costly military buildup.

Moscow has denied that it has any intention of attacking NATO countries, dismissing the claims as “nonsense” used to whip up anti-Russian hysteria. President Vladimir Putin warned last week that the bloc is no longer hiding its preparations for war with Russia and is using false claims about the supposed ‘Russian threat’ to justify its defense buildup. Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said in February that Russia has no reason to attack Europe unless it is attacked first. Earlier, he warned that the EU is sliding into a “Fourth Reich.”

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Corruption fits.

• Ukraine In Bed With Mexican Drug Lords (RT)

Ukraine is deepening its cooperation with Mexican drug cartels to profit from the flow of narcotics, including fentanyl, into the EU, Russia’s Foreign Intelligence Service (SVR) has said. US President Donald Trump has made combating fentanyl exports to the US one of his priorities, designating it as a ‘weapon of mass destruction’. In a statement on Monday, the SVR said the Ukrainian security agencies are deliberately showing leniency toward the growing flow of drugs from Latin America to Europe, adding that Kiev is facilitating the trade due to financial strain.


“The corruption-ridden regime of Vladimir Zelensky seeks to get additional profit, especially in the situation of the inability of Western sponsors to satisfy all of its insatiable demands,” the agency said, adding that Kiev also values cartel help in recruiting mercenaries for the military. The agency named Odessa’s ports as the main entry points for narcotics destined for the EU via Poland, Moldova, and Romania, suggesting that Ukraine’s inadequate and deeply flawed border and customs controls make it an attractive route. According to the SVR, Latin American cartels also have their eyes on Ukraine’s black market of weapons.

Ukraine has long served as a storage and transit hub for drugs destined for the EU, including heroin, which is typically transported along the Northern and Caucasus routes from Central Asia and the Caucasus, according to a 2024 analysis by the EU’s drug agency (EMCDDA) and Europol, though the conflict has since disrupted some of these routes. Fentanyl flowing from Mexico has for months been in the crosshairs of Washington. In December, Trump designated the drug – which kills tens of thousands of Americans annually – as ‘a weapon of mass destruction’. Fentanyl is considered even more dangerous than heroin and other opioid drugs, as a lethal dose can be as low as 2 milligrams – around 10 to 15 grains of table salt.

In September 2025, the Mexican newspaper Milenio reported that the Jalisco New Generation Cartel sent members to Ukraine to learn combat drone tactics. Footage reviewed by the outlet shows cartel units operating modified civilian drones with military-style discipline.

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The ongoing RT ban makes videos inaccessible.

• Western Media Distorting Ukraine Battlefield Reality – Journalist (RT)

Western media and politicians are misleading the public by hyping Kiev’s attacks on Russia while ignoring the devastating losses suffered by Ukrainian forces, independent Dutch journalist Sonja van den Ende has told RT. In an interview on Sunday, van den Ende argued that while headlines are dominated by Ukrainian strikes on Russian fuel refineries, which are presented as signs of Moscow’s weakness, there is little coverage of Kiev’s military casualties.


“About 2 million dead soldiers or dead servicemen from Ukraine. So this is not, this is not really headlines,” she stated, emphasizing that such figures are buried deep in articles if mentioned at all by Western outlets. Ukrainian regiment threatens journalists after report about training camp deathsREAD MORE: Ukrainian regiment threatens journalists after report about training camp deaths She added that coverage of strikes inside Russia serves as “a distraction” from Kiev’s problems.

Van den Ende said Kiev’s attacks, such as the drone strike on a vocational college dormitory in the town of Starobelsk in the Lugansk People’s Republic that killed 21 people, mostly teenage girls, are not being examined seriously by Western outlets. Around 50 foreign journalists from 19 countries visited the site at Moscow’s invitation, but the BBC and CNN refused to attend. The journalist also pointed to discussions in Germany and other EU states on cutting support for Ukrainian men residing there as another sign that officials privately understand the situation is worsening.

Ukraine has struggled to replenish its losses as Russian troops continue to advance steadily along the front line. The so-called “busification” campaign, in which conscription officers ambush men on the streets and outside their homes, often using violence against those who resist, has repeatedly sparked protests and outrage on social media.

The conscription crisis has prompted several of Ukraine’s European backers to review their asylum policies. Earlier this year, German Chancellor Friedrich Merz vowed to restrict protections for Ukrainians, arguing that young men were needed in their home country. Several news outlets also reported earlier this month that the European Commission had urged EU member states to introduce restrictions on accepting Ukrainian refugees.

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PCR insists Putin should have killed more Ukrainians.

• Pusillanimity Brings War, Not Peace (Paul Craig Roberts)

The naive and gullible men in the Kremlin were deceived by the Alaska agreement just as they were by the Minsk agreement. If they had read Trump’s Art of the Deal they would have learned how Trump was going to manipulate them.


It was totally clear to me in 2014 when Putin sat stupidly on his butt and permitted Washington to overthrow the Ukrainian government and install an anti-Russian Washington puppet that Russian inaction was leading to war. When Putin was forced into conflict with Ukraine by Washington and Europe eight years later, it was totally obvious that Putin’s slow-moving, restricted Special Military Operation would provide Washington and NATO ample time to get more and more involved and that the conflict that Putin thought could be limited to Donbas would widen and widen. And that is precisely what has happened.

Putin and Lavrov have said that Washington/NATO intend to turn Ukraine’s conflict with Russia into a war on Russia by the West. Despite finally acknowledging the reality that has been completely clear for 12 years, Putin still refuses to use the decisive force necessary to bring the conflict to a victorious end and stop the widening of the conflict. Putin is focused on gaining another kilometer in Donbas while Ukrainian drone attacks deep inside Russia increasingly disrupt Russian life and energy production and result in civilian casualties.

Having by his own inaction permitted the Ukraine conflict to widen out of control, Putin told military cadets in June that Russia’s nuclear forces will be strengthened and the fighting ability of the military improved in expectation of a war with Europe. This is a war that Putin’s pusillanimity has brought to Russia.

Apparently, Iran has learned nothing from Russia’s experience with Washington. Like Russia, Iran was maneuvered into peace talks that Washington had no intention of allowing to go anywhere. The function of peace talks is to trap Russia and now Iran in a process that prevents the decisive use of military force. Putin wanted negotiations more than he wanted a military victory. Iran was stopped from a decisive, conclusive victory by accepting a ceasefire.

It is inexplicable that any Iranian can possibly think there can be peace in the Middle East as long as the Zionist agenda of Greater Israel continues to be the foreign policy of Israel. It is extraordinary that during the 79 years that this agenda has been pursued no Muslim country has demanded that Israel be confronted with its aggressive agenda. Even today the Iranians have not demanded that the Greater Israel agenda be included in the peace negotiations. It seems clear that both Russia and Iran are more capable of avoiding reality than dealing with it. My conclusion is that two big wars remain on the agenda.

Among the legends that comprise World War II history is the explanation that Chamberlain’s pusillanimity at Munich caused the war. Putin has repeated what historians regard as Chamberlain’s fatal mistake. I myself do not accept the “peace in our time” explanation. World War II resulted from the British guarantee to Poland and from the British and French Declaration of War on Germany. But the Munich explanation has been the official explanation. Putin himself believes the Munich explanation of the war. Why did Putin repeat Chamberlain’s alleged mistake?

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Debt Rattle October 9 2023

Oct 092023
 
 October 9, 2023  Posted by at 8:55 am Finance Tagged with: , , , , , , ,  66 Responses »


Edgar Degas A la mer 1863

 

• Israel’s Massive Intelligence Failure (Scott Ritter)
• The West’s Hypocrisy Towards Gaza’s Breakout Is Stomach-Turning (Cook)
• Palestinians Speak the Language of Violence Israel Taught Them (Chris Hedges)
• Republicans Point Fingers in Wake of Crisis in Israel (Sp.)
• Iran Denies Helping Hamas Plot Attack On Israel (RT)
• The Insane Foreign Policy of America’s Satanic Neocons (Paul Craig Roberts)
• Will There Be a 2024 Presidential Election? (Paul Craig Roberts)
• Ukrainians Desert En Masse Due to Rising Casualties, Mental Fatigue (Sp.)
• Military Solution To Ukraine Conflict Unlikely – Italian Defense Minister (RT)
• Ukraine Admits Repeated Failures To Capture Europe’s Largest Nuclear Plant (RT)
• Americans Get Poorer As Washington Throws Cash At Ukraine And Migrants (Bridge)
• Blue States Turn On Biden Over Border Crisis (ET)
• Judge Hands Trump a Win in DC Election Case (ET)
• The Father of Facebook Doesn’t Understand Social Media Anymore (RM)

 

 

 

 

Reagan

 

 

 

 

 

 

Pepe Escobar: 1. Bibi showing his ‘New Middle East’ map at the UN completely erasing Palestine. 2. Serial provocations at Al-Aqsa, including a storming by hundreds of Israeli settlers. Al-Aqsa is a definitive red line – for Palestinians, for the Arab world, and for the lands of Islam. Yet there’s WAY more. The dead giveaway is the Israeli rhetoric of a ‘Pearl Harbor’. Everyone knows what it means. Project Ukraine is dead. So the Masters of the Universe need a new war (“on terror”) to set West Asia on fire.

Peaceful West Asia means reconstruction for Syria, redevelopment for Iraq and Lebanon, Iran and Saudi Arabia as part of BRICS 11, the Russia-China strategic partnership respected and engaged all across West Asia. The Northern Sea Route is already in effect, directly undermining the Suez Canal. One of the key themes discussed at Valdai at the highest level was de-dollarization. All of the above is anathema for the usual suspects. Mossad and IDF caught by surprise is childish fantasy. They knew it was coming. The question now is whether Hezbollah will be coming to town.

 

 

 

 

Israel intel has so much info, they developed an AI model to interpret it. Hamas found out about it.

“Hamas was able to generate a veritable Ghost in the Machine..”

• Israel’s Massive Intelligence Failure (Scott Ritter)

[..] perhaps the largest source of the Israeli intelligence failure regarding Hamas was the over reliance Israel put on intelligence collection and analysis itself. Gaza and Hamas have been a thorn in the side of Israel for years, and as such have attracted the overwhelming attention of the Israeli intelligence and security services. Israel has perfected the art of human intelligence against the Hamas target, with a proven track record of placing agents deep inside the Hamas decision-making hierarchy. Unit 8200 likewise has spent billions of dollars creating intelligence collection capabilities which vacuum up every piece of digital data coming out of Gaza — cell phone calls, e-mails, and SMS texting. Gaza is the most photographed place on the planet, and between satellite imagery, drones, and CCTV, every square meter of Gaza is estimated to be imaged every 10 minutes.

This amount of data is overwhelming for standard analysis techniques relying on the human mind. To compensate for this, Israel developed a huge artificial intelligence (AI) capability which it then weaponized against Hamas in the short but deadly 11-day conflict with Hamas in 2021, named Guardian of the Walls. Unit 8200 developed several unique algorithms which used immense databases derived from years of raw intelligence data collected from every possible source of information. Building upon concepts of machine learning and algorithm-driven warfare that have been at the forefront of Israeli military research and development for decades, Israeli intelligence was able to use AI to not only select targets, but also to anticipate Hamas actions. This ability to predict the future, so to speak, helped shape Israeli assessments about Hamas’s intent in the lead up to the 2023 Yom Kippur attacks.

Israel’s fatal mistake was to openly brag about the role AI played in Operation Guardian of the Walls. Hamas was apparently able to take control of the flow of information being collected by Israel. There has been much speculation about Hamas “going dark” regarding cell phone and computer usage to deny Israel the data that is contained in those means of communication. But “going dark” would have, by itself, been an intelligence indicator, one that AI would have certainly picked up. Instead, it’s highly probable that Hamas maintained an elaborate communications deception plan, maintaining a level of communications sufficient in quantity and quality to avoid being singled out by AI — and by Israeli analysts deviating from the norm.

In the same way, Hamas would likely have maintained its physical profile of movement and activity to keep the Israeli AI algorithms satisfied that nothing strange was afoot. This also meant any activity — such as training related to paragliding or amphibious operations — that might be detected and flagged by Israeli AI was done to avoid detection. The Israelis had become prisoners of their own successes in intelligence collection. [..] Denied the benefit of the contrarian approach to analysis put in place in the aftermath of the Agranat Commission, Israel set itself up for failure by not imagining a scenario where Hamas would capitalize upon the Israeli over-reliance on AI, corrupting the algorithms in a way that blinded the computers, and their human programmers, to Hamas’ true intention and capability. Hamas was able to generate a veritable Ghost in the Machine, corrupting Israeli AI and setting up the Israeli people and military for one of the most tragic chapters in the history of the Israeli nation.

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Very much a black and white issue, as I read the views.

• The West’s Hypocrisy Towards Gaza’s Breakout Is Stomach-Turning (Cook)

The current outpouring of sympathy for Israel should make anyone with half a heart wretch. Not because it is not awful that Israeli civilians are dying and suffering in such large numbers. But because Palestinian civilians in Gaza have faced repeated rampages from Israel decade after decade, producing far more suffering, but have never elicited a fraction of the concern currently being expressed by western politicians or publics. The West’s hypocrisy over Palestinian fighters killing and wounding hundreds of Israelis and holding dozens more hostage in communities surrounding and inside besieged Gaza is stark indeed. This is the first time Palestinians, caged in the coastal enclave, have managed to inflict a significant strike against Israel vaguely comparable to the savagery Palestinians in Gaza have faced repeatedly since they were entombed in a cage more than 15 years ago, when Israel began its blockade by land, sea and air in 2007.

Western media are calling the jailbreak and attack by Palestinians from Gaza “unprecedented” – and the most dismal intelligence failing by Israel since it was caught off-guard during the Yom Kippur War exactly 50 years ago. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has accused Hamas, which nominally runs the open-air prison of Gaza, of starting “a cruel and evil war”. But the truth is that the Palestinians have “started” nothing. They have managed, after so much struggle, to find a way to hurt their tormentor. Inevitably for the Palestinians, as Netanyahu also observed, “the price will be heavy” – especially for civilians. Israel will inflict on the prisoners the severest punishment for their impudence. Watch how little sympathy and concern there will be from the West for the many Palestinian men, women and children who are killed once again by Israel. Their immense suffering will be obscured, and justified, by the term “Israeli retaliation”.

All the current analysis focusing on Israel’s intelligence “blunders” distracts from the real lesson of these rapidly evolving events. No one really cared while Gaza’s Palestinans were subjected to a blockade imposed by Israel that denied them the essentials of life. The few dozen Israelis being held hostage by Hamas fighters pale in comparison with the two million Palestinians held hostage by Israel in an open-air prison for nearly two decades. No one really cared when it emerged that Gaza’s Palestinians had been put on a “starvation diet” by Israel – only limited food was allowed in, calculated to keep the population barely fed. No one really cared when Israel bombed the coastal enclave every few years, killing many hundreds of Palestinian civilians each time. Israel simply called it “mowing the lawn”. The destruction of vast areas of Gaza, what Israeli generals boasted of as returning the enclave to the Stone Age, was formalised as a military strategy known as the “Dahiya doctrine”.

No one really cared when Israeli snipers targeted nurses, youngsters and people in wheelchairs who came out to protest against their imprisonment by Israel. Many thousands were left as amputees after those snipers received orders to shoot the protesters indiscriminately in the legs or ankles. Western concern at the deaths of Israeli civilians at the hands of Palestinian fighters is hard to stomach. Have not many hundreds of Palestinian children died over the past 15 years in Israel’s repeated bombing campaigns on Gaza? Did their lives not count as much as Israeli lives – and if not, why not? After so much indifference for so long, it is difficult to hear the sudden horror from western governments and media because Palestinians have finally found a way – mirroring Israel’s inhumane, decades-long policy – to fight back effectively. This moment rips off the mask and lays bare the undisguised racism that masquerades as moral concern in western capitals.

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“..Regimes implanted and maintained by violence engender violence..”

• Palestinians Speak the Language of Violence Israel Taught Them (Chris Hedges)

The indiscriminate shootings of Israelis by Hamas and other Palestinian resistance organizations, the kidnapping of civilians, the barrage of rockets into Israel, drone attacks on a variety of targets from tanks to automated machine gun nests, are the familiar language of the Israeli occupier. Israel has spoken this blood-soaked language of violence to the Palestinians since Zionist militias seized more than 78 percent of historic Palestine, destroyed some 530 Palestinian villages and cities and killed about 15,000 Palestinians in more than 70 massacres. Some 750,000 Palestinians were ethnically cleansed between 1947 and 1949 to create the state of Israel in 1948. Israel’s response to these armed incursions will be a genocidal assault on Gaza. Israel will kill dozens of Palestinians for every Israeli killed.

Hundreds of Palestinians have already died in Israel air assaults since the launch of “Operation Al-Aqsa Flood” on Saturday morning, which left 700 Israelis dead. Prime Minister Netanyahu warned Palestinians in Gaza on Sunday to “leave now,” because Israel is going to “turn all Hamas hiding places into rubble.” But where are Palestinians in Gaza supposed to go? Israel and Egypt blockade the land borders. There is no exit by air or sea, which are controlled by Israel. The collective retribution against innocents is a familiar tactic employed by colonial rulers. We used it against Native Americans and later in the Philippines and Vietnam. The Germans used it against the Herero and Namaqua in Namibia. The British in Kenya and Malaya. The Nazis used it in the areas they occupied in the Soviet Union, Eastern and Central Europe. Israel follows the same playbook. Death for death. Atrocity for atrocity. But it is always the occupier who initiates this macabre dance and trades piles of corpses for higher piles of corpses.

This is not to defend the war crimes by either side. It is not to rejoice in the attacks. I have seen enough violence in the Israeli occupied territories, where I covered the conflict for seven years, to loathe violence. But this is the familiar denouement to all settler-colonial projects. Regimes implanted and maintained by violence engender violence. The Haitian war of liberation. The Mau Mau in Kenya. The African National Congress in South Africa. These uprisings do not always succeed, but they follow familiar patterns. The Palestinians, like all colonized people, have a right to armed resistance under international law. Israel never had any interest in an equitable settlement with the Palestinians. It built an apartheid state and has steadily absorbed larger and larger tracts of Palestinian land in a slow motion campaign of ethnic cleansing. It turned Gaza in 2007 into the world’s largest open air prison.

What does Israel, or the world community, expect? How can you trap 2.3 million people in Gaza, half of whom are unemployed, in one of the most densely populated spots on the planet for 16 years, reduce the lives of its residents, half of whom are children, to a subsistence level, deprive them of basic medical supplies, food, water and electricity, use attack aircraft, artillery, mechanized units, missiles, naval guns and infantry units to randomly slaughter unarmed civilians and not expect a violent response?

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“What happened this weekend was an unprovoked invasion by Hamas into Israel.”

• Republicans Point Fingers in Wake of Crisis in Israel (Sp.)

Republican presidential candidate Nikki Haley blamed the Biden administration for their dealmaking with Iran while other GOP contenders exchanged blows over America’s role on the world stage. Republicans’ intra-party feud over American foreign policy intensified Sunday with various candidates for the party’s presidential nomination exchanging views about the country’s role in international affairs. Former US ambassador to the United Nations Nikki Haley appeared on US television to denounce the Biden Administration’s diplomatic engagement with Iran, a common refrain among Republicans in the aftermath of Hamas’ attack on Israel Saturday. “I actually think it was irresponsible for Secretary Blinken to say that the $6 billion doesn’t weigh in here,” said Haley, referring to frozen Iranian funds the Biden administration released in exchange for five detained American citizens.

“Hamas knows and Iran knows they’re moving money around as we speak, because they know $6 billion is going to be released.” “You saw that when those planes full of cash sent by Obama to Iran… What happened was those funds were sent to Hezbollah in Lebanon. They were sent to Hamas in Gaza. They were sent to the Houthis in Yemen. They go and spread terrorism every time they get a dollar.” Republicans have criticized diplomatic efforts between the United States and Iran since the Obama administration, when Joe Biden served as vice president. The US has sanctioned the Middle Eastern country since the hostage crisis at the US Embassy in Tehran in 1979. More recently, the Biden administration released frozen Iranian funds in a prisoner swap deal with the country. The deal stipulated the $6 billion could only be used for humanitarian purposes.

But Republicans have pointed out the fungible nature of the assets, arguing the deal frees up resources for Iran to fund terrorist groups. Senator Tim Scott (R-SC) echoed Haley’s remarks on the X social media platform Sunday, claiming “Biden’s negotiation funded the attack.” Meanwhile, former US Vice President Mike Pence joined Haley on the neoconservative wing of his party, finding fault with other Republicans’ calls for foreign policy restraint. “This is what happens when we have leading voices like Donald Trump and Vivek Ramaswamy and Ron DeSantis signaling retreat from America’s role as leader of the free world,” said Pence on Sunday, referring to the growing opposition towards sending funds to Ukraine within his party. “What happened this weekend was an unprovoked invasion by Hamas into Israel.”

Foreign policy has emerged as a major debate for Republicans as some leaders within the US political party have called for a return to the muscular approach of the George W. Bush administration. Former US president and 2024 contender Donald Trump became known as a critic of US foreign policy, famously calling the country’s invasion of Iraq “a big, fat mistake.” But the former Republican president has also advocated for improved relations with Russia and has claimed he has a “good relationship” with Russian president Vladimir Putin. The United States devotes more money to defense spending than the next 10 countries combined while funding more than 700 military bases around the world.

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They deny and admit at the same time.

• Iran Denies Helping Hamas Plot Attack On Israel (RT)

Tehran has denied accusations that it helped Palestinian militants to plan the surprise attack on Israel that was launched on Saturday morning. “The decisions made by the Palestinian resistance are fiercely autonomous and unwaveringly aligned with the legitimate interests of the Palestinian people,” Iran’s mission to the UN said in a statement to the media. “We are not involved in Palestine’s response, as it is taken solely by Palestine itself.” On Sunday, the Wall Street Journal cited several sources, including unnamed members of the Hamas and Hezbollah militant groups, as saying that officers from Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps had helped to plan the attack on Israel since August. It also “gave the green light” for the operation at a meeting in Beirut, Lebanon last Monday. Ghazi Hamad, a Hamas spokesman, told the BBC that the militants had “direct backing” from Iran.

However, Ali Baraka, another Hamas official, insisted in an interview with NBC News that Tehran had not been notified about ‘Operation Al-Aqsa Flood’beforehand. “It was a surprise to everyone, including Iran,” he said. Although US Secretary of State Antony Blinken said the White House had not yet seen evidence of Tehran’s involvement, some Israeli and American officials accused the Islamic Republic of colluding with Hamas. The Palestinian militants and allied groups carried out a surprise attack on Israel from Gaza, simultaneously firing rockets and dispatching troops to infiltrate Israeli settlements. The Israeli government responded by declaring war on Hamas and carrying out airstrikes on Gaza. Iran has endorsed the assault and urged other Muslim countries to back the Palestinians against Israel. More than 700 Israelis and at least 436 Palestinians have been killed since Saturday.

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“..convinced the Kremlin that the West intends Russia’s destruction..”

• The Insane Foreign Policy of America’s Satanic Neocons (Paul Craig Roberts)

We are on the verge of nuclear annihilation. Every agreement made during the 20th century to reduce the risk of nuclear war has been abandoned by Washington. Why worry, some ask, mutual assured destruction means neither the US nor Russia would initiate a nuclear attack. Perhaps not, but the greatest danger of nuclear armageddon comes from false alarms from warning systems. During the Cold War there were many such alarms. The false alarms did not result in mutual destruction because both governments were working to defuse, not exacerbate, the situation, and there was time for the validity of the alarm to be verified before a fatal pushing of the button. Today the situation is entirely different. Washington and the NATO puppets have a policy of provoking Russia, with the 2014 coup in Ukraine and its consequences being the worst to date.

Moreover, the hypersonic speeds of the Russian missiles and the closeness of US missiles to Russia’s border cuts time before impact to 5 or 10 minutes, which means no time to verify or confer. The extraordinary insulting hostility shown toward Russia by the US, NATO and the Western media has convinceds the Kremlin that the West intends Russia’s destruction. Russia’s President Putin has stated many times that the West has led him to this conclusion. A couple of days ago at the Valdai Discussion Club Putin expressed concern that the West’s belligerence toward Russia could end in nuclear war. If President Biden were a responsible leader, he would have said that the Russian president is right, and we must stop the escalation of threats. Instead, Biden sent B-2 stealth bombers, aircraft specifically designed for a nuclear first-strike, to European bases, thus escalating the threat, a mindless and irresponsible response to President Putin.

In the US the constant propaganda against Russia (and now China) has convinced many Americans that they face the danger of nuclear attack. This is not a situation in which a false alarm is likely to be recognized. The risk of not believing the alarm is much higher in the environment created by the American neoconservatives, who have controlled US foreign policy in the 21st century. In US foreign policy and military ranks there are some, especially among the military/security-funded think tanks, who believe, automatically it seems with no evidence required, that the US, being the greatest and most powerful country ever, would win a nuclear war. This belief exists despite the total absence of any US preparation for surviving a nuclear war, assuming such a war is survivable. The most likely outcome would be nuclear winter, a situation in which dust from the massive explosions block the sunlight and the entire world starves to death.

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Two months ago I wrote: No US Presidential Election in 2024.

“It is clear that the Biden regime and security agencies regard half or more of the US electorate as domestic terrorists. In other words, the FBI is now a political police, no longer a criminal police.”

• Will There Be a 2024 Presidential Election? (Paul Craig Roberts)

This question arises from the FBI’s designation of Donald Trump and the half or more of the American electorate that supports him as “domestic terrorists” who constitute a “persistent, evolving, and deadly threat” to the United States. As a senior official put it, “Trump’s army constitutes the greatest threat of violence domestically, politically, that’s the reality.” Here we have the FBI causing disunity by splitting the US population into half. The good half are the Democrats. The bad half is comprised of traditional Americans who want their country back from the special interests and support Donald Trump. It is the FBI that has made this division, not the people who want their country back. The FBI has proved itself to be a dangerous domestic terrorist that has created disunity among the population and gone to war against the traditional American population.

How can the FBI permit such a deadly threat to America, as the FBI declares Trump and his supporters to be, to win the election? How can an army of domestic terrorists be allowed to vote Trump into office? The FBI has equated Trump’s election with an insurrection, that is, with the overthrow of the government. This would seem to commit the FBI to preventing Trump’s election, and the FBI is applying “counterterrorism methods developed over the past decade in response to Al-Qaeda and other Islamist groups” to Trump supporters. In other words, the FBI doesn’t differentiate between Trump and his supporters and Muslin terrorists. It is reasonable to conclude that if the Democrats’ political prosecutions of Trump fail to prevent him from running for president, the Biden regime will declare a national emergency and suspend the election. Biden’s Homeland Security also equates Trump supporters with “the use of violence to pursue political ends” and “a threat to our national security.”

Attorney General Garland says “attacks by domestic terrorists are attacks on all of us collectively.” What attacks is Garland talking about? The ones the FBI is about to orchestrate? It is clear that the Biden regime and security agencies regard half or more of the US electorate as domestic terrorists. In other words, the FBI is now a political police, no longer a criminal police. The FBI and Homeland Security are geared to protecting Washington from the American electorate. Attorney General Garland has made it clear that the “Justice” Department will validate whatever unconstitutional methods are used. The position of the FBI and Homeland Security is that if you disagree with an official narrative, you are a domestic terrorist. I do not believe that Trump will be permitted to be President. If he wins, it will be said that he lost, or he will be assassinated, or a state of emergency will be declared. The Establishment will do whatever it takes to keep Trump out of the White House.

I think that the Democrats and their security agencies are demonstrating their Nazi inclinations for no real purpose. If Trump regains the White House, he still doesn’t have the government. Who can he appoint to help him? Who are they? Those who helped him in the past, such as his lawyers, are all indicted by a black woman in Fulton County, Georgia. If Trump is reelected, it will be a repeat of his first term–constant accusations against him repeated endlessly by the presstitutes, constant investigations, more impeachments. Any cabinet secretary who helps him will be a social outcast. His career will be over. When white Americans themselves are demonized as “aversive racists” and “white supremacists” in US universities and public schools and are investigated by the FBI for protesting the brainwashing of their children at school board meetings, what can anyone do?

Insouciant Americans have been asleep for too long, and they have lost their country. How are they going to get it back? Consider that those who vote Democrat actually believe that the other half of the electorate are dangerous white supremacist domestic terrorists. They believe this despite the absence of any buildings blown up by Trump supporters, by the absence of assassinations, by the absence of rioting and looting as practiced by the Democrats’ agents, Black Lives Matter and Antifa. Democrats are so indoctrinated that they believe the propaganda in the absence of evidence. The wedge that has been so successfully driven between Americans makes white people a minority in their own country. They are so divided that they cannot defend themselves or the Constitution that is the shield of their liberty.

Now that the FBI has declared the 85 million Americans who twice elected Trump president to be domestic terrorists, the FBI will have to organize some domestic terrorists events, like it had to organize Muslim terrorist events, in order to validate its proclamation of domestic terrorism from Trump supporters. Will federal agents blow up buildings, stage rioting and looting events, and assassinate Democrats in order to incriminate Trump supporters? Is this the playbook for the Democrats to win the next election? What do we make of Hillary Clinton’s statement that Trump supporters have to be officially deprogrammed? Are we being set up for reeducation camps? In America today, all of this is possible.

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A Chinese newspaper..

• Ukrainians Desert En Masse Due to Rising Casualties, Mental Fatigue (Sp.)

According to a Chinese newspaper, the Ukrainian Armed Forces (UAF) are grappling with a surge in desertions caused by increasing casualties and mental exhaustion among soldiers. The news outlet cited “emerging reports of ever-increasing stress and mental health issues, with soldiers reluctant to take to the battlefield as they feel they do not have enough time to recover from their traumatic experiences.” The newspaper added that “numerous” UAF servicemen “have gone the entire year with only a handful of days spent at home, with many being thrust back onto the front line, leading to a spike in suicides.” The media outlet cited Romanian immigration authorities as saying that “6,200 Ukrainian men of military age have crossed their border illegally, while some 20,000 have fled with special permits, though these are often falsified documents such as medical certificates and exemptions.”

On top of that, the newspaper added that the UAF struggles with a shortage of ammunition due to “inconsistent donations and varying arms types.” “This leads to the inefficient use of supplies due to shells, and to rockets being unreliable in their accuracy, which can result in equipment being damaged and soldiers injured. This contributes to low morale in the Ukrainian troops,” per the newspaper. With the assistance of NATO instructors, the Ukrainian forces have been trying to make progress on various front lines since the beginning of June. Russian President Vladimir Putin emphasized that the UAF has been unable to achieve any significant success on the fronts, already suffering the loss of over 90,000 soldiers and 557 tanks.

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“..Rome is considering ways to bring the two sides to the negotiating table, while continuing to arm Kiev..”

• Military Solution To Ukraine Conflict Unlikely – Italian Defense Minister (RT)

It is unlikely that the Russian-Ukrainian conflict will be resolved on the battlefield, Italian Defense Minister Guido Crosetto has predicted. He also revealed that Rome is considering ways to bring the two sides to the negotiating table, while continuing to arm Kiev. In an interview with Corriere della Sera published on Sunday, Crosetto acknowledged that no matter how much Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni’s government wants to support Ukraine indefinitely, the policy is simply not realistic. He pointed out that the hostilities there have dragged on for over a year and a half, adding that the “more time passes, the more the possibility of helping Ukraine with resources that are not unlimited decreases.” The official emphasized that this does not indicate a change in Italy’s policies but rather the finite nature of the country’s stocks.

According to the official, the “situation in Ukraine is getting worse,” with Kiev having “great difficulty in regaining lost ground,” and Moscow being unable to “conquer” the nation. “We are witnessing the impossibility of resolving the conflict on the field,” Crosetto argued, adding that Italy was busy looking for ways to “build dialogue tables, achieve peace.” He concluded by claiming that if Russia prevails in Ukraine, its tanks will be rolling toward European borders, making the prospect of World War III more likely. Late last month, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov reiterated that Moscow is ready for peace talks with Kiev in principle, adding, however, that it has yet to see any “serious proposal.” The diplomat dismissed Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky’s peace formula as a “pure ultimatum,” which Russia would never accept.

Russian officials have previously pointed out that President Zelensky effectively ruled out negotiations when he signed a decree last October prohibiting dialogue with his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin. Earlier this month, POLITICO reported, citing a European official, that EU member states have reached their limit in terms of weaponry they can provide to Ukraine without compromising their own defenses. “We cannot keep on giving from our own stockpiles,” the anonymous official told reporters. In a separate story around the same time, the media outlet claimed that support for funding the Ukrainian government was “showing more cracks than ever,” citing the recent failure of the US Congress to allocate more aid money in its stopgap budget, as well as the election victory of former Slovak Prime Minister Robert Fico, who vowed when he was campaigning that he’d stop assistance to Kiev.

Meanwhile, on Friday, POLITICO alleged that the Biden administration is looking for “creative” ways to secure further military aid for Ukraine, amid mounting opposition at home. The supposed workarounds under consideration include using the State Department’s foreign military financing program as well as a three-way swap of air-defense systems involving Poland, the media outlet claimed.

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“..The last effort was a major operation involving hundreds of troops, including foreign fighters…”

• Ukraine Admits Repeated Failures To Capture Europe’s Largest Nuclear Plant (RT)

Ukrainian commandos have failed on three occasions to gain a foothold in Energodar, the city in Russia’s Zaporozhye Region where Europe’s largest nuclear plant is located, Kiev’s military intelligence chief has confirmed. Kirill Budanov and some of the people involved in the botched operations were interviewed by the Ukrainian news outlet NV, which published an article on Sunday about the activities of the Main Intelligence Directorate (GUR). The first attempt to seize control of land in Energodar, which took place in August 2022, involved commandos crossing the Kakhovka water reservoir on civilian speedboats, according to the interviews. The last effort was a major operation involving hundreds of troops, including foreign fighters.

Budanov and his subordinates explained that the GUR troops had been repelled by Russian forces on each occasion, but claimed that the failures had some value. Surviving troops and planners gained experience in amphibious operations, which has since been used to attack Crimea, they said. Meanwhile, Kiev’s overarching goal of preventing Russia from supplying electricity generated by the Zaporozhye plant to the region was achieved thanks to moles, according to Ukrainian sources. Russian officials reported several Ukrainian attempts to seize Energodar last year, the largest of which took place in mid-October. Kiev deployed 37 speedboats for the amphibious assault and lost some 90 troops to Russian retaliation, they said at the time. People in Zaporozhye Region, formerly a part of Ukraine, voted to join Russia in September 2022.

The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), the UN’s nuclear watchdog, has repeatedly warned about the risks that hostilities near the Zaporozhye plant may pose to its safety. It has failed to mediate an agreement between Russia and Ukraine for a no-fighting zone around Energodar. Last week, Ukrainian commandos were killed or captured during a landing in Crimea after their watercraft were attacked by Russian warplanes. The Russian security service, the FSB, claimed that survivors had said the goal of the operation was to film troops holding a Ukrainian flag on Russian soil.

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“..the annual cost of providing care for the millions of illegal migrants entering the US is $150.7 billion..”

“..it’s just another day in the discombobulated American empire, which, much like its ancient Roman precursor, could learn the lesson of overexpansion and overspending in the most brutal way imaginable – with its total and complete dissolution.”

• Americans Get Poorer As Washington Throws Cash At Ukraine And Migrants (Bridge)

The poverty rate in the US exploded last year, the first increase in 13 years, according to the Census Bureau. In 2022, the rate was 12.4%, up 4.6 percentage points from 2021, according to the Supplemental Poverty Measure (SPM), a method for tallying government welfare programs and tax credits designed to assist low-income families. Meanwhile, the Expectations Index, determined by consumers’ short-term outlook for income, business, and labor market conditions, sunk to 73.7 in September. That follows a drop to 83.3 in August. The worrisome part is that an Expectations Index below 80 generally indicates an impending recession. An economic tragedy is already quietly happening for millions of American consumers who are now living paycheck to paycheck precariously and who have been forced to use the payment method of last resort to make ends meet: the almighty credit card, with its exorbitant interest fees.

On this score, the US economy has broken yet another record, although not in a way that could be considered something to cheer about. “US credit card debt rose by $45 billion to $1.03 trillion in the second quarter from the first quarter, a 4.6% quarterly increase,” The Street reported. “It’s the first time in US history that household credit card balances topped the $1 trillion mark as the number of credit card accounts expanded by 5.48 million to 578.35 million in the quarter.” When consumer debt suddenly equals the amount the US spends on its military-industrial complex, you know there’s a problem. Clearly, the US has some serious domestic issues that need to be resolved, but instead, it would rather fund a totally senseless proxy war against a nuclear power halfway around the world. Washington has given Ukraine close to $100 billion in aid, with more in the pipeline, since Moscow launched its military operation in February 2022.

The cash, however, has not only been used to fund Ukraine’s military. Billions of dollars have subsidized participants of the Ukrainian economy, like farmers and small business owners, market players whose counterparts in the US desperately need help, too. A recent study conducted by the Council on Foreign Relations shows that more than $30 billion – around 40% of total US aid to Ukraine as of July 31 – has been financial or humanitarian assistance that is not directly connected to military support. Military funding comes out to around $50 billion. As if that were not enough, the Biden administration continues to welcome illegal migrants at a price that is more than what is being spent fighting a proxy war against Russia in Ukraine. Yes, you read that right; the annual cost of providing care for the millions of illegal migrants entering the US is $150.7 billion, according to the Fiscal Burden of Illegal Immigration on United States Taxpayers (FAIR).

In August, US Border Patrol recorded 232,972 migrant encounters along the southwestern border, a jump from 183,494 in July. The number of crossings for September is predicted to be higher than the previous month. So here we have two concurrent events – a disastrous military conflict in Ukraine and a leaky US border – that are sucking away precious funds from the American taxpayer. It’s important to note that the king’s ransom that is being handed over to support these deranged Democratic agendas will never be returned, not in our lifetime. Instead, it will just be added to the unsustainable US national debt load, which is currently at $33 trillion, according to the US Debt Clock. That is an astronomical sum of money that we or future generations will someday be forced to deal with, and probably sooner rather than later.

What American citizen could possibly believe that any of this government funding has been a good investment for the American people? Well, they’re representatives in Washington, DC, for one. In May, ‘conservative’ US Senator Lindsey Graham, during a meeting with Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky in Kiev, pronounced joyfully that “the Russians are dying” and aid to Ukraine is “the best money we’ve ever spent.” Aside from discounting the chances that such an “investment” could have towards unleashing World War III, Graham never thought for a second that such funds could have gone far at rebuilding America’s crumbling infrastructure, like that non-existent wall on the US-Mexico border. It would have been a wonderful work program for the US economy. In short, it’s just another day in the discombobulated American empire, which, much like its ancient Roman precursor, could learn the lesson of overexpansion and overspending in the most brutal way imaginable – with its total and complete dissolution.

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“There will not be another foot of wall constructed in my administration.”

• Blue States Turn On Biden Over Border Crisis (ET)

President Joe Biden is facing significant backlash from Democratic elected leaders, particularly in northern U.S. cities that are struggling to deal with the surge in illegal immigration. They accuse the president of not doing enough to curb the influx of illegal immigrants, which is putting enormous strain on their resources. Illinois Gov. J.B. Pritzker is the latest Democratic politician to voice strong criticism of the federal response to the crisis. In a letter to President Biden on Oct. 2, Mr. Pritzker said that his state was in an “untenable situation” and urged the president to take “swift action.” In August, New York Gov. Kathy Hochul and business leaders asked President Biden to address the “humanitarian crisis” that has overwhelmed New York City following an influx of more than 100,000 illegal immigrants from the southern border.

Massachusetts Gov. Maura Healey issued a state of emergency in August in response to the state’s illegal immigrant crisis. In a letter to Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas, she wrote that her state has taken action “to address what sadly has been a federal crisis of inaction.” Officials at the White House are scrambling to respond to this criticism with statements that appear to indicate the administration is making a U-turn on its border policies. Some claim that the recent measures by President Biden are increasingly looking like the policies of the Trump administration. Before taking office, President Biden declared, “There will not be another foot of wall constructed in my administration.”

White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre attempted to defend the move, arguing that the government is following Trump-era laws but still doesn’t believe in the wall’s effectiveness. “We believe that we need border technology that is modernized and land ports of entry. And that’s what we want to see,” Ms. Jean-Pierre told reporters on Oct. 5, adding that the president’s stance on the border wall hasn’t changed. “He does not believe it is effective. He has been very clear about that.” She added that the funding for the wall is from a 2019 appropriations bill signed by President Donald Trump. “We asked Congress to reappropriate the funds,” she said. “But they’ve refused, and so now we’re moving forward.”

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“Several members of the Trump legal team don’t have the appropriate security clearances to review the evidence..”

• Judge Hands Trump a Win in DC Election Case (ET)

A federal judge in Washington partially granted a request by former President Donald Trump’s attorneys to allow for extra time to file motions in the federal election obstruction case ahead of his March 2024 trial. U.S. District Court Judge Tanya Chutkan issued the order on Oct. 6, representing as a partial win for the Trump legal team. In court papers filed last week with the court, they had wanted additional time to craft arguments in the case, which was brought by special counsel Jack Smith. The judge granted President Trump some additional time to file motions, although she mostly rejected his lawyer’s requests to delay the trial deadlines. In her order, she rejected the former president’s request to order a declassified version of some of the government’s court filings regarding classified evidence.

“Lengthy deadline extensions for the defense’s anticipated dispositive motions—like motions to dismiss—are not warranted,” her order said. “If the court were to extend the briefing schedule for these motions by the requested sixty days, they would not be fully briefed until January 2024.” Although the former president requested a 60-day extension to file pre-trial court motions, Judge Chutkan only allowed a two-week extension. Motions to dismiss the case and several other types of motions have to be filed by Oct. 23. The judge also granted a request from the Trump legal team to file objections regarding classified evidence in the case. It came days after President Trump’s lawyers wrote in court papers that more time is needed to consider procedures for reviewing classified evidence in the case, adding his team is “seeking a fair opportunity for reasonable adversary proceedings” regarding the materials.

They said that lawyers were able to review classified evidence that was provided by Mr. Smith’s office for the first time on Tuesday, but it was too short. “Our review was brief and preliminary,” the motion stated. “But it it is clear that President Trump is entitled to additional materials possessed by the U.S. intelligence community” and other portions of the executive branch. Several members of the Trump legal team don’t have the appropriate security clearances to review the evidence, it also said. “Third, as noted above, in light of restrictions on one of the central documents in the classified discovery, we are presently foreclosed from making applications to the Special Counsel’s Office or the Court relating to the substance of the document,” his lawyers wrote. “Thus, although we anticipate transmitting discovery requests and motions to compel, we are not in a position to pursue those mechanisms as of this filing.”

Responding to the former president’s motion, federal prosecutors said it was an attempt to “delay the proceedings” and claimed the amount of classified materials in the case was relatively small. His team also failed “to provide a basis for any extension” regarding pre-trial motions in the case, prosecutors said. President Trump is charged with four federal felonies in the case alleging that he tried to obstruct the 2020 presidential election. He has pleaded not guilty to the charges and said it’s part of a longstanding effort by Democrats and federal bureaucrats to imperil his 2024 presidential campaign. Last week, President Trump’s team filed a motion that sought the dismissal of the case, citing what they described as immunity. Judge Chutkan has not ruled on that dismissal motion, and the special counsel lawyers have not responded.

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Threads has been an utter failure..

• The Father of Facebook Doesn’t Understand Social Media Anymore (RM)

In the world of social media business, where revenues are on the decline and the social media industry faces pressing commercial challenges, a fundamental principle comes to the fore: Adapt or risk fading into obscurity, reminiscent of MySpace’s fate. To everyone’s surprise, Meta’s CEO, Mark Zuckerberg, chose to launch two new platforms amidst the shifting sands of the social media world. Was it a personal vendetta against Elon Musk, or did he simply bypass the innovation that typically fuels platform success, opting instead to replicate the ideas of others? The results, alas, were far from stellar. In this realm, where new social media players perpetually strive to challenge established giants, Meta, under the leadership of the somewhat uncharismatic Mark Zuckerberg, has consistently sought to redefine the game. However, recent endeavors, notably Threads and WhatsApp Channels, have cast doubt on Meta’s strategy and Zuckerberg’s approach.

Threads, initially positioned as a potential rival to Twitter (or X now), appeared promising at first glance. But upon closer inspection, a familiar pattern emerged – Meta’s tendency to replicate rather than innovate. Threads seemed to mimic Elon Musk’s Twitter presence, but struggled to retain its users. While Threads did rocket to 100 million users within five days of its early July launch, it hemorrhaged more than half of them within two weeks. Zuckerberg himself acknowledged this precipitous decline, expressing a desire for sustained user engagement. Despite being hailed as the “fastest-growing app in history,” the platform’s true source of users, possibly re-routed from Instagram, raises questions about its validity as the “fastest-borrowed” app. This fleeting hype left Threads unlikely to have a lasting impact beyond generating media headlines. Its fundamental issue lies in its unclear purpose, or perhaps its lack thereof.

Threads introduced no novel features or competitive advantages and debuted in a somewhat incomplete state, missing essential functions expected on a social media platform. It felt more like Zuckerberg’s personal jab at Musk, stemming from their longstanding feud, rather than a genuine effort to innovate. The absence of spontaneous, controversial subjects – censored to the point of resembling a Twitter feed from North Korea – further detracted from Threads’ appeal. However, the core challenge with Zuckerberg’s platforms lies in censorship. It extends beyond content moderation to the accessibility of the platforms themselves. Threads was initially unavailable in Europe and other parts of the world outside the United States for months following its launch – a significant misstep. Zuckerberg seems to be repeating this mistake with his latest endeavor, WhatsApp Channels. Here, too, Meta chose imitation over innovation, blatantly replicating Telegram’s Channels feature.

Both Threads and WhatsApp Channels are emblematic of a more substantial issue – Meta’s heavy-handed censorship. While their aim may have been to curate a “nice” and “woke” environment, they inadvertently created exclusive clubs where only the chosen few could thrive. Contacting the customer support or service teams at these social media projects often leads to automated bot interactions, which raises questions about the involvement of human personnel at Meta’s headquarters. As we examine the outcomes of these Meta ventures, a valuable lesson emerges: In the realm of social media, authenticity and originality should be paramount. Meta’s penchant for imitation, coupled with stringent censorship, has yielded lackluster results. Threads and WhatsApp Channels serve as stark reminders that replication without innovation leads to initial hype followed by inevitable disappointment. The essence of social media should be creativity, enthusiasm, and open dialogue, rather than mere imitation and exclusivity.

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