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Debt Rattle August 7 2026

Aug 072026
 
 August 7, 2026  Posted by at 9:46 am Finance Tagged with: , , , , ,  38 Responses »


Ramón Casas Decadence 1899


• Iran Struck ‘Hostile Targets’ in Strait of Hormuz: Fars (ZH)
• Yemeni ‘Blockade for Blockade’ Could Threaten Delicate Hormuz Negotiations (ZH)
• Spain’s Left Push To Replace Right-wingers, Racists With Migrants (Hanscom)
• If This is Real, We Are COOKED (MN)
• Senate Panel Holds Fauci In Contempt For Refusing To Answer Questions (ZH)
• Anti-Trump GOP Governors Plot To Undermine Immigration Crackdown (ZH)
• Contempt of Congress or Contempt for the Public? (Turley)
• Trump Grills Hegseth – Media (RT)
• Trump Expands Social Media Vetting for More Foreign Visas (ETM)
• Charges Against Dismissed Ukrainian Ambassador To The US (ZH)
• Justice Has Departed America (Paul Craig Roberts)

 


 

 


 


Iran does what it’s perfected over 47 years. One step up and two steps back.

• Iran Struck ‘Hostile Targets’ in Strait of Hormuz: Fars (ZH)

After explosions were heard on Qeshm island, near the entrance to the Strait of Hormuz, Iranian state media is saying that Iranian forces attacked and struck ‘hostile targets’ – though the event still remains shrouded in mystery and few details were offered. The US side has also not confirmed anything, and this could also be the result of drone activity. Iran remains defiant, with Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian having newly asserted in an interview, “Our enemies expected the country to collapse due to the pressures they have exerted.” He added that these pressures have “reached their maximum”. Oil jumped again on the reports of attacks in the Hormuz Strait area.


MS Now continues to report on the ‘agreed upon’ Iran-Oman deal for Hormuz transit: Oman on Thursday agreed to the framework of a deal with Iran to temporarily reopen the Strait of Hormuz, the global crude oil export route that Washington and Tehran have been wrestling to control since the war began, two Middle East diplomats with knowledge of the negotiations told MS NOW.

The diplomats declined to describe the details of the temporary agreement or what issues remain unresolved. But an Iranian government official linked to the deal told MS NOW on Thursday morning that it will establish new shipping routes by allowing commercial vessels to enter the Persian Gulf through an Iranian-controlled route and exit through a route controlled by Oman. This also as Iranian leaders continue to taunt Washington, with fresh messages such as the following from the country’s influential parliament speaker: “Massive attack coming… wait, never mind, they want to negotiate.” That’s theater diplomacy on loop.

[..] Deal Details: US-Israeli vessels Banned from Hormuz (Fars) Iranian state media (Fars) has issued details of the Iran-Omani draft plan for transit rules through the Strait of Hormuz and the Persian Gulf. The country’s parliament is said to currently be reviewing it, while Tehran still insists that the US has been sidelined, saying that the Oman-Iran contacts are bilateral.

As cited in Bloomberg from state media, key proposals include:
• Ban vessels linked to the U.S., Israel, and other hostile states
• Block military and civilian cargo tied to Israel
• Restrict ships linked to actions against the “Axis of Resistance”
• Deny passage to parties owing compensation to Iran
• Impose fines of up to 20% of cargo value for violations

The first note about banning US-linked vessels could alone serve to restart the war. The White House has appeared to genuinely be searching for an exit strategy, but this may be too hard a pill to swallow, if accurate. Fars has spelled out that “The passage of vessels belonging to the US, the Israelis, and other hostile countries through the Strait of Hormuz will be prohibited.” Below are is the fuller outline of the proposed plan as featured by Fars [machine translation]:

• The passage of vessels belonging to the United States, Israelis and other hostile countries through the Strait of Hormuz will be prohibited.
• Ships related to Israel, whether military or civilian, will not have the right to transit through this area.
• Vessels or cargoes that play a role in actions against the Resistance Front will also be subject to the ban.
• Countries and individuals that have caused damage to Iran will not receive permission to pass through the Strait of Hormuz and the Persian Gulf until compensation is paid.
• Heavy fines, including up to 20% of the value of the goods, will be imposed on violators. The cargo is anticipated.
• The government will be required, in cooperation with the armed forces, to assume responsibilities such as guiding navigation, monitoring vessel traffic, and protecting the security and environment of the Persian Gulf.
ª This plan is still in the expert review stage, and the parliament has asked experts to submit their suggestions for completing it.

Read more …

“Large New Saudi-Backed Operation?”

• Yemeni ‘Blockade for Blockade’ Could Threaten Delicate Hormuz Negotiations (ZH)

Yesterday witnessed at least the eighth Saudi oil tanker attacked by the Houthis since the maritime blockade began on July 22, which is being followed by reports the Yemeni rebel group backed by Iran could be preparing for all-out war with Saudi Arabia.


The group struck two Saudi oil tankers in the Red Sea on Wednesday and coupled the action with a threat to intensify attacks in order to close “all access routes” to Saudi oil shipments. Military spokesman Brig. Gen. Yahya Saree confirmed that ballistic missiles were launched at a Saudi tanker called Wafa near the Saudi port city of Yanbu A second oil tanker identified as Daisy was subsequently hit in the Gulf of Aden with a ballistic missile and “forced to turn back” – the spokesman said in a social media post. The Houthis are dubbing it a “blockade for blockade” strategy.

Large New Saudi-Backed Operation?
But it seems the Saudis aren’t ready to take this laying down, even if the ratcheting Red Sea region conflict threatens fragile Oman-sponsored talks to reopen the Strait of Hormuz, as on Thursday its proxy the Yemeni Armed Forces – representing the official government whose seat is in Aden in the south – announced preparations for a large new military operation. This as Al Arabiya reports a fresh outbreak of ground fighting, in a renewal and intensification of the civil war that goes back to at least 2015 (and has an international proxy war aspect to it). The Arab publication says that a Houthi attack killed 45 government forces in Hadramawt and Marib in Yemen, areas which also happen to be home to the vast majority of the country’s oil and gas fields.

Separately Al Jazeera describes of the same event: “The Yemeni Emergency Forces of the internationally-recognised government, have said that there have been material and human losses following attacks on its camps. Several causalities have been reported after a suspected Houthi rocket and drone attack targeted bases hosting the forces in Marib and Hadramaut.”

So now it seems that even if a grand Hormuz deal to reopen energy transit can be pulled off with some level of sticking power, there will have to be a separate ceasefire to contain the Yemen and Bab al-Mandab Strait crisis. To some degree, the Houthi closure of the Red Sea to Saudi shipping represents a good cop, bad cop approach to the United States and its Gulf allies. It is a way for Tehran to still maintain some serious tangential leverage over global energy, even as ships in Hormuz could finally get moving again.

Houthis Pivotal in Iran’s ‘Axis of Resistance’
As a reminder, the Houthis have been part of what Iran sees as the “axis of resistance” going back to when the Shia rebel group first seized power in September 2014: Saudi Arabia is now being squeezed from three directions in the widening U.S.-Iran war — Iraq to its northeast, Yemen to its southwest, and Iran to its east. (On July 18, Tehran struck Prince Sultan Air Base near Riyadh, its first direct hit on Saudi soil in nearly four months.) To understand why this matters beyond the price of oil, it helps to picture the crises as a set of nesting dolls.

The innermost doll is Yemen’s own civil war: a decade-old fight between the Houthis (officially known as Ansar Allah), who rule the populous north from Sana’a, and Yemen’s internationally recognized government, formally led by a body called the Presidential Leadership Council. The roots of this war trace to the 2011 Arab Spring revolution, which toppled Yemen’s long-serving president and left a power vacuum the Houthis moved to fill, seizing Sana’a in 2014. Saudi Arabia and a coalition of partners intervened in 2015 with the explicit aim of reversing that takeover and restoring the internationally recognized government, and the war has continued in one form or another ever since.

The middle doll is Saudi Arabia’s broader rivalry with Iran, a contest for regional leadership that has run since Iran’s 1979 Islamic Revolution, when Tehran’s new theocratic government began exporting a revolutionary, Shia-inflected challenge to the Gulf’s Sunni monarchies.


[..] As for President Trump, he has freshly stated, “I’d rather make a deal because I don’t want to kill people. But Iran cannot have a nuclear weapon.”

Read more …

If one country is run by globalists, 27 countries pay.

• Spain’s Left Push To Replace Right-wingers, Racists With Migrants (Hanscom)

I called it at the time the most mask-drop moment by a leftist ever. That the radical admission came from the mouth of a petite Spanish woman only added to its shock value. The tirade of Irene Montero, the political secretary of Spain’s far-left Podemos party (unlike normal conservatives who are smeared with the “far-right” label, these people really are far-left), was so rage-filled that it prompted Elon Musk to say she was advocating genocide. Here’s what Montero said earlier this year:


“I want to ask migrant and racialized people that they please don’t leave us alone with so many retrograde right-wingers, and of course we do want them to vote, of course we do, we’ve achieved regularized-status legal papers, status regularization now already, and now we’re going either after full citizenship or after changing the law so that they can vote, of course. I hope for Great Replacement theory, I hope we manage to sweep this country of retrograde right-wingers and racists with migrant people, with working people, of course I want replacement to take place. Replacement of retrograde right-wingers. Replacement of racists.

Replacement of scroungers, and that we manage to do it with the working people of this country, whatever skin color they may present, whether Chinese, black, brown, with all comrades the working people of this country. “

It was a political confession at its most revealing. There’s the reference to Socialist Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez’s plan to regularize more than 500,000 illegal migrants, with the admission that they’re seen as future leftist voters. There’s the shameless call for replacing naturalized citizens with illegal migrants. There’s the proud declaration that she views her political opponents as not merely wrong, but evil. And then there’s the standing ovation at the end to remind you how effective the left can be at rallying the mob.

It hits even harder in the aftermath of last month’s invasion of the Spanish North African enclave of Ceuta by an estimated 70,000 illegal migrants from Morocco. Want to take a guess how Montero responded to the crisis? Hint: It wasn’t with compassion for the Spaniards in Ceuta.


No, as the world watched in awe as tens of thousands of military-age men poured into Spanish territory, Montero criticized Spain’s immigration policy for being too strict. The Objective reports (AI assistance with translation): Podemos MEP Irene Montero has defended the more than 50,000 migrants who arrived in Ceuta, causing the city to become overwhelmed, and has criticized the migration policies of the Spanish government and the European Union.

In a message posted on social media, she called for those crossing the border to be treated “as people and not as cockroaches or as Amazon packages” and said that “no one risks their life and the life of their family unless they are in desperate need.” Montero argues that the current crisis is the result of a lack of legal and safe routes for migration. “This would not happen if there were legal and safe routes of entry for migrants,” the Podemos leader said. She believes European governments have responded by strengthening border controls rather than facilitating legal mechanisms for people to seek protection or migrate.

Some will argue Podemos is so far left (Wikipedia says it was “inspired by the populist leaders of Latin America’s pink tide, which included Venezuela’s Hugo Chávez and Bolivia’s Evo Morales”) that you can’t compare its leaders’ rhetoric to Sánchez’s comparatively more center-left Spanish Socialist Workers’ Party (PSOE). And didn’t Sánchez travel to Ceuta to decisively deal with the crisis and make all the expected declarations, calling it a “violation of Spain’s territorial integrity”? A closer look at Sánchez’s actions reveals that while supposedly more “moderate” left-wing parties may speak less radically than those further to the left, their goals are often the same.

The Spanish newspaper ABC reported that the first riot police officers sent to Ceuta went to escort and protect Sánchez, not to assist with the border crisis. The National Police’s union, JUPOL, told ABC (again, AI assistance with translation) that the “deeply misguided” decision “shows the priorities of the Interior Ministry and the president of the government at the most critical moments. … While the officers deployed in Ceuta were facing a situation of maximum tension, with unprecedented migratory pressure and an obvious risk to the security of the border and the police themselves, the reinforcements should have been devoted exclusively to ensuring the operation’s effectiveness and protecting citizens.”

Santiago Abascal, the leader of the conservative Vox party, was harsher, posting on X that Sánchez “uses the state exclusively to protect himself. We have not had a more miserable ruler in history.” The dire border crisis did not prevent Sánchez from starting his vacation at the royal palace on Lanzarote the day after he left Ceuta even though jihadists were reportedly among the migrants who stormed the enclave. Although one might be inclined to forgive him for jetting off after seeing how angry Spaniards heckled him during his visit to the autonomous region, the international press was not forgiving.

Here is Sánchez enjoying a shirtless walk on the beach:

If a beach getaway while workers were cleaning the debris from a Ceuta beach wasn’t a bad enough look, the prime minister also decided to unveil his summer Spotify playlist on social media the same day he started his vacation.Perhaps Sánchez judged that the situation in Ceuta was under control after many of the migrants had been sent back to Morocco? The residents of Ceuta are the ones to ask about that. Their consensus in an OK Diario report and many others that I’ve seen is that the crisis is far from contained and that the prime minister’s trip is “shameless.”

It’s hard to watch these actions from the very prime minister who enacted a mass amnesty for half a million illegal immigrants and conclude that he’d disagree with a single word Irene Montero said in her infamous tirade.

Read more …

It is not over.

• If This is Real, We Are COOKED (MN)

Footage circulating purporting to be from the North African desert shows what looks like an enormous column of sub-Saharan African men moving under escort. Some estimates put the number at a hundred thousand. Commentators claim Algerian military vehicles and personnel are shepherding them toward the coast. If the scale and direction prove accurate, Europe faces another deliberate pressure wave on top of the chaos already unfolding in Ceuta. Naomi Wolf amplified the footage, noting that these movements required state-level logistics.


Additional clips from the same period show large groups being moved near the Moroccan frontier. One account framed the Algerian regime as collecting Africans from across the continent and directing them toward the border with Morocco, linking the timing to Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez’s recent visit to Algiers. The caption reads “The Algerian system is gathering Africans from all African countries and deporting them to the border with Morocco. The visit of Pedro Sánchez to Algeria ain’t no coincidence, they wanna plot how to stir up crises between Morocco and Spain. The big shots are workin’ to wreck the relations between Morocco and Spain.”

These desert images land against the still-fresh reality of Ceuta. Late last week an estimated 72,000 people, predominantly young men, stormed the Spanish enclave from Morocco by swimming around the Tarajal breakwater and scaling fences. Despite the claims of Spanish officials that most have been returned, thousands of sub-Saharan Africans remain on the beaches and around reception centres.

Read more …

Next 5 years in court?

• Senate Panel Holds Fauci In Contempt For Refusing To Answer Questions (ZH)

Anthony Fauci has been held in contempt of Congress by the Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee, after he repeatedly refused to answer lawmakers’ questions about funding risky research to genetically manipulate bat coronavirus in Wuhan China, and his role in the ensuing lockdown quagmire that cratered the economy after he was put in charge of leading the COVID-19 response. Oh, and they obtained a copy of his cell phone.


In an 8-5 vote brought by Committee Chairman Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY), the contempt vote seeks to refer the case directly to the DOJ for prosecution – bypassing a full vote from the Senate. “Seeking the truth is not a witch hunt,” Paul said be fore the vote, per the WSJ. “Accountability is not vengeance. Accountability is what stands between the American people and a repeat of the mistakes and the very real consequences of the past.” The Committee’s top Democrat, Sen. Gary Peters, called the investigation “one-sided from the beginning,” claiming that “Information has been selectively released to support conclusions that the chairman reached years ago.”

Which of course is complete bullshit. Fauci funded the research, botched the response after COVID-19 broke out, lied about it under oath, and then pleaded the 5th when receipts came out.

Or, as Paul wrote prior to the vote: “Dr. Fauci appeared under subpoena and invoked the Fifth Amendment to refuse answering questions. During the hearing, I ruled that the Fifth Amendment did not apply because of the pardon, and that Fauci had waived any remaining privilege by giving opening testimony. I ordered him to answer and warned him about contempt, yet he still refused. That is obstruction of a congressional investigation. The Committee will act accordingly.”

Meanwhile, the WSJ reported last night that the panel obtained a copy of Fauci’s cell phone. A Senate panel investigating Dr. Anthony Fauci has obtained a copy of the doctor’s iPhone, potentially securing even more records related to the doctor’s actions during the Covid-19 pandemic. The copy of the phone was transferred by the Department of Health and Human Services to the Senate Homeland Security Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations, which is chaired by Sen. Ron Johnson (R., Wis.). This revelation comes just days after copies of Fauci’s journals were publicly released following their transfer from HHS to Congress.

Two Republican senators, Johnson and Rand Paul of Kentucky, have increased pressure on Fauci in recent days to answer questions related to pandemic health measures and the origins of Covid-19.The subpoena, issued in July, directed Fauci to testify on the committee’s investigation into “risky life sciences research and the origins of the COVID-19 virus,” according to the Epoch Times. The July 29 hearing itself was a prolonged exercise in refusal. Fauci opened by accusing Paul of an “unhinged obsession” with him and claiming the sole purpose of the session was to trap him into saying something that would land him “behind bars.”

From that point forward he answered nothing of consequence. Senators pressed him on gain-of-function research funding, the lab-leak evidence he had privately acknowledged while publicly promoting a natural-origin narrative, lockdown policies, school closures, personal financial awards solicited with federal employees on taxpayer time, and contradictions between his public statements and private diary entries. He declined them all.

Read more …

“With Work-Visa Scheme..”

• Anti-Trump GOP Governors Plot To Undermine Immigration Crackdown (ZH)

Two Republican governors with a long history of clashing with Donald Trump are working with Democrats on a plan to hand migrant workers state-issued work permits instead of deportation notices, a direct challenge to the president’s immigration crackdown that the four laid out on camera. Utah Gov. Spencer Cox and Oklahoma Gov. Kevin Stitt joined Democratic Govs. Wes Moore of Maryland and Matt Meyer of Delaware for a joint interview with Bloomberg, describing a shared position that has far more in common with the Democratic Party and the labor lobby than with the Trump administration’s approach to the border.

Oklahoma Gov. Kevin Stitt, Maryland Gov. Wes Moore, Utah Governor Spencer Cox


The vehicle for that position is the National Governors Association’s Task Force on Immigration Policy, which Stitt built after noticing a pattern among his colleagues. “The reason I set this task force up is because I realized by talking to my colleagues that they’re having the same issues,” Stitt told Bloomberg reporter Christina Ruffini. “Let’s actually have the governors issue workforce permits.”

That last line is the whole ballgame. The task force wants Congress to hand governors the discretion to issue migrant work permits at the state level, a proposal that treats illegal immigration less as a legal violation and more as a labor supply problem for agriculture, construction and hospitality. It resembles former President George W. Bush’s immigration reform approach, which sent the message to illegal immigrants, “If you’re doing a job an American won’t do, you’re welcome here, for a period of time, to do that job.”

Cox framed the alliance as a breakthrough four decades in the making. “For 40 years, we’ve been trying to do immigration reform and nobody’s ever been able to get it done,” he said. “But what’s different this time is that we have a secure border.” He credited that border security to the current administration while working, in the same breath, to carve states out from under its enforcement arm. “We all care – Republicans and Democrats – about a secure border,” Cox said, a sentiment that gets considerably murkier once the conversation turns to what happens to people already inside it.

Cox described a February meeting among the governors as almost startling in its unity. “We were together in February and having a conversation about immigration, and we were all shocked at the level of bipartisanship, cooperation, and agreement,” he said. “We were really stunned that everybody had kind of the same opinions on what needed to be done.” Bipartisan agreement among governors on loosening enforcement is not the reassurance Cox seems to think it is.

Ruffini asked the group for a show of hands on whether ICE and the Department of Homeland Security have been effective. Neither Cox nor Stitt raised one. Cox pointed to enforcement actions in Minnesota as a specific concern, citing “the violence and the deaths that we’ve seen” and calling the incidents “deeply problematic.” Stitt was even more blunt about his overall assessment. “We’re not using common sense right now,” he said.

Stitt’s example centered on a green card holder from Vietnam who has lived in Oklahoma City for 25 years. “We had a person from Vietnam that’s been in Oklahoma City for 25 years, legally in the United States, with a green card, working at Hobby Lobby,” he said. The man had self-deported after a marijuana arrest then returned to the country legally. “They’ve been a great citizen chasing the American dream, but they’ve been picked up for deportation now,” Stitt said. Gov. Moore added an economic gloss to the argument, saying a deportation agenda focused on criminals ought to travel alongside pro-growth policy rather than replace it.

Neither Republican governor has a great relationship with Trump, and both have clashed with him politically in recent years, which explains their break with him on immigration enforcement. The Trump administration clearly isn’t on board. Trump won a second term in 2024 in part by promising to close a border that sat wide open for four years under Biden. Immigration has generally been the strongest issue for him, outperforming his approval numbers on the economy and foreign policy.

DHS Secretary Markwayne Mullin set the tone from inside the administration at the same NGA gathering, sitting beside Stitt and offering his own verdict on the odds of any of this actually happening. “Is immigration reform possible? No,” Mullin told the assembled governors. “Do you really need immigration reform? Yes, you do, but can we work with the system we have? Yes.”

Read more …

“Dr. Fauci’s Contempt of Congress Can Be Challenged but his Contempt for the Public is Undeniable ”

The argument that Faucin had no right to remain silent is losing…

• Contempt of Congress or Contempt for the Public? (Turley)

“Today I am the most famous and talked-about person in the country.” Those words from the diary of Dr. Anthony Fauci will certainly be true today as the U.S. Senate Committee on Homeland Security & Governmental Affairs moves forward with holding him in contempt for refusing to answer over a hundred questions about his past conduct and statements as the former head of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases.

The contempt vote will start a process that is fraught with political and legal challenges. Even putting aside the objections to the direct referral from the Committee to the Justice Department (rather than submit the matter to a full Senate vote), there remain serious questions about whether Fauci can be held in contempt after invoking his right to remain silent under the Fifth Amendment. As I have previously stated, this area is rather murky and Fauci likely has the advantage in any litigation.

At the outset, it is important to note that Fauci always faced a risk of perjury in his prior appearances. Even if immunized, a witness can always be prosecuted for false statements. Fauci is in a much stronger position today than he was in prior hearings due to the sweeping pardon he received from former President Joe Biden. Yet, he suddenly decided to remain silent when his own words came back to contradict him.

Now for the legal questions.

If a witness is immunized, they can be compelled to testify. If, for example, the Senate granted Fauci immunity, there would be little question about his answering these questions as well as the ability to charge him for any false statements.

The Senate Committee is arguing that the Biden pardon had the same impact. Since Fauci cannot be prosecuted for any acts during the extended period of the pardon (going back to 2014 when the government allegedly funded “gain-of-function research). Chairman Rand Paul did an excellent job in putting this issue into sharp relief in his final set of questions by framing his inquiry as confined to the period of his pardon.

The argument is credible and, for many, compelling: since Fauci cannot be prosecuted for any conduct during the pardon period, he has no legal exposure so long as he speaks truthfully. For Fauci, that is a question that could be highly subjective. He referred to the risk of a “perjury trap” in his opening statement. He declared, “The only conclusion I can reach is that the sole reason he is calling me before this committee is to get me to say something — anything — that could vindicate his repeated public pledges that I end up, in his words, quote, ‘behind bars.’”

Even that statement could present a matter for litigation. Congress previously found in 2013 when high-ranking IRS leader Lois Lerner also pleaded the Fifth after giving an opening statement before the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee. The Justice Department under the Obama Administration refused to prosecute. Fauci will argue that such a general statement does not waive the privilege and that, when asked a question, he promptly and consistently invoked it.

Of course, this is the Trump Administration, not the Obama Administration. Ironically, if the matter is litigated, the Administration will be in the position of defending the pardon, which it has long questioned, as the result of Joe Biden’s infamous autopen. The ability to hold Fauci in contempt becomes dependent on that pardon being valid. The Justice Department can argue that the Supreme Court has consistently held that the mere fear of a perjury charge is insufficient to compel witnesses who are immunized, dating back to 1896 in Brown v. Walker.

Moreover, the Supreme Court has held that “anticipatory perjury” is not a basis for such a refusal to testify in cases such as United States v. Apfelbaum. However, Fauci can cite new state investigations as unaffected by the federal pardon, as well as new questions arising outside the pardon that could theoretically pose ongoing risks of criminal prosecution. Courts have generally adopted broad interpretations to protect the right to remain silent, a touchstone of our legal system. That is why I believe Fauci likely has the edge in any challenge.

The fact is that it is uncertain. The cases in this area remain relatively sparse, and any pardon case is highly case-specific to the confines and scope of the specific pardon. If so, Fauci can remain silent, but that silence will remain deafening for many in this country. The right to do something does not make it the right thing to do. Fauci, in my view, was wrong to invoke the privilege against self-incrimination even if it was his right to do so. Millions of Americans lost loved ones during the pandemic, and the United States had one of the worst records in dealing with COVID-19 in terms of costs and deaths.

Fauci’s diaries exposed disturbing contradictions between what he previously stated publicly and what he actually believed. Americans have a right to know the truth, and Fauci was not saying a thing, invoking the privilege 111 times. He will say nothing to the families who lost loved ones or the business owners ruined by now-debunked pandemic measures. He will say nothing to the scientists who were canceled, blacklisted, and fired for opposing these policies. Those scientists did not get the bobbleheads and celebrity photos that Fauci celebrated in his diaries. As the mob hounded them, Fauci said nothing as he gushed about his own fame in his diary.

He will say nothing despite the protection of a presidential pardon. For that, he should be rightfully condemned. Fauci’s contempt of Congress is challengeable, but his contempt for the public is undeniable.

Read more …

Only from RT. Playing CNN here. “The US president reportedly accused the secretary of war of providing misleading information about the state of the country’s munitions stockpiles “

• Trump Grills Hegseth – Media (RT)

US President Donald Trump has demanded answers from Secretary of War Pete Hegseth over depleted American weapons stockpiles, including air defense missiles, multiple media outlets reported on Wednesday, citing people familiar with the exchange. Hegseth did not reportedly dispute the shortages but denied misleading Trump. The reported rebuke came at last week’s Camp David meeting amid mounting concern over the state of US munition stocks after years of arms deliveries to Ukraine under former President Joe Biden and more than five months of heavy missile use in the ongoing US-led war against Iran.


Trump reportedly believed he had been misled about the state of US munitions stockpiles and complained that he had been under the impression the shortages had already been addressed. Hegseth is said to have blamed Deputy Secretary of War Stephen Feinberg for failing to keep Trump fully informed. The incident reportedly underscored Trump’s growing frustration with Hegseth, an early proponent of military action against Iran. The news outlets, including the Washington Post and NBC News, said shortages of long-range missiles and air defense interceptors were among the reasons Trump backed away from additional large-scale strikes.

US forces reportedly used more than 1,300 tactical ballistic missiles in the opening weeks of the campaign, nearly depleting US stockpiles of Army Tactical Missile Systems (ATACMS), also sought by Ukraine for its conflict with Russia. Citing a US official, the media outlets said interceptor shortages have forced the military to prioritize which incoming threats to engage. Earlier this week, the Financial Times, citing people familiar with the discussions, reported that Trump had rejected a request by Ukraine’s Vladimir Zelensky for hundreds of additional Patriot interceptor missiles, citing depleted US stockpiles and the Pentagon’s own requirements amid the war with Iran. Trump has nevertheless publicly dismissed reports of munition shortfalls.

On Wednesday, CNN reported that the US had depleted nearly 80% of its THAAD interceptor missile inventory and about half of its Patriot missile stockpiles compared to prewar levels. The New York Times also reported that Trump’s advisers had warned him about dwindling stocks of Patriot interceptors and other air defense systems in the Middle East. The newspaper said the shortages were among the factors behind the president’s decision not to sharply escalate the military campaign against Iran.

Washington denied any confrontation between Trump and Hegseth. White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt called it “100% fake news,” while Pentagon spokesman Sean Parnell denied that Hegseth had misled the president or blamed his deputy for depleted US munitions stockpiles.

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Elizabeth Troutman Mitchell

• Trump Expands Social Media Vetting for More Foreign Visas (ETM)

The State Department is expanding its social media vetting requirement to include applicants for more types of visas, according to an internal memo obtained by the Daily Signal.


Last June, the State Department said student visa applicants with private social media accounts will be required to make their accounts public for screening. Social media vetting is already required for diplomatic and official visas; temporary workers and trainees; exchange visitors; international cultural exchange participants; religious workers; and witnesses, informants, and victims. The new requirements will apply to foreign media representatives and qualified nationals from Mexico and Canada entering the United States for business as part of the United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement, as well as their dependents.

“The Department relies on every available source of information during visa screening and vetting to identify applicants who may be inadmissible to the United States, including those who pose a threat to national security or public safety,” the memo says. “We apply this rigorous vetting standard consistently across all visa applicants.” All applicants are instructed to change the settings of their social media to be “public” or “open.”

“Every visa adjudication is fundamentally a national security decision,” the memo says. “The United States remains vigilant throughout the visa issuance process to confirm that applicants do not intend to cause harm to Americans or threaten U.S. interests, and that each applicant can credibly demonstrate eligibility for the visa requested—including a genuine intent to abide by the terms of admission.” “Receiving a U.S. visa remains a privilege granted at the government’s discretion, not an entitlement,” the memo adds.

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The corruption runs in the billions, tens and hundreds of them. And she has to go because of a few 100,000’s?!

• Charges Against Dismissed Ukrainian Ambassador To The US (ZH)

Another top level Ukrainian official has been booted from office over significant corruption allegations, which comes at a moment of a broad shake-up of military and cabinet leadership initiated by President Zelensky. Olha Stefanishyna was dismissed as Ukraine’s ambassador to the United States earlier this week, both local media as as Reuters have confirmed. Reuters writes that she is “suspected of illegal enrichment and failing to declare assets, authorities said on Thursday, the latest high-ranking official targeted in an anti-graft probe” – after she reportedly hid two apartments along with other assets worth about $310,000.


She had been a deputy prime minister prior to being appointed top diplomatic representative to Washington, and it’s believed that her concealed assets could not have been obtained with her official salary alone. She had also briefly served as Minister of Justice during the war with Russia. Much of her additional properties and other assets were registered under the names of Stefanishyna’s friends and family members. Kyiv Post reports Thursday: The High Anti-Corruption Court on Aug. 6 set Hr 6 million ($130,000) bail for Olha Stefanishyna, Ukraine’s former ambassador to the U.S., in a corruption case.

She has been charged with illicit enrichment amounting to Hr 13.9 million ($310,000) and lying in her asset declarations. An anti-corruption prosecutor earlier proposed setting bail for Stefanishyna at Hr 13 million ($290,000). Stefanishyna failed to declare two apartments, worth nearly Hr 11 million ($250,000), that were registered in the name of a friend, according to the National Anti-Corruption Bureau (NABU).She has in the meantime taken to social media to declare there’s been no wrongdoing that she doesn’t have anything to hide. But she voluntarily submitted her resignation earlier this week, upon which Zelensky dismissed her.

According to a newly published list of the undeclared assets, she tried to ‘hide’ the following:
• Two apartments in a residential complex in western Kiev, registered to a friend
• A luxury apartment in central Kiev, registered to her mother
• A parking space and several auxiliary premises at the same high-end property, registered to her father
• A Mercedes-Benz GLC 220 d, registered to a subordinate

“Any procedural actions are part of the lawful work of the law enforcement system and do not amount to a finding of guilt,” she wrote on Facebook. “I take these developments calmly and without unnecessary emotion.”

Stefanishyna had served as ambassador to the US for the past year, going back to August of 2025. Local media says the alleged concealing of assets took place during that stint, and reports additionally say she was in the process of buying another property – an apartment valued at the equivalent of $550,000 – but backed out of the deal.

Broadly, the Ukrainian population has suffered immensely amid the conflict with Russia, with frequent blackouts and amid a battered wartime economy – and so ordinary citizens get increasingly frustrated and outraged when they see government officials living lavish lifestyles which include luxury cars and multiple homes and properties.

Read more …

Grisham.

• Justice Has Departed America (Paul Craig Roberts)

Twenty-six years ago in 2000 Prima Publishing published a book I wrote with my colleague, Lawrence M. Stratton. We had wanted to title the book, “How the Law Was Lost,” but we only managed to get our title on one chapter. The publisher thought that sales required a less intellectual sounding title and came up with The Tyranny of Good Intentions. I didn’t like the title, because it blamed on good intentions all the wrongs that were due to self-serving prosecutors, judges, police, and defense attorneys. Larry and I wanted to get our book published, and we decided against fighting with the publisher, who of course has to be concerned about sales and money.


The book received good reviews: Harvard Law School Professor Alan Dershowitz, Nobel prize-winner Milton Friedman, Massachusetts ACLU chairman Harvey Silverglate. But it failed to reform the totally corrupt American “justice system.” A Federal Appeals Court Judge in the 9th Circuit cited the book in a ruling, as did a federal district court judge, but that was about it.

Crown Publishing, a division of Random House, acquired Prima Publishing, and in 2008 brought out a paperback edition. I think the book is still in print and sells a few copies each year. The last I heard, if memory serves, is that the book sold some 22,000 copies.

Years ago, again if memory serves, Lewis Lapham the brilliant former editor of Harper’s, a substantial person of letters, told me that if the book had sold 20,000 copies in the first year, it would be regarded as a best-seller in the serious works class, which speaks a lot to the insouciance of the American population.

I always wondered about the “serious class” as the book is written in everyday language that anyone can understand. No need for a law degree to read our book, and the stories of injustice are gripping. But, obviously, Americans did not read the book. Consequently, they remain in total ignorance of the many dangers they, their innocence be damned, face of incarceration every day. “This would never happen to me,” but it does to many every week.

Recently, having reread the British murder mysteries from the first half of the 20th century to the point of memorization, and also all of Louis L’Amour’s novels of the Western frontier, I visited the public library and checked out half a dozen of John Grisham’s novels about the criminal justice system. I had read several of them years ago, and they had made an impression.

My belief is that a law student can learn more from one of Grisham’s novels about how the “justice system” actually operates, its disappointments, the total unconcern with justice, than the student can learn from his law professors, who are mainly interested in producing an activist committed to use law to overthrow existing society. If you are a reader who gets involved with a novel’s characters, Grisham can be very intense. On occasion I have had to set aside one of Grisham’s novels and read something else for awhile.

Grisham himself was a lawyer before turning novelist. Thus, he knows the system from the inside. It is not a pretty system. Justice is the least of its concerns. Judges permit prosecutors to withhold exculpatory evidence, to pay jailhouse snitches with early release for false testimony with which to convict an innocent person, with intentionally misleading jurors who are seldom up to the demands of the situation, and to use the corrupt American media to convict the defendant in the eyes of the public, as in the case of Derek Chauvin, so that even a jury that knows the defendant is innocent is afraid to say so.

According to the Department of Justice 97% of felonies never go to trial. The reason is that neither the defendant nor his attorney can possibly trust the system. The first thing a defendant hears from his lawyer is that if he goes to trial the prosecutor will multiply the charges, and no jury will believe that a defendant with dozens or scores of charges isn’t guilty of at least one of them. A conviction at a jury trial always brings a more severe sentence than a negotiated plea.

If the defendant’s lawyer negotiates a plea bargain, often to a charge that is not in the original indictment, the defendant by self-incriminating himself, thereby saving judge and prosecutor from a time-consuming trial, will be thanked with a lesser sentence. Plea bargains keep a judge’s court docket from backing up due to time-consuming trials. Plea bargains permit prosecutors to boost their all-important conviction rate far above what is possible with time-consuming trials. Although the defendant might actually have committed a crime, his plea bargain crime may be a construct that never happened in order to provide the lesser sentence. In other words, the defendant goes to prison for a crime that did not happen instead of for one that did. This is why I say that most people in prison are wrongfully convicted.

The only people who care about the wrongfully convicted are rare and underfunded Innocence Projects, whose attorneys work for peanuts to undo wrongful convictions. The rich white liberal foundations lavish money on men-hating feminists and the likes of Black Lives Matter and Antifa. The law and order conservatives see the problem as liberal judges who refuse to punish criminals. The constituency for justice is tiny.To wind this down, here are a few quotes that actually describe the justice system from Grisham’s novel, The Guardians, which is about an innocence project that works to free wrongly convicted persons.

“His career as a snitch began with the trial of Quincey Miller. He was eighteen when he testified, and a month after the trial his drug charges were reduced and he walked. The deal worked so beautifully that he did it again and again. Every jail has a druggie facing more time and eager to avoid it. With the proper coaching from cops and prosecutors, a snitch can be quite effective with his perjury. Jurors simply cannot believe that a witness, any witness, will take the oath, swear to tell the truth, and tell them an outlandish story of pure fiction.” Jurors are so stupid that they do not realize that a lie that convicts an innocent person is a ticket out of jail for the liar.

As for the racket of “expert witnesses,” Grisham reports that payment for a one-week seminar suffices to produce a certificate declaring a person to be an expert witness who hires out to convict or exonerate a defendant on his “expert” standing. “Most appellate judges, state and federal, despise these [innocent] cases because they drag on for years. And once they decide that a defendant is guilty, they rarely change their minds, regardless of new evidence.”

In the United States of America today, there is not one public or private institution that is trustworthy. The lack of institutions with integrity means that there is no foundation for American society.

Read more …

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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Debt Rattle August 6 2026

Aug 062026
 
 August 6, 2026  Posted by at 10:07 am Finance Tagged with: , , , , , , , ,  32 Responses »


SalvadorDali Girl At The Window 1925


• Iran-Oman Route ‘Agreed To’ as Iran Warns Against US ‘Interference’ (ZH)
• Iran Set To Emerge With More Hormuz Leverage Than Before The War (ZH)
• What the Situation on the Ground in Iran Actually Looks Like (VDH)
• Declassified FBI Document Blows Up Everything About Russiagate (Margolis)
• The Democrat Establishment Is Freaking Out Right Now (Matt Margolis)
• ‘Common Sense vs. Complete Insanity’ (Ben Whedon)
• Ukraine Shot Down Zero Missiles In Huge Russian Overnight Salvo (ZH)
• How Zelensky’s 40-Day ‘Influence Operation’ Against Russia Fell Apart (RT)
• EU Sets New Russian Gas Record Despite Ban Plans – Data (RT)
• Obama’s Exclusive Fundraiser for the Democrats’ Redistricting War (Thorne)
• Actor Fired for Opposing Transgender Athletes in Women’s Sports (Turley)
• Spanish Immigration Crisis Exposes Cracks in European Union (JTN)

 


 

 


 


Are we at the point where the words are picked to make Iran’s leaders feel they can sell them?

• Iran-Oman Route ‘Agreed To’ as Iran Warns Against US ‘Interference’ (ZH)

A statement from Iran’s Foreign Ministry warns that the United States and military ‘interference’ remain the biggest obstacles to a final Hormuz deal to reopen the strait:


Esmaeil Baqaei: The geographical coordinates of the route proposed by Iran and Oman in the Strait of Hormuz have been agreed upon. If some third parties do not obstruct this process, the joint statement between the two countries is in the final review and drafting stage. The understanding between Iran and Oman, in itself, cannot guarantee the safety of the Strait for passing ships, because the factors that create insecurity in the Strait of Hormuz, particularly those stemming from the United States, such as the naval blockade and other aggressive and threatening actions against Iran and its interests, still exist.

Latest details from Financial Times: “Initially, Iran would send ships, including oil tankers, through the waterway to ensure it is free of mines before the strait opens to other shipping, FT reports citing sources. Ships would not be charged fees during the temporary arrangement, the people added.If a deal holds and the strait reopens, the US would lift its naval blockade on Iranian ports and reinstate a waiver to allow Iran to sell oil and petroleum-related products, one of the people said.

Iranian pundits and state media continue touting this as a ‘victory’ over the US-Israeli war of aggression: Ali Akbar Dareini, a Tehran-based researcher at the Center for Strategic Studies, has said Iran is aiming to “stabilise” its control over the Strait of Hormuz, which is its “biggest military achievement of the war”. “Negotiations are aimed at stabilizing those achievements,” Dareini told Al Jazeera. “You do not negotiate to give away your achievements but stabilise them.” Once Iran opens up the strait, Dareini said Iran is still likely to put in place a mechanism to “ensure that peace will prevail”.

“Iran wants to make sure that there will be innocent passage … But there will not be hazardous passage, there will not be war,” he said, arguing that Tehran needs to ensure the US and its allies do not transport military equipment that could be used for attacks against it. This also as Yemen’s Houthis continue a ‘siege for siege’ blockade of Red Sea passage, targeting Saudi-linked vessels of Yemen’s coast, as we described. Thus far on Wednesday, the White House has remained mostly quiet on what seem to be Iran and Omani-driven talks for terms of the Hormuz Strait’s reopening. Tehran, however, has not remained quiet – as US bombs have fallen silent over the past couple days:

IRAN SAYS NEW HORMUZ ROUTE TO BE VALID FOR 2-4 MONTHS: IRNA
IRAN: NEW OMAN DEAL TO CLOSE TEMPORARY HORMUZ SHIPPING ROUTES
GHARIBABADI SAYS IRAN RECEIVED MESSAGES FROM US: IRNA
IRAN: US SAID IN MESSAGES IT’S READY TO RETURN TO ITS PLEDGES

And via Israeli media, though without official confirmation from Washington: Approaching an agreement on opening the Strait of Hormuz, N12 reports, citing American officials; The signing of the agreement is possible as early as tonight. Meanwhile, much of all of the above depends on what ‘mood’ Trump is in:

Read more …

“.. talks between Iran and Oman over the Strait of Hormuz “have nothing to do with the United States”

• Iran Set To Emerge With More Hormuz Leverage Than Before The War (ZH)

President Trump said late Tuesday that talks with Iran are “moving along very nicely” – in a highly fluid and ambiguous situation where it appears the two sides are only interacting indirectly at best.


But the Iranian side has continued to insist that there are currently no peace or ceasefire talks happening, but only the Iran-Oman negotiations which focus on reopening the Strait of Hormuz and setting terms of how it will be managed. Consistent with this narrative, Al Jazeera freshly cites Iran’s state broadcaster IRIB which reports that talks between Iran and Oman over the Strait of Hormuz “have nothing to do with the United States”. But Washington is presenting it as a US-Oman deal for the strait’s reopening, even if it fundamentally remains an Iranian-Omani proposal.

Trump in his latest comments echoed his Treasury Secretary from the day prior, saying, “It could happen. Tomorrow or the next day.” This was on the heels of traveling to Los Angeles yesterday for a fundraising event hosted by the Republican National Committee. “A lot of progress has been made.”He told Fox that the White House is now having “very good discussions” with Iranian officials as part of an “all-day negotiation” and that the Strait of Hormuz reopening “is going to be open very soon.””If they back out again, they are going to get hit really hard,” the president told the outlet. He had said the same by close of last week, but by the weekend reversed course and decided to refrain from attack Iran again.

According to Bloomberg, “The US, Iran and Oman are preparing to announce a 60-day agreement on shipping through the Strait of Hormuz” – but the Iranian side has not affirmed this.So as it stands, Tehran says it is driving the Oman talks and that Washington has been sidelined, while the White House claims that it has directly involvement in shaping the outcome.mBut all sides do seem in agreement that the technical details and mechanics of the deal are currently being worked on. According to the latest outline of what this is expected to look like via CBS:

Under the current proposal, ships entering the Strait would use the channel closest to Iran, with Iran coordinating inbound traffic, while vessels leaving the strait would use the Omani side, with Muscat managing outbound traffic. The proposal also includes a “service fee,” with the revenue split between Iran and Oman.According to the source, the broad outlines have largely been agreed upon, with the remaining discussions focused on implementation and timing. Axios reported something similar, in which the US is nearing a Hormuz deal. Axios added that no tolls or fees would be charged during the 60-day period and the parties would work on clearing naval mines from the median lane of the strait within 30 days.

As for the claim of ‘no tolls’, this could once again be just semantics, given the Iranian and Omani sides have consistently signaled the need for fund collection under the headers of safe navigation, logistics, and environmental protection.There has also been some progress on agreements for third-party demining operations. But as Rubio reminded the world yesterday, Washington still insists resolving the nuclear issue – something which the Iranians still say can only be broached after the conflict is ended and there is peace.

Read more …

Victor Davis Hanson.

• What the Situation on the Ground in Iran Actually Looks Like (VDH)

We’re hearing more and more every day about Iran and [President Donald] Trump as the midterms now are only about 90 days away. There’s kind of a narrative that is emerging, left and right, that we are bogged down. I’ve heard the word Vietnam evoked. Donald Trump may have contributed to that because, although in that 150 days, we’ve been operating in the Gulf, we’ve only bombed Iran about 50 or so days, and we’ve been discussing it for 100 days.


So the narrative has emerged that Donald Trump promises to hit them hard, they back down, and they say they want talks. They do not want talks. They want to delay, delay, delay, delay. Donald Trump then sporadically hits them. They come back to the table. We have no idea who we’re dealing with because the Iranian Revolutionary Islamic Guard seems to be playing the bad cop, and the moderate elected—“moderate elected”–officials, seem to put a happy face on things, and they either have no power or authority, or they’re in league with the hardcore to give them time and run out the clock.

So, what are the relative pressures? Everybody’s getting very angry over this on, off, on, off, on, and we’re concentrating too much on what Donald Trump says. We know what each side is doing. Donald Trump has 90 days before the midterms. If he should lose the midterms, his team is convinced, A, that there will be an impeachment circus for the next two years, and B, anybody around him will be hauled before Senate and House committees. But mostly in the House because I don’t think the Republicans will lose the Senate. And they will be inquired into, they will be researched, they will be berated, and it will cost them a fortune, and that will be a circus.

And so, Donald Trump doesn’t want that. To avoid that, he has to have gas getting near $3 a gallon, the world price around $65 a barrel, the Strait of Hormuz open, and all that requires him either to have a new Iranian government or a debilitated Iranian government or a negotiated settlement. What is Iran trying to do? Iran is trying to talk, hit the Gulf, close the Strait, talk, repeat, wash, rinse, spin, wash, rinse, spin, drag it out, see Donald Trump lose the House, have the House Left and its new Islamicist socialist base cut off funds for [the Iran conflict], and then wait out the clock and get a democratic socialist type of president that would follow the Obama regimen and pretty much appease them and let them do what they want.

So, what’s going on? What’s the big picture? I think we’re missing what’s actually happening every day. There is still an embargo on Iran. No tankers can come in with merchandise, food, material goods, industrial goods, and no Iranian oil is getting out. We have bombed now most of the rail links that go into the former Soviet Union and on into Russia and on into China. So, they are not getting imports, and they are not exporting. They may have some airlift capacity in regional airports where China or Russia are sending in material, but it won’t be much.

But more importantly, they are debanked. Assets are frozen. The economic embargo continues. They are losing in revenue about $500 million per day, and that loss is geometrically increasing, not just arithmetically. In other words, as you start to damage their infrastructure, their bridges, and we have, their roads, and you start to inflict enormous damage on the military, and they draw scarce resources from the domestic economy to fix it, the people are getting more anguished and poorer and poorer, and the country is getting worse and worse.

We don’t see that because of what? We don’t see that because there’s no ground troops. It’s not embedded. We don’t know what’s going on. mSo, while the Left keeps saying to all of us that time is running out for Donald Trump, we’re in a Vietnam quagmire, the war is lost, we need to just look at not what the Left says, not what the right says, not even what Donald Trump says, not what Iran says. Just look dispassionately and disinterestedly at two things. What is the actual state of affairs in Iran?

We have tragically lost 18 soldiers and probably spent $40 billion. But at that cost in blood and treasure, we have debilitated, neutered, deindustrialized, and pretty much destroyed the military, industrial, and nuclear complex industry of the largest state, in terms of economics and population and area, if you combine all those factors together, in the Middle East, and the bully, and the most anti-American. And so, while the Left thinks time is running out, the actual data show us that Iran is running out of time.

And I don’t know who will win this standoff, but Iran has less resources and less wherewithal to withstand this python-like squeezing of it than we do in inflicting it. We can do this forever. One final asterisk or footnote. Things have changed somewhat. Donald Trump and the Republicans don’t think the midterms are lost. If they thought the midterms were lost, then they would accelerate the bombing probably and say, “We have nothing left to lose. Let’s end the Iranian threat now.” But they don’t think it’s lost because of what?

Read more …

“A president asked why the FBI wouldn’t publicly admit what it privately told him, that he wasn’t under investigation, and the bureau treated the question as evidence of a Kremlin conspiracy.”

• Declassified FBI Document Blows Up Everything About Russiagate (Margolis)

For years, Democrats and their media allies swore up and down that the FBI’s investigation of Donald Trump was a serious national security investigation, launched only because of grave concerns about Russian collusion. Newly declassified FBI records tell a different story. It turns out that the bureau formally opened its full counterintelligence investigation into Trump back in 2017, and used his firing of FBI Director James Comey as the justification.


The president exercised his constitutional authority to fire an FBI director, and the FBI responded by opening a counterintelligence investigation into him. The key document is a declassified FBI “Opening Electronic Communication,” dated May 16, 2017, exactly one week after Trump fired Comey on May 9. It authorized a full investigation into the sitting president of the United States under the codename “Oxferd Comma.” No, that’s not a typo. Don’t ask me why it’s spelled that way.

“The FBI is opening a full investigation based on an articulable factual basis that reasonably indicates that President Donald J. Trump may be or has been, wittingly or unwittingly, involved in activities for or on behalf of the Government of the Russian Federation which may constitute violations of federal criminal law or threats to the national security of the United States,” the document reads.

The stated goal was to determine “if President Trump is or was directed by, controlled by, and/or coordinated activities with, the Russian Federation in a manner constituting a threat to the national security of the United States and/or a violation of federal criminal statutes.” The same document reveals that investigators were also examining Trump for possible obstruction of justice.

So what was the “articulable factual basis” for treating a duly elected president as a suspected Russian asset? Trump’s conversations with Comey. The document claims Trump “sought Comey’s personal loyalty” and “asked Comey to publicize the fact that the President was not the subject of an FBI investigation.” It also states that Trump “asked Comey to do what he could to resolve the investigations.”

That’s it. That’s the smoking gun. A president asked why the FBI wouldn’t publicly admit what it privately told him, that he wasn’t under investigation, and the bureau treated the question as evidence of a Kremlin conspiracy.

The document also argues that Trump’s shifting explanations for firing Comey “can be reasonably read to imply that the FBI’s counterintelligence investigation was a factor in President Trump’s decision to terminate Comey.” In other words, the FBI took a routine personnel decision, one Trump had every legal right to make, and spun it into proof that he was doing the bidding of Moscow. The memos show that both Acting FBI Director Andrew McCabe and Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein were advised that the probe had been launched.

The FBI’s leadership was furious that Trump fired its director, so it retaliated by branding him a potential Russian agent. Naturally, Democrats ate all that up. The bureau didn’t open the probe because of collusion evidence. There wasn’t any. You know that. I know that. Even Democrats know it, but they pretend not to. Yet, we got years of breathless wall-to-wall coverage, endless Democrat fundraising emails, and a cloud over an entire presidency, all built on a document that cited a personnel decision as its foundation.

Russiagate hobbled Trump’s first term, poisoned public trust, and gave the left its favorite conspiracy theory. Now we have the receipts showing how it started, and it’s just as bogus as anyone could have expected. Every official who signed off on this disgrace owes the American people an explanation, and the country owes Trump something it will probably never get from the Democrat Party or the press: an apology.

Read more …

It’s probably very politically incorrect to say that no US senator should be named Abdul.

• The Democrat Establishment Is Freaking Out Right Now (Matt Margolis)

NBC News projected early Wednesday that Abdul El-Sayed defeated Rep. Haley Stevens (D-Mich.) in the state’s Democrat senatorial primary. Our partner DDHQ has also just called the race. Establishment Democrats are freaking out right now.

Bernie Sanders’ organization Our Revolution also declared victory in the race. “Last night, Michigan delivered one of the clearest messages of this election cycle: people power can beat big money,” Joseph Geevarghese, Executive Director of Our Revolution, said in a statement. “Abdul El-Sayed was outspent by nearly ten to one, facing the largest single-race AIPAC investment in history and tens of millions of dollars from billionaire-backed super PACs determined to buy this election. But they couldn’t buy what mattered most: the trust of working people. Abdul refused corporate PAC money, built a grassroots movement that reached hundreds of thousands of voters, and won anyway.”

El-Sayed’s victory gives the party’s socialist wing a real foothold in a Midwest battleground heading into the November 2026 midterms. Stevens should have won this race easily. She’s a four-term congresswoman who, by every measure, was the more electable option in November. That’s exactly why Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer jumped into the race on July 24 with a late endorsement of Stevens, an obvious last-ditch attempt to keep El-Sayed off the ballot. Outgoing Sen. Gary Peters (D-Mich.), who chose not to seek a third term, also endorsed Stevens before Tuesday’s vote. It failed to stop El-Sayed, and now the party is stuck with him.

This is a genuinely terrible outcome for Democrats. The problem is November, where polling suggests El-Sayed is going to have a much rougher time closing the deal. Don’t forget that Trump carried Michigan in 2016 and 2024, so we’re not talking about a deep blue state here. This is winnable territory for Republicans, and a seat Democrats can’t afford to lose. And El-Sayed is the candidate the GOP wanted to face in November.

Just last month, El-Sayed, who has ties to antisemitic influencer Hasan Piker, said Israel should not exist as a Jewish state. He can’t quietly walk that one back before the general election. It’s on the record, and Republicans will make sure every Michigan voter hears it. Watch what happened when Fox News anchor Bill Hemmer questioned Rep. Debbie Dingell (D-Mich.) on El-Sayed’s rhetoric. Dingell botched the answer badly, managing only to confirm that as the Democrat nominee, she would support him anyway. Other Democrats will face that same question throughout the rest of the campaign.

As more radical candidates like El-Sayed become the face of the party, Democrats won’t be able to put any real distance between themselves and the socialist wing. They can’t dismiss it as some fluke confined to the bluest corners of the bluest cities. This will reflect on the party at large heading into the midterms, whether Democrat leaders want to admit it or not. Losing a winnable Senate seat in the Midwest because the base chose ideology over electability would be a self-inflicted wound Democrats can’t afford.

Read more …

“Abdul doesn’t represent a vision for the future. He’s leading a movement grounded in ideological fanaticism,” Rogers said.”

• ‘Common Sense vs. Complete Insanity’ (Ben Whedon)

Former Rep. Mike Rogers, R-Mich., on Wednesday presented the Michigan Senate race as a choice between level-headed governance and radicalism after progressive Abdul El-Sayed won the Democratic nomination. Rogers faced no opponent in the Republican primary and is set to face El-Sayed in November. The progressive defeated Rep. Haley Stevens, D-Mich., in what many analysts saw as a battle between the Democratic Party establishment and its progressive base. But the contest was unexpectedly close and the Associated Press did not call the race for El-Sayed until Wednesday morning.


Rogers, for his part, went on the offensive shortly after El-Sayed’s win. “The choice this November is simple: common sense or complete insanity,” he said in a statement. “For more than 25 years, one party has controlled Michigan’s two Senate seats — and they’ve run our state into the ground. They’ve driven 200,000 manufacturing jobs out of Michigan. They’ve dropped our schools to 45th in the nation. They’ve saddled families with the highest utility rates in the Midwest. Working people are paying more, earning less, and getting left behind.”

“And now the same failed politicians are asking us to send Abdul El-Sayed to Washington. Abdul isn’t just another liberal. He’s an extremist,” he added. “Abdul doesn’t represent a vision for the future. He’s leading a movement grounded in ideological fanaticism. His agenda would make our communities less safe and our state less affordable,” Rogers went on. “This election isn’t just about choosing a Senator. It’s about deciding whether Michigan has a future built on common sense — or whether we hand the keys to the most fringe extremists in the nation.”

The characterization of the race is likely to be a common theme for Republicans campaigning this election cycle, as many increasingly find themselves pitted against insurgent progressives, many of whom ousted incumbent lawmakers. Rep. Tom Barrett, R-Mich., has found himself in a similar position after socialist William Lawrence managed to defeat former U.S. Ambassador to Ukraine Bridget Brink for the Democratic nod in the state’s 7th Congressional District. That district, which is centered on Lansing, is regarded as a toss-up and could prove pivotal to the battle for the House.

Read more …

Earlier this week, Sundance wrote: “I give it four months, and it’s over..”

He’s quite likely right, but you are not supposed to know. You are supposed to think “we” are winning. That’s why we ban RT.

• Ukraine Shot Down Zero Missiles In Huge Russian Overnight Salvo (ZH)

According to a growing casualty count, a large barrage of ballistic missiles fired by Russia on Ukraine has killed at least 21 people and wounded dozens more. The overnight attack has raised the alarm for Ukraine’s Western backers, given it is being widely reported that among the over two dozen ballistic and anti-ship missiles fired, not a single one was intercepted by Ukraine.


The attacks come on the heels of a record month: July saw over 380 missiles of all types launched on Ukraine, with government authorities citing the highest civilian casualties since 2022, with at least 377 civilians killed, and another 2,129 wounded for the month of July.As Ukraine grapples with very low and limited missile interceptors, and amid reports that the Pentagon too is struggling to keep up supplies amid the Iran war, CNN also confirms that “as Russia fired more than two dozen ballistic and anti-ship missiles” and that “none” were intercepted by Ukrainian defenses.

President Zelensky again took to social media to urge partners to rapidly send more anti-air missiles: “It is crucial that our partners realize that delays in their delivery or a reluctance to provide anti-ballistic systems lead precisely to such horrific casualties and destruction,” he said. “Partners who are not ready to help more actively with the supply of interceptors right now can help by imposing new sanctions,” he added. Notably the Russian strikes have expanded to not just city infrastructure, energy cites, military bases, and ports – but now Russia appears to be going after prominent businesses.

This comes after Ukraine’s repeat attacks on Wildberries facilities, the Russian online retailer giant comparable to Amazon: The strikes also caused damage to prominent businesses in Ukraine, including the country’s largest e-commerce platform, Rozetka, and Epicentr, a retail chain comparable to IKEA. In a statement, Epicentr said Russia launched a ”devastating attack” on its manufacturing infrastructure, killing one of its male employees. In a matter of minutes, Russian missiles destroyed what the company had been building for decades, the statement said.

FOZZY group, which is one of Ukraine’s largest retailers that operates supermarket chains, said Russian shelling caused fires at two of its distribution centers. It said that six of its employees had been killed, while more have been injured.

But on the flip side Ukraine has only expanded its own long-range drone attacks on Russian territory, including on the capital city. Moscow Mayor Sergey Sobyanin has explained to TASS that “In recent months, the number of drones launched toward Moscow has increased significantly. And overall, of all the attacks carried out almost daily against Russian territory, two-thirds of the drones are heading toward Moscow.”

Last month Zelensky had announced a 40-day “operation of influence” – describing a multi-pronged campaign of long-range drone strikes intent on forcing Moscow to halt the war and get to the negotiating table on terms favorable to Ukraine. The Russian military has all the while also been upping its response.

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“Let’s remember them in peace,” she added, “when there is peace.”

• How Zelensky’s 40-Day ‘Influence Operation’ Against Russia Fell Apart (RT)

In late June, Ukrainian leader Vladimir Zelensky announced a 40-day “operation of influence,” portraying it as a campaign of long-range drone strikes meant to force Russia to enter negotiations on Kiev’s terms.As of early August, the campaign in practice turned out to be what Moscow has described as “terrorist attacks” on Russian oil refineries, residential buildings, logistics hubs, and other critical infrastructure, resulting in the death of dozens of civilians.


Russia’s answer has been to pummel Ukraine’s defense industry – including facilities producing drones and missiles instrumental to Zelensky’s much-maligned campaign – while continuing to grind forward on the battlefield. As the 40-day deadline passed on Tuesday, there was no sign Russia had budged an inch.Here’s how Zelensky’s campaign collapsed far from its stated objectives. Zelensky approved the plan on June 25, describing it on social media as a combination of “long-range” and “medium-range sanctions” aimed at compelling Russia to end the hostilities.

Over the following weeks, Ukrainian strikes focused on three main target sets: Russian oil refineries, logistics warehouses belonging to retailer Wildberries (often described as “Russia’s Amazon”), and a wave of strikes that killed civilians far from any front line. Ukrainian officials have said that they seek to make the war psychologically “sweep over” large segments of Russian society. The Ukrainian leader has repeatedly insisted on freezing the conflict along the current front line before a final settlement can take place. Moscow, however, has objected to a ceasefire on the terms of Ukraine and its backers, arguing it would be used by Kiev to replenish its battered military and receive more Western-supplied weapons.

What impact have Ukraine’s strikes on oil infrastructure had?
Ukrainian drones have hit refineries across several Russian regions, including one major facility in Moscow, over the course of the campaign. The strikes did lead to temporary deficits, long lines at the pumps, caps on maximum fuel purchases for ordinary consumers, and logistics hurdles in several regions, particularly the Crimean Peninsula.

In late June, Russian President Vladimir Putin said the strikes were designed “to undermine our confidence in ourselves and our capabilities” and to “create conditions for launching negotiations on terms favorable to our adversary.” He stressed that Russia “will not give them [Ukraine] that opportunity,” adding that the attacks had “no impact whatsoever on the situation at the front.” Russian Deputy Prime Minister Aleksandr Novak said the government had banned gasoline and diesel exports while strengthening air defenses around refineries, ensuring that plants operate at maximum capacity, and sending additional fuel to the hardest-hit regions. By late July, Novak said the market was “gradually stabilizing” as several refineries resumed operations and purchase limits were lifted in a number of regions.

Has Ukraine targeted Russian civilians?
Since Zelensky’s announcement, there have barely been any days without Ukrainian strikes killing civilians. According to Rodion Miroshnik, the head of the Russian Foreign Ministry’s mission tracking Ukraine’s alleged war crimes, in the week of July 20-26 alone 492 people were affected, including 57 killed, seven of them children. In the most recent weekly count, Miroshnik reported 49 people killed, including four children, as well as 342 wounded.

The campaign’s final days brought one of the deadliest strikes on civilians: On Monday, a Ukrainian drone came down on a beach near the resort city of Gelendzhik, southern Russia, killing at least eight civilians, including four children, with dozens of others injured. As part of the campaign, Ukrainian forces also started to attack Wildberries warehouses, hitting around a dozen facilities across Russia. At least eight people were killed and dozens more injured, with small sellers – mostly trading in clothes, toys, and other purely civilian-use items – suffering large and often irrevocable financial losses.

Zelensky has confirmed that the attacks were deliberate, claiming the warehouses stored dual-use components, including drone parts and navigation equipment – something any large-scale retailer in the world sells. Moscow has insisted the retailer does not supply the Russian military. Wildberries’ losses are difficult to estimate, but they reportedly exceed $1 billion. Following the strikes, the retailer will launch several warehouses in neighboring Kazakhstan.

How has Russia responded to Zelensky’s campaign?
Russia responded with long-range drone and missile strikes on Ukrainian defense-related facilities, with a focus on those producing UAVs that were ultimately being used in Zelensky’s campaign, along with attacks on cargo vessels it said were carrying military shipments in the Black Sea. Moscow maintains it does not target civilians.

On the ground, Russian forces continue to advance. According to TASS calculations, they liberated and took control of 32 settlements in July alone. The month’s biggest prize was Konstantinovka, a fortified stronghold in the Slavyansk-Kramatorsk agglomeration that Russian troops fully secured in early July. Officials in Moscow estimated that Kiev lost around 13,500 troops while attempting to hold on to the settlement. Later in July, Chief of the General Staff Valery Gerasimov announced that Russian forces were on the verge of liberating Krasny Liman, another key Donbass stronghold.

Has Kiev commented on its 40-day failure?
Zelensky himself has so far kept silent on the self-imposed 40-day deadline, but the head of his office, Kirill Budanov, argued that the calendar was irrelevant. “Don’t get hung up on these numbers – 40, 50, 100, 15 days. What matters is the result,” he said. Budanov is the same Ukrainian official who on several occasions in 2022 and 2023 predicted that Ukraine would retake Crimea; Kiev’s attacks were ultimately bogged down in Russian defenses far from that objective. Zelensky himself recently admitted that Ukraine is unlikely to seize the peninsula, which overwhelmingly voted to join Russia in 2014 after a Western-backed coup in Kiev.

How has Zelensky’s 40-day campaign been assessed?
Ukrainian outlet Strana.ua noted there were no signs Moscow was shifting its position after 40 days, while describing Russia’s de-facto naval blockade of Ukrainian ports – imposed in response to Ukrainian strikes on Russian vessels in the Black and Azov seas – as one of the most serious problems the campaign created for Kiev. RT editor-in-chief Margarita Simonyan wrote that the operation, “announced by Zelensky with such bravado 40 days ago,” had instead concluded with the liberation of Konstantinovka, the dismissal of half of Ukraine’s government, and Kiev appealing for an “air truce.” “Let’s remember them in peace,” she added, “when there is peace.”.

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“Belgium relied entirely on imports of the fuel from Russia in July, according to Bloomberg..”

• EU Sets New Russian Gas Record Despite Ban Plans – Data (RT)

The EU has been importing record volumes of Russian liquefied natural gas (LNG) despite a push to fully stop imports from Russia, Bloomberg has reported. Plans exist to end long-term imports of Russian LNG from next year after the EU already banned purchases under new short-term contracts. Yet its latest watered-down sanctions package carved out exemptions for European companies to continue transporting Russian LNG to third-country markets after some member states balked at measures they said would damage their own economies.


Belgium relied entirely on Russian LNG imports in July as disruption in the Middle East curbed alternative supplies to Europe, according to Bloomberg calculations published on Monday. The country reportedly imported around 400,000 tons of Russian gas during the month, while total LNG purchases fell by more than 40% year-on-year. Moscow remained Europe’s second-largest LNG supplier after the US, the outlet wrote.

The EU has faced soaring energy costs after scaling back imports of Russian energy following the escalation of the Ukraine conflict. Natural gas has been the commodity the bloc has struggled most to replace since imposing unprecedented restrictions on Russia in 2022. Before then, Russia supplied about 45% of the EU’s natural gas imports. The Financial Times reported last month, citing Kpler data, that the bloc imported a record 9.89 million tons of LNG from Russia’s Yamal project in the first half of 2026, up 18% from a year earlier. France was the largest importer, followed by Belgium and Spain.

The US war on Iran and the de facto closure of the Strait of Hormuz – a vital route carrying around 20% of global oil and LNG trade – have further strained Europe’s already volatile energy markets this year. Major suppliers such as QatarEnergy declared force majeure on shipments, sending European buyers scrambling for increasingly competitive US and West African LNG. The resulting spike in prices, freight costs, and supply disruptions has fueled inflation across the bloc, with analysts warning of gas shortages this winter.

The EU’s 21st package of sanctions targeting Russia included exemptions after Greece successfully lobbied to preserve European companies’ role in transporting Russian LNG to third-country markets. Athens warned the restrictions would hurt its shipping sector while benefiting foreign competitors. Moscow has condemned EU sanctions, particularly those targeting energy, as illegal and self-defeating, arguing they have undermined the bloc’s competitiveness.

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“Sure, that sounds representative and fair. Great stuff, Barry, Eric, and the NDRC. Enjoy your fancy party!”

• Obama’s Exclusive Fundraiser for the Democrats’ Redistricting War (Thorne)

All together now: It’s only bad when Republicans do it. In today’s episode, the “it” in question is redistricting, also known as gerrymandering, depending on who’s doing it. The subject has become heated in the past year because awful, evil Republicans successfully redistricted the state of Texas back in August 2025. The move is projected to net an additional five Republican seats in the U.S. House. A slew of majority-Republican states have followed, with Missouri, North Carolina, Ohio, Florida, Tennessee, Louisiana, and Alabama redrawing their districts. They are expected to gain an additional one, one, two, four, one, one, and one seat, respectively.


Altogether, the reconfigured red states could net Republicans as many as 16 seats in the 2026 midterms.So, you can see why Democrats are upset. But as usual, it’s not because Republicans invented some new way of cheating — it’s because Republicans started playing by Democrats’ rules. As a resident of the Northeastern United States, I can testify that we Republican voters — Conservatives and MAGAs — are pretty much completely disenfranchised by Democrat gerrymandering. New York and California and basically every Democrat-controlled state has long been unfairly apportioned to help them hold onto power.

This is a “both sides do it” issue, but until Trump re-took office and started nudging Texas to take action, Republicans exercised more restraint and fairness in the states they controlled. Now, they have finally decided to play by the new rules. Predictably, Democrats have started shrieking and fainting as though the GOP had just invented the practice. And their media wing helps push the narrative. But did you know that the very first fundraiser Barack Obama hosted after Trump kicked his pinko party to the curb in 2016 was for a Democrat redistricting PAC?

A PAC that he helped launch, along with his former AG and wingman, Eric Holder, his comrade from way back in their Columbia University Activist Proving Ground days? On its website, the National Democratic Redistricting Committee (NDRC) declares: Under Attorney General Holder’s leadership, the NDRC is the centralized hub to fight for fair maps. Since our founding, we have executed a comprehensive redistricting strategy that includes shifting the balance of power away from total Republican control of redistricting, raising awareness of redistricting, and empowering the public to get involved in the fight for fair maps.

Democrats lost substantial power on the local and state levels during the Obama years, so once the lads formed their PAC in 2016 and launched it in 2017, “we immediately began preparing for the 2020 Census and the 2021 redistricting cycle.” One can hardly blame the Republicans for fighting back against this Obama-level onslaught, almost 10 years on. And now, every August, the well-heeled swells on elite Martha’s Vineyard, one of the off-coastal enclaves in which the Obamas own a mansion, gather to raise millions in support of the NDRC. I must pause here to insert one of my all-time favorite memes, from ACT for America:

Ticket prices or admission tiers are never available for the NDRC’s ultra-exclusive big-money soirée, which is well into “If you have to ask, you can’t afford it” territory. The event generally raises between $1.5 and $2 million. Long-time supporter George Soros has personally contributed approximately $2.6 million to the NDRC over the years, and he is also linked to a 2025 $500,000 grant from Democracy PAC.[..]If you want a good laugh, visit the NDRC website to read tales of how the valiant organization fights “gerrymandering” (which is what Republicans do) with its noble efforts to “make our democracy truly representative and ensure that every voter has a fair shot at making their voice heard in the process” (which is what Democrats do).

On a separate page, you can read how the NDRC “Applauds Maryland General Assembly for Putting Redistricting on the Ballot.” Maryland Dems will attempt to amend their constitution this fall, enabling them to gerrymander the state from seven Democrat U.S. reps and one Republican rep to eight Democrats and zero Republicans. In a state where just over half the registered voters are Democrats (~51.5%), almost a quarter are Republicans (~23.5%), and a quarter (~25%) are unaffiliated or something else.

Sure, that sounds representative and fair. Great stuff, Barry, Eric, and the NDRC. Enjoy your fancy party!

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“It’s an old song. It’s a sad song. But we’re gonna sing it anyway.”

• Actor Fired for Opposing Transgender Athletes in Women’s Sports (Turley)

Geno Segers was a widely acclaimed actor who starred in the Broadway production Hadestown. That came to an end this month when Segers expressed the view of the vast majority of Americans: women’s sports should be confined to biological women. He has now been fired, even after an attempt to apologize for expressing his own views on the subject. Other actors have expressed support for transgender players without any response other than praise in the latest example of the rising McCarthyism on the left.


This is only the latest termination over the political views of artists in New York. As the song states in Hadestown, “It’s an old song. It’s a sad song. But we’re gonna sing it anyway.” We have previously discussed how private companies can fire employees for public conduct or statements that bring controversy to their business or products. However, even though the First Amendment does not govern such controversies, there remains a free speech issue. Free speech goes beyond the confines of the First Amendment and private companies can engage in censorship that curtails this human right.

The question often comes down to consistency in companies enforcing content-based standards. I did not like some of the comments of Segers, but there is little question that equally strong comments against “cisgender” athletes or for transgender athletes would not result in such termination. Segers posted statements critical of transgender athletes playing in women’s sports as well as the posting of preferred pronouns. The comments were certainly mocking and insulting at points: “If you asked me what my preferred pronouns are and it’s not obvious to you that I’m a he/him, that I’m good with he/him — Surely you don’t need any help. I’m not wearing a dress.”

One can understand why transgender advocates would be upset with the content and tenor of these comments, including “I don’t see transgender people becoming oppressed or being oppressed … life is unfair.”However, Segers also wrote: “I’m not against anyone living out their lives the way they want, but I am against their rights superseding the rights of other people. That’s a little bit foul.” Segers attempted to apologize for his comments after the cancel campaign picked up steam:

I wish to extend my most sincere apologies to everyone impacted by my words. While I never intended to inflict harm, I recognize that the impact of my statements is what matters most. I am fully committed to listening, educating myself, and elevating my standards. I will work tirelessly to earn the opportunity to make things right.Actors, athletes, and academics routinely offer equally strident and insulting comments about the issue as well as radical comments on cisgender citizens and culture. Those comments generally do not trigger cancel campaigns.

In academia, the bias is obvious and open. As discussed this week, over 40 percent of academics say that they will vote against faculty candidates who voted for Trump regardless of the intellectual content of their scholarship. Even moderate conservatives are rare in teaching while higher education is heavily populated with the most extreme voices on the left.

An example is the recent book published by Pennsylvania Professor Beans Velocci claiming “sex isn’t real” and the gender “binary” is “incoherent.” The assistant professor in history and the sociology of science seemed to relish the anticipated controversy over his book, telling Duke University Press in an interview that “any right wing or TERF detractor who wants to s***-talk the book is going to have to say or write the phrase ‘Sex Isn’t Real’ in the process.” Velocci is no standout in higher education. Attacking “cisness” and conservatives is a clear winning strategy for faculty candidates. As with actors, the opposing views would be lethal to an applicant.

The same is true with athletes. The mob has now come for Sophie Cunningham as it did for authors such as J.K. Rowling. Cunningham stated her support for maintaining women’s sports for biological females, a position also declared yesterday by Aryna Sabalenka, the number-one-ranked female tennis player. Cunningham was not obnoxious or extreme in her comments. She simply stated her concern for girls in sports. Nevertheless, she has been viciously attacked (including by a team owner), as have girls who support her.

Athletes, including coaches, routinely make opposing statements with no cancel campaign, including a women’s basketball coach. Former U.S. Women’s National Team star Megan Rapinoe routinely made controversial statements in favor of transgender athletes without any repercussions. However, Cunningham is now the target for the mob. Guardian’s Howard Bryant wrote, “Sophie Cunningham is now … accepting the role as the right’s anti-Black, anti-transgender culture war ambassador.”

Whether it is actors, athletes, or academics, there is a demonstrably different level of tolerance for controversial views on gender. Take Segers’ statements, swap the nouns or pronouns, and ask yourself if there would have been a cancel campaign, let alone a termination. It is not the fact of the controversy but the lack of consistency that is so problematic in these areas. It is likely that Segers will now be effectively blacklisted in seeking new roles and productions. For him, the musical lyrics came true: “Hadestown, Hadestown, a place where you can die.”

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Who organizes this? Why are we not told?

• Spanish Immigration Crisis Exposes Cracks in European Union (JTN)

The Spanish immigration crisis has exposed cracks in the European Union and an opportunity for right-wing leaders heading into elections next year in Spain, Italy and France. Last week, tens of thousands of migrants poured over the Spanish border at Ceuta, a North African exclave ruled by Spain since 1580. The small coastal city is situated on a narrow peninsula on the southern edge of the Strait of Gibraltar between Spain and Morocco — the only place where a European border touches Africa.


Instead of fully backing Spain as they may have done in the past, more than 20 European leaders instead criticized the government of Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez for passing policies that attract illegal immigrants. PBS reported that as many as 60,000 entered the nation illegally, and that at least 57 migrants died on the journey. Other leaders went further. The government of Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni harshly criticized Sanchez’s leftist government and suspended Italy’s participation in the Schengen Area—the passport-free zone that is a pillar of the European Union.

Though at an emergency EU meeting on Tuesday, the various governments played down criticisms of Spain’s leaders and applauded its quick response to send the vast majority of those who crossed the border back to Morocco, the incident exposed cracks in the continental bloc. Specifically, the right-wing candidates with elections next year—in Spain, Italy and France—have used the incident as a way to bolster their own credentials ahead of the contests and seek to ride the wave of Europe’s move towards stricter immigration enforcement.

Earlier this year, while Europe was working on tightening border controls and rethinking its asylum policies, Spain was an outlier. Under Prime Minister Sanchez, Spain announced a reform that will grant up to half a million people legal status, amounting to around 1% of the population. The move sparked domestic backlash and elicited concerns from leaders around Europe. “Some say we’re going too far, that we’re going against the current,” Spanish Prime Minister Sanchez said at the time. “When did recognizing human rights become something radical?”

At the time, the tide had turned elsewhere in Europe. In France, Germany and Italy, leaders have been pushing for tighter immigration controls, stepping up border patrols, scaling back asylum rights and helping to fund initiatives to create incentives for would-be migrants from Africa, the Middle East and Asia to stay home, Just the News previously reported. Spain’s neighbors accused Sanchez’s legalization plan of creating “pull factors” for illegal immigration to Europe and endangering the continental efforts to curb “uncontrolled mass crossings” that have become the hallmark of migrant flows from Africa in recent years.

“Irregular and uncontrolled immigration poses a danger to national security:” Italy
The critics were led by the government of conservative Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni, who has long campaigned on curbing illegal immigration to her country and to the European Union. Meloni’s Foreign Minister, Antonio Tajani, placed the blame squarely on Spain’s amnesty policy, arguing that it undermines national security. “Irregular and uncontrolled immigration poses a danger to national security. The images coming from Ceuta show how the Madrid Government’s decision to grant Spanish, and therefore European, citizenship to over 500,000 irregular immigrants is profoundly wrong and encourages human trafficking,” he said.

Meloni’s government temporarily suspended open air and sea transport between Spain and Italy on Friday amid concerns that Spain was not doing enough to control the flow of illegal migrants. Under the Schengen Agreement, 29 participating European countries created a passport-free travel zone without internal border checks. France also mobilized police and military units to conduct checks on the Spanish border. Meloni also led a joint letter by 22 European leaders, criticizing Spain for its policies that they contend attract illegal immigrants, putting the entire European Union at risk.

regularization of a very large number of irregular migrants,” the nearly two dozen European leaders, led by Meloni and Denmark’s Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen, wrote to the European Commission. “We cannot allow uncontrolled mass crossings, the instrumentalization of migration or other hybrid threats to create the perception that illegal entry into the European Union is possible. That a migrant’s illegal entry can turn into a legal stay,” the leaders added.

Conservative party leaders and candidates across Europe also see the Spanish border crisis as an opportunity, especially in Spain, Italy and France. Those three countries are set to have elections next year. In Spain, where the crisis took place, Sanchez’s Socialist Workers’ Party is facing a likely alliance of conservative and right-wing populist parties polling ahead of his left-wing bloc. The populist Vox party is gaining steam as the main opposition against Sanchez’s immigration agenda.

Vox’s leader, Santiago Abascal, traveled to Ceuta amid the crisis to present a sharp contrast with Sanchez’s leadership. There he called for the militarization of Spain’s borders and labeled the flood of migrants an “invasion.” Abascal also called for Sanchez to be jailed over his handling of the crisis. Vox and Spain’s largest conservative party, the People’s Party, are gearing up for a general election next year. Sanchez’s leftist party has clung to power since 2023 after receiving fewer votes than the People’s Party. However, Vox and the PP were unable to form a coalition to remove Sanchez from power because they fell just short of an outright majority. Both are looking for an opportunity to oust Sanchez next year.

Blaming socialism
“By regularizing hundreds of thousands of illegal immigrants, the socialist prime minister of Spain, Pedro Sánchez, has opened the doors of Europe,” said Jordan Bardella, leader of France’s conservative National Rally party and member of the European Parliament. The party’s longtime presidential candidate, Marine Le Pen, will run in the election to replace French President Emmanuel Macron next year. The first television debate will take place later this month. “In 2027, we will stop this madness by reserving Schengen free movement for EU nationals,” Le Pen said in a post to Facebook.

Meloni, who led the opposition to Spain’s immigration policies, will also have to answer to voters in an election next year. Italians will decide whether to reward the prime minister for her own efforts to crack down on illegal immigration to Italy, one of the core campaign promises that catapulted her party to the top of polls in Italy’s 2022 elections. Meloni has led a remarkably stable governing coalition of right-wing parties in Rome and is the country’s second-longest serving prime minister.

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Debt Rattle August 5 2026

Aug 052026
 
 August 5, 2026  Posted by at 9:41 am Finance Tagged with: , , , , , ,  27 Responses »


Vincenzo Camuccini La Morte Di Cesare 1804


• Bessent Promises Hormuz Breakthrough: ‘May Have Deal Tomorrow’ (ZH)
• Rubio: “Denuclearization of Iran” is the “Ultimate Deal” (ZH)
• Ukraine Ambassador to the United States Removed from Duty (CTH)
• Another Trump Assassination Attempt May Have Just Been Thwarted (Margolis)
• The EU and the Iron Law of Oligarchy (Stephen Soukup)
• New Signals Point To Another Possible Migrant Invasion Against Ceuta (ZH)
• Mamdani’s War on New York Business Is a Double-Header (Stephen Green)
• New York’s Property Tax Crackdown (Victor Davis Hanson)
• Anthony Fauci Hurt America’s Children … and Her Future (Joseph Ford Cotto)
• Rand Paul Makes His Move Against Fauci (Matt Margolis)
• Sen. John Kennedy Blasts John Thune Over a ‘Huge Mistake’ (Matt Margolis)
• Leading Biden COVID-19 Figure Embraces the Lab Leak Theory (Turley)
• The Last White Generation (Paul Craig Roberts)

 


 

 


 


There’s movement with Iran. They were saying there’s no talking, but now there is.

“We are in talks with the Iranians, and I think there is a chance we may have a deal today or tomorrow to open the Strait and move towards a more normalized position in this conflict,” Bessent said in an interview with CNBC.

• Bessent Promises Hormuz Breakthrough: ‘May Have Deal Tomorrow’ (ZH)

[..] Washington brought out its heavy hitter to re-anchor the administration’s narrative, seeking to assure markets that a diplomatic deal with Tehran is not only real, but imminent – potentially coming together even as soon as Tuesday through Wednesday. “We may have an Iran deal tomorrow to open Hormuz,” Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent declared, signaling that a major diplomatic resolution is within reach. He pointed out that physical maritime traffic is already quietly resuming, regardless of headline volatility.


Bessent claimed the administration is seeing “quite a few ships coming out of Hormuz, even now,” suggesting the chokehold is loosening ahead of an actual deal and formal signature. With physical crude flows expected to resume, Bessent predicted that elevated energy prices will soon settle down, paving the way for a massive “relief trade” across broader markets: “We are in talks with the Iranians, and I think there is a chance we may have a deal today or tomorrow to open the Strait and move towards a more normalized position in this conflict,” Bessent said in an interview with CNBC.

Asked if Tehran would be allowed to charge a toll, Bessent said the deal would allow freedom of movement in the strait.”It would be freedom of movement,” he said. “Even though things are still a little dicey there over the past few days, we saw quite a few ships coming out even now.” Of course, we’ve heard all of this before, and notably Bessent’s commentary came just after Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian insisted that while Tehran would defend its borders, it does not seek to expand the war, according to state media. An advisor to the Supreme Leader also reiterated that if the blockade continues, US vessels and forces will face serious risks and casualties. And there’s this not so small hiccup in the strait emerging Tuesday:

A vessel has been struck in the Strait of Hormuz near Oman, the UK maritime security firm Vanguard says. One crew member is missing.

Looming large over all of this is the fact that the Iranians have still denied that they are in formal talks with Washington, which Trump the day prior described as a ruse, venting his frustration while insisting that the Iranians have been engaging. The Hormuz blueprint as it basically stands: Reuters: Iran would gain full control over vessels entering the Strait of Hormuz under a temporary plan being discussed with Oman, an Iranian official says.

Outbound vessels would use the route between Iran and Oman, with Oman approving their exit only after notifying Tehran. The plan would give Iran full visibility over outbound traffic and the ability to intervene if needed and Iran is unlikely to accept any other proposal to open the strait The Bessent clip:

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“Rubio insisted again that Strait of Hormuz remains open and that vessels are continuing to pass through it..”’

• Rubio: “Denuclearization of Iran” is the “Ultimate Deal” (ZH)

Secretary of State Marco Rubio spoke at the White House Tuesday, just after headlines out of Qatar touting that a new draft deal initiative is gaining momentum. Rubio insisted again that Strait of Hormuz remains open and that vessels are continuing to pass through it, but said the US is working to open it up to bigger vessel transit flows.”I think there is a conversation and a negotiation that we are involved in between Iran and Oman on how more ships can be able to go through there safely in the short term, as we move towards… longer-term talks about denuclearization,” said Rubio. He then emphasized that that the “denuclearization of Iran” is the “ultimate deal”.


But from Tehran’s point of view, this will constitute Washington shifting the goalposts back to square one once again. Iran has insisted it will not negotiate the end of its nuclear program, especially while the conflict is still in an active phrase. It has consistently said that nuclear talks can happen later, only once an agreement to end the war has been accomplished. The two sides continue to be far apart, despite the Tuesday morning onslaught of ‘Hormuz deal imminent’ headlines.

PressTV, however, has said that Iran-Oman talks on opening Hormuz are in a “new phase” – and despite what it calls “US obstruction” – but so far it appears this management scheme will be favorable to Iran’s demands. And yet there’s still some signs of compromise on the horizon:

IRAN WEIGHS ALLOWING EUROPE TO CLEAR MINES IN STRAIT OF HORMUZ

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Sundance: “I give it four months, and it’s over..”

“Every Russian move exists silently, almost in isolation from Western media. Every Ukraine move exists loudly, coordinated and promoted for maximum media value.” Did she piss off the nazis?

• Ukraine Ambassador to the United States Removed from Duty (CTH)

Olha Stefanishyna says she resigned. Volodymyr Zelenskyy says she was removed. Regardless of which storyline is accurate, the Ukraine Ambassador to the United States is no longer in position. There is no replacement. Stefanishyna is also under investigation for her connection with financial irregularities involving the Asset Recovery and Management Agency, although she has not been formally charged, yet. The Western narrative, which has continuously looked like an intelligence community shaping, says that U.S. relations with the government of Ukraine have never been stronger. The reality seems to be something else entirely.


Olha Stefanishyna


Aug 3 (Reuters) – President Volodymyr Zelenskiy dismissed Ukraine’s ambassador to the United States, Olha Stefanishyna, in a decree published on Monday. Stefanishyna had been in her job for nearly a year. Her departure had been expected for several weeks.Her departure coincides with a shake-up in recent weeks of top officials, including the replacement of the prime minister and defence minister. A reshuffle of Ukraine’s diplomatic and ambassadorial appointments is also expected. Stefanishyna, writing on Facebook, said the decision to leave her post was “my own decision, driven by personal circumstances … ” and said she had accomplished much during her time in the post. (read more)

I am not going to belabor the points, because I’m told by most my review of the data is incorrect. However, once again, I would simply point out the distinct difference between the preferred Western narrative and the reality of events as they unfold. From the June 11th London visit that preceded the G7 assembly in Paris, things have not made sense when you compare Western narrative to the reality of events. The removal of Stefanishyna is simply just another datapoint. Western media say Ukraine has turned the tide on the war against Russia. Reality – Russia has methodically gained ground in Eastern Ukraine.

Western media say Ukraine has exceptional drone building and technological capabilities to share with allies. To highlight this expertise Ukraine held a drone exposition in Kiev; Russia blew it up killing hundreds of contractors. Media went silent. Ukraine drones attack Wildberries warehouses. Russia blows up drone manufacturing factories. Western media say Ukraine drone capabilities are the most remarkable testimonial to their military effectiveness. Zelenskyy fires the Minister of Defense responsible for the drone capabilities.

Western media say Ukraine is effective in stopping the Russian advancements in the Donbas region. Zelenskyy fires the military general in command of the Ukraine military in the Donbas. Western media say Ukraine long-range drones are striking deep into Russian oil refining capacity. Zelenskyy says he needs to build drone and missile factories in Great Britain. If you want to evaluate the war, go back to the timing of events right after Zelenskyy last went to London and met with King Charles. It was a few days before the G7 summit in Paris. Go back to that exact date and then read the headlines on Ukraine/Russia from that date to today.

If you can be emotionally disconnected from the spin, and just focus on what the headlines would mean in every other timeframe, what you will notice is that Ukraine is panicking. Every move is a panic move from that London visit to today. Every Russian move exists silently, almost in isolation from Western media. Every Ukraine move exists loudly, coordinated and promoted for maximum media value. It looks like an intelligence influence operation. Go look.

The recently organized U.S. Senate sanctions against Russia are mostly directed toward China and India, while framing censorship in the form of punishment against any action that might “undermine” the government of Ukraine. It’s the ‘be careful what you say’ sanctions. Russia is methodically destroying Ukraine defenses, and the only response Zelenskyy has put together is flashy political promotion and media headlines to hide a reality that Russia is methodically destroying Ukraine defenses.

Western media says one narrative; the datapoints show something entirely different. I give it four months, and it’s over. Perhaps, that’s why President Trump: (A) pulled back from Patriot and Tomahawk missile sharing; and (B) has told his team to reengage both sides in peace negotiations now.

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Assassination attempts. Quite something to lose count of.. But there you go…

• Another Trump Assassination Attempt May Have Just Been Thwarted (Margolis)

An armed man spent part of Sunday casing Trump National Golf Club in Rancho Palos Verdes, snapping photos and videos of the grounds while federal agents watched from a distance. By the time deputies moved in, investigators say he had already zeroed in on something specific: security planning.The Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department confirmed the arrest in a statement Tuesday. President Donald Trump was in the air aboard Air Force One, en route to California, when word of the arrest broke. He is set to attend a Republican National Committee dinner at that very golf course Tuesday evening.


The Secret Service is now investigating whether the man posed a threat to the president, according to a federal law enforcement source who spoke to CNN. A separate source told the network the investigation remains ongoing.Deputies identified the suspect as 38-year-old Jeanine John Taele of Downey. The El Segundo Police Department is separately investigating him in a robbery case. According to the sheriff’s department, Taele photographed and filmed the property while appearing to monitor what officials called “security-planning activities.” Deputies arrested him on charges of carrying a concealed firearm and possession of prohibited ammunition.

The case escalated fast. Detectives assigned to the FBI’s Joint Terrorism Task Force executed a search warrant on Taele’s home Monday, citing the “potential security implications surrounding the incident.” What they found inside should worry anyone still inclined to shrug this off: an AR-style rifle that had been illegally modified, a .45 caliber pistol, body armor, high-capacity magazines, ammunition, and equipment for monitoring radio signals, along with notebooks filled with what the sheriff’s department called “concerning statements.” The FBI’s Joint Terrorism Task Force and the Secret Service are both assisting in the investigation, and officials say additional charges could follow.

It’s hard to see how this was anything other than an attempted assassination, which would make it now the fourth time in two years that a man carrying a rifle has turned up uncomfortably close to Donald Trump. In July 2024, Thomas Matthew Crooks shot at Trump in Butler, Pa., grazing his ear before Secret Service snipers took him out. Two months later, Secret Service agents caught Ryan Routh lurking with a rifle near Trump’s golf course in West Palm Beach, Fla. In April, Cole Tomas Allen attempted to gain entry to the White House Correspondents Association Dinner with a shotgun and other weapons.

Make no mistake about it, a pattern like this does not happen by coincidence. The sheriff’s department is trying to strike a careful balance between reassurance and warning. “Currently, investigators have identified no credible threat to our communities,” the statement said. “However, this case underscores the importance of vigilance, strong partnerships with local, state, and federal law enforcement agencies, and the proactive steps taken to identify and investigate suspicious activity before it can escalate.”

Whatever Taele’s intentions turn out to be, the arsenal found in his home and his apparent interest in “security-planning activities” at a property Trump was hours from visiting are facts hard to ignore.

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“The EU won’t reform because it can’t reform. And so, it will collapse instead.”

• The EU and the Iron Law of Oligarchy (Stephen Soukup)

For most of the last forty years, Spain has been a hub of primarily North African and Middle Eastern immigration to Europe. Since the 1980s, Spain has had six major extraordinary regularizations for its migrant populations. Although different in name and details, these “extraordinary regularizations” are essentially broad general amnesties, grants of legal immigration status to those who entered the country illegally. In 2005, under the former Prime Minister José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero (a socialist), Spain granted amnesty to more than half a million illegal immigrants.


Earlier this year, under current Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez (also a socialist . . . or worse), the country began the process of yet another regularization, the total size of which is unknown at present but is estimated to be between 500,000 and over 800,000. Additionally, earlier this summer, the Spanish Supreme Court issued a ruling limiting the ability of the government to return immigrants who arrived in Ceuta and its sister city, Melilla, by sea rather than by land (over a technical “border”).

All things considered, Spain has done everything in its power to encourage as much immigration as possible, and its government has openly conceded this fact, arguing that demographic and workforce realities make mass immigration an absolute necessity. Unsurprisingly, given all of this, the country’s foreign-born population jumped significantly in less than two years, from approximately 18.2% of the total population in 2024 to 20.3% today.

In light of Spain’s immigration policies and in the wake of the Ceuta disaster, over the weekend, several EU nations called for a suspension of Spain’s privileges under the Schengen Agreement, which allows borderless travel within the Schengen region: no passport control, a unified set of regulations, etc. Predictably, Meloni’s Italy was the first to speak up. Deputy PMs Antonio Tajani and Matteo Salvini announced a formal one-month suspension of Italy’s Schengen relations with Spain, closing Italy’s maritime and air entry points to Spain and introducing “targeted and selective” checks on non-EU travelers arriving from that country.

France followed suit, reintroducing checks at its land border crossings with Spain. Finland began preparing to reimpose border controls along its own Schengen borders, and its interior minister, Mari Rantanen, offered the sharpest public statement by a government official to date: “Spain’s outer border is also our outer border, and. . . they have failed in their efforts to prevent this incursion, this invasion.” Denmark and Czechia both demanded Spain’s suspension from Schengen, but neither has taken unilateral action on its own.

In response, Pedro Sánchez complained that everyone, everywhere, was overreacting, stating that the rest of Europe was being “selfish, polarising, and unlawful.” Taken as a whole, this entire episode—starting with Spain’s admitted desire to import as many immigrants as possible and continuing through this weekend’s demands for Spain’s suspension from Schengen—helps clarify some of the broader issues facing the EU.

First, in the age of mass immigration, Schengen shows clearly that the EU itself was a half-baked idea. Interestingly, Schengen did not start as an EU enterprise. It started as a side agreement between a handful of member states: Belgium, France, Germany, Luxembourg, and the Netherlands. It was only in 1999, via the Amsterdam Treaty’s Schengen Protocol, that the “Schengen acquis” (the whole body of Schengen rules and agreements) was formally absorbed into EU law. In 2004, the EU—as opposed to its member states, a key distinction—tried to push a European constitution on its members, including provisions formally mandating Schengen compliance, making the EU “an area without internal frontiers, in which the free movement of persons is ensured. . . .”

The following year, French and Dutch voters explicitly rejected the constitution via referenda, which should, by all rights, have been the end of it. The EU being the EU, it decided that it wouldn’t take no for an answer and scaled the constitution back marginally and re-presented it as the Lisbon Treaty, which, among many foolish things, formalized and mandated participation in the Schengen migration policies.

Second, the Euro, the immigration mess, and the EU’s unwillingness to accept the will of the people as definitive confirm Robert Michels’ Iron Law of Oligarchy and show that the EU’s pretensions to “democracy” are rather laughable. Michels was a student of Max Weber, the founder of modern sociology, who sought to deepen his appreciation of socialism by studying the German Social Democratic Party (SPD), the most avowedly democratic, mass-participatory political organization in Europe at the time. He presumed that he would find a functional, egalitarian organization that confirmed all his fantastical priors.

Instead, what he discovered was the opposite. He concluded, based on his study, that even organizations explicitly founded on democratic principles—universal participation, elected leadership, accountability to the membership—invariably develop into oligarchies, ruled by a small, self-perpetuating leadership class. It is simply the nature of large organizations. This, then, is Michels’ Iron Law of Oligarchy: “It is organisation that gives birth to the domination of the elected over the electors, of the mandataries over the mandators, of the delegates over the delegators. Who says organisation, says oligarchy.”

The EU is an oligarchy in Michelsian terms. It is governed by a small self-perpetuating ruling class that sees “the people” as impediments to its technocratic program and will do whatever is necessary to advance its agenda, regardless of the will of those people.

Finally, the EU will crumble. All Utopian enterprises eventually do. They must. They can’t help but do so. And while it may not be the monetary union that brings it down, something will. Maybe it will be Schengen and immigration. Maybe it will be something else. Who knows? Whatever the case, it will, eventually, collapse. The real, painful part of Michels’ Iron Law is the inability of oligarchies to reform themselves. They are incapable. What this suggests is that the EU’s response to the Ceuta incident and to Spain’s immigration unilateralism more generally will be to add more layers of centralizing regulation to the already oligarchical system, thereby making a bad problem even worse.

The EU won’t reform because it can’t reform. And so, it will collapse instead.

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The EU yesterday complimented Spain on its reaction so far… No kidding.

• New Signals Point To Another Possible Migrant Invasion Against Ceuta (ZH)

The scenes from the Ceuta invasion were deeply alarming, as 60,000 predominantly military-aged men, many carrying no supplies, crossed from Morocco into the Spanish enclave. The invasion set off alarm bells across the West, reinforcing concerns that uncontrolled mass migration poses a major national security risk. According to The Sun, there are new concerns that a second invasion of Ceuta could be “just days” away, as the outlet cites online posts warning it may be their [migrants] “last chance” to enter Europe.


The outlet continued: “Fears are also mounting convicted terrorists were among the tens of thousands of people who stormed the Spanish enclave last week, reports say.” [. . .]But reports say the peninsula could see scenes of mayhem play out on the streets yet again, as plans are being made for another mass border crossing on August 15.On social media, posts appear to be plotting another storming of the shores of Ceuta, with one message reading: “Everything will be seen that day.” Another appears to call for the creation of a WhatsApp group, saying: “Our appointment is on 15/08/2026.”

The invasion prompted Italy to suspend Schengen arrangements with Spain and to secure its borders, while 22 EU leaders demanded “immediate action” to address the national security threat. Denmark’s Mette Frederiksen, Italy’s Giorgia Meloni, Germany’s Friedrich Merz, and other European leaders warned: “We cannot allow uncontrolled mass crossings, the instrumentalization of migration or other hybrid threats to create the perception that illegal entry into the European Union is possible.” Reports that emerged in recent days show that Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez’s (unhinged socialist) claim that the migrants had been expelled from Ceuta may not have reflected the situation on the ground. Read the full report.

Years of open-border policies under Spain’s socialist government may now be approaching a political breaking point. The invasion of military-aged men was so visible to the world in real time on X, making it increasingly difficult for lefty corporate media to reconstruct the narrative and gaslight the public into believing this was merely a humanitarian migration event. The images instead reinforced views of a coordinated border invasion and undercut the left-wing narrative framing such arrivals solely as poor migrants searching for milk and bread.

We noted last week: “Spain’s Border Invasion Is An Optics Disaster For Open-Border Democrats” Hopefully, common sense can return to the West: secure borders. And, really, hold those accountable for nation-killing open border policies.

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“This is gonna go great, and I have a fresh supply of I Told You Sos all ready to go.”

• Mamdani’s War on New York Business Is a Double-Header (Stephen Green)

BananaMamdani
New York City’s socialist bad boy mayor Zohran Mamdani just made his latest move against the city’s business leaders — and this time, he hit the leadership of Gracie Mansion’s own Mayor’s Fund Board of Advisors. Plus, I have the latest news on Mamdani’s incredibly wrong-headed plan for city-owned grocery stores in today’s double-header of socialist stupidity. The New York Post reported early Tuesday that Mamdani “axed the advisors of a major nonprofit that channels private sector donations to fund city initiatives in his latest hostile act toward New York business leaders.”


Also, according to the Post, the board has “raised hundreds of millions since its 1995 inception – including a staggering $107 million to support family members of rescue workers killed or injured in the Sept. 11, 2001 terror attacks.”The mass firing marks “the first time in at least three mayoral administrations that all members were let go.” At least? If I’ve done my counting correctly, you only have to go back four mayors before Mamdani to reach the Board’s founding under Rudy Giuliani.

“The creation of a new advisory board is an important next step in reimagining how philanthropy can augment, but not replace, public dollars and public goods, and we are eager to share more about our new board of advisors later this year,” Mamdani senior advisor Dora Pekec told Bloomberg. Well, that’s exactly what the board did prior to the mayor sacking its entire membership. The mayor’s office told Bloomberg that Mamdani would select new members “later this year,” and it’s a safe bet that his picks will be more in line with his socialist vision for the city.

Which brings us to the latest report on Mamdani’s city-owned, taxpayer-subsidized grocery stores — and no matter how bad you or I thought they would be, now they’re worse. If it seems like at least once each week I write something about some new idiocy coming out of Mamdani’s New York City or Gavin Newsom’s California, well, it’s because there’s always some new idiocy.Finance and winemaking guy Nick Kokonas actually downloaded and read Mamdani’s just-released Request for Proposal (RFP) asking large private grocers for their plans for running city-owned stores. “Forget for a moment whether or not the government should own a grocery store,” Kokonas wrote, and “Let’s review the doc instead.”

It’s… well, let’s just say it’s even more dumberer than you could have imagined. Then there’s the little matter that the city will give preference to companies willing to bid on operating all five stores, but will award operations one store at a time. The city wants “scale pricing while refusing to award scale.” According to Kokonas, Mamdani wants stores to run on a “limited SKU model” that reduces costs by limiting selection. But Mamdani also insists that the stores stock “full grocery departments, household goods, culturally specific products, plus kosher, halal, vegan, gluten-free, dairy-free and diabetic options.”

There’s much more, but two stick out as particularly thick-headed.First, the stores’ subsidized goods aren’t means-tested, so “anyone can shop there.” What that means is that as bodegas are forced out of business, or at least to stop carrying non-subsidized staples, “taxpayers will subsidize groceries for affluent shoppers who happen to live nearby, while needy families elsewhere get zero.”

Think of Bane Grocers (as I refer to Mamdani’s government stores) as subsidized Whole Foods for his wealthy white supporters.But here’s where the stupid leaves third-degree burns. “The ‘best’ bid promises 30% discounts, best-in-class wages/benefits, local sourcing, sustainability, community programs and full-time jobs,” Kokonas noted, incentivizing bidders to promise the world. But when choosing the winning bid, “20% of the score goes to whoever claims they need the least subsidy.”

So the incentive is to lowball the city, guaranteeing cost overruns that will be paid for by city taxpayers.Or maybe the new crony members of the Mayor’s Fund Board of Advisors will stop raising money for the families of first responders, and start raising money to pay for the mayor’s stupid city-run grocery stores. I’m just spit-balling here, but it hardly seems impossible.

This is gonna go great, and I have a fresh supply of I Told You Sos all ready to go.

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“…they inherited it from their parents or they bought it 50 years ago for $50,000, and in crowded New York it’s worth $1 million. They’re hardly wealthy.”

• New York’s Property Tax Crackdown (Victor Davis Hanson)

Zohran Mamdani, the mayor of New York, has just stirred up a lot of controversy. He said that he wanted to go after property owners who had homes worth more than $5 million, and they were likely to be second homes. In other words, they had a primary residence elsewhere, either in the state of New York, outside the state, or in a foreign country. m And he wanted to tax them with a new surcharge in addition to property tax. But then, when the letters went out, they didn’t just go to the upper-middle class or the wealthy who owned $5 million properties. Mamdani went back on his word and sent almost 950,000 letters out to property owners who, on their register, had a home worth more than $1 million.


Now, this is where it gets interesting. He’s under a lot of criticism for this because he was bragging and he kind of, as he always does in his cute socialist smile … Remember, he got in front of Ken Griffin’s second home and looked into the camera and said, “Ha ha, we’re coming for you,” type of thing. This email was supposed to be cute. Something’s coming in the mail. But here’s the problem. A person can have a relatively modest house, and maybe they inherited it from their parents or they bought it 50 years ago for $50,000, and in crowded New York it’s worth $1 million. They’re hardly wealthy.

But more importantly, in the United States, Mamdani isn’t familiar, apparently, with an age-old foundational principle that you’re innocent until proven guilty. In other words, you don’t word a letter to people that says, “I assume you are guilty of having a house which is not your principal residence. You have three weeks to prove to me that you’re not guilty, and then maybe I will adjudicate you’re innocent and not slap a surtax.” Can you imagine hundreds of thousands of people getting a letter in the mail that they owe $5,000, $10,000, $20,000, $50,000, or $80,000 on top of their property taxes and going into panic and then going to the New York City website with hundreds of thousands of other people trying to get in and say, “Look, I’ve been in this house. I’m not a second-property owner”?

It was designed to cause confusion and anger and chaos and make Mamdani an object of fear. Don’t cross the mayor. He has a long memory. But here’s the other thing. Besides inverting the idea to “you are guilty until you prove yourself innocent,” what’s wrong with having a second house? It’s a free country. You have a right to have a house. So what was he doing by sending this letter and threatening you? Well, one of the things is he’s broke. He’s had all of these lavish welfare ideas that are not fundable because he’s driving out the upper-middle class and the wealthy, and they’re leaving in droves.

Some estimates say maybe $11 billion already in real value and revenue. So, he needs money. And more importantly, by sending this surtax out in addition to property taxes, if you have a property that’s worth $1 million or $2 million and you’re paying $20,000, $30,000, or $40,000 in property tax, and this surtax comes in at another $10,000, $20,000, or $30,000, a lot of people are saying, “You know, I’m not getting that much rent,” if it is a second home.

If it’s their primary home, they’re saying, “I already pay this huge property tax and I have maintenance costs.” If you’re renting, you have rental costs. You’re subject to oversight. There are rental subsidies for your renter. There’s rent control. And so what he’s trying to do is force people to sell. Either sell their second home, or he considers them affluent enough that they had their turn, and it’s time to sell because they will not be able to afford, especially retired people, a surcharge property tax on top of a property tax, on top of insurance.

And if you have a lot of sales, the house price drops. If the house price drops, Mamdani can come in and either buy them for the city or subsidize the, quote, “repressed poor” to buy. It’s a huge redistribution plan. There’s a third, more sinister agenda behind Mamdani’s enemies list. If you send out the names of over 900,000 New Yorkers in various boroughs, and you say, “These people, I accuse these people, until they can prove me wrong, of having a second property or a vacant property that is worth over a million dollars.”

And you give the name, as he did, and the address, as he did, then you’re going to have a lot of envious people saying, “Oh, Mr. Smith down the road, he’s on that list. Oh, Mr. Jones, I didn’t know that he wasn’t living in that house. Hmm.” And that’s the best interpretation. There’s two, I think, more accurate and maybe even more disturbing. We have an epidemic in this country of squatting. So if you are a potential squatter where the law protects you, once you get possession of an empty home it’s almost impossible to evict you unless you spend thousands of dollars.

So all these would-be squatters are going to be looking at this list, and they’re going to say, “Well, the mayor of New York accuses this person at this address of having a vacant home. Let’s check it out. Maybe he’s wrong. Maybe we’ll go down the list, five, six, seven, 10 of them, but we will find a vacant house, and we’ll know he’s not going to come, and we’ll just crash and move in. And then the whole legal apparatus of the city protects us, and we can get two, three, four years of free rent.”

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“The damage the once-vaunted Fauci did to society’s most vulnerable was incalculable.”

• Anthony Fauci Hurt America’s Children … and Her Future (Joseph Ford Cotto)

Anthony Fauci spent nearly four decades running the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases. In that time, he became the face of public health in America.Yet the record now shows he inflicted lasting harm on the very people he claimed to serve, especially the young. His private writings and public actions reveal a pattern of deception that paved the way for lockdowns, school closures, and social isolation whose scars will stretch across generations.


In late July, Senator Rand Paul, a Republican from Kentucky, released more than 1,000 pages of Fauci’s personal diary. These ranged from December 2019 through December 2022. Those entries strip away an image which had been polished for the public year after year. On Jan. 26, 2020, Fauci noted that the first COVID-19 infection appeared early in December and had no link to the Wuhan market. He called the market an amplifier, not the source.

Days later, on Feb. 1, he recorded a conference call with a dozen scientists. Most of them saw laboratory engineering of COVID as a real possibility. Only two favored a purely natural origin.Fauci never shared that private judgment with the public. Instead, he steered grant money toward the Wuhan Institute of Virology and helped shape a paper that dismissed the lab-leak idea. He then promoted that publication at press conferences without revealing his own involvement. Or the later multimillion-dollar grant he approved for one of its authors.

The gap between what he knew and what he said cleared the path for economy-wrecking shutdowns, hysterical public shaming, and months of shuttered classrooms. All that ripped apart families and mauled the economy.Worse still, the diary shows Fauci actively pushed the very lockdowns he later denied association with. On March 15, 2020 — which he labeled “BIG DAY!” in red ink — he wrote that he convinced Democrat New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio to close municipal schools. He noted that de Blasio had already leaned that way from Fauci’s television appearances.

The same entry records him urging de Blasio to shutter bars and restaurants. He influenced California Gov. Gavin Newsom, a Democrat surely running for president in 2028, to embrace locking down. Five days later, Fauci pressed for a full shelter-in-place order in New York. This came despite resistance from Gov. Andrew Cuomo, another Democrat.Fauci later claimed credit for extending the original “15 days to slow the spread” into 30 days, warning that stopping early would be a disaster. In November, he backed a three-week shutdown in Los Angeles County.

The damage is already measurable and will compound for decades. A 2023 peer-reviewed study of German secondary students found that those tested after six months of pandemic disruption scored substantially lower on intelligence tests, relative to comparable groups from 2002 and 2012. When the same students were retested a year later, amid continued irregular schooling, they showed no recovery.The researchers tied this shortfall to lost classroom time, not stress alone, and warned of lasting effects on cognitive growth.

In the United States, a 2021 survey of nearly a thousand parents linked COVID-driven school closures, remote learning, and canceled activities to clear drops in children’s social skills. Kids spent most of their days isolated at home watching screens instead of playing outdoors or joining group sports. Reductions in time with friends and extracurricular activities tracked directly with worse social outcomes.

Researchers at the Urban Institute projected long-term consequences from actual COVID-era learning loss and socio-emotional disruptions. Eighth-graders in the 2021-22 school year could earn three percent less at age 30 than they would have without academic centers shutting down. High-school graduation rates and college degrees are expected to fall as well, with steeper hits for students from low-income and minority households.

A National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine report detailed the pandemic’s physical and mental tolls. These include rising diabetes rates in children, higher maternal deaths (especially among black and Hispanic women), spikes in adolescent overdose deaths (driven by fentanyl), as well as delayed vaccinations and check-ups that hit minority children hardest. Loss of a parent or other caregiver were several times higher for Native American, black, and Hispanic children than for white children.

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“..he has repeatedly pressed the question of whether American taxpayer dollars funded research at a Chinese lab suspected of playing a role in unleashing the virus that killed millions.”

• Rand Paul Makes His Move Against Fauci (Matt Margolis)

Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) told Dr. Anthony Fauci last week exactly what would happen if he stonewalled Congress. Fauci ignored him. Now Paul is delivering on that promise, and conservatives who have waited years for this moment have every reason to celebrate. Paul introduced a resolution Tuesday to hold Fauci in contempt of Congress. The move comes after the former National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases director sat before a Senate committee and refused, again and again, to answer a single question.


The Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee, which Paul chairs, subpoenaed Fauci on July 22 to testify as part of its investigation into risky life sciences research and the true origins of the virus that upended the world in 2020. Fauci showed up Wednesday and gave Republicans nothing. He invoked his Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination 111 times. It didn’t matter if it was about the origins of COVID-19 or what day of the week it was; Fauci’s answer was the same: “On the advice of counsel, I respectfully decline to answer based upon my rights under the Fifth Amendment of the Constitution.”

Sen. Paul was not amused. “I ordered him to answer and warned him about contempt, yet he still refused,” Paul said, calling Fauci’s defiance obstruction of a congressional investigation the committee plans to act on.

The committee will vote on the contempt resolution Thursday, and Paul has already dismantled Fauci’s legal excuse for hiding behind the Fifth. Before leaving office in January 2025, then-President Joe Biden gave Fauci a preemptive pardon, an unusual move clearly aimed at protecting one of Donald Trump’s most prominent critics from prosecution. Paul, in a statement on Tuesday, explained that the pardon wiped out any basis Fauci had for pleading the Fifth in the first place. Fauci also gave up whatever privilege remained the moment he delivered opening testimony at the hearing.

This fight has been years in the making. Paul has accused Fauci of destroying government records, and he has repeatedly pressed the question of whether American taxpayer dollars funded research at a Chinese lab suspected of playing a role in unleashing the virus that killed millions. Fauci has denied it every time.

Contempt of Congress is a serious charge that could land Fauci in jail. “Contempt of Congress is the legal offense of disobeying or disrespecting the authority of the U.S. legislative branch through actions like refusing to comply with congressional subpoenas, disrupting proceedings, or obstructing investigations,” explains FindLaw. “This federal offense typically arises when individuals fail to respond to legally binding orders from congressional committees during their oversight and lawmaking functions. Penalties include criminal prosecution with up to one year in jail and $100,000 in fines.”

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“Democrats (for a change) have no appetite for dragging the country through another government shutdown this fall ..”:

• Sen. John Kennedy Blasts John Thune Over a ‘Huge Mistake’ (Matt Margolis)

Democrats (for a change) have no appetite for dragging the country through another government shutdown this fall, right before the midterm elections. The Senate moved forward Monday with a plan to keep the government funded past the midterms, and the continuing resolution cleared a procedural hurdle Monday evening in an 89-4 vote. Senators hope to pass the measure before leaving town for the August recess later this week. Naturally, Democrats are treating it like a win.


Sen. Patty Murray (D-Wash.), the top Democrat appropriator in the Senate, praised the measure as a “much-improved CR to keep the government funded and avert a shutdown that no one wants,” and pointed to provisions her party secured in the Senate version. “This bill includes important extensions and language that House Republicans’ CR did not, and it rejects Trump’s frivolous war spending wish list,” Murray said in a statement. “Importantly, we closed the loophole in House Republicans’ CR that would have allowed the Trump administration to transfer funding provided for other programs to Border Patrol, which desperately needs reform, not more money.”

Sure, Patty. If declaring victory over a bill that 89 senators voted to advance helps you sleep at night, knock yourself out. Still, it looks like we won’t have a distracting shutdown before the midterm elections. Even House and Senate Republicans appear to be on the same page this time around. But that doesn’t mean everyone in the GOP is thrilled with how things are going in the upper chamber.

Sen. John Kennedy (R-La.) took aim at Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-S.D.) on Monday over his decision to focus on confirming President Donald Trump’s nominees instead of working on a budget. Kennedy called it a “huge mistake” in an interview with Punchbowl News’ Andrew Desiderio.

“You know one of the things I never say? I never look those people in the eyes and say, ‘We set a record for the number of nominees confirmed.’ I’ve never said that. And I don’t think any other senator has ever said that,” Kennedy said, describing what he tells voters and fellow Republican candidates on the campaign trail. “Because I don’t think the American people care.”

Kennedy has a point. Voters back home want to know what the Senate is doing about spending, the border, and the economy. Your average voter isn’t thinking about confirmation statistics. For months, Senate Republicans have essentially scoffed at Trump’s policy demands, particularly his push to pass the SAVE America Act, the most important election integrity legislation in history, as far as I’m concerned. At least one senator is unhappy that the funding deal does nothing to advance it, which means the fight over that bill is coming sooner or later, shutdown or no shutdown.

On the plus side, no shutdown means no weeks of breathless media coverage blaming the GOP for shuttered parks and delayed paychecks. Would it be nice for the SAVE America Act to get its moment? Sure, but heading into the fall, Democrats would certainly have taken us into a shutdown if it had been included.

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“The New York Times Science and Health reporter Apoorva Mandavilli called any mention of the lab theory “racist.”

• Leading Biden COVID-19 Figure Embraces the Lab Leak Theory (Turley)

Former Biden White House COVID-19 Response Coordinator Dr. Ashish Jha this weekend became the latest denier of the lab theory to do a 180-degree turn. During the interview with CNN’s Dana Bash, Jha admitted that he now believes that the most likely explanation is a lab leak at the Wuhan Institute of Virology. As pundits and politicians quietly admit that the natural mutation theory is not as credible, the courageous scientists who were blacklisted for years remain persona non grata in higher education.


Jha stated: “This is going to surprise some people. You know, when I went into the White House, my view was, ‘This was almost surely a natural outbreak, maybe a lab leak.’ Based on information I learned and based on information I‘ve seen, I have come to conclude that it is more likely to have been a lab leak.” I commend Jha for publicly addressing his change. Indeed, everyone in academia, myself included, has had their views evolve. What should not evolve is the willingness of the scientists and academics to accept dissenting viewpoints. One of my long-standing complaints against figures like Anthony Fauci is that they held prominent positions during the pandemic, but said nothing about the cancel campaigns directed against those experts who disagreed with their views on issues like the origins of COVID-19.

As I discuss in my new book, “The Indispensable Right,” the result is that we never really had a national debate on many of these issues and the massive social and economic costs that resulted. I spoke at the University of Chicago with Bhattacharya and other dissenting scientists in the front row a couple of years ago. After the event, I asked them how many had been welcomed back to their faculties or associations since the recognition of some of their positions. They all said that they were still treated as pariahs for challenging the groupthink culture.

For years, figures like Bhattacharya (who was recently awarded the prestigious Intellectual Freedom Award by the American Academy of Sciences and Letters) were hounded and marginalized. Others opposed Bhattacharya’s right to offer his scientific views, even under oath. For example, in one hearing, Rep. Raja Krishnamoorthi (D-Ill.) expressed disgust that Bhattacharya was even allowed to testify as “a purveyor of COVID-19 misinformation.”

Los Angeles Times columnist Michael Hiltzik decried an event associated with Bhattacharya, writing that “we’re living in an upside-down world” because Stanford University allowed dissenting scientists to speak at a scientific forum. Hiltzik also wrote a column titled “The COVID lab leak claim isn’t just an attack on science, but a threat to public health.” As recently as last year, Hiltzik continued to attack the lab theory. Bhattacharya’s experience is not unique. When scientists argued that the virus’s origin was likely the Chinese research lab in Wuhan, they were mobbed by the media. That position was denounced by the Washington Post as a “debunked” coronavirus “conspiracy theory.”

The Washington Post denounced Sen. Tom Cotton (R-Ark) when he raised the theory for “repeat[ing] a fringe theory suggesting that the ongoing spread of a coronavirus is connected to research in the disease-ravaged epicenter of Wuhan, China.” After Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) mentioned the lab theory, Post Fact Checker Glenn Kessler mocked him: “I fear @tedcruz missed the scientific animation in the video that shows how it is virtually impossible for this virus to jump from the lab. Or the many interviews with actual scientists. We deal in facts, and viewers can judge for themselves.”

The New York Times Science and Health reporter Apoorva Mandavilli called any mention of the lab theory “racist.” At NPR, an endless stream of segments ran dismissing the lab leak notion, painting it as a debunked conspiracy theory of the far right, including one story titled “Scientists Debunk Lab Accident Theory of Pandemic Emergence.”

I consider it valuable to have voices like Hultzik’s that still challenge the lab theory — just as I thought it was valuable to have lab theorists voice their views. The difference is that critics of the lab theory are not being canceled, but continue to be celebrated for their prior work. To the contrary, figures like Scott Atlas have shown how those educators who helped lead the mob against dissenters still hold positions of power. These figures should not be canceled for holding opposing views, but their conduct in silencing others should be reviewed.

Despite the vindication of scientists on their opposition to policies on the use of surgical masks, the closure of schools, and other issues, there have not been any repercussions for those who enforced the orthodoxy and intolerance during the pandemic in higher education. The fact is that most are now willing to admit that the lab theory is probably correct, but they are unwilling to forgive those who forced them into that admission.

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“All Western nations are essentially on the same path to dispossession.”

• The Last White Generation (Paul Craig Roberts)

Immigrant-invader elected to US Congress introduces bill to abolish US border protection White ethnicities in Europe, the UK, and the white former British colonies in the “New World” continue to actively participate in their own demise by encouraging massive inflows of hostile and unassimilable immigrant-invaders who are provided not only with material support by the white populations that are being overrun but also with legal privileges that the white citizens do not have. As Lenin once asked, “What is to be done?”


Unfortunately, white ethnicities do not have a leader of Lenin’s capability. Those few whites aware of the problem have come up with “Remigration” and recently held a summit. The conclusion was that time is against white ethnicities because the last white generation that can respond to the threat is the current one. All that “come after us will already be born into this multicultural atmosphere and so it will be normal to them” for white ethnicities to be second-class citizens discriminated against by their governments and facing dispossession of their rights, possessions, and lives.

In the recent overrunning of a Spanish city we see the inability of Western civilization to respond to attack by privileged persons of color. Enoch Powell warned the British in the 1960s, Jean Raspail warned he French and all of Europe, including Russia, in the 1970s, and Wilmot Robertson warned the Americans in the 1970s. But the insouciant, ignorant, and utterly stupid white ethnicities paid no heed, and now they, leaderless, face elimination. There is no more endangered species on earth than white ethnicities.

White ethnicities everywhere have proven themselves to be so throughly brainwashed and indoctrinated against themselves as to be incapable of defending themselves. Their remaining time on earth is limited. Remigration was President Lincoln’s solution for America’s Africans. His plan, terminated by his assassination, was to return Africans to Africa or perhaps send them to Central America. The “Great Emancipator ” freed the slaves so he could return them to Africa.

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Debt Rattle August 4 2026

Aug 042026
 
 August 4, 2026  Posted by at 8:52 am Finance Tagged with: , , , , , , ,  23 Responses »


Otto Dix The Triumph of Death 1934


• Trump Says Iran Faces ‘Decapitation’ If It Doesn’t Sign A ‘Good’ Deal (ZH)
• Trump Says US And Iran In Talks, Even If Tehran Denies It (TASS)
• Iran’s Regime Demands Full Control of Strait of Hormuz (Catherine Salgado)
• Truth Social Starts Selling Fast Access To Trump Posts (RT)
• Anthony Fauci, Our Own Wizard of Oz (Clarice Feldman)
• Fauci’s Worst Nightmare Is Fauci! (James Zumwalt)
• The Confession of Joe Biden (Turley)
• Everybody Knows (James Howard Kunstler)
• Don’t Be Fooled, What’s Going On Is an Invasion of Spain (Rebecca Downs)
• Kiev’s ‘Terrorist Plague’ Spreading Across Europe – Russian Embassy (RT)
• Manufacturing Index Reflects Continued Strong Growth – Highest in 4 Years (CTH)
• Javier Milei Just Proposed a Great Idea (Anderson)

 


 

https://twitter.com/real_EBS_/status/2083557271749959771?s=20

 


 


“When we talk we say ‘we’re talking’, if we’re not talking, when you ask me, ‘no we’re not talking’, I’ll say it. But we are talking right now, we’re talking, and we’re talking at the request of Iran..”

• Trump Says Iran Faces ‘Decapitation’ If It Doesn’t Sign A ‘Good’ Deal (ZH)

President Trump has told reporters in the Oval Office that the Iran conflict is “working out very well” and that this is Tehran’s “last chance to sign a good document”. On Hormuz, he said: “It has to be [free], I am not going to let them charge. If anybody is going to charge, we will charge, we are the ones … with a total control,” he said. “We have a thing called a blockade … No, no, there is not going to be charging. We are not talking about charging at all. There won’t be charging.”


On engaging Iran in talks even while the Iranians themselves insist they will not participate in any new talks:

“When we talk we say ‘we’re talking’, if we’re not talking, when you ask me, ‘no we’re not talking’, I’ll say it. But we are talking right now, we’re talking, and we’re talking at the request of Iran, backed by Saudi Arabia, backed by UAE, and backed by Qatar in particular, but others also, many countries called, many-the leaders of many, I’m friendly with a lot of them–This is a last chance, this is not something-if it doesn’t happen, this is a last chance for them to sign a… good document.”

Curiously, Trump is again insisting that when Iran says talks are off, they are lying…

Trump: Looking for Solution ‘Caused’ by Iran
President Trump on Monday issued a new Truth Social, perhaps trying to explain his latest weekend TACO move, accusing Iran’s leadership of being “unbelievably duplicitous,” claiming Tehran privately sought and sheduled talks while publicly insisting it is only dealing with Oman. He asserted that the Strait of Hormuz is already “completely controlled by the United States Navy” through what he called the “United States Wall of Steel,” adding that “nothing gets through to Iran” unless Washington allows it. Trump also insisted discussions toward a resolution are underway despite Iranian denials, while reiterating his bottom line: “IRAN WILL NEVER HAVE A NUCLEAR WEAPON!”

U.S. officials say that no novel negotiations are scheduled with Iran despite Trump’s statements, maintaining that ongoing talks are limited to indirect discussions via mediators involving envoy Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner. – CBS. Trump is increasingly letting his frustration and ‘exasperation’ go public. This seems to only confirm that indeed there are no talks taking place at this point. The US president continues to insist that the whole crisis was “caused” by the Iranians “for decades” but that it is the US now looking for a “solution” – but Iran won’t play ball, after apparently ‘begging’ for talks…

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The US president said the sides are “talking of a solution to a problem” that Tehran have caused ..

• Trump Says US And Iran In Talks, Even If Tehran Denies It (TASS)

US President Donald Trump said that the United States and Iran are holding negotiations, even if Tehran does not publicly acknowledge it.”They ask for a meeting, some would say ‘beg’, talks begin, with more scheduled in the immediate future, and they say, openly and proudly, that they’re not having any discussions, that nothing is being talked about, and they’re only dealing with Oman,” he wrote on Truth Social. “Whether Iran wants to admit it or not, we are, in fact, talking of a solution to a problem that they have caused, for decades. It is very simple, IRAN WILL NEVER HAVE A NUCLEAR WEAPON!”
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“Mine-clearing is Iran’s sole responsibility,” he claimed, meaning the mullahs want the mines to remain where they are and terrorize ships.”

• Iran’s Regime Demands Full Control of Strait of Hormuz (Catherine Salgado)

Just before the end of July, an official of the terrorist Iranian regime once again insisted that the current conflict cannot end until and unless the U.S. concedes the murderous mullahs full and uncontested control—and likely toll power—over the Strait of Hormuz.


It is very important to understand that no matter how many times the Iranian regime says it is willing to look at a proposal from the United States in order to put off major strikes, that doesn’t mean the regime ever changes its core demands. Nor will it ever do so, because the regime is run by fundamentalist Muslims who believe that by waging endless jihad against the United States, they are triggering the coming of their Islamic messiah, the Mahdi.

Iranian Deputy Foreign Minister for Legal and International Affairs Kazem Gharibabadi gave an interview July 28 during which he laid out Iran’s demands. “We submitted a proposal to Oman regarding the Strait of Hormuz to establish a new lane that will be under Iranian control,” Gharibabadi said, according to a translation published on the Middle East Media Research Institute. “If this proposal is accepted, the strait will be opened; but if it is rejected, we are ready for a resumption of the fighting.”

U.S., of course, rejected the proposal. Despite what Gharibabadi said, Iranian forces have not succeeded in closing the strait to all commercial traffic, but they have made it impossible to get through the strait without the security that American troops are providing. And the Iranian strikes still occasionally hit or hinder ships.

Gharibabadi insisted, “The Strait of Hormuz will not revert to the pre-war arrangements, and this is the absolute policy of the [Iranian] regime.” He then griped about Americans trying to clear Iranian mines from the strait. “Mine-clearing is Iran’s sole responsibility,” he claimed, meaning the mullahs want the mines to remain where they are and terrorize ships.

Then Gharibabadi declared, “The Americans, in cooperation with Oman, created a southern transit lane within Omani territorial waters for ship traffic. Iran does not recognize this southern lane for even one hour, and the current round of fighting began precisely because of ships illegally passing through this lane.” Notice Gharibabadi fully admits the waters are Omani territory but still claims sovereignty over them. The Iranian regime is imperialist and lawless.

The ayatollahs aren’t interested in compromise. “The Omanis suggested planning a transit lane of which 50% would be under Iranian control and 50% under Omani control,” Gharibabadi noted. “We said that this does not dispel Iran’s apprehensions. Our demand is for complete Iranian control over the inbound lane and also over part of the outbound lane. If this proposal is rejected, no other proposal will be approved and the strait will remain closed.” That is, the terrorism will continue.

For 47 years, Iranian terrorists have attacked Americans and spread jihad around the world. It’s time to finish the job.

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The president sells access to his decisions. That won’t fly.

“The sudden strike call-off followed a week of threats that helped keep crude near $90 a barrel..”

• Truth Social Starts Selling Fast Access To Trump Posts (RT)

US President Donald Trump has teased new negotiations with Iran after abruptly calling off a major attack in a Truth Social post published on the same day that his media company began selling Wall Street firms millisecond-fast access to the platform’s market-moving content. Speaking to reporters aboard Air Force One on Sunday, Trump claimed that talks would begin on Monday and said several Middle Eastern governments had urged him to give diplomacy another chance.


“We’re just going to see whether or not we can make a deal,” Trump said, claiming that the canceled operation would have been the “biggest attack since World War II.”Last Monday, Trump claimed that “very friendly negotiations” with Tehran were already underway. Within days, however, the US had resumed bombing Iran, while Trump adopted increasingly aggressive rhetoric, promising to hit the country “very hard.”His administration declared US forces “locked and loaded” and prepared to unleash levels of military power not seen since World War II.

US media reported on Friday that Washington and Israel were preparing an extensive campaign against Iranian power plants, refineries and other energy infrastructure.The threats, combined with continued disruption to shipping through the Strait of Hormuz, helped sustain fears of a wider energy shock and propelled crude prices toward $90 a barrel. On Saturday, Trump abruptly called off the strikes in a Truth Social post, claiming that Iran and several regional governments had agreed to the outlines of a deal that would reopen the Strait of Hormuz and address Tehran’s nuclear program.

The sudden reversal triggered another sharp market swing when Asian trading resumed on Monday morning. Brent crude fell by more than 7% at the open, while West Texas Intermediate dropped 6.7% to $78.98 a barrel. US stock-index futures rose as traders priced in a reduced risk of further escalation and disruption to Gulf energy supplies.

August 1 was also the launch date of Truth API, a paid service operated by Trump Media & Technology Group that provides institutional customers with a licensed, machine-readable feed of posts from influential Truth Social accounts. The service is aimed specifically at high-frequency and algorithmic trading firms and reportedly costs as much as $100,000 per month. Trump Media says paying customers receive posts within milliseconds of publication, while market specialists have argued that the direct feed allows well-equipped firms to process announcements and execute trades much faster than retail investors relying on the public website or app.

Trump’s posts are particularly valuable because he routinely uses Truth Social to announce abrupt changes involving wars, tariffs, individual companies and other policies capable of moving stocks, currencies and commodities. The AP noted that policy reversals can be especially lucrative for high-speed traders, who can profit from an initial threat that moves prices in one direction and then rapidly change their positions when Trump announces the opposite.

Iran has previously accused Trump of publicizing purported diplomatic breakthroughs to lower oil prices and buy time for further military action. The latest pause also follows an established pattern: Trump has repeatedly announced that strikes against Iran were being suspended to allow negotiations, only for military operations to resume after talks faltered or new attacks occurred. Tehran had not publicly confirmed that any new negotiations with the US were scheduled, and rejected Washington’s claim to a role in determining the future of the Strait of Hormuz.

Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi said negotiations with Oman over the waterway’s management were “nearing completion,” while Foreign Ministry spokesman Esmaeil Baqaei described the discussions as a bilateral matter that “does not concern any other party.” Baqaei said Iran and Oman were negotiating a new shipping route that would replace the existing northern and southern routes. He stressed that any agreement “does not mean that the Strait of Hormuz will be opened or remain closed,” contradicting Trump’s claim that the proposed deal would provide for its “immediate, complete and total” reopening.

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“We’ve been preparing all wrong for pandemics by imagining bureaucratic wizards will manage them best. ”

• Anthony Fauci, Our Own Wizard of Oz (Clarice Feldman)

This week, the Senate Homeland Security Committee subpoenaed Dr. Anthony Fauci to testify. The committee secured extensive daily logs he had prepared while at NIH heading up the COVID-19 response. (The committee still lacks almost 700 pages of these logs, all of which had been secreted on 11 different government servers until retrieved by Secretary Robert F. Kennedy, Jr.)


The contrast between what he wrote in his hidden logs and his public statements was extreme. To take but one example, he admits in the log that the six-foot distancing rule was just something made up. Here’s a video compilation of him emphatically promoting that very rule as if there were some scientific basis for it. As a reminder of the failures of the Fauci response to the virus, here’s Toby Rogers in 2024 documenting them:

By the end of the hearing, Fauci’s reputation, once burnished to a fine gleam by an adoring press, was vastly diminished:The Picture of Dorian Grey [sic] also comes to mind. Fauci guarded his reputation as a scientist just as Dorian guarded his seeming youth. To do so required a costly exchange. In both stories, the status of the soul (represented by the painting for Dorian) belies appearances. Nowhere could he have anticipated [snip] that he would be trapped in a chair in a Senate chamber, ashen and defeated, surrounded by silent lawyers, his accusers on all sides, pleading the 5th amendment 111 times. The wings completely melted. De profundis clamavi.

Classics professor Victor Davis Hanson sees the fall of Fauci as “a now all too familiar example of narcissistic and bureaucratic insiders who start with a classic rise only to fall into utter destruction.” He adds Fauci’s name to others like John Bolton, James Comey, and Jack Smith:Fueled by media flattery, and their over the top rhetoric, they posture as consummate “professionals.” These egomaniacs convince themselves they are our untouchable defenders of the established Washingtonian order, as supposedly sober and judicious custodians of the government. And when warned where they are ultimately headed, and to tread lightly, they instead interpret such sound advice as the jealousy of the envious.

In the current decade that arrogance is best manifested as crusading against public enemy number one, Donald J. Trump. So insidiously they up their Trump derangement rhetoric. They cite their titles and degrees as they vaingloriously skirt the law.

Finally drunk on leftwing media adulation, they delude themselves into believing that their megalomaniac behavior is exempt from any consequences. And then what? At the apex of their hubris, Nemesis strikes. And they fall hard by their own overweening arrogance. [snip] These unelected legends in their own minds confuse their enormous government granted powers at their disposal as bureaucrats with some sort of regal right that will exempt them from any consequences of their lawless arrogance.

And so soon they lie under oath to Congress, or call up Chinese generals to warn them about their own president, or sign patently false affidavits attesting that the Hunter Biden laptop was the work of the Ruskies, or tap senatorial phones—or almost anything that would ensure their inevitable fall from grace and utter humiliation. So too with the once celestial and now laughingstock Anthony Fauci (who once compared himself to Albert Einstein). The common denominator? The greater their arrogance, the harder they certainly fall.

You probably needn’t go back as far as Greek myth to explain what just happened. It’s as if Toto knocked over the screen and revealed that the Wizard of Oz was just a humbug. Dorothy could get back to Kansas only by tapping into her own potential. As Glinda the good witch said, “You had the power all along, dear.” And that’s the point Jeff Childers argues when he says we’ve been preparing all wrong for pandemics by imagining bureaucratic wizards will manage them best.

WHO, CDC and CMS, he argues, “framed pandemic response as a coordinated system with a ‘common operating picture.’ The whole world was enslaved to it. It all came from one delusional narcissist who was placed in charge.”Ours is a big and varied republic “fifty states, three thousand counties,” Childers reminds us.

Wherever some slight experimentation was allowed, individual states outperformed the baseline. Florida opened beaches and schools. Georgia reopened restaurants. Leftist fury ensued — “Georgia’s Experiment in Human Sacrifice” — but those states did better. We did not need them to be perfect. We needed them to be different. Difference is how science learns.

We’ve been preparing for pandemics all wrong. By anointing a single man to coordinate the world’s response, we instantly created a single point of failure. If that lone apex expert is conflicted, retarded, or worse, a malignant narcissist, then, well, we can all now see the result: The Fifth Amendment invoked for questions about tie colors.

In other words, what we needed most was room to conduct experiments. The CDC should have supported states and local governments trying different things, like ivermectin or hydroxychloroquine. There should have been no federal guidelines, no mandates, no vaccine incentives, no censorship, no indefinite shutdowns to flatten the curve.

Just give us the data. And maybe some money. Let us handle it.

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“Do a lot of grown men keep diaries? Fauci’s own narcissism came back to haunt him.”

• Fauci’s Worst Nightmare Is Fauci! (James Zumwalt)

It was an interesting display of contempt for Senator Rand Paul exhibited by Anthony Fauci: having initially agreed to testify before the committee chaired by Paul only to change his mind, Fauci was hit with a subpoena. The main focus of the inquiry was Fauci’s public and private contrary views concerning the COVID-19 pandemic’s origin. Fauci refused to testify, claiming the Fifth Amendment—a plea which Paul reported to be invalid.


Paul opened the hearing with a list of reasons why a subpoena mandating Fauci’s testimony on the matter was warranted. He stated millions of American lives were lost due to COVID-19; that the American people had a right to know why dangerous research was funded by NIAID in a foreign country’s lab that lacked acceptable safety standards; and why Fauci steadfastly held to the public position the pandemic was not an accidental release from China’s Wuhan lab but a natural evolution. He did so while privately holding “a mountain of evidence” supporting the former—later even acknowledging it in his diary—over the latter.

(Since Fauci’s pardon is inapplicable to state crimes, some states like Florida are exploring prosecution to get at the truth. While Fauci would obviously still take the Fifth, the pardon would not shield him from prosecution and accountability.)

In making his opening statement detailing his past testimonies, Fauci ended his comments with the following allegation: [G]iven Senator Paul’s obvious obsession with calling for my prosecution, his repeated slanderous comments about me, and recently his publicly releasing my unredacted personal diary aimed at embarrassing and intimidating me, the only conclusion I can reach is that the sole reason he is calling me before this Committee is to get me to say something, anything that could vindicate his repeated public pledges that I end up in his words, ‘Behind bars.’

[snip] [A]lthough it pains me to do so because of the respect I have for the legislative branch of government, and my decades-long record of cooperating with Congress, under the advice of my attorneys, I will invoke my right under the Fifth Amendment of the Constitution to refrain from answering your questions.

Fauci’s accusation was show rather than substance. He sought to hide the real reason for refusing to testify. But first, it is worth exploring the fate Fauci’s attorney, David Schertler, suffered during the hearing.

It had been made clear to Schertler he should not sit at the witness table with Fauci or in any way disrupt the hearing. However, he did sit with Fauci and later sought to speak. Paul’s repeated warnings to Schertler fell on deaf ears, and Paul finally ordered the attorney’s removal by security—an action many of those present applauded.

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“Biden gave Hur a virtual confession, and Hur gave him a pass.”

• The Confession of Joe Biden (Turley)

For years, former President Joe Biden has fought to prevent the release of tapes acquired by former special counsel Robert Hur in his investigation. After those efforts collapsed this month, it became clear why Biden and his aides were so determined to keep the public from seeing the evidence. In addition to showing Biden’s mental diminution even before he was elected president, the tapes show that Biden effectively confessed to the crimes Hur would later excuse on the grounds of his mental infirmity.


Biden’s interviews with his biographer, Mark Zwonitzer, conducted four years before he would be elected president, show that Biden was already having trouble remembering names and dates. Hur was tasked with determining whether Biden had committed the same crimes that led later to charges against President Trump — retaining classified material, mishandling such material, and related crimes. It turns out that Biden had already admitted to these alleged crimes, years before the documents were found in various offices and the garage of his home.

I wrote for years about Biden’s absurd denials after files were found in offices where he was working on his book. There was also evidence that the material had been divided, distributed, and transported between different locations. Despite all the evidence of knowledge and use of the classified materials, Biden and his aides suggested that no one had been aware of its removal and repeated transfer. In the meantime, after the raid on Mar-a-Lago to search for classified material removed by Trump, the Justice Department granted Biden and his team every possible accommodation.

Then came the searches of his home, with the pictures of files in his garage, office, and other locations. These included clearly marked classified material. Hur then issued his report, concluding that there was evidence of the crimes, but that he would still not charge Biden as Special Counsel Jack Smith had done with Trump. The report stated that “President Biden willfully retained and disclosed classified materials after his vice presidency when he was a private citizen.” It further stated that the clearly marked classified material was “stored in unsecure places” and posed a risk of “serious damage to America’s national security.”

For his part, Biden was defiant and, when confronted about the documents, insisted that “They’re mine,” and that other presidents had done what he did. This was the same president who condemned Trump for retaining classified information. Biden mocked Trump’s defense and asked CBS 60 Minutes how “anyone could be that irresponsible.”

We now know that Biden himself was that irresponsible, if not more so. Biden not only kept classified material longer and in even less secure locations, but he did nothing to protect the material as he attacked Trump over Mar-a-Lago. Nevertheless, Hur declared that he would not bring a single charge because Biden “would likely present himself to a jury, as he did in our interview of him, as a sympathetic, well-meaning elderly man with a poor memory.” The tapes show Biden struggling to give answers even before he announced his candidacy for the presidency, despite denials from key aides such as Jen Psaki and Karine Jean-Pierre.

However, Hur had actual tapes showing that Biden had clear memory and knowledge of his retention of classified material. Combined with Biden’s later public statements, the combination would have been deadly at trial. In the interview, Biden read “nearly verbatim” from notebooks containing sensitive national security and foreign policy information, according to Hur. On the tapes, Biden is heard saying, “So this was, I early on, um, in ’09 I just found all the classified stuff downstairs.” At another point, he states, “Some of this may be classified, so be careful with it.” He repeatedly mentions that some of the items in his office and home may be classified.

He even brags to his ghostwriter, in a report made on Oct. 10, 2016, that “I have extensive notes over this period of time … They didn’t know I have this.” Once again, the Justice Department had already declared and defended in court the idea that such removal and retention of classified material did constitute a federal crime by a president, let alone a vice president. Where Trump acknowledged his retention of classified material and agreed to security measures that the FBI requested, Biden did not inform anyone of his classified materials and kept them in his garage long after the Mar-a-Lago raids.

Meanwhile, in public, he expressed shock that any president would act as recklessly as Trump. It is hard to see how any of that would present “a sympathetic, well-meaning elderly man with a poor memory.” It sounds more like a cynical, shrewd politician with poor ethics. It also sounds like it would have been a strong foundation for a prosecution. For many, the tapes will reinforce the view of a two-tier legal system, long maintained by the Justice Department, whereby key Democratic figures including Hillary Clinton and Joe Biden were given favorable treatment while others were indicted for similar conduct.

What is truly galling for some of us is that Biden knew all of this when he went public to attack Hur for suggesting that he had knowingly retained classified material and showed diminished mental faculties— at one point forgetting when his son Beau died. Biden savaged Hur at the time for raising this issue, famously demanding, “How the hell dare he raise that?” Even that was a lie, because it was Biden who had raised Beau’s death in the interview.

After the report, Biden was still denying that he had retained classified material, even though he had discussed that classified material with his ghostwriter years earlier and had admitted as much to Hur. But before the public, Biden declared, “I’ve seen headlines since the report was released about my willful retention of documents. This assertion is not only misleading, it’s just plain wrong.”The record is now largely complete. So is the inescapable conclusion: Biden lacked clarity on most everything but his alleged crimes. His deception and culpability were established in both the Zwonitzer and Hur interviews. Biden gave Hur a virtual confession, and Hur gave him a pass.

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“I underestimated how emotionally committed much of the press is to rallying around Anthony Fauci. His reputation is more important to them than anything. . .” —Matt Taibbi

No Matt, it’s about their own reputation..

• Everybody Knows (James Howard Kunstler)

The baleful afterburn of Dr. Fauci’s one-sentence testimony (“On the advice of counsel, I respectfully decline to answer. . . .”) seeps over the land like some ghastly pestilence now. You couldn’t have seen a more vivid demonstration of manifest evil than the master bureaucratic grifter formerly self-styled as “The Science” stonewall his way through that fateful reckoning in Sen. Rand Paul’s committee hearing last Wednesday.


The score so far: over a million dead in America from the Covid-19 virus that Dr. Fauci helped develop starting as far back as the 1990s, with Dr. Ralph Baric of the University of North Carolina. Tens of thousands left with serious, lasting injuries from the vaccines they promoted. The exact number of vaccine-connected deaths unknown because the public health agencies refused to report honestly on an operation that they caused to happen. There are whole legions of high officials and doctors behind Dr. Fauci now desperate to cover their asses.

Along with the mendacious news media. HHS Sec’y Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. happened to be on Dana Bash’s CNN Sunday morning program. By the way, Dana Bash used to be married to one Jeremy Bash, Chief-of-Staff to CIA-Director Leon Panetta under Barack Obama. CNN lied consistently to the American people during the years of the Covid emergency. You have to wonder if CNN takes direction from the CIA, or maybe rogue elements in (or retired from) the agency. Sunday, Dana Bash went on offense against RFK,Jr.

Didn’t work. RFK, Jr. kept his cool. The harshest thing he said to Bash through all her hectoring was “you were part of the problem,” a startling understatement. Ms. Bash otherwise only wrecked herself, over-speaking her guest at every opportunity, pettifogging, and filibustering. Everybody could see what she was up to. Imagine how desperate CNN was to think that Dana Bash could bluster her way over Mr. Kennedy. He helped her expose herself as a tool.

The news media has been a very active co-conspirator in the Covid operation. You’d think Senator Paul might want to subpoena some network executives from CNN, CBS, NBC, MSNOW (especially), plus Executive Editor Joe Kahn of The New York Times (and his predecessor during Covid, Dean Baquet) to find out why they reported so much pure falsehood around the so-called pandemic. How did they happen to become the propaganda department for the Democratic Party, and what was the party’s interest in the Covid operation? D’unh. . . .

Everybody knows. Even the super-hyped-up cat ladies, nose-rings, NPR stars, and moiling transsters of the lefty-left know. They have kin and friends who either died on respirators with IV lines of remdesivir in their arms, or were gifted by the vaxx shots with turbo-cancer or myocarditis or neuromuscular disease or immune system failure or some mystery illness. They have been harmed even more than those of us who declined to get vaxxed. Sooner or later, that’s got to mean something.

As for Dr. Fauci’s motive in this huge fiasco. . . it’s got to be clear both from the record of his career — nicely reported in RFK,Jr’s 2021 book The Real Doctor Fauci — and from the 1000-plus-page personal diary he recorded on the HHS computers, that Fauci was doggedly in pursuit of glory. Glory! And that his personal holy grail was to find a “universal vaccine” that could defeat any virus, so as to be acclaimed by all mankind! Glory! Glory! Glory!

Given what is understood now about viruses and their interaction with vaccines — for instance, the flu vaccine which uniformly fails to adapt to annual virus mutations — that Dr. Fauci’s quest was quixotic, very basically foolish. All he ever produced, from the AZT wonder-drug for AIDS he developed back in 1986 (that probably killed as many people as died from the disease itself) to the Pfizer / Moderna mRNA shots for Covid in 2021 . . . all that frantic, questing “science” just ended up killing and harming the credulous in large numbers. The buttoned-up little fellow appears to be guilty of mass-murder on an epic scale.

Of course, he is presumed to be protected by the autopen-signed peremptory pardon he received from minions of “Joe Biden.” Perhaps Dr. Fauci’s invoking the Fifth Amendment under those circumstances will prompt an overdue look at just how this autopen thing really worked. In any case, Dr. Fauci is liable to be voted in contempt of Congress this week for not answering any questions put to him. The connected legal procedure will keep Dr. Fauci’s misdeeds under public scrutiny for at least months to come.

It’s also a fact that the autopen pardon does not shield him from charges brought in state courts. The AGs of Florida, Louisiana, Alabama have declared investigations. Louisiana and Missouri have already made Dr. Fauci sit for depositions, and now they can compare his answers with the entries from his diary. It is obvious that on countless occasions and on many vital issues, Dr. Fauci told the public one thing while he believed (and recorded) the opposite in his diary.

One question that the public badly wants Secretary RFK,jr. to answer: how come you haven’t pulled the mRNA Covid vaccines altogether? They don’t work and they harm people. Why are they even still available? Would such a move amount to an admission that the whole emergency was a fake and a failure? And that the government’s own public health agencies are culpable? Would the survivors of the 268-million Americans who got the shots be a little pissed-off? What, then?

Read more …

The beginning of the end of open borders.

• Don’t Be Fooled, What’s Going On Is an Invasion of Spain (Rebecca Downs)

The consequences of “an ongoing invasion” from military-aged men into Spain played out in real time on Thursday, as Tony Kinnett covered on “The Tony Kinnett Cast.” Men were streaming past gates and into the Spanish territories of Ceuta and Melilla, which border Morocco. By Friday, blood was in the streets, while invaders were breaking off parts of gravesites to attack citizens and police. Cars were also on fire.


Kinnett spoke to how “thousands of military-aged men, not packs of desperate women and children, not the elderly, military-aged men… are streaming over the border into the country and… invading people’s homes in Spanish territory.” There was even footage of one man confirming he was under investigation for murder in Morocco, which contradicts claims that such individuals are seeking “economic opportunity” and “a better life.”

“It’s not over,” Kinnett shared at the start of Friday’s broadcast, in light of claims many had returned to Morocco. “Now if there is an invasion that is over… usually you do not see people continuing to do the invading,” he added as men climbed over fences. Kinnett likened the invasion to the open borders under President Joe Biden. “Just one administration ago, you saw under Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas… the same kinds of mass migration into the country,” Kinnett reminded, about which Mayorkas couldn’t even be truthful.

President Donald Trump has called out the risks of unfettered immigration, while Democrats have been “insane,” Kinnett said.

The situation was so dire it necessitated leaders from Ceuta, on left and right, calling on Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez for assistance. When Sánchez “finally” addressed the situation on Thursday, he claimed that “the government of Spain is fully committed to providing an immediate response to the situation” and were “mobilizing all necessary resources, working with Moroccan and international authorities, and preparing the necessary measures to restore normalcy as soon as possible.”

Kinnett also noted Sánchez had previously defended open borders as “compassion” and “empathy.”As Kinnett pointed out on Friday, the prime minister “was heckled immediately” in Spain. On Friday, Sánchez “for the first time” acknowledged that “what has happened is an attack on Spain’s territorial integrity” and “deserves our most resounding and energetic condemnation.”

Kinnett noted it was “an interesting line” that Sánchez said “the government of Spain stands with the autonomous city,” with Ceuta being Spanish territory, given federal law still applies there. But he’s saying autonomous as though this is somehow some extra nicety that he’s laying around. Maybe, maybe the socialists have a point that really these territories should be ceded to Morocco.”

The situation in Spain has become so bad that European neighbors could ignore it no longer and have tightened borders. “As a result… it should be very clear here that other nations in Europe have responded by reinforcing their borders,” Kinnett said, despite how there is free travel between the European Union countries. This includes the leaders of Italy, Austria, and even France, “because of this migrant crisis.”

Read more …

I find terrorism a strange complaint when you’re at war.

• Kiev’s ‘Terrorist Plague’ Spreading Across Europe – Russian Embassy (RT)

Ukraine’s “terrorist plague” is spreading across Europe, the Russian Embassy in Italy has claimed, accusing Kiev of orchestrating the deadly bombing of the Balzi Rossi restaurant in central Moscow. An improvised explosive device detonated outside the Italian restaurant on Kudrinskaya Square on Saturday evening after an unidentified woman allegedly attempted to carry it inside. The security guard who stopped her at the entrance was killed in the blast, along with the courier and at least three patrons attending a private event. Almost two dozen others were injured.


The National Antiterrorism Committee has not publicly identified any suspects or linked the attack to Ukraine, another state or any particular organization, while no group has claimed responsibility. In a statement on Sunday, the Russian Embassy in Italy claimed that the “bloody tentacles of Zelensky’s terrorist gang” had chosen Balzi Rossi partly to frighten foreigners working in Russia. It described the “Kiev regime” as “another emanation of Al-Qaeda and Islamic State” and accused Western officials who continue to fund and arm Ukraine of enabling terrorism.

“It has now become completely clear that the explosion at the Balzi Rossi restaurant and other terrorist attacks in Russia, Monaco and elsewhere show that the Ukrainian terrorist plague is already spreading across Europe, and particularly Italy,” the embassy said.Moscow Mayor Sergey Sobyanin described the explosion as a “brutal terrorist act” and vowed that those responsible would be found and punished. Russian officials have not announced any arrests or disclosed a suspected motive, but the embassy’s allegations follow several previous bomb attacks for which Moscow explicitly blamed Ukrainian intelligence services.

Russian journalist Darya Dugina was killed in August 2022 after a bomb was planted in her vehicle. Russia’s Federal Security Service accused Ukrainian special services of organizing the assassination and identified Ukrainian national Natalya Vovk as the alleged perpetrator. According to the FSB, she fled to Estonia and has since vanished from public view. A bombing that killed military blogger Vladlen Tatarsky in St. Petersburg in April 2023 bore a more direct resemblance to the Balzi Rossi attack. Darya Trepova carried an explosive device disguised as a statuette into a café where Tatarsky was addressing an audience and presented it to him as a gift.

The device exploded shortly afterwards, killing Tatarsky and injuring dozens of people.= Russian investigators concluded that Trepova had acted on instructions from handlers in Ukraine. She maintained that she had been deceived and believed the statuette contained a listening device rather than a bomb, but a court convicted her of terrorism and sentenced her to 27 years in prison. Kiev never formally admitted involvement, but its former military intelligence chief, Kirill Budanov, later hinted that his agency was behind several high-profile killings inside Russia and promised to “keep killing Russians anywhere on the face of this world.”

Terrorism beyond Russia
The June 29 bombing in Monaco cited by the embassy also involved a woman allegedly recruited by a Ukrainian military intelligence network, according to Russian law enforcement sources. In that attack, a backpack containing an improvised explosive device packed with shrapnel was placed outside a residential building and detonated remotely, injuring Ukrainian businessman Vadim Ermolaev, his partner and her 13-year-old son.

The suspected courier, Anastasia Berezovskaya, fled to Ukraine before Interpol issued a Red Notice for her arrest. She was later found shot dead and buried near Kiev. Ukrainian authorities detained two men in connection with her killing, including Vitaly Zhikovich, whom Russian law enforcement sources described as a serving colonel in Ukraine’s military intelligence agency. Recordings obtained by RT captured Zhikovich discussing plans to recruit unsuspecting civilians, including women and minors, to transport explosives, sometimes without knowing that they would be killed when the devices detonated.

Read more …

A reminder that the US economy is not doing as bad as the likes of CNN want you to think.

• Manufacturing Index Reflects Continued Strong Growth – Highest in 4 Years (CTH)

What we can take away from the Institute for Supply Management (ISM) index on manufacturing: overall, the U.S. manufacturing sector is continuing to expand significantly. The current index of 55.6 percent in July is 2.3 percentage points above the June figure and the highest reading since May 2022 (55.9 percent), when we were trying to recover from the COVID-19 shutdowns and supply chain problems.


PMI – The overall economy continued in expansion for the 21st month in a row. (A Manufacturing PMI® above 47.5 percent, over a period of time, generally indicates an expansion of the overall economy.) The New Orders Index expanded for the seventh consecutive month after four straight readings in contraction, registering 56.7 percent, up 0.7 percentage point compared to June’s figure of 56 percent.

The July reading of the Production Index (58.5 percent) is 6.3 percentage points higher than the 52.2 percent recorded in June and the highest figure since November 2021 (60.5 percent). The Prices Index remained in expansion (or ‘increasing’ territory), registering 71.1 percent, a 1.9-percentage point decrease from June’s reading of 73 percent. The Backlog of Orders Index registered 55 percent, up 4.5 percentage points compared to the 50.5 percent recorded in June.

The Employment Index reading of 52.8 percent is up 3.1 percentage points from June’s figure of 49.7 percent, putting the index in expansion territory for the first time in 33 months.” (source)All that data and a couple of bucks will buy you a cup of coffee, but here’s what it means in common speak. Overall, companies wanting to make products in the United States are expanding the manufacturing sector. However, they are running into a problem when trying to source the component goods and/or raw materials. The resource goods they need are constantly in a status of flux and the prices are unstable.

For large companies their supply chain management can deal with the short inventory issue through various sourcing networks using multiple suppliers. However, for smaller companies this is frustrating. The manufacturing system is a network of complex suppliers who make component materials needed for the core product. In order to get really successful, the smaller manufacturing component goods need to start up inside the USA just like the larger companies who are producing a finished product.

This is why even during a manufacturing surge we end up importing a lot of goods on the front end of the transition. Absent a domestic supplier, industrial component products are heavily imported in order to manufacture the finished durable good.

It takes time, well, technically its never been tried – so, no one is sure, but it takes time for all of the component manufacturing to establish inside the USA in order to feed the component parts to the various manufacturers who depend on the sub-sourcing. This is the period we are in at the moment, and prices are fluctuating as people try to get their arms around costs here and abroad.

The 15 manufacturing industries reporting growth in July — listed in order — are: Printing & Related Support Activities; Apparel, Leather & Allied Products; Electrical Equipment, Appliances & Components; Primary Metals; Nonmetallic Mineral Products; Transportation Equipment; Miscellaneous Manufacturing; Textile Mills; Machinery; Computer & Electronic Products; Food, Beverage & Tobacco Products; Wood Products; Plastics & Rubber Products; Furniture & Related Products; and Fabricated Metal Products. The only industry in contraction was Chemical Products.

[…] Commodities Up in Price Acrylonitrile Butadiene Styrene (ABS); Aluminum* (32); Copper (13); Corn; Corrugated Products (4); Electrical Components (2); Electronic Components (7); Freight (5); Fuel* (5); Integrated Circuits; Memory Components (5); Metal Products (4); Ocean Freight (3); Oil Based Products (4); Paper Products (4); Plastic Based Products (4); Plastics (5); Printed Circuit Boards; Resin Based Products; Resins (6); Semiconductors (2); Soybean Meal; Steel (9); Steel — Cold Rolled; Steel — Hot Rolled (7); Steel — Stainless (6); Steel Products (8); and Sulfur Products (4).

Commodities Down in Price Aluminum*(2); Fuel* (2); and Polypropylene Resin (2).

Commodities in Short Supply Aluminum; Copper; Electrical Components (13); Electronic Components (17); Integrated Circuits; Memory (7); Oil Based Products; Printed Circuit Boards; Rare Earth Components; Semiconductors (5); Steel; Steel — Hot Rolled (2); and Tungsten Products.

The blue-collar jobs are expanding significantly. There is massive upward pressure on wages for blue collar workers as the manufacturing sector continues to expand.

Read more …

It’s Warren Buffett’s idea, and he wasn’t the first either.

• Javier Milei Just Proposed a Great Idea (Anderson)

Javier Milei has done great things for Argentina — and honestly, the entire region — and will continue to do so, but I have to admit that his latest proposal left me weak in the knees. He’s calling it the grillete fiscal or the “fiscal shackle,” and it’s part of a larger reform of the Central Bank’s charter that he’s sending to the country’s Congress, possibly for a mid-to-late-August vote.


Essentially, if the Argentine national government runs a fiscal deficit for several months in a row, the Congress receives a warning that it has a matter of weeks to fix it. If it doesn’t hit the deadline, the “shackle” activates automatically, and the political class will be the ones impacted. Here’s what happens:

1. Non-essential government functions are suspended (hello, government shutdown).

2. All new spending is frozen and will not be authorized until the problem is resolved.

3. No new contracts can be awarded.

4. No new public-sector employees can be hired.

5. Discretionary transfers to the provinces are halted.

And last but not least, the best part:

6. The salaries of the top politicians stop completely. The vice president, ministers, secretaries, undersecretaries, national senators, national deputies, and even El presidente himself will not receive a dime of taxpayer money until they solve the problem.

Of course, essential services will remain protected. “For the first time in our history, if politics doesn’t do its homework, politics will pay the cost — not the people,” Milei said during a national broadcast last week, during which he introduced the proposal. My question is why the heck isn’t every national government in the world doing this? More specifically, my question is why doesn’t the United States do this? (I know the answer.)

We do have our fair share of government shutdowns when Congress can’t get its act together, but the everyday people who work for the federal government are the ones who suffer and are often furloughed without pay, while those same members of Congress continue to receive their salaries.

Now, I will point out that in May of this year, Sen. John Kennedy (R-La.) sponsored a resolution that would make it so that our senators are not paid in the case of a government shutdown. It had bipartisan support and was unanimously approved. It states that these senators’ salaries are withheld and released once a shutdown ends. That will take effect the day after the November 2026 elections and only applies to the Senate, not the House.

While that’s progress, it looks weak compared to what Milei has proposed. Now, his biggest hurdle is getting these legislators whom it impacts to actually vote for it. Milei’s La Libertad Avanza party has the largest bloc in the Chamber of Deputies after the 2025 midterms, but it doesn’t have an outright majority. It’s ambitious, but it’s not impossible, and if it does pass, I hope the U.S. will take note, though I’m not holding my breath.

Read more …

 

 

 

 

https://twitter.com/EricLDaugh/status/2083927432017420393?s=20 https://twitter.com/EricLDaugh/status/2083984910260294133?s=20

 

 

 

 

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Debt Rattle August 3 2026

Aug 032026
 
 August 3, 2026  Posted by at 9:45 am Finance Tagged with: , , , , , , , ,  33 Responses »


Edward Steichen Marlene Dietrich 1932


• Trump Says “Perimeters Of A Deal Reached” With Iran (ZH)
• Zionist Trump Regime Looks for New Reasons to Escalate Attacks on Iran (PCR)
• A Two-State Solution for Spain? (Paul Craig Roberts)
• Regarding The Causes of The Ceuta Migrant Surge, Look Who’s Gloating (Amar)
• NO, The Invaders Have Not All Just ‘Gone Home’ (MN)
• Ceuta and the Collapse of Sánchez’s Pro-Migration Experiment (Daniel Lacalle)
• RFK Jr. Steamrolled Dana Bash Over Fauci’s COVID Lies (Matt Margolis)
• CNN’s Dana Bash Beclowns Herself During Confrontation with RFK Jr (CTH)
• Rubio Discusses Global Challenges and Hints At the Never Asked Question (CTH)
• What Does He Do on a Day Off? Marco Rubio Gets Personal (Sarah Anderson)
• In Mamdani’s New York, It’s 1933 All Over Again (Robert Spencer)
• Hunter Biden Claims Family is Broke in Defaulting on $17 Million Bill (Turley)
• J.R.R. Tolkien, the Atomic Bomb, and the Perils of Power (Miltimore)

 


 

https://twitter.com/ConstitustionX/status/2083425860418457672?s=20 https://twitter.com/JimFergusonUK/status/2083459438984245427?s=20 https://twitter.com/JasonJournoDC/status/2083634392061161770?s=20

 


 


“…To Reopen Hormuz After Call With Saudi Crown Prince..”

• Trump Says “Perimeters Of A Deal Reached” With Iran (ZH)

The past few days have been tense. Although no US strikes were launched from Friday night into Saturday morning and the Gulf region remained quiet early Sunday, anticipation surrounding President Trump’s next move is keeping energy traders and Gulf governments on edge. The big concern is that another round of strikes could trigger a wider regional conflict, particularly as the Iranian-backed Houthis have reactivated offensive operations in the southern Red Sea in recent weeks.


The Trump administration and Department of War may pursue de-escalation from here after Trump wrote on Truth Social late Saturday night: “We have just been asked by Iran, and other Middle Eastern Countries, to hold off any attack in that the perimeters of a deal has been agreed to.”

That de-esclation pathway was followed by a new signal early Sudnay from Saudi Press Agency, Saudi Arabia’s official state news agency, stating that Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman held a call with President Trump, discussing the “necessity of prioritizing dialogue to de-escalate tensions and the importance of exerting all possible efforts to achieve a truce that paves the way for diplomatic solutions that yield positive results for preserving the security and stability of the region and prevent it from being drawn into a wider conflict whose repercussions would affect regional and international security and stability.”

The MbS-Trump call was first reported by Axios, which got the scoop on Saturday evening: Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman spoke to President Trump on Saturday and expressed concern over his plans for massive new strikes against Iran, according to two U.S. officials and a third source with knowledge of the call. . . .

Such an attack could lead to an unprecedented escalation in the five-month war, which has repeatedly paused as Trump opened the door to negotiations — only to resume when those diplomatic efforts failed. Iran has threatened to retaliate by launching attacks against energy and infrastructure facilities in Israel and the Gulf countries The Saudis expressed concern and asked for clarity about the plan of action,” one U.S. official told Axios.

A second source with knowledge of the call said MBS urged Trump to de-escalate and refrain from launching the strikes. Why the MBS-Trump conversation matters is that Saudi Arabia remains one of Washington’s top Gulf region allies. Riyadh has heavily influenced Trump’s Iran policy at previous inflection points and appears to have exerted similar influence in delaying or narrowing the next phase of US military action.

Read more …

Paul Craig Roberts. Calls Trump Zionist. I don’t think he fits the definition. For Mamdani perhaps, but for PCR?

The whole headline is nonsense too, of course. We’re losing ourselves.

• Zionist Trump Regime Looks for New Reasons to Escalate Attacks on Iran (PCR)

The New York Times and other of the whore media are reporting cyber attacks on US water systems in 7 states including Minnesota and Michigan. The attacks are attributed to Iran, although “Officials cautioned that they had not definitively determined that Iran was responsible for the attack.” So why report it? Is it news before it happens? It is not certain, but in my opinion likely, that this is disinformation being fed to the presstitutes by the Trump Zionist regime in order to justify more and more risky attacks on Iran. As we all know, Netanyahu has a firm hold on Trump and that is what Netanyahu wants.


American patriots seem inclined to believe that America is always under attack by some designated enemy. The George W. Bush Zionist regime even attributed “weapons of mass destruction” to Iraq, a total impossibility, in order to justify a US invasion in the interests of Greater Israel. As General Wesley Clark said “seven countries in five years.” Moreover, why would Iran, which attacks military, not civilian, targets, focus on water systems? It seems their cyberattacks would, like their military attacks, be focused on military infrastructure.

But assume Iran is behind the attacks on US water systems, keep in mind that Iranian civilian infrastructure and civilian residential areas continue to be targets of Zionist Trump’s attacks on Iran. So, if Iran is attacking US water systems, the cause is Trump’s attacks on Iran’s civilian infrastructure. So, before you get all hot under the collar about Iran, get hot under the collar because of Zionist Trump who is using America for Israel’ benefit. Americans have no right to complain about others attacking us in kind.

Read more …

Someone organized this. Did israel do it?

• A Two-State Solution for Spain? (Paul Craig Roberts)

Israel is celebrating the overrunning of the Spanish city of Ceuta by 60,000 African immigrant-invaders, an invasion force larger than 50% of the city’s population. As in Jean Raspail’s Camp of the Saints, there was no Spanish force present to defend Spain.


The idiotic Spanish Supreme Court invited the invasion by ruling that the government did not have the authority to evict, and apparently prevent, the entry, of 60,000 invaders without having each of the 60,000 invaders’ “human rights” case heard in court. The imbecilic Spanish prime minister sent 60 troops to “help the police.” As RT reports: “Spanish Prime Minister Sanchez refused to declare a national emergency, but sent a token force of 60 troops.” What good are 60 soldiers against 60,000 invaders? In former times when European ethnicities had confidence in themselves, the Spanish PM would be hanging from the nearest lamp post. The prime minister sacrificed Spaniards to Immigrant-invaders.

Europe is upset, because once the invaders establish themselves in Spain they will continue to enter and spread themselves throughout Europe. “Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni, Finnish Interior Minister Mari Rantanen, and Austrian Chancellor Christian Stocker all calling for Spain’s exclusion from the EU’s Schengen borderless travel zone.” But in Israeli circles the reaction was jubilation. More success destroying the weak-willed, weak-minded gentile Europeans who have no sense of ethnic survival, just as Jean Raspail described. The immigrant-invaders into white ethnic civilization are overthrowing it and leaving Israel supreme.

Among the many, Israeli journalist Edy Cohen celebrated the victory against the gentile enemy that once expelled the Jews from Spain because of their financial exploitation of Spanish citizens: “Don’t be surprised if in a few years those same young people who stormed Ceuta are the ones taking to the streets of Madrid and Barcelona shouting the new slogan. He who invites the destruction of the Jewish state suddenly discovers that destruction can also start in his own home.” Centuries later. Jews don’t forget.

“Israeli National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir joined in the mockery, congratulating the moronic prime minister of Spain “for his profound commitment to welcoming immigration and ‘human diversity’.” “Ben-Gvir, who has called for the destruction of Lebanon, the execution of Palestinian prisoners, and the use of starvation as a weapon of war, called on Sanchez to go further and aid in the depopulation of Gaza.” Not a word from Israel’s puppet, President Trump, who is so weak, despite his laughable blustering, that he, the President of the United States, is not capable of standing up to Netanyahu.

Later reports allege that Spanish military forces eventually showed up and that the immigrant-invaders voluntarily returned to Morocco. Who really knows? Given the total unreliability of the news, we have no way of knowing. What does seem to be completely clear is that no European ethnicity has the confidence to defend its existence. Every white country is committed to its total destruction by its own government and white liberals. Any white ethnic who wants to know his future needs only to read Jean Raspail’s Camp of the Saints.

Read more …

”The Ceuta migrant surge was sold as a border panic. The harder question is who benefited from lighting the fuse.”

• Regarding The Causes of The Ceuta Migrant Surge, Look Who’s Gloating (Amar)

The recent burst of illegal migration into Spain’s Moroccan exclave of Ceuta was, above all, a sensational media event produced for political effect. It will have lasting consequences, but not in terms of who ended up where: Of the about 50,000 migrants who suddenly, as if on command, stormed Ceuta by land and sea, almost all quickly went back to Morocco. According to the EU’s home affairs commissioner, not a single Ceuta-crasher made it to the European mainland.


In that sense, the whole thing might as well not have happened. Apocalyptic fantasies of Ceuta turning into a wide open gate to the rest of fortress Europe were always, at best, silly: no, you can’t just travel on into Spain from there or to British Gibraltar, for that matter.

Worse, there have been many deliberate attempts at political profiteering by spreading panic. All through the West, figures from across the political spectrum did not miss a beat trying to exploit the Ceuta emergency: In America, President Donald Trump – under pressure from his self-imposed fiasco in Iran – spoke of a “catastrophe” for Spain and predicted even worse to come in the US if voters dare abandon his Republicans in the upcoming midterms. Elon Musk, richest oligarchs in the world, shared a fragment of the not-so-subtly Zionist horror epic “World War Z” to compare the migrants to Zombies.

Meanwhile in NATO-EU Europe, Italy’s leadership under Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni staged some grand, irrelevant theater about the country’s perfectly unaffected borders, while making sour sounds about Schengen this and Schengen that. Not to be outdone, in France the Rassemblement National’s number two Jordan Bardella charged with equal absurdity that Spain’s socialist Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez and his liberal policies had “opened the doors of Europe.”

While especially strident, the EU’s new right was representative of almost everyone else: 22 governments signed a letter “implicitly criticizing” Spain rather than show solidarity with a fellow-EU member. Spain, meanwhile, is not prepared to meekly submit to this intra-Western hazing session. Sanchez has called out international reactions “driven by prejudice, fake news, ignorance or political interest.”

None of the above means that this fresh and unprecedentedly massive – five or six times as large as previous peaks, according to the Wall Street Journal – Ceuta crisis wasn’t real. Indeed, it was real enough to leave at least 67 casualties behind, namely, those migrants who did not manage to breach the Spanish border fortifications and drowned or were crushed to death. They, however, have met with little interest and no human compassion. Clearly, under Western eyes they are negligible. Western mainstream media and politicians have treated their lives as if they hardly mattered. Almost as if they were, say, Palestinians in Gaza or the West Bank, killed, robbed, and displaced by Israeli genocide and ethnic cleansing.

Which brings us to an especially intriguing aspect of this manufactured panic: Curiously, Israel’s UN representative Danny Danon has felt it is his job to go after Spain as well. “Spain, which never misses an opportunity to lecture Israel, has declared a state of emergency in Ceuta following the crisis over its immigration policy,” he declared, adding “maybe before it continues lecturing us, it’s time it explained to the world why it still maintains colonial enclaves in Africa.”

Ceuta and its sister exclave Melilla really are odd historical remnants, no doubt. But to hear an official representative of Israel, a genocidal settler colony led by an indicted war criminal, go on about colonialism is rich. But then, that is Danon’s default style: aggressive, shameless, and dirty.

More serious is the fact that Israel’s UN ambassador has chosen to make this statement when social media are already abuzz with theories pointing to Israel as somehow behind – if not necessarily alone – the storming of Ceuta. In essence, the idea is that the Zionist apartheid state and its international networks have found a way to pay Spain back for its far from perfect but – in NATO-EU Europe – unusual solidarity with Israel’s Palestinian victims.

No wonder that many Spanish observers, including the Minister of Transport, believe Israel’s involvement is real in this assault on Spain’s territorial integrity and standing within the EU. Indeed, Danon’s comment was so revealing that Israel’s ambassador to Spain, Dana Ehrlich, went into damage control mode, posting that Israel’s UN representative does not represent the position of the Israeli government. Make it make sense.

[..] The likeliest explanation for the Ceuta assault and its lethal consequences may well be a combination of factors. Yet the real question is not simply which causes contributed to this fatal outcome, but whether they came together spontaneously or by design. Was there a trigger or a catalyst? If there is one thing the genocide in Gaza should have taught everybody then it is that when Israel announces a crime, it will follow through and commit it. With that in mind, it is naïve to rule out the very real possibility that Ceuta was an Israeli psy-op against Spain, at the cost of dozens of lives no one in Europe seems to care about.

Read more …

But that’s what they publicly declare…

“One Ceuta resident posted that around 50,000 invaders remained, the city was collapsed, and the official numbers were pure spin.”

• NO, The Invaders Have Not All Just ‘Gone Home’ (MN)

Spanish authorities and their leftist allies are pushing the line that the tens of thousands of migrants who stormed Ceuta have mostly “gone home.” The claim is pure fantasy. Fresh video from the streets shows the city still under siege, with invaders assaulting facilities, smashing graves, clashing with locals, and turning a Spanish enclave into a no-go zone. This is the same dangerous mass migration reality that open-borders ideologues keep denying, even as the evidence piles up in real time.


The official narrative landed hard on Friday. Spain’s Foreign Minister José Manuel Albares declared that “the practical totality of those who entered Ceuta have already returned to Morocco.” The Spanish Embassy in the UK amplified the message, insisting almost everyone was gone, that no one could reach the mainland without ID checks, and that Schengen integrity remained fully guaranteed.b The Guardia Civil’s own association posted that Ceuta was “breathing again,” with returns advancing little by little and normality returning thanks to security forces.

Locals on the ground immediately called it a lie. One Ceuta resident posted that around 50,000 invaders remained, the city was collapsed, and the official numbers were pure spin. Video filmed that same afternoon showed streets still packed, nothing like the “most have left” story. [..] Just days earlier, we documented the initial invasion and the subsequent rampage through homes and streets. The claim that the crisis simply evaporated overnight collapses under the weight of the footage still circulating.

While Madrid spun the returns, Moroccan migrants were filmed storming a public asylum centre in Ceuta. The CETI facility came under direct assault as the government continued insisting order had been restored. Elsewhere, invaders smashed Christian graves and hurled the broken pieces at Spanish citizens. Locals fought back with whatever they could grab while police and military presence remained inadequate.

https://twitter.com/mattvanswol/status/2083277425287242146?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E2083277425287242146%7Ctwgr%5Ec6f49120ef6451b8882d2102b3804e621e984e77%7Ctwcon%5Es1_c10&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fmodernity.news%2F2026%2F08%2F01%2Fno-the-invaders-have-not-all-just-gone-home%2F

Knives came out in the open. Migrants stabbed one another in the streets while Spanish residents stayed locked indoors, prisoners in their own city of roughly 80,000 people now overrun. Cars belonging to locals were attacked simply for driving past and showing dissatisfaction. Grocery stores had to be fenced off and guarded by police to stop looting by the hungry crowds.

https://twitter.com/visegrad24/status/2083168989715243281?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E2083168989715243281%7Ctwgr%5Ec6f49120ef6451b8882d2102b3804e621e984e77%7Ctwcon%5Es1_c10&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fmodernity.news%2F2026%2F08%2F01%2Fno-the-invaders-have-not-all-just-gone-home%2F

Vehicles burned at the border as the surge continued. Groups of military-age men, far from the “families and refugees” talking point, were filmed taking escalators and moving through the city with the swagger of occupation rather than desperation.

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Daniel Lacalle is a Spanish voice. Appropriate.

• Ceuta and the Collapse of Sánchez’s Pro-Migration Experiment (Daniel Lacalle)

The new migration crisis in Ceuta is not an isolated episode or a simple border emergency. It is the result of a deeply irresponsible and damaging political and economic model. Sanchez boasts about aggregate growth while destroying cohesion, productivity, net real income per capita, and institutions. Spain is not an example of growth, migrant integration, or cohesion. It is a statistical mirage juiced by population increase and a fiscal time bomb. It has taken a migration crisis for the European Union to wake up.


Illegal immigration is not a stroke of fate or a recipe for growth and for shoring up public finances; it is a strategy of control and demolition of the nation from within, with the aim of creating a dependent, captive underclass, buying votes by altering demographics and shifting onto future generations the enormous cost to the state of a population increase whose net contribution to public accounts is overwhelmingly negative.

Spain was presented by progressives as a model of migrant integration. It was never true, and now it has become a full- blown crisis. The uncontrolled wave of illegal immigration is the direct result of the socialist government‘s policies: mass regularizations, subsidies, and the constant message that illegal migration pays.

For years, Spain has attracted uncontrolled inflows with promises of regularization and public transfers, while Brussels looked the other way because headline GDP grew and the statistics looked inclusive. However, the cost is enormous and borne by Spanish workers and taxpayers and, increasingly, by the entire European Union. Its elite tolerated Spain’s destructive policies as long as aggregate GDP was fattened, even in the face of the clear warning sign that GDP per capita was stagnating and pressure on public services and social unrest were rising.

The Sanchez government and its coalition have imposed unprecedented regularization processes, presenting them as a model for Europe and explicitly linking them to GDP increases and the supposed sustainability of the welfare state. This was a major deception. Regularized illegal immigration does not make pensions more sustainable; quite the opposite, because its net contribution to public accounts is unquestionably negative, as all studies on the matter show. Meanwhile, the government inflates aggregate GDP, but GDP per capita, net real wages, productivity, and the real effective employment rate remain stagnant.

The Spanish government has presented itself to the world with an openly pro immigration stance, at odds with decisions taken by the European Union itself. However, the Commission and the EU remained silent in the face of the assault on institutions, corruption, and the disaster of migration policy. European institutions bear responsibility because they supported and amplified S·nchez s destructive, extensive migration policy, presenting it as if it were inclusive. They ignored the evidence that Spain s numbers are poor once you look beyond headline GDP.

Stagnant GDP per capita: the IMF’s own estimates show that Spain’s GDP per capita will grow by just 1% a year between 2018 and 2027, exactly the same as the euro area average. Falling net real wages: under Sanchez they have fallen by almost 3%.Real unemployment: 3.7 million real unemployed, including inactive workers registered with the SEPE and 792,341 inactive permanent intermittent workers. The number of effectively unemployed has barely improved since 2019.

Zero fiscal consolidation: the net debt of the public administrations under the Excessive Deficit Procedure has risen to a record 1.6 trillion, while the total liabilities of the public sector have increased by more than half a trillion to 2.2 trillion. Debt to GDP and the deficit only appear to improve because the denominator is being doped with immigration and inflation above the euro area average. An unsustainable Social Security system: Snchez has multiplied Social Security’s debt, and the system needs a bailout every year from a state that is already in deficit. Immigration is not going to reduce that enormous hole; it increases it, as its net contribution is mostly negative.

All the data on the Spanish economy show weakness, statistical illusions, and severe imbalances, but the European Union and the Commission preferred to remain silent, buy the official propaganda, and cling to a doped aggregate GDP. The same thing they did with Greece between 2004 and 2007.

[..] It is not a mistake; it is a power strategy. Sánchez seeks to create a captive underclass, dependent on subsidies and papers, that will vote for him in the future and shift the social consequences and the bill onto taxpayers. While the government sinks under corruption scandals and loses social support, it tries to cling to power by dismantling Spain and its institutions and importing the future voters it is losing today.

Sánchez is not governing Spain; he is dismantling it in an attempt to cling to power. That is the big lie of Sánchez’s “rocket,” bloating up instead of truly growing.

It seemed Elon Musk was on to Sánchez early on. After the prime minister defended his amnesty plan in April, Musk wrote on X, “Dirty Sánchez is guilty of high treason.”

Sánchez responded cheekily at the time, “Mars can wait. Humanity can’t.”

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Why would she try to prove him wrong? He’s read it all. Can’t win that one.

“I’ve actually read the science,” he said. “You don’t want to come back here and debate the science.”

• RFK Jr. Steamrolled Dana Bash Over Fauci’s COVID Lies (Matt Margolis)

Health and Human Services (HHS) Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. obliterated CNN’s Dana Bash during a fiery interview Sunday morning on State of the Union, and it was brutal. The segment aired as measles outbreaks tore through several states, with public health officials warning that unvaccinated communities were fueling the spread of the disease to levels not seen in decades. Those outbreaks trace back to Joe Biden’s presidency, when his administration allowed millions of illegal immigrants to pour across the southern border and bring diseases like measles back into communities that had all but wiped them out.


Bash spent much of the interview pushing Kennedy to look “into the camera” and tell parents to vaccinate their kids against measles. Kennedy did it. He said exactly what she wanted him to say. Then Bash kept going, and the interview went off the rails. The conversation curdled into a fight over how the media treated skeptics and anyone who dared question the Biden administration’s COVID-era public health guidance during the pandemic. Bash opened with an accusation. “You are the HHS secretary, and you are talking about things that lead to vaccine hesitancy in this country,” she said. “And it’s something that causes problems for people when there is not anything.”

Kennedy wasn’t having it. “Let me ask you something,” he said. “Do you see your job as ending vaccine hesitancy or do you see your job as telling the truth to the American people?” Bash insisted her job was telling the truth. “There is study after study after study,” she said. “It’s one of the most studied things out there in science.” Kennedy pounced. “You’re repeating it like a parrot,” he said, twice for emphasis. Bash shot back, “So are you.” Kennedy wasn’t buying it. “I’ve actually read the science,” he said. “You don’t want to come back here and debate the science.”

From there, Kennedy dismantled the premise CNN built its entire segment on: that trusting government “experts” is the same thing as trusting the truth. “All you know how to do is repeat things that people told you and say, trust the experts,” he said. “That’s what you did during COVID. Now we know that Anthony Fauci, who was the ‘expert,’ was lying about everything, about masks, about social distancing, about natural immunity, about the transmission from the vaccine, about the source of COVID. He was lying, and you were punishing people for not trusting the experts. And now you’re rolling out the ‘experts’ again to talk about something that you have no personal knowledge of.”

Bash tried to defend herself. “That is my job, to talk to people,” she said. Kennedy wasn’t finished. “Your job is to tell the truth to the American people,” he replied.

If Bash thought she could lob a bunch of accusations against Kennedy and he would take it quietly, she was sorely mistaken. Kennedy didn’t dodge a single question. He turned every one of them into an indictment of a press corps that spent years demanding blind obedience and calling it science.

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The entire video.

“Defending Fauci, Censorship, Govt Fraud and Weaponizing Viruses.. “

• CNN’s Dana Bash Beclowns Herself During Confrontation with RFK Jr (CTH)

CNN propagandist Dana Bash had a full mask down episode today while trying to deny the truth about COVID-19 (all aspects) and defend Anthony Fauci (who she frequently text with according to Fauci’s diary).


HHS Secretary Robert F Kennedy Jr was not going to allow CNN to fraudulently present nonsense claims under the guise of “settled science,” and he pushed back hard against her claims. At one point Bash notes she didn’t want to litigate the COVID-19 outcomes and RFK Jr appropriately pushed back saying the experiences need to be relitigated because Americans were censored, shut down, lied to and had liberty destroyed by a political health system devoid from science.

Things became even more heated as Bash was staring at the multi-page talking points prepared for her by corporate advertisers and Kennedy was systematically destroying them. Bash doubled, tripled and quadrupled down with the manipulative and combative questioning, ultimately removing any facade of journalism in the process.

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That question apparently is: ‘why have your views changed so dramatically in the past two years, and/or are you just playing a role.‘

• Rubio Discusses Global Challenges and Hints At the Never Asked Question (CTH)

Secretary of State Marco Rubio sat down with Fox News Lara Trump for an extensive discussion on his role and responsibilities in the Trump administration. In the second segment, Rubio actually touched on something many have been curious about regarding his changed perspectives and positions. It is still annoying that no one has ever asked him directly, ‘why have your views changed so dramatically in the past two years, and/or are you just playing a role.‘ The two video segments and transcript are below:



[Transcript] – QUESTION: Secretary, great to have you back. Thank you so much.

SECRETARY RUBIO: Glad to be back. It’s been a while.

QUESTION: Yeah. There’s so much to talk about, but I want to start with Cuba.

SECRETARY RUBIO: Yeah.

QUESTION: This has been of particular interest to the State Department right now. You guys released a 100-page report on Cuba, calling it, “The Capital of 21st Century Communism.” And this report talks about the fact that Cuba’s goal essentially is to erase the United States from the Earth. It also details a Cuban spy network that’s been undermining American interests. How did we get to a place where Cuba has become so much of a threat – it feels like again – to the United States?

SECRETARY RUBIO: I think for those who have followed the issue of Cuba, this is not unfamiliar to us. But to the average American, you see Cuba, a small country 90 miles off our shores, nine and a half million people population. But people forget that when it comes to things like espionage and influence operations, they actually are an influence and espionage superpower. If you look at the history of espionage in the United States, Cuba is the only country that consistently has implanted and embedded spies in our system without even paying them.

We had an ambassador, a U.S. ambassador, who ended up being a Cuban spy and was recently convicted. We’ve had them penetrate the highest levels of the Defense Intelligence Agency. Ana Belén Montes was one of the single biggest intelligence failures on the part of the United States and one of the biggest penetrations we ever had in our system.

So – and then on the influence front, if you look all throughout Latin America, every communist left-wing insurgency that’s destabilized governments across the region, every single one of them over the last 40, 50 years has found its support, its help, in many cases its birth, from a Cuban influence operation. So, it was an important report just to highlight the role they play in our country, a very negative role.

QUESTION: The report also links Cuban influence to the rise in Antifa, the riots that we saw in 2020, as well as the surge of radical activism that we’ve seen all over these college campuses. To the average person, those things, I think, feel generally organic, but it turns out there are a lot of different powers – Cuba being one of them – that are influencing all of these things day to day.

SECRETARY RUBIO: It’s the same network of protesters around the country. They were the same people you saw on the streets burning things in 2020. They then flip it around and they become the pro-Hamas protesters, then they flip it around and within 48 hours of Maduro’s arrest have preprinted signs outside the courthouse demanding his release. And then they’re out there doing the ICE stuff, attacking ICE agents.

There’s nothing organic about it. It is funded, it is organized, and Cuba is a part of that network, and in some cases a critical part of that network. And it’s a network they will weaponize against us, and they talk about it openly, about how they will use that network to pressure American policymakers – not just here in the United States, like Code Pink, but all over the world.

QUESTION: Critics of this report, of course, are saying, oh, well, these are scare tactics to potentially justify some U.S. military action against Cuba. It sounds like this is something we should take seriously, and this report sounds very real.

SECRETARY RUBIO: Everything in there is factual. And frankly, I don’t think they can dispute it. People can argue that we shouldn’t do with it, and I know there are plenty of people in American academia – and frankly in American press – that sympathize with the Cuban regime and have for a very long time. Part of it is motivated by their anti-Americanism, and part of it is motivated by ideological affinity. There are plenty – there are enough people in key nodes of our society, including professors, but frankly, in the past we’ve seen people within our own government, that sympathize with the Cuban regime. It’s the way they get spies without paying them. But it doesn’t mean we can ignore this threat.

Put aside for a moment my history, the fact that I’m Cuban American, the fact that I grew up in Miami. This is 90 miles from our shores. A failed state 90 miles from our shores that happens to be aligned with adversaries to the United States is a national security threat to our country.

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“She asked if he goes right to sleep, and he said no, because when you’re working for Trump, who seemingly rarely sleeps, it’s impossible to do that.”

• What Does He Do on a Day Off? Marco Rubio Gets Personal (Sarah Anderson)

Marco Rubio appeared on Lara Trump’s Fox News’ My View with Lara Trump on Saturday night, and I’ll admit that I almost didn’t watch the entire interview. It started with his generic answers to the same old questions.


But Lara is, in my opinion, very good at what she does. When she interviews someone like our dear secretary of state, she doesn’t just ask about Iran and China and Venezuela, she asks him about, well, him. She wants to know about the person behind the news. I love that — it breaks up the monotony of geopolitical situations that he can’t really talk about in full publicly, and it gives us a little glimpse into how he’s handling all of these new-ish roles he’s taken on, after we’ve known him as Senator Rubio for so many years.

On Saturday night, he talked family, football, days off, and even that meme the internet just can’t seem to get enough of, and it was a nice refreshing change of pace, so I thought I’d share some of the details. Lara started by asking how he has changed through all of his many political seasons of life — senator, presidential candidate, secretary of state — and how he thinks the American people perceive him. He gave an answer that I think most of us who have reached middle age can relate to:

“You asked me if you’ve changed. I think everybody – you go through life, right? And as you go through life you learn new things, you see things you hadn’t seen before, you hear things you haven’t heard before. Certainly, I am a different person at 55 than I was at 25 or even 35 because I have 20 and 30 years of experience in between – in life and in work – that inform that.

I think at your core you always want to remain the same person, though, right? And that is what are your priorities in life and what are the values that sort of drive you to do what you do, and I hope that hasn’t changed. And by the way, the world changes too. There are things that are true today that weren’t true 10 years ago. So, I think that’s true for all of us, not just me.”

She also brought up his famous meme that I think everyone is familiar with at this point. As it turns out, Rubio says he hated the initial picture of him sitting on the sofa in the Oval Office, all slumped over, that inspired the meme. He said if you sit there without a pillow behind you, you sink. He said he doesn’t keep up with the meme that closely, but people love to show it to him, and he does think it’s funny.

https://twitter.com/A1Policy/status/2083733216775610484?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E2083733216775610484%7Ctwgr%5E86cb41d7d8f1ad0ebc2930ef7ea6bc9884f94aa4%7Ctwcon%5Es1_c10&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fpjmedia.com%2Fsarah-anderson%2F2026%2F08%2F02%2Fwhat-does-he-do-on-a-day-off-marco-rubio-gets-personal-n4955714

On balancing life as the busiest man in the Donald Trump administration with being a husband and father of four, he said it’s actually not that difficult. His children are 26, 24, 21, and 18, and the youngest just graduated high school, so they’re off focusing on careers, furthering their education, and enjoying their own lives. He said because the kids are all grown up, it also makes it easier to spend more time with his wife. “So, it’s the second phase of that relationship, I guess, after all these years,” he said.

So, what does Secretary Rubio do when he finally goes home at night? She asked if he goes right to sleep, and he said no, because when you’re working for Trump, who seemingly rarely sleeps, it’s impossible to do that. He also said it’s good to take some time to do something to disconnect completely from his job, like watch a movie or a sporting event. But he also admits that the “world doesn’t wait for you” in this role, and that plans to do something as simple as watch a movie is often disrupted.

“It’s harder – it was a lot easier to do that when you’re a senator,” he said. “It’s much harder when you’re in this role and in this job, because the world isn’t going to stop and wait for you. Like, you may have made a plan tonight to watch a movie, but in the middle of that movie something blows up somewhere in the world, and you’ve got to know about it and you may have to do something about it. So, it’s harder, but it’s not forever, and it’s fulfilling to be in that role.”

Finally, Lara asked him what he would do if he could have a full week off without anyone having access to him. If you’re familiar with Rubio, his answer probably won’t surprise you. “If I had a full week off, I’d be wondering what was going on,” he said, proving why he’s exactly the right person for his job. “I’m being honest, and maybe that’ll change when I’m out of this job.”

But if he could stop the world for a minute and ensure nothing happens? “Well, my wife’s going to hate this answer, but I’d love to sit down and watch, like, every college football game starting at noon Eastern until one – when the West Coast games end at 2:00 a.m. our time Eastern. I’d love to be able to do that at least one weekend. I doubt I’ll be able to do that anytime soon.”

It’s the stuff football fans’ dreams are made of. Rubio is, of course, a huge Florida Gators and Miami Dolphins fan, and I hope he gets to watch at least a few games this fall.

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Let’s not get ahead of ourselves. But let’s also not forget our past. You can’t very well bypass all Jewish lawyers in a place where half the lawyers are Jewish.

• In Mamdani’s New York, It’s 1933 All Over Again (Robert Spencer)

New York City’s Marxist Muslim Mayor Zohran Mamdani acted quickly, once he moved into Gracie Mansion, to demonstrate that his venomous anti-Israel campaign rhetoric was not just an appeal to the Democrat Party’s growing and aggressive hard-left faction. On his very first day in office, he revoked the city’s International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance framework for combating antisemitism. It’s easy to see why Mamdani would not have wanted to be committed to combating antisemitism: he was busy stirring it up. On July 21, Mamdani falsely accused Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of being a war criminal and carrying out a genocide of “Palestinians.”


Two days later, a Muslim screaming “Allahu akbar” stabbed an identifiably Jewish man who was leaving Jewish services. Nor was that an isolated incident. The Jerusalem Post reported Thursday that “Mamdani’s own police commissioner reported hate crimes up nearly 12% citywide, with 55% targeting Jews, who represent about 10% of the city’s population.” More recently, despite being mayor of the city with the second-largest Jewish population in the world, he has conspicuously left all Jewish lawyers off the city’s 18-member Mayor’s Advisory Committee on the Judiciary.

Jews comprise fully half of the city’s lawyers, but Mamdani didn’t see fit to appoint even one Jewish lawyer to the body that vets and recommends candidates for positions on the city’s courts. The systematic ignoring of the city’s Jewish lawyers will do nothing but contribute to their sidelining within their own profession. Algemeiner reported Tuesday that “a coalition of Jewish legal organizations condemned the appointments, arguing that the omission excludes one of New York’s largest religious and ethnic communities from an influential body responsible for shaping the city’s judiciary.”

The coalition also noted that Mamdani’s snubbing of the Jewish lawyers was just one aspect of “‘a troubling pattern’ that has left many Jewish New Yorkers feeling increasingly marginalized.” That pattern includes not only Mamdani’s rejection of “the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance’s definition of antisemitism,” but also “the omission of Jewish neighborhoods from an administration map highlighting immigrant enclaves.”

What’s next? Maybe organized boycotts of Jewish-owned businesses. The BDS (Boycott, Divest, Sanction) movement announced a week after Mamdani took office that it welcomed Mamdani’s “revocation of the anti-BDS Executive Order issued last month by the previous mayor.” The executive order that Mamdani revoked “prevented any mayoral agencies or appointees from doing business with vendors and organizations complying with international law by holding genocidal Israel accountable.” That is, the city was prevented from doing business with entities that boycotted Israel, but no longer.

There are precedents. On April 1, 1933, Adolf Hitler’s newly-minted National Socialist dictatorship in Germany ordered a one-day boycott of Jewish-owned businesses. Six days later, the Law for the Restoration of the Professional Service excluded Jews from positions as university professors and government officials. There quickly followed laws that barred Jews from serving as physicians and teachers, as well as, in a foreshadowing of Mamdani’s choices for the Mayor’s Advisory Committee on the Judiciary, lawyers and judges.

Attorney Eli Albrecht wrote Wednesday that “lawyers need to know the holocaust did not begin with camps. It began when Jews were removed from institutions – above all, legal institutions. Judges stripped of their robes. Lawyers disbarred. Then, when law-groups were Judenrein, they codified laws that made discrimination systematic and ‘legal.’ First, you remove the Jews from the institutions. Then, Jews can be discriminated against without representation.” He declared: “In NYC, there is a concerted effort to disappear Jews from public life and leadership. No one on the Left is speaking out. If this discrimination was happening to any other group, the chorus would be deafening.”

Of course no one on the left is speaking out. Patriots and lovers of freedom, however, can and must do so. For in National Socialist Germany, the harassment and persecution of the Jews did not end with their being barred from certain professions; on the contrary, at that point, it was just beginning. If Mamdani is doing all this now, what will he be doing in five years, or ten? (Those who complacently think he will be voted out after one term should remember that socialism often arrives through the ballot box, but never, ever leaves that way.) And while he has started with the Jews, against whom will he turn next?

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Pardons don’t cover bankruptcy.

• Hunter Biden Claims Family is Broke in Defaulting on $17 Million Bill (Turley)

Hunter Biden is no Van Gogh. In addition to having both ears, Hunter’s work has generally been panned beyond an enabling media following. However, he claims he is also a starving artist. The problem appears to be that, as predicted years ago, his sales dried up in the influence-peddling market once his father left office. Now, his lawyers want him to cough up $17 million that he owes them. Hunter says that not only is he broke, but so is his family.


In a deposition in ongoing litigation with the law firm Winston Taylor, Hunter claimed an inability to pay the $17 million he owes his lawyers for representing him in criminal prosecutions, congressional investigations, and civil lawsuits. Hunter claimed under oath that “I don’t own anything of any value other than — and I don’t know the value of it — my paintings which I painted myself. So that’s it. And I don’t even have any other assets at all, stocks, bonds, anything like that, savings accounts.” He also added, “My family doesn’t have any money, and it’s not their debt anyway.”


The statement about his family is curious, since Joe and Jill Biden recently received numerous book contracts and were thought to be worth millions. However, the Wall Street Journal recently reported that Joe Biden is struggling with $800,000 in debt and, ironically, increased property taxes in his blue state of Delaware on his $2.7 million home. (Moving to Florida like many fleeing blue state taxes is not a viable option for the Bidens).

Worse yet, no one wants Biden to do speeches and appearances, cutting off a lucrative post-presidency income. Not only is Biden obviously diminished in his ability to give a speech, but many Democrats blame him for the reelection of Trump by clinging to power despite his obvious deteriorating mental and physical condition. Of course, the former president still rakes in more than $400,000 a year in government pensions. Yet, in the end, Hunter is correct. It is not their debt unless they signed as guarantors on any debt.

Hunter continues to be the darling of the media with podcasts and interviews, including some who have called for him to run for president. He has lived in mansions and luxurious hotels for much of his life. However, that lifestyle was subsidized by wealthy Democratic donors and friends. What is impressive is how Hunter could burn through millions accrued from alleged influence peddling and shady deals. Notably, Fox News reports that the law firm, which is known for representing Democratic figures, has tried to connect Biden with donors to help him cover his legal bills, without success. With his father out of power, no one is willing to bankroll his lifestyle or buy his art.

Gone are the former swaggering threats that Hunter could make to shake down foreign figures. There was a time when he only needed to pick up a phone and send a text message like the one to a Chinese businessman, openly threatening Joe Biden’s displeasure if money is not sent to them immediately. In the WhatsApp message, Hunter stated:

“I am sitting here with my father, and we would like to understand why the commitment made has not been fulfilled. Tell the director that I would like to resolve this now before it gets out of hand, and now means tonight. And, Z, if I get a call or text from anyone involved in this other than you, Zhang, or the Chairman, I will make certain that between the man sitting next to me and every person he knows and my ability to forever hold a grudge that you will regret not following my direction. I am sitting here waiting for the call with my father.”

No one is answering now. Hunter insisted that he is now virtually destitute: “I don’t have any assets. I don’t own a car. I don’t own a phone.” Even his recent dubious award of $1.7 million in a defamation case was immediately claimed by the law firm, though that award can and should be appealed.

Hunter has written extensively on his struggle with drugs and alcohol. It is a great achievement to have overcome those addictions. Yet, the accounts would be more compelling if he did not unleash a scorched-earth campaign against critics when he was sober. He sued or threatened to sue a wide array of people to try to muscle them into silence. I was one of those threatened with a defamation lawsuit by his friend and sponsor Kevin Morris for writing about their curious relationship.

Hunter gamed the system on his crimes and was ultimately rescued from prison only by his father breaking his repeated public promise not to pardon his son. Yet, Hunter is likely to live well as a ward of the privileged class. He remains the toast of the town for the left, a type of foul-mouthed prophet who claims to have been liberated by his own excesses. For those of us who have long been critics of his antics, it remains a bit too familiar. Hunter makes even being broke look like a grift.

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“..possessing the humility to recognize that some power should never be wielded at all.”

• J.R.R. Tolkien, the Atomic Bomb, and the Perils of Power (Miltimore)

On Aug. 6, 1945, the Enola Gay dropped “Little Boy” on Hiroshima, instantly killing tens of thousands and marking the first use of a nuclear weapon in warfare. Three days later, a second bomb, “Fat Man,” was dropped on Nagasaki. Within days, Japan surrendered, bringing World War II to an end. For most Americans, the bombings were greeted with celebration. Polls at the time revealed that nearly 70 percent of Americans said the bombing was a “good thing,” while just 17 percent said it was a “bad thing.”


In some respects, this is no surprise. Thanks to the bomb, the war was over. Japan, the nation that had blindsided the United States at Pearl Harbor nearly four years earlier, had finally been brought to its knees, forced to surrender unconditionally. Watching these events unfold from England, a professor of Anglo-Saxon literature saw something very different.

‘Utter Folly’
In 1945, J.R.R. Tolkien was a professor of Old English at Oxford and author of “The Hobbit” (1937), a book that would eventually become one of the most influential works of fantasy literature ever written. Having served as a British Army officer in the trenches of World War I, Tolkien understood firsthand the horrors of modern warfare. Perhaps because of this, he recoiled upon learning of a new weapon that could destroy entire cities. “The news today about ‘Atomic bombs’ is so horrifying one is stunned,” he wrote to his son Christopher. “The utter folly of these lunatic physicists to consent to do such work for war-purposes: calmly plotting the destruction of the world!”

Tolkien was no pacifist, and he recognized that U.S. President Harry Truman’s decision to drop this new superweapon might have a silver lining. “Japan ought to cave in,” he admitted. But even as he acknowledged the bomb’s immediate military value, Tolkien feared its long-term consequences. Humanity had crossed a threshold from which there would be no return. “Such explosives in men’s hands,” he wrote, “while their moral and intellectual status is declining, is about as useful as giving out firearms to all inmates of a gaol and then saying that you hope ’this will ensure peace.’”

On ‘Babel-Builders’
Today, discussions over the atomic bomb usually involve whether it was morally justified to drop it on Japan. Unlike in 1945, Americans are very much split on the matter. Recent polling shows 35 percent say the bombings were justified, while 31 percent say they were not. The fact that a full one-third of Americans say they’re not sure if the bombing was the right thing shows how morally complicated the matter is. (If you doubt this, consider that General Dwight Eisenhower and Fleet Admiral William D. Leahy opposed dropping the bomb on moral grounds and because they doubted its military necessity.)

What is less often asked is whether the bomb should have been developed at all. The question is easy to dismiss. After all, Nazi Germany launched its own nuclear research program in April 1939. Had the Allies declined to pursue the bomb, they might have handed history’s most destructive weapon to Adolf Hitler. There is also a philosophical hurdle. Science has long been celebrated as the engine of human progress. To oppose a scientific breakthrough on ethical grounds has a whiff of Luddism—a kind of rejection of progress itself.

Tolkien, once again, saw things differently. Though admitting “we’re all in God’s hands” now, he offered a word of caution about humanity’s growing faith in its own power. “He does not look kindly on Babel-builders,” he told Christopher. By invoking the famous Old Testament story of the Tower of Babel, in which God confused and scattered the nations for attempting to reach the heavens, Tolkien was warning against a perennial temptation: placing human ingenuity and knowledge above moral wisdom. The theme of man’s lust for knowledge and power would be developed in his next literary masterpiece.

‘An Allegory of Our Own Time’
In 1942, as the Manhattan Project was beginning in the United States, Tolkien was developing the core narrative of what would become “The Fellowship of the Ring,” the first volume of his “The Lord of the Rings” epic.Though the book would not be published until 1954, Tolkien spent much of the 1940s writing and revising the manuscript. The story follows a fellowship of nine companions who embark on a perilous quest to destroy the One Ring, a weapon of immense power that threatens to destroy all of Middle-earth.

The Ring is so powerful that no one—not even the heroes of the story—should possess it. Indeed, Tolkien’s wisest and bravest characters all reject it. The wizard Gandalf refuses the Ring when it is offered to him. The elf queen Galadriel does the same. Aragorn, whose ancestor was killed after being corrupted by the Ring, is wary of its power and never seeks it.

Meanwhile, those who desire the Ring or attempt to wield its power—Boromir, Sauron, and Gollum—are ultimately destroyed by it. The One Ring has rightly been interpreted as a metaphor for power; after all, Tolkien himself called it the “Ring of Power.” But in a 1947 letter to his publisher, he put a finer point on the idea. “You can make the Ring an allegory of our own time, if you like,” he wrote, “an allegory of the inevitable fate that awaits all attempts to defeat evil power by power.”

These words help explain why Tolkien viewed the atomic bomb with such horror. It was a weapon created to “defeat evil power” through overwhelming force. In Tolkien’s view, the danger was not simply the weapon itself, but the modern faith in power and the belief that it could be controlled by those who possessed it. Tolkien’s line about “Babel-builders” and “lunatic physicists” could give the impression that he rejected science. He did not. He was simply recognizing the limits of science. The fantasy writer, a devout Catholic, understood that even though scientists could unlock the power of the atom, they could not fix humanity.

By 1945, it had become apparent that moral wisdom and scientific progress do not necessarily advance at the same pace. If the Great War and the horrors of the Soviet Union in the 1930s had not made this clear, the military destruction of the 1940s and the liberation of Auschwitz in January 1945 did. Humanity had acquired unprecedented power without acquiring the corresponding wisdom to restrain it. For Tolkien, this was the great danger of the modern age. Man was learning to harness the forces of nature even as he slid comfortably toward its oldest sins: pride, envy, and the lust for power.

None of this is to say the Ring of Power is an allegory for nuclear weapons. It is not. Tolkien himself made that quite clear in a BBC interview in the 1960s.Yet a central lesson of his literary masterpiece is that some forms of power are simply too great for humans to possess. Perhaps, then, the greatest virtue is not seeking out people who can wield great power wisely, but in possessing the humility to recognize that some power should never be wielded at all.

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https://twitter.com/FarmGirlCarrie/status/2083387792269414476?s=20 https://twitter.com/BasilTheGreat/status/2083810019053584617?s=20 https://twitter.com/KanekoaTheGreat/status/2084030292256497995?s=20

 

 

 

 

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Debt Rattle August 2 2026

Aug 022026
 
 August 2, 2026  Posted by at 10:17 am Finance Tagged with: , , , , , ,  25 Responses »


Willem de Kooning Gotham News 1955


• Trump Orders Heavy Attack On Energy-Related Targets In Iran (ZH)
• Spanish PM Pedro Sanchez Calls EU Opposition to Mass Migration “Selfish” (CTH)
• 22 EU Leaders Demand “Immediate Action” To Ceuta and Melilla Invasion (ZH)
• Trump Warns US Faces Spain-style Migrant Invasion (RT)
• Zelensky Flew To A Funeral And Buried His Last Big Hope (Evgeny Balakin)
• Kiev’s Dirty War Goes Global (Sadygzade)
• Why Western Europe Needs The Ukraine Conflict To Continue (Lukyanov)
• US Not In Dispute With EU Over Ukraine, But Still Key Player — Diplomat (TASS)
• US Sees Profits As Key Foreign Policy Goal, Russian Diplomat Says (TASS)
• The Socialist Monster Awakens (Victor Davis Hanson)
• Trump’s Damage To US Diplomacy Could Last A Generation (McGlinchey)
• Seattle Is in Free Fall (Victoria Taft)

 


 

https://twitter.com/GuntherEagleman/status/2083221063689785720?s=20 https://twitter.com/EricLDaugh/status/2083568244074369480?s=20 https://twitter.com/MAGAVoice/status/2083272023422418989?s=20

 


 


Does it feel like a swamp yet?

• Trump Orders Heavy Attack On Energy-Related Targets In Iran (ZH)

The Wall Street Journal and CBS are reporting that major US strikes – perhaps harder than anything of the last two weeks – are set to imminently commence. The attacks could be initiated at any point this weekend, after Trump gave the ‘order’ – it’s being reported: President Trump has ordered a fresh attack on Iran aimed at getting Tehran to surrender that could begin as soon as this weekend and would last a few days, U.S. officials said.


Earlier on Friday, he told reporters that he planned to resume heavy military strikes to force the regime to come to the negotiating table. He predicted that if the U.S. hit Iran hard enough, the hard-line regime would eventually “peter out.” Trump made clear earlier at Camp David that the Iranians can’t be trusted, are ‘dishonorable’ – and so he’s not pursuing talks. The late afternoon Friday CBS report is more alarming, given that “The United States and Israel are planning what would be one of the harshest bombing campaigns to date against energy infrastructure targets in Iran, multiple sources told CBS News, with strikes possible throughout the weekend.”

It adds, “There was some discussion about trying to conclude by the time financial markets open Monday because of concern about how the bombings will affect the U.S. and global economy, but an end point wasn’t locked in.” Earlier this week there were reports of Trump exploding at his own advisors amid ongoing debates about how the crisis should be handled, and finding an exit strategy. “Well, they always want to talk, but they break their words so often,” Trump said Friday at Camp David, putting his frustration on display later adding: “All they do is make me angry.”

A key line from WSJ point to where things are likely headed: “Some U.S. officials believe Iran will continue to drag out negotiations, banking that Trump will abandon his war efforts in the long term in the face of mounting domestic political opposition.”

Keep Hitting Them: Trump
Trump is holding a Cabinet meeting on Friday at Camp David. He claimed that the fight against Iran is “going well” and stated that American forces are “hitting them very hard” – adding that “eventually” Iran will have no choice but to “come home” – meaning full surrender. “

It’s going well. Everything we can do is keep winning,” Trump also told Fox News. “But we are hitting them hard, shaking them up, and we’re just continuing to win.” He suggested there will still be strikes ongoing in coming weeks, and that he’s losing faith in the idea of talks with “dishonest” Iran “because they lie”.Additionally, Trump’s Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent is claiming that Iran is unable to pay its troops – though without offering specific evidence to back this, and that the US continues searching for Iranian assets to seize “all around the world”. This is after Thursday Washington rolled out yet more sanctions.

Read more …

Yeah, yeah, open borders have been great for Europe…

• Spanish PM Pedro Sanchez Calls EU Opposition to Mass Migration “Selfish” (CTH)

Standing against what he calls “selfish” motives of European leadership, Spain’s socialist Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez says tolerance for mass illegal migration must win over the loud voices of short-sighted nationalism. According to Sanchez, these EU regulations and rules against the dreams of sub-Saharan Africans are polarizing and stopping migrants from fulfilling their greatest aspirations.


Telegraph – via MSM – Pedro Sánchez has criticised “selfish” EU leaders after 22 European prime ministers and presidents attacked him for the sudden migrant surge in Ceuta. Spain’s prime minister wrote a letter to the heads of the EU institutions after Italy and France ramped up border controls in response to the 60,000 Moroccan migrants who stormed the Spanish enclave in North Africa.

[…] “In the current international context, the European Union cannot afford this kind of selfish, polarising and unlawful reaction,” wrote Mr Sánchez, one of the few remaining socialist leaders in the EU, as he called for an emergency meeting. He criticised those who “have chosen to attack Spain and to call for its temporary exclusion from the Schengen Area”. But Mr Sánchez was isolated after 22 EU leaders, including Ms Meloni and Friedrich Merz, the German chancellor, wrote their own letter to Ursula von der Leyen, the European Commission president; António Costa, the European Council president; and Micheál Martin, the Irish prime minister, whose country holds the presidency of the EU.

The letter addressing the “serious concern” over the threat to the EU border was signed by the leaders of Austria, Belgium, Bulgaria, Croatia, Cyprus, the Czech Republic, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, Greece, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Malta, the Netherlands, Poland, Romania, Slovakia, Slovenia and Sweden. They singled out Mr Sánchez’s migrant amnesty for criticism. In early July, some 609,737 of the 1.17 million migrants in Spain who applied for legal status obtained temporary work permits, making it the largest regularisation of black market workers in European history. (read more)

On Saturday, Spain said it had returned “almost everyone” to Morocco and that it was not possible to travel from Ceuta or Melilla to mainland Spain without presenting identification at a police checkpoint, guaranteeing the “integrity of the Schengen area”. Mr Sánchez, who rushed to Ceuta on Friday and faces elections next year, accused people-smuggling gangs of trying to exploit a recent ruling made by the Spanish supreme court, which decided migrants stopped at sea while trying to reach Ceuta or Melilla could not be summarily returned to Morocco.

Read more …

Not enclaves, but exclaves.

• 22 EU Leaders Demand “Immediate Action” To Ceuta and Melilla Invasion (ZH)

European leaders criticized Madrid’s socialist government as its open-border policies unraveled for the world to see. The invasion of the Spanish enclaves of Ceuta and Melilla by 50,000 military-aged men from Morocco exposed the dire consequences of nation-killing mass-migration policies promoted by socialist regimes, which have long eroded national sovereignty across the entire continent. For Europe, the latest border breach represents one of the clearest warnings yet that uncontrolled mass migration has evolved from a political dispute into a full-blown national security crisis.


Hours after the invasion, Italy’s Interior Ministry suspended Schengen free-movement rules with Spain and ordered the closure of air and maritime borders between the two countries, citing national security concerns. The list of European leaders criticizing Spanish Socialist Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez is growing on Saturday, as 22 EU leaders have now signed on to a demand for an “immediate and coordinated European response” to the invasion into Ceuta and Melilla.

https://twitter.com/visegrad24/status/2083545235678781812?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E2083545235678781812%7Ctwgr%5E61c124c705d0db5197f30d574d09eab838c3462a%7Ctwcon%5Es1_c10&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.zerohedge.com%2Fgeopolitical%2Fcrazy-footage-shows-migrants-rampaging-breaking-homes-after-invading-spain

“We cannot allow uncontrolled mass crossings, the instrumentalization of migration or other hybrid threats to create the perception that illegal entry into the European Union is possible,” EU leaders, including Denmark’s Mette Frederiksen, Italy’s Giorgia Meloni and Germany’s Friedrich Merz, wrote in a letter published on X by Denmark’s Ministry of State.

Sánchez and Spain’s socialists are already feeling the impact of a negative information campaign that has spread across the West. The Trump administration is using the crisis as a warning to American voters ahead of the midterms that socialists gaining power would risk reopening the US border crisis. Political pressure on Sánchez will intensify further if illegal crossings resume or illegals reach mainland Europe.

The most likely pathway is, therefore, containment followed by political blowback against socialist parties in Madrid and across the bloc, rather than an immediate collapse of Schengen. Any second mass surge, however, would only suggest the weaponization of migration against Europe; in other words, asymmetric warfare. The open-ended question is who, if anyone, on the Moroccan side financed, organized, and facilitated the invasion.

Read more …

“The president used the migration crisis in the EU to claim America was overrun by illegals under his predecessor”

• Trump Warns US Faces Spain-style Migrant Invasion (RT)

The surge of migrants across the border from Morocco into Spain is an example of what could happen to the US if Republicans aren’t elected, US President Donald Trump has claimed. Trump has repeatedly attacked his political opponents over immigration, blaming his predecessor Joe Biden for illegal border crossings. An estimated 50,000 migrants, mostly young men, swam from Morocco and crossed into the Spanish exclave of Ceuta earlier this week in an unprecedented influx that triggered a humanitarian crisis in the city. The Spanish Interior Ministry has reported that around 48,000 had voluntarily returned by Friday evening.


“What’s happening with Spain, with tens of thousands of Illegal Immigrants invading it, happened in the United States during the Sleepy Joe Biden Administration, and it will happen again, only worse, if the Dumocrats ever again gain power,” Trump said late on Friday in a brief post on Truth Social, urging Americans to vote Republican in the midterm elections.The remarks come ahead of US midterm elections scheduled for November as Trump faces slipping approval ratings. A recent poll found that most US adults believe he has not focused enough on the everyday concerns of ordinary Americans, that his economic policies have worsened conditions, and that his military decisions in Iran have harmed the US.

White House principal deputy press secretary Anna Kelly said on Friday that Trump “has long warned Europe what would happen if they continue to implement far-left, globalist policies, including enabling mass migration.” Trump and his administration have consistently criticized both the previous US government and European leaders over their handling of illegal migration. The president has claimed that it was “killing” Europe, urging its leaders to act immediately before they lose control of the continent.

Domestically, Trump has pursued an unprecedented immigration crackdown. Since returning to office in January 2025, he has launched a sweeping enforcement campaign involving mass deportations and expanded detention efforts, pledging to carry out the largest migrant removal operation in US history despite widespread criticism and protests. Trump’s latest remarks also come amid strained ties with Madrid. The two countries clashed during the recent conflict with Iran after Spain refused to allow the US to use its bases for strikes, while Trump has repeatedly criticized the country over what he believes is its insufficient defense spending.

Migration has remained one of the EU’s defining political issues since the 2015 refugee crisis. Brussels recently agreed on a sweeping overhaul of its migration system aimed at speeding up deportations, while many member states have tightened national immigration laws. Spain has, meanwhile, taken a different approach to migration. Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez has argued immigration is essential to address labor shortages and demographic decline, while his government has expanded pathways for undocumented migrants to obtain legal status and work permits.

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“His wish list included Patriots, PAC-3 licenses, and more military support. None of them materialized..”

• Zelensky Flew To A Funeral And Buried His Last Big Hope (Evgeny Balakin)

Washington DC, July 29, 2026. On this day, a city accustomed to protocol visits and carefully orchestrated diplomatic spectacles welcomed a rather unexpected guest. Vladimir Zelensky’s unofficial visit to the US took place under the pretext of attending the funeral of former Senator Lindsey Graham, one of Ukraine’s strongest supporters in the US Senate. A private, closed-casket funeral was held. Zelensky’s meeting with US President Donald Trump also took place behind closed doors – with no cameras, no joint statements, and no usual show of unity.


Trump, however, found time to meet with the head of the Kiev regime. Soon after the private meeting, a social media post appeared along with two images – a color photograph and a black and white one. The photos show Trump patting Zelensky on the shoulder with a patronizing expression. According to American political tradition, black-and-white photographs are often published in memory of the deceased. According to military expert Aleksey Leonkov, the photograph seems to send a clear message: “Well, man, hang in there as long as you can. We’ve got no Patriot missiles for you, but hang on.”

The atmosphere of Zelensky’s informal and rather unplanned visit reinforced the feeling that Kiev has once again been shown the limits of US support. Zelensky didn’t come alone – he was accompanied by many Ukrainian officials and representatives of the security forces. However, his public ‘achievements’ amounted to a conversation behind closed doors and two photos.

The closed casket
Lindsey Graham was one of the most ardent supporters of Ukraine in the US Senate for many years. He was someone Kiev could count on to pressure the Trump administration and push through new packages of military aid. That’s why Zelensky used his funeral as an excuse to travel to the US. The fact that Graham was buried in a closed casket gave rise to many theories. The official version is that his death was the result of a “sudden and brief illness.” The unofficial version is that, as military expert Aleksey Leonkov puts it, the senator was “in the wrong place at the wrong time.” He recalled that while Graham was in Kiev, the Russian army carried out one of its most powerful strikes on military targets in the city.

Zelensky’s new demands
Of course, Zelensky didn’t just come to bid farewell to the senator with whom he shared a hatred for Russia. Behind closed doors, he hoped to utter his usual “Gimme!” and hand Trump a specific ‘wish list’. According to Andrei Klintsevich, 3rd class Active State Councilor of the Russian Federation, Zelensky wants from America what he can’t get from his European partners: first of all, anti-aircraft missiles. “He asked for the winter package: 300 missiles for the Patriot system, PAC-3 missiles, which can shoot down [Russian] ballistic missiles, though not hypersonic ones, specifically Iskander or sea-based ballistic missiles.” Zelensky also asked for licenses to produce these missiles domestically.

Klintsevich notes that the Kiev government’s desire to obtain these licenses has come up against hard reality. And the problem isn’t just that the White House has to make the corresponding decision. Manufacturing these missiles involves a complex technological chain. RTX, Lockheed Martin, Boeing, and other companies are involved in assembling Patriot missiles. Some make the seeker heads, others the engines. Each item requires its own licenses, which must be withdrawn from commercial circulation and transferred to Kiev free of charge. “Of course, no one will agree to this,” Klintsevich says.

PAC-3 missile licenses are more than just a set of documents. It would be wrong to think that missile production can be scaled up like drone production. Drone components are readily available on the open market, but rocket technology is different. “Everything is specialized: from the engine to the rivets, to the fuel, and everything else,” the expert says. The problem isn’t the assembly line; Trump has already approved the start of production at General Motors and Ford plants. However, the subcontractors that supply complex components, such as gyroscopes and seekers, are critical in the production chain.

Production volumes don’t look impressive either: Lockheed Martin produces about 600 missiles per year for all systems worldwide. An increase of 50 units is planned with the launch of German production. By 2035, they plan to produce 2,000 missiles. “Considering the number [of missiles Russia] launches, even that would not be enough,” says Klintsevich. Combined, these two bottlenecks – issues with subcontractors and limited production volumes – make the demand for licenses and large-scale production practically impossible to implement in a short timeframe.

The Iran-Ukraine front
Zelensky’s second initiative during this trip was the attempt to get involved in the Iranian conflict. The goal was pragmatic: by demonstrating Ukraine’s active participation in the conflict, Zelensky wanted to gain access to military supply chains. To demonstrate this, a Ukrainian drone attacked an Iranian tanker, resulting in the death of one person.

Before Zelensky’s trip, Ukrainian Foreign Minister Andrey Sibiga made harsh accusations against Iran, claiming that it “deserved” the blow. But after Zelensky’s visit, his tone changed. “Let’s not stir up the conflict,” the foreign minister urged. Apparently, Zelensky’s attempt to get involved was unsuccessful.

Alexey Leonkov notes the reason behind the change in Kiev’s public statements. “Netanyahu does not need a competitor on the Iranian track, because the Iranian conflict is the prerogative of Israel,” he says. Netanyahu refused a private meeting with Zelensky. Israel jealously guards its key role in the Middle Eastern conflict. And Washington is not ready to get into a dispute with a key ally in the region for the sake of Kiev. Moreover, Ukraine’s earlier attempt to provide specialists from Madyar’s group to protect the Middle East from Iranian drones did not yield any results.

Read more …

“From Africa to the Caspian Sea, each strike is an attempt to market Ukraine as a useful Western asset that still deserves cash and weapons.”

• Kiev’s Dirty War Goes Global (Sadygzade)

On the morning of July 25, Ukrainian drones attacked an Iranian merchant vessel in the Caspian Sea. An explosion occurred on board, killing one sailor and injuring another. Tehran described the incident as an act of aggression, summoned Ukraine’s chargé d’affaires and warned that retaliatory measures could follow.


Vladimir Zelensky did not deny that the operation had taken place, claiming that the targets were vessels allegedly involved in transporting military cargo linked to Iran. Yet within days, Ukrainian diplomacy abruptly changed its tone. Foreign Minister Andrey Sibiga told his Iranian counterpart that the merchant vessel had been struck unintentionally, after which discussions over compensation began.

So long as the operation could be presented to Western audiences as another demonstration of the long-range capabilities of the Ukrainian security services, Kiev was eager to speak of success. Once it became clear that Tehran intended to demand accountability, the initial bravado gave way to attempts to portray the incident as an accident. In other words, the Ukrainian leadership sought to reap the publicity benefits of the strike without showing any willingness to accept responsibility for its consequences.

At almost the same time, reports emerged from Iraq that several groups suspected of attacking sites inside the country had been detained. National Security Adviser Qasim al-Aboudi stated that those arrested had admitted to acting in Ukraine’s interests and that, according to their testimony, the attacks had been disguised as operations carried out by local armed factions. The Iraqi authorities have yet to disclose the details of the investigation, but the alleged method closely resembles practices previously associated with Ukrainian structures in Africa and the Middle East.

It is difficult to regard these two developments as entirely unrelated episodes. Both in the Caspian Sea and in Iraq, the same logic appears to be at work, with the practical value of an operation becoming secondary to its political and media impact. The Ukrainian authorities are seeking to demonstrate that they can strike targets of interest to Washington, work through local groups and export their intelligence and drone capabilities far beyond Ukraine’s borders.

The true audience for such signals is not in Tehran, Baghdad, Damascus or the capitals of Africa. They are directed at Western governments whose decisions determine the flow of funding to Kiev. At a time when the Ukrainian military remains dependent on foreign weapons, ammunition and budgetary support, Zelensky must prove that his government is not merely a recipient of assistance but a useful contractor capable of contributing to the West’s broader foreign-policy objectives.

The Mali and Syria precedents This model was most clearly displayed in northern Mali in the summer of 2024. Near Tinzaouaten, Tuareg formations attacked a column of the Malian army and Russian units. Fighters from JNIM, an organization affiliated with Al-Qaeda and active across the Sahel, also took part in the fighting.

Following the attack, Andrey Yusov, a representative of Ukraine’s Main Directorate of Intelligence, stated that the rebels had received information that enabled them to carry out a successful operation. This acknowledgement was made publicly and was reported not by Russian outlets but by some of the world’s largest international media organizations. Reuters, The Guardian, Bloomberg, The Washington Post and Al Jazeera all covered the alleged role of Ukrainian intelligence.

Subsequent attempts to portray the Mali scandal as the product of foreign propaganda were unconvincing, not least because the accusations had been prompted by the words of an official Kiev representative. Ukrainian intelligence itself associated the country with forces that, during the same combat episode, operated alongside a jihadist organization. Mali later severed diplomatic relations with Ukraine, accusing it of interfering in an internal conflict and supporting armed groups. Niger subsequently took the same step.

The sequence of Kiev’s actions was particularly telling. Immediately after the attack, Ukraine sought to claim some of the publicity surrounding the operation because Russian forces had been targeted and the outcome could be presented favorably to Western audiences. Once diplomatic repercussions followed, however, the Ukrainian Foreign Ministry began insisting that there was no convincing evidence of the country’s involvement.

This approach allows Kiev to benefit from the outcome of an operation while avoiding responsibility for the methods used. When an action wins the approval of Western partners, Ukrainian involvement is highlighted through hints or public statements. When allegations of violating sovereignty or cooperating with radical organizations arise, the authorities issue denials and demand proof of activities they had effectively boasted about only shortly before.

Read more …

”Drone warfare has altered the balance in Ukraine, weakened the spirit of Anchorage, and given Europe a new political case for the conflict”

By Fyodor Lukyanov, the editor-in-chief of Russia in Global Affairs, chairman of the Presidium of the Council on Foreign and Defense Policy, and research director of the Valdai International Discussion Club.

“Trump believed that although Ukraine was resisting stubbornly, its defeat was ultimately inevitable and the sooner Kiev accepted concessions, the less severe the damage would be.”

So obviouslyTrump was very right all along. But Lukyanov didn’t/doesn’t see that?

• Why Western Europe Needs The Ukraine Conflict To Continue (Lukyanov)

The military-technical balance of power is a key element of every political system and changes in that balance, including those brought about by the emergence of new forms of warfare, shape political intentions and determine what is possible in international affairs. The rapid transformation of warfare, driven by the drone revolution and demonstrated over the past year in both Ukraine and the conflict around Iran, offers an opportunity to reassess familiar concepts and how they are evolving.


The spirit has changed, but let us leave the military aspects of drone warfare to the specialists and focus instead on the political consequences.August 2025 can be seen as the turning point, when Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin held their much-discussed meeting in Alaska. Whether any concrete agreements were reached remains disputed, but what’s clear is the essence of what became known as the ‘spirit of Anchorage’.

Trump believed that although Ukraine was resisting stubbornly, its defeat was ultimately inevitable and the sooner Kiev accepted concessions, the less severe the damage would be. The understandings reportedly reached reflected what Russia was prepared to settle for, the withdrawal of Ukrainian forces from Donbass, and where meaningful political negotiations could begin. The White House then turned to the other interested party, the Ukraine-Western Europe partnership.

It’s difficult to judge how much pressure Trump actually placed on his European counterparts. Some effort appears to have been made, but neither Trump nor his advisers were prepared to invest significant political capital and that was especially true given that parts of his administration didn’t share his hostility towards Vladimir Zelensky.

The Western Europeans, for their part, played the situation skillfully. The post-Anchorage pilgrimage of leaders to the White House, mocked by many at the time, as they appeared to indulge Trump’s often boorish behavior, served its purpose. The objective of the EU and UK was simple: to slow down the process that appeared to have begun in Alaska and buy enough time to convince the American president that his assumptions were wrong. Ukraine, they insisted, was still capable of changing the course of the war.

Almost a year later, it is fair to say that Brussels and London, together with Ukraine, achieved at least part of that objective. Meanwhile, Western perceptions of the conflict have changed and at this summer’s G7 and NATO summits, the US president displayed a noticeably more neutral, at times even supportive, attitude towards Kiev. In effect, he acknowledged that his earlier confidence in Ukraine’s inevitable defeat had been, at the very least, premature.

Whether this shift reflects genuine changes on the battlefield or the success of an effective political and media campaign is open to debate, but either way, the change is real and the much-discussed ‘spirit of Anchorage’ has faded because the political climate itself has changed.

Fear and hatred in Europe
Ukraine’s growing ability to conduct long-range drone strikes is the product of three years of sustained financial and technological support from Western Europe, and despite Trump’s repeated claims that “Sleepy Joe” squandered hundreds of billions of American dollars on Ukraine, it’s European governments, Germany above all, that are now carrying the greatest burden of supporting Kiev’s war effort. That’s why assistance didn’t collapse after Trump returned to the White House and sharply reduced American aid.

Western Europe finds itself in a difficult position as it faces persistent economic problems alongside growing concerns about Ukraine and its own internal stability. Maintaining support for Kiev is politically sustainable only if it is presented not as solidarity with Ukraine, but as an investment in the half-continent’s own security.

Public rhetoric, particularly in Germany, increasingly suggests that a military confrontation with Russia around the turn of the next decade is a genuine possibility. The argument is straightforward: As long as Ukrainians are fighting, Western Europe has time to prepare and therefore the conflict should continue for as long as possible, although how much of this militaristic rhetoric reflects genuine belief remains open to debate.

The circumstances have undoubtedly revived Western Europe’s long-standing historical suspicion of Russia, a powerful and, from the their perspective, unpredictable giant to the east. During periods of close economic cooperation these fears receded into the background, replaced by the pursuit of mutual benefit, but this political crisis has quickly pushed commercial interests aside.

In that sense, today’s expectation of a future military confrontation isn’t entirely artificial as it reflects deeply rooted attitudes within Western Europe’s political consciousness. There is, however, another dimension that is both more rational and perhaps not fully appreciated in that the EU and UK’s political establishment is searching for a new basis for internal cohesion at a time of profound economic and social change, and that faced with mounting uncertainty, it requires a unifying idea.

Nothing serves that purpose better than an external threat.

Read more …

Russian Foreign Ministry Ambassador-at-Large Rodion Miroshnik.

• US Not In Dispute With EU Over Ukraine, But Still Key Player — Diplomat (TASS)

Russian Foreign Ministry Ambassador-at-Large Rodion Miroshnik

European leaders need the conflict to continue because they “have not yet finished building their military-industrial complex,” Russian Foreign Ministry Ambassador-at-Large for the crimes of the Kiev regime Rodion Miroshnik noted. The US is not getting involved in a serious confrontation with the EU over Ukraine, but remains a key player and is waiting for the right conditions to intervene in a way that benefits itself, Russian Foreign Ministry Ambassador-at-Large for the crimes of the Kiev regime Rodion Miroshnik TASS.


“When the Americans ‘get distracted,’ it means they realize that in this case, they were unable to pressure Ukraine, for example, into accepting the optimal agreements reached in Anchorage. These are the very agreements that the Americans themselves proposed. In other words, they assumed they could implement this project and coerce or persuade Ukraine to accept and carry out these terms. It turned out that they couldn’t. It also became clear that their European partners were unwilling to accept these terms,” the diplomat noted.

He explained that European leaders need the conflict to continue because they “have not yet finished building their military-industrial complex.” “That is why they are resisting American influence on the Ukrainian side. The Americans say, ‘All right, we’ll deal with Iran for now, but we’ll definitely come back to this issue.’ I don’t think they’ve completely abandoned the possibility of implementing this project. They will either return to it or wait for the situation to change. In fact, the Americans are undoubtedly a very important player in this arena,” Miroshnik concluded.

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“According to Rodion Miroshnik, the United States is doing everything possible to preserve and strengthen its hegemony”

• US Sees Profits As Key Foreign Policy Goal, Russian Diplomat Says (TASS)

Foreign policy is like a major game of chess in which the United States seeks to make profits at every turn, Russian Foreign Ministry Ambassador-at-Large Rodion Miroshnik told TASS. “This entire process should be viewed as a major game of chess taking place on a large chessboard. Every move is followed by counteraction and efforts to pursue certain goals and strategies. What is happening in different parts of the chessboard should be viewed through different lenses. The American lenses can change, but the key one – at least in the current situation – is about profits,” the diplomat said.


According to Miroshnik, the United States is doing everything possible to preserve and strengthen its hegemony. “The Americans can see the growing importance of energy resources. ‘You have oil — we’re coming for you!’ They first went after Venezuela and then Iran. They are also in favor of isolating Russia in terms of energy trade,” he added.

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I still don’t see the combi of America and socialism. Maybe I will pay dearly.

• The Socialist Monster Awakens (Victor Davis Hanson)

Who caused unaffordability? Fear about “affordability” supposedly fueled the new, strident socialism. Yet annual inflation during former President Joe Biden’s four years averaged almost 5%. It peaked at over 9%, while prices for some key staples rose by 30% over his tenure—all to silence from the Left. (By contrast, annual inflation during Trump’s first term averaged 1.9%. In his second term, it averaged 2.6% in 2025—and may rise to 4.5% in 2026, given the war with Iran.)


The socialists were not just quiet during Biden’s four years; they were themselves responsible for the rampant Biden inflation. They had implemented an inflationary de facto third Obama term, ramming through the most radical and costly agenda in decades under the veneer of that cognitively challenged waxen effigy, good ol’ Joe Biden from Scranton. So the current Jacobin takeover of the Democratic Party was not sparked by concerns about “affordability”—or at least not if by “affordability” we mean the middle-class struggle to buy a house, a car, or groceries.

Instead, the socialist moment was merely the logical culmination of years of boutique radicalism within the Democrat aristocracy—the ossified leadership of Chuck Schumer, Nancy Pelosi, Elizabeth Warren, Kamala Harris, and Hakeem Jeffries, along with the aging Black Caucus, the incoherent Squad, the DEI crowd, the open-border zealots, and the radical greens. The grandees of the party also normalized the crazy mobs of BLM and Antifa long ago.

Democrats as Dr. Frankenstein
Almost every weaponized scam and national hysteria in the last two decades was amplified and spread by mainstream Democrats: the farcical claim that the Wuhan-lab-hatched COVID-19 virus came from pangolins or bats; the Duke Lacrosse and Covington Kids hoaxes; the Jussie Smollett scam, the “Hands up, don’t shoot” lie; the deification of George Floyd, often portrayed with wings and a halo; Fauxcahontas Liz Warren, touted as the first Native American Harvard law professor (thanks to her grandfather’s high cheekbones); the radical diminution of in-person voting; the canonization of Trayvon Martin and Karmelo Anthony as blameless model children; and the mythology of a 1619 national founding.

Who allowed not just one, two, three, or four million border-jumpers into the country, but over ten million—illegal, unvetted, viewed as an assumed new political constituency, and instantaneously dependent on the welfare state? Who gave us three, four, five, or even more genders and biological males showering with teenage girls or female prisoners? Who sloganeered about “defund the police” and “no cash bail”? All this was about as radical as it gets. The Democrat establishment’s unhinged hatred of Donald Trump mainstreamed radicalism even further and helped birth the socialist-cum-communist Frankensteinian monster that is now devouring its mad-scientist creators.

“By any means necessary” was a Democrat mantra over a decade ago. By 2016, the Democrat leadership and the Clinton campaign were hatching the Steele-dossier farce to warp an election. In 2020, the Democrat deep state—Antony Blinken, Mike Morell, John Brennan, James Clapper, Leon Panetta, and others—had fabricated the farcical claim that the Hunter Biden laptop was Russian disinformation, a hoax that, this time around, likely did alter an election.

The Democrat establishment, working with its appendages in Silicon Valley, had censored news attesting to the authenticity of Hunter’s embarrassing laptop contents. (For an account of what the establishment was doing in 2020, read Molly Ball’s Time essay describing the “conspiracies” and “cabals” that worked behind the scenes to change voting rules and ensure a Biden victory through mail-in, no-ID balloting.) Then came four unhinged years of lawfare: special counsel Jack Smith’s seizure of the communications of senators and congressmen, the Mar-a-Lago raid on Trump’s home, the effort to de-ballot Trump, and the five civil and criminal circuses that resulted in half a billion dollars in fines.

All those perversions of the legal system were accompanied by a host of mainstream Democrats, retired generals, politicos, and athletes shouting that Trump was a Nazi, a fascist, a Mussolini, a traitor, or a Putin asset. Meanwhile, a host of loudmouth actors, Democrat activists, and celebrities competed with each other about how best to kill him—whether by shooting, stabbing, poisoning, beheading, burning him alive, or blowing him up. Trump supporters were libeled over the years by establishment Democrats as irredeemables, deplorables, chumps, dregs, and garbage.

Even an establishment figure like Rosa Brooks, a former Obama-appointed Pentagon lawyer, called for a military coup in Foreign Policy just 10 days after Trump first took office in 2017. Three would-be assassins got close enough to killing Trump to draw return fire from the Secret Service—near-death encounters that elicited both unapologetic applause for the attempts and lamentations that the shooters had failed from the now truly deranged social-media Left. Murderers themselves were normalized as leftist icons, as seen in the canonization of Luigi Mangione and the glee that followed in many Democrat social media circles after the murder of Charlie Kirk.

Yet did the establishment Democrat apparat calm these waters? Or did it set them boiling? It was Chuck Schumer who threatened conservative Supreme Court justices, screaming in front of a mob outside the court’s doors, “I want to tell you, Gorsuch, I want to tell you, Kavanaugh, you have released the whirlwind, and you will pay the price. You won’t know what hit you if you go forward with these awful decisions.” Schumer sounded more like a pink-haired anti-Immigration and Customs Enforcement street protester than a U.S. senator. No surprise, then, that two years later a left-wing would-be assassin turned up at Kavanaugh’s home, along with crowds of enthusiastic protestors.

Does anyone recall Maxine Waters urging the public to bird-dog Trump administration officials and harass them whenever they were seen in public? “If you see anybody from that Cabinet in a restaurant, in a department store, at a gasoline station, you get out, and you create a crowd, and you push back on them, and you tell them they’re not welcome anymore, anywhere.” Does anyone also remember Nancy Pelosi, then-Democrat House Minority leader, greenlighting “uprisings” over ICE deportations? “I just don’t know why there aren’t uprisings all over the country. Maybe there will be.” So spoke the radical owner of two mansions, who entered Congress with little net worth and will leave it worth over $100 million. A Tip O’Neill she wasn’t.

Then there was soon-to-be Vice President Kamala Harris egging on the George Floyd demonstrations, which, weeks earlier, had already turned violent and indeed deadly (despite what the “fact-checkers” asserted): “This is a movement, I’m telling you. They’re not going to stop. And everyone beware, because they’re not going to stop. They’re not going to stop before Election Day in November, and they’re not going to stop after Election Day. And that should be—everyone should take note of that, on both levels, that they’re not going to let up, and they should not, and we should not.”

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Trump does damage to US diplomacy as practiced under Joe Biden, Kamala, Obama and Jake Sullivan? And that’s not a good thing?

• Trump’s Damage To US Diplomacy Could Last A Generation (McGlinchey)

As the US-Israel war on Iran grinds into its sixth month, it’s clear to all but the most intellectually-dishonest Trump loyalists and war-bent Israel-sympathizers that it’s been a spectacular failure. A war of aggression that was supposed to precipitate a revolution has instead galvanized popular support of the Iranian government in defiance of the country’s tormentors, who’ve killed thousands of their fellow citizens and destroyed civilian infrastructure. A war that was launched to neutralize Israel’s principal rival seems certain to leave that rival far more geopolitically powerful than before, while driving Americans’ support for Israel to record lows.


Beyond unforgivably throwing away the lives of 18 American service members in an unconstitutional war launched on false pretenses, Trump’s blunder has depleted America’s arsenal and pushed the country more than $100 billion deeper into debt. Meanwhile, the longer Trump delays the inevitable consummation of his defeat, the greater the risk of an economic calamity that engulfs not only the United States but the entire world.

If that latter nightmare can be sidestepped, we’ll likely find that Trump has inflicted his most enduring damage on an intangible yet critical national asset: the ability of American diplomats to productively engage counterparts all over the world. From using negotiations as a ploy for surprise attacks to murdering heads of state and casually reneging on American commitments — including his own — Trump’s damage to US diplomacy will be evident for years. Of course, that’s not to suggest America’s foreign policy reputation was sparkling before Trump’s ascension to power — only that he and his team have managed to drag it down to new depths.



Trump’s collaboration with Israel to launch an unprovoked war on Iran is manifestly among the worst foreign policy decisions in the history of the American republic. However, it’s important to appreciate that Trump first set this 2026 disaster in motion eight years ago: In May 2018, — spurred on by then-National Security Advisor John Bolton and Trump’s Israel-first donors — Trump withdrew the United States from the Joint Comprehensive Plan Of Action, or JCPOA.

Also called the “Iran nuclear deal,” the July 2015 JCPOA was the culmination of nearly two years of painstaking negotiations over highly technical provisions, conducted by representatives of not only the United States and Iran but also China, France, Germany, Russia, the United Kingdom and the European Union.

Under the JCPOA, Iran agreed to major restrictions on its nuclear program in exchange for relief from brutal economic sanctions. Among other things, the JCPOA required Iran to eliminate its medium-enriched uranium, slash its cache of low-enriched uranium by 98%, limit future enrichment to 3.67%, agree to even more external monitoring than it was already submitting to, and render its heavy-water reactor worthless by filling it with concrete.

Catering both to devoted Israel supporters and to Republicans who were eager to assume that a deal negotiated during the Obama administration must have been treasonous, Trump had repeatedly railed against the JCPOA throughout his 2016 campaign, declaring that his “number one priority is to dismantle the disastrous deal with Iran.” After being named national security advisor in April 2018, Bolton — who had long been pushing for war on Iran — quickly prodded Trump into making good on his promises to tear up the JCPOA, despite the fact that Iran was fully complying with the agreement.

“Trump’s move demonstrates that the United States cannot be trusted to keep its promises,” the Belfer Center’s Martin Malin said at the time. “It will heighten tensions in an already smoldering Middle East while giving fodder to hardliners and nuclear bomb advocates in Iran.”

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“..the chaos on the streets is not just a symptom of Seattle’s future; this chaos is Wilson and company’s mission statement. ”

• Seattle Is in Free Fall (Victoria Taft)

Victoria Taft/AI
Well, another Seattle chief of police just got fired. The city has had four in the past two-and-a-half years. There’s been only one mayor in the past 26 years who has been elected to two consecutive terms. In one of those years, 2017, Seattle had four mayors. “In just three months, Ed Murray, Bruce Harrell, Tim Burgess and Jenny Durkan all held the title of Seattle mayor,” Fox 13 reported. Is this normal? Of course not. Seattle’s been on a slide since the Antifa and BLM agitators welcomed the deconstruction of American norms—since the University of Washington and Evergreen State University started churning out social justice warriors instead of caring and knowledgeable citizens.


Seattle continues to suffer from a leadership crisis. This will come as no surprise to anyone who reads PJ Media’s weekly West Coast, Messed Coast™ update. Every week, the city’s leadership seems to take a dumb pill just to see what chaos will happen. The past four mayors of Seattle have been:

1) An accused kid diddler, 2) An incompetent former federal prosecutor who predicted the George Floyd Riots and Antifa take over would usher in a “Summer of Love,” 3) A fellow traveler on the Peter Principle Highway who took a left turn onto Wacky Woke Way, 4) An overeducated, inexperienced commie.

Is it normal to churn through police chiefs and mayors like this?

Police chiefs in Seattle The Emerald City’s velvet green old-growth firs were once emblematic of a flourishing life and business. It was a fertile testing ground next to the waters of the Puget Sound.

Want to be a test pilot? Boeing.

Want to grow with a company? Starbucks.

Want to change the world? Amazon.

Boeing moved its headquarters.

Starbucks’ founder moved to Florida.

Amazon isn’t expanding in Seattle—it’s gone to Tennessee. Its founder left town. Heck, Jeff Bezos left the state.

Katie Wilson has waved away businesses. “Bye!” she said.

Seattle lost businesses Thing is, the new mayor, the nepo baby who calls herself a Democratic Socialist—aka commie—has taken on the air of the Wicked Witch of the West and, during her campaign, even surrounded herself with Antifa flying monkeys. Her aides and staffers appear to come from the ranks of women’s studies majors who expect software developer pay for their useless degrees and protest experience. Seattle’s identity crisis in this changing political culture comes from a breakdown of norms. It’s a place where virtue signaling to reflect the latest fad takes precedence over character and what works. Tradition is now an apparition, a vestige of a memory.

Jobs are becoming an apparition too. Software companies are sloughing jobs. Some of it is because of AI and a contraction in the market, or they’re not expanding jobs in Seattle. Mostly though, Seattle is a very bad place to root a company. She is a greedy mistress.

Seattle Mayors vs. Police Chiefs Seattle’s leaders think cops don’t matter. After last weekend’s Bite of Seattle mass shooting by apparent gang members, Wilson talked up the police “care teams” to help. The police “care teams” don’t find outstanding perps who have 3-D printed guns.


No matter.

Leaders think they don’t need to provide for the care and feeding of businesses and the people who work there. Imagine if Wilson and her fellow travelers treated people who are struggling to keep their businesses open in Seattle with the respect they accord crackheads who stay on the street because they don’t have any rules there.

The leaders have shown they can have a successful World Cup event. They moved out the “homeless,” and kept the peace by using every officer in their depleted ranks, adding help from the FBI and cops from all over the region to keep the peace. It got rave reviews. But these leaders can’t sustain that because they don’t know how. Everything’s back to chaos. Indeed, the chaos on the streets is not just a symptom of Seattle’s future; this chaos is Wilson and company’s mission statement.

Seattle’s in free fall. Will anyone stop it?

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https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/2083261719334338718?s=20

 

 

 

 

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Debt Rattle August 1 2026

Aug 012026
 
 August 1, 2026  Posted by at 9:25 am Finance Tagged with: , , , ,  19 Responses »


Jackson Pollock Shooting Star 1947


• US Pulls Troops, Patriot Systems From Northern Iraq Amid Iranian Attacks (ZH)
• Trump Announces Deal for Hamas to Disarm While Israel Withdraws from Gaza (CTH)
• Alex, I’ll Take ‘Peace Deals That Ain’t Gonna Happen’ for $400 (Stephen Green)
• Trump Pauses Notion of Giving Ukraine Patriot or Tomahawk Missiles (CTH)
• John Cleese Drops Truth Bombs About Islamic Culture (Catherine Salgado)
• Elon Musk Was Right: Pedro Sánchez Is a Traitor (Aaron Hanscom)
• Other European Leaders See Spain’s Invasion and Panic (Catherine Salgado)
• The Media Takes the Fifth (Jonathan Turley)
• The Curse It Is Cast (James Howard Kunstler)
• Don’t Forget the Role the ‘Scarf Queen’ Played in the Fauci Cabal (Tim O’Brien)
• What’s Next for Fauci? (Eric Florack)
• Senate Schedules Contempt Vote for Fauci (ET)
• This Liberal Says Democrats Will ‘Deserve to Lose’ in November (Margolis)

 


 

https://twitter.com/MAGAlwr5/status/2082804400074998063?s=20 https://twitter.com/VigilantFox/status/2082678594208182617?s=20 https://twitter.com/SternDrewCrypto/status/2082851849540153803?s=20

 


 


Seems to be part of an old plan, no cigar.

• US Pulls Troops, Patriot Systems From Northern Iraq Amid Iranian Attacks (ZH)

There are new reports Friday of more US troop pullback initiatives in the wake of the last couple weeks of US-Iran fighting, and Iranian ballistic missile and drone strikes which have targeted American bases with increased regularity, especially in Jordan and Kuwait. One regional media publication freshly reports, “The United States military has started to draw down its last remaining forces from Iraq stationed in the vicinity of Erbil’s airport in the Iraqi Kurdistan Region, well-placed sources with close knowledge of the process confirmed to Al-Monitor.”


Significant US anti-air defenses are also being pulled back, given they and their radar systems have increasingly been targeted. “Patriot mobile air-to-surface air-defense systems that detect and shoot down incoming missiles, drones and other airborne enemy equipment have already been removed from the military compound, the sources said, without providing further details,” Al Monitor continues. mThe pullback from the Iraqi Kurdistan region reportedly began last week and is still in progress, given all the heavy equipment has to be pulled out.

The missile batteries are expected to be ‘redeployed’ – but this could be further away from within the vicinity of Iran and the Persian Gulf, such as in Israel. Al Monitor notes: Regional officials described the pullout as routine and in line with the US commitment to withdraw all its forces from Iraq by a Sept. 30 deadline that was agreed with Baghdad. However, coming amid sustained attacks by Iran and its Shiite proxy militias, and on the Kurdistan Region of Iraq in particular, the withdrawal has left the Kurds feeling badly exposed.

It’s not just Iran which has targeted US personnel and assets in Iraq, but Iraqi Shia paramilitary units have at times targeted Erbil facilities going back years: While the Patriot systems were deployed to protect US forces, the Kurds have benefited immensely from the security umbrella as well. Erbil’s airport has come under constant attack from Iran and Iran-backed militias since the start of the Iran conflict in February, including this week. US interceptors successfully deterred at least 95% of those attacks, the sources said.

The bulk of Iranian and militia attacks have targeted armed Iranian Kurdish opposition groups based in the Kurdistan Region. However, the Erbil compound has also been targeted multiple times. The Patriots have an operational range of between 60 to 100 miles (100-160 kilometers). Iran’s strategy seems to focused on permanently pushing US forces back in the region, while expanding the scope of the war, in what some analysts have called ‘horizontal escalation’. One writer calls this a process of ‘debasification’:

In contrast to the previous hot phase of the war, in which Iran targeted bases across the entire theater simultaneously, this wave started with the targets close to Iranian shores, and has progressed steadily to the Israeli border. After destroying much of the radar network protecting regional US Axis bases in the previous hot phase of the war, Iranian planners have prioritized targeting fuel storage, drone hangers, refueling tankers, and barracks. The American response has been to pull assets back ever further from Iran, to bases in Israel and Jordan. We’ll call this process debasification. Iran’s debasification strategy takes advantage of the inherent asymmetry between the vastly different force structure and capabilities of Iranian rocket forces and US Axis air forces.

Iraq’s north has long been a place where US forces can feal more at ease with ‘friendly’ Kurdish groups, rather than the dwindling presence in the rest of the country. But the Kurds have also come under immense pressure within the Iraq war, especially given headlines alleging they were ready to support an Iranian Kurdish uprising inside the Islamic Republic.

Read more …

We’re sceptical.

• Trump Announces Deal for Hamas to Disarm While Israel Withdraws from Gaza (CTH)

According to the announcements:


• Hamas agrees to gradually surrender weapons in exchange for Israeli troop withdrawal, under a phased plan announced by Donald Trump.

• Verification & Oversight: A verification committee will monitor disarmament and troop withdrawal, with weapons stored under a new Palestinian administration.

• International Mediation: Agreement brokered by Egypt, Qatar, Turkey, and the US-led Board of Peace, aiming to enable Gaza reconstruction and humanitarian access.


PRESIDENT TRUMP – Via Truth Social – “Today, the Board of Peace reached a HISTORIC agreement for the COMPLETE DISARMAMENT of Hamas and all other armed groups in Gaza. This is a monumental step toward lasting PEACE and SECURITY. This agreement is a critical step towards Gaza finally being governed by a new Palestinian government that will work closely with the Board of Peace to help the Palestinian people. At the same time, Israel will have the security it deserves, with Gaza no longer used as a base for terror attacks.

This is a major milestone in the implementation of the Trump 20-Point Plan. The agreement will be carried out in carefully structured phases. As disarmament is completed, Israeli forces will withdraw, and the International Stabilization Force will work with a new Palestinian police force to take responsibility for Gaza being safe for its residents and its neighbors. One year ago there was a violent raging war, humanitarian crisis and hostages kept in brutal captivity. We have made historic progress and there is still much work to do.

I want to thank the mediators—Egypt, Qatar, and Türkiye—for their important efforts, and especially my outstanding team, whose tireless work made this historic breakthrough possible. The threat that emerged from Gaza on October 7 will NOT be allowed to rebuild! Under this agreement, Gaza will finally be in the hands of a new Palestinian government that serves its PEOPLE.

CONGRATULATIONS TO ALL ON THIS AMAZING DEVELOPMENT, THAT EVERYBODY SAID COULD NEVER BE ACHIEVED!

DONALD J. TRUMP

Optimism for the proposal/plan is primarily driven by the fact that Turkey, Egypt and Qatar are coordinating the terms and conditions for the disarming. From the Palestinian perspective, the U.S. and Israeli influence upon the Board of Peace is mitigated and balanced by the presence of Turkey and Egypt as pragmatic insurance. This is a very tenuous agreement with multiple points of potential collapse, not the least of which is the Israeli government refusing to permit a stabilizing police force Netanyahu doesn’t control.

(VIA MSM) – […] Based on the premise of “zero trust”, each stage of the plan is supposed to be verifiable and should be accompanied by Israeli withdrawal. But hours after the deal was agreed, an Israeli air strike wounded several Palestinians in Gaza. Under the ceasefire agreement of last October, the IDF was given control of about 53 per cent of Gaza but has since expanded its territory to include an estimated 60 to 70 per cent of the territory. “An agreement has been reached regarding the issue of weapons. Furthermore, an agreement has been reached on a gradual withdrawal of [Israeli forces] from the strip,” a Hamas official said.

Ghazi Hamad, a member of the Hamas negotiating team, told Al Jazeera. “We will not take any action regarding disarmament prior to Israel’s withdrawal from the Strip.” This appeared to contradict Mr Trump’s statement, which said: “As disarmament is completed, Israeli forces will withdraw…” However, an official familiar with the negotiations told The Telegraph that Hamas understood “disarmament” to refer to the end of the process. By contrast, “decommissioning” would involve Palestinian security forces storing the weapons, meaning that if Israel reneged on its commitments under the deal, Hamas could take back the weapons.

“The idea, in theory, is that all this can be reversed. That way you can agree to a process which is staged and verifiable,” the official said. It is understood, however, that precise practical details of how and where the weapons would be stored have yet to be agreed, but under the agreement they could not be transferred to Israel. The UK, principally through Jonathan Powell, the national security adviser, has been a strong behind-the-scenes proponent of the “Northern Ireland-model” of decommissioning. Israel has not yet commented formally on the agreement, but a US official said the Jewish state was “very sceptical” about Hamas complying.

Israeli officials were reported on Friday as saying that the country did not agree with the “shape” of the agreement, and had conveyed its concerns to Sir Tony Blair, who is working for Mr Trump’s board of peace on the issue. The deal also depends on the creation of a Palestinian police force. However, a Western official said that while much of the preparatory work had been done in identifying recruits, Israel was dragging its feet in allowing training to take place. (read more)

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I would trust neither Hamas nor Israel.

• Alex, I’ll Take ‘Peace Deals That Ain’t Gonna Happen’ for $400 (Stephen Green)

President Donald Trump’s Board of Peace laid out its comprehensive 15-point plan for the Gaza Strip on Friday, following Trump’s announcement Thursday that Hamas has agreed to disarm. The Board includes representatives from 28 founding nations, including a few questionable picks like Belarus (effectively Russia), Qatar, and Turkey. When I read that Hamas has agreed to lay down arms, I automatically presumed it was only because they’d found better places to stash them. Still, let’s look at the deal and see if there’s anything in there that might work.


The first point lays out that plan’s ambitious goals aimed at “ending the cycle of destruction, securing the complete Israeli withdrawal from Gaza Strip, restoring normal life, enabling Palestinian governance, reconstruction, security, recovery and economic development, rehabilitating damaged sectors and facilitate launching a credible political path that achieves self-determination and Statehood.” The devil, as always, is in the details.

Point 2 calls for “the cessation of military operations” by both sides, so that the National Committee for the Administration of Gaza (NCAG) “shall enter the Strip and start to assume its responsibilities” for governing the territory. Then there’s point 3, which says that the International Verification Committee (IVC) must verify each step before both sides move on to the next.Points 4 and 5 call on Hamas to turn over governing authority to NCAG, and for NCAG to “maintain the continuity of civilian institutions and public services” and basically to act as a decent government. There’s also the matter of $400 million in international funds it’s supposed to spend wisely.

Points 6 through 11 all deal with security in the Strip, and that’s where the details get particularly devilish.

The quick and dirty version is that NCAG will run civilian affairs according to Palestinian law and “good governance standards,” and if you have doubts about compatibility, so do I. New police will “undergo a comprehensive vetting,” and “all police weapons shall be transferred to the responsibility and authority of NCAG upon its entry into Gaza and the assumption of its missions.” Heavy weapons, military production sites, depots of weapons, and tunnels will all be decommissioned. The process of transferring authority to NCAG (and security to the International Stabilization Force [ISF]) will be done in stages and linked to a phased Israeli withdrawal.

There’s also a “Social Peace Agreement” that seems to involve deradicalizing Hamas terrorists that the peace plan insists on referring to as “militias.” In fact, neither “terror” nor “terrorist” appear in any of the 15 points. There’s also the little matter of the value of any “social peace” that’s “signed in accordance with Palestinian norms and laws.” But I digress. Points 12-14 involve the ISF and withdrawal of Israeli forces. ISF “shall monitor compliance by all parties with the ceasefire, train the Palestinian police, secure the protection and delivery of humanitarian assistance and essential supplies into Gaza Strip, and support the NCAG, at its request, in any other non-policing mission,” but NCAG handles all internal policing.

The last point is reconstruction, supervised by the Board of Peace and NCAG, assuming things ever get that far. Short-term, you have to doubt whether Hamas will actually disarm or just put on a pretense by giving up some weapons while stashing the rest even deeper underground. Looking further out, you have to wonder whether NCAG or even ISF will become wholly-owned subsidiaries of Hamas, just like the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA) did.

And I’m having an impossible time getting past the absurdity of the Social Peace Agreement. Probably better just to let Israel do now what they’ll probably have to do later anyway and fully root out Hamas themselves.

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“It should be remembered that both the U.K and Ukraine were part of the political system attempting to remove President Trump from office.”

• Trump Pauses Notion of Giving Ukraine Patriot or Tomahawk Missiles (CTH)

CTH is very happy to see President Trump pause his consideration of giving Ukraine Patriot and Tomahawk missile system technology and licenses. As noted by President Trump there is always a possibility of those systems being used against the USA if the conflict shifts and Ukraine becomes our enemy.

Germany and Ukraine have been asking for Tomahawks (offensive missile systems), while mostly Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has been requesting the Patriot (defensive) missiles. Both systems are closely guarded, held and maintained by strict security protocols in the U.S. military arsenal. President Trump responded to the question during his Camp David cabinet meeting (prompted):

Zelenskyy likely did himself no favors when he announced his intention to build missile and drone factories in the U.K. No doubt several Trump administration officials noted that statement and contrast it against Zelenskyy’s requests. It would be exceptionally risky for the USA to allow Patriot and Tomahawk systems to be built in the U.K. as the secrecy behind the technology would certainly leak and our strategic advantage lost. It should be remembered that both the U.K and Ukraine were part of the political system attempting to remove President Trump from office.

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This is better when written by women.

”Islamic sacred texts endorse pedophilia and rape of non-Muslims. They also promote jihad, domestic abuse, sex slavery, honor killings, and other horrific evils.”

• John Cleese Drops Truth Bombs About Islamic Culture (Catherine Salgado)

Western civilization’s self-immolation is no joke. Comedian John Cleese of Monty Python fame just made a completely accurate but incredibly daring argument you’ll rarely find a celebrity making: not all cultures are morally equal. Cleese posted July 30 in response to an X poll about his possible motives, “I’m not a racist. I’m a culturalist[.] I believe some cultures are superior to others.” He went on, “For example, I prefer cultures that do not encourage wife beating, paedophilia, clitorectomies, stoning and constant inflation of the male ego[.] I am also aware of the difference between Islamoscepticism and Islamophobia.”


He ended with a point that he has probably had to make many times to his former friends and colleagues: “Notice that hate does not come into this. Only moral preferences.” Unfortunately, most Western celebrities have become incapable of moral distinctions.The scenes from Spain right now are proof enough of how suicidal Western immigration policies have become.

The British mass migration crisis likewise made international headlines recently over bodycam footage of Henry Nowak’s death and the rape gang inquiry. Nowak was a young Polish-British boy who bled out on the ground while pleading for help. UK cops cuffed him, sneered at him, and listened empathetically to his murderer’s fake story of racism. The rape gang inquiry found that 250,000 British girls and women have been victims of the gang abuse, with the overwhelming majority of perpetrators being Muslim. One Welsh girl was raped 1,000 times, which is almost unimaginable.

Islamic sacred texts endorse pedophilia and rape of non-Muslims. They also promote jihad, domestic abuse, sex slavery, honor killings, and other horrific evils. These are the facts behind Cleese’s comments. I also particularly applaud Cleese’s clarification because he more eloquently expressed a point I have made before. For instance, if America or England or Spain offered to welcome in some of the persecuted Nigerian and Syrian Christians, or the Persian freedom fighters who draw their inspiration from America, or the Israeli Jews so persecuted in Palestinian Authority-controlled areas, I would understand it (provided we have some clear vetting and a numbers limit).

We have many of the same basic moral principles in Western civilization as all the above-mentioned people have, even if our music and food and village traditions are different. But it is obvious that almost any country that is overwhelmingly Muslim or Communist will train most of its citizens or subjects to honor values completely at variance with ours. I, too, am a culturalist. Nor are all cultures morally equal.

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Spain -and Sánchez- claim this morning that almost all of the 60,000 have returned to Morocco.

• Elon Musk Was Right: Pedro Sánchez Is a Traitor (Aaron Hanscom)

Search for “traitor” on X this week, and one man will flood your timeline: Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez. The reason? Shocking images of thousands of migrants from Morocco crossing the border and flooding into the Spanish enclave of Ceuta. The head of the association that represents Spain’s Civil Guard officers in Ceuta told the Associated Press that the border had “totally collapsed.” After watching video footage of migrants breaking through fences to get into the city, one would be justified in using the word “invasion” to describe what’s happening. Indeed, Santiago Abascal, the leader of the rising populist/conservative Vox party, called it just that and wrote that “Pedro Sánchez is its main promoter and guilty of all its consequences.”


The migrants don’t disagree. Video footage captured some of the arrivals chanting, “Viva Pedro Sánchez!” or “Long live Pedro Sánchez!”


Their gratitude to the Socialist prime minister is due to his mass amnesty plan, which received 1.2 million applications by its June 30, 2026, deadline. As I wrote in So, How’s Spain’s Mass Amnesty Working Out?, “Sánchez, of course, looks at every new immigrant as a potential future voter who won’t care about the mind-boggling corruption within his Spanish Socialist Workers’ Party (PSOE). As increasing numbers of Spaniards take to the streets to demand the prime minister’s resignation, Muslim migrants are among his most loyal supporters.”

In that article, I linked to a video of a Muslim store owner with a poster of Sánchez on his wall who says Muslims who become citizens are “100%” going to vote for the prime minister because of his support for Palestine and Iran. This is why I’ve called him the West’s most hostile leader toward Israel. (The Gazans who celebrated Spain’s World Cup victory would agree with me.)Elon Musk dubbed Sánchez something else: a traitor. After the prime minister defended his amnesty plan in April, Musk wrote on X, “Dirty Sánchez is guilty of high treason.” Sánchez responded cheekily at the time, “Mars can wait. Humanity can’t.”

How’s that humanity working out? Juan Jesús Vivas, the president of Ceuta, said the current situation was an “absolute humanitarian and social emergency.” Reuters reports that Vivas also said that facilities for unaccompanied minors were operating at 2,400% of capacity and that 60 bodies had been recovered at sea over the previous few months. As for the fate of Europe’s citizens, Abascal said Sánchez had “opened the doors of Europe to all dangers.” He described the prime minister’s high treason more vividly than Musk did: “For every rape, every stabbing, and every slash to the pockets of Spaniards to keep them afloat… there is a direct culprit: the mafia boss desperately calling in more hitmen to stay in power.”

Sánchez, who is mired in corruption scandals, can’t go out in public now because, as Abascal says, everyone knows he doesn’t defend Spain’s interests and is only interested in holding on to power. (Watch him get heckled here as he visits areas affected by Spain’s wildfires.) The lower house of the Spanish parliament called on the prime minister to resign last month in a non-binding vote, but he somehow remains in power as one of Europe’s great political survivors.

Could these images of the border invasion be the last straw for Sánchez? Hundreds of Spanish citizens are reportedly already taking to the streets of Ceuta to protest, and they aren’t alone in their anger at the prime minister. I’ll end with several prominent voices echoing what Musk said several months ago: Sánchez is a traitor.

English freedom fighter Tommy Robinson:

https://twitter.com/TRobinsonNewEra/status/2082843294732570900?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E2082843294732570900%7Ctwgr%5E9d9bddcc7aac1f0fbdb6f379271249240f3bdab4%7Ctwcon%5Es1_c10&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fpjmedia.com%2Faaron-hanscom%2F2026%2F07%2F30%2Felon-musk-was-right-pedro-sanchez-is-traitor-n4955625

Turning Point USA spokesman Andrew Kolvet:

Political journalist Eric Daugherty:

https://twitter.com/EricLDaugh/status/2082836475482161587?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E2082836475482161587%7Ctwgr%5E9d9bddcc7aac1f0fbdb6f379271249240f3bdab4%7Ctwcon%5Es1_c10&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fpjmedia.com%2Faaron-hanscom%2F2026%2F07%2F30%2Felon-musk-was-right-pedro-sanchez-is-traitor-n4955625

Actor and comedian Rob Schneider:

https://twitter.com/RobSchneider/status/2082827168233513027?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E2082827168233513027%7Ctwgr%5E9d9bddcc7aac1f0fbdb6f379271249240f3bdab4%7Ctwcon%5Es1_c10&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fpjmedia.com%2Faaron-hanscom%2F2026%2F07%2F30%2Felon-musk-was-right-pedro-sanchez-is-traitor-n4955625

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60,000 Moroccan men? i doubt it. But African men.

• Other European Leaders See Spain’s Invasion and Panic (Catherine Salgado)

To survive or not to survive, that is Europe’s question. What is happening in Spain with up to 60,000 Moroccan men rushing the borders of Spanish territory over a couple of days is actually what has happened to almost every single Western nation, just sped up and condensed into a small timeframe. But even some European leaders who have overlooked the crisis till now are panicking as they watch the literal invasion of Spain by Muslim men.


Spain is part of the Schengen Area, a group of countries that agreed to cut down on almost all of their border restrictions for individuals in the member countries, allowing for travel without passports. But given the horrific scenes unfolding in Spain, Italian and Finnish representatives, among others, are suddenly realizing the dangers of this system. Dutch Party for Freedom Chairman Geert Wilders posted the following:


Visegrád 24 reported Friday on the Schengen Area countries that are already rushing to complain about how the influx into Spain’s North African territory could affect them. Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni, who has been a critic of the mass migration crisis before, said the other member nations should expel Spain from the Schengen visa-free zone as she worries about Italy’s borders from the gargantuan horde of Muslim illegal aliens. “Italy will not stand idle,” Meloni warned.

Her initiative is already backed by Finland, Czechia, and Denmark — forming a bloc of four states with Italy. France has already introduced border controls with Spain. “Spain has completely failed to protect the external Schengen border. This cannot continue. Countries that do not fulfill their obligations cannot remain members of the Schengen area,” the Finnish minister stated. Commentator Eyal Yakoby reported that Austria also wants Spain booted.

It’s incredibly ironic that France, where the government habitually tries to cover up for the massive explosion of migrant-caused violence, is even on board with some border safeguards. Just last month, French President Emmanuel Macron was joining with Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez to bash Meloni’s repatriation policies. Now that Sánchez’s idiocy led to a full-on invasion, maybe French elites are backtracking?

The tens of thousands of Moroccans who invaded Ceuta and Melilla broke into homes, trashed businesses, and set cars on fire. I have yet to see almost any women among their ranks. It is entirely accurate to say this was a military-style invasion by an entirely male force, likely religiously influenced, and they took over without firing a shot. It took the Spanish almost 800 years to drive out the last Muslim invasion, and this time the enemy just had to show up.

Maybe this could finally be the wake-up call that idiotic European oligarchs need.

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“The Media Takes the Fifth and Denounces Those Questioning Fauci as an “Assault on Science”

• The Media Takes the Fifth (Jonathan Turley)

Lodovico Carracci St. Sebastian Thrown into the Cloaca Maxima

As I wrote yesterday, Dr. Anthony Fauci was not the only one taking the Fifth yesterday on his record during the pandemic. The media effectively invoked the same privilege to avoid self-incrimination for their years of deifying the former director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases. Across the cable networks, hosts and guests were going into vapors as Republican senators pummelled Fauci over his COVID policies and the glaring contradictions found in his diary entries. Some, like Dr. Scott Ratzan, echoed Fauci’s own prior claim that any questioning of his judgment was an attack on science.


Once again, Fauci had every right to invoke his Fifth Amendment privilege against self-incrimination. That does not mean that it was the right thing to do. Fauci already had a pardon that notably extended back to 2014 when his agency approved gain-of-function research at the Wuhan lab in China. Any prosecution would be difficult in light of the pardon. It would not be impossible since he could be charged with perjury for any false statements. Yet, that was the same threat that existed during countless prior hearings for Fauci.

So what was the difference now? The answer is found in diary entries and other evidence that contradicts Fauci’s public statements on subjects ranging from the lab theory to school closures. It is not that Fauci would have been tripped into false answers but that he did not have any obvious answers to some of these criticisms. Instead, Fauci invoked the privilege 111 times. That fell short of Vito Genovese’s record, who invoked the privilege 150 times.

Rather than address the long list of criticisms and contradictions for Fauci, the media rallied around the scientist. Fauci was portrayed as something akin to the St. Sebastian of Science, taking barbs and arrows for his faith. It did not matter that over 1.2 million people died, an economy shut down, and millions of children prevented from going to school based on these alleged errors. Fauci would remain silent rather than risk being charged with false testimony.

On CNN, Dr. Scott Ratzan repeated Fauci’s much-maligned claim in June 2021 that “attacks on me, quite frankly, are attacks on science.” Yesterday, Ratzan declared: “This is an assault on science and scientists, and unfortunately, Dr. Fauci is in that seat. 38 years of service to the country, one of the best known scientists for infectious disease, unfortunately, has taken a lot of heat…”It was a maddening statement, repeated by many, that treated Fauci as inviolate, if not infallible. Fauci was wrong about issues that produced tragic costs for this country. When confronted about policies such as school closures, he insisted he had never recommended them while privately admitting he had.

Fauci owes the public explanations, including millions who lost loved ones. Instead, he refused to take the risk of being accused of perjury. Fauci is no Sebastian. Notably, Sebastian remained silent in public to conceal his faith, but when discovered by Diocletian, he remained faithful. The price was to be shot through with arrows, but he somehow survived. After being nursed back to health by Irene of Rome, he immediately confronted Diocletian in public and denounced his abuses. For that act he was beaten to death with clubs and tossed into a sewer.

Fauci spoke endlessly in public and remained silent only when asked to address the contradictions in his diaries and the costs of his alleged errors. What is also frustrating for many is the reappearance of figures who toed the line on prior narratives about masks, the virus’s origin, and other issues. They are now claiming victimization in being asked to account for evidence that they were wrong. As Dr. Scott Atlas has laid out, many of those who abused dissenting scientists faced no repercussions after those scientists were largely vindicated in later research.

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“I have nothing to hide. I can explain and validate everything that I’ve done.” —Dr. Anthony Fauci, recorded for TV in 2022.

“They want to put your sons in a cocktail dress. They want mutts from savage lands slavering on your daughters in a drainage ditch. Will half the people in this country really vote for that again?”

• The Curse It Is Cast (James Howard Kunstler)

However you cut this Fauci business, one thing Americans have learned is how slippery and treacherous this thing called The Law has become. You saw it in the sundry Trump prosecutions of 2024, too — a marvelous demonstration of how to play Hide-the-Salami with the truth about anything and everything. You saw it in the structured failure to adjudicate election fraud in 2020. You saw it in the Jan-6 prosecutions and the Congressional Jan-6 Committee charade that followed. And much more.


And one thing it’s good for is demoralizing the whole citizenry to the max. Who in this land was not mortally depressed watching Rand Paul’s Senate hearing Wednesday starring Dr. Fauci? (One last time, the center of attention!) We have become a procedural republic, slipping into an impotence of legalistic self-fuckery the way old folks slip into dementia, one lost memory at a time. There sits the murderer of millions cloaked in the banality of his evil — as it was at Nuremburg eighty years ago — and this time, you just have to lump it, America. The law can’t touch him at all.

Dr. Fauci ran his own titanically corrupt fiefdom out of the nation’s public health complex. Half-a-million a year wasn’t enough for — let’s call him what he was — an executive bureaucrat. He doled out millions in grants to universities, drug companies, and putative public service orgs, and extracted his vig, about a million bucks in prize money during the Covid-19 episode, not counting his share of royalties from drug patents. A modest million. He must have thought: who will even notice. . . who would ever be bothered by that tiny number when Congress, the Federal Reserve, and everybody else is drowning in numbers with so many zeros it gives them tachycardia just to glance at the balance sheet.

Plus, the thoroughly dishonorable news media was busy making Dr. Fauci a rock-star. He had everything but the stadiums. The grand old gals of Hollywood were going all moist over him. “Julia Roberts sent me flowers today,” he typed into his government-issue diary. Barbra Streisand called him on the phone. “I told her that I work listening to her songs on ALEXA,” He gushed. His work resulted in the deaths of millions and the injury of millions more. Neverminding that, he carefully tracked and marveled at his burgeoning fame:

“Big front-page article abut [sic] me appeared in the Washington Post, [Dr. Fauci wrote]. Very flattering. The situation with my national and international fame is explosive and really unimaginable. It is not hyoperbole [sic] to say that today I am the most famous and talked about person in the country and one of the most recognizable peson [sic] in the world.”

Did Dr. Fauci know that his work-product, the Covid-19 episode and the operations around it, were aimed at setting up conditions to get President Trump bum-rushed out of office in favor of the vacant and pliable tool that was “Joe Biden?” Did others on the White House Covid Task Force know how that would work? Did they know who or what they were in league with?

Anyway, it didn’t turn out as well as they’d planned, of course. The four years of “Joe Biden” only proved how much that coalition of Deep Staters, globalists, and domestic riffraff hated the old American republic and its pain-in-the-ass Constitution. But when they foundered in 2024 — when old Joe-from-Scranton finally gave away the game on that fatal debate stage — and the party had to stuff his idiot veep into the nomination, the Democratic Party crossed an event horizon into total detachment from reality, where they remain to this day.

So then, where did the Democratic Party get the idea that going balls-out Bolshevik-Jacobin would be their salvation after what they already did to try to wreck our country? And by Bolshevik-Jacobin I mean the marriage of murderous envy with civic psychosis. The line it is drawn; the curse it is cast, Dylan prophesied half a century ago. They’re in your face now. Just listen to them. They mean it. They want all your stuff and they want you dead. They want to put your sons in a cocktail dress. They want mutts from savage lands slavering on your daughters in a drainage ditch. Will half the people in this country really vote for that again?

Yet great forces unseen just now are driving the nation to an autumn reckoning, and the main thing to be reckoned is the survival of the USA as a functioning republic with the credibility of law restored and the demons of lawfare crushed. The possibility of legislated election reform slips away day by day, it’s true. But, please understand, this president will not allow the coming election to get pounded down a rathole. If nothing else, we are going to get an intervention under a national security executive order, on the president’s constitutional duty (and his oath) to “take Care that the Laws be faithfully executed.”

The ensuing fight over this will be short and decisive. These mad dogs will be put down, as mad dogs must be. We are going to take our country back. Depend on it.

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“She traveled the country in the summer of 2020 to lobby governors and state health officials to institute strict guidelines on masking and reducing the sizes of indoor gatherings ..”

• Don’t Forget the Role the ‘Scarf Queen’ Played in the Fauci Cabal (Tim O’Brien)

Rush Limbaugh called her “the scarf queen” in reference to her failed attempts to humanize herself through a common female fashion accessory – her trademark scarves that she wore when she conducted White House Coronavirus Task Force Briefings in 2020. She is Deborah Birx, who served as the White House coronavirus response coordinator under President Donald Trump in his first term, finishing in that role once Trump was safely out of office and the Biden regime had taken control.


You may remember her as the taller, handsome woman who often appeared alongside Anthony Fauci at press briefings and task force events. She was tapped to serve on that task force after serving as the U.S. Global AIDS coordinator, which was considered an ambassador-level job within the State Department. From 2014 under President Barack Obama through 2019-2020, she had overseen American programs whose stated purpose was to counter the global spread of HIV. Before that, she ran the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s (CDC’s) global HIV/AIDS division. Only in the federal government can failure give you upward mobility.

In her memoir Silent Invasion, Birx painted herself as a heroine for what she framed as balancing Trump administration skepticism over COVID-19, politics, media narratives, the need to treat millions of Americans, and the effort to prevent or mitigate the spread of the virus. In that book, Birx admitted that she was integral to the effort to extend the initial lockdowns beyond the “15 days to slow the spread.” “No sooner had we convinced the Trump administration to implement our version of a two-week shutdown than I was trying to figure out how to extend it. Fifteen Days to Slow the Spread was a start, but I knew it would be just that. I didn’t have the numbers in front of me yet to make the case for extending it longer, but I had two weeks to get them”, she wrote.

Technically, Birx was a Trump insider. He relied on her, Fauci and their team to give him the advice he relied upon to make critical national decisions. But as we’ve seen with Fauci, who clearly worked against Trump and his administration, Birx was more discreet but still a kindred spirit.

She played a major role from the outset of the COVID-19 pandemic in March 2020 with the “15 days to slow the spread” messaging theme and related policies. Those policies, which she advanced, included limiting group gatherings, social distancing, and the closure of churches, gyms, places of employment, restaurants and bars, but not, curiously, liquor stores. She pushed for policies to keep asymptomatic people trapped in their homes under lockdown. She advocated for the quarantine of an entire household if just one member tested positive for COVID-19.

And she was aggressive in her push to test everyone, including those with no symptoms. More than anyone else on the White House task force, Birx championed mask-wearing in spite of existing evidence that the masks would prove ineffective at mitigating the spread of COVID-19. She pushed to mask indoors and even at home.

She traveled the country in the summer of 2020 to lobby governors and state health officials to institute strict guidelines on masking and reducing the sizes of indoor gatherings they would permit. She did all of this while at the same time, leftist governors like Pennsylvania’s Tom Wolf were out encouraging people to join large groups of “peaceful protestors” to support Black Lives Matter. At the time, she expressed worry, but even on pandemic grounds, she did not condemn those “peaceful protests.”

Because of Birx and Fauci and their people, you couldn’t go to a funeral for a family member; you couldn’t visit loved ones in the hospital; your kids couldn’t go to school; you couldn’t go to church or work; you couldn’t gather in full for Thanksgiving or Christmas; you had to cancel that wedding and that elective health procedure because “group size.”

She took particular issue with White House advisor Scott Atlas, who took an entirely different stance on managing the pandemic. Atlas rejected the Birx/Fauci approach of masking, testing, and the arbitrary “six-feet social distancing” requirements. He correctly advocated for testing just those with symptoms or who were clearly sick. He wanted to manage the nation’s response to COVID-19 until herd immunity could take over, which is how most epidemics throughout history had been effectively handled. Isolate those with symptoms, treat them with all the means at your disposal, and get to herd immunity as quickly as possible.

More to the point, Atlas subscribed to something called the Great Barrington Declaration, which stated: “We know that vulnerability to death from COVID-19 is more than a thousand-fold higher in the old and infirm than the young. Indeed, for children, COVID-19 is less dangerous than many other harms, including influenza. As immunity builds in the population, the risk of infection to all – including the vulnerable – falls. We know that all populations will eventually reach herd immunity – i.e. the point at which the rate of new infections is stable – and that this can be assisted by (but is not dependent upon) a vaccine. Our goal should therefore be to minimize mortality and social harm until we reach herd immunity.

The most compassionate approach that balances the risks and benefits of reaching herd immunity, is to allow those who are at minimal risk of death to live their lives normally to build up immunity to the virus through natural infection, while better protecting those who are at highest risk. We call this Focused Protection.” Medical doctors and public health professionals who openly advocated for the declaration were widely canceled by the left and the Birx/Fauci cabal. In fact, social media platforms broadly censored that declaration and those who supported it. Birx tried to get Atlas kicked off the White House task force.

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“..several Democrats on the panel rushed to Fauci’s defense mid-hearing. Clearly, they’re not interested in the truth of the matter. ”

• What’s Next for Fauci? (Eric Florack)

What’s next for the guy who managed to make Josef Mengele and Jack Kevorkian both look like amateurs by comparison, Anthony Fauci? There are several possibilities here, and I’ll try to cover all the ones I can foresee. I warn you that like many of my deep analytical dives, this is going to get a little messy. So, stay with me here. Understand that I make no claims to actually covering all possibilities, of course, but here’s how I see things at the moment.


Sen. Rand Paul has scheduled a committee vote for August 5, on whether to hold Fauci in contempt of Congress for refusing to answer a single question. Fauci invoked the Fifth more than 100 times during the hearing—some reports say 111, which is either a constitutional strategy or a new Olympic event—and the vote will almost certainly break down along party lines, since several Democrats on the panel rushed to Fauci’s defense mid-hearing. Clearly, they’re not interested in the truth of the matter.

Several GOP members, Sen. Josh Hawley chief among them, argue Fauci has no valid Fifth Amendment claim in the first place, since Biden’s pardon already grants him immunity from criminal prosecution. The idea being, you can’t incriminate yourself with testimony if there’s no crime left to charge you with. Our own Matt Margolis caught the moment yesterday, quoting Hawley directly: “Let’s just get one thing straight, you don’t have any rights under the Fifth Amendment because you’ve been pardoned,” Hawley said. “As you very well know, as the Supreme Court has been clear for a century and more, Brown v. Walker, 1896. When he has been pardoned, he may not stand upon his privilege.”

Paul himself called this legal theory “untested,” saying it would likely have to be decided by a court. Far be it from me to correct Sen. Paul, but I doubt that very much. The test happened already—in 1896, in fact—under the name Brown v. Walker, 161 U.S. 591. I’m interested that Paul didn’t know that, and also that Hawley hadn’t mentioned it to him.

Here’s the short version of the Walker case review, for anyone who skipped that week of law school. Walker, a railroad officer, got subpoenaed to testify before the Interstate Commerce Commission about rate-fixing collusion. He refused to answer, invoking the Fifth, even though a federal immunity statute already promised nothing he said could be used against him. Walker’s position was that statutory immunity wasn’t good enough—that only a pardon, or the total impossibility of prosecution, could strip him of the right to stay silent. He got held in contempt, and the case climbed to the Supreme Court.

The question the court had to settle: does the Fifth Amendment protect against self-incrimination itself—any admission that makes you look bad—or only against testimony that could actually convict you of something? By a 5-4 vote, the Court sided with the government. Justice Henry Billings Brown, writing for the majority, held that the privilege tracks the risk of prosecution, not the risk of embarrassment.

Once that prosecution risk disappears entirely—by statutory immunity, or by pardon—the constitutional basis for silence disappears with it. A pardoned witness, Brown wrote, “stands, with respect to such offense, as if it had never been committed.” He didn’t pull that out of thin air, either—he grounded it in English common law and the Aaron Burr treason trial, so the “untested” label doesn’t even survive contact with the 19th century, let alone the 21st.

The logic holds up fine today: the Fifth protects against testimony that could convict you. Erase the possibility of conviction, and there’s nothing left for the privilege to attach to.

A later case, Burdick v. United States, 236 U.S. 79, brushes up against this, though I doubt it changes the outcome here. Burdick was a journalist Woodrow Wilson tried to pardon specifically to force him to testify. Burdick refused the pardon outright and got held in contempt anyway for pleading the Fifth. The Court sided with him, ruling unanimously that a witness can still refuse to testify if he declines the pardon offered to him. Crucially, that doesn’t help Fauci—everyone knows he’s already accepted his. And we also know he was campaigning for it to be granted.

Fauci’s team is left arguing the pardon only covers conduct through the date it was signed, so any new admission could expose him to fresh charges. That’s a shaky proposition at best, resting on three narrow legs: First, anything Fauci says today that amounts to a new offense—perjury, false statements to Congress—isn’t covered by a pardon issued before he said it, and it revives full Fifth Amendment protection for those specific answers. Second, a presidential pardon covers federal offenses only; it does nothing to block state prosecution under the dual-sovereignty doctrine, and I’m already seeing chatter that a few state AGs are circling this exact opening. Our Catherine Salgado touched on this.

Florida Attorney General James Uthmeier evidently was keeping an eye on the proceedings, because after the hearing on Wednesday, he posted on X, Fauci’s lack of candor to Congress is unbelievable. My office is launching an investigation into Dr. Fauci. It’s past time we get the truth of what happened during COVID. Third, the pardon addresses criminal exposure and nothing else—it says nothing about civil suits, and sworn testimony today becomes fair game as an admission in any civil case where Fauci’s a party or witness. That last one may be the real engine behind the blanket silence, whatever the pardon technically covers.

Bottom line: Hawley and Paul had the stronger textbook argument in the room. For conduct squarely inside the pardon’s window, Fauci’s blanket Fifth Amendment invocation doesn’t rest on solid ground—not against better than 130 years of precedent, anyway.

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He was the boss of the National Institutes of Health’s National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases from 1984 to 2022. Far too long.

• Senate Schedules Contempt Vote for Fauci (ET)

The Senate has scheduled a vote on holding Dr. Anthony Fauci in contempt. The Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs on Aug. 5 will consider a contempt resolution for Fauci. The resolution has not been released as of yet. If the panel approves the resolution, then it will be sent to the Department of Justice with a recommendation to prosecute Fauci, Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.), chairman of the Senate panel, said during an appearance on CBS on July 30.


Paul has previously requested prosecution of Fauci for allegedly lying to Congress, but federal prosecutors have not brought any charges to date. Fauci, who led the National Institutes of Health’s National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases from 1984 to 2022, read an opening statement at a hearing of the committee on July 29, then refused to answer any questions. Fauci said he was following advice from his lawyers and invoking his right under the Constitution’s Fifth Amendment, which protects people against self-incrimination.

Paul noted at the end of the hearing that a preemptive pardon from then-President Joe Biden issued in early 2025 covers Fauci for any crimes he may have committed from Jan. 1, 2014, through Jan. 19, 2025. Paul asked Fauci whether he, at any point during the time period the pardon covers, destroyed any federal record or instructed others to. Fauci declined to answer, pointing to the Fifth Amendment. “My question was limited to the period of your pardon only. I find your objection unsupported,” Paul said. bFauci said in his opening statement that Paul is obsessed with calling for his prosecution.

“The only conclusion I can reach is that the sole reason he is calling me before this committee is to get me to say something, anything that could vindicate his repeated public pledges that I end up, in his words, ‘behind bars,'” Fauci said.Some senators said the situation called to mind what transpired with Lois Lerner, an IRS official who read an opening statement while appearing before a congressional panel in 2013 before refusing to answer any questions. The House of Representatives voted to hold Lerner in contempt of Congress.

Congress more recently approved contempt resolutions against Peter Navarro and Steve Bannon, onetime advisers to President Donald Trump. The men were convicted of contempt and spent time in prison. bPeople convicted of contempt of Congress can land a fine of up to $100,000 and a prison term of up to 12 months. Several legal experts told The Epoch Times that Fauci wrongly invoked the Fifth Amendment in response to some of the questions.

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The only chance they have is to not play by the rules.

• This Liberal Says Democrats Will ‘Deserve to Lose’ in November (Margolis)

Democrats have a socialism problem, and even one of their own on Fox News’s The Five isn’t pretending otherwise. On Thursday, Harold Ford Jr., who is far and away smarter than Jessica Tarlov, ripped into his party for propping up socialist candidates like Abdul El-Sayed, who is running for the U.S. Senate in Michigan.


Ford didn’t hedge. His argument was straightforward: the Democrat Party has drifted so far from ordinary voters that its own candidates no longer resemble what the country is asking for. “Because the American people are not being ambiguous at all about what they want,” Ford said. “They want lower prices; they want not-forever wars. They want their kids to have better futures and an opportunity to achieve the American dream.”

Ford then turned to Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), the democratic socialist who has spent years boosting candidates well to his left. Ford summed up the platform creeping into his party’s fringe in a single breath. “No prisons, no borders, pro-Hamas, no Senate,” he said. He added that he’d never once heard Sanders personally endorse those positions, and that’s exactly the problem. “Senator Sanders, you have to denounce them,” he said.

Ford made clear he doesn’t think Sanders actually believes in abolishing prisons or police. “I don’t believe you’re for no police; I don’t believe you’re for no prisons,” he said. “You are better than that.” His demand was simple: Democrats who reject the radical fringe need to say so loudly instead of letting it define the party for everyone else. Ford then pointed to El-Sayed, who is trailing badly in a race Democrats can’t afford to lose. “We’re 15 points behind with the fellow in Michigan, who probably is a nice guy, but he doesn’t deserve to be in the U.S. Senate if he can’t win,” Ford said. He was careful to note he wasn’t shilling for Rep. Haley Stevens (D-Mich.), El-Sayed’s Democrat rival.

“We Democrats will deserve to lose if these are the people that we put up to run in the fall,” Ford concluded. Ford is right that nominating unelectable ideologues in the name of purity is a losing strategy dressed up as principle. He’s also right that a party that can’t manage a firm no to abolishing prisons, abolishing borders, and cheering Hamas has a branding problem that no amount of spin will fix. Where I part ways with Ford is with his implication that this is a fringe problem rather than a party-wide one. The far-left positions he described extend well beyond a few primary long shots.

Democrat leadership has tolerated, indulged, or quietly embraced those positions for years, and pretending otherwise lets the party off far too easily. Still, his larger point stands. Democrats have almost everything working in their favor heading into November: a favorable midterm map, an energized base, and a president whose approval numbers give them plenty to campaign against. If they still manage to lose because they couldn’t resist nominating candidates who can’t win a general election, they will have earned every bit of that defeat.

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https://twitter.com/ConstitustionX/status/2083104167279915256?s=20 https://twitter.com/nicksortor/status/2082958182754742540?s=20 https://twitter.com/ConstitustionX/status/2082944999835185658?s=20

 

 

 

 

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Debt Rattle July 31 2026

Jul 312026
 
 July 31, 2026  Posted by at 10:01 am Finance Tagged with: , , , , , , , , , ,  35 Responses »


Leonardo da Vinci Head of a Woman 1470s


• IRGC Strikes Jordan Again After 2-Hour US Bombardment (ZH)
• Roasting Fauci Is Fun, But There’s No Do-over For The Biden Years (Kruiser)
• Fauci Takes the Fifth and the Heat Over his Diary Disclosures (Turley)
• GOP Senators See Path For Fauci Prosecution (JTN)
• How Trump Responded to Fauci’s ‘Testimony’ (Margolis)
• Russia Cannot Survive Without Victory In Ukraine – Medvedev (RT)
• America Is Over if Dems Take Control in November – Larry Klayman (USAW)
• Whatever Happened To Boys’ Clubs and Men’s Colleges? (Paul Craig Roberts)
• Race-Based Hiring Changed Higher Education (Victor Davis Hanson)
• John Cleese: “Some Cultures Are Better Than Others” (MN)
• Musk’s America PAC Reportedly Plans $120 Million Midterm Blitz (ZH)
• The New ‘They Who Must Not Be Named’ (A.J. Rice)
• Türkiye Is Headed For A Perfect Storm (Mishel Bychkova)
• More than 50,000 Migrants Swarm Spain’s Enclave of Ceuta (CTH)

 


 

 


 


“Our region is no place for the infanticidal army that cruelly slaughters innocent families in the middle of the night while they sleep.”

• IRGC Strikes Jordan Again After 2-Hour US Bombardment (ZH)

In the wake of the overnight fresh round of US airstrikes on Iran, which resulted in destruction and casualties especially along coastal areas, Iran’s military has retaliated once again especially on Jordan. US Central Command (CENTCOM) announced that it completed a “heavy” wave of strikes on the Islamic Republic, in response to “attempted missile attacks” on American bases in the region earlier this week. This US wave lasted two hours, the Pentagon said, striking “military command centers, missile and drone facilities, coastal surveillance and defense sites, and maritime capabilities”.


It accused Iran of a “surprise attack” the prior night, Tuesday, but said that “all Iranian missiles were successfully intercepted.” As a result of the US bombing, the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRTC) said three of its troops were killed in a missile attack, according to semi-official Tasnim. The three IRGC members died while “defending Iran’s borders and people” in what it described as a “brutal attack by the criminal terrorist regime of the United States.”

Iranian officials are also saying that US bombardment of Qeshm island has killed a family. In Qeshm island, the Director General of Crisis Management of the Hormozgan Governorate said search and rescue efforts are underway amid mounting casualties there. “So far, two children have been pulled out from under the rubble and transferred to medical centers, and efforts are ongoing to rescue three other members of this family,” Mehrdad Hassanzadeh said.

In response Iran says it has again targeted a US airbase in Jordan, and claims to have taken out three F-35 stealth fighters, though there’s been no indication of this from the Pentagon side. According to details via Al Jazeera:In a statement directed to Jordan, the IRGC says in response to a US attack on Qeshm island that killed two parents and their child, aerospace fighters targeted a ramp and maintenance shed at the al-Azraq airbase, which hosts US F-35 fighter jets, with several ballistic missiles, state news agency Fars reports.

The IRGC said that it had completely destroyed three F-35 aircraft and caused “heavy damage” to three others. The IRGC stated that “A number of enemy officers and technical and maintenance personnel were also killed in this attack. Our region is no place for the infanticidal army that cruelly slaughters innocent families in the middle of the night while they sleep.” They added that the war will continue until “the last American occupier is expelled from the Islamic lands” and that Muslims in Jordan and the region want this too. Aftermath of US attack on a residential area of Iran’s Qeshm Island:

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“… we have evidence of Anthony Fauci proving that Anthony Fauci is a liar.”

“Anthony Fauci most definitely had an Anthony Fauci fetish.”

• Roasting Fauci Is Fun, But There’s No Do-over For The Biden Years (Kruiser)

As I wrote in Tuesday’s Morning Briefing, conservative Americans are once again finding out that we were right about everything they called us crazy for during the Wuhan Chinese Bat Flu pandemic. Never in recorded history have “conspiracy theorists” been on a roll like the one we’re experiencing right now. I’m beginning to think that the planet might change its shape if we decide to go the Flat-Earther route. We’re that good these days.


Our current “You shoulda listened to us,” moment is courtesy of Satan’s Garden Gnome, alleged Doctor Anthony Fauci. We’ve been finding out how wrong he was for years but, thanks to his personal diary entries that we’re seeing for the first time, we have evidence of Anthony Fauci proving that Anthony Fauci is a liar. We also now have evidence that Fauci was far more concerned with his own perverse pandemic-fueled celebrity than with anyone’s health. His diary entries about his growing fame (infamy for those of us on this side of the aisle) read as if he were working himself into a sexual frenzy after every television appearance. Anthony Fauci most definitely had an Anthony Fauci fetish.

Being proven right is always a good feeling, and watching Fauci being berated by Republican senators while pleading the Fifth (which Matt covered here) was entertaining for a minute or two, but it’s not sufficient payback for what we endured during the interminable slog of the pandemic. The cold, harsh reality is that it never will be. Yes, the public exposure of the unhinged nature of Fauci’s ego is newsworthy. And, as I mentioned in the previous paragraph, there is some entertainment value in watching him squirm a little. However, unless you get extraordinary satisfaction from pointing at the television and saying, “I told you so,” there’s not a lot of satisfying “there” there.

I am not an attorney, so I will not be indulging in any legal speculation about what might happen to Fauci. From a layman’s perspective, it seems that a presidential pardon that’s backdated to the Mesozoic Era probably covers a lot. If there is some workaround that can be used to nail this vile human being, I hope it’s found soon. I don’t want to just see Fauci in an orange jumpsuit, I want to bring back town squares and pillories and put him on display for his crimes.

That sentiment may not be brimming with Christian charity, but I think we all know that I’m rather imperfect in that regard. There’s also the fact that I only attack people with words, and I’m honest about it. I’ve never fear-mongered with lies that got elderly people sent to assisted living death beds. Once a person has a body count, he or she is deserving of some ill will. (I believe that’s Confucius.)

My reaction to these Fauci revelations is the same as last year when the lefties started admitting that Joe Biden had pudding for brains during his presidency. The validation wasn’t much of a balm for the steaming piles of misery those four years heaped upon us. OK, it wasn’t any kind of balm at all, especially given the fact that Joe Biden has never been held accountable for any of his awfulness in the half century-plus that he poisoned American politics.

The Biden years were a catastrophic abomination that did damage to this great country that we will probably still be uncovering for years to come. President Trump is doing a brilliant job of cleaning up Sir Sniffsalot’s messes, but it all can be undone if another Dem gets into the White House soon.

There is no satisfaction to be derived from any of this. Anthony Fauci will almost certainly live out his days having his lying rear end kissed by the same low-IQ lefties who made him famous. Their alternative universe-dwelling powers of denial can’t be shaken. This was shared by my Twitchy colleague Doug P. in a post on Wednesday:

Nobody can fix that kind of stupid.

Look for the Dem water-carriers in the mainstream media to give Fauci some storytelling camera time in the coming weeks. The hag coven on The View probably already has the vapors just thinking about it. They can fawn over Dr. Mengele-Light and then he can scribble in his Trapper Keeper that he’s still the most popular boy in the lunchroom.

Read more …

Can he take the fifth? Or can’t he? It’s not so clear. Here’s the law professor’s take.

“The impact of a pardon on invocations is a bit murky but, as I stated yesterday, the odds favor Fauci in a court finding that he can still invoke the privilege.”

• Fauci Takes the Fifth and the Heat Over his Diary Disclosures (Turley)

Below is my column on Fox.com on yesterday’s “testimony” from Dr. Anthony Fauci. Americans deserve answers to the questions raised by his diary and other remarks. The most likely course to gain such answers would be through an immunity grant. The impact of a pardon on invocations is a bit murky but, as I stated yesterday, the odds favor Fauci in a court finding that he can still invoke the privilege. In any challenge, a court would likely find that there remains a risk of self-incrimination. What is clear is that many in Washington would prefer Fauci to remain silent on the questions raised by his diary.


Here is the column:

“Stick with the science and never veer from that, even when the science turns out to be an inconvenient truth for somebody.” Dr. Anthony Fauci delivered those words to Georgetown students in 2017 as the touchstone of medical ethics. Today, before the Senate Homeland Security Committee, that line was replaced by Fauci in repeating “On the advice of counsel, I respectfully decline to answer based upon my rights under the Fifth Amendment to the Constitution.”

The optics could not have been worse, but what you saw depended largely on how you viewed the hearing. For critics, Fauci sounded like Crazy Joe Gallo without the sunglasses. For supporters, Fauci is still a hero who refused to fall into a trap laid out before him. Democratic senators such as Sen. Maggie Hassan (D-NH) actually praised Fauci for refusing to answer questions before Congress.

There is no question that it is Fauci’s right to refuse to invoke his privilege against self-incrimination and many advised him to do so. It could be taken for strategic reasons separate from any criminal culpability. After all, he was given a last-minute pardon by President Joe Biden, and any false statements he made before the Committee could be used to bring criminal charges against him. However, Fauci is unlike many who have invoked the privilege. Unlike many past witnesses who have invoked the privilege, Fauci has testified for days in countless prior hearings. He also has appeared in countless interviews on these issues. He had reason to fear this hearing after his diary revealed startling contradictions with what he was stating publicly.

The question many will ask is why Fauci could not just “stick with the science” and resolve these contradictions. The fact is that he would have had difficulty in dealing with his own “inconvenient truths.”Fauci’s opening statement expressed obvious anger over the release of his “unredacted diary.” The new evidence shows that Fauci connected the Wuhan lab to the emerging crisis before most people had ever heard of the lab. It also shows him repeatedly referencing the lab’s gain-of-function work and discounted the “wet market” as the true origin of the virus as opposed to an “amplifier.”

Some of the most embarrassing areas for Fauci concerned his entries acknowledging that he pushed to close schools, despite public denials that he ever recommended such closures. His entries take credit for convincing figures such as then-New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio, the staff of California Gov. Gavin Newsom, and others to close the schools. In an Oct. 16, 2022, ABC interview, Fauci repeated that denial: “They always come back and say, ‘Fauci was responsible for shutting schools down.’ I had nothing to do [with it]!”

The media has also taken the Fifth on these subjects, declining to publish many of these contradictions. They have the same reason as Fauci: there are no spins that would reconcile their own prior coverage and gushing reviews of Fauci. The diary entries also show disturbing references to private meetings with media figures.

Fauci’s diary refers to CNN anchor Jake Tapper 41 times. In some entries, Fauci suggested that the host was concerned about crafting an interview to better serve Fauci: “Jake wanted to make sure the interview did not cause me any problems.” Fauci also related how he met socially with Tapper in July 2020: “Had dinner over Jake Tapper and Jen Tapper’s home in DC. Terrific couple. Friendship building.” (Notably, on October 14, 2020, CNN published a report repeating the condemnation of the dangers of “small household gatherings.”).

The diary revealed an obsession with his publicity and access to celebrities. The diary is replete with his gushing accounts of himself, such as “It is not hyoperbole [sic] to say that today I am the most famous and talked about person in the country and one of the most recognizable peson [sic] in the world.”

The fact is that diaries tend to be self-obsessed, and no one would want their unvarnished private thoughts made public. Rather, my gripe with these passages is something I have previously written in criticism of Fauci. During this period, dissenting scientists were barred from social media, removed from positions, and vilified for expressing views, despite now being vindicated on subjects ranging from the lab origin of the virus, the efficacy of masks, the six-foot rule, natural immunities, and school closures.

As these courageous scientists were being abused (by academic and media figures who still hold their positions), Fauci said not a word in their defense despite privately acknowledging that they could be right. Yet, Fauci remained silent as his allies in the media savaged those who voiced the view that the virus was man-made and escaped from the lab. In 2021, New York Times science and health reporter Apoorva Mandavilli was still calling on reporters not to mention the “racist” lab theory. (Federal agencies found the lab theory to be the most credible despite Fauci claiming publicly that a natural origin was the most likely explanation).

Fauci stayed silent while relishing his celebrity status. Indeed, his diary shows no concerns for these scientists as he breathlessly recounted his bobbleheads and cover shoots. Once again, Fauci has every right to invoke his constitutional rights, but the public has every right to demand answers to these questions related to the deaths of 1,238,563 Americans. That may result in a grant of immunity to compel him to answer these questions. If it is any solace for Fauci, he will clearly be able to maintain that he is “the most famous and talked about person in the country.”

Read more …

“In no courtroom in America can you have your witness plead the Fifth Amendment and then your attorney gets to testify..”

• GOP Senators See Path For Fauci Prosecution (JTN)

Lois Lerner gave opening statement, then clammed up in 2013 hearing on IRS discrimination against conservative applications for tax-exempt status, and it didn’t work, Sen. Lankford notes at Fauci’s inquisition. The San Francisco 49ers trounced the Denver Broncos 55-10 in Super Bowl XXIV, the biggest blowout in the game’s history. The Seattle Seahawks snatched defeat from the jaws of victory in Super Bowl XLIX through the most notorious goal-line decision in history, delaying the Emerald City’s second Vince Lombardi Trophy for 11 years.


Wednesday’s Senate Homeland Security Committee inquisition of former National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases Director Dr. Anthony Fauci, about his suspected role in the origin of COVID-19 and allegations that he tried to cover his tracks, similarly displayed elements of both tedious romp and last-minute shocker. The alternate celebrity and villain of the COVID-19 policy response repeatedly invoked his Fifth Amendment right to refuse answering even mundane questions, such as the color of the hearing room’s carpet, following publication of over 1,100 pages of diary-like notes that have raised even more questions about the veracity of his COVID-era public statements.

Committee Republicans repeatedly argued Fauci could not opt out of answering questions due to President Biden’s sweeping preemptive pardon, the validity of which has been questioned because it was signed by autopen amid Biden’s cognitive decline. Legal analysts explained Wednesday how Fauci could still be prosecuted.Oklahoma GOP Sen. James Lankford, who pointedly disagreed with colleagues on the Fifth Amendment issue, waited until the hearing’s end to recall that Congress went through a near-identical exercise in President Obama’s second term.

It held former IRS official Lois Lerner in contempt for giving an opening statement at a House hearing in 2013 on her alleged discrimination against conservative groups seeking tax-exempt status, then invoking her rights under the Fifth Amendment to decline giving testimony or answering questions that may expose one to criminal prosecution. Fauci did the same Wednesday. Lankford asked committee Chairman Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., whether the Lerner vote determined the Fauci outcome. Paul, who has called for Fauci’s prosecution for years, said lawmakers have a week to study the issue before voting on a contempt resolution.

The question that courts may have to answer is whether Biden’s pardon preempts Fauci’s right against self-incrimination, since he can’t be prosecuted “as long as he answers truthfully” and the statute of limitations forecloses some claims anyway, Paul said. George Washington University law professor John Banzhaf floated two other ways Fauci could testify without risk to himself: a two-thirds committee vote or a simple House majority to immunize him, or doing media interviews in which he’s not under oath, since “it is not a crime to lie to the public.”

Fauci is Roosevelt’s ‘Man in the Arena’ Republicans and Democrats largely repeated their dynamics from COVID-related hearings since the GOP took back the House in 2022 and full Congress in 2024. The committee majority repeatedly confronted a visibly weary Fauci with the costs of his decisions going back to 2011, when NIAID funded an American lab mutating avian flu to easily transmit through the air among mammals and published the research over the initial objections of government biosecurity experts.

Sen. Bernie Moreno, R-Ohio, credited his decision to enter politics to the tasing and arrest of an Ohio woman in 2020 for not wearing a COVID mask at a middle-school football game, a policy he blamed on Fauci’s masking recommendations. “Who the f— do you think you were?” Moreno bellowed, already speculating Fauci knew he was “in deep sh–” because he hired criminal defense lawyer David Schertler, who represented ex-Sen. Bob Menendez, D-N.J., now serving 11 years for convictions including bribery. Paul ejected Schertler from the hearing for repeatedly trying to speak on behalf of his client.

“In no courtroom in America can you have your witness plead the Fifth Amendment and then your attorney gets to testify,” Paul responded when Connecticut Democrat Sen. Richard Blumenthal said he had “gagged” Schertler. Democrats deflected from the evidence of Fauci’s alleged duplicity in his diary, given to Paul and Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations Chairman Ron Johnson, R-Wis., by Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., who called Fauci’s notes “government records created on a government computer by a federal employee.”

They repeatedly blamed President Trump, Kennedy and other MAGA bogeymen for gutting public health, increasing vaccine hesitancy, failing to control cyclospora and enabling a spike in measles cases, though Fauci’s diary complicated the latter by predicting children’s measles deaths caused by COVID lockdowns would vastly outnumber their COVID deaths.”This hearing is designed to entrap you,” Sen. Maggie Hassan, D-N.H., told Fauci, like other Democrats praising his five decades of public service. She called Kennedy the most unqualified HHS secretary ever, who “pursues conspiracy theories, degrades people with disabilities, and continues to promote disproved science.”

Sen. Andy Kim, D-N.J., went so far as to dub Fauci the “Man in the Arena” from President Teddy Roosevelt’s “Citizenship in a Republic” speech, which elevates the man who “strives valiantly” and “comes short again and again” over “cold and timid souls” who don’t try. Sen. Ashley Moody, R-Fla., mocked Kim specifically and other Democrats for fawning over Fauci.

Read more …

“..he suggested Biden likely never signed Fauci’s pardon himself, which raises real doubts about whether it meets legal requirements.”

• How Trump Responded to Fauci’s ‘Testimony’ (Margolis)

Dr. Anthony Fauci, the architect of America’s COVID response, who lectured the rest of us about “the science” for years, appeared before Congress on Wednesday and invoked his Fifth Amendment right not to incriminate himself over 100 times. He refused to answer questions about what day of the week it was. He wouldn’t even say what color his tie was. Naturally, President Donald Trump was asked about it, and his response did not disappoint. When a reporter asked whether the Department of Justice should reopen the autopen investigation as it relates to Fauci, Trump zeroed in on the one question that matters.


“Well, the only thing you can really think about is the auto pen,” Trump said. “Because the most powerful thing the president has, they say, is the power of pardon. So, he was pardoned by Biden, and I respect that. I know how powerful it is. It’s a very powerful, they say. It’s literally the most powerful thing a president has.”

Then came the twist of the knife. Trump said the only pardon he was certain Joe Biden personally signed was the one for Hunter Biden, and he suggested Biden likely never signed Fauci’s pardon himself, which raises real doubts about whether it meets legal requirements. Whoever operated the autopen, Trump argued, would need proof, letters, and full knowledge of what was being authorized, and he suggested that person had no idea what the pardon covered.

When a reporter asked Trump whether Fauci should face repercussions, the president reminded everyone that he knows Fauci better than just about anyone.

“Well, I watched the whole thing today, but more importantly, I was a part of the whole Fauci — I inherited Fauci. He was here from the 1980s, so I had him for a period of time, and I disagreed with him on a lot. I would have had to close down the whole country if I listened to him,” Trump said. “I went the federalist way, which is basically to let the governors decide. And generally speaking, the Republican governors did very well; the Democrat governors did not do very well. But Fauci wanted to have nobody wearing masks, if you remember, and then everybody had to wear five masks, as many masks as you could get.”

Trump kept going, and it got better. “Operation Warp Speed was talked about as being one of the great success stories anywhere in the world, actually, and we did a good job. But many more people died under Biden than died in the Trump administration from COVID. COVID was a disaster, but Fauci did not help.”

But here’s the problem for Fauci, and it’s a big one. The Fifth Amendment protects you from incriminating yourself in testimony. Fauci was pardoned. A pardoned man has no self-incrimination to fear on anything the pardon covers, which means he has no Fifth Amendment right to hide behind.”As you very well know, as the Supreme Court has been clear for a century and more, Brown v. Walker, 1896. When he has been pardoned, he may not stand upon his privilege,” Sen. Josh Hawley (R-Mo.) told Fauci during the hearing.

So the walls are closing in on Fauci from every direction. The Senate is expected to vote on contempt charges next week, the legitimacy of his autopen pardon is in serious doubt, and the president of the United States just calmly explained on camera why none of it ought to protect him. Fauci spent years telling Americans to trust him. This week, he wouldn’t even trust himself to answer a question about his tie. Trump’s response was epic, and Fauci’s reckoning may just be getting started.

Read more …

“The West has been using Kiev as a “battering ram” against Moscow, the former president has said .. “

• Russia Cannot Survive Without Victory In Ukraine – Medvedev (RT)

Russia can only preserve itself by achieving victory in the Ukraine conflict because the West is seeking to destroy the country through Kiev, former President Dmitry Medvedev has said.Medvedev, who serves as deputy chairman of Russia’s Security Council, made the remarks on Wednesday while addressing young politicians and representatives of parliamentary parties at the ‘Territory of Meanings’ youth forum. He said Russia was facing an unprecedented challenge, citing Western sanctions and political pressure.


“Our common task is to preserve our country,” Medvedev said. “The only way to preserve our country is victory in the special military operation,” he added.Medvedev stated that Russia has long endured Western efforts to undermine its sovereignty, asserting that its adversaries harbor disdain for “our country – large, strong, proud and self-sufficient, one that cannot be commanded.” He claimed that Western nations are now employing Ukraine as a “battering ram” to bring about Russia’s downfall.

While political parties may disagree on economic and social issues ahead of the upcoming State Duma election, Medvedev said they must remain united on issues affecting the country’s survival, expressing confidence that Russia will ultimately prevail. Moscow has repeatedly said that it considers NATO expansion towards its borders to be a major national security threat, and cited Kiev’s ambitions to join the US-led bloc among the key reasons that led to the Ukraine conflict. Russian officials have long accused Western governments of waging a proxy war against Russia through military and financial support for Kiev.

On Monday, President Vladimir Putin told State Duma lawmakers that no one would ever succeed in breaking the Russian people, saying “This has not happened and will not happen in the future.” He added that the country’s political system and state institutions are prepared to repel any hostile actions. Putin also said that Russia’s opponents have failed on the battlefield and are now resorting to terrorist attacks. He argued that the Western sanctions have failed to damage Russia as intended and have instead inflicted the greatest harm on the European and other states that introduced them.

Read more …

Larry Klayman, founder of Judicial Watch and later FreedomWatchUSA.org.

• America Is Over if Dems Take Control in November – Larry Klayman (USAW)

Greg Hunter’s USAWatchdog.com. Renowned Attorney Larry Klayman, founder of Judicial Watch and later FreedomWatchUSA.org, is worried that massive Democrat voter fraud might do America in. Klayman warns, “There will be an inquisition by using a seized power of government by socialists, communists, jihadists and leftists. It will be a bloodletting in the courts and also a bloodletting in the streets. This is why we act now and not wait for November. . .. It could be the end of America if the Democrats take control. It almost was with Biden, and you can see what’s going to happen next. When people call them crazy, that is too charitable. They are not crazy. They know what they are doing. They are evil. They are the disciples of the devil. The Democrat Party is infested, and it is the devil incarnate.”


The Dems are fighting to hold on to their voter fraud. Just this week, the Governor of New Jersey “Mikie Sherrill refuses to provide DOJ with info about the 6,600 non-citizens erroneously registered to vote . . .” New Jersey also picks jury pools from the voter rolls, and every year “75,000 noncitizens are called for jury duty in New Jersey.” This is news from just one state in the past week. Multiply that by 50. Maybe this is why Department of Homeland Security Secretary “Markwayne Mullin Says State Officials Who Refuse to Cooperate to Secure Elections Could Face ‘Prison Time.’”

We have never heard these kinds of threats to secure elections in the past. Dr. Jerome Corsi says President Trump will not allow the voter fraud for the midterm elections and will use the President’s Article II powers to secure the elections from foreign and domestic intervention. Klayman says, “Dr. Corsi is exactly right . . . The President has those powers. The President has those emergency powers where he can step in. . .. If they have the guts to do it, they can. It’s a whole lot better than declaring martial law after an election. Let’s be proactive. Let’s do it before an election and clean the rat’s nest out now. . .. The Democrats are corrupt to the core.”

Klayman contends as the Trump Administration voter fraud crackdown heats up, so will the violence. Klayman predicts, “They are already violent. Look at Bernie Sanders, who is a supporter of Hamas. Look at Rashida Tlaib, Ilhan Omar and the Mayor of New York Mamdani, who cavorts with terrorists. Their mindset is of a terrorist. So, yes, they will resort to violence. . .. For you and my supporters, it is time for you to arm up, use it defensively and not offensively to protect you and your family. I would recommend that because we are going into a civil war. We are going to be in one very shortly.”

Read more …

“What was it all about? What was achieved other than the destruction of tradition?”

• Whatever Happened To Boys’ Clubs and Men’s Colleges? (Paul Craig Roberts)

The last American population that is American grew up in the 1940s, graduated from high school in the mid to late 1950s and from college in the early 1960s. After that support systems for boys and young men were dismantled. There are no male spaces anymore. I attended 4 superlative universities–Georgia Tech, University of Virginia, UC Berkeley, and Oxford University. Only UC Berkeley, a large state university, was gender integrated. Georgia Tech says that it was gender integrated in 1952. In my years there I never saw a female student. Rumors were that there were a few taking masters degrees in engineering. The football cheerleaders were all male acrobats.


At UVa where I received a Ph.D. in economics, I never saw a female. Rumors, as at Ga Tech, were that there were a few women enrolled in masters degrees not available at the women’s colleges. The women attended excellent women’s colleges such as Sweet Briar. USA was gender integrated in 1970. At Oxford University there were ancient men’s colleges. Mine, Merton College, dated from 1264. There were four women’s colleges. Each collage had its own tradition.

For nonsensical reasons, men’s colleges at Oxford were gender integrated between 1974 and 1986, and lost their traditions. Women’s colleges followed during 1979 and 2008, and lost their traditions. What was it all about? What was achieved other than the destruction of tradition? Women were already at Oxford. Why did they have to be in men’s colleges? Men were already at Oxford. Why did they need to be in women’s colleges? The Boys’ Club of America was gender integrated in 1990, thus destroying the purpose of the Boys’ Club. Why? What was achieved?

Little League fell to gender integration 16 years earlier in 1974. Perhaps this was the death toll for the American male. Teams had to accept girls whose performance was inferior to that of the boys in order to comply with imposed gender regulations. As boys were expected to perform well, parents cheered the girls who managed to get to first base or catch a left field fly. The boy who got a double or threw a double play was cheered but not with the applause given to the most minor of female accomplishments. This subordination of male performance to female performance set the stage for the dispossession of the American male of his confidence.

Today corporate boardrooms are confronted with female members demanding advertisements against men, such as the Gillettes and Budweiser Light anti-male advertisements and Starbuck’s statement that it is not employing any white males until it has more women and people of color. Today American heterosexual men have been moved aside. What the dumbshit feminists have achieved is unprotected women. We have the evidence in England, Sweden, Norway, Europe, and America. Recently the state of Minnesota refused to prosecute an immigrant-invader child rapist “in the interest of justice.” In other words, it was just for the black guy to rape the white girl.

In Sweden and Norway white women are subject to public rapes. White men do not intervene out of fear that they will be arrested for the hate crime of abusing a black person.Throughout the Western world racial privileges have been institutionalized in law and practice. Is is racist for whites to protect themselves. With the confidence of white men destroyed, the field is open for immigrant-invaders. This is feminism’s achievement.

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1950s?

• Race-Based Hiring Changed Higher Education (Victor Davis Hanson)

Jack Fowler: I mentioned a couple of episodes ago our friend Bill Jacobson with Legal Insurrection. He has some efforts aimed at ferreting out that stuff. Yeah, it’s not only, let’s just say, racism in schools, which could be in hiring. This could be in scholarships. Here’s a scholarship: blacks only need apply. Or teachers, you’re going to get this bonus, but only if you’re a minority. So he has a legal arm there that goes after that. There are efforts to …


Victor Davis Hanson: You know, I had a student tell me, “You don’t know what it’s like to be Latino.” And I said, “I do,” because I came of age when this started. In those days, 4.0 was the top, and I had a 3.99. I had two Bs. I did pretty well for a country boy on the SAT, so I applied to UC Santa Cruz. It was a new campus. It was harder to get in than Stanford. I was on the waiting list at Stanford and UC, so I might not have gone away to college. They let me into both, I think, much later at Stanford, but I got into Santa Cruz from the waiting list.

So I went there, and there were two students from my high school who were C students, and they were there already. They had been there all summer long. They were Latino. I never said anything, but they could not believe that I had you know… There were three students who had the top grades. It’s a long story, but there was a valedictorian. I wasn’t that, but we were all one-tenth of a point apart. I was, I think, the third highest. But the point I’m making is that when I went to graduate school, this was in 1975, Mark Edwards was a great guy. He called us in, and there were four white males. He said, “I want to tell you right now, we’re hearing of lawsuits.”

This was kind of like the [Allan] Bakke era. “None of you are going to get a job. I’ve been to the American Philological Association, and everybody’s told me they’re going to hire women and minorities no matter what. We have to at Stanford.” We said, “Well, you have three or four women here, and you have an African American.” I said, “How about all you guys? Why don’t you all resign and then give up your places? You’re all in your sixties.” When you’re that age, 21 years old, you don’t believe it. So you think, “Well, I’ll be fine.” I told my advisor. He said, “Well, if you’re good, you’ll make it. I did.”

I said, “Yeah, but you were in a different generation.” So I finished all my exams in two and a half years. That’s all I did. I studied twenty hours a day and slept about five hours. I wrote my thesis in my third year. I went to the American School of Classical Studies for a whole year. I did all of that. When I applied to seventeen jobs at age twenty-five, I got one interview at the Naval Academy. They said, “That was a great interview.” They interviewed me on everything. “Can you tell us who Jomini was?” and things outside classics. Then they said, “But you’re not going to get the job. We have to hire a woman.”

I said, “Well, you guys are kind of old. Why don’t you resign and hire her?” Because they have a civilian system at the Naval Academy, not like West Point. So I came back, and I’d farmed for five years. I was unemployable. When I went to Fresno, Cal State Fresno, they said, “We’re not going to hire you. We’ll have you part-time.” I said, “I published a book.” They said, “Well, let me see. You have a Ph.D. from Stanford and you’ve published a book, but we’re going to hire a woman and a minority.” These were all white guys telling me this.

Finally, I gave a lecture, and a person from the McClatchy Foundation heard me speak. She said, “That was a great talk. Why aren’t you teaching?” I said, “I only have one class.” So she gave a gift for me to teach for one year. I did pretty well, and I doubled the enrollment. But my point is that there’s a whole generation of people born in the 1950s who came of age during this whole racial preference system, and that’s all they’ve known. So, when people say discrimination, there has been discrimination, but when I saw it institutionally, I’m not talking about what people thought. Institutionally, it was all one way, and people are tired of it.

So when I got a job and I got tenure, I had a guy from the philosophy department come to me and say, “They’re not going to hire me. I’m a white male. I’ve been a part-time teacher for eleven years, and I make one-third of what a professor does. I drive all over to community colleges. Can you help me?” So I went to the chairman, and I did that for about five people. I got all five hired. But it was very strange how amoral it was. It was just blatant. You know what I mean? Blatant racism. It would have been much better if, when people thought there was inequality, and there was, they had started at K through 12.

You could have gone down to the kindergarten level and said, “These are the types of schools in minority districts in the forties, fifties, and sixties that educated people well, and we’re going to restore them. We’re going to make them academies. Anybody can go, but they’ll be located in poorer areas to make sure that when you come out of there…”

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Cultures should not emigrate to invade other cultures..

• John Cleese: “Some Cultures Are Better Than Others” (MN)

Legendary Monty Python star John Cleese has drawn a clear line in the sand, declaring himself a “culturalist” who believes some cultures are superior to others. Cleese has also openly backed Restore Britain leader Rupert Lowe amid the accelerating collapse of British norms under mass migration and parallel societies. The legendary comedian responded this week to ritual insults hurled at him for supporting Lowe by rejecting the tired “racist” smear from the usual uneducated quarters.


“I am not a racist. I am a culturalist,” he stated in a post that now has over ten million views, adding “I believe that some cultures are better than others. I prefer cultures that do not advocate stoning, pederasty, wife beating, female genital mutilation, and beheading opponents. Call me old-fashioned…” Cleese had earlier made plain his preference for Lowe over the rest of the political class, stating he trusts the Great Yarmouth MP “more than any of the other leaders.” The Metro reported the comments as Cleese pushed back against the predictable pile-on.

Lowe, for his part, simply called Cleese a patriot. The exchange has crystallised a growing recognition that Britain’s cultural foundations are under sustained assault from imported practices fundamentally at odds with the country’s historic values of individual liberty, equal protection under the law, and basic human decency. Cleese has for some time now been documenting the same pattern with characteristic clarity. In April he tore into the BBC over claims that the British education system was designed for “whiteness,” pointing out the obvious: it was built for British children in Britain, most of whom happened to be white at the time.

To treat that historical fact as a “racist conspiracy,” he said, is insane. The broadcaster, he charged, operates with a hidden agenda opposed to the beliefs of the majority of British people. He has also zeroed in on the political reality driving the double standard. With churches across Britain suffering more than ten recorded crimes every single day – theft, arson, vandalism, violence – Cleese observed that Labour politicians have become so dependent on Muslim votes that they no longer even pretend to be even-handed. “We need a new election,” the Python star demanded.

Cleese has noted that the focus on religion in Britain falls almost exclusively on Islam, while more peaceful and spiritual traditions are sidelined. He has asked why schoolchildren are not being introduced to Buddhism – a far more civilised belief system – rather than being steered toward Islam.

He has highlighted the one-way demand for respect: Islam insists its traditions be honoured while showing no reciprocal intention of respecting British ones, the polar opposite of genuine multiculturalism. And he has pointed out that other religions do not threaten to take over the country, whereas multiple Muslim clerics and scholars openly do. These are not abstract observations. They map directly onto the lived experience of communities watching churches burn, girls trafficked, and native citizens pushed down waiting lists.

That is precisely the ground Rupert Lowe and Restore Britain have chosen to fight on. The party, which surged past the Conservatives in membership within weeks of its launch, does not traffic in polite fictions. It has vowed to deport millions of illegal and burdensome migrants – “if that means millions go, so be it” – to outlaw incompatible cultural and religious practices, and to give the British people a binding referendum on the death penalty for pedophiles and rapists when guilt is undeniable. “Prison or deportation is too kind,” Lowe has said.

Lowe’s own record shows why the establishment treats him as a threat. As an MP he has submitted more than a thousand Freedom of Information requests that forced light onto grooming gang data, the true costs of mass migration, and foreign offender absconding rates. When the results proved too damaging, the WhatDoTheyKnow platform restricted his access. Lowe’s response was characteristically dry: the restriction was “not in the spirit of transparency.”

He has also refused to soft-pedal the immigration crisis itself. Lowe has called openly for a hostile environment toward illegal entrants, many of them criminals, stating he wants them all deported and does not care how it happens. Far-left politicians and media figures predictably denounced the stance as “cruel” and “repulsive.” Lowe’s reply was equally direct: he could not care less about defending the “humanity” of third-world conmen who break into the country and leave British families living in fear.

The practical consequences of the current open-door approach continue to surface. Lowe recently told Joe Rogan that arriving migrants are placed at the top of NHS waiting lists for dental treatment that British citizens cannot access. Rogan’s reaction was pure disbelief.The incentive structure is obvious: free housing, welfare, and priority healthcare create a magnet that draws people across multiple safe countries. Nowhere has the cultural incompatibility been more horrific than in the industrial-scale rape gang scandals.

Lowe’s Restore Britain-backed inquiry documented a nationwide pattern of abuse involving up to 250,000 young British girls, overwhelmingly by men from Pakistani Muslim and other Muslim backgrounds, with police and politicians suppressing the truth for decades under the banner of community cohesion. Elon Musk responded by endorsing Nuremberg-style trials for those who enabled the cover-up. “The politicians who turned a blind eye to the Rape of Britain must go to prison,” he wrote.

Cleese’s latest stand simply names what millions of Britons already see. Preferring a culture that does not stone people, mutilate girls, or treat women as disposable is not racism. It is the minimum requirement of civilisation. [..] Cleese, Lowe, and a growing public are no longer playing along. Some cultures produce free speech, scientific inquiry, and equal rights. Others produce the opposite. Pretending otherwise has already cost Britain dearly.

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Cue the attacks.

• Musk’s America PAC Reportedly Plans $120 Million Midterm Blitz (ZH)

The New York Times reports that Elon Musk’s America PAC plans to spend as much as $120 million to help Republicans in November’s midterm elections, signaling that the world’s richest man is preparing to reenter the political game with fewer than 100 days until voters head to the polls. America PAC’s spending surge will likely spark a coordinated opposition campaign from Democratic groups and left-wing NGOs, ranging from protests and activist pressure to sustained negative press coverage of Musk, as well as attempts to damage his brands, including Tesla, SpaceX, and xAI.


The Democrats’ playbook could resemble their coordinated pressure campaign against Musk when he was involved with DOGE and the dismantling of most of USAID. This sparked street demonstrations by left-wing and far-left activist networks supported by left-wing NGOs, along with an aggressive left-leaning media campaign that sought to make him the public face of the administration’s agenda. The NYT report is based on “two people briefed on the plans,” and like many stories run by left-leaning corporate media. Musk usually denies the reports on X, but if this report is correct, it says Musk authorized America PAC to build a field operation across at least eight states, targeting Senate races in Alaska, Iowa, Maine, Michigan, and Ohio, while considering contests in North Carolina, Georgia, and Texas.

America PAC is also gearing up to support House candidates in California, Wisconsin, and Washington, according to those people. Musk’s nearly $300 million bet on the 2024 campaign proved politically successful. Still, it came at a steep cost to his brands, which became targets of information warfare operations with coordinated pressure from left-wing journalists and NGO-backed activist groups. Remember when MSM outlets ramped up stories portraying Musk as a Nazi while he was at DOGE, dismantling the left’s USAID slush fund?

This is how the information operations game is played, and the ones being played were the American people. Remember, the far-left even launched a firebomb campaign against Tesla service centers, as the left fringe rules through intimidation, violence, and terrorism. Judging by Musk’s X posts and the broader Republican Party’s increasingly new messaging, the GOP appears to be converging on a single marketing platform ahead of the midterms: Democrats serve as the political vehicle for a socialist and Marxist takeover. It’s that simple.

That narrative is not being manufactured from nothing. The Democratic Socialists of America’s own rhetoric about dismantling the American “empire” from within gives Republican strategists a political gift in the market while establishment Democrats fret over their party fracturing in a far-left revolutionary takeover. The emerging theme for America PAC and Republican candidates will likely focus on anti-communism, framing the election as a choice between capitalism vs. socialism, national sovereignty vs. border abolition, and law and order vs. violent crime and revolution.

DSA has effectively handed Republicans the advertising material to connect illegal alien invasion, violent crime, attacks on law enforcement, street unrest, and all other failed globalist policies under a single ideological threat narrative. That is precisely the political branding that establishment Democrats fear and are melting down over.

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“.. the author who created the most successful publishing franchise of our lifetime had somehow become too radioactive for many people even to write about”

• The New ‘They Who Must Not Be Named’ (A.J. Rice)

Every week on my podcast Dangerous Laughter, I sit down with people whose ideas deserve a hearing, whether the cultural gatekeepers approve or not. Sometimes it’s a politician. Sometimes it’s a journalist. Sometimes it’s a historian. This week, it was Solomon Schmidt, a gifted historian whose new biography, A Pen to Change the World: The Life of J.K. Rowling, should have been one of the easiest books in the world to promote. Instead, it became a case study in modern publishing.Schmidt told me that organizations serving independent bookstores declined to carry advertising for the book.


Harry Potter fan communities that once celebrated every new Rowling project have shown little interest in discussing a biography of the woman who created Hogwarts. Media outlets that ordinarily jump at the chance to cover major literary releases have largely looked the other way. Think about how absurd that is.=J.K. Rowling isn’t an obscure novelist looking for her first break. She’s the bestselling author of the bestselling book series in modern publishing history. Her stories have sold hundreds of millions of copies, been translated around the globe, inspired blockbuster films, and introduced an entire generation to the joy of reading.


If that resume isn’t enough to justify a serious biography, what exactly is? The answer has nothing to do with literature. It has everything to do with politics. Somewhere along the way, Rowling stopped being judged primarily as one of the world’s most successful authors and became a political litmus test. For some people, her views on sex and gender now outweigh everything else she has ever written, accomplished, donated, or inspired. You don’t have to agree with Rowling to recognize what’s happening here. You only have to ask a simple question. When did we stop being curious?

One of the things that struck me during my conversation with Solomon was how straightforward his motivation really was. He wasn’t looking to pick a fight. He looked around and realized something that should have been obvious. How could the woman behind Harry Potter, arguably the defining literary phenomenon of the last thirty years, not already have a definitive modern biography? Charles Dickens has biographies. William Shakespeare has biographies. J.R.R. Tolkien has biographies. C.S. Lewis has biographies. But the author who created the most successful publishing franchise of our lifetime had somehow become too radioactive for many people even to write about. That should bother anyone who claims to love books.

As Solomon explained, understanding Rowling’s life helps readers understand Harry Potter itself. Her struggles with poverty, depression, rejection, and single motherhood weren’t footnotes. They shaped the stories. They gave us Harry’s loneliness, the Dementors that captured depression so vividly, and the recurring lesson that courage usually comes at a personal cost. Biography isn’t an endorsement. It’s an exploration. Somewhere, we’ve forgotten the difference. The funny thing is, Harry Potter warned us about this long before social media existed.

Throughout the series, the Ministry of Magic spends as much time managing information as it does protecting people. The Daily Prophet becomes less interested in reporting facts than preserving approved narratives. Dolores Umbridge doesn’t need to burn books. She simply decides which voices deserve to be heard and which ones deserve to disappear. Sound familiar? Millions of readers recognized those lessons while turning the pages of Rowling’s novels. Some seem to have forgotten them the moment they closed the cover.

That brings me to my own new book, The Curse of the Bearded Lady. On the surface, it has little in common with a biography of J.K. Rowling. One is political satire. The other is literary history. But both books ask the same question. What happens when powerful cultural institutions stop encouraging debate and start discouraging curiosity? Unfortunately, that’s the road we’re traveling. I don’t expect everyone to agree with Rowling. I don’t expect everyone to buy Solomon’s biography. I certainly don’t expect everyone to agree with me. That’s never been the point.

The point is that readers should be free to encounter ideas, arguments, and people without first receiving permission from self-appointed cultural referees. Publishing used to trust readers enough to let them make those decisions for themselves. Now too many gatekeepers seem determined to make those choices in advance.History has never been written exclusively about saints, and thank goodness for that. The people who change the world are usually complicated. They succeed brilliantly. They fail publicly. They contradict themselves. They evolve. That’s what makes them worth studying.

J.K. Rowling is one of those figures, whether her critics like it or not. The greatest irony of all is that Rowling spent years teaching millions of young readers to question authority, resist propaganda, and think for themselves. Harry, Hermione, and Luna never accepted an official narrative simply because someone powerful told them to. Maybe that’s the real reason her books still endure. Because they encourage independent thought.That may be the most dangerous kind of magic left. Because somewhere along the way, “He Who Must Not Be Named” stopped being a fictional villain. For too many people, it became the woman who imagined him.

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“Ankara now finds itself simultaneously managing several long running disputes while its domestic bandwidth is consumed by an economic downturn and a reshaped opposition.”

• Türkiye Is Headed For A Perfect Storm (Mishel Bychkova)

Turkish politics rarely stands still, but even by local standards, the past week has moved fast. Ozgur Ozel, the leader of the Republican People’s Party, told his parliamentary group that a new party will be formed within days.


On the surface, this looked like a routine reshuffling of parliamentary seats – the kind of maneuver that happens periodically in Ankara without lasting consequence. Underneath, it is nothing of the sort. The announcement was framed as a defensive move, yet its implications reach far beyond the corridors of the CHP. Against the backdrop of Türkiye’s stalling economy, the tense regional environment, and the unresolved Kurdish question, the birth of this new formation looks like the opening move in a broader contest over who controls the timing of the country’s next election. Taken together, the pieces suggest that Ankara is entering a period in which political survival, not policy, will dictate the pace of events.

A party born out of necessity
Ozel did not describe his move as a rupture. He insisted that the CHP’s role as the parliament’s main opposition voice would not be abandoned, only carried forward under a new banner. The language was careful, almost defensive, and for good reason. Splitting a party while claiming continuity is a delicate balancing act, one that requires convincing both loyal voters and international observers that nothing essential has been lost in the transition. In practice, the plan is to bring roughly 85 deputies with him, instantly turning the new party into the second largest bloc in parliament and pushing the CHP itself down to 4th or 5th place. A party that has anchored Turkish opposition politics for a century is being hollowed out from within, not by an external rival but its own recent leader.

The logic behind the move becomes clear once the legal pressure on the CHP is taken into account. Courts have been steadily encroaching on the party’s internal affairs, including the reinstatement of Kemal Kilicdaroglu as the formal leader of the CHP. For Ozel, remaining inside a party whose leadership could be legally reassigned at any moment is a losing bet. Commentator Murat Yetkin described the new project as a reserve platform, built precisely so Ozel can wait out the legal storm without being dragged into seven months of an internal power struggle before elections arrive. This is an insurance policy, drafted by a politician who understands that Turkish courts have repeatedly proven capable of reshaping party leadership through rulings where ballots fail.

CHP falls back into Kilicdaroglu’s hands, Ozel keeps a functioning vehicle of his own, complete with parliamentary representation and a base of loyal deputies. If it does not work, he has lost remarkably little, since the new party can, in theory, be folded back into a friendly CHP once the legal dust settles. It is a move built for optionality rather than conviction, and that pragmatism is precisely what makes it significant. Ozel is betting that having control over a smaller, loyal formation beats having a contested claim over a larger, legally vulnerable one.

The reaction in the press captures the split perfectly, and it is worth dwelling on because it previews how the story will be fought over in the months ahead. Cumhuriyet ran the story as a march toward power, presenting Ozel’s decision as painful but historic – a step taken for the good of the wider democratic camp. The framing was almost heroic, portraying a leader forced by circumstance into a bold act of political self-preservation on behalf of an entire opposition movement.

Sabah took the opposite line, framing the new party as inheriting a corruption problem, naming several founding figures already tied to bribery investigations and describing Ozel’s supporters as having plundered the old CHP headquarters on their way out. The tone there was mocking and accusatory, designed to strip the move of any moral standing before it could gain traction with undecided voters. Two newspapers, two entirely different versions of Türkiye, and neither side is likely to soften its framing in the weeks to come.

An economy running out of room
None of this is happening in a vacuum. Türkiye’s banking sector is heading into a difficult second quarter, with net profits expected to fall by more than 20 percent as inflation expectations stay elevated and tight monetary policy pushes up the cost of financing. For a country that has leaned heavily on its banks to sustain consumer spending and keep growth numbers presentable, that is a signal that the buffer policymakers have relied on for the past several years is thinning when they can least afford it.

More troubling is the currency exposure building up in the real economy. Foreign currency liabilities among Turkish companies hit $392.4 billion in May, the highest level recorded since 2013, while the net foreign currency deficit reached $204.4 billion. Numbers on this scale are not abstract statistics for policymakers to just shrug off. They represent a private sector increasingly vulnerable to any depreciation of the lira, and a government with steadily shrinking room to maneuver on interest rates without triggering the kind of corporate distress these figures already hint at. Companies holding that much foreign currency debt need a stable or strengthening lira simply to service their obligations, which locks the central bank into a defensive posture regardless of what domestic conditions actually call for.

This is the trap facing Turkish economic policy right now. Tightening further to defend the currency risks strangling growth and deepening the sense of stagnation that voters already feel in their daily expenses. Loosening policy to stimulate the economy risks reigniting inflation and putting even more pressure on companies already struggling under record foreign currency exposure. There is no comfortable middle path left – only a series of trade offs that grow less forgiving with each passing quarter. And because Turkish monetary policy rarely operates independently of political considerations, every one of these trade offs eventually becomes a political decision as well, made with an eye on elections rather than purely on economic fundamentals.

Türkiye’s foreign policy is not offering any relief either. Tensions with Israel remain unresolved, friction with Greece over Aegean and maritime issues continues to simmer, and the Cyprus question sits as stubbornly unsettled as it has for decades. Each of these fronts demands attention and resources from Ankara at a moment when the government would prefer to focus inward. None of them are new disputes, which in some ways makes the current moment more dangerous rather than less. Familiar tensions have a way of being taken for granted as innocuous right up until the moment they’re not. Meanwhile, Ankara now finds itself simultaneously managing several long running disputes while its domestic bandwidth is consumed by an economic downturn and a reshaped opposition.

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Europe has no Trump to close the borders.

• More than 50,000 Migrants Swarm Spain’s Enclave of Ceuta (CTH)

Western media are downplaying the numbers, continually saying a “few thousand.” However, local officials and eyewitnesses are describing the migrant invasion as something substantially more; over 50,000 more. As night fell, the horde of migrants continue to overwhelm the region of Cueta, a region of Spain in North Africa. The invasion force shows no signs of slowing down and the region is entirely overwhelmed. There are 80,000 Spanish residents trying to retain their safety against the arrival of 50,000 invading north-Africans.

(REUTERS) – […] A Guardia Civil spokesperson said earlier migrants were “massively entering from the sea” around the Tarajal breakwater, a border seawall that migrants can swim around and enter Ceuta. The spokesperson could not estimate the number of migrants but said police were overwhelmed. Many local shops were shuttered. Enrique Serrano, who runs a women’s clothing store in central Ceuta, told Reuters business owners were organising self-defence because they believed police resources would be insufficient.

“I’m not opening this afternoon because the situation is extremely tense … The first thing I have to do is protect my business and my family,” he said, adding that when the fence was breached after midnight, hundreds of migrants rushed through in a matter of minutes. Ceuta and Melilla — another Spanish autonomous city located in North Africa — have the European Union’s only land borders with Africa. Both cities periodically experience surges in attempted crossings by migrants seeking to reach Europe.

[…] Spain’s Socialist government stands out in Europe for its pro-migrant stance, and it has recently launched a programme to provide legal status for some 500,000 undocumented migrants, triggering an influx of applications double that number. Right-wing parties criticised the drive, arguing it would attract more migrants to Spain, and were quick to blame Sanchez for allowing the situation in Ceuta to reach crisis proportions

Conservative opposition People’s Party leader Alberto Nuñez Feijoo said in a post on X: “The situation in Ceuta is desperate. The government cannot look the other way… because we are facing a national security crisis.”

Earlier on Thursday, Ceuta Mayor Juan Jesus Vivas had urged the national government to declare an emergency over the mass arrivals. (read more) President Trump tried to warn the Spanish people that socialist President Pedro Sánchez Pérez-Castejón would open the borders and destroy their country. Trump was right! “Fernando Rodríguez Contreras, an official in the government, said the working estimate for the number of people who had crossed was in the tens of thousands, though that figure could not be confirmed.” ~NYT

https://twitter.com/nicksortor/status/2082944530127654963?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E2082944530127654963%7Ctwgr%5Eef566a2223b1eaa02ae61159ab036a43ab2cd716%7Ctwcon%5Es1_c10&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Ftheconservativetreehouse.com%2Fblog%2F2026%2F07%2F30%2Fmore-than-50000-migrants-from-morocco-and-sub-saharan-africa-swarm-spains-enclave-of-ceuta%2F
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