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Debt Rattle September 27 2026

Sep 272026
 
 September 27, 2026  Posted by at 9:04 am Finance Tagged with: , , , , , ,  1 Response »


Claude Monet Impression Sunrise 1872


• Trump Bans Media From the White House—This Is Why He’s Angry (Larry Elder)
• Trump Won’t Play Charlie Brown With Iran As Lucy Holds the Football (Spencer)
• CNN Has Total Meltdown Over Trump Showing Xi the Autopen Photo (Margolis)
• Supreme Court Grants States Ability to Verify Voter Status in Midterms (CTH)
• US NATO Commander Tells Europe to Prove Russian Hybrid Attacks (CTH)
• Putin Reacts to Call for Trilateral Negotiations (CTH)
• We Need To Talk About Democrats (J.B. Shurk)
• Trump Told Zelensky To Meet With Putin In Moscow – Bloomberg (RT)
• South Korea Slams ‘Callous and Irresponsible’ Zelensky (RT)
• AI Could ‘Cause A Billion Deaths’ – Bill Gates (RT)
• UK’s Burnham Moves Toward Authoritarian Rule (Robert Spencer)
• Britain’s Muslim Migration Crisis Is a Warning for America (Robert B. Bluey)

 

 

 

 


Three assassination attempts.

• Trump Bans Media From the White House—This Is Why He’s Angry (Larry Elder)

Why did President Donald Trump ban CNN, MS NOW, and Politico from the White House? The better question is: What took so long? But Trump made his point. The man is angry at the blatantly biased and Trump-despising legacy media. He blames them for his poor poll numbers. His bitterness is more than justified.


The economy is far better than reported. The Atlanta Fed’s GDPNow model currently estimates third-quarter growth at an annualized rate of approximately 5.1%, up from an earlier estimate of 4.4%. And even at today’s elevated gasoline prices, the cost of gas as a percentage of income remains far smaller than during earlier price shocks.

Inflation is lower than the Biden average. The official poverty rate is the lowest on record. The stock market has been up, and 401(k)s are fatter. A recent survey of CEOs finds confidence in the economy higher than it’s been in years—with 73% expecting hiring to remain the same or to be increased. Crime is down. The deportation of criminal illegal aliens, argues the Trump administration, is likely a contributing factor.

The administration says its military campaign has pushed Iran further away from developing a nuclear weapon. Military recruitment is up. DEI is in retreat. NATO allies are finally upping defense spending as a percentage of their gross domestic product, after former Presidents George W. Bush and Barack Obama unsuccessfully urged them to do so. There’s a lot of good news.

This stands in stark contrast with the breathless drum-beating coverage of the Russia-Trump collusion hoax, the first and biggest media-clamped weight on Trump’s ankle. And when the hoax unraveled—and the bad actors were exposed—the media was far less interested.

Presidential candidate Hillary Clinton’s campaign and the Democratic National Committee funded the opposition research that produced the discredited Steele dossier. Obama was later briefed on intelligence alleging that Clinton had approved a plan to tie Trump to Russia and divert attention from her email controversy. The Washington Post, not exactly pro-Trump, in 2017, wrote:

“The Hillary Clinton campaign and the Democratic National Committee helped fund research that resulted in a now-famous dossier containing allegations about President Trump’s connections to Russia and possible coordination between his campaign and the Kremlin, people familiar with the matter said.” The collusion probe began before the dossier, but the dossier later gave the investigation a lot of fuel, particularly for the Carter Page FISA surveillance applications.

According to documents released by Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard, preelection intelligence reports emphasized Russia’s efforts to disrupt the election and undermine confidence in the democratic process, without concluding that Moscow’s objective was to elect Trump. After Trump’s unexpected victory, however, Obama ordered a new assessment. This time, it concluded Russian President Vladimir Putin had developed a preference for Trump and wanted him to win.

The Media Research Center said 92% of the evaluative coverage of Trump 2.0 during his first 100 days by ABC’s “World News Tonight,” the “CBS Evening News,” and “NBC Nightly News” was negative. And much of this was after Trump closed the southern border, when, for years, the Biden administration claimed it was closed.

During the Biden administration when more than 2.75 million people had entered the country illegally during the 12 months ending September 2022, a December 2022 Harvard CAPS-Harris Poll of registered voters asked, “How many border crossings by illegal immigrants do you think are occurring each year?” Fifty-five percent estimated 500,000 or fewer, and the largest group of voters believed annual illegal border crossings numbered between 100,000 and 250,000. Ill-informed?

It never ends. Nicolle Wallace, an MS NOW host, last week played an excerpt of Vice President JD Vance imploring voters to keep the Republican congressional majorities. Wallace, laughing, then said, “What I love is, like, give us two more years of rounding and—rounding up and shooting Americans in the streets, stealing all of your money, and destroying the economy. Nobody wants that.”

It boggles the mind how much time the media spend on the inconsequential—such as Trump attaching his name to the Kennedy Center—compared with how little they spend examining how close Iran came to producing enough weapons-grade uranium for a nuclear bomb.

Words fail. Trump fumes. Understandably so.

His ban may not survive a court challenge. But the record of overwhelmingly negative media coverage remains open for all to see.

Read more …

We’ve long said=: he had to play along with Iran for a while.

• Trump Won’t Play Charlie Brown With Iran As Lucy Holds the Football (Spencer)

The Islamic Republic of Iran has asked for another ceasefire, and President Donald Trump has said no. While Trump has actively sought ceasefires in the past, this time he had no patience for the Iranian demands, and that’s all to the good, as nothing good could possibly come from giving the Islamic Republic more time to regroup and strengthen its forces.


The New York Post reported Friday that Trump has “rejected a seven-day cease-fire proposed by Iran and expects to resume bombing the country after the midterm elections.” Trump apparently doesn’t think that the conflict with Iran will cost the Republicans in the midterms, and could be waiting in the hope that the Islamic Republic will collapse of its own accord. Inflation is skyrocketing, most of the Iranian people already hate the Islamic regime, and if that regime fell tomorrow, no one would be surprised.

That, indeed, is why the Islamic Republic’s leadership is trying to buy time with a new ceasefire. Islamic law allows an Islamic army to conclude a truce with a non-Muslim army only if the Muslims are losing and need time to regroup (or if the non-Muslim army is about to convert to Islam, which is not in play here, at least not yet). Thus is it wise of Trump to refuse the request, for when the Islamic Republic asks for a ceasefire, that’s a tacit admission that it knows that it’s losing. Paradoxically, the worst time to conclude a ceasefire with an Islamic force is when that force asks for one.

The Post noted that “as part of the proposed cease-fire, Tehran pledged to reopen the Strait of Hormuz and resume negotiations on dismantling its nuclear program in exchange for the US ending its blockade of Iranian ports.” Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi “told reporters at the UN gathering in New York that the seven-day proposal had been formally offered to the US. Aside from lifting the naval blockade, the regime is also seeking sanctions relief from the US and the unfreezing of some of its assets.” Of course. The sanctions relief and unfreezing of assets would give the Iranians the funds they need to build their forces back up and resume their jihad against America and Israel.

Trump, however, said: “I’ve rejected their deal. They want to make a deal where they open the strait immediately because they’re losing so badly. We’re winning tremendously.” He explained that even with the Strait closed, ships were getting through: “We have total control of the Hormuz Strait, massive amounts of oil are coming out of the Hormuz Strait. Last night we had 29 ships come out. They want to make a deal, and I think that’s fine, I like making a deal, too, but that deal would not be acceptable.” Indeed. It would only have bought the Islamic Republic time to build up and continue waging its jihad later.

Trump continued: “And what they want to do is immediately open the Hormuz Strait. You know why? Because they’re dying. You know why they’re dying? Because they have no money coming in. Because they get their money from the Hormuz Strait. So they outsmarted themselves. They said, ‘let’s close it and cause a problem for the world.’ And then I came along and we put up the greatest blockade ever in military history. It’s a wall of steel.” The Islamic Republic’s spiraling economic woes could well turn out to be the straw that broke the camel’s back.

“I would put it up,” Trump added, “and guess what? They don’t have any money now because they wanted to close the strait. And I said, ‘that’s fine, we’re going to close it on you. But everybody else is able to use it.’” Now, according to the Post, “Trump is ‘skeptical’ Iran will agree to his demands and has told aides it is ‘likely’ the US military restarts airstrikes after the November contests.”

While the Iranians continue to try to project an air of confident victory, issuing peremptory demands to Trump as if the mighty Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps had defeated the forces of the United States, Trump, in his imitable way, mocked their pretensions. On Friday evening, he posted a map on Truth Social, with the Strait of Hormuz prominently labeled “Trump Strait.”

A White House official, meanwhile, said that “Trump was content to allow the ‘inevitable Iranian collapse’ play out rather than be ‘played’ by the regime.” Good. Bring on that collapse.

Read more …

Ha ha ha!

• CNN Has Total Meltdown Over Trump Showing Xi the Autopen Photo (Margolis)

When President Donald Trump showed Chinese President Xi Jinping the picture of an autopen that now hangs in Joe Biden’s spot on the Presidential Walk of Fame, Xi laughed. Over at CNN, however, Anderson Cooper needed an emotional support animal and an emergency session with this therapist. Last year, Trump installed the Presidential Walk of Fame along the West Colonnade of the White House, but instead of using Joe Biden’s portrait, he put up a picture of an autopen. It’s a great bit, and even a Communist dictator got the joke.


Somehow CNN has decided that Trump pointing it out to Xi is a huge scandal. On AC360, Cooper assembled a panel and spent the segment fishing for someone to trash Trump. “To see the President Trump mock former President Biden in front of an autocratic leader like Xi, I guess not surprising, but still, did it surprise you?” Cooper asked Johns Hopkins political historian Leah Wright Rigueur.

Rigueur was happy to oblige. “I think we should still be surprised and we should still have the capacity to be horrified by the President’s actions,” she said. “But in particular, this action, mocking a former President, mocking his predecessor at a moment where U.S.-China tensions, U.S.-China relations are tense, but also in front of the President of China and at a moment where China is thinking about, you know, what is U.S. strength.”

Horrified? Joe Biden literally used the power of the federal government to try to put Trump in prison, but we’re supposed to be outraged that Trump was mocking Biden to Xi? CNN spent years treating the prosecutions of Biden’s chief political rival as a sober exercise in accountability. Now the network wants a national day of mourning over a framed photo.

Rigueur went on to call the moment “childish” and “classless,” and she scolded Trump for failing to “showcase a level of decorum and respect for the office of the presidency.” Funny how that deep concern for the dignity of the office never came up while Biden’s aides were busy running it for him. Cooper then turned to David Urban, a former Trump campaign adviser, with a question that sounded like it had been assembled from spare parts. He clearly wanted Urban to join the pile-on.

“David, there was something particularly kind of pathetic about the president’s attempt to make sure that Xi understood that this was mocking President Biden, kind of reaching out and kind of, you know, kind of as if he didn’t get the joke, kind of explaining the joke, which is obviously never a good position to be in,” Cooper said. Cooper then complained that the moment “played well with some of the online kind of trolling supporters of the president.”

Urban didn’t take the bait; in fact, he destroyed Cooper’s premise. He reminded Cooper that Trump brought Xi to the National Archives to see the Constitution, the Bill of Rights, and the Declaration of Independence, that a U.S. military band performed songs from Les Misérables at the state dinner, and that a B-1 bomber roared overhead during the national anthem. “I don’t know how much more strong you can get,” Urban said. “And the ultimate sign of strength, wait, and, Anderson, the ultimate sign of strength. President Xi flew home in a U.S.-made Boeing 747.”

Cooper still wasn’t satisfied. “You don’t think it’s a sign of weakness to mock the former president of the United States in front of a dictator?” he asked. “I think, it maybe distasteful, but I don’t think it weakens the U.S. position vis-a-vis China,” Urban replied. Having struck out twice, Cooper gave up and just said what he’d been thinking the whole time.


“I just think it makes him look small,” Cooper said. “You know, it’s not the first time, anyway.”You know what really makes a president look small? Standing on a stage lost, needing his wife to show him which way to go. Yet, CNN was one of many left-leaning outlets that ignored Biden’s obvious cognitive decline for years, waving off every stumble and blank stare as a right-wing smear. It only found the story after more than 50 million Americans watched Biden lose his train of thought on the debate stage in June 2024.

A little perspective, Anderson Cooper. A little perspective.

Read more …

“.. the state govt can check whether the applicant was legally in the country. The SAVE system worked. Nobody talked about it for 39 years.”

• Supreme Court Grants States Ability to Verify Voter Status in Midterms (CTH)

In 1986, the federal government built a computer database called SAVE, Systematic Alien Verification for Entitlements. The purpose was simple – when a noncitizen applies for public benefits the state govt can check whether the applicant was legally in the country. The SAVE system worked. Nobody talked about it for 39 years.


In March 2025, President Trump signed an executive order expanding SAVE’s use. The order told DHS to use the SAVE system to verify citizenship of registered voters and people registering to vote. The order instructed the Social Security Administration to share its records with DHS for that purpose. Two months later, DHS launched the modified version. Two changes: (1) it now checks Social Security numbers against SSA databases. (2) it allows state and local authorities to run bulk searches; the entire voter roll at once.

Blue states sued. Slowly the cases went through the lower courts, then the appellate courts, until finally the Supreme Court ruled 6-3 the SAVE system can be used in the midterm election [RULING HERE]. “While the ruling gives the Department of Homeland Security authority to use the database ahead of the midterms, the court’s conservative majority noted that the impact of the ruling was blunted by another federal law — the National Voter Registration Act — which prohibits states from purging voters within 90 days of the election.” {ABC link}


If the states use the SAVE system, but do not purge their voter rolls for 2026 based on the results, the system still can be of value. “the justices’ action came so close to the upcoming election that the records can only legally be used on a case-by-case basis — and not for the type of bulk voter-roll matching that some states want to conduct.” {Politico link}

WASHINGTON – […] The court, ruling along ideological lines, rejected an argument that federal law prohibited the Trump administration from a revamping citizenship database to verify voters. In an unsigned opinion, the majority wrote that Congress, in the Illegal Immigration Reform and Immigrant Responsibility Act, authorized the “an information-sharing regime like the modified SAVE program.”

The majority also concluded that the Trump administration would suffer irreparable harm if they were barred from using the database because the lower court ruling “inhibits the Federal Government’s efforts to assist state and local agencies in the proper administration of the midterm elections.”

Due to the National Voter Registration Act’s prohibition against purging voter roles this close to an election, the ruling only allows the Trump administration to conduct “individualized inquiries” to verify voters, rather than perform the bulk searches the system was created to conduct. As a result, according to the court’s liberal wing, the ruling “will likely have a minimal, short-term impact.”

Justices Ketanji Brown Jackson, Sonia Sotomayor and Elena Kagan dissented from the majority, rejecting the argument that Congress allowed such a database. They wrote that the majority misreads the Illegal Immigration Reform and Immigrant Responsibility Act to override “the limits that privacy laws impose on the sharing of citizenship information with DHS.” (more)

While the ruling has limited value in the 2026 election, it can still be utilized as a tool (without disqualification) to identify the integrity of the voter rolls as they currently exist. There is nothing in the ruling that blocks the use of the SAVE database from being utilized. Current law just says the results cannot be used to change, modify or purge the rolls.

It will be interesting to see if any state goes ahead and just runs the comparison to see how compromised their voter rolls are, without making any modifications to the rolls themselves. I wonder if any state will do that?

Read more …

Let them. Insist on it.

• US NATO Commander Tells Europe to Prove Russian Hybrid Attacks (CTH)

Politico (EU) puts the spin on the actual ask by saying, “NATO’s Supreme Allied Commander Europe U.S. Gen. Alexus Grynkewich wants more information on escalating hybrid threats.” However, if you pull back the NATO wording and current position, what it really looks like is U.S NATO leaders telling Europe to prove all of these “hybrid attacks” they keep speaking about.


NATO is a collective of EU nations. The official position of NATO is it sees no imminent threat of a Russian attack. However, several of the EU-NATO countries are independently reporting hybrid attacks under opaque descriptions and then using political soundbites to designate Russia as the cause.

Just like the drone attack on Zelenskyy’s airplane, most of these reports end up being debunked once they are investigated, or scrutinized. There have been dozens of so-called hybrid attacks that were debunked or claimed in such an ambigous fashion they cannot be proven as accurate.

Ex. Russia flying a helicopter in Kaliningrad, is not a hybrid attack against Poland. A Russian drone crashing 160km away from Chisinau, is not a hybrid attack against Moldova. A can of tuna fish attached to a short-range quadcopter at the Leipzig/Halle Airport is not a hybrid attack against Germany.

None of the heads of the nations described above (Poland, Moldova, Germany) have ever asserted those “hybrid attack” examples as an official position of the government. It’s always some arms-length politician or internal bureaucrat that makes the claim, then the media amplifies it.

Well, it would appear that NATO Commander Grynkewich is trying to figure out how/why these quasi-official “hybrid attack” claims are getting promoted by media; because ultimately, it’s his responsibility to formulate a response. One can only imagine Secretary Hegseth calling General Grynkewich on behalf of President Trump and asking for some clarity amid the European claims/noise.

(Politico EU) – BRUSSELS — NATO’s top commander has asked allies to share more information about Russian hybrid attacks as the alliance grapples with escalating threats across Europe.

U.S. Gen. Alexus Grynkewich, NATO’s supreme allied commander Europe, has in recent weeks asked allies to provide details of hybrid incidents and their responses to give the alliance a clearer picture of the threats, according to two NATO diplomats and one person familiar with the matter, all of whom were granted anonymity to speak freely about the sensitive issue.

The effort reflects a challenge for NATO: Individual allies often hold different pieces of intelligence about suspected Russian operations, potentially slowing attribution and making it harder for the alliance to map out cross-country hybrid campaigns. (read more)

Read more …

Putin should come out and say: ”We’re not fighting Ukraine. We’re fighting NATO.

• Putin Reacts to Call for Trilateral Negotiations (CTH)

Again yesterday, western media were running articles with soundbites and interpretations from a press conference in St Petersburg, Russia, given by Vladimir Putin. When there are significant consequences within words, it is always the best option to review the source of the words spoken and not the interpretation of them by western media. Below you will find the direct transcription of Putin’s remarks without filtered opinion.


Transcript: Question: Mr President, you said earlier that the trilateral format negotiations of Russia, the United States and Ukraine could resume after the State Duma elections. The elections have concluded. Where and when could a new round of negotiations take place?

President of Russia Vladimir Putin: As is well known, the Ukrainian side broke off the negotiations that were held in Istanbul. But now – or rather, even before the elections, about 10 days or a couple of weeks ago – it declared its readiness to resume these negotiations. Indeed, we said that negotiations are unlikely to be held before the State Duma elections, and that we will be ready to resume these contacts following them.

However, the recent developments are also well known to everyone. On the night of September 20, that is, on the main voting day, a massive strike was launched against Moscow. More than 1,600 drones entered the area near Moscow. This is the first point.

Second. Strikes were carried out on polling stations. In one location, the polling station was located in a school; the school was virtually destroyed by the strike. Attacks began on the residential homes of the chairpersons of territorial election commissions. In one case, the chairperson of a territorial commission, her husband and her child were injured. In another case, it unfortunately resulted in tragedy, and, as you know, the chair of the territorial election commission was killed as her home was the target of the strike.

In addition, as we are currently in St Petersburg, I think everyone remembers the St Petersburg International Economic Forum being held, when the Ukrainian authorities targeted St Petersburg, hitting the so-called coal harbor in the port and setting it on fire. Who did they want to scare, us or our guests? Those who work with Russia are unlikely to be scared of anything or run away. And no one did. We held that forum to the end.

Then, starting in June, they began targeting our oil refineries. As is also well known, in June they announced the start of a forty day operation. Well, this led to certain losses on our part.

In addition, they tried to organize a naval blockade of our Black Sea coast. They damaged over 100 ships, 100 vessels, including both Russian ones and those flying foreign flags. Yes, we have restored all of this. But these are active operations that….

After that, they started targeting civilian facilities such as Wildberries or Ozon storage facilities. What is this? What’s the point? Nevertheless, it has been done.

After that, we started responding to each item. Well, it appears that the retaliatory actions by the Russian Armed Forces have been so sensitive and devastating for the enemy that they are now once again actively raising the issue of a ceasefire across several areas, as they themselves put it: the energy sector (that is, they are now ready to stop attacking our oil refineries), and the air sector (a mutual ceasefire).

In particular, we see that they want us to stop the strikes by Geran drones – modern Gerans – against which, there are no countermeasures or an antidote, at least now, and to lift the blockade of their Black Sea coast. However, they are the ones who started it all. They started it on every single point.

What is this, child’s play? Is this some kind of a children’s game? In other words, they must feel the retaliatory blows from Russia and understand that no provocations and no escalation of the situation will bring about the desired result for them. They are only making the situation worse for themselves.

[..]


Chairman Xi has invited President Putin to attend the APEC summit in Beijing in November. It appears Putin is going. That will put Putin and Trump together at the APEC summit with Xi one month ahead of the G20 in Doral, Miami. Zelenskyy will not be attending the APEC summit. Ukraine is never invited.

That said, despite having no association with the G20 assembly, Zelenskyy has been invited in recent years in some kind of weird political effort to show global support – or something. However, honestly, no-one has ever explained the factual reason for any of Zelenskyy’s summit appearances (G7, G20, NATO etc). Ukraine is not in the EU, Ukraine is not in NATO, and Ukraine is not a large economy.

If President Trump invites Zelenskyy to the G20, it’s worth remembering that President Trump has also invited President Putin to attend the G20 in Miami.

Read more …

“People who celebrate political violence cannot be trusted.”.

• We Need To Talk About Democrats (J.B. Shurk)

Fifteen years ago, a dark movie called We Need to Talk about Kevin told the story of a mother struggling to understand why her sociopathic teenaged son had gone on a murder spree at home and at school. In the same vein, we need to talk about Democrats.


We should have had a national conversation about Democrat violence back in 2017, when an Illinois Democrat and Bernie Sanders supporter attempted to assassinate an entire baseball team of Republican members of the U.S. House and Senate. While the would-be assassin failed to murder anyone before being neutralized, he did manage to shoot four people, including House Majority Whip Steve Scalise, who was one of two critically injured. The mass murder attempt could have easily been much worse. Twenty-four Republican congressmen were on the field that day, and had the Democrat assassin been successful, he would have substantially shifted the balance of power in Congress. It was an unprecedented attack on one of the three branches of the federal government.

Instead of acknowledging the seriousness of Democrat violence, Establishment Republicans and Democrats joined hands and pretended that the assassination attempt was the fault of “both parties.” Former Republican Senator Jeff Flake lectured the country to “tone it down” because “discourse” had “gotten out of hand…on all sides” — which was his way of blaming newly-inaugurated President Trump for saying things that might provoke a Democrat to murder two dozen Republican congressmen.

The shooter had a list of Republican congressmen in his pocket and another list of Republican congressmen in a storage locker. Amazingly, he even asked two Republican members of Congress leaving early that day whether “Republicans or Democrats” were practicing on the baseball field. The would-be assassin had recently written on social media, “Trump is a Traitor. Trump Has Destroyed Our Democracy. It’s Time to Destroy Trump & Co.” The aspiring mass murderer also belonged to Facebook groups named, “Terminate the Republican Party,” and “The Road To Hell Is Paved With Republicans.”

Nevertheless, the FBI refused to ascribe a motive to the shooter and initially designated the attack as “suicide by cop.” Only after significant public outcry did the FBI reclassify the mass assassination attempt as an act of “domestic terrorism” and correctly acknowledge that the Democrat shooter was a “domestic violent extremist” with a “personalized violent ideology.”

The FBI’s ludicrous efforts to cover up the partisan nature of the attack reflected Establishment Washington’s similarly ludicrous framing of the assassination attempt as a natural and justified response to President Trump’s political rhetoric. Unofficially, D.C.’s “ruling class” seemed to be saying that President Trump and his MAGA supporters deserved to be attacked.

In contrast, after the president’s supporters protested the mail-in-ballot-tainted 2020 election at the U.S. Capitol on January 6, 2021, Establishment Washington immediately labeled the incident an “attack” and defamed unarmed Americans as “domestic terrorists,” “seditionists,” and “traitors.” Politicians, FBI and DOJ officials, news media commentators, and even judges preposterously compared Republicans’ protests against election fraud to 9/11’s Islamic terror attacks, Japan’s attack on Pearl Harbor, and a U.S. Civil War that claimed as many as 850,000 lives.

They made these absurd comparisons — unmoored from reason or respect for history — after excusing as “social justice” the widespread violence and property destruction during the previous summer as Democrat-aligned domestic terrorists from Antifa and Black Lives Matter burned down cities, looted stores, left a trail of unsolved homicides, and caused more property damage than any other riot in American history. Establishment D.C.’s double-standard was as revolting as it was shocking.

This double-standard — in which Democrat violence is justified as “protest” or “free speech” while Republican protest is falsely described as “violence” and “terrorism” — surely contributed to every subsequent attack on conservative Americans, including the multiple assassination attempts on President Trump and the successful assassination of Charlie Kirk. There is something incredibly disturbing about Democrats’ current state of mind.

Nearly two years after the World Health Organization declared COVID-19 a pandemic, the Heartland Institute and Rasmussen Reports conducted a statistically significant poll that showed just how much Democrats supported extreme measures against Americans who refused the experimental mRNA “vaccines.” In 2022, fifty-five percent of Democrat voters supported government efforts to fine “unvaccinated” Americans. Fifty-nine percent of Democrats were in favor of confining “unvaccinated” Americans in their homes.

Forty-eight percent of Democrats supported fining and imprisoning Americans “who publicly question the efficacy” of the experimental mRNA “vaccines.” Forty-five percent of Democrats believed that the government should relocate “unvaccinated” Americans to quarantine camps. Forty-seven percent of Democrats thought the government should monitor and track “unvaccinated” Americans. And twenty-nine percent of Democrats wanted the government to remove children from parents who refused the “vaccine.”

A more recent poll reveals just how comfortable Democrats are with violence against those who disagree with them. The ideologically leftist Center for Strategic Politics polled only Democrat voters about how they would “feel” if President Trump were unable to complete his term under five different scenarios. Eighty-seven percent said they would feel “very” or “somewhat positive” if the president were impeached, convicted, and removed from office. Eighty-four percent would feel “very” or “somewhat positive” if Trump’s cabinet declared him unfit and removed him from office. Fifty-five percent would feel “very” or “somewhat positive” if Trump died in his sleep.

Fifty-nine percent would feel “very” or “somewhat positive” — and an additional thirteen percent would have no feelings one way or the other — if a faction of the U.S. military overthrew the president and assumed control over the federal government. Lastly, thirty-two percent would feel “very” or “somewhat positive” — and an additional twenty-five percent would have no feelings about the matter — if President Trump were assassinated. Looking at those last two disturbing possibilities more closely, seventy-two percent of Democrats would be okay with a military coup, and fifty-seven percent of democrats would be okay with a presidential assassination.

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“The suggestion was reportedly made during a meeting on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly..”

• Trump Told Zelensky To Meet With Putin In Moscow – Bloomberg (RT)

US President Donald Trump reportedly urged Ukrainian leader Vladimir Zelensky to travel to Moscow for peace talks with President Vladimir Putin, Bloomberg reports, citing sources close to Zelensky. Russia has said Zelensky can visit Moscow any time. The US president made the suggestion during a meeting with Zelensky on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly this week, the outlet reported. The Ukrainian leader rejected the idea, people familiar with the conversation told Bloomberg, adding that Trump’s proposal “upset him.”


Zelensky was visibly irritated by journalists outside UN headquarters on Wednesday. Pressed about when he might visit Moscow, he replied: “On a f**king missile!”

Earlier this week, Ukraine and 51 of its backers released a statement demanding that Russia accept an “immediate and unconditional ceasefire” so peace talks can begin. Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said Moscow will not halt its military operation, accusing Ukraine’s European sponsors of seeking a pause only “to pump the Kiev regime with weapons.”

Trump recently renewed efforts to resolve the Ukraine conflict. His special envoy, Steve Witkoff, and son-in-law Jared Kushner traveled to Moscow and Kiev earlier this month. Witkoff said afterward that he felt good about the discussions and that the Trump administration hopes diplomacy can bring an end to the conflict. Moscow has said it is ready to settle the Ukraine conflict as long as the root causes are addressed and the realities on the ground are taken into account.

Russia’s demands include Ukraine abandoning its plans to join NATO and adopting a neutral status, accepting restrictions on its military, and formally recognizing Crimea and four other former Ukrainian regions as Russian territory. Crimea voted to join Russia shortly after the 2014 Western-backed coup in Kiev. The regions of Donetsk, Lugansk, Zaporozhye, and Kherson held referendums in September 2022.

Kiev has consistently rejected Moscow’s conditions, insisting on joining NATO and restoring control over all territories that it claims. Zelensky has said, however, that he wants to meet with Putin in person to settle the conflict, even though he legally barred himself from talks with the Russian leader.

Moscow has cited Kiev’s aggressive posture and the hostile position of its European backers as major obstacles to a peace settlement. The Kremlin has nevertheless maintained that it is ready to welcome Zelensky to Moscow if he truly wishes to reach a deal, even though Russia considers him illegitimate, as his presidential term expired more than two years ago and he has not called a new election.

On Wednesday, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov stated that Russia is ready to provide security guarantees to Zelensky if he travels to Moscow.

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“President Lee Jae-myung has accused the Ukrainian leader of breaching a secrecy agreement for a PR stunt..”

• South Korea Slams ‘Callous and Irresponsible’ Zelensky (RT)


South Korean President Lee Jae-myung, Mexico City, Mexico, September 24, 2026

Vladimir Zelensky put his personal interests first when he breached an agreement with Seoul not to disclose the transfer of two North Korean prisoners of war captured in Russia, South Korean President Lee Jae-myung has said. Zelensky touted the arrangement during his speech to the UN General Assembly this week, saying it was “not easy to capture alive” the two soldiers. North Korea deployed troops to assist Russia in repelling a Ukrainian incursion into Russia’s Kursk Region in 2024-2025.


Lee rebuked Zelensky, without naming him, in an X post on Thursday, arguing that statesmen should put national interests first rather than opportunistically seeking to boost their own popularity. The Ukrainian leader demonstrated a “callous and irresponsible attitude [that is] simply unacceptable,” the president wrote, stressing that Seoul and Kiev had agreed to keep the highly sensitive transfer private. South Korean opposition lawmaker Yoo Yong-won, who championed the transfer of North Korean POWs since meeting them in Ukraine last year, told reporters that the two soldiers arrived in the country earlier this week.

He criticized the Lee administration for seeking to keep the agreement with Zelensky secret and said the government “should have taken a more proactive and assertive approach.” The deal was reached sometime in June, he added.= Kiev has long pressured Seoul to provide direct military support for the conflict with Russia, citing North Korea’s involvement in the conflict. Yoo said that, as far as he knew, the delivery of the POWs was not conditioned on South Korea changing its policy of not sending weapons to Ukraine.

South Korea does not formally recognize the government in Pyongyang as legitimate and considers all Koreans citizens of a single nation, regardless of the part of the peninsula where they were born. The two soldiers captured in Russia are said to have expressed the wish to be sent to South Korea. Both were reportedly taken prisoner in January 2025.

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Bill wants attention.

• AI Could ‘Cause A Billion Deaths’ – Bill Gates (RT)

Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates speaks at Caltech’s Beckman Auditorium in Pasadena, California, US, Monday, November 3, 2025. © Getty Images / Hans Gutknecht/MediaNews Group/Los Angeles Daily News Artificial intelligence is powerful enough to cause a billion deaths if used by people with malicious intent, Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates told NBC News’ ‘Meet the Press’ in an interview on Friday.


Governments should not rely on tech companies to police themselves, the billionaire stressed, urging Washington to pass legislation regulating AI development. “AI is certainly powerful enough to drive events that… cause a billion deaths,” he said. “Even though it’s pretty hard to get to 100%, there’s never been a weapon as powerful as the combination of people of ill intent using the latest AI tools.”

Gates’ warning came just days after OpenAI’s Sam Altman and Anthropic’s Dario Amodei renewed calls for stronger government guardrails on the technology following multiple incidents involving AI agents breaking containment in recent months.

Last month, Gates warned that “AI will either be the greatest equalizer ever invented, or the worst source of injustice.” He also argued that the risk of a rogue group using “open source AI tools to design a bioterrorism weapon” is greater than that of “a naturally caused pandemic.” It is not the first time Gates has warned of a looming global epidemic. In a widely viewed 2015 TED talk, he said the world was poorly prepared for the next major pandemic.

His warning drew renewed attention after the Covid-19 pandemic emerged in late 2019. Gates subsequently became a magnet for conspiracy theories because of his prominent role in global public health. His earlier warnings and the Gates Foundation’s involvement in a 2019 pandemic preparedness exercise were incorporated into claims that he had planned the outbreak and intended to profit from vaccines.

His earlier remarks linking vaccines and health care to slower population growth also drew controversy. In a 2010 TED talk, Gates said the world’s population was heading from 6.8 billion toward 9 billion before adding: “Now, if we do a really great job on new vaccines, health care, reproductive health services, we could lower that by, perhaps, 10% or 15%.”

Gates has dismissed vaccine- and pandemic-related accusations against him as “crazy” and “evil.”The billionaire’s ties to late sex offender Jeffrey Epstein have also fueled public scrutiny and conspiracy theories, although Gates has repeatedly said that meeting Epstein was a mistake and denied any improper relationship with him.

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“UK’s Burnham Moves Toward Authoritarian Rule, and That Means Trouble for the U.S…”

In Europe, it’s Burnham vs Weidel and Le Pen.

• UK’s Burnham Moves Toward Authoritarian Rule (Robert Spencer)

Here we go again: leftists have shown us again and again that they hate dissent and debate, which are the foundations of any free society. Now the U.K. is heading decisively toward authoritarianism as its crazy-left prime minister, Andy Burnham, has just announced that he plans to establish a “National Centre for Information Defence” in order to fight — you guessed it — “disinformation.”


The “National Centre for Information Defence“ is a canny name. It beats Old Joe Biden’s abortive “Disinformation Governance Board” in couching the whole totalitarian move as “defense” (as we spell it in the land of the free and the home of the brave) rather than “governance.” This is intended to give Burnham’s hapless citizenry the impression that what’s being done to them is not more control from the ruling elites, but protection from the evil machinations of deceivers.

Yeah, Andy, the Mafia offered protection, too. Anyway, GB News reported Wednesday that Burnham, “the Prime Minister, addressing the United Nations, announced the centre to improve ‘community cohesion’ and prevent a ‘distorted and untrue narrative about Britain.’” As a result, Burnham “ordered security chiefs to set up the quango, which will detect, attribute and disrupt ‘hostile information attacks’ and ‘deepfakes’ which hurt British interests.”

A “quango” is an organization that receives government financing but is ostensibly an independent group. And we all know that the far-left British government will stay fastidiously out of the affairs of an organization that is charged with stamping out “hostile information attacks” that supposedly “hurt British interests,” now, don’t we? GB News explained that this new National Centre for Information Defence “is initially being led out of the Office for the Prime Minister and Cabinet, with the new centre working alongside intelligence agencies, Government departments, the police and social media firms.”

What could possibly go wrong, with all those agencies that have nothing but the best interests of the British people at heart running this new center? Surely it will only censor genuine disinformation, and not what the political elites falsely claim is disinformation because it could harm them politically, a la Hunter Biden’s laptop, right?

Burnham insisted that this censorship agency was necessary because there was no “national security without a strong, cohesive society. That’s the starting point for everything we hold dear and everything we want to achieve. But the fact is that it has been under attack.” From whom? Russia was the only attacker he focused upon, but once this monster is up and running, what is to prevent the Labour government from using it against the British patriots it smears as “far right”? Why, nothing, of course.

Burnham claimed that Russia was leading an “industrial-scale assault by hostile actors on the information environment.” He asserted that the Russians were using “every means at their disposal to spread lies and disinformation and prey on people’s fears.” The left is big on stamping out “fear.” They are, after all, relentless crusaders (jihadis?) against “Islamophobia.” They insist that patriots consistently exaggerate the threats of jihad, Sharia, open borders and more in order to exploit people’s “fears.” And so it’s no surprise that British leftists would want a government organ they can use to fight “fear,” by which they mean opposition to their agenda.

“They’ve used bots and fake websites,” Burnham thundered on. “Falsified newspaper articles and forged the branding of 28 British organisations – including universities and the BBC. They’ve amplified far right narratives. And we have evidence that they tried to interfere with the 2019 General Election.” There you go: they’ve “amplified far right narratives.” And the Conservatives won the 2019 election, so it’s all right to suspect that it was stolen; if anyone suggested that about the 2024 election, which Labour won in a landslide, Burnham and his comrades would react much the way Democrats do at the suggestion that the 2020 presidential election was stolen.

Burnham said that Russia was trying to “stoke tensions and unrest in the wake of horrific events,” and termed what they were doing “repulsive.” No, Mr. Prime Minister. Whatever the Russians may or may not really be doing, what is genuinely repulsive is your attempt to destroy the freedom of speech in one of the lands where it came to its first flowering, and bring Britain’s days as a free society to an end.

Future generations of free Britons, if there are any, will know very well who was really the repulsive one here. But make no mistake: if Burnham manages to pull this off, the U.S. will be next.

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It’s a warning for all European countries too.

• Britain’s Muslim Migration Crisis Is a Warning for America (Robert B. Bluey)

When Nick Freitas walks down a city street in the opening scene of his new documentary, recounting his days as a Green Beret, most viewers might think he’s somewhere in the Muslim world. I certainly did. He’s in Britain. And the transformation he documents there, driven by decades of mass Muslim migration and a political class unwilling to demand assimilation, is one Americans ignore at their peril.


Freitas, a former member of the Virginia House of Delegates, joined me on “Midterm Report” to discuss “The Immigration Crisis That Will Destroy the West,” a film he made with The Heritage Foundation and The Blaze. It features Heritage experts Mike Gonzalez, Nile Gardiner, and Lora Ries. Asked how a nation is demoralized and destabilized, Freitas has a simple answer.“In the simplest terms, you give it an identity crisis,” he told me. “And I think we’re suffering that in the West in general, and we’re starting to see it become a significant problem in the United States.”

A Clash of Worldviews
Freitas embarked on the project because he cares deeply about his own country’s future. He decided to visit Britain given its shared heritage with the United States. In the United Kingdom, mass migration from Muslim countries has tested the country’s traditions and reshaped its culture. “I’m not talking about differences in dress or festivals or food,” Freitas said. “I’m talking about diametrically opposed views on the fundamental components of what builds a high-trust society.”

Those components, he explained, are political, social, theological, and economic. When migrants arrive with “no genuine interest in assimilating,” he warned, the result is “ultimately destructive.” Nowhere is that clearer than in Britain’s grooming gang scandal, the film’s most heart-wrenching segment. Freitas said the overwhelming majority of the men who organized the abuse were Pakistani. Yet British police were reluctant to pursue them because they feared being called Islamophobic.“That should just absolutely baffle us,” Freitas said. “But on the other side, we should start to recognize how far America has gone down this path.”

What Americans Can Do
In its promotion of the film, Heritage is blunt about the stakes: What mass Islamic immigration did to Britain could happen here if Americans don’t act now. Freitas said America can change course, and he believes it starts close to home. His advice: Vote in primaries, where he estimates only 7% to 8% of voters participate. And parents shouldn’t assume their local public school reflects their values, even in a conservative community with good teachers.

“The teachers don’t select the curriculum,” he said. Instead, Freitas urges parents to teach their kids the real history of the United States, ensuring they pass that inheritance to the next generation. That, he said, is the surest way our country doesn’t follow the Britain’s path.

Virginia’s Choice
As a former Virginia delegate who spent 10 years in the General Assembly, Freitas is closely watching this year’s midterm elections.Early voting began Sept. 18 and will continue through Election Day on Nov. 3. Virginia voters will decide the fate of three constitutional amendments after they received approval in two consecutive sessions of the General Assembly, as required under state law.

Question 1 would amend Virginia’s constitution to expand abortion access throughout pregnancy and eliminate the need for parental consent. Question 2 would replace the current constitutional definition of marriage as the union of one man and one woman with language guaranteeing the right of two adults to marry regardless of sex. Question 3 would restore voting rights for felons.

Freitas urged a “no” vote on all three constitutional amendments. “The Left feels no obligation to be open and honest about what they’re trying to do,” Freitas said. Freitas warned about the long-term consequences for Virginians if the amendments pass, equating it to what’s already happened in Britain. “

They selectively enforce the law,” he said, warning that Democrats would go after Christian pastors while leaving mosques and imams alone. “That’s what they do all the time.” He added, “This is a question of whether or not they are eventually going to be able to sue you as a Christian pastor because you don’t want to sanctify a gay marriage.” The film’s message ultimately comes down to Freitas’ plea to value “the truth over comfort.” Britain didn’t. America still can.

You can watch the full documentary below.

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