communism Archives - The Automatic Earth

🔥🇺🇸 BOOM!!! OFFICIAL WHITE HOUSE STATEMENT: 10-Year Betrayal EXPOSED – Karoline Leavitt Confirms Obama Tried to Take Down Trump – IT WAS A COUP [VIDEO]

🔥🇺🇸 In a historic White House statement, Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt exposes Barack Obama and top officials in a… pic.twitter.com/KoN6L0J6QA
— Trust In Trump (@Trustintrump47) July 18, 2026

https://twitter.com/EricLDaugh/status/2078561590534603152?s=20 https://twitter.com/Real_RobN/status/2078545569212244071?s=20

The US should know who they’re fighting: the Revolutionary Guard or the ayatollahs.

• US-Iran Tit-For-Tat Spirals Towards Broader Conflict (ZH)

The escalation pathway in the renewed tit-for-tat conflict between the US and Iran is becoming increasingly alarming and has been underway for eight days. US forces reportedly struck Qeshm Island and the southern Iranian cities of Shadegan, Sirik and Hajiabad, while Tehran retaliated with drone and missile attacks targeting US bases and critical infrastructure across Kuwait, Qatar and Bahrain, according to Bloomberg, citing Iranian state media.

The latest escalation could open the door for Israel to rejoin the fight. Itamar Ben Gvir, an Israeli security cabinet minister, told listeners on Israeli radio that he hoped President Trump would strike Iran hard. Iran’s latest attacks moved beyond military targets to now civilian infrastructure, which has been troubling. Kuwaiti Ministry of Electricity warned earlier today that its power and desalination plants have come under attack for the second straight day by Iranian projectiles.
https://twitter.com/AJENews/status/2078806014715961755?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E2078806014715961755%7Ctwgr%5Ecb83079d195ed7b47d046250b9140292c8d21e46%7Ctwcon%5Es1_c10&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.zerohedge.com%2Fgeopolitical%2Fus-iran-tit-tat-spirals-towards-broader-conflict
US Central Command described the latest US strikes as seeking to reduce Tehran’s offensive capabilities on the Strait of Hormuz that threaten commercial shipping and “swiftly punish” Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps forces behind the Jordan attack that killed two US soldiers and left another missing in action.

U.S. forces pound Iran for the eighth straight night as CENTCOM releases new footage following Iranian missile and drone attacks on a U.S. base in Jordan that killed two U.S. service members. A third remains missing.

CENTCOM says forces "successfully hit Iranian military coastal… pic.twitter.com/0jc8TZBzdo
— Fox News (@FoxNews) July 19, 2026

By now, the interim ceasefire deal signed by the US and Iran is in flames, as US forces have renewed their blockade of Iranian ports and the Trump team has tightened sanctions on Tehran’s oil exports…

“.. and then go home and say to our allies Iran is now mostly inert. They have no air force. You in the Gulf, you have 600 combat frontline aircraft. You have missiles. You have missile defense. ..”

• Trump Has Just Weeks Left to Finish the Iran Conflict (Victor Davis Hanson)

We’re approaching 140 days since we first attacked Iran on Feb. 28 of this year. And we only really had … people call this a war, but it’s basically 40 days of actual bombing, tit for tat, followed by 100 days of negotiations interspliced with some tit-for-tat exchanges of missiles and drones. But for the most part, we have negotiated. Now, we know the strategy of both sides. The strategy of our president was he wanted to stay in power, meaning he wanted to have control of Congress. Otherwise, his initiatives and agenda will be ossified if the Democrats take over the House. They will impeach him if they take over the House, and he’s protected against conviction by running the Senate.

But if he should lose the House or Senate, in other words, if things would blow up, he would be in deep trouble. So, his point was always to make sure that Iran did not have the ability to produce a nuclear weapon and did not have the ability to launch missiles all over the Gulf and did not have the ability to close the Strait of Hormuz. But the negotiations interrupted that cycle in which Iran also had a strategy, and their strategy was, “If we can drag this conflict out and punctuate it with missile launches and ride out the retaliations, which would be proportional or symmetric, we can run the clock out all the way to the midterms.
“If we do, the Democrats will take over the House of Representatives, and maybe they will not allot money to continue Trump’s war. And more importantly, maybe this will be the start of a new government in 2028, and we’ll be home free as we were with [Joe] Biden and [Barack] Obama.” So, that was their strategy: Drag it out, drag it out. Who won? Well, we’ll see about the denouement, but for now, Iran has been able to survive because we stopped full-scale fighting almost 100 days ago, and these tit-for-tats have been ineffectual in the sense they have not stopped the missile barrages to the Gulf states, and they have not given us control over the Strait of Hormuz, and we do not have control of the enriched uranium.
So, where are we now? We still have the same pressures on Donald Trump. We’ve got less than four months now until the midterms, but the economic news has been surprisingly good. Inflation, at a per-month rate, is at a historical low almost, and unemployment is about 4.2. GDP is strong at 2.3, 2.4. The stock market is high. The full effect of tax cuts and greater energy production and deregulation are starting to be felt, along with foreign investment. So, Trump thinks that, along with the redistricting and the Supreme Court ruling on gerrymandering, he might have a chance to upset the historical reality that 39 of the last 41 midterms have gone to the out party. So, he still thinks he has a chance, and he still wants to conclude operations and go home, and the Iranians know that.
So, where are we now? I think we can see what he’s doing. The last four days he’s had very, very strong strikes. Some of his critics have said on the right, “Well, you’re hitting all of these dock works and these small mosquito fleets and the fuel for missiles. “Why didn’t we do that earlier?” Well, we didn’t do it earlier because we were negotiating and we were measured and proportionate. And to deal with the Iranians now, you have to be unmeasured and disproportionate.
So, what we are seeing now is a full-scale effort to destroy all of their military abilities. And that would mean going to the factories, the industrial complex that makes these missiles, find where their launchers are, find their drone fields, clear the corridor near the strait of all of their anti-aircraft ability, their missiles, their drones, and their small fleet of vestigial boats that they use to mine the strait and attack tankers. Clear it all out. Do this for a week or two weeks and then stop and see if they want to concede. If they do not want to concede, then I think you would have another week of dual-use targeting.
And that would mean they were going to bring in the B-2s and hit Pickaxe Mountain, seal the areas under suspicion of harboring enriched uranium, hit the bridges, hit some of the power grid, and then go home and say to our allies Iran is now mostly inert. They have no air force. You in the Gulf, you have 600 combat frontline aircraft. You have missiles. You have missile defense. You can defend yourself from an inert Iran. You Europeans, Japanese, South Koreans, Taiwanese, you all want to use the Strait. We don’t. But we’ve cleaned it out now, and all you have to do is send a couple of vessels each.
And under our leadership, we always have forces in the Persian Gulf. We have frigates. We have a carrier that rotates in and out. We will help you organize the ability and the willpower to keep the Strait open.

“.. the Scandinavian socialism myth is so enticing that I expect Scandinavians must wonder where they can also find it.”

• The DSA and the Myth of Scandinavian Socialism (Turley)

In 2015, the Danish Prime Minister Lars Rasmussen observed, “I know that some people in the U.S. associate the Nordic model with some sort of socialism. Therefore, I would like to make one thing clear. Denmark is far from a socialist planned economy. Denmark is a market economy. Likewise, Social Democratic Minister of Finance Kjell Olof Feldt stated: “That whole thing with democratic socialism was absolutely impossible. It just didn’t work.”

As I discuss, these countries are not only committed to capitalism but also ranked among the most free-market economies in the world. These countries are also very different from the United States: “When socialism was tried in larger nations in Europe, such as France under FranAois Mitterrand, it failed, and capitalist measures had to be restored. In 2025, the populations of Denmark, Sweden, and Norway are approximately 5.9 million, 10.6 million, and 5.6 million smaller than many American states. “
The DSA and the American left, including many in the media, continue to sell the public a bill of goods on the success of Scandinavian socialism. Ironically, it is the type of disinformation that the left often cites to justify greater censorship. Despite denials from these very countries, socialists in the United States continue to spread this false claim that there is a socialist paradise over the ocean where collectivists labor in picturesque Nordic fishing villages.
The promulgation of such myths is a central feature of Marxism. Lenin stressed that “we must not confine ourselves exclusively to propaganda in the narrow sense of the word.” Stalin likewise warned that “If our Party propaganda for some reason or other goes lame…then our entire state and Party work must inevitably languish.”
The fact is that socialism has repeatedly failed throughout history. The only way to get a people to embrace it is to rewrite that history. That is precisely what we see not only in the United States, but in the recent claims of incoming British Prime Minister Andy Burnham, who condemned the privatization policies of Margaret Thatcher: “The country surrendered control of the essentials — housing, water, energy, transport — and left people exposed to higher costs.” What he does not mention is that she followed the collapse of socialist policies under Labour Prime Minister James Callaghan in 1977–78 during the so-called “winter of discontent,” which I also discuss in the book.
Chevalier is a true believer who has praised Marxism and the concept of “seizing the means of production.” She won her primary despite comments bragging about her using the American flag to wipe her hands and criticizing the dating of white women as Black and Arab men “Fetishizing ugly colonizer women.”
Given that history, the adoption of the Scandinavian socialism myth is par for the course. Like Zohran Mamdani, she is rallying young, disillusioned, college-educated voters who are told that their struggles stem from the failures of the free market. Instead, they are offered free stuff and the illusion of an economic nirvana where lattes and Pilates are virtually costless.
Indeed, the Scandinavian socialism myth is so enticing that I expect Scandinavians must wonder where they can also find it.

“Martha MacCallum Interviews DSA Co-Chairman Gustavo Gordillo …”

• DSA Using Vehicle of Democrat Party to Install Communist Government (CTH)

This is a very alarming conversation to be taking place in modern America. Alas, all things political have devolved into this current stage where Communism is represented by young voters as the preferred manner of government. Democrat Socialists of America (DSA) Co-Chair Gustavo Gordillo, having previously outlined that attachment to the Democrat party is only purposeful as a vehicle to gain political power, discusses the end game of DSA for installing communism within the United States. The DSA platform is disturbing, but generally in alignment with the Bernie Sanders and AOC model.

(1) Eliminate the United States Senate as a legislative body. (2) The House of Representatives then selects the President and Supreme Court justices. (3) All illegal aliens are given citizenship and amnesty. (4) All border enforcement is halted; there are no more USA boundaries. (5) The Dept of War (Defense) is dissolved completely. (6) The government, now controlled by the House of Representatives, determines who can have wealth – and how much. (7) Climate Change is the legislative priority – no more fossil fuel use.
Gustavo Gordillo’s family fled Peru due to a communist revolution. In the video below Martha MacCallum challenges DSA Chair Gordillo to explain how the DSA platform is expected to work. Gordillo explains the immediate DSA demand to control housing (govt), control food distribution (grocery stores), give free daycare for children, and create affordability for lower income citizens/aliens by taking the wealth from the high-income earners and giving the wealth to the lower income group.

“White DSA Member Inadvertently Exposes Socialist Playbook: “Secret Nazis” Are Fine If They Advance Agenda.”

• Socialist Playbook: “Secret Nazis” Are Fine If They Advance Agenda (ZH)

Far-left podcaster and Democratic Socialists of America member Emma Vigeland appeared to inadvertently expose the far-left movement’s ends-justify-the-means political calculus: Even a “secret Nazi” would be acceptable if the candidate advanced a national socialist agenda. Vigeland, a former field reporter, producer, and commentator for The Young Turks and identified as a DSA member, also co-hosts The Majority Report with Sam Seder. She explained on a separate Vox podcast that she doesn’t care if a progressive or socialist candidate has “Nazi” skeletons in their closet.

“I am wary of over-focusing on an individual’s personal character over their platform. You know, I’ve said this before. I don’t really care if say like Bernie Sanders or AOC go home and they’re a secret Nazi, but they go out and they vote for the right things. Like we’re talking about politician,” the DSA member said earlier this month.Vox host Astead Herndon was astonished by Vigeland’s remarks, and asked: “You don’t care?”

DSA's Emma Vigeland says she “doesn’t care” if the candidates she supports are "secret Nazis" as long as they vote for their extremist agenda. pic.twitter.com/ukjBuKvGgW
— Canary Mission (@canarymission) July 16, 2026

Why is anyone surprised anymore? This comes after the political collapse of DSA’s Graham Platner, who had a large “Totenkopf” tattoo- a symbol associated with the Nazi SS.
https://twitter.com/RyanSaavedra/status/1980745151393001747?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1980745151393001747%7Ctwgr%5E9d6d4d943d47f4bb4542c0c3e819119dfabdbbea%7Ctwcon%5Es1_c10&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.zerohedge.com%2Fpolitical%2Fwhite-dsa-member-inadvertently-exposes-socialist-playbook-secret-nazis-are-fine-if-they
What the internet had to say:

I'm confused. Who are the nazis? Is it the MAGA? or is it the DSA? The nazis were "National Socialists" that was the name. So the DSA are the nazis, right?
— Igg-norancesbliss (@IgnatzDeZoobnar) July 16, 2026
[..] DSA’s nation-killing agenda to collapse America:

The DSA is such a liability for the Democratic Party that a prominent Bill Clinton insider took the time to write up a Wall Street Journal op-ed that said: “Lawmakers, law-enforcement agencies and journalists should investigate the DSA to see if it is being funded by foreign governments and interests.”

“.. the communist centimillionaire and heir to the Cox media fortune..”

• The “New Soros” Whose Street Cred Could Rise If Spain Blocks Extradition (ZH)

The federal government is well underway with a multiagency and multinational effort to combat the alarming rise of far-left revolutionaries. This was most evident on Thursday, when Secretary of State Marco Rubio addressed delegations from 65 countries. Meanwhile, Jim “Fergie” Chambers, the communist centimillionaire and heir to the Cox media fortune, is apparently “one step closer to extradition” on federal charges linked to “international money laundering… with the intent to provide material support and resources to foreign terrorist organizations.”

Chambers is a major funder of America’s radical Left and has been described by pro-Palestinian activist Laith Marouf as “the new Soros.” Marouf warned that Chambers could gain significantly more influence and “street cred” if Spain refuses to extradite him to the U.S. City Journal investigative analyst Stu Smith provided additional color on Marouf’s recent conversation, offering readers a clearer view of the major financiers and influence networks operating across the radical Left:

As left-wing activists demand “Freedom for Fergie,” Laith Marouf is refusing to join them. Marouf says he opposes Chambers’s extradition to the United States but warns that an unsuccessful prosecution could merely give the multimillionaire more “street cred.” Citing conversations he claims to have had with current and former intelligence agents, including Syrian and Spanish sources, Marouf alleges that Chambers has been positioned as “the new Soros” and is using his fortune to capture radical English-language media around the world. “He basically bought all the landscape of progressive media and is funding all of them,” Marouf said, alleging that Chambers’s donations allow him to influence those outlets’ political positions.
Marouf also accused Chambers of threatening his life and attempting to destroy his reputation. He said he does not wish imprisonment or death on Chambers, but he will not join those demanding his release. “I will sit on the side as an observer, watching the game of the American white elite beating each other up.” Marouf argues that Chambers is using inherited “blood money” to purchase credibility within the Palestine movement. “No, I don’t want Palestine in his mouth,” he said. “I don’t want Palestine to be associated with Fergie Cox.”
The broader Left has largely rallied behind Chambers, leaving Marouf as a rare dissenting voice. His definition of “progressive media” is unclear, but his broader warning about Chambers buying influence across the radical English-language media sphere rings true. And if Spain refuses extradition, Marouf may be right that the ordeal will only give Chambers more “street cred.”
https://twitter.com/thestustustudio/status/2077744491776102460?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E2077744491776102460%7Ctwgr%5E89719d8257eb651d0ca597f094364650d04c681b%7Ctwcon%5Es1_c10&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.zerohedge.com%2Fpolitical%2Fmeet-new-soros-whose-street-cred-could-rise-if-spain-blocks-extradition
Smith has previously noted, “Chambers is one of the main funders of America’s radical Left. His money has flowed to a host of projects in the ‘anti-imperialism’ organizing space,” adding, “Chambers claims that he and Singham are effectively the two primary financiers of the US radical Left.” Despite this, the two have apparently been at loggerheads—a conflict that has now gone public.”
https://twitter.com/thestustustudio/status/2059018248478146896?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E2059018248478146896%7Ctwgr%5E89719d8257eb651d0ca597f094364650d04c681b%7Ctwcon%5Es1_c10&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.zerohedge.com%2Fpolitical%2Fmeet-new-soros-whose-street-cred-could-rise-if-spain-blocks-extradition
Following Rubio’s “Ministerial on the Resurgence of Political Terrorism” at the State Department on Thursday, where he addressed delegations from 65 countries on combating far-left extremism, the signal is clear: The Trump administration is positioning for a broader fight against transnational Marxist revolutionary networks, reminiscent of the Western counter-subversion campaigns waged seven decades ago.

You’d almost wish he tried. But in realty, it’s just about scoring cheap points.

• UN Ambassador Throws Cold Water on Mamdani’s Plan to Arrest Netanyahu (Margolis)

New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani wants everyone to believe he’s holding all the legal cards this September, threatening to have the NYPD slap handcuffs on Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu the moment he sets foot in Manhattan. The problem is that he can’t. U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Mike Waltz wasted no time shredding Mamdani’s threat, making clear the mayor has no power to detain a foreign head of government protected under longstanding international agreements. “Mayor Mamdani. Here’s why your threat to arrest Prime Minister Netanyahu in New York City during UN General Assembly is not going to happen,” Waltz said.

Waltz then walked through exactly why Mamdani’s fantasy falls apart. “The United States is not party to the Rome Statute that underlies the International Criminal Court. The UN Headquarters Agreement grants diplomatic protections to visiting heads of government. Head-of-state immunity applies, and federal authority trumps any local mayor’s wishes,” he said. So, contrary to Mamdani’s ego and rabid antisemitism, a big-city mayor doesn’t get to override federal law, international treaties, and diplomatic immunity because he dislikes a foreign leader’s foreign policy.
Netanyahu is expected to visit New York in early September for the UN General Assembly, and Israeli officials are just as unimpressed with Mamdani’s posturing as their American counterparts. Israel’s Ambassador to the United Nations, Danny Danon, turned the tables on Mamdani entirely. “If anyone should be arrested, it is New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani,” Danon said. Danon didn’t stop there, accusing Mamdani of abandoning his actual job to chase headlines at Israel’s expense. “Mamdani is failing to govern New York. Instead of focusing on his responsibilities as mayor and confronting the rising wave of antisemitism in his city, he has chosen to incite hostility and generate headlines by attacking the State of Israel,” Danon said.
Danon made clear none of Mamdani’s chest-thumping changes anything. “It will not change a thing. Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu will come to New York, address the United Nations General Assembly with pride and stand before the world to state Israel’s truth and its unwavering right to defend its citizens,” he said. Mamdani isn’t backing down, even though he admits he might not have the authority to do what he’s promising. He told The New York Times his administration is still examining whether New York City has any legal basis to detain Netanyahu at all.
“I believe that Prime Minister Netanyahu belongs in The Hague,” Mamdani said, echoing the same talking point he leaned on throughout his mayoral campaign. He went further, calling Netanyahu “a war criminal who has been charged by the International Criminal Court,” and claiming that view is shared by “many, purely because of what his actions have wrought over these last many years.” Mamdani admitted he doesn’t actually know if he can order the NYPD to arrest a foreign head of government, saying he’s “in an active conversation” with the city’s Law Department. He insisted, though, that he wouldn’t invent new legal authority out of thin air. “Whatever the law allows me to do in New York City, that’s what we will do, but we won’t be writing our own laws to that end,” Mamdani said.
How noble of him. Netanyahu has brushed off Mamdani’s threats before and shown no sign of altering his travel plans. He’s also accused Mamdani of siding with Hamas, the terrorist group whose October 7, 2023, massacre in Israel started the war Mamdani keeps invoking to justify his crusade.

He doesn’t have to.

“A decade ago, he’d have been a lousy fit to carry Trump’s coalition forward. Today, he fits the part.”

• Is Trump Grooming Marco Rubio As His Successor? (Eric Florack)

I’ve been watching the relationship between President Donald Trump and Secretary of State Marco Rubio lately, mostly due to a long string of commentary, both in my feeds and in my mailbox. Several people in recent days have started asking the same question: Is Trump grooming Rubio as his successor? My hip-shot response would be: Meh…. I wouldn’t object if that was the case. Rubio certainly seems a credible candidate. But, let me say up front—I have my doubts that’s a conscious choice on Trump’s part. But I get why people are asking. Let’s dive in.

Here’s the thing: this examination says as much about Trump’s leadership style as it does about Rubio. And Trump’s leadership style calls to mind a line from General George S. Patton: “Never tell people how to do things. Tell them what to do, and they will surprise you with their ingenuity.” It seems to me that Trump sings harmony with Patton on that one. Unlike most presidents, he doesn’t micromanage. Instead, he:
• Sets broad objectives — “secure the border,” “get a better trade deal,” “end this war” — and skips the tactical playbook.
• Hands trusted advisers real latitude to execute.
• Obsesses over outcomes and how they play in public.
• Steps in personally only when something becomes politically or personally important to him.
Former Cabinet officials and aides tell the same story: Trump wants competing viewpoints on the table, picks a lane from the choices given, and then expects his team to drive in it. He’s not the guy poring over hundred-page policy memos or running agencies from the weeds. Never has been. So let’s look at what’s actually going on between Trump and Rubio. A few things stand out:
• Rubio’s portfolio keeps growing. As secretary of State, he’s literally everywhere on foreign policy, and Trump keeps handing him the delicate diplomatic assignments nobody else gets. Give someone enough rope, and people start measuring him for a crown.
• The relationship has thawed considerably. Remember 2016? Trump spent that primary calling him “Little Marco” and making it personal. Fast forward to today, and the two have built something that actually works. Trump praises Rubio’s performance far more than he knocks it — that, alone, is a genuine rarity in Trump World.
• Rubio has evolved. He’s shed the establishment-conservative label and rebuilt himself as an America First guy on immigration, China, trade, and national security. A decade ago, he’d have been a lousy fit to carry Trump’s coalition forward. Today, he fits the part.
• The succession question isn’t going away for at least a year and a half. Trump can’t run again; the Constitution says so, which means Republicans are already scanning the bench for an heir. Any Cabinet member with a high enough profile gets viewed through that lens whether they like it or not. Certainly Rubio qualifies on that point.
All of that said—I’m still skeptical this is a deliberate succession play on Trump’s part, at least not yet. Is it possible that Trump’s quietly positioning Rubio? Sure. The evidence fits that story just fine. Give a guy the State Department, hand him the hard diplomatic assignments, praise him publicly more than you criticize him — do that long enough, and of course people start drawing a line from Point A to Point B labeled “heir apparent.”
But here’s what that theory conveniently ignores: Trump doesn’t tend to groom people. He uses their abilities toward his own policy ends. He never has cared much for legacy-building or dynasty-planning — the man barely plans past next week’s news cycle, let alone the 2028 primary. To my mind, what actually explains the Rubio relationship is far less cinematic than a “Lion in Winter” style succession plot. In Rubio, Trump has found someone competent, someone who executes without whining, someone who doesn’t leak to the Washington Post the moment his feelings get hurt. That’s it. That’s the whole story. In Trump World, that alone is enough to earn a guy the keys to half the foreign policy apparatus.
And there’s a simpler explanation still sitting on the table, one nobody seems to want to entertain: maybe Trump just hasn’t decided. Maybe, indeed, probably, he doesn’t see the need to. After all, presidents aren’t obligated to anoint a successor, and Trump in particular has never operated on anyone’s timetable but his own. The trust he’s placed in Rubio could, down the road, calcify into something more deliberate — a real endorsement, a real torch-passing. But “could eventually” isn’t “is now.” Until Trump says the word himself, or until Rubio starts acting like a man measuring the Oval Office drapes, the rest of us are just reading tea leaves and calling it political science.
I’ll believe the succession theory when I see it. Right now, all I see is a president who found a guy who gets the job done. To the degree that qualifies Rubio for being the next POTUS, well, that stands on its own. Trump seems willing to allow the primary process to work that one out.

“The army is becoming increasingly ineffective as it suppresses initiative and downplays failures, Sergey Sobko has warned”.

• Ukraine Could Suffer Military Defeat – Senior Commander (RT)

Ukraine could suffer defeat in the conflict with Russia, as the military command structure is growing increasingly rigid and ineffective, Brigadier General Sergey Sobko warns. His remarks were echoed earlier by former Defense Minister Mikhail Fedorov, who was controversially relieved of his post by Ukrainian leader Vladimir Zelensky earlier this week – which triggered mass protests across Ukraine. In a post on Facebook on Friday, Sobko, the chief of staff of the 11th Army Corps, wrote that the Ukrainian military is in urgent need of reform, “otherwise we may be defeated.”

“Professional discussion is often perceived as disloyalty, and initiative as a threat,” he said, adding that this tendency has discouraged commanders from “taking risks for the sake of success.” Sobko also suggested that commanders are being promoted based on “personal loyalty” to their superiors, as opposed to competence and professionalism. He also called out what he described as a growing trend within the Ukrainian military toward micromanagement and downplaying failures in reports.
Sobko’s criticisms echo those made by former defense chief Fedorov. In the wake of his dismissal earlier this week, the 35-year-old technocrat confirmed that he was at loggerheads with Ukraine’s top military commander, Aleksandr Syrsky, whom he accused of blocking his efforts to modernize the army and make it more technology-oriented. At a press conference on Thursday, the former minister said, “we faced a complete blockage of all our initiatives.” He also claimed that Syrsky made an ultimatum to Zelensky, demanding that Fedorov be removed from office.
On Friday, the Financial Times, citing anonymous sources, also reported that Fedorov’s push to make corruption-plagued procurement procedures in the defense sector more transparent did not sit well with the top brass either. The firing of the defense minister, which came as part of a broader government reshuffle, has sparked protests in Kiev and other Ukrainian cities. Apart from demands that the defense chief be reinstated, some demonstrators have also called for Syrsky’s dismissal. The FT quoted an unnamed senior Ukrainian defense official as saying,
“Syrsky hasn’t got a sense of how he’s going to win,” and that his “theory of victory is simply to hold out as long as you can and mobilize more people.” In a separate piece on Saturday, the FT, citing an anonymous senior official in Zelensky’s administration, claimed that the Ukrainian leader is considering firing Syrsky. According to the outlet, Zelensky is consulting military commanders over the weekend, looking for a potential replacement. Over the course of the conflict, Syrsky has earned the nickname ‘the Butcher’ for his perceived willingness to disregard heavy casualties.

PCR doesn’t move.

• Both Russia and Iran Are At War, and Neither Knows It (Paul Craig Roberts)

Russia is at war with Washington and Europe, a war that has vastly widened, but Putin thinks Russia is engaged in a Special Military Operation confined to the battlefront in Donbas. Iran is at war, an existential war, with Satanic Israel, but the Iranian leadership thinks they are responding to an American “illegal military intervention.” All of Iran’s invective, threats, and vows are directed at Satanic America. Not a word about Satanic Israel, the cause of the conflict. America is just Israel’s proxy, as Ukraine is the West’s proxy against Russia. As neither Russia nor Iran understand that they are engaged in existential wars, neither has a war plan to achieve victory.

Iran’s policy is to inconvenience the American empire with an oil shortage and vows to escalate Iran’s tits to America’s tats. Russia’s policy is called TiT–Trust in Trump. John Helmer reports that the instructed Russian media and foreign policy analysts, who I suspect are financed by oligarchs, believe what they have invented as “the Anchorage spirit” has “given Russia a lot” by removing the US from direct participation in the conflict.
The implied hopes are in vain. What Trump has done is to turn over to Europe the arming of Ukraine with high-tech drones made in Germany that Ukraine, with US guidance and targeting information, is using to severely impact Russian oil production and refining, and to target and kill Russian civilians. Thus, the West has taken the war home to Russia. Currently, there is severe gasoline rationing in Crimea and long lines in some other Russian locations, and currently according to reports Russia is importing gasoline and diesel fuel from India. As for “trusting in Trump,” there are reports that Trump is considering allowing Zelensky to produce the US Patriot and Tomahawk missiles in Ukraine to provide more long-range weapons for strikes deep into Russia.
Russians have fled their summer holiday in Crimea where drone attacks are an everyday occurrence. St. Petersburg was under attack during the recent international meeting in the city, and Moscow’s mayor just reported that Ukraine, a.k.a., the West, launched 1,900 drones targeting Moscow in the past week. Russia is having to use its munitions to protect its capital, not to attack the enemy.
Putin, who insists that the conflict is limited to Donbas, refers to the increasingly successful attacks deep inside Russia as “terrorist actions.” Thus, Putin refuses to acknowledge them as acts of war, which relieves him of responsibility to do what Russian war doctrine requires. For example, Russian war doctrine at a minimum requires Russia to destroy the site of the German production of drones for Ukraine. In actually, Russian war doctrine requires a devastating nuclear attack on the United States. But as Washington knows that there is no threat from pusillanimous Putin, Washington knows Putin will not comply with Russia’s war doctrine. Putin proved this when he dismissed Washington’s attack on Russia’s strategic bomber force and on his home in an assassination attempt as merely “terrorist actions.”
Among the consequences of Putin’s denial of reality is the joining of NATO by Scandinavian countries that previously remained neutral, and the change in long-standing policy of Finland and Latvia to host on their territory on Russia’s border American nuclear weapons. So, it is clear as day, it is indisputable, that Putin’s idiotic pretense that Russia is not really at war, only involved in a Special Military Operation in Donbas, is leaving Russia exposed to a much wider war. The Russian media and oligarch-sponsored “experts” describe the rising threat to Russia as a “successful negotiation.”
The Iranians, who had an equally strong upper hand as the Russians, have also thrown away their advantage. Once the Iranian government on the verge of total victory threw their victory away by rescuing their enemies from defeat by agreeing to a ceasefire, Iran left the door open for future conflict. Ayatollah Khamenei stated: “The enemy must not sense any sign of weakness from us.” But it is signs of weakness that Iran sends.
Iran sits on its butt and permits American attacks, some of which are devastating on civilian infrastructure and civilian lives. Only then does Iran respond with disabling attacks on Washington’s bases in the Persian Gulf oil Sheikdoms and Jordan. This is nonsensical. A country that realized it was at war, would strike and wipe out the enemy bases from which it would be attacked. Not sit there and suffer the damage, as if it needs an excuse to respond.
But Iran only responds, after suffering destruction, to attacks. Iran has no war plan to defeat its enemies. This is a failure of Iranian leadership. And Russia’s is the same. The unwillingness of the two attacked countries to deal with reality is leading to two large wars.

“The Pink Floyd co-founder has also slammed UK and EU elites for openly pushing for war with Russia..”

• Roger Waters Calls Out West For Banning RT (RT)

Pink Floyd co-founder Roger Waters has lambasted Western governments for pushing for war with Russia and banning RT in order to freely disseminate the warmongering “propaganda of the ruling class.” Appearing on Tucker Carlson’s podcast, published on Friday, Waters expressed dismay that “some people in the governments of the United States of America, and the UK, and the European Union are making blood-curdling, bloodthirsty noises about” a potential military conflict with Russia. The Pink Floyd co-founder noted that EU nations, including Germany, are rapidly increasing their military spending and funneling taxpayers’ money “into a big piggy bank in order to fight the Russians.”

“The Russians don’t want to invade Europe. What are they talking about?” he said, arguing that certain interest groups may be paying Western politicians to promote warmongering narratives and thereby justify outsized military expenditure. Instead of antagonizing Moscow and silencing voices that challenge Western “propaganda,” the musician-turned-activist said that “we have to be cooperating with the Russians.” “It sort of breaks my heart that I can’t watch RT anymore. ‘Cause it’s banned. You can’t watch Russia Today,” he said, recounting how the Russian broadcaster was taken off the air across much of the West following the escalation of the Ukraine conflict in February 2022.
“So we live in a very difficult time where it may be, unless you, with your audience – or me with my tiny voice – can join with our brothers and sisters and pull together the ordinary working people all over the globe, and we can make the voice of the choir so loud that we can drown out the propaganda of the ruling class,” he said. Waters has long been a critic of Western military support for Ukraine, telling RIA Novosti last November that officials in the UK and the EU “don’t make any pretense that they care about” ordinary Ukrainians. Their endgame is to use the “corrupt Nazis” in Kiev, who will then “help them strip the country of all its assets and stuff the money into their pockets,” the musician said at the time.

Legal disgrace.

• Trump Has Paid Carroll $5.62M, $83.3M Defamation Judgment Still Pending (JTN)

Supreme Court filings this week confirm that E. Jean Carroll has received roughly $5.62 million from President Donald Trump after the justices late last month declined to hear his appeal of the civil judgment in the case. But the court’s action resolves just one chapter of the long-running legal battle – leaving a separate $83.3 million defamation judgment pending. Trump is expected to ask the high court to review that case, which his attorneys argue raises broader questions concerning presidential immunity and the scope of official presidential speech.

The high court’s June 29 ruling, revealed Tuesday in the filings, is connected to the 2023 civil court verdict in which Trump was found liable for sexually abusing Carroll, a writer, in the mid-1990s and defaming her after she publicly accused him. The court’s ruling also left the civil court verdict intact and clears the way for Carroll to collect the judgment, plus accrued interest, after years of litigation.
Allegations and Civil Trials
Carroll, a longtime advice columnist, first publicly accused Trump in 2019 of sexually assaulting her in a dressing room at Bergdorf Goodman in Manhattan during the mid-1990s. The allegation appeared in an excerpt from her memoir published by New York Magazine. Trump denied the accusation, saying he had never assaulted Carroll and describing her claims as a “hoax” and politically motivated.
Carroll subsequently filed two civil lawsuits.
The first, filed in 2019, alleged Trump defamed her by denying the assault and accusing her of fabricating the allegations. The second, filed in 2022 under New York’s Adult Survivors Act, included a battery claim based on the alleged sexual assault and additional defamation claims. During the 2023 trial, jurors heard testimony from Carroll, several corroborating witnesses, and two other women who accused Trump of similar misconduct. Prosecutors also introduced the 2005 Access Hollywood recording in which Trump described grabbing women without their consent.
The jury found Trump liable for sexual abuse and defamation, although it rejected Carroll’s rape claim under New York’s legal definition in effect at the time. Jurors awarded Carroll $2 million for the sexual abuse claim and $3 million for defamation. In a separate trial in January 2024, another jury awarded Carroll the $83.3 million after concluding that Trump continued to defame her through statements made after the first verdict.
Supreme Court Declines Review Trump appealed the $5 million judgment to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit, arguing that the trial court improperly admitted testimony from other accusers and the Access Hollywood recording. After the Second Circuit affirmed the verdict, Trump petitioned the Supreme Court for review in November 2025. The justices considered the petition during their June 25, 2026, conference before denying certiorari four days later without comment or recorded dissent. Because the high court declined review, the Second Circuit’s decision remains in effect.
Trump’s attorneys later filed a petition for rehearing, arguing that the Court should reconsider the case because a forthcoming petition challenging the separate $83.3 million judgment may present presidential immunity issues under Trump v. United States (2024). Rehearing petitions are rarely granted. Following the Supreme Court’s denial, U.S. District Judge Lewis A. Kaplan ordered the release of the escrowed funds. Despite emergency efforts by Trump’s attorneys to delay payment, the judgment was ultimately satisfied.
Trump Continues to Denounce the Cases
Throughout the litigation, Trump has been unyielding in his public statements. He has repeatedly called Carroll a “liar,” dismissed the allegations as fabricated for book sales or political gain, and portrayed the entire process as election interference and “weaponization” of the justice system. On Truth Social and in interviews, he has labeled the cases “hoaxes,” “con jobs,” and part of a pattern of politically motivated attacks. Even after the Supreme Court’s decision, Trump vowed to continue fighting, framing it as resistance against what he calls Democrat-funded lawfare. His spokesperson echoed these sentiments, declaring that “the American People stand with President Trump” in demanding an end to such cases.
The $83 Million Judgment Remains on Appeal
Although Carroll has now collected the $5 million judgment, the larger $83.3 million award remains under appellate review. The Second Circuit affirmed that judgment earlier this year, and Trump is expected to file a petition for certiorari with the Supreme Court. His attorneys are expected to argue that statements made while he was president are protected by presidential immunity or should be treated as official conduct under the Westfall Act. Enforcement of the larger judgment has been stayed after Trump posted a bond securing the award while his appeal proceeds.
Whether the Supreme Court agrees to hear the second case remains uncertain. Some legal observers have suggested that immunity questions could present a more substantial issue for review than the evidentiary challenges raised in the first appeal, while others note that the Court’s refusal to hear the earlier case may signal reluctance to revisit the litigation. For now, the Supreme Court’s denial leaves the first judgment final while the parties continue to litigate the remaining appeal. The Carroll cases remain among the most closely watched civil proceedings involving President Trump, touching on questions of defamation law, presidential immunity, and the limits of civil liability for public officials.

“.. members of Congress saying ICE isn’t a real law enforcement agency. I think that- I actually think that emboldens some people to say, “I’m not going to comply with ICE.”

• Border Czar Tom Homan Discusses Value of ICE Body Cameras (CTH)

The worst thing to ever happen to the reputation of black culture in America was the introduction of police body cameras to highlight the behavior of African Americans to the world. Frequent travelers will note that foreign discussions no longer include curious questions about racism in America. With black Americans putting themselves on full cultural display, the world now understands the connection between black culture and antisocial behavior.

The same concept applies to ICE officers wearing body cameras. As each incident unfolds, people can see the severity of the antagonism faced by the law enforcement officers doing what the overwhelming majority want to see done. Deport all illegal aliens, cancel all H1Bs and put Americans first! WATCH:

[Transcript] – MARGARET BRENNAN: And we’re back with President Trump’s border czar, Tom Homan. Welcome back to Face the Nation.
TOM HOMAN: Thanks for having me.
MARGARET BRENNAN: Mr. Homan, we saw that two immigrants were shot in the span of a week. There was that one in Maine that was fatal just days after another one in Houston. We also saw that man fleeing agents in Florida who then was struck and killed by a tractor trailer. I know you’ve been trying to keep the department out of the headlines ever since that streak in Minnesota that was deadly. How do you respond to those who say what’s happening now looks like very little has changed?
TOM HOMAN: Well, you know, first of all, we’ll wait and see what the investigations- how they play out, right? Because, you know, I don’t want to get ahead of investigations on who’s at fault, what exactly happened. Because we all know when the investigations happen, there’s going to be cell phone video, there may be city cameras, and of course, then you got witness statements and affidavits from the officer, and- and witnesses. So, we got to let the investigations play out. So, I don’t want to really comment on investigation themselves, but you know, I think, you know, Markwayne Mullin, you know, took some action, and in concern of the safety of the agents and- and how we do operations, and- and that’s why he did that, you know, that- that- that pause on- on enforcement on vehicle stops.
But you know, I- my concern is I’ve never- I’ve done this since 1984. My concern is I think a lot of the rhetoric that you see every day, especially in sanctuary cities, and at these protests that- resist, members of Congress saying ICE isn’t a real law enforcement agency. I think that- I actually think that emboldens some people to say, “I’m not going to comply with ICE.” And I think no matter what people think of ICE, no matter what you think of immigration law, you should always comply with law enforcement.[..]

Doubling human life expectancy

Easy predictions pic.twitter.com/zFUqwOKAW9
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) July 18, 2026

Elon Musk just said the blind will see better than anyone with working eyes. That’s not optimism. That’s a spec sheet.

Musk: “And then over time, I think you get to higher resolution than human eyes.”

Not restoring vision. Making it obsolete. Human eyes peaked millions of years… pic.twitter.com/qL5dLAnIuU
— Dustin (@r0ck3t23) July 19, 2026

A Tesla owner slept overnight in his Model X Plaid during a brutal 40°C heat wave in Austria. The car kept the cabin at 20°C for 8 hours and used only 12% battery.

Camp Mode is one of Tesla’s most underrated features. pic.twitter.com/K59aRge7bo
— DogeDesigner (@cb_doge) July 19, 2026

https://twitter.com/Yerocode0/status/2078464147432300625?s=20

Our co-founder, @EvaVlaar, praised and defended @elonmusk in the European Parliament for saving freedom of speech in Europe.

“Do you really think Elon Musk will bow down to Ursula von der Leyen? I don’t think so!” pic.twitter.com/KvnT0UIRVU
— Save Europe Act (@SaveEuropeAct) July 18, 2026

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Debt Rattle June 29 2026

Jun 292026

June 29, 2026 Posted by Raúl Ilargi Meijer at 9:06 am Finance Tagged with: communism, DSA, grooming gangs, Hakeem Jeffries, Sadiq Khan, socialism, Supreme Court 49 Responses »

Ivan Aivazovsky Palace rains in Venice by moonlight 1878

• Iranian Media Calls for Atomic Bombs as Official Says ‘We Are at War’ (Salgado)

• How Crazy and Radical the Democratic Socialist Program Really Is (Spencer)

• The Democratic Socialists of America New York Communist Program (CTH)

• Hakeem Jeffries Surrenders to the Socialists (Margolis)

• Joe Biden Barely Manages To Find His Way Offstage At Dem Gala (NYPost)

• Joe Biden: The Perfect Symbol of Today’s Democrat Party (Florack)

• USMCA Status – Canada in Recession, Mexico GDP Grows Double Expectations (CTH)

• Sadiq Khan Said There Were NO Grooming Gangs In London (MN)

• Police Believe There Are 4,000 Sex-Exploitation Gang Cases in London (Salgado)

• Becerra Details an ‘Assembly Line’ for Migrant Children (Salgado)

• The Supremes Help Ensure Border Security vs Liberal Justices (Von Spakovsky)

• Supreme Court Expected To Rule On Cook, Elections, And Trans Athletes (ZH)

https://twitter.com/MAGAVoice/status/2071389101304230307?s=20 https://twitter.com/JamesBradleyCA/status/2071056181804793924?s=20 https://twitter.com/EricLDaugh/status/2071324215790186722?s=20

HOLY CRAP: President Trump JUST posted one of the most EPIC Photos. THEY ALL LOST TO TRUMP pic.twitter.com/bnwOKo3GCI
— MAGA Voice (@MAGAVoice) June 28, 2026

https://twitter.com/Real_RobN/status/2070922295976288467?s=20

Why Trump wants to make sure they don’t have nukes.

• Iranian Media Calls for Atomic Bombs as Official Says ‘We Are at War’ (Salgado)

The Tehran terrorists are not hiding their genocidal intentions toward America. The advisor to peace deal negotiator and Majles speaker Mohammad-Baquer “Death to America” Ghalibaf (or Qalibaf) declared on June 10 that negotiations buy time for the Iranian regime that is simply allowing temporary recovery for the next round of fighting. Citing Qalibaf, Mahdi Mohammadi declared that “you must never forget that you are at war … negotiations are a tool of the struggle.” He added, “We have no illusions about peace with America.” A couple weeks later, on June 28, a new report surfaced that Iranian state media is openly insisting the government should and will seek nuclear weapons.

The Hormuz Letter noted that Iranian media is justifying this nuclear advocacy by blaming President Donald Trump for threatening to wipe out the regime, threats which Trump, of course, did not end up enacting. The reality is that the murderous mullahs just want to justify the decision they always planned to make, which was to keep on with their endless jihad. And they were never really sincere about ending their nuclear program, either.
Speaking of which, the Middle East Media Research Institute translated Mohammadi’s interview on Iranian TV. Ghalibaf’s advisor bragged that the Iranian regime “control[s] the Strait of Hormuz,” where the regime continues to attack shipping up to this weekend. Mohammadi used some typical extravagant boasting, such as “the entire world is on its knees before the Islamic Republic,” and “[our] enemy is humiliated and defeated,” but he also made it clear where the regime stands on war versus peace.
“In your toolbox, you have missiles, UAVs, intelligence, and security capabilities, the Resistance” which means the many terrorist proxies like Hezbollah “your allies, and you also have the negotiations,” Mohammadi explained. “If you look at it this way, there is no problem [with negotiations]. But you must never forget that you are at war… the important thing is to get the concession at the beginning.” Continuing to elucidate why the Iranian regime pressed for major concessions even though they never wanted a deal, Mohammadi told the interviewer:
We should get something substantial right at the start, because we know — at least that’s how I see it — that the whole thing will fall apart. Fine, let it fall apart. The important thing is to get something substantial at the start. I have said this explicitly in the past. We need time and resources. We are at war. We will use the negotiations as a tool to buy time and acquire resources. We have no illusions about peace with America.
The real problem is that too many American politicians have illusions about peace with the terrorist Iranian regime.

It truly is extreme, aka the only territory the Democrats confidently call their own.

• How Crazy and Radical the Democratic Socialist Program Really Is (Spencer)

The Democratic Socialists of America (DSA) are on the rise. They just triumphed in New York, and are sending Darializa Avila Chevalier and Claire Valdez, along with Brad Lander, a former DSA member, to Congress, where they will join DSA stars Reps. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-Ditzville) and Rashida Tlaib (D-Islamic Rage). Another DSA luminary, Zohran Mamdani, is mayor of New York City, and it is looking increasingly as if the DSA has done an Invasion of the Body Snatchers move on the Democrat Party, occupying its body and replacing its soul. The DSA is now the Democrat mainstream.

Emboldened with all this success, the DSA is loudly and proudly proclaiming what it is all about, hoping to draw more suckers into the big top. The socialists are making it clear that their program is far more comprehensive and far-reaching than most people realize; they’re hoping to do nothing less than re-create Stalin’s Russia or Mao’s China in the United States.
This is no exaggeration. The superlative investigative journalist Stu Smith recently published in City Journal a long expose of the DSA’s new platform. Smith revealed that “earlier this month, the Democratic Socialists of America’s top leadership met for an in-person meeting of their National Political Committee (NPC), the DSA’s governing authority. The result of the meeting was ‘Workers Deserve More!’, a rebooted platform for the organization featuring a host of radical proposals.”
The “Workers Deserve More!” document, as Smith describes it, a blueprint that, if implemented, would without any doubt lead to the total destruction of the United States. “The document commits DSA to scrapping the U.S. Senate, ‘abolishing the carceral forces of the capitalist state,’ defunding the Department of War, amnesty for all immigrants, and ‘replac[ing] the President and Supreme Court with an executive and judiciary chosen by and subordinate to Congress.’”
Among the “carceral forces of the capitalist state” that would be abolished would be ICE and the police, so that criminals and terrorists would be streaming across the border and the American people would have no one to protect them. The idea of scrapping the Senate and making the executive and judiciary subject to Congress would be to place political power in the hands of the House, which the most populous (and far-left) areas of the country would control.
The “Workers Deserve More!” document also said that its goal was to “win the battle for democracy, draft a new constitution, and create a democratic socialist republic.” You know, like the German Democratic Republic (that was the official name of Communist East Germany, one of the most repressive regimes the world has ever known) and the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (North Korea).
In a series of X posts, Smith augmented his City Journal with more from the “Workers Deserve More!” platform, each bit more radical, and more destructive if implemented, than the last. The DSA would even move to implement a fully communist state: It would “establish public ownership of the largest corporations and essential industries to ensure democratic control and accountability to the people. Enact aggressive wealth taxes on the richest individuals and corporations to spend on public goods and infrastructure.”
Wealth taxes! Why, Gavin Newsom is already there. And that’s just another indication of how this socialist madness, that has failed in so many countries, is become mainstream in ours, where people should know better, but apparently (after years of miseducation) do not.
The DSA’s forthrightness is something of a departure from recent practice. Old Joe Biden, after all, ridiculed the idea that he was a socialist during the 2020 campaign, only to allow those who were running his regime to take a decisively socialist and authoritarian course. Barack Obama likewise campaigned as a calm, moderate, centrist, only to become the most divisive, far-left president the nation had ever had up to the time he took office.
Yet as the DSA grows in power and influence in the Democrat Party and the nation in general, it seems to be confident that Americans will love its plan. No one should be fooled, however. If we are unfortunate enough to inaugurate a DSA president on Jan. 20, 2029, all the aspects of the DSA program that are currently being covered up will return in force, and be inflicted upon the American people. There is no doubt about that at all.

Can you imagine?

• The Democratic Socialists of America New York Communist Program (CTH)

Barbara Boyd discusses three Democratic Socialists of America-backed candidates endorsed by New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani winning upset victories in New York congressional primaries, framing the results as part of a long-term cultural project rather than a purely economic platform. She argues the DSA’s internal education centers on communist theorist Antonio Gramsci and his strategy of revolution through cultural “hegemony,” citing a deleted Instagram post from a group tied to one winner that called for the “total eradication of Western Civilization.”

Boyd highlights a newly published DSA platform proposing major constitutional changes, then links Gramsci to the Council on Foreign Relations’ “post-Trump world” series, noting CFR fellow Charles Kupchan opens with a Gramsci quote and attacks reindustrialization and tariffs. She claims British imperial networks historically sponsored Marx and later Gramsci, using communism and counterculture against rivals, and urges promoting Trump’s “American System” economics and an optimistic national culture ahead of the midterms.

“.. no one in the party is safe from this hostile takeover. Not even leadership. And what did Jeffries do? He congratulated them.”

• Hakeem Jeffries Surrenders to the Socialists (Margolis)

The Democrat Party has a socialism problem, and House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-N.Y.) just made it worse. Last week’s New York City congressional primaries delivered a troubling result for anyone who thought the Democrat Party had hit peak radicalism: it hasn’t. Far-left candidates Darializa Avila Chevalier and Claire Valdez, backed by Democratic socialist New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani and linked to the Democratic Socialists of America (DSA), knocked out two Democrat incumbents. Far-left Democrat Brad Lander also won his primary.

At the watch party for the socialist winners, the crowd made its intentions clear. When Jeffries appeared on a TV screen, supporters broke into chants of “You’re next!” It’s clear the socialists are gunning for his seat, which means no one in the party is safe from this hostile takeover. Not even leadership. And what did Jeffries do? He congratulated them. I couldn’t believe my eyes when I saw this post on X Saturday.

Congratulations to our newest members of the NYC congressional delegation.

From public servants to union organizers to community activists, the path is different but the work is the same.

We must decisively address the affordability crisis and crush far-right extremism! pic.twitter.com/f4XC6dpX7q
— Hakeem Jeffries (@hakeemjeffries) June 27, 2026

Seriously? The crowd at that watch party had just threatened to oust him on live television. Now he’s bending the knee to them, posting a glowing congratulation that frames “far-right extremism” as the threat to confront while saying nothing about the DSA affiliations, the far-left policy positions, or the fact that the winners’ supporters just signaled they’re coming for his job. He even treated these primary wins as equivalent to general election victories, which, in New York City, they essentially are.
I guess we shouldn’t be too surprised. When CNBC host Joe Kernen asked Jeffries on camera about the “You’re next!” chant and about the rise of socialist candidates in his party, he did what Democrats always do: he pivoted immediately to President Donald Trump.

CNBC Host Joe Kernen CALLS OUT Hakeem Jeffries after he refused to condemn socialist NY Democrat nominee Darializa Avila Chevalier for calling to abolish police, prisons and borders

KERNEN: “I know it takes time from the interview… but it doesn’t really answer the question… It… pic.twitter.com/8PZgVuByzj
— Ben Petersen (@bennpetersen) June 25, 2026

No pushback. No acknowledgment of the problem. Just the standard deflection. This is a tell. Either Jeffries genuinely doesn’t see the socialist takeover of his party as a threat worth confronting, or he’s too afraid to say so. I’m not even sure which is worse. I’ve written before that this tension between the socialist wing and the rest of the party has serious implications for the midterms and 2028. Socialism may sell in deep blue cities, but it doesn’t play in the suburban districts Democrats need to win a majority. Every DSA-backed candidate who locks up a safe seat in New York City drags the national party brand further left and hands Republicans a hammer to use in competitive races everywhere else. And establishment Democrats are either unwilling to stop it or too afraid to.

Elder abuse.

• Joe Biden Barely Manages To Find His Way Offstage At Dem Gala (NYPost)

Former President Joe Biden was back onstage at a Democratic Party gala to excoriate President Trump Saturday – but needed a little help figuring out just how to exit. Biden, who got pushed out of his reelection bid by fellow Democrats in 2024 following his debate disaster against Trump, defended his record and blasted his successor during his speech to the Maryland Democratic Party’s Fight Back & Win summit near Baltimore. He ripped Trump for the “deliberate distraction – destruction of NATO” and hammered Trump’s White House ballroom as a “vanity project.”

At his speech’s conclusion Biden delivered a familiar refrain about the nation’s ability to overcome challenges – then sought an assist to find out which way to leave the stage. He turned to the side seeking guidance, then pointed in two different directions to ascertain the best route. Once he had it sorted out, he walked away from the stage with his back to the audience. His appearance at event, held at the Live! Casino & Hotel in Hanover, Maryland, came just days after he appeared at the grand opening of the Barack Obama presidential library in Chicago.
At that event, a bewildered looking Biden was left awkwardly onstage at its conclusion. “Where’s my granddaughter?” he shouted while walking up to the podium as it ended. At other times, he was guided by former first lady Jill Biden. Biden, 83, relied on a teleprompter during his Saturday night remarks, squinting at times as he read his verbal blasts at his rival, who he defeated in 2020, only to relinquish the White House in 2024. He coughed loudly several times early on. “Have you noticed that Americans are saying the economy under the Biden administration is a hell of a lot better than under Trump?” he told party faithful in the deep blue state.

“It’s not just his vanity projects – tearing down the East Wing of the White House making room for his ballroom. Putting his name on the Kennedy Center. Building an arch in his own honor. Even hiring his own pool guy to fix the reflecting pool. Woah – what a loser,” Biden said to applause. He called it “simply stunning to me” that Trump made “billions of dollars” as he returned to the White House, saying “he has no shame.” Biden’s successive awkward exits come after a long history during his presidency of mangling stage directions, as he did famously at a G7 photo-op in Italy in 2024.
He made no reference to the ideological fight going on in his party after democratic socialists prevailed in three New York primaries. The former first lady has been upping her media profile as she promotes her new book, where she revealed she at first thought Biden might be “having a stroke” during his 2024 presidential debate disaster.Hunter Biden, meanwhile, has launched an active social media profile where he has been promoting his art and taking on his dad’s critics, at one point challenging Donald Trump, Jr. to a cage match while blasting the UFC fight staged on the South Lawn of the White House.

“They’re fresh out of ideas, and fresh out of people to represent those ideas.”

There.s a contradiction somewhere in there.

• Joe Biden: The Perfect Symbol of Today’s Democrat Party (Florack)

Honestly, Joe Biden is an 83-year-old man who probably should be home with his grandchildren, not being trotted out in front of a partisan crowd in Maryland to read attacks off a teleprompter and then wait for someone to point him toward the exit. On a purely human level, there’s something genuinely sad about that picture. No, what this is about is the Democrat Party machine — the political apparatus, the party operatives, the media figures, the staffers, consultants, and loyalists who spent the better part of four years looking America dead in the eye and insisting that Joe Biden was sharp, capable, fully in command, and absolutely fit to serve another term as President of the United States.

And today, they insist on trotting him onto a stage to show the world just how wrong they were. These are the people who called you a liar — or worse, a conspiracy theorist — for suggesting that Biden wasn’t sure what planet he was on. The people who buried the story, spiked the footage, and escorted skeptical reporters right out of the conversation.

These are the same people who are now, with a straight face, putting this man back on a stage. Think about what that actually required. I mean, this is really the saddest part…. Think about the number of people involved in this process. Someone booked him. Someone wrote the speech. Someone set up the teleprompter. Someone stood offstage and waited to guide him out when it was over. And at every step of that process, not one person in that operation apparently stopped to ask whether any of this was a good idea — for the party, for the country, or for the man himself. The show must go on. The attacks on Trump must be delivered. The base must be fed.
The Democrat Party has a long and well-practiced tradition of putting the pursuit of power ahead of everything else, including basic honesty about the condition of the people they’re asking you to trust with the nuclear codes. We watched it happen in real time through 2023 and 2024—the insistence, the gaslighting, the furious pushback against anyone who raised questions. And then the debate happened, and the curtain came down, and suddenly everyone who’d been telling you Biden was fine remembered they needed to wash their hair.
But now he’s back. Squinting at the teleprompter. Coughing. Waiting for someone to show him the way out. What’s the reasoning behind this? It’s simple enough; they’ve got nothing else to offer. They’re fresh out of ideas, and fresh out of people to represent those ideas.
Think about that for a moment. The Democrat Party—the party that controls most of the major media institutions, most of the universities, most of the cultural apparatus of the country—their big move on a Saturday night in Maryland is to dust off an 83-year-old man who can’t find the exit and point him at a teleprompter. That’s the best they’ve got. That’s the headliner. The best symbol for the self-proclaimed party of young ideas is an 83-year-old with, sadly, the mental capacity of a wheel chock.
Are you kidding me? Where’s the next generation? Where’s the compelling vision they keep claiming they have? Where’s the candidate who walks into a room and makes people believe something? The answer is both simple and revealing. They don’t have one.
I’m to the point now of concluding that this 83-year-old mushroom brain is the ideal symbol for the party. They’ve spent so many years building a party around identity checklists, approved narratives, and the politics of grievance that they’ve completely lost the ability to produce a leader who can actually lead. What they can produce is someone who will, in an almost reliable fashion, say the right things in the right order to the right interest groups—and when that person can no longer reliably do even that, apparently the answer is to keep sending him out anyway, teleprompter and spotter included, because the alternative is admitting they have nothing at all to offer.

Carney’s ideology is very expensive for his people. Do they know?

• USMCA Status – Canada in Recession, Mexico GDP Grows Double Expectations (CTH)

You might remember recent reports outlining how the economy of Canada has slipped into a recession, posting two consecutive quarters with a negative GDP outcome. There are multiple reasons for this shrinkage, but the dominant factor is, well, quite frankly, Canadian politics and economic policy.

Meanwhile, in Mexico the opposite is happening. Mexico’s economic activity grew 1.2% in April from the prior month, the national statistics agency said, compared with a revised increase of 0.6% in March and beating a forecast of a 0.9% increase in a Reuters poll of analysts. {source} It is not coincidental to see the Mexican economy performing well, while the Canadian economy is contracting. Despite their identical proximity to The United States, each nation is currently executing a fundamentally different set of economic policies.

The Canadian government has been exceptionally combative with the U.S.A, leading to friction, tariffs and economic back-and-forth measures between the two nations.The Mexican government has expressly understood the nature of their dependency, admitted it, taken no action to diminish it, and purposefully set out to align itself with the interests of America. Canada is combative. Mexico is collaborating.
It seems unlikely that the three nations can agree on major economic policies, as a trilateral partnership would need alignment in core areas like energy policy. Canada’s energy policy is fundamentally separate from those of the U.S. and Mexico, and this is an issue that can’t be resolved through a trade agreement alone. A large part of Mexico’s economy relies on remittances from Mexican workers in the U.S. sending money back to their families. As long as the U.S. job market stays strong—and it’s only getting stronger in the industries where many Mexicans work—Mexico will continue to benefit from America’s economic growth.
One datapoint that points to the USA-Canada disconnect comes in the auto sector. The Center for Automotive Research (CAR) reports that Canadian vehicle production dropped 15 percent year-over-year through April. It’s understood that factories in Canada built approximately 64,000 fewer vehicles through April than the year prior, while US production rose by roughly 44,000 units, or 1.2 percent. Auto manufacturing companies in Canada operate there as part of the business plan to sell vehicles into the USA. As Canada increases friction with the USA, which is setting up a dynamic of U.S. withdrawal from the USMCA, those auto manufacturers will increasingly shift production from Canada to the U.S. market.
It appears that Prime Minister Mark Carney’s response to this predictable auto-sector outcome, is to flip those production facilities into venues for Chinese EV production (BYD and Geely). However, Democrats and Republicans are united in alignment with President Trump on this issue and Chinese EVs will not be permitted entry into the USA. This is a very big point of friction. Right now, no company in their right mind would invest in Canada against the backdrop of a potential USMCA withdrawal by President Trump. This is creating a scenario where our old nemesis, the U.S Chamber of Commerce, is spending tens-of-millions in Washington DC to purchase the votes and support of congress to retain the trilateral deal.
Right now, every multinational corporation in the world is looking closely at the White House as the July 1st deadline approaches. Almost none of them can fathom what will happen if the U.S. announces the intention to fully exit the USMCA and triggers a six-month withdrawal process. Despite what many have falsely claimed, it was specifically written into the original trade terms that if any of the three countries announce an exit to the trilateral agreement, they can fully exit six months later. If the USA makes this announcement -whenever they make this announcement- a literal economic doomsday countdown begins for Canada.
Mexico would not really be too disturbed by the announcement as both USTR Jamieson Greer and his Mexican counterpart have been negotiating on a bilateral basis for over a full year. However, for Canada the ramifications are so astronomical, it is almost impossible to fathom what might happen when 80% of their total exports face an unpredictable future. The leverage President Trump carries are so formidable, the only thing that compares in scale is the ‘elbow’s up‘ ego of Prime Minister Carney. ‘Splodey heads is an understatement. Canadians are so unprepared it’s jaw dropping. Make that exit announcement and as soon as reality sits-in, the Canadian dollar could collapse.

“.. the force’s existing load of around 2,000 sexual offences a month. ‘

• Sadiq Khan Said There Were NO Grooming Gangs In London (MN)

The London mayor who once insisted there was “no indication” of grooming gangs now faces explosive new scrutiny after a police review uncovered thousands of previously sidelined child sexual exploitation files. The Metropolitan Police has identified more than 4,000 potential child sexual exploitation cases across London that may require reopening. These stem from roughly 12,000 reports dating back to 2010, with about one in three previously closed after police or prosecutors took no further action.

Met Police uncovers 4,000 potential grooming gang cases as Sadiq Khan faces fresh scrutiny over London claimshttps://t.co/c2Wpx1MwOL
— GB News (@GBNEWS) June 28, 2026

The cases have now been referred to the National Crime Agency under Operation Beaconport for urgent assessment.

'What on Earth are we doing? Why are we allowing this to happen?'

Journalist Andy Jones reacts to the horrifying news that a Met Police review has identified more than 4,000 grooming gang cases that may need reopening. pic.twitter.com/zaAyo6V7s1
— GB News (@GBNEWS) June 28, 2026

This development directly contradicts Sadiq Khan’s past public statements. In January 2025, appearing before the London Assembly Police and Crime Committee, Khan repeatedly dodged questions from Conservative member Susan Hall about the scale of grooming gangs in the capital. He claimed his understanding from regular police briefings was that there were “no reported cases and also no indication of the grooming gangs” she was concerned about. When pressed on how many such gangs operated in London, he asked her to clarify what she meant by the term.
https://twitter.com/TRobinsonNewEra/status/2071186451383910409?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E2071186451383910409%7Ctwgr%5Eea2bc72b7653237ca01eada41547b579e87f1f93%7Ctwcon%5Es1_c10&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fmodernity.news%2F2026%2F06%2F28%2Fsadiq-khan-said-there-were-no-grooming-gangs-in-london-police-investigating-4000-cases%2F
Critics now describe the position as gaslighting. Hall called the scale “utterly disgraceful,” noting it represents 4,000 young girls raped and sexually abused while authorities looked the other way or actively resisted scrutiny. Khan’s team now claims he has always supported leaving “no stone unturned.” The gap between that line and his earlier blanket denials has not gone unnoticed. This London revelation fits a wider, years-long scandal of institutional failure and political cowardice. Earlier this year we detailed how even the BBC exposed the scale of grooming activity in the capital under Khan’s watch.
Separate investigations laid bare mini-mart operations where vulnerable children were plied with alcohol and cigarettes in exchange for sexual abuse. Illegal shops were caught handing out free vapes to kids in return for sexual favours. And the weary response from parts of the establishment often boiled down to telling victims and the public to simply “get over it.”

Sadiq Khan says zero, the police say 4,000. No possible error or overlap. Therefore, time for Khan to go. Or the police. One of the two.

“Great Britain has become, or at least is well on the way to becoming, a sharia state. “

• Police Believe There Are 4,000 Sex-Exploitation Gang Cases in London (Salgado)

London’s Metropolitan Police have found evidence suggesting there are thousands of child sex exploitation gangs or offenders in London.London is reportedly majority Muslim now (which tallies with my experience there), but even if that is in reality an exaggeration, it’s obvious the UK capital has a serious problem with Islamic rape gangs. Just in London, there are up to 4,000 grooming gang cases that authorities have tried to cover up.

Member of Parliament Rupert Lowe, who released the bombshell report on grooming gangs that identified 250,000 British girls and women as victims, indicated that between 87% and 95% of such sexual criminals are Muslim men. In other words, the mass child exploitation and rape gang crisis in England is almost entirely a result of mass migration from Muslim-majority nations. That is not surprising given that Islamic sacred texts endorse pedophilia, rape, and sexual slavery. But the current mayor of London, Sadiq Khan, is also Muslim. Now, some Muslims do not follow the encouragement to sexual crime in their sacred texts, but will Khan address the rape-gang crisis any more now than he did before? Somehow I expect not.
In fact, according to GB News, Khan previously and emphatically asserted there was “no evidence” that grooming gangs were operating in London. Scotland Yard’s new findings indicate how wildly false that was. Sir Sadiq Khan is facing fresh scrutiny over his previous claims about grooming gangs in London after the Met Police identified more than 4,000 potential child sexual exploitation cases that could now be reopened… Roughly one in three cases [of 12,000] are now flagged for potential reinvestigation after police or the Crown Prosecution Service previously decided to take no further action.
And yet before the London Assembly Police and Crime Committee in 2025, Khan asserted, “My understanding from speaking to the police, and she will appreciate, I have done on a regular basis, is and I choose my words carefully for the reasons she will understand there are no reported cases and also no indication of the grooming gangs that she is concerned about in London.” It is likely his critics who accused him of a cover-up were correct. Notably, on Saturday, a Somali-born man drove a car into a crowd in London. The overwhelming majority of victim-based crimes in the UK do not result in a charge. On the other hand, thousands of British citizens have ended up in handcuffs for social media posts.
Great Britain has become, or at least is well on the way to becoming, a sharia state. Many of the British people are opposed to it and awake to the danger, but unfortunately, just as in many states here in the U.S., the communists in charge of the government are willing to take many tyrannical measures to ensure they never lose power. And it is even more difficult to change leadership in a country with a parliamentary system as Britain has. The UK is held captive thanks to suicidal woke idiots and fundamentalist Muslims.

Women or children, our societies make a mess of protecting both. There is a price to pay for that.

• Becerra Details an ‘Assembly Line’ for Migrant Children (Salgado)

Republican California gubernatorial candidate Steve Hilton is calling attention to allegedly leaked audio of his Democrat opponent and former Biden HHS secretary urging staff to traffic illegal alien kids the “way you do an assembly line.”

The clip features two unidentified women discussing the comments of Xavier Becerra, who as head of the Department of Health and Human Services under the previous administration oversaw a gargantuan network of unaccompanied migrant minors passed off to barely vetted sponsors. We now know that many of these sponsors were unrelated to the children and exploited them, sometimes for sexual purposes. The allegedly leaked audio sheds some light on Becerra’s attitude, as he saw these vulnerable children as a sort of product, not as individual humans. Hilton indicated he has more information about to become public.
Some of the HHS employees were so bothered by the exploitation and trafficking of the young kids that they filed a complaint letter against Becerra, per the clip.

More to come. https://t.co/OqmXoxCFqJ
— Steve Hilton (@SteveHiltonx) June 27, 2026

The leaked audio is reportedly from an internal meeting where Becerra seemed to be railing against his staff for — as he perceived it — moving too slow in passing unaccompanied alien minors (UACs) along. If the audio is of Becerra and staff, it contains the acknowledgment that the kids could be in a trafficking situation, but that isn’t supposed to be important.
“If Henry Ford had seen this in his plant, he would have never become famous and rich,” the alleged recording of Becerra states. “This is not the way you do an assembly line …We need to get discharges up. Every time we have to go to the Hill [Congress] and explain why we’re spending so much money when most people are struggling to spend a little bit of money for the kids on a daily basis, we try to explain how we’re spending more than $1000 a day for kids who may not even have the legal right to be here? Not me.”
While we cannot absolutely confirm the authenticity of this shocking audio, we can find evidence of Becerra callously refusing to address evidence that his agency was placing children with pimps and strip clubs. That interchange with a congressman appears to have come from Becerra’s 2024 testimony to the House Judiciary Committee’s Subcommittee on Immigration Integrity regarding UACs.
Rep. Thomas Tiffany (R-Wis.) cited evidence of trafficking in HHS’s UAC pipeline. “One of the little girls was forced into prostitution by someone who claimed to be her aunt, because there [were] no checks being done… It revealed that children were pimped out by their aunt, which it turns out the aunt wasn’t even related to the child’s so-called aunt. Are you familiar with that story that was in there?” Tiffany asked.
Becerra stuttered in response, “There are a number of, uh, incidents that are reported in that, uh, that Florida report. Some of them I can probably recall better than others. Some of them I would challenge and dispute, but, uh, that one I don’t remember.” So Tiffany pressed, “And do you remember the teenage girl that was in a house with unknown men with no private bedroom for her?” And “Are you familiar with the sponsors that utilize a strip club in Jacksonville as an address for where this child, where a child should be settled?”
Becerra didn’t have a good defense. Because for him, the children were not vulnerable kids needing protection; they were merely part of his assembly line to further the mass migration policies of the Biden administration.

“.. she chastised the majority for its “illogical interpretation” of the law and its “fixation” on the word “in.”

• The Supremes Help Ensure Border Security vs Liberal Justices (Von Spakovsky)

You really have to hand it to Supreme Court Justices Elena Kagan, Sonia Sotomayor, and Ketanji Brown Jackson. When it comes to trying to stop lawful immigration enforcement, they are willing to twist the law and themselves like pretzels to please the open-borders crowd.

There really is no other way to read their dissents in the three important immigration cases decided by the Court in the last two weeks. Their dissents are also very revealing because they spend a great deal of time criticizing the policies in each case, apparently forgetting that they are not policymakers but judges tasked with one job: determining whether the policy implemented by the executive branch (whether they like it or not) is within the authority granted by the Constitution or federal law.
They abandoned that role in each of these cases. Mullin v. Al Otro Lando was an easy case to decide. During the Obama administration, the number of aliens mobbing ports of entry overwhelmed immigration agents. The administration put in a metering system that only allowed a certain number of aliens to be processed and to claim asylum. Other aliens were prevented from crossing the border and the Trump administration continued that system. The aliens remaining in Mexico sued claiming they were unlawfully prevented from entering the U.S. and still had a right to assert asylum. Unfortunately, some lower federal courts issued injunctions agreeing with them.
But as the six-member majority of the Supreme Court said on June 25, the statute providing aliens with the ability to claim asylum only applies to aliens “arriving in the United States.” It should be obvious to anyone with any common sense – which seems to exclude the three dissenters – that you don’t arrive “in” a location until you actually arrive in the location. The Court held that under the plain text of the statute and the ordinary, everyday meaning of arriving “in,” aliens still in Mexico can’t claim a right to enter the country and claim asylum because they never arrived “in” the U.S.
But in a dissent by Sotomayor, joined by Kagan and Jackson, she chastised the majority for its “illogical interpretation” of the law and its “fixation” on the word “in.” She claimed the word “in” doesn’t really mean “in” and that anyone arriving on “our doorstep” is the same as being “in” the country. In addition to this illogical interpretation, she and her comrades spent much of their time discussing the supposedly terrible consequences of the majority’s decision, claiming it will cause “more people [to] die,” a totally outrageous claim that has no basis in fact.
But most importantly, the rightness or wrongness of the policy has absolutely nothing to do with the question that was before the Court. The issue was whether implementing this policy is within the authority of the administration under the language of the statute. It clearly is, something the three liberals refused to acknowledge.
Mullin v. Doe was a similarly easy case to decide, at least for the majority and anyone who can read plain English. In 1990, Congress gave the president, acting through the secretary of Homeland Security, the authority to provide temporary lawful status to aliens whose countries have been hit with natural disasters and other problems. Syrians were granted Temporary Protected Status (TPS) in 2012 and Haitians in 2010. The Trump administration ended TPS for both groups in 2025, but federal courts once again issued injunctions telling the president he couldn’t do that.
But the TPS status has specific language barring all judicial review of any determination to grant or end TPS. The Court’s six-member majority enforced this provision, concluding that it wipes out all claims of statutory violations (which the Syrians made) although it does not bar constitutional claims (which the Haitians made). The Court dissolved the injunctions against the termination of TPS for both the Syrians and the Haitians. .

A full agenda before summer recess.

• Supreme Court Expected To Rule On Cook, Elections, And Trans Athletes (ZH)

The U.S. Supreme Court is expected to decide in the coming days whether President Donald Trump can remove Federal Reserve Board of Governors member Lisa Cook from her post – an extraordinary step that would mark the first presidential firing of a Fed official since the central bank’s founding in 1913 and directly test the institution’s independence from political interference.

The justices, who hold a 6-3 conservative majority, signaled skepticism during January arguments toward Trump’s authority to oust Cook. The Federal Reserve Act requires that governors be removed only “for cause,” a term Congress left undefined and without procedural details. Trump cited unsubstantiated allegations of mortgage fraud – which Cook has denied and called a pretext for her removal over monetary policy disagreements. Cook has remained in her role while the case proceeds. No president has attempted such a firing in the Fed’s more than century-long history.
This dispute is one of three pending cases examining the outer limits of presidential power under Trump. The others involve his removal of a Federal Trade Commission member and an executive order limiting birthright citizenship. The court has already delivered Trump victories in two immigration cases this week and has frequently sided with the administration in emergency rulings, though it rejected his sweeping tariffs in February.
Firing Federal Officials
The justices appeared ready during December arguments to uphold Trump’s firing of Democratic FTC Commissioner Rebecca Slaughter over policy differences. Lower courts had ruled that Trump exceeded his authority. U.S. Solicitor General D. John Sauer urged the Court to overturn the 1935 precedent Humphrey’s Executor v. United States, which has protected heads of independent agencies from at-will removal. While the Court has narrowed that precedent in recent decades, it has stopped short of overruling it. Conservative justices have expressed sympathy for the view that statutory tenure protections encroach on the president’s constitutional powers. The Court previously allowed Trump to remove Slaughter while the case continues.
Election-Related Cases
Two election disputes remain as Republicans seek to retain congressional control in the November midterms. During March arguments, conservative justices expressed skepticism toward a Mississippi law – challenged by Republicans and supported by the Trump administration – that permits mail-in ballots postmarked on or before Election Day to be counted if received up to five business days later. A lower court invalidated the provision. A ruling striking down the law could encourage stricter voting rules nationwide.
Trump issued an executive order in March restricting mail-in ballots across the country, but a federal judge in Boston blocked its implementation on Thursday. In December, the Court heard a Republican-led challenge – involving Vice President JD Vance – to federal limits on coordinated spending between political parties and candidates. Some conservative justices appeared open to the First Amendment arguments against the restrictions, while the liberal justices seemed inclined to preserve them. A lower court had upheld the limits.
Transgender Athletes
In January arguments, the conservative majority signaled it is prepared to uphold laws in Idaho and West Virginia barring transgender athletes from female sports teams at public schools and universities. The states argue the measures protect fair competition for women and girls; critics see them as part of broader efforts to restrict transgender rights.
Geofence Warrants
The Court also heard April arguments in a Virginia case examining whether law enforcement’s use of “geofence” warrants – which sweep up cellphone location data from areas near crime scenes to identify potential suspects – violates the Fourth Amendment’s ban on unreasonable searches. The Supreme Court’s term, which began in October, typically ends in late June or early July. With seven cases still unresolved and the next round of decisions expected Monday, the coming days will bring clarity on these high-stakes disputes.

https://twitter.com/cb_doge/status/2071050540096573634?s=20

Naval Ravikant reveals Elon Musk cut off Bill Gates after he placed a roughly $1 billion short bet against tesla.

"Elon was like, why would you do that? How would you short Tesla?"

"Bill goes, well, my financial advisors looked at the math, and there's no way it's overvalued,… pic.twitter.com/cUYEAgY3BJ
— Entrepreneurs on X (@entreprneursonx) June 28, 2026

https://twitter.com/GuntherEagleman/status/2071362283356463168?s=20 https://twitter.com/DiogenisSinopis/status/2070949496138199462?s=20

''The Amish basically have no obesity, no infertility, no cancer, no diabetes, no metabolic syndrome. They’re having 10 plus kids and they’re incredibly happy.'' pic.twitter.com/MCjAzqVAxC
— Joe Rogan Podcast News (@joeroganhq) June 27, 2026

Support the Automatic Earth in wartime with Paypal, Bitcoin and Patreon.

Debt Rattle December 16 2024

Dec 162024

December 16, 2024 Posted by Raúl Ilargi Meijer at 9:41 am Finance Tagged with: ceasefire, communism, Cuomo, Iran, land for peace, Meloni, Milei, offshore wind, Orban, Slovakia, Syria, USPS 82 Responses »

Pablo Picasso Female bust 1922

• Trump Team Studying Orban’s Ceasefire Initiative (RT)

• UK PM Calls For ‘Maximum Pain’ On Russia (RT)

• Ukraine Will Have To Trade Land For Peace – Slovak President (RT)

• The New Time Of Troubles, Part III – Don’t Worry, Be Happy (Helmer)

• Germany ‘Cornered’ – Economy Minister (RT)

• Hungary Dismayed At ‘Unprecedented Gesture In Diplomacy’ By Zelensky (RT)

• Syria: The Death of a Civilization (Karganovic)

• Trump Transition Team Considering Strikes on Iran (Antiwar)

• 20 (or So) Obvious Questions about January 6 (Jack Cashill)

• Cuomo Accuser Drops Case Against The Former New York Governor (Turley)

• Milei Admin. Posts Record Reductions in Deficit and Inflation Numbers (Turley)

• House GOP Vows To Refer ActBlue Fundraising Probe To Incoming Trump DOJ (JTN)

• Offshore Wind Opponents From Deep Blue States Hope For Trump (JTN)

• Trump Considers Privatizing US Postal Service (ZH)

• Cold War Tactics With New Anti-Communism School Curriculum (Alan MacLeod)

https://twitter.com/i/status/1868392496083923221

Meloni
https://twitter.com/i/status/1868019091434521077

Lindsey

Senator @LindseyGrahamSC: “I’m in a good place with @PeteHegseth… These are anonymous allegations. He’s given me his side of the story — it makes sense to me. I believe him. Unless somebody’s willing to come forward, I think he’s going to get through.” pic.twitter.com/7caJ9mixV6

— Trump War Room (@TrumpWarRoom) December 15, 2024

Hegseth

"@PeteHegseth is killing it in the meetings because he doesn't shy away from the tough questions," says Senator @MarkwayneMullin.

"He's not only going to be able to win over the American people, but I'd be real surprised if he doesn't win over some Democrat Senate votes, too." pic.twitter.com/Q9vitOPfYf

— Trump War Room (@TrumpWarRoom) December 15, 2024

Logan

Powerful speech by Lara Logan: "We live in the age of information warfare, where propaganda is not simply a weapon, it is the entire field of battle. This is a war for our minds that is aided by advanced technology, and we have never been here, not in all of human history."

"It… pic.twitter.com/xKk4lYCtdh

— Camus (@newstart_2024) December 15, 2024

Drones
https://twitter.com/i/status/1868303280956113093

A Christmas Day truce is of course very appealing.

• Trump Team Studying Orban’s Ceasefire Initiative (RT)

US President-elect Donald Trump is taking “a hard look” at a proposal for a Christmas truce and prisoner swap between Russia and Ukraine put forward by Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban, Trump’s nominee for national security adviser Mike Waltz has said. Orban met with Trump and Waltz at the incoming president’s Mar-a-Lago estate on Monday, two days before he spoke to Russian President Vladimir Putin by phone. After the conversation, the Kremlin announced that Orban had proposed a Christmas Day truce and a large-scale prisoner-swap between Moscow and Kiev, and that the Russian government had responded by sending its ideas for the exchange of POWs to the Hungarian embassy in Moscow. Speaking to CBS News on Sunday, Waltz refused to say whether Orban had passed on a message from Trump to Putin.

However, he said that Trump’s administration-in-waiting wants to “stop the fighting” and that if there is “some type of ceasefire as a first step…we’ll take a hard look at what that means.” “Orban has regular engagement with the Russians, and he clearly has a good relationship with President Trump, and I would hope the entire world would want to see some type of cessation to the slaughter,” Waltz told CBS’ Margaret Brennan, calling the Donbass battlefield “a meat grinder of human beings.” In a social media post on Wednesday, Orban said that Ukrainian leader Vladimir Zelensky had “clearly rejected” his proposed ceasefire. In a post of his own, Ukrainian leader Vladimir Zelensky belittled Orban’s diplomatic activities, claiming that the Hungarian leader was only trying to “boost personal image at the expense of unity” in the EU concerning support for Kiev.

Hungarian Foreign Minister Peter Szijjarto then revealed that the Ukrainian leadership turned down a phone call request from Orban and had done so in a manner that was “quite unprecedented in diplomacy.” In an interview with public broadcaster Kossuth Radio on Sunday, Szijjarto said that the request was refused in “a somewhat strained” manner, without elaborating on the exact wording used by the authorities in Kiev.Trump has repeatedly promised to end the Ukraine conflict within a day of taking office. However, he has not elaborated on how he plans to achieve this, and both Moscow and Kiev have cast doubt on his ability to single-handedly stop the fighting.“Trump is really serious about wanting to get to a ceasefire on day one,” a source supposedly close to the incoming president told NBC News on Friday.

Zelensky insists that his ten-point ‘peace formula’ is the only viable roadmap for ending the conflict. The Kremlin has dismissed this document – which demands that Russia restore Ukraine’s 1991 borders, pay reparations, and surrender its own officials to war crimes tribunals – as “delusional” and “divorced from reality.” Moscow maintains that any settlement must begin with Ukraine ceasing military operations and acknowledging the “territorial reality” that it will never regain control of the Russian regions of Donetsk, Lugansk, Kherson, and Zaporozhye, as well as Crimea. In addition, the Kremlin insists that the goals of its military operation – which include Ukrainian neutrality, demilitarization, and denazification – will be achieved.

Desperately seeking relevance. If you talk tough, at least you look like a man.

• UK PM Calls For ‘Maximum Pain’ On Russia (RT)

British Prime Minister Keir Starmer has called on his fellow G7 leaders to “continue maximizing Putin’s pain” through economic sanctions on Russia and increased military aid to Ukraine. During a video conference on Friday, “the Prime Minister said that with [Russian President Vladimir] Putin showing no sign of relenting, it is vital that we bolster our support to put [Ukraine] in the best possible position for the future,” according to a readout released by his office. “He called on fellow G7 leaders to continue maximizing Putin’s pain by increasing military support to the Ukrainians and ramping up economic pressure, including via further sanctions where possible,” the statement continued. Two days earlier, the US and UK announced a new round of sanctions on Moscow, targeting what the British government called Russia’s “illicit gold trade.”

At the same time, EU ambassadors agreed on a 15th package of economic penalties, this time targeting Russia’s petroleum industry and Chinese companies allegedly producing drones for the Russian military. Repeated rounds of sanctions have failed to “crater” the Russian economy, as US President Joe Biden predicted they would in 2022. Instead, the Russian economy grew by 3.6% this year, while Britain’s grew by 1.1%, according to figures from the International Monetary Fund (IMF). ”We learned a lot after the sanctions started,” Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov told American journalist Tucker Carlson earlier this month. “But what doesn’t kill you makes you stronger, you know. They would never kill us, so they are making us stronger.”

Amid an historic decline in living standards at home, the UK has given £8.34 billion ($10.52 billion) in military aid to Ukraine since February 2022, according to figures from Germany’s Kiel Institute for the World Economy, which tracks Western aid to Kiev.Starmer claimed last month that this outpouring of arms and ammunition will help the Ukrainians “secure a just and lasting peace on their terms.” However, the Kremlin has argued that any future peace terms will be worse for Ukraine than those rejected by Kiev during peace talks in Istanbul in April 2022. While Russia was prepared to settle the conflict in 2022 with Ukraine agreeing to stay out of NATO and grant autonomy to the regions of Donetsk and Lugansk, Kiev must now accept the “realities on the ground,” Lavrov told Carlson, referring to the fact that Donetsk, Lugansk, Kherson, and Zaporozhye are now parts of the Russian federation and will not be ceded back to Ukraine.

“The Russians are gaining more and more territory, the sanctions are not working, and Ukraine is no longer strong enough for possible negotiations..”

• Ukraine Will Have To Trade Land For Peace – Slovak President (RT)

The Ukraine conflict will not be resolved until Kiev accepts some “partial territorial losses,” Slovak President Peter Pellegrini has said. Pellegrini and Prime Minister Robert Fico have both called on Russia and Ukraine to enter immediate peace talks. Speaking to Slovakia’s STVR broadcaster on Sunday, Pellegrini said that daily updates from the front line have convinced him that Ukraine cannot hope to achieve its territorial goals – the return of Donetsk, Lugansk, Kherson, Zaporozhye and Crimea – by force.“When it comes to peace, I believe that we need to remain realistic,” he told the network. “Today, probably no sane person in Europe believes that it will be possible to achieve peace without some partial territorial losses for Ukraine.” The president then called on Ukraine and Russia to sit down at the negotiating table as soon as possible.

Pellegrini’s comments echo those made by Fico earlier this week. Speaking to Brazil’s Folha de Sao Paulo news outlet, the Slovak prime minister said that it is necessary to be “at least a little realistic” and to “admit that Russia will never leave Crimea, Donetsk and Lugansk.” After taking office last year, Fico immediately halted military aid from Bratislava to Kiev, and vowed to veto Ukraine’s potential accession to NATO. He has also accused “Ukrainian Nazis and fascists” of starting the conflict by “murdering the Russian population of Donbass,” and has condemned his fellow EU leaders for prolonging the fighting with military aid and sanctions on Moscow.

“What is the result? The Russians are gaining more and more territory, the sanctions are not working, and Ukraine is no longer strong enough for possible negotiations,” he told Folha de Sao Paulo. Fico also predicted that Kiev will likely be “betrayed” by its Western backers and possibly end up losing a third of its territories without being invited into NATO, receiving security guarantees only in the form of a foreign troop presence in the country. Moscow maintains that any settlement must begin with Ukraine ceasing military operations and acknowledging the “territorial reality” that it will never regain control of its former regions. In addition, the Kremlin insists that the goals of its military operation – which include Ukrainian neutrality, demilitarization, and denazification – will be achieved.

Helmer enters PCR territory.

• The New Time Of Troubles, Part III – Don’t Worry, Be Happy (Helmer)

President Vladimir Putin gave a party rally speech in Moscow on Saturday in which he omitted to mention seven of the eight domestic issues most troubling Russian voters – inflation; high interest-rate caused stagnation in the economy; corruption; low quality education; poor public health care; terrorism; and illegal immigrants. He made an exception for the Special Military Operation and “the front to fight for the Motherland”.To Russians who tell pollsters the protracted war and the casualty rate are their biggest concerns, Putin said not to worry — he and his party are taking care of both: “The United Russia party has been supporting our troops literally from the first day of the special military operation: it submits important draft laws to create legal and social guarantees for our heroes and their families; assists the recovery of the liberated regions; collects and delivers everything the civilians there need.

“The party also does much for the veterans who are back from the combat areas, helps them realise themselves in civilian professions, in public and political life.” Reading methodically without departing from his script, Putin told delegates at the 22nd Congress of United Russia that the party stands for “the unity of people, faith in the country and in our victory…the desire to ensure the safety of the Motherland, to protect our sacred historical memory, spirituality, traditions.” This is political boilerplate — and it’s bullet-proof. The polls reinforce Putin’s message with the assurance that Russian voters see and fancy no alternative. In the current State Duma, elected in September 2021 to a five-year term, United Russia holds 324 of the 450 seats. The opposition is led by the Communist Party with 57 seats; Just Russia with 28, and New People with 16. In the Levada polling, support for United Russia is stable at 42%; the other political parties are polling between 4% and 10%.

No other Russian politician represents a challenge to the president; he does not face a new election until 2030. Public approval for Putin remains at 87% according to the Levada Centre; 79% according to the All-Russian Centre for the Study of Public Opinion (VTsIOM), and stable. There is no government or party figure drawing current voter support in opposition, and no public canvassing for the succession. Prime Minister Mikhail Mishustin and Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov trail after Putin in the polls but far behind; their political profiles and approval ratings are based on the frequency of their media appearances. But public trust for them is a fraction of Putin’s rating, and they are not candidates to succeed him. Trust in former President Dmitry Medvedev is a fraction of that for Mishustin and Lavrov because Medvedev – though head of the United Russia party and deputy head of the Security Council — is almost invisible in the mainstream media.

The general public mood, as measured by Levada between November 2 and 27, is overwhelmingly positive and confident – 72% of Russians believe the country is going in the right direction; only 18% think it’s headed in the wrong direction. In this domestic atmosphere, Putin is calculating there is no good reason for him to mention the Russian military withdrawal from Syria, or to answer press questions of why he decided to evacuate Russian bases in the country, allow Israel to destroy Syria’s military and industrial infrastructure, and accept Israeli, Turkish and American takeover of Syria’s sovereignty, territory, and natural wealth, particularly water and oil. A Moscow source comments: “I think the Russian public will not be convinced to risk a presence there especially when the propaganda has changed its tune to the line, ‘it’s impossible to help those who can’t help themselves.’ With Syrian statehood gone, this battle is lost.”

This is the rationale, several Moscow sources believe, for Putin to cut his losses and run from Syria without risking the appearance to Russian voters of having done either. The military and strategic implications of Putin’s decision-making on Syria, argued behind closed doors with the General Staff, are unmentioned in the Duma and the media. The Moscow source adds: “What happens in Ukraine and when are the main questions now. There could well be more surprises from the US. There might be a new ground assault into Russian territory and continuing missile attacks deep into Russian territory. So far, these are not disturbing the national mood of confidence and optimism. So for the time being Russians are not expecting and are not prepared for any escalation on any front – at least not on the ground.

“If Putin can negotiate to keep the four [Donbass] regions and a demilitarisation accord with [President Donald] Trump, there will be what the Defense Ministry calls retaliation, but no escalation. At least not for now, not for six months after Trump takes office if the talks head nowhere.” “What is needed now from Russian point of view is time to build the army and the economy for a bigger war. That, according to everyone I talk with, is going to be war with Turkey when the stakes will be much higher than they are with Ukraine. Putin is adopting a wait-and-see stance. Russian military sources believe that Putin and the General Staff have agreed to restrict their operations to electric war targeting; to avoid decapitation strikes at the Ukrainian leadership or US, French and British forces operating long-range Ukrainian missile units; and to characterize current air operations as “retaliation”, not “escalation”.

They will never admit they cornered themselves.

• Germany ‘Cornered’ – Economy Minister (RT)

Germany has been forced into a corner by underinvestment and policies pursued by other leading economies, Economy Minister Robert Habeck has said, after the central bank warned of a difficult year ahead. In an interview with Bild newspaper published on Sunday, the politician, who intends to run for chancellor next year, insisted that Germany can turn the situation around. “Our business model is really cornered. Will it no longer work? It would be too early for me to throw in the towel,” Habeck said. The minister noted that Germany has failed to make sufficient investment in its infrastructure, tax system and workforce skills, resulting in a “negative impact” on its economy.

Germany is an export-oriented nation that needs open markets, Habeck argued, in reference to US President-elect Donald Trump’s threats of major tariff increases. Trump warned in November that he would impose steeper duties on foreign-made cars to protect US jobs, a move that would disproportionately affect Germany. Habeck also pointed to Chinese-made electric cars flooding the EU market and causing “a big problem” for the German automotive industry. Car manufacturing is one of the key drivers of the German economy, accounting for approximately 5% of GDP. The Munich-based Ifo Institute for Economic Research estimates that future tariffs could cost Germany €33 billion ($34.6 billion), and that exports to the US could fall by 15%.

Germany does have a problem, “but one that can be solved,” Habeck told Bild, without elaborating. On Friday, the German central bank slashed its growth forecast for next year to 0.2%, from the 1.1% level it had predicted in June. The regulator also said it expects the economy to contract by 0.2% this year, having previously predicted modest growth of 0.3%. It would mark a second consecutive year of decline, after gross domestic product shrank by 0.3% in 2023, according to the Federal Statistics Office, Destatis. The agency attributed last year’s contraction to persistent inflation, high energy prices, and weak foreign demand. A snap federal election will be held in Germany on February 23. Chancellor Olaf Scholz’s three-party coalition collapsed earlier this month after he fired Finance Minister Christian Lindner.

“Ukraine was not ready to start any talks with Russia as there is insufficient support from the West to conduct negotiations from a position of strength..”

• Hungary Dismayed At ‘Unprecedented Gesture In Diplomacy’ By Zelensky (RT)

The Ukrainian leadership turned down a phone-call request from Hungary’s Prime Minister Viktor Orban in a manner that was “unprecedented” in nature, Foreign Minister Peter Szijjarto has revealed. The rebuff followed an hour-long conversation between Orban and Russian President Vladimir Putin. In an interview with public broadcaster Kossuth Radio on Sunday, Szijjarto said that he had approached Ukrainian Foreign Minister Andrey Sibiga and Vladimir Zelensky’s top aide Andrey Yermak, asking for the authorization of a telephone conversation between Orban and the Ukrainian leader. ”In a gesture that was quite unprecedented in diplomacy,” the request was refused in “a somewhat strained” manner, Szijjarto said, as quoted by the Magyar Nemzet newspaper.

Hungary’s top diplomat did not elaborate on the exact wording used by the authorities in Kiev. Hungary has tried “everything” during the past six months of its EU presidency to use it “for a good cause, to initiate a ceasefire and peace negotiations,” Szijjarto noted. Budapest has held the rotating presidency of the EU Council in the second half of this year. Earlier this week Orban said he’d put forward a proposal for a Christmas ceasefire and a major prisoner exchange between Russia and Ukraine. ”One side accepted it, the other rejected it,” the Premier told Kossuth Radio on Friday. Zelensky, in turn, claimed that the Hungarian leader was only trying to “boost personal image at the expense of unity” in the EU in terms of supporting Ukraine.

The authorities in Kiev have sent mixed messages about their readiness for negotiations with Russia. On Wednesday, Zelensky’s top adviser Mikhail Podoliak said Kiev could engage in talks with Moscow if they are not based on Russia’s conditions. Andrey Yermak said on Friday that Ukraine was not ready to start any talks with Russia as there is insufficient support from the West to conduct negotiations from a position of strength. Moscow has repeatedly stressed that it’s ready to resume the negotiations. It has urged Kiev to accept the new realities “on the ground,” with President Vladimir Putin citing the complete withdrawal of all Ukrainian forces from all Russian territories as a key prerequisite for peace talks.

“Syria was an imperfect yet incontestably successful pattern of civilisation, at least in the perspective of those who in human relations strive for a semblance of peace, cooperation, and harmony..”

• Syria: The Death of a Civilization (Karganovic)

Pepe Escobar was spot on when he stated that the downfall of Syria signified the “death of a nation.” Is it premature to chant a requiem for that marvellous land and its intriguing people, not just their virtues but also their flaws having duly been taken into account? And ought we to do it so soon, as the black flag of Syria’s latest conquerors, matching the darkness of its present circumstances, flutters over it, having just been raised in its capital? Time will tell, but reputable observers appear to be partial to precisely such a sombre conclusion. An argument could be advanced that Syria’s tragedy may prove to be even greater in scope than Pepe avers. Syria surely never was a “nation” in the conventional sense, signifying the homogeneity of shared ethnicity, faith, and moral purpose. It was in fact largely the opposite. Historically, however, Syria was an entity and perhaps even an idea much loftier than a mere homogeneity.

It was a concept of conviviality, not of the simple and easy kind, founded upon commonalities, but of the truly challenging and infinitely more complicated sort. Syria throughout the ages was a precarious, yet for the most part sustainably functional cultural crucible, consisting of a combination of disparate components thrown inexplicably together by the whims of fate. Yet astonishingly, and contrary to virtually every lesson of human interaction taught and learned elsewhere, Syria was an impossible combination that for the most part worked reasonably well. This patchwork of manifestly incompatible elements, of diverse faiths, often incongruous ethnicities, and real or imagined identities, willy-nilly and probably more by trial and error than by design, had developed a unique modus vivendi, a formula for practical coexistence from which the world has much to learn.

Instead of watching idly as freakish barbarians armed with sledgehammers pound it to smithereens, we should perhaps have reacted, contrary if need be to the tenets of geopolitical logic, to preserve this ancient land and cultural treasure from defilement and devastation. We can do no better now than to study for our own profit and edification that remarkable historically conditioned mechanism that Syria used to be, to emulate its spirit and apply its principles wherever practicable. I would argue, without idealising, that the now apparently defunct Syria, rather than being merely a nation whose death it is proper to mourn, as Pepe rightly does, conceptually was much more than the sum of its constituent parts. Syria was an imperfect yet incontestably successful pattern of civilisation, at least in the perspective of those who in human relations strive for a semblance of peace, cooperation, and harmony. Whether or not that pattern can ever be reconstituted is a question to which a ready answer is not at hand.

That having been said, we may skip the analysis of how Syria’s tragic and unexpected Untergang has come about, that topic being competently expounded by other commentators. There is, however, an aspect of the current events that needs to be particularly highlighted. That is the human dimension of the horror. Under the guise of opposing the excesses of a dictatorship, a combination of countries which purport to occupy the high moral ground in world affairs (the allusion is to the collective West and its lackeys, of course) have waged a relentless proxy war of attrition and extinction not against the Syrian “regime,” as they contemptuously referred to the legitimate government of that country, but against the people of Syria en masse, irrespective of their particular affiliation.

The objective was to oppress them and to destroy their common heritage in order to render them helpless and obedient to globalist masters and their regional collaborators, determined to impose their rapacious schemes in the form of oil pipelines, territorial recomposition, or whatever corrupt and self-serving goals they may have set. In that nefarious operation, the Syrian people, and even the jihadist condottieri themselves, the militia of goons trained and equipped to destroy the tranquillity and devastate the material and cultural assets of that unfortunate land, are all expendable.

Just don’t.

• Trump Transition Team Considering Strikes on Iran (Antiwar)

Strikes on Iranian nuclear facilities are being seriously considered within the Donald Trump transition team, according to the Wall Street Journal. While there is no proof Tehran is trying to make a nuclear weapon, Washington and Tel Aviv are threatening to attack Iran’s nuclear energy infrastructure. “The military-strike option against nuclear facilities is now under more serious review by some members of his transition team,” the WSJ explained. “Iran’s weakened regional position and recent revelations of Tehran’s burgeoning nuclear work have turbocharged sensitive internal discussions, transition officials said.” Tel Aviv is undergoing a similar debate. “The Israel Defense Forces believes that following the weakening of Iranian proxy groups in the Middle East and the dramatic fall of the Bashar al-Assad regime in Syria, there is an opportunity to strike Iran’s nuclear facilities,” the Times of Israel reported on Thursday.

Adding, “The Israeli Air Force has therefore continued to increase its readiness and preparations for such potential strikes in Iran.” According to WSJ, President-elect Trump and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu have recently discussed potentially attacking Iran. “Trump has told Netanyahu in recent calls that he is concerned about an Iranian nuclear breakout on his watch.” The report continues, “The president-elect wants plans that stop short of igniting a new war, particularly one that could pull in the US military.” The sources explained that the administration is considering two options. The first is bolstering American military presence in the Middle East while providing Israel with the ability to destroy Iranian nuclear sites without US assistance. The other option calls for American threats to force Tehran to make concessions at the negotiation table.

Whichever option Trump chooses, he is also expected to increase sanctions on Iran given his belief that he must economically cripple Tehran. While the US intelligence community, the IAEA, the Pentagon, and Tehran all say Iran is not developing nuclear weapons, the incoming Trump administration and Tel Aviv say they are concerned the Islamic Republic will obtain a nuke. Additionally, Trump believes Tehran was behind an assassination attempt on his life. However, Trump and Netanyahu may perceive Iran as weak, given Bashar al-Assad’s ouster in Syria and Hezbollah’s concessions in its truce with Israel. Emboldened by recent events, Washington and Tel Aviv could attempt to strike Iran, believing Tehran is vulnerable. Mark Dubowitzchief executive of the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, told WSJ, “If you were going to actually do something to neutralize the nuclear-weapons program, this would be it.”

On Wednesday, Netanyahu published a video on X in English telling the Iranian people that regime change may come a lot sooner than many people think.

Clawson

pic.twitter.com/gZhaY0MAZL

This will never be shown on Corporate news channels.

Here is how the U.S. War Machine is going to start a war with Iran.

Patrick Clawson, a U.S. foreign policy insider, just blurts it out

“I frankly think that crisis initiation is really tough, and…

— Jimmy Dore (@jimmy_dore) December 15, 2024

“..the accused were allowed no change of venue and faced juries pulled from a pool 95 percent anti-Trump. This needs to change.”

• 20 (or So) Obvious Questions about January 6 (Jack Cashill)

Even before Donald Trump ascends to the presidency on January 20, his appointees should ask themselves the questions that follow — all of them simple and straightforward. With Christopher Wray stepping down from the FBI directorship, they will have a much better chance of getting straight answers quickly. Trump’s team should then share those answers widely. This information will make President Trump’s pardon of more than 1,500 Americans much more comprehensible to the American public and much less controversial.

–Although now the FBI admits to having 26 confidential human sources in the crowd on January 6, how many total “assets” did the FBI and other entities plant, and what roles did they play?
–Was Ray Epps working for an entity? And if so, under what terms?
–Who planted the pipe bombs outside the DNC and near the RNC headquarters?
–Who instructed Kamala Harris to conceal the fact that she was at the DNC when the bomb was found and why?
–Why did Harris allow hundreds of J6ers to be prosecuted for threatening her designated space at the Capitol when she wasn’t at the Capitol?
–Who were the “two law enforcement officials” who told the New York Times that “pro-Trump rioters” fatally struck Capitol Police officer Brian Sicknick with a fire extinguisher, inflicting “a bloody gash in his head”?
–Who orchestrated the 100-day-plus suppression of Sicknick’s autopsy report?
–If Sicknick was not murdered, as the DOJ finally conceded, why did a federal judge give Julian Khater an 80-month prison sentence for spritzing Sicknick with an over-the-counter pepper spray?
–Has there been an official inquiry into the subsequent suicide deaths of four USCP officers, and if not, why has the DOJ routinely blamed the J6ers for causing those deaths?
–Why was there no crime scene investigation in the likely homicide of Rosanne Boyland?
–Who chose to ignore the obvious video evidence of Boyland being suffocated as a result of a police action and to falsely blame her death on an amphetamine overdose?
–Who suppressed the Boyland autopsy report for 90 days and stonewalled her family at every turn?
–Why was Lila Morris, the Metropolitan P.D. officer caught on video repeatedly bashing the unconscious Boyland over the head with a tree branch, not even disciplined?
–Why was Metropolitan P.D. lieutenant Jason Bagshaw promoted despite having been caught on video bashing the defenseless Victoria White bloody?
–Why did the DOJ not interview the eyewitnesses to the shooting death of Ashli Babbitt?
–Why did the USCP coddle and promote Babbitt’s killer, Michael Byrd, despite a shooting that, according to use-of-force expert Stan Kephart, “violated not only the law but his oath”?
–Who ordered the “shock and awe” raids on the homes of hundreds of non-violent protesters and why?
–Why has the so-called “Scaffold Commander” not been arrested despite multiple clear images of his face?
–Why has the man who constructed the mock gallows on the Capitol grounds not been arrested despite multiple clear images of his face?
–Why did the USCP allow the gallows to stand unmolested on Capitol grounds for more than four hours before the crowds gathered?
–Why was Emanuel Jackson quickly set free despite having been caught on video swinging a baseball bat at police officers over a two-hour period?
–If there was no insurrection, as the DOJ conceded, why were the sentences given to the J6ers so much more severe than the $30–50 fines given to the protesters who physically obstructed the Kavanaugh hearings?

These are the simple questions, the ones off the top. I am sure readers will think of others I may have overlooked. To be sure, more probing questions need to be asked about the January 6 Select Committee report as well as the charging documents for the J6ers. Having read through much of this material, I am impressed by how casually — and routinely — our elected officials and federal jurists distort the facts to protect the party line. In short, they lie, and some have done so under oath. I am impressed, too, by the shamelessness of a DOJ that can boast of its success rate in securing convictions, knowing that the accused were allowed no change of venue and faced juries pulled from a pool 95 percent anti-Trump. This needs to change.

More questions need to be asked as well about the security failures at all levels on January 6. In his otherwise worthy book, Government Gangsters, Kash Patel more or less exonerates the Pentagon. He should not have. Incompetence explains much of what went wrong on January 6, but so does treason. Nearly 1,600 American citizens were arrested for exercising their First Amendment rights on January 6, and roughly half of them have been incarcerated. Save for the insurrectionists among them — if there were any — the rest deserve not just commutation of their sentences, but a full pardon. Many may deserve compensation. And all deserve the truth.

To learn more, see Jack Cashill’s newest book, Ashli: The Untold Story of the Women of January 6.

…But Continues Case Against New York..

“..should require the public release of all the evidence so that New Yorkers finally know the truth: Governor Cuomo never sexually harassed anyone.”

• Cuomo Accuser Drops Case Against The Former New York Governor (Turley)

A curious thing just happened in the sexual harassment lawsuit against former New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo: accuser Charlotte Bennett just dropped her claims against Cuomo despite continuing with litigation against the state over the alleged conduct of Cuomo. While the state has its own obligations as an employer, it is odd that you would drop the claim against the alleged actor himself. That is like dropping your product liability claim against Tesla while suing the electric company for powering the car. A significant number of women alleged sexual harassment against the former governor. They previously gave evidence in criminal investigations and spoke to state and federal investigators. However, in 2022, Albany County District Attorney David Soares dropped a criminal complaint against Cuomo for lack of evidence. Later, five additional criminal cases were dropped.

He has been facing pending civil litigation over the allegations of sexual harassment for years. The state is reportedly paying Cuomo’s legal fees. The strange profile of the litigation with this withdrawal may reflect the strikingly different interests of the legal teams representing Cuomo versus the state. Bennett was the second of several former aides to accuse Cuomo of sexual harassment. She complained that Cuomo was harassing her with “invasive” demands of her medical records and pursuing testimony from friends. However, when you accuse someone of being a sexual harasser, such discovery is not just expected but often essential for the defense. The defense took a victory lap while responding to rumors of a settlement in the making with the state. It noted that the move came shortly before Bennett would appear for deposition:

“After falsely smearing Governor Cuomo for years, Ms. Bennett suddenly withdrew her federal lawsuit on the eve of her deposition to avoid having to admit under oath that her allegations were false and her claims had no merit. If New York State does give in to her public pressure campaign and settles, it will not be on the merits and should require the public release of all the evidence so that New Yorkers finally know the truth: Governor Cuomo never sexually harassed anyone.” The deposition was expected to be brutal, including questions raised by videotapes in which Bennett calls Cuomo “amazing” and “wonderful” to work with. The defense has also cited prior allegations against others that were later dropped. The settlement talks could amplify the different interests of the two legal teams.

The state team is answerable to Gov. Kathleen Hochul, who may have an interest in not only killing the case but also creating a record of a settlement over the allegations. Her office previously settled with the Biden Administration over federal claims. I previously expressed concern over the lack of fairness and due process for Cuomo in that case and how the settlement was being portrayed. The dropping of the case may undermine negotiations with the state unless they have reached an undisputed agreement. Between the settlement with the federal government and settlements with these accusers, Cuomo may be left without an adjudication on specific claims that he wants to clear his name. Such settlements create a stain of presumptive guilt for many. The only thing that is clear is that the case against Andrew Cuomo seems to get “curiouser and curiouser.”

He appears to be successful. But from the MSM, crickets only.

• Milei Admin. Posts Record Reductions in Deficit and Inflation Numbers (Turley)

Argentinian President Javier Milei has long been an irresistible target of the press and pundits. When he came into power with his famous “Afuera” (or Out!) platform to dramatically shrink government spending. Argentina was viewed as a basket case that was well past the red line for recovery. He was mocked as a clown for seeking to apply libertarian policies on the economy. Milei may have the last laugh. After only a year, his government has wiped out the deficit and reduced inflation from 25% to 2.4%. Argentina’s monthly inflation rate slowed to 2.4% in November, the lowest in over four years. Inflation had slowed to 2.7% in October. Instead of a disastrous deficit, the country now posts a fiscal surplus of approximately 0.4% of GDP.

For the media outlets, there is a begrudging recognition. The Associated Press reported the economic improvement by first detailing how “Milei’s lack of government experience, unkempt hairdo, sexual boasts and missionary-like zeal for his dead dog, the Rolling Stones and the free market didn’t inspire much confidence in a country with a history of failed economic reforms.” After discussing the unemployment and “brutal” measures, the article finally get to the statistics roughly half way through by noting that “signs have emerged that Argentina’s bizarre and long mismanaged economy is starting to look a little more normal. Monthly inflation has plummeted, bonds have rallied and the closely watched gap between the black market dollar and the official rate has shrunk as much as 44%. Argentina’s country-risk index, an influential measure of the risk of default, is at its lowest point in five years.”

“Once Pam Bondi comes in as attorney general under the Trump administration, we then have a partner at the United States Department of Justice to look at this..”

• House GOP Vows To Refer ActBlue Fundraising Probe To Incoming Trump DOJ (JTN)

House Administration Committee Chairman Brian Steil said he will refer findings from his ongoing probe into the progressive fundraising platform ActBlue to the incoming Trump Justice Department. Steil believes the new Attorney General Pam Bondi, if confirmed, will be more than willing to probe the Democratic fundraising powerhouse over allegations it failed to implement sufficient security measures on its platform to prevent illegal foreign monies from flowing into U.S. political campaigns. “Once Pam Bondi comes in as attorney general under the Trump administration, we then have a partner at the United States Department of Justice to look at this, to do the investigation into bad actors, and to hold anyone who is engaged in this activity accountable,” Steil told the Just the News, No Noise TV show on Thursday.

“The good news is President [Donald} Trump’s coming to office in just a few short weeks. We’re going to have an opportunity to move forward on the prosecutorial side, and then we in Congress have to continue this work, moving legislation forward.” Steil’s committee has probed ActBlue over lax security measures that may have allowed foreign entities to donate to U.S. political campaigns, which is illegal. In October, Steil and Wisconsin Sen. Ron Johnson, a fellow Republican, wrote to Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen, FBI Director Christopher Wray and Director of National Intelligence Avril Haines about concerns that four U.S. adversaries may have donated through the platform. “We write to you to raise an urgent concern regarding potential illicit election funding by foreign actors,” the lawmakers wrote Yellen in a letter dated Thursday.

“CHA has been investigating claims that foreign actors, primarily from Iran, Russia, Venezuela, and China, may be using ActBlue to launder illicit money into U.S. political campaigns.” They also said: “Our investigation has indicated that these actors may be exploiting existing U.S. donors by making straw donations without their knowledge.” The lawmakers specifically demanded access to any Suspicious Activity Reports (SARs) related to money passing through the fundraising platform generated by any U.S. financial institution as part of their anti-money-laundering activities. ActBlue recently acknowledged to Congress that it has updated its donor verification policy to automatically reject donations that “use foreign prepaid/gift cards, domestic gift cards, are from high-risk/sanctioned countries, and have the highest level of risk as determined,” by its solution provider, Sift.

The change occurred just three days after Steil introduced the Secure Handling of Internet Electronic Donations (SHIELD) Act on Sept. 6 to ensure foreign money stayed out of online political fundraising. Before the change, Steil said, donations made with foreign gift cards were not automatically rejected by ActBlue before the change, Just the News reported. ActBlue has repeatedly denied any wrongdoing and says that it is fully cooperating with ongoing investigations. “Democratic and progressive campaigns have trusted ActBlue’s two-decade-long track record of innovation and dependability to deliver during big fundraising moments,” ActBlue said in a statement in June celebrating its 20th anniversary in business. Steil also argues the Justice Department does not appear to be interested in conducting an investigation into what his committee has uncovered so far. “If they were, they would have started about four years ago,” he said.

“..the projects will have “no measurable influence on climate change.”

• Offshore Wind Opponents From Deep Blue States Hope For Trump (JTN)

Shortly after taking office in 2021, President Joe Biden set a goal of developing 30 gigawatts of offshore wind by 2030. Along the coasts, grassroots, community-based organizations concerned about the impacts of offshore wind development sprang up to express their opposition to the plan. They say they found their concerns ignored and dismissed as the federal government pushed full-steam-ahead with Biden’s goals. President-elect Donald Trump stated repeatedly during his campaign that he would end Biden’s offshore wind vision. Now offshore wind opponents in Democratic strongholds of the East and West coasts, while they may not be fans of Trump, they’re hopeful the new administration will finally give them a seat at the table.

In February 2024, the first phase of Vineyard Wind, a 62-turbine project 15 miles south of Nantucket and Martha’s Vineyard became the first large-scale offshore wind project to deliver power to the grid. Amy DiSibio, board member for ACK For Whales, told Just the News that people on Nantucket had, prior to this year, been supportive of Biden’s offshore wind agenda. ACK for Whales is a nonpartisan nonprofit representing Nantucket community members who are concerned about the negative impacts of offshore wind development off the coast of the island. DiSibio said there are a lot of misperceptions about Nantucket. “People think this is an island filled with a bunch of rich people. It’s actually a very economically diverse community. People don’t recognize that, especially the year-round population, these people work two and three jobs to make ends meet. It’s very expensive living 30 miles out to sea,” DiSibio said.

She said about a year ago, people on the island started seeing giant offshore wind turbines covering their ocean views. Concerns were growing about impacts of the industry to the viewshed and marine wildlife, DiSibio said, but when a blade broke off one of the turbines in July and scattered shards of debris across New England shores, the tide of public opinion turned against the industry. “People are like, ‘Are you kidding?’ This is expected to happen on a regular basis. This is an environmental disaster. People are still picking up stuff on the beach. This is a small target in a big ocean. So imagine what’s still out there,” DiSibio said. While the impacts have hit the island hard, the election outcomes suggest Trump’s vows against offshore wind weren’t a selling point for the state or the island.

Massachusetts residents voted 61% in favor of Democratic candidate Kamala Harris, and in Nantucket nearly 67% of votes went for Harris. DiSibio said that as a 501(c)3, ACK for Whales is limited in what it can do, in terms of lobbying. She said that the organization will proceed now with what it’s been doing — educating the public and elected officials on the issue. She said they’ve got people in Congress who have been sympathetic to the issue, such as New Jersey Reps. Jeff Van Drew and Chris Smith, as well as Maryland Rep. Andy Harris in Maryland — all Republicans — who are listening.

“There are people in Congress who have concerns. They’ve got concerns around the environment, economic concerns to what this does to not just coastal communities, but how this will impact the whole state. Concerns around this means for rate payers, concerns around search and rescue, for the Coast Guard, national security. There are many, many questions that are out there,” DiSibio said. She’s hoping there will be more questions not only about the impacts, but also if they’re worth it. Environmental impact statements for offshore wind projects, which are required as part of the federal permitting process, note that the projects will have “no measurable influence on climate change.”

“The government is slow, slow, slow — decades slow on adopting new ways of doing things, and there’s a lot of [other] carrier services that became legal in the ’70s that are doing things so much better..”

• Trump Considers Privatizing US Postal Service (ZH)

Donald Trump is fired up about finally giving the money-losing US Postal Service its long-overdue shove into the private sector, according to three sources who talked to the Washington Post. Trump is said to have discussed the idea with Howard Lutnick, who’s co-chairing his transition team and who’s been tapped to serve as Commerce secretary in the new administration. He also held a meeting with various transition officials to exchange thoughts on privatization of the huge organization. Separately, the Department of Government Efficiency, led by Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy, has held its own discussions about drastic action. Last month, USPS disclosed that it posted a net loss of $9.5 billion for the 2024 fiscal year — a loss that was 46% worse than the service’s $6.5 billion deficit in 2023.

The plunge came alongside a slight uptick in revenue enabled by the latest annual increase in postage rates, pursuant to the 2021 Delivering for America plan. That program was supposed to help the perennially-profitless behemoth “achieve financial sustainability and service excellence.” The service also has a crummy balance sheet, with nearly $80 billion in liabilities. After reviewing the numbers, Trump stated his opinion that the Postal Service shouldn’t be subsidized by the government, the Post’s sources said. Casey Mulligan, a University of Chicago economics professor who served on Trump’s Council of Economic Advisers, tells the Post it’s time for a major change: “The government is slow, slow, slow — decades slow on adopting new ways of doing things, and there’s a lot of [other] carrier services that became legal in the ’70s that are doing things so much better with increased volumes and reduced costs. We didn’t finish the job in the first term, but we should finish it now.”

The Postal Service is politically powerful — starting with its raw headcount: While you may not guess it given the long lines that typify a visit to a post office, USPS has a staggering 650,000 employees, who become very active whenever privatization gains momentum. It’s also popular among Americans — 72% view it favorably, compared just 21% who view it unfavorably, according to a 2024 Pew Research poll. Meanwhile, though a belief in small government is supposedly a GOP cornerstone, the postal service is particularly valued by people living in rural, Republican districts. Earlier this month, Missouri Republican Sen. Josh Hawley angrily confronted Postmaster General Louis DeJoy over a plan to save costs by slowing delivery for some mail, something that would affect rural areas more than urban ones. “I hate this plan and I’m going to do everything I can to kill it,” said Hawley in a Senate hearing.

In addition to having GOP control of the Senate and the House in the next legislature, Trump is positioned to fill three vacancies on the Postal Service’s 11-member board. (Biden has submitted nominees, but you can expect the Senate to ignore them through Jan 20.) Of the incumbents, three are Republicans, with two of them appointed by Trump in his first term. Even if privatization doesn’t happen, Trump’s mere threat of pursuing it could help drive changes to the organization. As the Lexington Institute’s Paul Steilder tells the Post…

“At the end of the day, the Postal Service is going to need money, it’s going to need assistance, or it’s going to have to come up with some radical, draconian measures to break even in the near term. That gives both the White House and Congress an awful lot of power and an awful lot of leeway here.” Sound good on paper…but, as evidenced by the “profit”-and-loss chart above, Congress has long shown a lack of urgency about seeing the USPS “break even in the near term.” Even with a president who’s fired about it — for now — we’re not convinced it will be any different this time.

“The wording of the bill has many worried that this will be a centerpiece of a new era of anti-communist hysteria, similar to previous McCarthyist periods.”

• Cold War Tactics With New Anti-Communism School Curriculum (Alan MacLeod)

Congress has just passed a new bill that will see the U.S. spend huge sums of money redesigning much of the public school system around the ideology of anti-communism. The “Crucial Communism Teaching Act” is now being read in the Senate, where it is all but certain to pass. The move comes amid growing public anger at the economic system and increased public support for socialism. The Crucial Communism Teaching Act, in its own words, is designed to teach children that “certain political ideologies, including communism and totalitarianism…conflict with the principles of freedom and democracy that are essential to the founding of the United States.” Although sponsored by Republicans, it enjoys widespread support from Democrats and is focused on China, Venezuela, Cuba and other targets of U.S. empire. The wording of the bill has many worried that this will be a centerpiece of a new era of anti-communist hysteria, similar to previous McCarthyist periods.

The curriculum will be designed by the controversial Victims of Communism Memorial Foundation and will ensure all American high school students “understand the dangers of communism and similar political ideologies” and “learn that communism has led to the deaths of over 100,000,000 victims worldwide.” It will also develop a series titled “Portraits in Patriotism,” that will expose students to individuals who are “victims of the political ideologies” in question. The 100 million figure originates with the notorious pseudoscience text, “The Black Book of Communism.” A collection of political essays, the book’s central claim is that 100 million people have perished as a result of the communist ideology. However, even many of its contributors and co-writers have distanced themselves from it, claiming that the lead author was “obsessed” with reaching the 100 million figure, to the point that he simply conjured millions of deaths from nowhere.

Its methodology was also universally panned, with many pointing out that the tens of millions of Soviet and Nazi losses during World War II were attributed to communist ideology. This means that both Adolf Hitler himself and many of his victims are counted towards the vastly overinflated figure. The book was condemned by Holocaust remembrance groups as whitewashing and even lionizing genocidal fascist groups as anti-communist heroes. The principal organization promoting the 100 million figure today is the Victims of Communism Memorial Foundation, which has shown a similar level of both anti-communist devotion and methodological rigor. The group, set up by the U.S. government in 1993, added all worldwide COVID-19 deaths to the victims of communism list, arguing that the coronavirus was a communist disease because it originated in China. It is these people who will be designing the new curriculum that will be taught in social studies, government, history, and economics classes across the country.

One of the central goals of the bill is also to “ensure that high school students in the United States understand that 1,500,000,000 people still suffer under communism.” This is a clear reference to China, a rapidly developing country that, in just two generations, has gone from one of the poorest on Earth to a global superpower, challenging and even surpassing the United States on many quality-of-life indicators. The bill goes on to detail how the school curriculum will “focus on ongoing human rights abuses by such regimes, such as the treatment of Uyghurs in the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region” by the Chinese “regime” and its “aggression” towards “pro-democracy protests in Hong Kong,” and Taiwan, who it labels “a democratic friend of the United States.”

The dude did his homework. pic.twitter.com/dtnUQjrHIH

— Johnny (@j00ny369T) December 15, 2024

Malhotra

Dr. Aseem Malhotra: "I came to the conclusion that this fear around cholesterol is grossly exaggerated to the extent where I one could argue, and there's published evidence for this, that high cholesterol, so-called LDL bad cholesterol, isn't really a significant risk factor for… pic.twitter.com/ZhUCd00YZT

— Camus (@newstart_2024) December 15, 2024

Bone cancer

Powerful
pic.twitter.com/2lheQf4vZj

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) December 15, 2024

3d
https://twitter.com/i/status/1868136468335730729

Lynx

Rescue Lynx has her own pet cat pic.twitter.com/EixBxxaArq

— Nature is Amazing ☘️ (@AMAZlNGNATURE) December 15, 2024

Fox

This guy removes a can from a fox ,

Reminder to please take things you have used home for proper disposal
pic.twitter.com/4uhjf89zYr

— Science girl (@gunsnrosesgirl3) December 15, 2024

Bowhead

One of the most fascinating facts about the ocean, is that there are whales alive today who were born before Moby Dick was written.

Some of the bowhead whales in the icy waters off of Alaska today are over 200 years old.pic.twitter.com/4x9n5Fc3BL

— Massimo (@Rainmaker1973) December 16, 2024

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