Nov 082026
 


Eugene Delacroix Greece expiring on the Ruins of Missolonghi 1826


• Trump Removes Susie Wiles, Moves Stephen Miller to Chief of Staff (CTH)
• Your Honeymoon Is Over, Democrats. Look Who’s Here. (A.J. Christopher)
• Why Democrats Are Crashing Out Over Stephen Miller (Matt Margolis)
• Miller and Hegseth Ready to Take on Dems’ Onslaught (Catherine Salgado)
• Trump Wants Dana White As White House Press Secretary (BBC)
• Gas Prices are Dropping Fast. I Have Questions. (Tim O’Brien)
• About Trump’s Big White House Shake-Up (Margolis)
• The MAGA Movement Forgot What Populism Is (Josh Hammer)
• Calley Means Outlines How Susie Wiles Controlled the White House (CTH)
• 2027 Investigative Roadmap Against President Trump Previewed by FOX News (CTH)
• A Requiem for the Midterms (J.B. Shurk)
• ‘Islamophobia’ Is the New ‘Racism.’ Conservatives Won’t Bite. (Tim O’Brien)
• Where The Hammer Sleeps (Lars Møller)

 

 

https://twitter.com/JudicialLeaksHq/status/2118695540003106943?a=X3zxNIHERN2TSZ7-y6w&s=20

 

 


“Wartime Consigliere.”

Trump, by appointing Stephen Miller, and asking Dana White to come work at the White House, makes clear his intentions.

As he did before:”Fight Fight Fight.”

PS does Miller being bald, influence his prospects in Washington?

• Trump Removes Susie Wiles, Moves Stephen Miller to Chief of Staff (CTH)

The former Qatar lobbyist for Ballard Partners, former political consultant and former 2024 campaign manager for candidate Donald Trump who became the Chief of Staff and gatekeeper of the White House, has been removed as Chief of Staff following the 2026 midterm election.


President Trump has appointed Stephen Miller, a wartime consigliere as the Chief of Staff effective Monday.


Mrs Wiles famously took the position of Chief of Staff on the condition that she could “keep the crazies” away from President Trump. Wiles became the gatekeeper to the White House controlling every point of access to the president. One of the issues of concern when Wiles initially took office was her career as a lobbyist, consultant, campaign manager and donor organizer, gave her a career perspective predisposed to view finance as a key for influence and access. Those concerns never really diminished. Mrs. Wiles returns to her comfortable place in the political operation. Mrs Wiles relayed her message of departure via X Platform:


Given the specific congressional strategy that will be deployed against the White House in the 2027 legislative and investigative congressional term, it was wise to put Stephen Miller into place as a wartime consigliere. Congress will likely not seek to impeach President Trump directly, but they will investigate every aspect of finance, and every financial relationship, that has surfaced in the past two-years amid President Trump’s family, allies and supporters.

The corruption narrative coming from those J6-style investigations will then be leveraged against Republican politicians in both the House and Senate as legislation is created. The DSA objective will be to isolate then marginalize the office of the presidency. More soon….

Read more …

“Enter Stephen Miller. And the Democrats are going to start to regret winning the midterms.”

• Your Honeymoon Is Over, Democrats. Look Who’s Here. (A.J. Christopher)

As you are by now aware, Susie Wiles is out as Trump’s chief of staff. I can’t think of a bad thing to say about her, and I wish her the best. Her hard work and focus largely contributed to Trump’s 2024 victory. The insiders tell us that her campaign skills didn’t translate well into governing skills. If that’s the case, so be it. But we all owe Wiles our gratitude for not having to cringe at the sound of “President Harris” for four years.


His voice to them is like the voice of Sauron to quivering hobbits. And they’re already melting down. “A dangerous xenophobe,” they cry. A “reckless extremist,” they howl. “Lawyer up!” they feebly warn him. Miller is “the architect of the most barbaric, inhumane policies of this administration,” whimpers Chuck Schumer, whose own party gladly welcomes Maoists and Hamas supporters. Sounds to me like Trump chose the right guy.

I’ve always felt Miller to be sort of a weird fusion between Donald Trump and Marco Rubio. He takes on the mud fights with the press, utilizing Trump’s no-holds-barred, in-your-face throttle, but adds just enough of Rubio’s rhetorical polish to hold command of the conversation. He makes the press look stupid every time (not that it’s difficult) by turning the tables on them with unapologetic savagery. Miller will be much more visible than Wiles, which is a very bad thing for Democrats.

Oh, and he’s Jewish. Cue Hasan Piker’s head exploding like Rene Belloq’s when he opened the ark in Indiana Jones. But more importantly, in choosing Miller, the president is sending a clear signal to both supporters and enemies. And his message is this: I ain’t going nowhere, and neither is my MAGA agenda. You thought I would just slink away into the darkness? I’m tripling down. And I’m done playing Mr. Nice Guy with you lunatics.

That is exactly what Democrats need to hear. From President Trump, and from all of us. Where Miller stands on the Iran War is not fully known. Reports over the summer described him as supportive of aggressive and hawkish action against Iran. On the other hand, post-midterm “sources” allege he has advised Trump to wind down the war. But Miller is staunchly pro-Israel, and his ancestors fled antisemitic persecution in Russia.

By “winding down” the war, I doubt he means we play make-a-deal footsie with Iranians à la J.D. Vance. He probably has something more effective and permanent in mind. And Miller was largely the face of Trump’s crackdown on illegal immigration and the highly visible ICE raids. Promoting him might also be a signal that the administration intends to swing the focus back to illegal immigration. Please start with Ilhan Omar. And force the Democrats to defend more images of Latin American gangbangers waving flags of the invader.

And Miller has accurately described the Democrat Party as a “domestic terrorist organization.” Does his promotion to chief of staff sound like the actions of a defeated president? My colleague Stephen Kruiser was correct earlier this morning: it’s time to stop moping. Get ready for the counteroffensive, because Trump just sounded the bugle. Dig in your heels and fight. This is our country.

Read more …

“..I pledge to you, Mr. President, my absolute loyalty, my unwavering commitment, and my total devotion to your success and the success of this country.”

• Why Democrats Are Crashing Out Over Stephen Miller (Matt Margolis)

When President Donald Trump promoted Stephen Miller to White House chief of staff, Democrats started fuming almost instantly. That reaction alone tells you it was a good move.

I suspect Democrats thought the fallout from the midterms would scare Trump into submission. They wanted a chastened president who would spend his final two years tiptoeing around them. Instead, Trump handed the most powerful staff job in Washington to a man they deeply despise, and they read the move as defiance. They read it correctly.


“Donald Trump learned nothing from his historic defeat. Stephen Miller is the architect of the most barbaric, inhumane policies of this administration. Trump couldn’t have made a worse choice,” Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) wrote on X shortly after the announcement. “Stephen Miller is a dangerous xenophobe and reckless extremist who has American blood on his hands,” House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-N.Y.) said. “His presence in government should be eradicated like a malignant tumor. Fire him today.”

Classy. The Hill had more:
“Stephen Miller is a radical ideologue who proudly bolsters a dangerous administration’s worst impulses,” Rep. Chrissy Houlahan (D-Pa.) wrote on X.
“Stephen Miller has masterminded the most hateful moments of this Admin. Elevating someone defined by spite and division is a disaster for this country,” Sen. Angela Alsobrooks (D-Md.) wrote on the site.
“Stephen Miller is a white supremacist,” Rep. LaMonica McIver (D-N.J.) said in a statement.
“Stephen Miller is the chief architect of Trump’s racist, cruel, and un-American campaign of terror across our country. Innocent people have died and families have been torn apart because of the policies he’s eagerly pushed,” Sen. Catherine Cortez-Masto (D-Nev.) wrote on X.
“The American people are begging the White House to focus on lowering costs, but the best Trump can do is ‘more Stephen Miller and the culture of cruelty,’” Sen. Chris Coons (D-Del.) wrote in a post.

Former deputy press secretary Sarah Matthews, who quit the Trump White House and now makes the rounds as a critic, joined the chorus too. “The idea that in the last two years of Trump’s administration, when he’s going to be spiraling because he’s a lame-duck president,” Matthews told MeidasTouch. “The idea of someone like a Stephen Miller in charge is a very scary thing.”

On Friday, Trump gave Miller the microphone at a Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) event at Mar-a-Lago, and Miller used it to rally Republicans behind the president instead of letting them scatter.”Let me tell you, if it wasn’t for President Trump, the United States of America would not exist right now,” Miller said. “This man saved America. He saved our military from collapse. He saved our economy from destruction. He saved our border from annihilation.”

Miller highlighted the assassination attempt on Trump’s life and the prosecutions he endured. “This man took a bullet for us. He faced down life in prison for us. He saved the Republican Party from the ash heap of history and has made it stronger, more popular, and more resilient than ever before,” he said.

Then he made his pledge as chief of staff. “We need to stand with the man who has stood with us and this country with every fiber of his being,” Miller added. “It is the honor of my life to be President Trump’s chief of staff, and I swear to you, and I pledge to you, Mr. President, my absolute loyalty, my unwavering commitment, and my total devotion to your success and the success of this country.”



Miller’s speech served as a reminder of what Trump rescued the country from: Joe Biden’s incompetence and the destruction carried out by his autopen-wielding staff, which would have rolled right along under Kamala Harris. After a few difficult days for Republicans, Miller reminded the base what’s at stake.

Democrats already planned to go to war with this White House, no matter who ran the West Wing. Trump simply decided he’d rather fight that war with a general who won’t flinch. A president who caves to his enemies’ outrage invites more of it, and Trump has never been that kind of president.

Read more …

“Goodness knows we need some good news and some Republican leaders unafraid of the opposition after the disappointing midterm election results.”

• Miller and Hegseth Ready to Take on Dems’ Onslaught (Catherine Salgado)

One of the smartest and most fearless members of the Trump administration will be the new chief of staff at the White House, and he and our incomparable secretary of war are already defiant and ready to take on the Democrats after the midterm election.


Stephen Miller has served as an advisor to the administration and will be taking over as Chief of Staff as Susie Wiles switches to a different role. Secretary of War Pete Hegseth, who is perhaps the cabinet member most attuned to ordinary members of the base and the one least likely to cave to woke pressure, is very excited about Miller’s appointment. Goodness knows we need some good news and some Republican leaders unafraid of the opposition after the disappointing midterm election results.


While Miller might have exaggerated his praise of President Donald Trump somewhat, we know that he will never backstab Trump the way that Vice President JD Vance did after the midterm with his remarks about Israel and Iran. And as Miller is Jewish, he also won’t blame every problem on Israel. That obsession is preventing too many people from doing their job well.

“It has been the privilege of my lifetime to have served on [Trump’s] team from Day One, and I am honored beyond words to serve as his White House Chief of Staff,” Miller posted on X on November 6. “I want to thank the incomparable Susie Wiles for her years of devoted service to the President and the Country, and for her friendship. The mission now is more clear than ever: Fight with all of our soul to support our President and defend this magnificent Republic.”

President Trump made the initial announcement in a brief Friday post on TruthSocial, his customary platform for sharing news with Americans. “I am pleased to announce that Mr. Stephen Miller, the current Deputy Chief of Staff of the Trump Administration, and one of my most trusted advisors, will become the Chief of Staff starting Monday, November 9, 2026. Susie Wiles, who has done an outstanding job, will be moving over to the Trump Political Operation. I want to thank her for her service as Chief of Staff — She has done a great job!” Trump wrote.

Fox News correspondent Bill Melugin had a meme response to Miller’s appointment:


The next two years are going to be a difficult slog against the Democrats in Congress and at the state level. Now more than ever, it is important for Trump to have people surrounding him who are not afraid of the Democrat machine and who are not willing to back down on important issues.


The painful lesson that Republicans learned this year is that voters will not accept halfway measures or unending delays on the agenda points they most want. Republicans need to start being as aggressive in implementing their agenda as Democrats are at ramming through their evil policies.

Read more …

“We need these people to defend us against the Lunatic Left..”

I would think Dana White is far too busy with things he can’t just walk out of.

• Trump Wants Dana White As White House Press Secretary (BBC)

US President Donald Trump has asked Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC) boss Dana White to be White House press secretary, in a social media post. “Dana will be a Press Secretary like none other,” Trump wrote on Truth Social. “Dana, please take the job!” It was unclear whether the president’s public job offer was genuine, although White said later on Saturday: “I’m going to meet with him, we have a meeting on Monday”.


The vacancy for White House press secretary has been open since mid-October, when Katie Zacharia quit less than five days into the job. Trump’s post on Saturday afternoon comes after his fellow Republicans were routed in the US midterm elections, losing their congressional majorities. The president called White “a violent Fighter and Warrior” and asked that he bring a number of high-profile UFC fighters with him on the job “even though some are not from our Country”.

“We need these people to defend us against the Lunatic Left,” Trump wrote, alongside photos of the six fighters. Following Trump’s post, White posted an Instagram photo of himself behind the lectern in the White House press briefing room. “On to the next chapter,” White wrote, though it was unclear if the post was tongue-in-cheek.

“Hell yeah! Do it, @DanaWhite!” White House communications director Steven Cheung posted on X, as he shared the president’s message. White was ringside for a fight in London on Saturday night between British former world champion Chris Billam-Smith and Jamaican-born Briton Cheavon Clarke at the Copper Box Arena.

Asked about the Trump offer at a news conference afterwards, the UFC chief executive said he was flying to Washington for a meeting with Trump on Monday. “I got a lot of jobs already,” he told reporters. “I’m sure we’ll have something to talk about after that,” he added, without being drawn on whether he was interested in taking on one of the most gruelling jobs in the political arena.

CNN cited a source familiar as saying that White had declined the idea. As he noted in the news conference, he already has a number of time-consuming commitments. As well as leading UFC and Power Slap, a regulated slap-fighting promotion league, he has just launched Zuffa Boxing, a professional promotion company.

And last year he was unveiled as one of three new board members of Meta, the owner of Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp. Famously combative, White has at times clashed with journalists covering the sport during news conferences. He released a clip in 2020 lambasting reporters who had questioned the UFC’s decision to hold fights during the pandemic. In 2009, he released an expletive-laden video tirade using an anti-gay slur while rebutting a journalist’s story about changes to credential rules backstage at UFC events.

White is a longtime ally – and friend – of Trump. When White and his business partners bought the then-struggling UFC organisation for $2m in 2001, the sport’s future seemed uncertain. Just five years earlier, Republican Senator John McCain had famously labelled mixed martial arts “human cockfighting”, sparking bans in 36 US states.

“None of the venues wanted [the UFC],” White said in 2025. “They didn’t believe in it. They didn’t like it, and they were worried about the type of crowd that would show up for this type of event.”With mainstream arenas shutting them out, White credits Trump with saving the organisation by hosting two UFC events at the Trump Taj Mahal casino in Atlantic City, New Jersey, in 2001.

White became a speaker for Trump’s White House campaigns at the Republican National Conventions in 2016, 2020 and 2024. He also appeared on stage for Trump’s victory speech in the 2024 presidential election.This summer, the UFC staged a cage match on the White House lawn.

Read more …

Tim O’Brien has questions. So do I. That 254 Texas counties, and 1799 counties in total, ALL went from GOP to Dems in 4 years time, with not one exception, is just so improbable. It’s like winning the lottery. Twice.

• Gas Prices are Dropping Fast. I Have Questions. (Tim O’Brien)

Conservatives and leftists alike have quickly embraced the notion that America’s perception of President Donald Trump’s decision to go to war with Iran, and of its being a never-ending war, would keep the price of gas and diesel high. This, they believed, is the reason for inflation in the full range of goods and services. On its surface, the logic is sound and true.


But were these specific economic pressures enough to cause the level of political devastation to Republicans we just saw?

The experts are telling us that Republicans not named Donald Trump, at the federal, state, and even local levels, lost in the November midterms because voters were mad at Trump. That’s why, we are told, the Senate race in the Republican stronghold of Mississippi is still too close to call. We are told that millions of Republicans, almost all in unison, have opted to vote for Democratic Socialists of America (DSA) candidates over the same Republicans they’ve been voting for several decades.

Now let’s dig below the surface. Are temporarily high energy and consumer prices alone enough to justify the sea change in voter sentiment that happened overnight? More to the point, how was public opinion engineered so effectively to convince so many Americans that a 19-year-old kid should be given the responsibilities of Maricopa County clerk of Superior Court?What has to happen for that to happen?

Here are some of the explanations I’ve heard so far: “Donald Trump”; bad candidates; terrible messaging on the Iran war; “Donald Trump”; terrible messaging in general; lousy campaign strategy; and more.

While all of that may be true, how can that really explain the near uniformity of the results? Are gas prices worse than they have ever been in American history? Don’t get me wrong. I have been muttering to myself the past few months every time I fill up my tank. I didn’t think those prices were sustainable. But as a Republican, that only made me want Trump to finish the war, not surrender to the Iranians, as the Democrats-elect want him to do.

To be clear, my focus here is not to debate the impact of inflation on Americans. It’s real and it’s bad. I know this. I’m living it and not liking it, too. But what I would like to know is how all of this was weaponized and leveraged to get Republican voters to betray their own interests to vote for the people who want to destroy their way of life.

If you’re reading this and yelling at me, “But you don’t understand. These are the highest gas prices and inflationary conditions we’ve ever seen,” I have some comparisons for you. Let’s look at the price of a barrel of oil under the past four presidents.

Under George W. Bush, oil was at or above $100 per barrel for 146 days across his two terms in office. Under Barack Obama, oil was at or above $100 per barrel for 308 days. In Trump’s first term, oil peaked at $77 per barrel and never came close to $100. Under Joe Biden’s one term, oil was at or above $100 per barrel for 83 days. In Trump’s second term, oil reached $100 per barrel for 24-35 days.

The major takeaway from these numbers is pretty obvious. What we’ve experienced so far in 2026 is nothing new. This has happened before, and even worse. Still, in those previous times, socialists and jihadis didn’t become the most popular candidates overnight as a result.

On the issue of candidate quality, we’re told that Republicans were the worst. If we’re being honest, the Democrats far exceeded the Republicans on just how low they could set the bar for their candidates. Senator-elect Troy Jackson (D-Maine) had two children with his second cousin, and he defeated longtime senator Susan Collins (R-Maine), who until five minutes ago was beloved. How’s that “candidate quality” thing taking shape there?

And after all that we’ve documented about these folks, do we really need to talk about candidate quality when looking at Senator-elect James Talarico (D-Texas) or Senator-elect Peggy Flanagan (D-Minn.)? But it gets worse. Police arrested Missouri State Rep. Anthony Ealy (D) on an assault charge within hours of his reelection. North Carolina voters elected Democrat LaKesha Womack to Congress. But before she packs her bags for Washington, D.C., she has to face a felony car theft charge.


Then there is Los Angeles Mayor-elect Nithya Raman. After all of the time she spent campaigning, you’d think she might have had an answer when a reporter asked her what she plans to do on the first day on the job. She had nothing. Republicans lost on candidate quality? Give me a break.


All of these results would be more credible to me if they were more sporadic and less uniform. They’d be more credible to me if at least more of our good candidates outside of the state of Florida won. The Republicans did run some very good candidates with effective messages, and they effectively contrasted themselves with their bizarro Democrat opponents, and yet their results were similar to other Republican candidates who shot themselves in the foot. I’m looking at you, Vivek Ramaswamy..

Read more …

“..only this time he’s going to go into a hyper mode because they’re about to get investigated in every way possible by the Democrats who are going to control the all-powerful House and Senate committees starting in January of 2027..”

• Marjorie Taylor Greene About Trump’s Big White House Shake-Up (Margolis)

Not long ago, former Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.) was one of Donald Trump’s most loyal foot soldiers on Capitol Hill. She defended him on every platform that would have her, and she treated her devotion to the MAGA movement as the core of her political brand.


That changed last year. Greene and Trump had a nasty falling out, and she has since become a useful idiot of the left, showing up on left-wing talk shows and spouting conspiracy theories for audiences who love nothing more than a Republican trashing the president. So when Trump announced a major staff shake-up on Friday, you knew she’d have something to say.

President Donald Trump revealed that Susie Wiles is out as White House chief of staff and Stephen Miller will take her place. The move comes after a disastrous midterm election for Republicans, and Miller, who currently serves as deputy chief of staff and has advised Trump since his first campaign, officially steps into the role on Monday.

“I am pleased to announce that Mr. Stephen Miller, the current Deputy Chief of Staff of the Trump Administration, and one of my most trusted advisors, will become the Chief of Staff starting Monday, November 9, 2026,” Trump wrote on Truth Social.

Trump had kind words for Wiles in the same post. “Susie Wiles, who has done an outstanding job, will be moving over to the Trump Political Operation. I want to thank her for her service as Chief of Staff — She has done a great job!” he wrote. Greene had her own theory, which she shared in a video posted to X.

“So, I am very proficient in the dialect of MAGA, and I’m going to explain to you what that really means,” Greene said. “Susie Wiles is going to join Trump’s political team, so she’s going to move back into the same, operation that she was, before he was elected president in 2024, and there’s a very important reason for that, and that is because, she wants to be in charge, and President Trump wants to be in charge, of who the next president of the United States will be. And they want to continue to control the Republican Party.”

She then turned to Miller, claiming he already ran much of the White House. “So you can expect more of the same from the White House that you were probably already p****d off and frustrated about, only this time he’s going to go into a hyper mode because they’re about to get investigated in every way possible by the Democrats who are going to control the all-powerful House and Senate committees starting in January of 2027,” she said.

Greene went on to insist that the coalition that elected Trump in 2024 would reject whoever Trump and Wiles back in 2028. “They’re not conservative, so they don’t represent your conservative values, and they proved it,” she said. “They’re not truly Christian, they don’t represent your Christian values, and they are the ones completely responsible for this massive Democrat.”


Plenty of what Greene said comes wrapped in grievance. She calls the Trump coalition “my coalition,” questions the Christian faith of people she used to praise, and predicts Republicans have “zero chance” in 2028. That’s the sound of someone auditioning for more gigs on left-wing networks, if you ask me.

Greene left the MAGA fold and now tells anyone who will listen that she alone understands what it really wants. Her motives are obvious, and her reading of events bends toward whatever makes Trump look worse.

Read more …

I’m not sure I can agree with all of this.

Like this: ” populism means winding the tariffs down. The story on the Iran war is similar.”

That these things were not explained well is something else.

• The MAGA Movement Forgot What Populism Is (Josh Hammer)

Tuesday’s election wasn’t a blue wave or even a blue tsunami: It was a blue apocalypse. Gov. Ron DeSantis (R-Fla.), who leads the one notable bright spot on the map, referred to the wipeout as “close to an extinction-level event” for the GOP. It was the worst midterm defeat for one party in over a half-century.


Much of the postmortem conversation has focused on why this massacre happened. Was it the Iran war? Was it the tariffs? Was it corruption? Was it the “Epstein files” mess? The answer is both simpler and more sweeping: The MAGA movement, which has defined the GOP during the Trump era, has forgotten what populism means in practice and requires in governance.

When Donald Trump rode down the Trump Tower escalator in 2015, he launched a populist revolution. His message was simple: An elite ruling class has sold out the country, and the MAGA movement is here to finally listen to the people. Trump largely delivered during his first term.

Trump cut taxes, tamed inflation, and oversaw a booming job market and a surging stock market. He became the first president since Richard Nixon to begin to reset our relationship with Communist China. In exile during the Joe Biden interregnum, Trump promised to return and close the border, get inflation under control, and bring back general sanity and stability.

To be sure, Trump’s second term has had its successes. The southern border is airtight. Violent crime has fallen to the lowest rate in 125 years. Prescription drug prices are the lowest since the 1960s. The Justice Department’s fights with the Ivy League yielded real concessions. The raid to extract Nicolas Maduro from Caracas was bold and masterful.

But somewhere along the way, the MAGA movement forgot what it was. Some in and around the administration have engaged in the most brazen corruption – pardons, access, illicit cryptocurrency enrichment, real estate side deals – in a century or more of Washington life. When Americans see “special envoys” Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner negotiate with wealthy Arab states while padding their bank accounts from those same states, they understand what’s going on.

There’s nothing more anti-populist than such elite self-dealing. On economic policy, the administration dramatically expanded its tariffs, including its “universal tariff” policy. Strategic, focused tariffs can work. But this was something else entirely. Fact is, Joe and Jane in flyover country didn’t vote for a trade war with Canada. Even more to the point: Why did Trump’s economists assume tariffing everything that moves is “populist” in the first place?

Reshoring supply chains is important. But the tradeoff between production and lowering prices is real. Higher tariffs and more supply-chain reshoring means higher prices. Maybe that tradeoff is worth it. Maybe it isn’t. But the American people have spoken, and they want lower prices over anything else. So populism means winding the tariffs down. The story on the Iran war is similar.

Many isolationists complain that Trump reneged on his promise not to start any new Middle East wars. That’s not quite fair. Trump already proved himself an Iran hawk when he withdrew from Barack Obama’s calamitous nuclear deal, and the U.S. and Iran have technically been at war since 1979.

But the administration never actually made the case for the war to the American people. At times, Secretary of War Pete Hegseth alluded to war aims. But the people never heard the case from the commander in chief himself. Populism means governing of, by and for the people. How could a purportedly populist president not even bother to try to sell the war to the public? It was astonishing political malpractice.

Finally, a true populist movement needs to focus on real-world concerns, not the conspiratorial rabbit holes of social media. The obsession with the “Epstein files” was always bogus and lame. And when White House Chief of Staff Susie Wiles reportedly told the terminally online Vice President JD Vance to take a break from the internet, she was onto something.

Real populism means boosting wages and lowering inflation – not staying up to the wee hours of the night trying to crack the Charlie Kirk murder case (news flash: it was Tyler Robinson) or blaming the Jews for stabbing the GOP in the back. The good news is that most of the necessary changes are easy.

End the corruption. Wind down the global tariffs. Save face in Iran. Stop indulging brain-rotted conspiracists. Stop with the asinine lake name-change gimmicks. And get working quickly to lower gas and food prices. Above all, make life easier, not harder, for ordinary Americans. If this happens, the GOP will have a chance in 2028. The MAGA movement died on Tuesday. But Trump’s final two White House years should still reflect the original MAGA spirit: governance for the people.

Read more …

“.. and Dispatched MAGA/MAHA Priorities..”

The qualities that made her good for the job, also pushed her out eventually..

• Calley Means Outlines How Susie Wiles Controlled the White House (CTH)

There is no singular scapegoat here that deserves full blame for the problems within the Trump Administration T2; however, what Calley Means outlines in this segment of an interview with Joe Rogan is factually accurate.


Susie Wiles was the White House gatekeeper and her career as a political lobbyist, political consultant, political manager of campaign etc., gave her a certain skillset -all based around money- that made a problem. Her total domination of everything in/around Trump also made her the epicenter of governance and Wiles made every decision in the administration because she demanded full control.

Several MAGA people ended up in conflict with Susie Wiles and she was ruthlessly controlling. It was Wiles who selected Pam Bondi (both from Ballard Partners). Bongino had a big run-in with Wiles on the Epstein stuff. Gabbard had to tread on eggshells around Wiles while trying to retain critical access. The MAHA agenda was considered frivolous by Wiles and the small crew she used to manage everything. WATCH:


[Susie Wiles loved Pam Bondi and John Solomon, go figure!]

We said from the outset Wiles would likely be a problem because she’s donor-centric, a typical Republican. Democrats chase power, Republicans chase money. Democrats use money to get power; Republicans use power to get money.

The Wiles Inc. focus on money, including direct benefits to her family, is now the weapon DSA congressional committees will use to target Trump. Every financial angle used to attack Trump tracks to the poor decision-making of Susie Wiles. However, at the end of the accountability path – the buck stops with President Trump.

Read more …

“These targets will get a J6 style corruption investigation, including subpoenas and alternate investigative resources.”

• 2027 Investigative Roadmap Against President Trump Previewed by FOX News (CTH)

A DSA/Leftist think tank led by former Biden, Warren and Sanders congressional aides has assembled a 182-page strategic blueprint mapping out Democratic congressional investigations in the House and Senate targeting President Trump’s family, corporate allies and donors. This is one aspect to a coordinated plan, isolate – ridicule – marginalize.


The document, obtained and analyzed by Fox News Digital, names Tesla, Apple, Amazon, OpenAI, Meta, Google, Microsoft, Oracle and others as targets for potential hearings. It also names Palantir’s Alex Karp and Coinbase’s Brian Armstrong individually. However, the important point, the blueprint goes beyond corporate targets, urging scrutiny of Trump’s personal finances, his tax arrangements, cryptocurrency businesses and alleged preferential treatment of corporate donors.

The primary targets, not expressly outlined (yet) due to the strategy they are deploying, are Donald Trump Jr., Ivanka Trump, Jared Kushner, Steve Witkoff, the Trump Media organization and Trump Holdings. These targets will get a J6 style corruption investigation, including subpoenas and alternate investigative resources.

A longtime Democratic Senate staffer familiar with the process says Democratic majorities on these committees already plan to exclusively focus on targeting business allies and individual donors to the president, including those who donated to the new White House ballroom.

.…the document also mention plans for restricting corporate ownership and pricing practices”…

Read more …

“Defeats often turn into victories.”

• A Requiem for the Midterms (J.B. Shurk)

As an enthusiastic supporter of President Trump, I found the midterms about as enjoyable as listening to the screeching harpies of The View while getting a root canal without any anesthetic. They weren’t pleasant.


I didn’t anticipate the election to be as bad as it turned out. I assumed that lame-duck-Senator John Cornyn, Karl Rove, and the Bush clan would work to elect Democrats in Texas (including the strange, little boi-toy-turned-senator-elect James Talarico), but I still expected my barbecue bros and fellow rednecks to cowboy up and get Governor Abbott and Attorney General Paxton across the finish line.

I also thought Establishment Washington would make sure that Mike Rogers and Susan Collins won their Senate races in Michigan and Maine, respectively. Rogers is well liked in the national security community, and Collins gave Obama and Biden more support for their administration and judicial nominees than she has given Trump. I figured they’d get a Deep State bounce propelling them to victory. I also didn’t believe Michiganders would vote for the Muslim Brotherhood-supporting Islamist Abdulrahman Mohamed El-Sayed.

Before the midterm dust had even settled, the anti-Trump Republicans were out in full force. New Jersey whale Chris Christie belched, “The Trump era is over.” Mitt Romney clone, Senator John Curtis of Utah, pontificated that Republicans must “return to the principled conservative values that once defined us — and that we’ve steadily abandoned over the last decade.” I’m sure Bill Kristol and The Bulwark cuckservatives were all smiles as they imagined how pleasurable it will be to have Islamists, communists, and foreign invaders humiliate them into submission.

What all these anti-Trumpers want is a return to Bush-McCain-Romney Republicanism. That’s what they seem to believe will rise again after the Democrats’ dominant performance. Does that seem likely? Outside of the Fox News green room, the country club dining hall, the Chamber of Commerce cocktail party circuit, and the RINO cloakroom in the Senate, is anybody pining for a return of a Democrat-lite Republican Party in which the Bushes and Romneys pursue the same policies as the Clintons and Obamas but do so while pretending to hate us a little less (while actually hating us a little more)?

I don’t think the Republican base wants the party to return to the “good old days” when polite Republican candidates smiled and enjoyed losing for a living.

I also don’t think the Chamber of Commerce will have an easy job convincing blue-collar voters that offshoring their jobs in the name of “free trade” is the “principled conservative value” to which we should all aspire. President Trump has shown Americans another kind of future where manufacturing jobs pay Americans good wages to build useful things. We are only now seeing the return of these jobs to American soil, but the industrial revolution that Trump and his economic team have put into motion is transforming the country into a self-sufficient powerhouse.

Bush said this couldn’t be done. Obama said this couldn’t be done. The NAFTA-elites, central bankers, China-sellouts, and Chamber of Commerce globalists all said that the United States would be a “service-driven” economy and nothing more.

For thirty years, both sides of the Uniparty have constructed an America in which Wall Street firms make fortunes while mom-and-pop businesses on Main Streets across the country go bankrupt. For six years — interrupted by the economically destructive Biden installation and interregnum — Trump has proved that Main Street economic growth is not only possible but also vital to America’s success.

No matter how much they want to do so, the obnoxiously loud contingent of RINOs with all the cushy commentator jobs on TV will not be able to convince the Republican electorate that they should vote for people who want to subsidize multinational firms to build things with Chinese slave labor while killing small businesses in the United States.

President Trump has also proved that America’s borders can be secured. In four years, the unelected managers of fraudulently-installed puppet-President Biden let in twenty million foreigners while Dementia Joe slept and wandered around Delaware’s Rehoboth Beach. Before our senile “president” vacationed through his term, President George W. Bush tried to grant mass amnesty to everyone who crossed the Southern border.

Mitt Romney, Mitch McConnell, Nancy Pelosi, and Chuck Schumer all claimed that there was nothing to do about the border except to write new laws that made illegal immigration legal. Trump has totally obliterated that canard by demonstrating conclusively that the president of the United States has more than enough resources at his disposal to seal the country’s borders.

Suggesting otherwise always seemed absurd. After all, why in the world should Americans fight and die for the borders of foreign nations instead of fighting and dying for the borders of the United States? Establishment Washington never had an answer for that simple question. We were just told that Ukraine’s territory mattered more than our own. Well, those days are over. It will be significantly more difficult for Democrats or RINOs to pretend that Americans must accept open borders after we have seen what is possible when a president upholds his duty to protect American citizens from foreign invaders.

Because of President Trump’s border policies and immigration enforcement, the number of rapes, murders, and other violent crimes has declined steeply across the country. The propaganda press do not report these facts; the fake news corporations intentionally cover up the unprecedented drop in crime by pretending that ICE agents are the bad guys. Nevertheless, ordinary Americans living in big and small towns have felt the very real benefits of secure borders.

Will future Republican candidates be able to run on a platform of mass amnesty for illegal immigrants? I don’t think so.

So where are we today after this incredibly unpleasant midterm beating? Well, thankfully, we don’t have a parliamentary system in which the majority party or successful coalition selects a new prime minister. Our Executive Branch remains the same, and, as much as the Democrats in Congress may pretend otherwise, there is only so much they can do to alter President Trump’s economic and foreign policies. Trump will continue to use tariffs as a tool to bring investment back to the United States; he will continue to enforce the border; and he will continue to reshape the geopolitical balance of power in America’s favor.

Congressional objection will be loud but largely ineffective.Remember, aside from passing the One Big Beautiful Bill, the Republican Congress did next to nothing to help the president accomplish his campaign promises.

It is true that the Democrats will prevent Trump from putting new judges on the bench or replacing anybody from his administration chased into retirement. I hope that his people possess nerves of steel and are prepared to endure the theatrical browbeating and endless investigations that will soon come from Congress.

It is also true that Democrats will force their agenda into every piece of legislation that reaches the president’s desk, and he will almost certainly be forced to compromise more than we would like. Over at The Conservative Treehouse, “Sundance” has put together a pretty unsavory list of legislative outcomes that we should expect.

We must also deal with the loss of important states. Democrats succeeded in Ohio, Georgia, South Carolina, Kansas, Iowa, and Texas; and now they will use their perch in these states to weaken election integrity and enable future vote fraud. So long as Texas remains in Democrat hands, we have lost significant support in defending the border. Without Texas, Republicans have little hope of retaining the presidency.

The midterm results are bad for us. However, I know this to be true: Victories can quickly become defeats, and defeats can often be turned into unexpected victories. Put your faith in God and have the courage to keep fighting. There is much to do.

Read more …

“Every time a leftist alleges Islamophobia when there is none, which is most of the time, he or she devalues the word.”

• ‘Islamophobia’ Is the New ‘Racism.’ Conservatives Won’t Bite. (Tim O’Brien)

The left rarely changes tactics. Instead, they change targets, messaging, and terminology. If you’re a conservative and you ever publicly expressed your political views on just about any topic, even climate change, there’s a good chance someone called you a racist.


There was a time when being called a racist carried with it a certain stigma. That stigma was still in effect when the nation’s first black president, Barack Obama, ran for and won the presidency in 2008. His White House, the Democrat Party, the legacy media, and the rest of the left mounted a concerted oppression campaign against anyone who critiqued the president in the slightest.

To “speak truth to power” when the left is in charge is to be dubbed a racist. The most famous example of this was in January 2009, just before Obama was inaugurated, when Rush Limbaugh received a request from the Wall Street Journal asking him to write 400 words about his hopes for the Obama administration.

Rather than comply with the Journal’s request, he gave his response on the air to his millions of loyal listeners. He said he didn’t need 400 words to answer the question, just four: “I hope he fails.” This is a time when Republicans and “conservatives” were falling all over themselves to dialogue with the intellectual new Democrat savior. Limbaugh’s defiant, blunt, but very clear response was the gasoline that set leftist hair ablaze across the country.

There is only one reason Limbaugh would say such a thing. He’s a RACIST. Never mind context. Limbaugh clearly said he hoped the left, led by Obama, failed at instituting its leftist agenda. He was not wishing ill toward America.

Limbaugh had learned a long time before this episode that when the left called him a “racist, bigot, sexist, homophobe,” it was a badge of honor. It meant the left saw you as a threat because you were effective. He had learned to take the attacks as a compliment.

That wasn’t the case for most conservatives at first. Rush had the luxury of owning his own show and creating the “Excellence in Broadcasting” EIB network. When he found himself in the middle of this controversy, it only helped his ratings, and he could not be fired.

Former U.S. Sen. Rick Santorum (R-Pa.) had a good gig with CNN for a time, but that was until he made the innocent comment that America was built “from nothing.” The fake outrage mob accused him of being a racist for forgetting about the American Indians. CNN wouldn’t stand for that, and so the network cut Santorum loose.

Before she turned into psycho Megyn Kelly, NBC Megyn Kelly lost her lucrative position at the National Broadcast System, not because she said or did something racist – just that she asked an earnest question about the boundaries of racism when it comes to blackface and Halloween. She raised the issue on her talk show in October 2018. Cue the cancel culture mob once again.

Kelly followed a very common pattern for anyone accused of racism. She apologized and groveled, all to keep her job. It didn’t work. It never works. NBC fired her. The only reason these organizations demand the apology is to more clearly justify the destruction they already have on their calendars for you. By you apologizing, you yourself are signaling to the world that you have what’s coming to you.

One of the major turning points where racism allegations lost their currency came in February 2023, when Dilbert creator Scott Adams said on his podcast that if someone hates you, you should avoid that person. But that’s not how he said it.

When talking about a recent study that revealed that more than half of black Americans can be racist toward white people, Adams told his podcast audience, “If nearly half of all blacks are not OK with white people … that’s a hate group. … And I don’t want to have anything to do with them.”

This time, the low-IQ leftist cancel culture mob actually was angry, but the nuance of Adams’ comments was lost on it. His point was that if someone already hates you and you can’t change that, it’s in your own best interest to avoid that person.

The left rewarded Adams’ insights with a massive cancellation campaign that quickly caused Adams’ syndicator and newspapers across the country to literally cancel the publishing of his very popular Dilbert cartoon strip. In the process, Adams lost the largest part of his livelihood almost overnight.

Only, Adams did not do what Kelly did before him. He did not apologize. He did not try to appease the mob. Instead, he clarified what he said, which the left took as Adams doubling down. In the end, it didn’t matter. Adams built a hugely successful podcast in the wake of this. During this time period, the left threw allegations of racism around the way it throws NGO money at ballot harvesters – broadly and indiscriminately.

Chances are, if you say anything in support of MAGA, Charlie Kirk, Christianity, Israel, life, or even the merits of hard work, and you do it on the web, on social media, you will be called a racist. And you’ll blow it off, because the allegation itself has been so overused that it means nothing now. The left can’t make it stick, so long as you don’t cave, grovel, or apologize.

If “racism” was then, “Islamophobia” is now. In the wake of the 2026 midterms, Islam is forming a critical mass in American politics. It’s doing so by embracing socialism, by using the Democrat Party and its infrastructure, and through its own characteristic audacity, brazenness, and coerciveness. There is no charm offensive with Muslim politicians, we’re finding. Their default position is to steamroll you into submission.

At the same time, it’s well-documented that Muslim politicians bring an extensive amount of baggage with them into public life. In the case of Senator-elect Abdul El-Sayed (D-Mich.), his uncomfortable relationship with the terrorist Muslim Brotherhood follows him, exacerbated by his relationship with anti-American Hasan Piker and his own statements in support of implementing Sharia Law on U.S. soil.


To say he’ll never shake this is to assume he’s trying. He’s not. Instead, if you point out any of this, he and his allies throughout the left will choose to run you over with the Mack truck of Islamophobia allegations.




Those are crocodile tears. It’s Obama 2009 all over again. Only this time it won’t work. We all know the drill.

We do nothing wrong, and then we find ourselves on the receiving end of Islamophobia allegations. So, when we say something that may be true and real, or just our opinion, but it does not put Muslim politicians in the best light, we will be attacked. We’re not criticizing the faith, or even their practice of the faith. We’re attacking their politics, their public policies, and at times their relationships that could pose legitimate national security risks, as appropriate.

You can’t stop us from telling the world what we see and what the people see with their own eyes. It’s not hate. Observation is protected by the First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution.

After years of calling us racists for no good reason, calling us Islamophobes for no good reason won’t work, either. We’re conditioned now.

Every time a leftist alleges Islamophobia when there is none, which is most of the time, he or she devalues the word. It means less and less every day, and conservatives are just ignoring it. They aren’t playing that game anymore.

Read more …

Saint-Denis, the red-green alliance, and the soft conquest of Christian France.

Your Sunday history lesson.

• Where The Hammer Sleeps (Lars Møller)


The Battle of Tours -Charles de Steuben- 1837
The tombs of Charles Martel stand in the Basilica of Saint-Denis as relics of a civilization that once possessed the will to survive. In 732, the Mayor of the Palace shattered the Umayyad army of Abdul Rahman Al Ghafiqi at Tours, earning the name Martel—the Hammer. That victory closed the northern road of the caliphate, preserved the Frankish realm as the last coherent Christian power in the West, and secured the conditions for Charlemagne’s empire and the very idea of Christendom.


Martel’s heavy infantry held against the shock of Muslim cavalry; the political consolidation that followed produced the Carolingian order, missionary expansion into Germany, and the historic alliance of throne and altar sealed in 800. Gibbon and generations of European chroniclers treated the battle as a civilizational hinge. Modern academic hedging about the precise scale of the expedition changes nothing about the aftermath: the northern expansion of Islam was stopped, and a distinct European identity solidified around Christian faith and Roman inheritance.

Today, the same basilica rises in a suburb that has already been lost. Seine-Saint-Denis records an immigrant share of 31.2%—the highest in mainland France—drawn principally from Algeria, Morocco, Tunisia, Mali and other Muslim-majority sources. Official statistics are forbidden to name religion, yet the streetscape requires no census: halal markets, mosques, and the near-vanishing of the older French working-class presence declare the new ownership. Poverty approaches 30%, double the national rate.

The enclave-like department is the youngest in metropolitan France, with more than a fifth of its inhabitants under fifteen. These figures are the measurable residue of a political project sustained for decades by the red-green alliance—an informal but effective coalition of left-wing parties and Islamist networks that treat the historic French nation as an obsolete obstacle rather than a living trust.

The anti-Western alliance works with cold strategic sense. Its secular wing supplies the moral prestige of anti-racism, decolonial grievance, and the residual authority of the postwar left. Its Islamist wing supplies demographic density, communal endogamy, and an alternative civilizational code. Together they hollow out the practical sovereignty of the Fifth Republic. Reflecting a 1905 settlement that confined religion to the private sphere while protecting a common public culture, laïcité is steadily reduced to a rhetorical prop.

Around Martel’s tomb, the symbols of French conviviality—berets, baguettes, the unselfconscious mixture of the old working class—have yielded to niqabs and the predatory packs whose catcalls mark the territory as hostile ground. French citizens of Christian ancestry move through these streets as tolerated outsiders, subject to the ordinary friction of harassment and the quieter pressure of demographic displacement.

The disorder that periodically erupts across the banlieues is the predictable consequence of importing populations whose fertility, identity, and political loyalty remain oriented elsewhere, while simultaneously dismantling the cultural confidence required for any genuine assimilation.

This destructive process is not the accidental by-product of labor migration or classroom overcrowding. It is the deliberate result of elite preference for abstract universalism over the concrete duties of cultural transmission. The governing classes of the Fifth Republic have treated the nation as a hotel rather than a home. Indulging in the moral glow of openness, they have neglected the harder work of demographic and cultural continuity.

The red-green alliance has exploited that complacency with greater ruthlessness than its predecessors. It understands that control of fertility rates, street-level social norms, and the curriculum ultimately outweighs temporary control of the constitution. Formal republican institutions remain so far; the daily experience of ordinary French people of Christian ancestry is that those institutions no longer command the ground.

Civilization is not an empty procedural framework that can be filled by any demographic content whatsoever. It is a lived inheritance of language, memory, sacral architecture, and intergenerational loyalty. When the proportion of those who share that inheritance falls below a critical threshold, the inheritance itself dissolves. Saint-Denis demonstrates the mechanism with pitiless clarity.

The physical structure of the basilica endures, yet the surrounding social order no longer orients itself towards the civilization the basilica originally embodied. The red-green alliance grasps this dynamic more clearly than its opponents. It does not require dramatic seizure of power; it requires only the acceleration of demographic replacement while stigmatizing any frank acknowledgment of the process as bigotry. The historic people are thereby rendered a minority in their own capital region, their public spaces marked by alien norms, their children educated to regard their own past with suspicion or shame.

The prospects for France are correspondingly bleak. Demographic momentum is stubborn. The age structure of Seine-Saint-Denis guarantees that the relative weight of the newer populations will increase even in the absence of further inflows. Parallel societies harden; political majorities shift more slowly than street-level control, yet both move in the same direction.

The French state retains formal authority, yet its capacity to enforce a common culture has been deliberately impaired by decades of elite ideology. Appeals to “republican values” grow ever more hollow as those values are being emptied of the historical substance that once made them compelling. The Hammer of Tours drew a line that held for centuries. However, no comparable line is visible today. The descendants of the people who built the basilica walk its precincts as interlopers while the coalition that displaced them consolidates its hold on the future.

The same pattern is visible, with local variations of tempo and intensity, across Western Europe. In Britain, Sweden, the Netherlands, Belgium, and large parts of Germany, the postwar settlement of high immigration, low cultural confidence, and elite prioritization of abstract rights over concrete peoples produces irreversible transformation. Fertility differentials, chain migration, and the formation of dense Muslim communities generate parallel societies whose political demands expand with their numbers.

Native majorities age and shrink; their elites continue to treat any defense of the historic nation as moral failure. The red-green alliance—or its functional equivalents—advances under the banners of “anti-racism” and “human rights” while the older European character of cities and regions is steadily erased. The process is self-reinforcing: as native populations lose demographic and cultural dominance, their capacity to reverse course diminishes. Political capture follows social capture. What begins as “diversity” ends as displacement—eventually, as replacement.

From a philosophical perspective, the trajectory reveals the terminal weakness of late-liberal assumptions about identity and continuity. A people that loses the will to reproduce itself and to transmit its culture has already accepted its own supersession. Western Europe’s governing classes have spent half a century educating themselves and their successors into precisely that acceptance. They have preferred the moral prestige of openness to the harder virtues of continuity and defense.

What follows from consistent elite betrayal is a soft conquest in which the historic peoples of the continent are gradually reduced to strangers in the places their ancestors built. Martel’s tomb remains in Saint-Denis. The civilization that once understood why the tomb mattered is being unmade, first in France and then across the wider European landscape. The process continues. The will to stop it has not yet appeared.

Hopefully, the French will be spared the sight of the venerable basilica engulfed in flames—much like Notre Dame and the town hall in Limoges. Their moral paralysis is tragic.

Read more …

 

 

 

 

https://twitter.com/niccruzpatane/status/2119152965101781174?a=RWoHWJbj_bu-WFvPUjc&s=20

 

 

 

 

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

 

 

 

 

 

May 082026
 


Pablo Picasso Les Demoiselles d’ Avignon 1907


• US Conducts New Iran Strikes Along Hormuz Corridor (ZH)
• Trump’s ‘Project Freedom’ Paused Following Saudi Arabia Support Withdrawal (CTH)
• First Chinese Tanker Attacked Near Hormuz (ZH)
• AI Models Close To Building a Better Version of Themselves (Rick Moran)
• Medvedev: Russia Must Instill ‘Animal Fear’ In EU Warmongers (ZH)
• Germany Officially Bans all Russian Symbols on May 9th (CTH)
• Dana White Says Society Is Failing Young Men (David Manney)
• Visualizing The Stunning Global Fertility Divide (ZH)
• PM Carney’s Role in Organizing Commonwealth Trump Opposition (CTH)
• Did President Trump Say That in His Outside Voice…(CTH)
• DOJ to Ask Supreme Court to Intervene in E. Jean Carroll Lawsuit vs Trump (ET)
• The Democratic Party Is Dead, Long Live the Jacobins! (Victor Davis Hanson)
• Half of Vienna Secondary School Students Are Now Muslim (RMX)
• ‘Golden Thread of Devotion’: Trump’s National Day of Prayer Message (Salgado)
• The Controversy Over Picasso’s Most Shocking Painting (BBC)

 


 

https://twitter.com/EricLDaugh/status/2052399407300035009?s=20 https://twitter.com/amyjohsonwh/status/2052100992544780519?s=20 https://twitter.com/EricLDaugh/status/2052136045253407110?s=20 https://twitter.com/MAGAVoice/status/2052221470319968631?s=20 https://twitter.com/GuntherEagleman/status/2052357491279777850?s=20 https://twitter.com/mcafeenew/status/2052117444865732913?s=20

 


 


How to keep the ceasefire intact.

• US Conducts New Iran Strikes Along Hormuz Corridor (ZH)

CENTCOM confirms attack on Iran, and intercept of Iranian retaliation effort: “U.S. forces intercepted unprovoked Iranian attacks and responded with self-defense strikes as U.S. Navy guided-missile destroyers transited the Strait of Hormuz to the Gulf of Oman, May 7. Iranian forces launched multiple missiles, drones and small boats as USS Truxtun (DDG 103), USS Rafael Peralta (DDG 115), and USS Mason (DDG 87) transited the international sea passage. No U.S. assets were struck.


U.S. Central Command (CENTCOM) eliminated inbound threats and targeted Iranian military facilities responsible for attacking U.S. forces including missile and drone launch sites; command and control locations; and intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance nodes. CENTCOM does not seek escalation but remains positioned and ready to protect American forces.”

Confirmation of New US Military Attack
Fox News confirming a nighttime US miliary attack on Iran’s Qeshm port and Bandar Abbas, however, with US officials seeking to downplay that this marks a restart of the war and bombing campaign. This comes via Fox chief national security correspondent Jennifer Griffin: A senior US official tells me that it was a US military strike on Iran’s Qeshm port and Bandar Abbas moments ago but added this is NOT a restarting of the war or end to the ceasefire.

The strike on one of Iran’s oil ports comes two days after Iran fired 15 ballistic and cruise missiles at UAE Fujairah Port, eliciting anger from Gulf countries after top Pentagon leaders said Tuesday that the Iranian strikes did not rise to the level of breaking the ceasefire, calling it low level attacks that didn’t rise to that level. There have been allegations of UAE involvement. Since the initial explosions, more follow up blasts have been reported via state media, along with some emerging images:

US CONDUCTED STRIKES THURS IN THE STRAIT OF HORMUZ AREA: AXIOS
IRAN CLAIMS IT FIRED MISSILES AT THREE US DESTORYERS: TASNIM

Further emerging images: https://twitter.com/MarioNawfal/status/2052500450914762802
Read more …

“The Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) wants a complete and final elimination of the threat Iran represents. They do not believe Iran can be negotiated out of that threat. The GCC view negotiations as an Iranian delay tactic. “

“.. the Saudi’s and GCC have been dealing with this extremist threat for decades. They are unwilling to compromise in order to give space for negotiations they view as futile.”

“Saudi Arabia and the GCC view Iran as an existential threat that cannot be dealt with diplomatically and they do not trust any negotiation.”

• Trump’s ‘Project Freedom’ Paused Following Saudi Arabia Support Withdrawal (CTH)

In recent developments President Trump’s ‘project freedom’ operation to open the Strait of Hormuz for captured shipping interests has been paused following Saudi Arabia’s withdrawal of support and their revocation of Saudi air bases for U.S. operations. The issue behind the Saudi decision is not that complicated if you understand the longer-term background. However, the issue behind the Saudi decision also highlights a key flaw in the Promethean analysis of the relationship (and the reason I caution everyone to sip slowly from this information source).


The cliff notes version is that Saudi Arabia and many of the Gulf States look at the negotiations between President Trump and Iranian interests with skepticism. The Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) wants a complete and final elimination of the threat Iran represents. They do not believe Iran can be negotiated out of that threat. The GCC view negotiations as an Iranian delay tactic. Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed Bin Salmon, the main voice in the GCC position, has clear eyes and a long historic view on the threat Iran represents. They accept the people in control of the Iran regime will do and say anything to pause or remove the military confrontation; but they will never stop building the arsenal for war. There is zero, absolutely zero trust in anything the Iranians say on this matter.

As a consequence, Saudi Arabia understands the intent of President Trump’s request to support ‘project freedom’, however Saudi Arabia is not going to accept continued missile attacks from Iran during this ‘humanitarian’ effort to reopen the Strait. [Remember, this is also a Muslim Brotherhood issue. The Brotherhood is the political network behind extremist Islam.] President Trump is asking Saudi Arabia and the GCC states to view the continued Iranian attacks as small slights, small provocations, while he diplomatically tries to negotiate with the Iranian regime. MbS and the GCC are unwilling to take this position, to accept these continued attacks against their nations, simply to give President Trump the political benefit of his policy.

Again, the Saudi’s and GCC have been dealing with this extremist threat for decades. They are unwilling to compromise in order to give space for negotiations they view as futile. The U.S. can use all Saudi support venues to confront Iran militarily, but they are not going to support the political and diplomatic effort behind ‘project freedom’ while they are simultaneously expected to accept continued attacks from Iran. NBC News reported that Saudi Arabia revoked U.S. access to its bases for Project Freedom, a mission to safeguard the Strait of Hormuz from Iranian threats. A call between Trump and Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman failed to resolve the dispute, forcing the administration to pause the operation. Political commentators described the move as a significant strategic loss for the U.S. in the Gulf region.

Essentially, the U.S. cannot say to the GCC: Please open your skies and bases, thereby exposing their energy infrastructure, only for everyone to discover afterwards the actual American policy was apparently: Oh by the way, if Iran attacks you with ballistic missiles, cruise missiles and drones in several waves, we won’t retaliate because we are chasing a negotiated deal. And this is exactly what shocked the Saudis.

It was not the issue of the Iranian attack; after all, the UAE/GCC expect retaliation , this is Iran; no one in the Gulf is naive about that. The shock came from the American reaction after the attacks against the GCC. Attacks against Emirati infrastructure, Fujairah was targeted, multiple waves involving drones, ballistic missiles, cruise missiles. And from their perspective Washington’s response was basically: “Meh. Minor incident. Let’s not escalate.” Minor incident?! From the perspective of the GCC this is madness. Thus, they withdraw support.

This is where it becomes critical to understand the position of the GCC as it relates to well over a decade of this Muslim Brotherhood/Iran extremist activity. It is not President Trump who triggered the GCC assembly to fight this radical Islamic extremism, a bastardized view of authentic Islam, it was Egypt and the GCC who have been confronting this stuff since President Obama triggered the “Arab Spring”. Long before President Trump took office in 2017, Egyptian President Fattah al-Sisi had confronted the Muslim Brotherhood and assembled a coalition of mid-east partners to address this Islamist threat. Sisi went to see King Salmon (MbS dad) first, to get his support. Egypt then assembled Saudi Arabia, UAE, Oman, Bahrain, Kuwait and Jordan to confront Qatar, who was the bankers for the Muslim Brotherhood.

The GCC with all stable Arab state support then economically and diplomatically boycotted and isolated Qatar. The Qataris finally acquiesced to the pressure and in September 2014 the exiled leaders from the Muslim Brotherhood who were living in Qatar were sent to Turkey.

Read more …

China is not in first row.

• First Chinese Tanker Attacked Near Hormuz (ZH)

There have certainly been escalating tensions in the Strait of Hormuz this week amid a wave of Iranian attacks on commercial ships after a U.S. military effort to escort merchant vessels through the maritime chokepoint. By midweek, tensions had simmered, and Iran is still reviewing a 14-point U.S. proposal to end the war, with Tehran expected to send its response to Pakistani mediators later today. President Trump said talks with Iran have been “very good” and suggested a deal remains possible. Iran’s Foreign Ministry confirmed the U.S. proposal is still under review.


But when chaos erupted on the world’s most critical waterway at the beginning of the week, a new report said that a large refined-products tanker owned by a Chinese shipowner was attacked off the UAE’s Al Jeer port on Monday, according to Reuters. Beijing-based business media outlet Caixin reported that the vessel’s deck erupted in flames after the attack. The outlet noted the vessel was marked “CHINA OWNER & CREW.” A shipping industry source told Caixin that this was the first time a Chinese tanker was hit in the three-month-long war, calling it “psychologically very hard to accept.”

Shortly after the Chinese tanker was attacked, it became clear why, two days later on Wednesday, China’s Foreign Minister Wang Yi called for the swift reopening of the Hormuz chokepoint. “The international community shares a common concern for the restoration of normal and safe passage of the strait,” Foreign Minister Wang Yi told Iran’s Abbas Araghchi, according to an official Chinese statement. “China hopes that the parties concerned will respond to the strong appeal of the international community as soon as possible.” China’s urgency to resolve the highly disrupted Hormuz chokepoint comes just over a week before President Trump flies to Beijing to meet with President Xi Jinping.

The big question is whether China will cooperate with the U.S. to end the conflict and reopen the Strait, as much of the tanker flow through this critical waterway is destined for Asia, and the disruption has led to fuel shortages and soaring prices of crude oil and related products in the region. “China likes to present itself as a great stabilizing force in the world, but imagine if they had a genuine diplomatic achievement, such as brokering the opening of the Strait of Hormuz, as proof of that,” Richard McGregor, senior fellow at the Lowy Institute, told Bloomberg.

He noted that some in Beijing would advocate for using the moment to “squeeze some concessions out of the US” on issues such as Taiwan. The first Chinese tanker attacked in the U.S.-Iran conflict, as well as the upcoming Trump-Xi summit, might be the catalysts for the international community to pressure Iran into a peace deal with the U.S. Meanwhile, a French aircraft carrier is transiting through the southern part of the Suez Canal and into the Red Sea, preparing to restore Hormuz tanker flows.

Read more …

They seem confused. I always thought that would be the issue. Why would there be humans involved?

• AI Models Close To Building a Better Version of Themselves (Rick Moran)

“My prediction is by the end of 2028, it’s more likely than not that we have an AI system where you would be able to say to it: ‘Make a better version of yourself.’ And it just goes off and does that completely autonomously,” Jack Clark, who heads The Anthropic Institute, told Axios. Clark, co-founder of Anthropic, says his institute is seeing signs of “AI contributing to speeding up the research and development of AI itself,” a process known as recursive self-improvement. nClark adds, “It’s always been the case that humans outside the technology need to come up with the ideas that they then put back into it. What happens if we have a technology that can generate ideas within itself for how to improve itself? That’s a new concept.”


Too fast, too soon. The speed with which AI systems are evolving is far outstripping our ability to gauge the impact on humans and society. Lots of good things can happen in medicine, biology, and other sciences where AI is already making a big impact. The speed and autonomy of artificial intelligence models promise an abundant future. Or something totally unforeseen. “What do you do with a tremendous amount of growth or a tremendous amount of abundance in many, many different fields of science all at once?” Clark asked. “Today’s institutions have very, very narrow pipes through which you push new drug candidates. How do you massively broaden the size of those pipes in advance of this abundance?”

We don’t even know how much we have to broaden those “pipes,” nor can we foresee whether or not the act of broadening them might pose other critical problems. Too fast. Too soon. It’s like dealing with Russian Matryoshka dolls, or nesting dolls, which separate in the middle to reveal a smaller figure of the same sort inside, which, in turn, has another figure inside it, and so on. Each improvement of AI presents its own set of challenges that need to be addressed before opening the next doll. You can’t open the next doll without fully understanding the significance of the doll you’re working with.

“The motivation has always been: Tell the whole story,” Clark told Axios. “Sometimes that means that we talk about risks that we’re worried about. Sometimes that means that we’re going to talk about amazing, hitherto uncontemplated amounts of abundance.… I’m just trying to get ahead of what I think of as the next big question and get Anthropic ahead of that.” Anthropic’s Research Agenda is looking to get ahead of the AI learning curve. Axios: “The five-page document warns of a possible “intelligence explosion” — long a theoretical term confined to AI safety circles. Now it’s in writing, in an official Anthropic document.”

Clark told us an intelligence explosion is when AI systems suddenly start improving at blinding speed. Lots of bad things can happen (cyber meltdowns and biological attacks). And lots of good: “What do you do with a tremendous amount of growth or a tremendous amount of abundance in many, many different fields of science all at once?” he asked. “Today’s institutions have very, very narrow pipes through which you push new drug candidates. How do you massively broaden the size of those pipes in advance of this abundance?”

What’s new: The Anthropic Institute is part research arm, part early-warning system, with an agenda built alongside Anthropic’s Long-Term Benefit Trust. Clark certainly has an optimistic outlook for AI and its impact on humanity. He asks if AI is building itself, will we need AI companies in the future? “We and the other companies are going to be taking this technology and trying to get it to do good in the world,” Clark told Axios. “To help push forward things like biology or medicine or robotics… To steer that technology into domains where it’s really, really, really hard to make progress, like cancer research.” What we’re looking at today are earnest, altruistic efforts to protect society from the potential ravages of uncontrolled AI. Any system capable of acting autonomously is a threat to humanity. It’s good that Jack Clark recognizes that, but do the Chinese see it that way? The Russians? Other AI companies?

This is the reasoning behind my observation that AI development is already close to being out of control. Even well-meaning geniuses like Elon Musk, Sam Altman, and Jack Clark aren’t able to gauge all the ramifications of their creations. How could they? The industry is moving at light speed. Some of it is healthy competition, the kind of innovation that America does best. But in the rush to be best, are we sacrificing safety? The tech giants don’t think so, but I’m not as confident. It’s too easy for humans to confuse their own self-interest with what’s best for all. History is replete with examples of people acting in their own selfish interests while believing they were acting for the greater good.

Read more …

“.. if broader conflict with Europe opens one day, the European powers won’t be able to find an offramp before absorbing immense losses ../”

• Medvedev: Russia Must Instill ‘Animal Fear’ In EU Warmongers (ZH)

Head of the Russian Security Council and former president, Dmitry Medvedev, has penned an article ahead of the 81st anniversary of Soviet victory over Nazi Germany, or Russia’s V-Day, lambasting Europe’s new path of reckless militarization. As widely featured in state media, he argued that the “animal fear” of unacceptable losses will prevent Germany and the wider “United Europe” from launching another attack against Russia. He wrote, “It is no secret that an attempt is being made to impose on us the doctrine of ‘peace through strength’. Our response then can only be ‘the security of Russia through the animal fear of Europe.'” He stressed that “neither persuasion, nor demonstration of good intentions, nor goodwill and unilateral confidence-building steps should be our tools to prevent a big massacre.”


“Only the formation of an understanding among Germany and the United Europe supporting it of the inevitability of their receiving unacceptable damage in the event of the implementation of the Barbarossa 2.0 plan,” Medvedev concluded. RT reviews and pinpoints why Medvedev is taking direct aim at Berlin in his written piece: German Chancellor Friedrich Merz openly vowed to turn the German military into the “strongest conventional army in Europe” in a speech just days after the world marked the 80th anniversary of the fall of the Third Reich last May.

Last month, the German Defense Ministry unveiled a plan to reach this goal and field 460,000 combat-ready personnel by 2039, the 100th anniversary of Adolf Hitler’s invasion of Poland. German and other EU officials repeatedly cited 2029 as the first stage deadline to be “war-ready” for a potential conflict with Russia. It is true that even after 4+ years of grinding war in eastern Europe, the Western powers have yet to intervene directly by sending their own forces, and after losses on both the Ukrainian and Russian sides have probably been in the hundreds of thousands.

The conflict is largely stalemated, with Russian forces in the east having had a very slow but steady, piecemeal momentum over the past year. However, Ukraine’s drone strikes deep inside Russia have been devastating of late, inflicting serious damage on Russian oil refineries – in some cases hitting key sites multiple times, with Russia’s anti-air defenses appearing powerless to stop these attack waves.

The Moscow region itself has been coming under repeat drone attack. While these operations have little or no impact on the frontline situation in the Donbass, Kiev hopes to inflict serious costs on the Russian government and population, the latter which is surely growing tired and weary of the war. But Medvedev’s point is also that if broader conflict with Europe opens one day, the European powers won’t be able to find an offramp before absorbing immense losses – no matter their efforts to revamp and expand their respective defense industries.

Read more …

Playing politics over 22 million dead bodies 80 years later is bizarre. They know how much it hurts the Russians.

“It is a time when the nation collectively reflects on its history, pays tribute to those who sacrificed their lives, and celebrates the enduring spirit of its people.”

• Germany Officially Bans all Russian Symbols on May 9th (CTH)

Something is going to happen, I’m not entirely sure what it is, but something is going to happen on May 8th and 9th as Russia pauses the conflict with Ukraine to celebrate one of their most treasured holidays, Victory Day. My spidey senses are telling me, Ukraine and the EU are planning something very controversial to coincide with this national holiday in the Russian Federation. Germany has done this before, but this time with President Trump pulling back from NATO, this year holds a different context.


GERMANY – Berlin police published an administrative order on 6 May restricting freedom of assembly and access to public spaces in the areas around three Soviet war memorials from 06:00 on 8 May until 22:00 on 9 May. In the restricted zones of the Treptow-Köpenick, Mitte and Pankow districts, the wearing of military uniforms and insignia is prohibited, as is the display of the letters Z and V, St George’s ribbons, flags and items bearing Russian symbols, flags of the USSR, Belarus and the Chechen Republic, and portraits of their leaders, as well as depictions of Ukraine that exclude its occupied territories.

Russian military and marching songs – including all versions of Sacred War – are also banned, along with any actions that glorify Russia’s war against Ukraine. The ban applies to everyone present in the restricted areas, regardless of whether they are participating in demonstrations or not. (more) May 9, celebrated as Victory Day, is one of the most significant and heartfelt holidays in Russia, symbolizing resilience, unity, and remembrance. This day honors the Soviet Union’s victory over Nazi Germany in World War II, known in Russia as the Great Patriotic War. It is a time when the nation collectively reflects on its history, pays tribute to those who sacrificed their lives, and celebrates the enduring spirit of its people.

The Russian people, ordinarily invisible regular people, take historic photographs of their loved ones lost in World War II and prominently display them. Some cities and towns have marches where citizens carry those photographs during slow processions in silence. It is something rather remarkable to see and highlights a strong bond to remember just how many millions of Russians were killed during the great war. It is more than just a day of respect, national pride and remembrance. It is a day that encapsulates the deliberate and hardened spirit of a nation. Nothing is open. The entire Russian Federation pauses to reflect on the character that defines what the word “Russian” really means. These are brutally stoic, deliberate and honest people; gifted culturally and generationally with an inability to pretend.

To the West they seem hard, but that’s not really what it is. In reality, Western cultures are enmeshed with polite indulgences that are foreign to the average Russian person. We take things for granted; they do not. We forget how good we have it, they see it. However, Russia also sees the downside to political correctness running amok, DEI and other gender-‘isms’ that create pretenses that ultimately become cultural rot and vulnerabilities.

Russians like the concept of Western ‘freedom’, yet they do not quite understand it because Russians do not respect the visible self-flagellation and suicide mission that seemingly accompanies the freedom they perceive. Do not ever fall into the trap of romanticizing Russia, it is a hard and unforgiving culture difficult for most because Russians do not accept false politeness, nor do they respect weakness. They are very deliberate; unnervingly so, and that makes them cold. I’ve said all that to emphasize the importance of his Victory Day holiday throughout the Russian Federation. This is not a day to disrespect Russia.

I’m not sure what snarky Zelenskyy and the cunning coalition of the willing have planned, but if they trigger a provocation that at this point seems predictable – they might not like the Russian response. Then again, that’s likely the goal. The ‘coalition of the willing’ want to force President Trump to remain actively engaged and on their side. Zelenskyy and his EU team are willing to provoke, then take, a massive counterstrike from Vladimir Putin against Kiev if that’s what it takes to keep the U.S. military engaged and aligned.= The Ukraine meat grinder must remain satiated in order for the EU power structures to remain in place. This is a dangerous moment.

Read more …

“You know who taught me to hold a door for women? My mother, the strongest person I’ve ever known.”

• Dana White Says Society Is Failing Young Men (David Manney)

Dana White touched some nerves this week when he mocked modern concerns over toxic masculinity and warned that society is increasingly pushing young men aside. Cue the shrieks in 3…2…1…0 White’s broader point, however, resonated with millions of Americans who see young men struggling socially, economically, and emotionally while much of modern culture (read: feminazis) treats masculinity itself like a behavior problem needing correction. White appeared on The Katie Miller Podcast, where the host and wife of Stephen Miller, the White House deputy chief of staff for policy, asked him about the state of young men and women in America today.


White went on to argue that young men are struggling with a wildly different set of circumstances than the ones he grew up with. “Times are changing from when I was young,” he said. “These young men, I think, you know, we went through COVID and the whole woke era and all the weird s— that went on during that period. A lot of the young males felt displaced.” The UFC president noted that he often gets accused of outlandish things like “being the head of the manosphere, whatever that means” and of “toxic masculinity.”

Around 12 years ago, I ran into such a proud feminist who started to rip me a new one because I held a door open for her. I let her go for about five seconds before laying some truth on her, saying, “You know who taught me to hold a door for women? My mother, the strongest person I’ve ever known.” It stopped her cold. Maybe because of what I said, but I really think it’s because of how I said it. My guess was that she was used to rolling over men trying to be polite. For years, political activists, academics, and media commentators have used phrases like “toxic masculinity” to describe aggressive, destructive, or antisocial male behavior.

So when White opines on what manhood supposedly is or isn’t, it offers insight into the perspective of some men in the MAGA movement, which is deeply obsessed with performative masculinity. That’s why I found it pitiful to see him publicly berating men who openly discuss their mental health. White delivered his commentary, fittingly, on the podcast of MAGA influencer Katie Miller, who is married to White House deputy chief of staff Stephen Miller. White, after saying it’s a “man’s job” to make sure a woman feels “safe” and is “treated right,” admitted that his idea of masculinity is “toxic” and railed against men who talk about their feelings.

And that’s fair; real abuse, violence, and recklessness deserve criticism regardless of gender. Problems start when the conversation expands so broadly that ordinary masculine traits begin falling under suspicion too. Competitiveness becomes dangerous, stoicism becomes unhealthy, physical toughness becomes outdated, and leadership becomes problematic. Even fatherhood sometimes gets discussed less as a social necessity and more as an optional accessory. Young men notice.

Many of them also notice who usually delivers the lectures. Discussions surrounding masculinity often happen in universities, activist circles, corporate HR departments, entertainment panels, and political spaces where traditional male culture receives little respect. Blue-collar values, physical labor, risk-taking, hunting, mechanical trades, competitive sports, and military service were, for years, increasingly viewed through a skeptical culture lens instead of being treated as honorable parts of society.

White’s comments gained traction partly because he works inside one of the few major industries where unapologetic masculinity still openly exists. The UFC built an audience around discipline, competition, toughness, accountability, and merit. Fighters either win or lose, and excuses carry little value once the cage door closes. Many cultural leaders still respond by doubling down on criticism instead of asking why so many young men feel disconnected from institutions increasingly dominated by ideological messaging. Could it be that those institutions have been increasingly hostile in their ideological messaging?

Read more …

Africa it is then.

• Visualizing The Stunning Global Fertility Divide (ZH)

A widening gap is emerging in global birth rates.nThis chart, via Visual Capitalist’s Niccolo Conte, shows population-weighted total fertility rates (TFR) across major world regions, based on data from the UN World Population Prospects 2024 Revision, and how they compare to the 2.1 replacement level. While Africa remains far above this threshold, most of the world, including Asia, Europe, and the Americas, has already fallen below it. This split highlights where future population growth is likely to be concentrated.

Africa Stands Apart
Africa’s fertility rate of 4.0 children per woman is the highest of any region. It is nearly double the global average of 2.2 and close to three times Europe’s rate of 1.4. With a rapidly growing population base, Africa is expected to drive a significant share of global population growth in the coming decades. Higher fertility rates are often linked to younger populations, lower urbanization, and differences in access to education and healthcare.

Below Replacement in Most Regions
Many parts of the world now have fertility rates below the replacement level of 2.1. Asia, North America, and South America each sit at 1.7, while Europe trails at 1.4. These levels point to aging populations, slower natural population growth, and potential workforce pressures over time. In many countries, immigration and family-support policies are becoming more important parts of the demographic outlook.

Population Weight Matters
Asia accounts for 54% of the global population, meaning its relatively low fertility rate has an outsized influence on the global average. By contrast, regions like Oceania and the Middle East have higher fertility rates but much smaller populations. This helps explain why the global average remains at 2.2 even as most major regions fall below replacement.

Read more …

They hope if they get together they can take him. But even then…

• PM Carney’s Role in Organizing Commonwealth Trump Opposition (CTH)

Susan Kokinda of Promethean Action PAC does a great job with this video presentation of how Canada is the tip of the spear in how the EU and Commonwealth are trying to undermine President Trump. In the background, this is where it becomes important for President Trump and President Putin to organize a strategic alliance.


“As attention focused on President Trump’s Iran breakthrough, Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney met European and Commonwealth leaders in Armenia and said the rules-based international order is over, arguing it will be rebuilt out of Europe around Canada, the EU, the UK, and Australia. The episode frames this as a rival power center consolidating against Trump’s America, then highlights Carney’s appointment of Louise Arbour as Canada’s Governor General, emphasizing the office’s powers and Arbour’s role as a UN tribunal prosecutor and advocate for creating the International Criminal Court, alongside references to George Soros’s Open Society support for the ICC and Jack Smith’s work there.

The script then covers a Trump administration press conference on beef, citing declining cattle numbers, ranch losses, and consolidation among four meatpackers controlling 85% of processing, and links this to decades of cartelization and foreign influence in food and commodities.”

Read more …

“.. drugs coming in by sea are down 97% and now we’ve started the land force, which is much easier.”

• Did President Trump Say That in His Outside Voice…(CTH)

During a White House event to celebrate Moms, President Trump introduced several prominent Moms in and out of government and celebrated their achievements. As he often does, President Trump also delivered unscripted remarks to accompany the themed script of the event.


I’m highlighting one specific impromptu, off the cuff remark that deserves a little attention. I’m certain somebody around Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum will also bring it to her attention. The moment happens at 35:51 of the video below. Watch (prompted):

…”drugs coming in by sea are down 97% and now we’ve started the land force, which is much easier. And you’ll hear some complaints from some people in, like, representatives from Mexico and other places, but if they’re not going to do the job, we’re going to do the job and they understand that.”…

Last week the DOJ indicted Mexican Governor Ruben Rocha Moya along with nine current and former Mexican officials for participating “in a corrupt and violent drug trafficking conspiracy with the Cartel to import massive amounts of fentanyl, heroin, cocaine, and methamphetamine from Mexico into the United States.”

Keep in mind, while the U.S. media are not reporting on the issue; however, every ground report indicates that indicted Sinaloa Cartel Governor Ruben Rocha is being protected in an undisclosed location by the Mexican National Guard. Essentially, the Mexican military is protecting an indicted drug trafficker and politician in Mexico, while avoiding extradition to the U.S. That’s further context for President Trump’s remarks.

Read more …

The one piece of lawfare they pushed through. Based on the script for a cop show.

• DOJ to Ask Supreme Court to Intervene in E. Jean Carroll Lawsuit vs Trump (ET)

The U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) said it will ask the U.S. Supreme Court to allow it to intervene in President Donald Trump’s appeal of the $83.3 million jury award E. Jean Carroll won against him in a defamation lawsuit.The DOJ will ask the Supreme Court to substitute the United States for Trump in the lawsuit, arguing that in 2019, during his first term as president, when Trump denied Carroll’s sexual assault claims against him, he was acting as an employee of the government.


Assistant U.S. Attorney General Brett Shumate said in a filing with the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit on May 5 that the DOJ will invoke the federal Westfall Act in a bid to substitute the federal government for Trump as the defendant in the lawsuit. The appeals court previously denied the request to replace Trump as the defendant. The DOJ argues that Trump is immune from suit because he was acting within the scope of his presidential duties and speaking on matters of public concern when he made the statements about Carroll that led to the $83.3 million verdict. A federal jury ordered Trump to pay those damages over the statements in which he denied the sexual assault allegations and accused Carroll of lying.

The Westfall Act shields federal employees from common law tort lawsuits arising from their government employment. Common law refers to the body of law developed over centuries by court rulings, as opposed to statutes passed by legislatures. A tort is a wrongful act or infringement of a right that gives rise to civil liability. If a federal employee is sued in his individual capacity for a tort that occurred while he was acting within the scope of his employment for the government, the act states that “the United States shall be substituted as the party defendant,” and the court will dismiss the employee from the lawsuit.

Carroll, an author, testified during a 2023 trial that Trump attacked her around 1996 in a dressing room in a department store near Trump Tower in New York City. Trump denied the allegations. In its May 2023 verdict, a federal jury held Trump liable both for sexually abusing Carroll and defaming her when he made statements in October 2022 denying her allegations. The jury awarded Carroll $5 million in damages. The Second Circuit upheld both the $5 million verdict and the $83.3 million verdict on appeal.

Shumate urged the Second Circuit to stay the award, noting that the DOJ intends to file a petition with the Supreme Court challenging the circuit’s denial of a request to substitute the government as defendant in the lawsuit. The Epoch Times reached out to Carroll’s attorney, Roberta A. Kaplan, for comment. No reply was received by publication time. Separately, on May 5, Trump asked the Second Circuit to stay the award to give him time to prepare an appeal to the Supreme Court over the circuit court’s rulings. Trump previously filed a petition with the Supreme Court in November 2025 to challenge the $5 million verdict. It is unclear when the high court will act on it.

Read more …

“Today’s Democratic Party has abandoned its traditional working-class, patriotic roots and embraced a radical Jacobin ideology built on division, coercion, and political extremism.”

There’s nowhere to go to for millions of votes.

You can’t just switch to GOP, and the Dems are stark raving loonies.

• The Democratic Party Is Dead, Long Live the Jacobins! (Victor Davis Hanson)

For the past century, the agendas of the Democratic Party were predictable. They professed concern for working Americans and supported blue-collar unions. Unemployment insurance, a 40-hour work week, disability insurance, and Social Security were their trademarks—often rapidly achieved by growing government bureaucracies and continually raising taxes. Still, many Democrats were socially conservative. By the 1970s, Democrats still deplored antisemitism. Party officials had rejected their own segregationists to champion civil rights. Presidents like Franklin Roosevelt, Harry Truman, and John F. Kennedy all supported strong defense and military deterrence. All that is now passé.


The only vestigial Democrat left in Congress is Pennsylvania Senator John Fetterman, himself roundly despised by Democrat leaders. Today, supporting Israel and calling for campuses to stop their institutionalized antisemitism is Democratic political suicide. Forty years ago, any Democrat with a Nazi tattoo was political toast; today, he can become the party’s nominee for the Maine Senate race. So, the current Democrat Party is no longer truly democratic at all. Its new spirit and methods resemble the radical Jacobin Party of the French Revolution. Today, Democrats claim that if any opponent gives a Roman salute, he is a Nazi—while insisting that one of their own with a Nazi tattoo is not.

Jacobinism rejects Martin Luther King Jr.’s emphasis on the “content of . . . character.” It instead prefers fixating on “the color of . . . skin.” It aims to divide the nation arbitrarily between the noble oppressed and the toxic oppressors. So these new Jacobins have institutionalized racially separate college dorms and graduation ceremonies, along with hiring and promoting on the basis of race. The new Jacobins destroyed the southern border and welcomed in 10–12 million illegal aliens, seen as a future proletariat constituency. Today’s Jacobins would now ridicule Bill Clinton’s 1990s calls for secure borders and an end to illegal immigration as “fascist” and “racist.”

The most recent nihilist developments in American society can be attributed to these Jacobin “Democrats”: biological men competing in women’s sports; critical legal theory that normalizes cashless bail; race-based reparations; violent felons arrested and back on the street hours later; radical abortion on demand until birth; attacks on the concept of the cultural “melting pot”; and opposition to organized Christianity. These agendas lack broad majority support. So street theater and violence focus on Tesla dealerships, ICE officers, conservative campus speakers, and, at times, any journalists covering the unrest. Jacobins make excuses for pro-Hamas campus violence, which often targets Jewish students. The often violent and corrupt Black Lives Matter movement was a Jacobin ancillary.

Free speech is labeled “disinformation” and “misinformation”—synonyms for not toeing the Jacobin Party line. Until recent pushbacks, near-religious radical green agendas warred against fossil fuels and cost the working classes billions of dollars for sky-high fuel and electricity costs. Like the Robespierre brothers of old, the most radical Jacobins are so often to be found among the wealthiest and most privileged Americans. Radical New York mayor Zohran Mamdani grew up as a rich Ugandan. Radical, self-described communist Maine senatorial candidate Graham Platner attended one of the most elite and expensive prep schools in the United States. When avowed socialists Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Sen. Bernie Sanders barnstormed the country, they did so via private jets.

Radical “Squad” member Rep. Ilhan Omar cannot decide whether she is worth $30 million or nothing. Hard-left California billionaire, gubernatorial candidate, and radical environmentalist Tom Steyer is a billionaire who jump-started his fortune by investing in coal plants overseas and offshoring profits to avoid taxes. At least 10 states are drafting laws to tax the net worth, as well as the income, of “billionaires and millionaires,” apparently for their “social” crimes. Mayor Mamdani taps on the window of philanthropist Ken Griffin as a warning to get out of town. The mayor of Seattle scoffs at the rich leaving her state with their billions due to new punitive taxes, offering a sarcastic “bye.”

In the old days, Democrats were embarrassed by their radicals and distanced themselves from the Weather Underground, Students for a Democratic Society, and the Black Panthers. Today, left-wing bomb throwers are the Democrat Party. Hasan Piker, another multimillionaire, $200,000 Porsche-driving communist, has openly supported “social murder.” So Piker praised Luigi Mangione’s targeted murder of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson. Meanwhile, Jacobins on social media expressed disappointment that all three assassination attempts on Donald Trump failed. The arsonist who burned down Pacific Palisades was a Mangione acolyte and saw his destruction as a revolutionary act, perhaps a form of mass “social murder.”

Jacobin politicians call for Trump to be “eliminated,” label him as a “fascist,” and call for “any means necessary” to end his presidency. The aim is to lower the social and psychological barrier to violence. The Jacobin Democrats of today are systematically destroying the legacy of the Democratic Party. And why not? Their model is not the American Founding, but the radical mandated equality—and violence—of the French Revolution.

Read more …

It is scary.

• Half of Vienna Secondary School Students Are Now Muslim (RMX)

Almost half of students in Vienna’s public middle schools are now Muslim, according to new figures from the Vienna Education Directorate, marking the latest sign of a rapid demographic and cultural shift inside the Austrian capital’s classrooms. The data, cited by Heute, shows that Muslim students account for 49.4 percent of children in Vienna’s public middle schools — just short of an absolute majority. Across the city’s public compulsory schools more broadly, including elementary, middle, special needs, and polytechnic schools, Muslim students now make up 42 percent, up from 41.2 percent in the previous school year.


Catholic students, once the dominant group in the city, now account for just 16.7 percent of children in the public schools included in the figures. Orthodox students make up 14.2 percent, while children with no religious affiliation account for 23.2 percent. The figures also reveal a stark divide between Vienna’s public and private schools. In private schools, Catholics remain the largest group at 45.39 percent, followed by students with no religious affiliation at 25.1 percent and Orthodox students at 10.6 percent. Muslim children account for just 7.6 percent of students in Vienna’s private schools.

Taken together, across both public and private schools, Muslim students now form the largest single group at 38.3 percent. Even when Catholic and Orthodox children are combined, they reach only around 33.6 percent.The numbers reveal how the city’s public schools are becoming the front line of a much broader cultural transformation. Earlier this year, Remix News reported that more than half of first-grade students in Vienna were listed as Muslim for the first time, while separate reporting from Profil described one secondary school where a Christian boy was allegedly the only Christian in his first-grade class.

At that school, 230 of the 390 students were Muslim, while 99 percent of the students had an immigration background. Only five children in the entire school were reported to have no migrant background. The Christian boy was reportedly mocked by classmates and called a “pig,” while teachers described classrooms marked by language barriers, social problems, and growing religious pressure.The school was said to include students speaking 32 different languages, with Turkish, Arabic, and Chechen among the most common home languages. One teacher said that the problems were so extensive that every class could use its own social worker.

Concerns over integration have also spilled into the school canteen. In October 2025, the Austrian Farmers’ Association warned that pork dishes such as schnitzel, ham noodles, and roast pork had become rare or had disappeared entirely from some Viennese school menus. The association said some schools now offered only vegetarian meals or meat dishes without pork, citing a mother who said her daughter could choose only between vegetarian food and “pork-free” food. “No one has to eat pork, but it must be offered. Pork is part of our culinary culture,” said Corinna Weisl, director of the Farmers’ Association.

The group’s president, Georg Strasser, said preserving choice was the key issue, arguing that “diversity on the plate means freedom of choice for everyone.” For some parents, however, the question is whether public schools can still deliver basic education. In February, Remix News reported the case of a Vienna mother who withdrew her daughter from a public primary school in Rudolfsheim-Fünfhaus after two years, saying only four children in the class spoke German fluently.

The mother, identified as Sabine G., said teachers spent much of the day translating instructions and managing basic communication rather than teaching. By the end of the first school year, she said her daughter still could not recite the alphabet, while several classmates had to repeat the grade. She also said her daughter had begun refusing pork after being told it was “unclean” and had started rejecting certain summer clothing.“I felt my child was being strongly influenced,” she said.

Read more …

“..thousands of Americans will gather on Sunday, May 17, on the National Mall to rededicate the United States as One Nation Under God. “

• ‘Golden Thread of Devotion’: Trump’s National Day of Prayer Message (Salgado)

President Donald Trump praised America’s “magnificent birthright of faith” during his May 6 message for the National Day of Prayer. During this year of America’s 250th birthday, Trump declared that “we pledge to never forget the countless blessings God has bestowed upon our people and our country.” The president stated, “From the cradles of civilization in the ancient world to the Christian empires of medieval Europe and the miraculous founding of our own Nation, the entire Western experience has been connected by a golden thread of devotion to God.” He especially emphasized the role of faith in America’s Revolution and founding.


For instance, Trump noted, the Second Continental Congress declared a day of “humiliation, fasting, and prayer” in order to invoke God‘s blessing on the fight against Great Britain “for freedom, virtue, and posterity.” Only weeks after that, “armed with unshakable faith, the Colonies declared their independence from Great Britain on July 4, 1776, and paved the way for freedom’s ultimate victory five years later at Yorktown,” Trump celebrated.

Our one nation under God has always acknowledged only one Divine King, as the song “My Country, ‘Tis of Thee” affirms. Trump continued, “In the years since, this proud birthright of faith moved our Nation to expand the promise of independence to the furthest reaches of our continent; preserve our Union in the midst of a bloody Civil War; abolish slavery; win two world wars; defeat the evil forces of atheistic communism; plant our Flag on the Moon; and advance truth, beauty, and goodness in our culture every single day.”

One fact of which Trump is very proud and which he often brings up is that after many years of declining religiosity, America is once again turning back to faith. In 2025, a Barna study found that 66% of U.S. adults “say they have made a personal commitment to Jesus that is still important in their life today,” which was a whopping 12-point rise over the statistics from just four years before, in 2021. Even more striking, for the first time Barna found the trend in spiritual commitment fueled by the youth of America.

In his National Day of Prayer message, Trump declared: “Today, faith in God is resurging on American shores like never before. Throughout this historic year, we rejoice in the triumph of the American spirit and in the love and grace of Almighty God. And just as our Founders came together in prayer before declaring independence, thousands of Americans will gather on Sunday, May 17, on the National Mall to rededicate the United States as One Nation Under God. ”

Trump has also called for a national Shabbat over May 15-16 to recognize the Jewish contribution to America. “This National Day of Prayer, we proudly recommit to our magnificent birthright of faith,” the president stated. “I encourage all Americans to come together today in prayer, reflecting on the many blessings God has given our Nation and asking for His continued protection, with ceremonies, events, and programs in their houses of worship and places of work, schools, and homes.” In conclusion, he urged, “Above all, we pledge that America will always, as it is written in Psalm 96, ‘Tell His glory among the nations’—and that we will never forget God’s role in creating, protecting, and sustaining the freest, strongest, most prosperous, and greatest country the world has ever known.”

Read more …

10 years ahead of his own time.

• The Controversy Over Picasso’s Most Shocking Painting (BBC)

The confrontational painting Les Demoiselles d’Avignon has been both widely despised and loved, and over the decades has remained contentious. A century after it was created by Picasso, acclaimed US artist Henry Taylor reinterpreted and challenged the piece – and his version is now at the centre of a major exhibition at the Musée Picasso in Paris.


In 1907, Pablo Picasso invited a small circle of artists and friends to his studio in Paris. He wanted to show them a painting he had been working on for six months. Almost unanimously, the reaction from his peers was shock, horror and disgust. The French painter Georges Braque reportedly compared the experience to drinking petrol, and Henri Matisse is said to have called the women in it “hideous”. It wouldn’t be shown publicly until 1916, almost a decade later.

More than a century on, it has become one of Picasso’s most recognisable and controversial works. It has also been reinterpreted by the acclaimed US painter Henry Taylor. His version is currently displayed at a major exhibition at Musée National Picasso in Paris, and Taylor emphasises a key point about the earlier painting: it owes a lot more to African art than Picasso ever liked to admit.The painting Picasso had shown his peers was Les Demoiselles d’Avignon (1907), a large oil painting in which five nude women in a brothel in Barcelona demand the viewer’s attention. Two of the women have mask-like faces, three stare back at the observer, and all have jagged, disjointed bodies. It marked a sharp turn in Picasso’s creative journey and a dramatic departure from the artistic norms of the time.

“Picasso moved away from emotional, figurative painting toward breaking forms apart and rethinking how space and bodies are shown,” Joanne Snrech, a curator at Musée National Picasso, tells the BBC. “This shift was key to the development of Cubism and modern art more broadly.” Les Demoiselles d’Avignon (The Young Ladies of Avignon) was initially named Le Bordel d’Avignon (or The Brothel of Avignon) until 1916, when the title was changed to be less contentious. It is considered a fundamental work in the birth of Cubism, the 20th-Century art movement known for abandoning traditional, realistic forms of representation in favour of fragmented and geometric shapes.

As Picasso did in the Demoiselles, Cubism merged multiple vantage points of an object or person into a single image. “Part of what made the reaction so strong is that Picasso didn’t just change one thing: he changed everything at once,” Snrech says. “Even for artists who were already experimenting with new styles, this felt like a step too far.” But Picasso’s innovations didn’t come out of nowhere. Some of them, it could be argued, came straight from Africa.Months before creating this painting, Picasso had developed a particular interest in African masks and sculptures, spurred by a small figurine – from what is now the Democratic Republic of the Congo – that Matisse had purchased in Paris in 1906.

Picasso began regularly visiting the African section of the Musée d’Ethnographie du Trocadéro, creating hundreds of preparatory sketches for his new masterpiece.”What struck him wasn’t just how they looked, but how they worked: the faces are simplified, distorted, sometimes quite intense or even unsettling,” Snrech says. “He was clearly inspired by this different approach to the human face, which allowed him to move away from naturalism and toward something more abstract and confrontational.”

Despite this work and many others being shaped by his encounters with African art, Picasso is known to have downplayed its influence. He famously said to a critic working on a series on African art for a journal in 1920 that he had “never heard of it”. Picasso’s reluctance to acknowledge the impact of African art on his work while directly benefiting from it later provoked accusations of cultural appropriation. Critiques highlight the cultural, religious and social significance of the objects that Picasso observed but seemingly ignored, and how this fed into the wider narrative of African art being seen as “primitive” at the time.

Read more …

 

 

 

 

https://twitter.com/Juliedonuts/status/2052227280148009335?s=20 https://twitter.com/robertdunlap947/status/2052343953395974465?s=20 https://twitter.com/JasonJournoDC/status/2052160639561240826?s=20 https://twitter.com/Tips2Home/status/2052107725383877043?s=20

 

 

 

 

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

 

 

 

 

 

May 112024
 


Vincent van Gogh Daubigny’s garden 1890

 

• Scott Ritter Predicts How Ukraine Will End (Sp.)
• Biden Weaponizing FBI and DOJ Against Americans – Tara Reade (RT)
• Missouri AG Accuses Biden DOJ Of Coordinating With Trump Prosecutors (ZH)
• Boxing Promoter Don King Endorses Trump for President (ET)
• Hillary Clinton Denounces Trump for Doing What She Did in 2016 (Turley)
• Ukraine A ‘Corrupt S**Thole’ – Ex-Boris Johnson Adviser (RT)
• Tucker Carlson Interviews Catherine Englebrecht About Illegal Alien Voting (CTH)
• Biden Faces Impeachment Over Israel Weapons Suspension (RT)
• Russia Fighting ‘Reincarnation Of Fascism’ – Medvedev (RT)
• Carnival Rides (Kunstler)

 

 

 

 

tesla frens

 

 

Lambo vs Cyber

 

 

Rob Roos

 

 

Mass

 

 

 

 

“..and they can’t become directly involved because that is a suicide pill.”

• Scott Ritter Predicts How Ukraine Will End (Sp.)

On Friday, the Russian Ministry of Defense announced that Russia liberated Novokalinovo in the Donetsk People’s Republic and Kiselevka and Kotlyarovka in the Kharkov region, the latest in a string of villages to fall, this rapid deterioration of the frontline was the result of the consistent work of Russian forces to grind the Ukrainians down until they had no reserves to stabilize the front line. “As we speak, the attritional warfare model has Ukraine losing around 1,500 troops a day. This number is going up now because Russia’s expanded its operations into the Kharkov region. So, you can expect this number [to] easily top 2,000 a day,” Ritter told Sputnik’s Fault Lines on Friday.

“What the Ukrainians have had to do is pull in reserves and take forces out from other fronts, including the Kharkov front and the Odessa front, to come into the battlefield where they’ve been eliminated, or they’ve been worn down and there are no replacements…what’s going to happen is Ukraine will be compelled to withdraw reserves from the Kiev region and from Odessa, to go to Kharkov to fill that gap. While they do that, the Russians will then launch a second major attack somewhere in the Zaporozhye area, and Ukrainians are going to be put to the classic horns of a dilemma where if they go north they lose, they go south they lose, if they stay in the middle they lose – there’s no good option for them,” Ritter explained, adding that we will then see “the total collapse of the Ukrainian army” and the “rapid withdrawal beyond the Dnepr River” to set up a new defense line, something he does not think the Ukrainians will be able to accomplish.

Eventually, Ritter predicts, “Ukrainian generals faced with the inevitable slaughter of the totality of their force will sue for peace.” Noting that he was told by his sources back in January to expect “dramatic alterations” to the battlefield map in May, Ritter predicts that Russia will capture significant territory in Kharkov and the Donbass this month, with Ukraine’s eventual capitulation a few months later. “They say that the Ukrainian capacity to continue cohesive resistance will collapse this summer – that’s the Russian assessment and I agree with it,” Ritter said, noting that Russia’s operations aren’t driven by “calendars” and have already allocated the resources to continue the conflict until 2027 if necessary. The decision of what happens to Ukraine now rests solely in the hands of Russia, Ritter argued, noting that they had “very favorable terms on the table” in March and April 2022.

“Nobody has a say in this but Russia, and Russia has made that very clear… this is a decisive defeat of NATO, the European Union and the United States. It’s as decisive as you can get without them being directly involved and they can’t become directly involved because that is a suicide pill.” Ritter added that the military aid package recently signed into law by US President Joe Biden has had “zero impact” on the battlefield. “What we’ve seen, for instance, the desperately needed 155-millimeter artillery shells were brought in from Romania on a ship, offloaded in Odessa into a warehouse and struck by two Iskander missiles. Boom, there goes a couple of billion dollars right there.”

Read more …

“..the Capitol riot participants were persecuted in a similar way, with the Biden administration “using intelligence to go after Americans.”

• Biden Weaponizing FBI and DOJ Against Americans – Tara Reade (RT)

The run-up to the US election is exposing President Joe Biden’s scandals to the public eye, including his family’s alleged money laundering schemes in Ukraine, RT contributor and former US Senate aide Tara Reade has said. She accused the Biden administration of weaponizing government institutions to silence Americans like her and the 2021 Capitol riot participants. In the wake of her 23-minute interview with American journalist Tucker Carlson, which aired on Thursday, Reade told RT she hopes her example will motivate others to come forward and tell their stories. “I’ve been contacted a couple of times in the past by women who wanted to come forward, but because of what happened to me, were too frightened,” she said.

Although Reade’s claim that Biden sexually assaulted her in 1993 did not surface until the 2020 election campaign, she said she had logged a report with the Senate right after the purported incident, and was still trying to get the report files unsealed. “The election year is just bringing it to light, because I think there’s other corruption that needs to come to light about Biden, particularly the misconduct he’s done around Ukraine, and the money laundering and the other activities that he and his family had been enriched by, in this proxy war that the US and NATO are fighting against Russia via Ukraine,” Reade explained. She added that while “people in America and other NATO countries are seeing the corruption,” the leaders of those states are “unfortunately still benefiting.”

After sharing details of the alleged assault, Reade described “weaponization of the government coming after me, that was quite frightening, and coming after my family.” She suggested that the Carlson interview shows the public is becoming more aware of this. “People are seeing the political weaponization of the DOJ (Department of Justice) and FBI (Federal Bureau of Investigation) against American citizens and other citizens,” she claimed, arguing that the Capitol riot participants were persecuted in a similar way, with the Biden administration “using intelligence to go after Americans.”

Read more …

It’s a campaign run from the White House.

• Missouri AG Accuses Biden DOJ Of Coordinating With Trump Prosecutors (ZH)

Missouri Attorney General Andrew Bailey filed a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request on Thursday as part of a probe into whether the Biden DOJ coordinated with Trump prosecutors. “The investigations and subsequent prosecutions of former President Donald J. Trump appear to have been conducted in coordination with the United States Department of Justice,” Baily posted in a lengthy thread on X. “This is demonstrated by the move of the third-highest ranking member of the Department of Justice, Matthew Colangelo, to the Manhattan District Attorney’s Office in order to prosecute President Trump in December 2022,” Baily continues. What’s more, Manhattan DA Alvin Bragg worked hand-in-hand with NY Attorney General Letitia James in pursuing civil litigation against Trump, which he used to campaign on.

As Fox News reports further; Bailey argues that Bragg’s decision to bring the prosecution “despite its transparent weakness has nonetheless had the effect of keeping former President Trump off the campaign trail, which President Biden has bragged about.” He cites a post on X from the official Biden-Harris campaign on April 24, which says, “While Trump is stuck in court, President Biden is keeping a very robust schedule of campaign events. He’s been to Pennsylvania to talk about the economy, Virginia to talk about clean energy, and Florida to talk about abortion.” Baily is seeking all communications, including documents, calendar appointments, meeting minutes and agendas related to Colangelo’s move to work in Bragg’s office – as well as similar communications between Bragg and NY AG Leticia James and Fulton County DA Fani Willis.

Read more …

“..the most resilient human being I’ve ever met.” “They’re trying to attack him. They’re trying to ruin him—unfazed,” the UFC president said. “He will walk through fire.”

• Boxing Promoter Don King Endorses Trump for President (ET)

Iconic boxing promoter Don King has endorsed former President Donald Trump for president in the 2024 election. The 92-year-old made the remarks on May 8 on the sidelines of an event after being asked if he has a message for President Trump, who’s facing a bevy of court cases that threaten to derail his presidential campaign. “Get reelected,” Mr. King said. “And we must reelect him to save ourselves. You know, a vote for Trump is a vote for yourself. Because we’ve got to fight the system of lies and the creation of wrong being right and right being wrong. That’s got to be eliminated. He called President Trump “the only man who’s got the intestinal fortitude to be able to stand up and fight the system like it should be fought,” Mr. King said the former president “underestimated the power of this strong system of corruption and hypocrisy.”

While Mr. King didn’t elaborate on the “system of corruption and hypocrisy” that he had in mind, it could be a reference to the numerous legal battles that the former president is fighting that he and his supporters argue are thinly veiled attempts to use lawfare to derail his comeback bid. “I want to say to him, let’s [save] America, let’s save ourselves, and then we can help others to be safe,” Mr. King added. President Trump shared the video on his social media platform, Truth Social, thanking Mr. King for his endorsement and message of encouragement. Mr. King’s sympathies for the former president are well-established, with the boxing promoter being one of few celebrities who endorsed then-candidate Trump in the 2016 election.

Introducing then-candidate Trump at a church event in Ohio in 2016, Mr. King called him “courageous and brave” and said he believed the future president would fix the “corrupt” and “rigged” system and bring the country “back to inclusiveness.” In mid-2017, after President Trump had spent several months in office, Mr. King told Politico Magazine in an exclusive interview that he believed he was doing an “excellent job” while lamenting the fact that his presidency was being overshadowed by the so-called “Russian collusion” scandal, which later turned out to be a hoax. At the time, Mr. King told Politico that he believed President Trump was constantly in the crosshairs of the Washington establishment, saying that they would try to “keep him down” at almost any cost—even saying that he warned the president to be on guard for assassination attempts.

“If Trump were a boxer, who would he be?” the interviewer asked the legendary boxing promoter. “He’d be Muhammad Ali…because he’s going to win,” Mr. King replied. “He’s going to run his mouth, he’s going to talk a lot and he’s going to win.” Mr. White gave his endorsement in an appearance on the Lex Fridman podcast in April, calling President Trump “the most resilient human being I’ve ever met.” “They’re trying to attack him. They’re trying to ruin him—unfazed,” the UFC president said. “He will walk through fire.”

Read more …

“I gave up shame years ago.”

• Hillary Clinton Denounces Trump for Doing What She Did in 2016 (Turley)

“I gave up shame years ago.” Those words from actor John Lithgow appear to have been taken to heart by Hillary Clinton who has severed any sense of self-awareness or shame in her public comments. Lithgow, who played Bill Clinton in Broadway production of Hillary and Clinton, appears to have inspired the subject of his play. In a recent interview, Hillary Clinton heralded the prosecution of former president Donald Trump in Manhattan as “election interference” by keeping “relevant information” from voters before an election. For those of us who criticized Clinton for the funding of the infamous Steele dossier, it was a perfectly otherworldly moment. In the interview, Clinton went after the Supreme Court for delaying a trial of Trump despite the push by Special Counsel Jack Smith for a verdict before the election. She then left many in disbelief with the following statement:

“And the one going on now currently in New York is really about election interference. It is about trying to prevent the people of our country from having relevant information that may have influenced how they could have voted in 2016 or whether they would have voted.” In the same election, it was Hillary Clinton’s campaign that lied about funding the Steele dossier and then hiding the funding as a legal expense through then Clinton General Counsel Marc Elias. The Clinton campaign staff has never been known for transparency. Buried in the detailed account is a footnote stating that Elias “declined to be voluntarily interviewed by the Office.” Likewise, Durham noted that “no one at Fusion GPS … would agree to voluntarily speak with the Office” while both the DNC and Clinton campaign invoked privileges to refuse to answer certain questions.

Elias, his former partner Michael Sussmann, and the campaign were later found involved in not just spreading the false claims from the Steele dossier but other false stories like the Alfa Bank conspiracy claim. It was Elias who managed the legal budget for the campaign. We now know that the campaign hid the funding of the Steele dossier as a legal expense. New York Times reporter Ken Vogel said that Elias denied involvement in the anti-Trump dossier. When Vogel tried to report the story, he said, Elias “pushed back vigorously, saying ‘You (or your sources) are wrong.’” Times reporter Maggie Haberman declared, “Folks involved in funding this lied about it, and with sanctimony, for a year.”

Elias was also seated next to John Podesta, Clinton’s campaign chairman, when he was asked about the role of the campaign, he denied categorically any contractual agreement with Fusion GPS. Even assuming that Podesta was kept in the dark, the Durham Report clearly shows that Elias knew and played an active role in pushing this effort.

Read more …

“The lesson we’ve taught Putin is that we’re a bunch of total f**king jokers..”

• Ukraine A ‘Corrupt S**Thole’ – Ex-Boris Johnson Adviser (RT)

The UK and its allies got tricked into backing a “corrupt mafia state” in Ukraine and getting into a war of attrition against a Moscow-Beijing partnership, Dominic Cummings has said in an interview. The longtime Tory political strategist led the Vote Leave campaign for Brexit and was one of the key aides to then-PM Boris Johnson until resigning in November 2020. “We should have never got into the whole stupid situation,” Cummings told the outlet I News in an interview published on Wednesday, commenting on London’s full-throated support for Kiev. He also described Ukraine as a “corrupt s**thole that doesn’t matter at all.” “This is not a replay of 1940 with the pumpkin [Ukrainian President Vladimir] Zelensky as the Churchillian underdog,” he added. “This whole Ukrainian corrupt mafia state has basically conned us all and we’re all going to get f**ked as a consequence.”

Western sanctions have been “more of a disaster” for the EU than for Russia, driving up the cost of living while pushing Moscow and Beijing closer together, according to Cummings. All the West managed to do is get into a war of attrition with Russia, “who we pushed into an alliance with the world’s biggest manufacturing power.” Cummings also addressed the argument that Russian President Vladimir Putin needed to be “taught a lesson” about invading neighbors. “The lesson we’ve taught Putin is that we’re a bunch of total f**king jokers,” he said. “I mean, Putin already knew that before the war. But this has emphasized it and broadcast it to the entire world, what a bunch of clowns we are,” he added. Between the sanctions regime and the US trying to seize frozen Russian assets, the West is encouraging the emergence of alternative global financial systems, he explained. That’s not teaching Putin any lesson, only that we’re idiots.

Cummings slammed Johnson – with whom he is no longer on speaking terms – for using the Ukraine conflict for “acting out his Churchillian fantasies,” as well as the Parliament, which “swallowed all of his total bulls**t on Ukraine and actually took it seriously.” Johnson was the key figure in getting Kiev to reject a peace deal with Russia in April 2022, according to the top Ukrainian negotiator, as well as Ukrainian media. The former PM denied his role in scuttling the talks, calling the account “total nonsense and Russian propaganda.” However, he confirmed that he told Zelensky the UK would back him “a thousand percent” and that any deal with Moscow would be bad.

Read more …

“The illegal alien doesn’t even need to complete the ballot, they only need to exist to generate one. Once the ballot is created, it can be filled out by anyone..”

• Tucker Carlson Interviews Catherine Englebrecht About Illegal Alien Voting (CTH)

Catherine Englebrecht from True The Vote (TTV) has been working diligently in the sphere of trying to clean up voter registration rolls and ensure voter integrity for decades now. Englebrecht has faced constant targeting from agencies of the federal government and politicians who benefit from voter fraud, ballot fraud and illegal voting overall.In this interview with Tucker Carlson, Catherine Englebrecht explains the federal loophole that assists in permitting illegal alien votes. If the illegal alien believes they are lawfully permitted to vote, they are not prosecuted. As with everything else, the key to understanding how illegal aliens vote is to understand the process created by democrats. The main goal in the modern era is to generate ballots. In order to generate ballots, the secretaries of state need a name and identifier for the ballot creation. Registering their existence is where illegal alien voting starts.

Getting state IDs or a Driver’s License, links the identity to the Secretary of State office. That identity then creates a potential ballot. The ballot is the vehicle for the unlawful vote. The illegal alien doesn’t even need to complete the ballot, they only need to exist to generate one. Once the ballot is created, it can be filled out by anyone. Ballot harvesters are those who collect the ballots and then fill them out. Organizations like Black Lives Matter and various leftist political activist groups are the ballot harvesters. The harvesters are paid by organizations funded by large donors and leftist corporations.

The harvesters then turn the completed ballots over to the polling counters/workers. The polling counters/workers come from the African Methodist Episcopal church, the AME church network. Election and polling location work is the primary work of the AME church system. The members of the AME church then destroy ballots that are completed by people against their interests, while simultaneously scanning the fraudulent ballots multiple times. This is how the fraudulent ballot system works to overwhelm the accurate voting system.

It is not a complicated system; we are just not allowed to talk about it and we are supposed to pretend it is not happening. Catherine Englebrecht has been exposing this system for decades. However, in the era of Trump but both wings of the political uniparty apparatus have gone too far with the fraud to stop now. The popularity of President Trump forced the central ballot fraud operators to generate such a massive amount of fraudulent ballots that a BIG LIE cover -with major assistance from media- was needed to cover for it. Decades of intentionally built legal plausible deniability also stops the truth of the scale of fraud from surfacing.

Read more …

In theory.

• Biden Faces Impeachment Over Israel Weapons Suspension (RT)

A Republican congressman has filed articles of impeachment against US President Joe Biden for withholding deliveries of weapons to Israel, making a point of using the exact same phrasing the Democrats had used to impeach President Donald Trump. Earlier this week, Biden told CNN that “we’re not going to supply the weapons and artillery shells” to Israel if it proceeded with plans to attack Rafah City in south Gaza. Republicans quickly pointed out that Democrats had accused Trump of “abuse of power” for allegedly withholding congressionally approved military aid in 2019. “Joe Biden is pressuring Israel, our biggest ally in the Middle East, by pausing their funding that has already been approved in the House, if they don’t stop all operations with Hamas,” Representative Cory Mills of Florida told Fox News on Thursday, adding that it was a pretty clear case of “quid pro quo” and that he intended to impeach Biden for it.

On Friday, Mills made good on his threat, formally initiating the procedure in the US House of Representatives. “In violation of his oath to faithfully execute the office of the president and to uphold the Constitution, President Biden abused the powers of his office by soliciting a ‘quid pro quo’ with Israel while leveraging vital military aid for policy changes,” according to Mills. Democrats, who controlled the House of Representatives at the time, impeached Trump in a party-line vote after accusing him of abuse of power. They claimed Trump had threatened to delay a shipment of weapons to Ukraine unless Kiev investigated the firing of a prosecutor who was looking into a company that had hired Biden’s son Hunter. Biden had publicly boasted about getting the prosecutor fired, but as he was in the race for the Democrats’ 2020 presidential nomination, the party claimed this amounted to soliciting “election interference.”

The impeachment went nowhere because the Republican-majority Senate refused to convict Trump in February 2020. Republicans currently hold a slim majority in the House of Representatives, which has been largely ineffective at opposing the Democrats’ priorities. Even if Mills manages to get the House to impeach Biden, it is highly likely that he will be acquitted in the Democrat-controlled Senate.

Read more …

Is he wrong?

• Russia Fighting ‘Reincarnation Of Fascism’ – Medvedev (RT)

Russia’s military operation in Ukraine is a step towards defeating fascism and Nazism once and for all, former president and head of the Russian Security Council Dmitry Medvedev has said. In an article marking the 79th anniversary of victory over Nazi Germany, he wrote that fascism had been officially defeated in World War II but the West has allowed its ideological descendants to continue wreaking havoc by supporting the Kiev regime. “For many years, even the demonstration of Nazi symbols, not to mention other symbols and ideas of Hitlerism, was legally prohibited in most countries of the world,” he said. Now, however, he said Russia was being “forced to fight the reincarnation of fascism, its zombie spawn, which embodies the disgusting and cynical great-grandson of Hitlerism – the Nazi regime of Kiev.”

The US, EU and other Western states have firmly sided with Kiev in its conflict with Russia. Ukraine’s backers have spent billions on the war effort and have supplied it with ammunition and weaponry, while placing unprecedented economic sanctions on Moscow. In the article, published on the official webpage of the Russian Security Council on Thursday, Medvedev slammed the “furious efforts to turn the world upside down, split and burn it in the conflagration of World War III.”Our former World War II allies enthusiastically feed, stuff with weapons and incite new Nazis, whose goal is to erase Russia from the map. According to Medvedev, Nazism won’t disappear on its own and therefore needs to be eradicated – this is what Russia sees as its “historical mission.” He noted, however, that Russia’s military operation and “the denazification” of Ukraine is only the first step towards building a new “architecture” of international relations, which would involve creating global instruments aiming to ensure the security and stable development of all states.

Together with our colleagues and partners, we are building a new, just and multipolar world order in which there can be no place for pressure and oppression, the rise of some nations at the expense of others, humiliation and exploitation of entire peoples, neocolonial habits and criminal business schemes. Medvedev said Russia’s victory over the Kiev regime would bring justice against both its nationalist leaders and their “owners, sponsors and ideological inspirers,” who are profiting from efforts to drag out the conflict. Similar sentiments had been voiced earlier on Thursday by Russian President Vladimir Putin. In his address at the Victory Day military parade in Moscow, he accused the West of pursuing a colonial policy and inciting regional conflicts to restrain the development of non-Western nations. He vowed that Russia would do everything possible to prevent a global conflict, but warned that it would not allow anyone to threaten its own safety and sovereignty.

Read more …

“They plotted by the lights of the White House Christmas tree to go after the interloper with all they had..”

• Carnival Rides (Kunstler)

The miasma of anxiety befogging so many brains in our troubled land begins to lift as every narrative served up by the US fascist intel blob goes annoyingly stale and impotent. The worst media meme — that a vicious officialdom is “defending our democracy” — gets laughed out of the room now when repeated incessantly by such shills as Jen Psaki and Lawrence O’Donnell of MSNBC. Everybody understands they want to “defend our democracy” by cancelling your freedom of speech, pounding you into bankruptcy, and stealing whatever remains of your stuff. Likewise, everything else, namely: that our doings in Ukraine are a “fight for freedom,” that “white supremacy” lurks just out of sight getting ready to pounce on the “marginized” (who are actually running things, and doing it very badly), that “Joe Biden” turned around the economy, that “voting rights” equals non-citizens getting to vote, that election fraud is a “big lie” (and that the J-6 riot over it was an “insurrection”), and that the Covid vaccines were “safe and effective.”

None of these dishonest persuasions work anymore, and all of the persuasion machinery stands in plain sight like so many nauseating carnival rides. One by one, the rides are flying apart, scattering debris and body parts of the poor slobs who were on the rides all over the fairgrounds. And so, the fear rises in the ones running the carnival. The county sheriff stands by looking to round up the sleazeball carnies with their missing teeth and needle tracks inside their elbows. Before long, they will find themselves in the courtroom. . . .The vicious officialdom put up the carnival and all of its rides to distract the public from the crimes they committed during and after the 2016 election. Donald Trump’s idle talk about putting Hillary Clinton in jail struck nerves throughout the federal bureaucracy, the halls of Congress, and the strongholds of the Clintons and the Obamas.

The Clintons had literally bought the Democratic Party apparatus under the DNC, using the money they grifted into the Clinton foundation from such operations as the Uranium One deal, the Skolkovo war-tech transfer deal, and the Haiti earthquake relief effort. They were sure that ownership of the DNC guaranteed the election for Hillary. It did guarantee that she would overcome Bernie Sanders’ primary election victories and the delegates that came with them, even after Julian Assange’s Wikileaks release informed the world just how the Clintons bought and paid for the DNC and the whole Philadelphia convention. Call this the birth of the “misinformation” cult, in which everything true was converted into a “big lie.”

The problem was, Hillary lost that election. What a surprise! Buying the convention was not enough, it turned out. Those “deplorables” did the unthinkable: cast enough of their stinky votes in just the right rust belt precincts to elect the Golden Golem of Greatness, who was as surprised as anybody, and really unprepared to cobble together an actual governing administration — in the process of which, Donald J. Trump was completely buffaloed by the outgoing Obama gang. They plotted by the lights of the White House Christmas tree to go after the interloper with all they had, starting with the surgical removal of a most dangerous appointee, National Security Advisor Mike Flynn, who knew all the secrets. . . and from there onto four years of Russia, Russia, Russia. . . .

Read more …

 

 

 

 

Bery best frens
https://twitter.com/i/status/1788903335351001384

 

 

Mommy
https://twitter.com/i/status/1788906678915575881

 

 

Chicken feed

 

 

Chicken wire

 

 

Lion cuddle
https://twitter.com/i/status/1789071704079102012

 

 

 

 

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