Claude Monet An Orchard in Spring 1886
Elon Musk just explained why the oldest rule in civilization is ending.
— Dustin (@r0ck3t23) July 2, 2026
For all of recorded history, survival ran on headcount. More hands meant more food, more soldiers, more future.
That rule just broke.
Musk: “Earth is gonna face a massive population collapse in over the… pic.twitter.com/UqUlXXfI6c
Elon Musk just asked the question every wealthy member of Congress hopes nobody ever asks out loud.
— Dustin (@r0ck3t23) July 1, 2026
$200,000 salary. $20 million net worth. Nobody has ever had to account for that gap.
Musk: “How’d they get $20 million if they’re earning $200,000 a year? Nobody can explain… pic.twitter.com/cECc27SxXi
https://twitter.com/XFreeze/status/2072327944366674150?s=20Sen. John Kennedy: Classified American intelligence showed that Iran was threatening to bomb London, Paris & Germany
— Tony Jacob | FindaClip.com (@tonjkb) July 1, 2026
"Here's what our intelligence showed, and I've seen it. It's classified, but I've seen it. But I can give you a general outline. Our intelligence showed that Iran… pic.twitter.com/ZLn2zhbBgt
Elon Musk reveals why he believes phones, apps, and operating systems will be extinct within 5-6 years
— Jaynit (@jaynitx) July 1, 2026
"We're not going to have a phone in the traditional sense. What we call a phone will really be an edge node for AI inference, for AI video inference"
"There won't be operating… pic.twitter.com/SexLW0T3Gl
“.. use the MOU to replenish global oil reserves and then ‘see where the hand is..’
• Vance Says US Will Use Iran MoU To Replenish Global Oil Supply (Antiwar)
Vice President JD Vance said in an interview on “The Michael Knowles Show” published on Tuesday that the US would use the Memorandum of Understanding with Iran to “refill” global oil supplies and stockpiles and to prepare for more potential military action against the Islamic Republic. “I think what the president has told us to do is use this MoU to sort of refill the world’s oil economy, to refill some stocks, and then to see where the hand is,” the vice president said.Read more …
“And … if the Iranians are willing to make the commitments that we would like them to make and are willing to back those up with verifiable milestones, then we are going to change our relationship with Iran. And if they don’t do that, then nothing has really changed except for what we’ve already accomplished from the military campaign, which is a lot. So, we kind of have two options here. We have the option of pursuing a long-term deal with the Iranians, but that requires a significant change in their behavior. We have the option of banking our wins and then, of course, doing things on top of that if the president feels that we have to. And I think both of those options are very much in play,” he added.Summarizing the position, Knowles said, “So then the message if you’re an Iranian, the message you’re getting from the US is not, okay, we’ve settled this, you get to keep the Strait of Hormuz and we’ll try to play nice. Now, the message is we’re going to serve our self-interest by replenishing the oil coffers and get back to us in 60 days, you might have some fire and brimstone coming back down.” Vance didn’t dispute Knowles’ characterization and said, “And if you actually behave, you won’t, right?”
Trita Parsi, the executive vice president of the Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft, said in a post on X that Vance’s comments heightened suspicion in Iran that the war will restart despite the MoU. He made the comments in a post discussing the view in Iranian political circles that Israel may launch an attack before Israeli elections are held in October. “Will Israel restart the war with Iran before the October elections? This is the consensus view emerging within Iran’s internal national security debate over the past week,” Parsi said.
“Several factors are driving Tehran to this conclusion. Beyond its deep—and not entirely unwarranted—suspicion of President Donald Trump’s intentions, heightened by Vice President JD Vance’s recent remark that Trump wants to use the MOU to replenish global oil reserves and then ‘see where the hand is,’ two developments stand out: the recent Israeli-Lebanese agreement and its impact on Hezbollah’s military posture over the coming months,” he added. https://twitter.com/DropSiteNews/status/2072170274397594053?s=20
“If they don’t succeed, the Democrat Party is in trouble. If they do succeed, the country is in trouble. “
• How The Democrat Party Tears Itself Apart (Margolis)
Something is brewing inside the Democrat Party, and this time, Donald Trump has nothing to do with it. Behind closed doors, the establishment wing of the party is squaring off against a coup led by self-declared socialists, and the fight over who controls the party’s future is only getting started. Fox News host Jesse Watters laid out exactly how this ends on The Five, and it should terrify anyone still clinging to the idea that the Democrat Party can hold itself together heading into the next presidential race.Read more …
Asked by co-host Emily Compagno whether the country is actually being taken over, Watters didn’t offer easy reassurance. “Maybe. We’ll see how it goes,” he said. Watters then walked through the calculation that the Democrat leadership is making right now. He said the party is going to “accommodate the commies and see how they do in the midterms.” If the socialist wing performs poorly, establishment Democrats will blame them for it, and a Democrat civil war will erupt. If they perform well, Watters said, “it’s going to be Kumbaya,” a rambunctious Congress that simply pushes the internal reckoning down the road.That’s where Kamala Harris comes in. As my PJ Media colleague Robert Spencer previously noted, Kamala is already courting the party’s socialist flank because she needs organizers on her side ahead of the next presidential primary, which lands barely a year after the midterms wrap up. “So it’s her or Newsom,” he said. And that’s really the key, here, isn’t it? Anyone who wants to have a shot at the Democrat Party presidential nomination will have to have the support of the socialist wing of the party, which, in turn, needs to have an alliance with the establishment. Watters called that combination “a powerful movement.”
That’s the trade Democrats are willing to make. But Watters saved his sharpest criticism for the people making up that socialist wing itself. They’re candidates who have never worked a real job, whose parents bankroll them, and who rack up debt while producing nothing. “They’re professional students,” he said. “They’re all in debt. They don’t earn anything. A lot of them don’t even own anything.” Their answer to that self-inflicted mess is to declare the entire American system rigged.
Watters wasn’t buying it. “It’s actually not rigged if you work,” he said. He described grinding through cramped apartments and lean years before earning success the old-fashioned way, contrasting that with a class of Democrat candidates barely into their careers who insist the American dream is already dead. “They haven’t even tried,” he said. “What are they talking about?”He rattled off examples, from Texas state Rep. James Talarico (D-Texas) to Democrat Senate candidate Graham Platner (D-Maine) to the socialist candidates in Colorado and New York, calling the current slate “all pathetic people.” Watters argued that their appeal comes precisely from that shared lack of accomplishment. “If no one else has worked hard, you can point to someone and say, oh, he gets me,” he said.
His fix for the affordability complaints fueling these candidates’ popularity was blunt. “You get a job, you get married, you start earning a living, and then you have skin in the game,” he said.
Socialism is the only way they think they can win.
Mamdani is the only Democrat who has won anything in ages, so it kinda seems to mske sense.
But New York City is not the same as America.
• Is This Why Dems Are Turning to Socialism?That’s Hilarious (Matt Vespa)
A socialist upheaval is sweeping through the Democratic Party. It is driven by a toxic mix of laziness, arrogance, and bubble mentality — making the brand toxic. It’s well known: NBC News last winter revealed that Immigration and Customs Enforcement was more popular than Democrats. When the brand is weak and a new, energetic faction emerges, unexpected things can happen. For Democrats, it’s becoming a rising, vigorous insurgency of socialists who now pose a nationwide challenge. The establishment will have to spend large amounts of money, which they lack, to defend more electable candidates — those without Nazi tattoos, who are not antisemitic, who do not call for abolishing police and prisons, and who understand that money isn’t printed on trees. Oh, and those who don’t think we deserved the 9/11 attacks. What caused this red wave, one that’s awash with hammers and sickles?Read more …
First, the Democratic base is overwhelmed with overeducated elites. Second, they’re skilled at hiding their bizarre agenda items. The third reason Michael Shellenberger offers is interesting: the rejection of the liberal agenda is also fueling the shift to the Left. It’s ironic because we all call liberals crazy, and they’re doubling down on ideas that have been thoroughly discredited. They can’t admit they’re wrong. It’s truly astonishing. With the base consisting of wealthy, white, college-educated weirdos, it’s not surprising that this is the result (via Public):…all of those socialists support a much more radical agenda than the one they ran on. The program of the Democratic Socialists of America (DSA), of which Mamdani and AOC are members, calls for: total defunding and abolition of the police, jails, and prisons; ending the independence of the Supreme Court and the entire Executive Branch, making them subordinate to congress; “expropriat[ing] property from capitalists and deliver it to the working class”; socializing energy production; allowing surgeons to sterilize children and adolescents in an effort to change their sex; a return to Joe Biden’s open borders policy; and the decriminalization of illegal camping and open air drug use. Burnham has proposed to spend an additional £39 billion on public housing, impose a new tax on everyone, and adopt the “Housing First” policy, which has resulted in the subsidization and enabling of drug addiction and death in the U.S.
And those policies are wildly unpopular. Abolishing the police drew just 15% support even back in 2020 at the height of the power of Black Lives Matter. Seventy-four percent of Americans approve of the separation of powers, 90% favor co-equal branches, and only 9% want any one branch to hold more power. Eighty-one percent of Americans view free enterprise positively, while only 39% view socialism positively, and that 39% reflects the diluted Scandinavian sense of the word, not expropriating apartment buildings and other forms of housing. Only 37% of the public think doctors should be able to give drugs to or operate on minors in an effort to change their gender. Seventy percent support closing the border, and 69% support limiting who can claim asylum.
[…]
A big part of the reason for the socialist victories is that they successfully hide their radicalism. In 2021, Mamdani told the Young Democratic Socialists of America to lead with popular measures and to hold back the rest. “If we’re talking about the cancellation of student debt, if we’re talking about Medicare for All, these are issues which have the groundswell of popular support across this country,” he said. “But then there are also other issues that we firmly believe in, whether it’s BDS [boycott, divest, and sanction Israel], or whether it is the end goal of seizing the means of production, where we do not have the same level of support at this very moment.” The task, he said, was to “meet people where they’re at” and “over time bring people to that issue.”
Part of the reason it was hard for the opponents of Mamdani and other socialists to use his radicalism against him was simply that he did not campaign on it, was disciplined in ignoring attacks framed around it, and manipulated language. “Democratic socialism” calls to mind Scandinavia rather than the Democratic Socialists of America program of abolition and expropriation.
The mainstream media have helped. “There’s a fair amount of confusion and fear generated in the US by the term ‘socialist,’ which is associated with repressive societies like Communist China, the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR), North Korea or Cuba,” wrote CNN. “So it’s worth looking at what Mamdani and his supporters mean by it (think social programs in Western Europe) and also how the political right will use it against Democrats.”
The “Affordability” framing does the same work. It evokes cheaper groceries and rent, not Mamdani’s stated “end goal of seizing the means of production,” which he set aside in public only because, as he put it, “we do not have the same level of support at this very moment.” Similarly, one of the socialists who won in the New York primary, Darializa Avila Chevalier, deleted posts that read “Seize the means of production” and “No more police at all ever,” then told CNN she had “grown considerably” and was focused on “our community and our community’s future.”
[…]
Second, there are far more college graduates than jobs that require a college degree, which has suppressed wages and created resentment. Peter Turchin called this “elite overproduction,” while sociologist Musa Al-Gharbi credits it as the main driver of the recurring waves of progressive zeal he calls “awokenings.” Graduates “went to the right schools, got good grades, majored in the right things, earned college diplomas, expected to have six-figure salaries,” he said, and then found that “the life that they were just taking for granted their whole life seems not to be in the cards.”
[…]
But there are good reasons to expect that radicalism will be limited and will provoke a healthy backlash, particularly outside the bluest cities in the bluest states. The Democrats’ favorability has declined from 47% to 39% between 2020 and 2026, in part due to the party’s radicalism, and could decline further with more radical candidates becoming standard-bearers. And the candidates Mamdani endorsed took their June 2026 congressional primaries on turnout between 15% and 19%, with young-voter turnout less than half of the year before, and Raman advanced in Los Angeles on 29%. A movement that depends on low-turnout primaries hands moderate Democrats and Republicans an obvious opening.
For the time being, this is a Democrat problem, and it’s quite a headache.
“The Dirty Break”.
• Democratic Socialist Candidates Expand Appeal (JTN)
It may not be a wave yet, but Democratic Socialists are slowly advancing within the broader Democratic Party, even outside their new stronghold of New York City. As a result, the core bloc of socialist candidates likely to win seats in the House of Representatives in the upcoming midterm elections will be in a position to exert significant influence over Democratic establishment leaders, much like a core group of leadership-skeptic Republicans have sometimes halted the legislative process under Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La.Read more …
“The Dirty Break”: Socialists free-riding off Democratic Party Some Democrats say there is a danger of the same kind of obstruction and chaos that has often plagued the Republican Party in recent years as its leadership manages a narrow majority in the House chamber. The Democratic Socialists of America (DSA)—a separate entity from the Democratic Party—has adopted a strategy known as the “dirty break,” or running candidates on the Democratic Party ballot line “while building the infrastructure and base of supporters necessary to one day run our candidates independently,” Just the News previously reported.After the midterms, at least six members of the House would now be affiliated with the DSA. In exchange for the socialist organization’s endorsement, the candidates are expected to uphold its political platform, which includes Medicare for all, defunding the police, increasing taxes on the rich, and reducing border enforcement. Democratic Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, and many of his caucus in the House, appear to be uneasy with the growing influence of the left-wing in their party. Some of them have promised to stand against the socialist influence in the party. But others are rushing to accommodate their newly minted comrades.
Some old-line Democrats are courting the DSA
As a sign of the socialists’ growing influence, Kamala Harris, who is thought to be considering another White House bid in 2028, reportedly called New York Mayor Zohran Mamdani, who is widely considered a leader among the faction, after a slate of DSA-backed candidates sailed to victory in the New York City primaries last week. The call, which was reported by Axios, centered on the future of the Democratic Party. Harris was not alone. New York Senator Kirsten Gillibrand, a Democrat, said on C-SPAN that the success of the younger, newer DSA-backed candidates is “a very good trend for nationwide elections,” because it shows that voters are engaged. Rep. Ro Khanna of California said the elections represent a “beginning of a new, bold, strong Democratic Party.”The Democratic Socialists are emboldened by those victories. They now cite the latest election upset by DSA-backed Melat Kiros against a 15-term incumbent in urban Denver as evidence that the party’s appeal can carry beyond the progressive stronghold of New York City. “New York City, we think, is really reflecting where the whole country is going at this point, so we’re very excited, and we want to keep building from it,” Ashik Siddique, co-chair of the DSA, told The Hill. “Increasingly, we’re showing that candidates running on strong platforms like these can win in red or purple states, in the Midwest and the South.”
Should Democrats reclaim the House in November, even a small cluster of democratic socialists could wield leverage far out of proportion to its population on the Hill. Roughly five DSA members or endorsees have already won primaries in safe-blue seats — among them Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y., and newcomers Darializa Avila Chevalier, D-N.Y., Claire Valdez, D-N.Y., Chris Rabb, D-Pa., and Melat Kiros, D-Colo. — with more contests still to come. Rep. Rashida Tlaib, a current incumbent representing Michigan’s 12th District, is expected to win re-election.
[..]
Democratic Rep. Pramila Jayapal, D-Wash., who is a progressive, said that these new members are expected to pursue the policies that they were elected on, not to moderate their views at the request of leadership.
“I think a lot of times people come into office, and particularly I would say at the leadership levels, there’s this call to moderate because we’re a big tent. But if the big tent is representing people, no matter what district you’re from, that wants universal healthcare, that wants a higher minimum wage, that wants universal childcare, all of those things, then we shouldn’t be moderating, we should be going for those big policies and helping people to see that that is actually really popular in districts across the country,” she said.
“That is precisely why Benjamin Franklin was right that this is, and will remain, our Republic to keep…”
• “You Cannot Kill the Beast Until You Name it” (Turley)
Pennsylvania state and socialist Chris Rabb, the Democratic nominee for Pennsylvania’s 3rd Congressional District, has joined the growing chorus of Democrats denouncing the founding documents and core institutions in the country on our 250th anniversary. The Democratic socialist is running unopposed for Congress and will almost certainly be a member of Congress after November. Rabb spoke at an event billed as “America at 250 — Trump Fascism, Historical Erasure, and the Battle Over Truth” at People’s Plaza on Independence Mall in Philadelphia. He denounced the country as based on “stolen land and stolen labor.” He lashed out at the Declaration of Independence:Read more …
“Those screeds that were very lofty but were notoriously catering to a performative aspect of collective genius that purposely erased indigenous and black peoples…It created distance from an empire to help very privileged people continue that privilege and ultimately institutionalize that through the U.S. Constitution many years later. But it certainly did not provide independence to indigenous and black peoples. And we cannot talk about anything today without acknowledging that this is a nation born on stolen land & stolen labor.”In Rage and the Republic, I discuss the inherent hypocrisy of our Declaration in declaring natural rights without denouncing the enslaving of so many in the country: “The Founders understood that inescapable truth of natural law when they signed a Declaration that ‘all men are created equal.’ Despite this defining line, even some who opposed slavery saw little hope for a revolution that would seek to overthrow both the monarchy and slavery. Jefferson would have to make the concession in striking critical language from his draft. While Jefferson’s legacy would be forever stained by his own maintenance of slaves, he did attempt to condemn the institution of slavery. He was rebuffed by his fellow delegates who were willing to acknowledge the existence of a natural law while ignoring its implications for the enslaved people in the new nation.”
Rabb ignores how the Declaration laid the foundation for a more perfect union. Ours was the first major Enlightenment Revolution based on the belief that our rights came not from the government but from God. It embraced the principles that would ultimately prevail in ending this shameful stain on our nation. “Fascism is not new. These systems of harm are built into the very fabric of this nation,..You cannot kill the beast until you name it. And that is difficult for many people who want to embrace certain tropes, certain narratives, whether it’s the American dream or American exceptionalism or the Protestant work ethic or so many other myths that do us no — they are a disservice.”
Rabb is not the first figure on the far left to denounce the “American dream” and “the Protestant work ethic” as harmful “myths.” He pledged that he would be “one of the few unapologetic reparationists going to Congress,” joining a growing number of Democrats demanding billions in reparations for black Americans. Many on the left are using the anniversary to condemn our founding principles or to decline to celebrate our Independence Day. This includes such demonstrations in states such as Massachusetts, which declined to join the celebration on the Mall for the 250th anniversary.
Recently, we discussed how a Massachusetts church ended the long-standing celebration of the Fourth of July to focus on the “on-going process within the congregation to better understand our own whiteness.” John Adams once wrote his wife Abigail to predict that Independence Day would be: “celebrated by succeeding generations as the great anniversary festival. It ought to be commemorated as the Day of Deliverance by solemn acts of devotion to God Almighty. It ought to be solemnized with pomp and parade, with shows, games, sports, guns, bells, bonfires and illuminations from end of this continent to the other from this time forward forever more.”
Adams was virulently opposed to slavery as were many of the Founders. Many openly discussed their hope that the new nation would address slavery after it succeeded in establishing its independence. Those lofty values were ultimately realized at the cost of hundreds of thousands of lives in the Civil War. The claim that fascism is a system “built into the very fabric of this nation” is absurd and demagogic. This nation defeated fascism and remains the oldest and most successful republic in history. Indeed, the left is claiming to be fighting fascism while seeking to take over the Supreme Court in a court-packing scheme while limiting such core human rights as free speech.
In “killing the beast,” the far left is threatening to unleash the very forces that destroyed the contemporary revolution in France at the time of our founding. These voices are not new. They have been part of this republic — and other republics — throughout history. They are the voices of mobocracy that we rejected 250 years ago. That is precisely why Benjamin Franklin was right that this is, and will remain, our Republic to keep.
Hillary makes the party lose.
• Hillary Clinton Urges Federal Employees To Refuse To Share Info With Pulte (JTN)
Hillary Clinton said that people should be “worried about everything” regarding Acting Director of National Intelligence Bill Pulte. The former first lady and secretary of state went on the Democracy Docket podcast with host Marc Elias. He asked her about what her concerns were about President Donald Trump’s choice of Pulte to replace Tulsi Gabbard, who announced she was leaving the job last month.Read more …
Former Secretary of State Clinton called Pulte “very dangerous” and a “loose cannon.” She also called his appointment “deeply insulting to the intelligence community,” noting Pulte has no intelligence experience.”The DNI has access to everything, everything that they want to see,” said Clinton. “I mean, I hope there are career and even political appointees in various of the agencies that are slow-walking or refusing to share information with Pulte.”
Is it any use to mention Seymour Hersh again?
They’re not looking for the truth, they’re looking for a narrative.
• German Prosecutors Confirm Charges Against Nord Stream Saboteur (TASS)
Germany’s Federal Public Prosecutor General has confirmed that charges have been filed against a Ukrainian national suspected of involvement in the sabotage of the Nord Stream and Nord Stream 2 gas pipelines. Prosecutors believe he and his accomplices developed a sabotage plan on behalf of Ukrainian government agencies.Read more …
“On June 20, the Federal Public Prosecutor General filed charges against Ukrainian citizen Sergey K. with the Hanseatic State Regional Court in Hamburg. There are sufficient grounds to suspect him of being an accomplice to a war crime involving attacks on civilian objects, carrying out explosions using explosives, destroying construction sites, and disrupting public utility infrastructure,” the statement said. According to the Federal Public Prosecutor General, Sergey K. served as an officer in the Ukrainian army in 2022. The prosecutors noted that “he and other [Ukrainian] servicemen, acting on the orders of Ukrainian government agencies, developed a plan to destroy the Nord Stream and Nord Stream 2 gas pipelines. The goal was to prevent Russia from receiving revenue from gas trade.”“A group consisting of several professional divers, a skipper, and an explosives expert was formed under the suspect s direction to carry out the plan,” the statement said. According to the German investigation, Sergey K. entered Germany via Poland on September 4 using a forged Ukrainian passport. The Federal Public Prosecutor General adheres to the version previously published by the German media. According to this version, the sabotage group used a sailing yacht, which was rented in Rostock through intermediaries using forged documents, to transport explosives to the pipelines. “The suspect and his accomplices transported large quantities of highly potent explosives suitable for combat use on board this yacht into international waters as far as the Danish island of Bornholm,” the prosecutors pointed out.
“The saboteurs then attached the explosives, which were equipped with remote detonators, to the pipes. “The Federal Public Prosecutor General emphasized that the Nord Stream pipeline previously supplied half of Germany s annual gas demand. The Ukrainian national is currently being held in a pre-trial detention center in Hamburg, where the trial is expected to take place. He was arrested in Italy last summer and extradited to Germany. On September 26, 2022, unprecedented damage was recorded on three branches of the Nord Stream pipeline and the Nord Stream 2 pipeline, which had not yet been put into operation. The Russian Prosecutor General s Office opened a criminal investigation into an act of international terrorism.
“Vladimir Zelensky added that Kiev has to “fight” to get partners to fulfill deliveries that have already been agreed upon..”
• Zelensky: Kiev Received Not One of 200 Promised Air Defense Missiles (TASS)
Vladimir Zelensky once again criticized Kiev’s Western partners for insufficient deliveries of missiles for air defense systems and stated that Ukraine had not received a single one of the 200 promised missiles.”We need missiles. We have reached agreements with some countries and have already transferred funds to them. Some under the PURL [program] and some without it. With Norway, <...> [we agreed] that they would pay for 200 missiles. Not a single one of those 200 missiles has arrived,” he said in a video published by the Ukrainian Novosti. Live news outlet. The head of the Kiev regime added that Ukraine will do everything possible to ensure the missiles are delivered for the agreed-upon price.Read more …
He added that Kiev has to “fight” to get partners to fulfill deliveries that have already been agreed upon. “This is a major problem. We will not discuss or disclose the details of the deliveries at this time. I believe this is a major problem related to our partners. <...> We simply need our partners to fulfill what we agreed upon. We aren’t asking for more – we just want them to fulfill what they agreed to, what they signed, or what they promised. Today, we are seeing a slowdown in these efforts,” Zelensky noted.The Ukrainian authorities regularly ask their partners to increase arms deliveries, particularly missiles for air defense systems. Earlier, Ukrainian top military commander Alexander Syrsky acknowledged that the country’s missile and artillery forces are critically dependent on arms and ammunition supplies from the West.
I’ve often said that in the first phase of the war, people like Scott RItter and Doug McGregor repeatedly claimed Ukrainian losses were 7-8 times bigger than Russian.
Now, these people want us to believe Russian losses are 7-8 times higher. Or some 60 times what they were 3-4 years ago. I think not.
• Number of Casualties In Russia’s War On Ukraine Reaches 2 Million (CNN)
Russia’s decision to launch a full-scale invasion of Ukraine has now cost the country some 450,000 lives, according to a new study that estimates the war’s total casualty numbers to have surpassed 2 million. The research by the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) estimates Russia has suffered 1.4 million casualties, including killed, wounded and missing soldiers – a stunning number that amounts to roughly 1% of the country’s population. The losses are not spread evenly across Russia, with poorer areas and ethnic minorities suffering significantly higher casualty rates.Read more …
Stories of male populations of small remote villages being virtually wiped out are becoming more common in Russian opposition media. And according to the study, Russia is currently unable to recruit new troops at the same rate as it is losing them. “These rates are astounding,” Seth G. Jones and Riley McCabe, the authors of the study, said. “Russian fatalities in Ukraine are more than four times greater than all US fatalities in all wars combined since World War II, and more than nine times greater than all Soviet and Russian fatalities in all wars combined since World War II.”Meanwhile, Ukraine is estimated to have endured between 525,000 and 625,000 casualties, including 125,000 and 150,000 fatalities. Neither Russia nor Ukraine release official casualty data, but the latest CSIS figures are broadly in line with western estimates. Jones and McCabe said that in terms of casualties, the war is becoming much more costly for Russia than it is for Ukraine. They said the casualty rate has likely risen to nearly eight to one in the first half of this year, meaning that for every Ukrainian soldier killed, wounded or missing, there are eight Russians casualties.
For much of the war, the rate stood at between two to three Russian casualties to one Ukrainian loss. Jones and McCabe said that the recent increase is down to Kyiv’s advances in its drone program, especially its ability to greatly extend the “kill zone” – the area around the frontlines that is so saturated with drones that it makes it almost impossible for Russian troops to enter. “Ukraine’s defense-in-depth strategy has been effective in killing and wounding Russian soldiers, as well as limiting Russian maneuver,” the said.
However, they said there are other reasons why Russia is suffering so much, including “Russia’s attrition strategy, its failure to effectively conduct combined arms and joint warfare, its poor tactics and training, corruption, and low morale.” Whatever the reasons, the data paints a horrendous picture: with 2 million total casualties, the war in Ukraine has now likely surpassed the battle of Stalingrad, widely considered to be the bloodiest conflict in history.
Ha!
• New Euphemism Alert: “Tanned European” (CTH)
Everyone once in a while the cultural marxist way to describe a middle eastern attacker gets a new euphemism. Today’s update comes from politically correct Scotland.Read more …
“Tanned European man”I wonder how long it took them to come up with that one?
Try to find protection.
• Sam Altman’s OpenAI Discusses Handing Trump Admin A 5% Stake (ZH)
The U.S. government’s equity portfolio could be expanding again, this time with a potential 5% stake in Sam Altman’s OpenAI at an $852 billion valuation, according to a new report. The proposed stake would mark another step toward taking direct financial positions in tech giants. For OpenAI, buy-in from the Trump administration could ease mounting political pressure ahead of an IPO. The Financial Times reports that Altman has floated giving the U.S. government a 5% stake in OpenAI, modeled after the Alaska Permanent Fund, a state-owned sovereign wealth fund created to invest a portion of Alaska’s oil revenue for the long-term benefit of Alaskans.Read more …
The FT noted that the proposal would spur other tech giants, including Anthropic, Google, and Meta, to follow suit by handing over stakes to the federal government. The discussions remain early and “conceptual,” and any arrangement could require congressional approval, the report said, adding that the idea stems from mounting pressure in the Trump administration over AI’s impact on jobs and the localized blowback against data center buildouts nationwide.Earlier this week, Elon Musk’s xAI Memphis rolled out a ‘data center dividend’ for the surrounding community, offering free Starlink kits and half-price service to quell any dissent against AI. This move suggests that data center operators nationwide may offer other forms of dividends in the future to appease surrounding communities. Back to the FT report, Altman has reportedly discussed public ownership with Trump, Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, and Sen. Bernie Sanders.
Sanders, a crazed socialist, has argued for the public stake in AI companies to exceed 50%. The socialist and far-left lawmakers who make up the Democratic Socialists of America have even signaled a questionable data center moratorium – a move that would only cede compute power to China.
In recent months, Altman’s chatbot company proposed a “public wealth fund” that “provides every citizen — including those not invested in financial markets — with a stake in AI-driven economic growth.” “The goal is not only to support people through economic change after decisions have already been made, but to give them a stake and a voice in shaping how that change unfolds,” OpenAI said in a blog post. The talks come after the Trump administration took a 10% stake in Intel, 15% in MP Materials, and …
[..]
For OpenAI, a government stake could ease tensions with the Trump administration ahead of an IPO (delayed until 2027), while offering a political answer to concerns that AI is financially wrecking low-income folks. Meanwhile, The Information’s earlier report that Nvidia has been renting back its own compute capacity from neocloud providers raises one obvious question…
Yeah I’m sorry the only reason that NVIDIA is renting back its own capacity from neoclouds is that the demand doesn’t exist to sell it https://t.co/QXS0wVbkB1 pic.twitter.com/LXvgZCRhFX
— Ed Zitron (@edzitron) July 2, 2026… is there really enough end-user compute demand to absorb the AI buildout?
“National self-sufficiency beats globalism’s mass dependency.”
“Western nations that lack the cultural will to be self-sufficient are nations stuck in a permanent state of dependency.
• The American System Rejects Europe’s Economic Suicide (J.B. Shurk)
Why do Western politicians celebrate “multiculturalism” over the historically productive virtues of Western culture? Why do Western pundits disparage knowledge, skill, and hard work as attributes of “white supremacy”? Why do Western lawmakers make it more difficult for Western citizens to own land and personal property? Why do Western bureaucrats churn out rules and regulations that limit what can be built and manufactured? Why do Western governments make it difficult for small businesses to thrive?Read more …
Why do Western news media claim that only foreign migrants are willing to perform blue-collar jobs? Why do Western bankers claim that only foreign slave laborers are capable of manufacturing critical goods? Why do Western professors spend more time lecturing about racism and oppression than how to critically think, invent, and build new things? Why do Western NGOs support open borders, “climate change” regulations, and economy-killing taxes? Why do religious leaders praise the criminal and not the faithful Christian?Why do cultural leaders encourage citizens and foreigners alike to become dependent on social welfare? Why do pop culture leaders extol frivolous excess over hard work and discipline? Why do Westerners celebrate gay “pride” for at least a month each year instead of encouraging all citizens to take pride in what they build, learn, and accomplish? Why do Wall Street and the City of London work so hard to deprive the United States and the United Kingdom of economies that benefit Main Street businesses as much as multinational conglomerates?
Reading through the above questions should lead a rational person toward a reasonable conclusion: The people who currently maintain economic and political power in the West have no interest in making the nations that they ostensibly call “home” wealthy. The United Kingdom and the European Union cannot produce wealth if their manufacturers are forced to use windmill-generated energy that has been exponentially outpowered by coal and steam for four centuries. Germany cannot produce wealth if it subsidizes Chinese automakers while bankrupting its own with “green energy” regulations. Canada cannot produce wealth if it refuses to use its abundant natural resources while importing most manufactured goods from Asia.
Western nations that refuse to use hydrocarbon and nuclear energies are nations dependent on foreign powers for manufacturing. Western nations that refuse to allow their farmers to grow crops and produce meat and dairy supplies for their home populations are nations dependent on foreign powers for food. Western nations whose people lack the knowledge and skills to repair everything from small appliances to entire electric grids are nations dependent on foreign powers during crises. Western nations that lack the cultural will to be self-sufficient are nations stuck in a permanent state of dependency. If you hand out food stamps liberally and look down on people who insist on providing for their families without government assistance, then you will produce a nation of pirates and fraudsters who make, grow, and build nothing.
How does the United Kingdom survive when it produces next to nothing? Right now it generates most of its revenue by acting as the economic middleman for most of the globe. Even though its empire has collapsed and its navy has disappeared, the City of London’s army of bankers, consultants, and lawyers still take a nice cut of every economic transaction around the planet. They collect insurance fees, regulatory fees, and investment fees like an absentee landlord still bilking old colonies with “rules-based” trade agreements that put money in the pockets of English lords who create nothing.
The Bank of England and the Secret Intelligence Service work together to game the international economy by stirring up regional conflicts and using insider knowledge to bet on the eventual market winners. Britain’s central bank has ensured that the wealthiest members of society profit from market manipulation while the rest of society suffers from currency depreciation. This is an economic model engineered to benefit a small cabal of “noble elites” while impoverishing the larger nation.
Joseph diGenova.
• Russiagate Prosecutor Calls Audible On ‘Grand Conspiracy’ (Paul Sperry)
Although Donald Trump’s defenders describe the Russia hoax and other efforts to frame the president as a “grand conspiracy,” RealClearInvestigations has learned that the man now leading the probe of that scandal is pursuing multiple conspiracy prosecutions that are smaller and more manageable, according to several sources with direct knowledge of the probe. Since taking over the Justice Department’s far-flung investigation in April, veteran prosecutor Joseph diGenova and his team quickly concluded that combining all of the alleged wrongdoing, which ranges from falsifying evidence and committing perjury to leaking classified information and obstructing justice, into one unified plot and trying them together as a single case would be unmanageable.Read more …
“You’d have 50 defendants in the courtroom,” said a well-placed source familiar with diGenova’s thinking. Before diGenova took over the investigation two months ago, its contours were ill-defined as it lurched ahead in fits and starts for more than a year. But according to the sources, diGenova is tackling the case with a new, disciplined focus and in so doing is giving it the direction it’s lacked.But this is a change in tactics, not the theory of the case. The sources say his operating assumption is that Trump’s enemies in the 2016 Hillary Clinton campaign, the Obama and Biden administration, some Democrats in Congress, and their like-minded accomplices across several government agencies – including the CIA and the FBI – joined in one continuous conspiracy over almost a decade to deny Trump his civil rights, derail his political campaigns, and undermine his presidency.
Where other investigators have looked at specific pieces of the effort Trump’s defenders now call “Russiagate” after its original origins, diGenova is launching the first holistic look at the entire scandal. A well-placed source said it is looking at events from June 2015 when Trump first came down the golden escalator at Trump Tower to announce his candidacy through the 2022 FBI raid at Mar-a-Lago after he left office.
Insider sources provided RCI with an exclusive look into the specially assigned/ prosecutor’s office and its recent/ legal maneuvers. They said two/ separate grand juries in South Florida are now collecting and hearing evidence in what could become a series of conspiracy cases brought against people who served in the highest reaches of government, including former CIA Director John Brennan, former Director of National Intelligence James Clapper, and former FBI Director James/ Comey.
Since much of the government’s alleged corrupt anti-Trump activity took place in 2016, prosecuting the cases as conspiracies is the only way to get around the five-year federal statute of limitations. Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche tapped diGenova, a longtime denizen of Washington, D.C., who was a U.S. attorney during the Reagan administration, to helm the sprawling investigation into what Blanche views as a series of baseless and seditious prosecutions and impeachments of Trump. The acting attorney general has created a special position for diGenova with the title ‘counselor to the attorney general’.
DiGenova has moved into an office in Fort Pierce, Fla., where one federal grand jury is actively hearing evidence in the case. Another grand jury has been convened in Miami, where/ Jason Reding Quinones, U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of Florida, is based. He is said to be working closely with diGenova. DiGenova and his team are confident that the jury pool and judges in South Florida will give them a fair hearing, as opposed to Washington, D.C., where they are no longer utilizing a third grand jury. “It’s dead in D.C. Everything is in South Florida now, a red jurisdiction more sympathetic to Trump”, said a senior U.S. official briefed on the matter.
https://twitter.com/JoshHall2024/status/2072461820749562359?s=20"In 5 years, digital intelligence will exceed the sum of all human intelligence. Within five years, there may be at least 100 million humanoid robots, possibly even 1 billion. The economy could double in size within 5 to 7 years because AI and robotics may increase output… https://t.co/0ScktanMX8 pic.twitter.com/dZY7bNC0Ph
— DogeDesigner (@cb_doge) July 2, 2026
President Trump says Elon Musk will likely donate SpaceX stock to TRUMP ACCOUNTS — and Trump will ring the opening bell for the New York Stock Exchange (and Nasdaq) from the Oval Office next week.
— MJTruthUltra (@MJTruthUltra) July 2, 2026
I hope everyone got their kids or grandchildren signed up for Trump Accounts.. it… https://t.co/z8Rf0jCdSA pic.twitter.com/L6HfWguIxV
BREAKING: At 11:00 PM President Trump stuns the World by EXPOSING NATO. “They were NOT there for us”
— MAGA Voice (@MAGAVoice) July 3, 2026
TIME TO LEAVE NATO pic.twitter.com/CfyOo5tzJG
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